Page 25 of The Affairs of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #2)

‘I don’t care what you say,’ said Daisy, ‘it’s a sin, and that’s all about it.’

‘A black, deadly sin,’ said Wilfrid, the houseboy, bouncing excitedly in his chair.

‘It’s the same as murder, that’s what my mum says,’ Milly agreed. ‘She says only God can take away a life, so it’s like murdering yourself.’

‘That is what the law calls it,’ said Moss, who had the advantage of having looked it up in his Book of Universal Knowledge , knowing that little else would be talked about for days. ‘Murder of the self. Only, of course, being the law, it’s said in Latin. Fellow de sea , it’s called.’

‘Fellow of the sea? What, like a sailor?’ Speen said contemptuously. ‘Sure of that, are you, Mr Moss?’

Moss gave him a distracted