Page 36 of A Silence in Belgrave Square (Below Stairs #8)

“I am not a clairvoyant,” I said quickly. “I can sense the departed and let them communicate through me, but I can’t foretell the future. They are two different things.”

“Oh,” Lady Fontaine said in disappointment. “I didn’t know that.”

I would not have known it either, but I’d once worked with a housekeeper who was very certain she had second sight.

She’d told me many things about spiritualism, whether I’d wanted to hear of them or not.

I shared Hannah’s opinion, that mediums and fortune tellers were charlatans, but that housekeeper had been very certain she gleaned things that others did not.

Perhaps she did. I hadn’t the heart to take away the one dream she had of becoming a celebrated clairvoyant, so I’d kept my skepticism to myself.

“The tea looks splendid, in any case,” I said.

“While we partake, perhaps you can tell me more about your brother.” When Lady Fontaine regarded this remark in surprise, I hurried on.

“It will help me recognize him when I seek him out. I’ve never met him, and he might be more comfortable if I know things about him. ”

Whether Hannah approved or disapproved of my ruse, she made no sign. She poured tea and laid out cakes without a word.

“Of course.” Lady Fontaine gestured me to the table, where Hannah continued to work. “Sit down, Mrs.Crowe, and I will tell you all I can.”

I deferentially stood by and let Lady Fontaine be seated first—though I was not a servant in this scenario, I was not in her class—then I took the chair opposite her.

Hannah could not sit if Lady Fontaine did not invite her, so she finished serving and retreated to the window. She stood like a statue, the attentive maid who would keep a discreet distance until called for, while not so far as to inconvenience the lady who needed her.

“My brother was not the paragon others thought him, I will tell you plainly, Mrs.Crowe,” Lady Fontaine began. “But I loved him dearly.” She brushed an invisible tear from the corner of her eye.

I sipped the tea, pleased to find it of fine quality. If I did nothing else useful in this house, at least I would partake of a decent cup of tea.

“I am certain you did,” I said in a soothing tone. “I can sense it.”

“Edwin was a handsome youth, so athletic when we were growing up.” Lady Fontaine’s gaze went remote, the rigidity in her face easing as she warmed to her topic.

“He won all the races with his friends as a child, and when he went to school, he did races and things there as well. Won many awards. Lord Downes was also quite an athlete in his day—though you’d never know to look at him now.

Of course, he is a bit older than Edwin.

” Lady Fontaine sighed. “Then Edwin somehow got a wasting disease. No doctor could decide what was happening to him. He simply walked more and more slowly, or one leg or the other would seize up for no reason. When Edwin started to fall more than walk, he resigned himself to the wheeled chair. He was never ill a day in his life, and he was quite hearty, even with the weakening of his limbs.”

Lady Fontaine brought out a lace handkerchief and dabbed her eyes, this time wiping away true tears.

“He had many friends,” I said gently. “I can sense that as well. This house was lively, was it not?”

Lady Fontaine brightened. “Oh, yes. Edwin always had people coming and going. He was personable, brilliant at conversation. I looked forward to my visits.”

“No quarrels of any kind?” I asked as I nibbled a tea cake. The cake was far too dry, and any currants in it were miniscule. Daniel had told me the cook doted on Lord Peyton, but she obviously skimped for Lady Fontaine.

“Perhaps there were disagreements on politics and such,” Lady Fontaine said. “But argued with only the greatest respect. Not that I understood much of those conversations. Ladies don’t need to, do they?” Her gaze encouraged me to agree that women should be political dunces.

“He did sometimes have a lady here besides yourself.” I closed my eyes briefly as though searching the ether for visions of Lord Peyton’s past. “One who spoke about politics with him.”

“Well, there is Mrs.Lofthouse.” Lady Fontaine waved a dismissive hand. “Such a bluestocking. She and her husband stated adamantly that the Irish should break from us. What nonsense. Ireland has always been a part of Britain.”

Even I knew that was not true, but I did not correct her. “Your brother agreed?” I asked.

“Edwin? Not a bit of it. He vehemently opposed her. Vehemently. He believed that Ireland should have some independence—Home Rule, I think it is called—but should always remain connected to England. Whatever would they do on their own?” Lady Fontaine scoffed.

“The whole place would fall into the sea, I should think, without us to anchor them.”

Certainly Lady Fontaine would never be recruited by the Fenians for the Irish cause. Lord Peyton, however, was more difficult to pin down. Daniel had said he argued for Home Rule, but he’d found no evidence of any more radical beliefs or funding for those beliefs.

Perhaps it was the Lofthouses, after all, that Monaghan had in his sights. They were blatantly for Irish independence, they went to meetings in or near the British Museum with those of like mind, and they’d absconded to the Continent as soon as Lord Peyton had died.

I hoped with all my heart that Monaghan was after them, would capture them, and make them confess an association with the Fenians. If Monaghan discovered the “something brewing” Daniel had told me of, then Daniel would be released from his obligation to Monaghan, and we could all breathe again.

“Did your brother have any enemies?” I asked. “Someone who would be happy if he was out of the way?”

Lady Fontaine regarded me with indignation.

“Good heavens, no. I told you, everyone adored Edwin. When he argued his point, it was in debate, not with anger. He rarely saw eye to eye with Lord Downes, even when they were at school together, but they are still—were still—great friends.” Her breath caught on her accidental use of the present tense.

I understood why Hannah pitied her, and I now felt sorry for her as well. “Let me see what I can do.”

Lady Fontaine drew a shaky breath. “How can I help?”

I’d drawn on my experience with the fortune-telling housekeeper while I’d prepared for this meeting.

“Do you have anything of his I can hold?” I asked. “A handkerchief, a letter, a watch chain? Something he’d have carried with him?”

“I had anticipated that.” Lady Fontaine rose and went to a box on a table near the fireplace.

She withdrew a polished pipe and brought it to me.

“My brother did like his tobacco, though I always thought it a nasty habit. He did not smoke as much in these later years, as his doctor advised against it, but he liked to hold this even if he no longer used it.”

She laid a small, polished pipe made of briarwood on the table in front of me. Lady Fontaine let her fingertips rest on it a moment before she returned to her seat.

“What now?” she asked.

“We should all sit,” I said. “Including you, my dear,” I added to Hannah.

Hannah, as an obedient servant should, looked to her mistress for confirmation. Lady Fontaine nodded, and Hannah moved noiselessly to the table and sat on my left side.

I touched the pipe, finding the wood soft and pleasant to my fingertips.

Many gentlemen these days still smoked meerschaums, which could be carved into fantastical patterns, but some now liked the briarwood, which remained cooler to the touch.

Mr.Bywater, on the rare occasions he enjoyed a pipe, out of his wife’s sight, he used a briarwood.

The pipe told me only that Lord Peyton had expensive taste, as it had been finely made.

The remnants of tobacco inside had also been costly, I could tell from its odor.

I’d worked in houses where gentlemen had spent much on their tobacco and in some where they’d used dreadful-smelling cheap and damp leaves.

I admit I was on the lookout for poison as I delicately sniffed the end of the pipe.

Someone might have introduced a noxious substance into it, which Lord Peyton could have inhaled when he sucked on the unlit pipe to comfort himself.

Certain substances, like arsenic or strychnine, could make a man rise from his chair, clawing his throat or chest, and topple down a flight of stairs.

However, I smelled nothing but tobacco. Not that I had firsthand knowledge of the odor of all poisons, but as a cook who used scent to tell me whether vegetables and fish were fresh, or cooked food was done, my nose was rather practiced.

I laid the pipe gently onto the table and placed my fingertips on it.

“Do we need to hold hands?” Lady Fontaine asked. I heard the hesitation in her voice.

“That will not be necessary,” I answered. “I only need to concentrate.”

Lady Fontaine looked relieved, Hannah impassive.

I closed my eyes. I had no idea if I should make any sort of noises, like the groans Hannah had suggested, but I decided to simply sit still.

I pictured Lord Peyton in his wheeled chair. Daniel had told me he could trundle himself about in it when Fagan was abed or engaged in other duties. Had he taken himself into the hall and to the head of the stairs? For what reason?

I recalled the spot in which I’d stood with Fagan, the staircase opening before me. The wide window filled the landing, rendering the entire mews visible to anyone sitting at the top of the stairs.

Lord Peyton had been there at ten o’clock at night, but that did not mean the mews would have been fully dark.

This part of London had plenty of lighting.

If the mews didn’t have its own lamps, the carriage houses likely did, or the grooms and coachmen would tote lanterns about as they carried on.

A servant’s work did not always cease with the setting sun.

I might be wrong about this vision, if it had been Lord Peyton who liked the drapes to remained closed. But perhaps he’d ordered them opened, or Lady Fontaine had wished it, or a servant had forgotten and either opened them or left them that way.

I imagined Lord Peyton gazing out of this window and seeing something that made him stagger to his feet. Whatever it was had amazed or frightened him enough that he had fallen forward, tumbling down, down, down the highly polished stairs, to end up in a broken huddle at the bottom.

I gasped and opened my eyes. The vision had been so vivid I wondered a moment if I didn’t actually have second sight.

“Lord Peyton,” I whispered. “What did you see out of the window?”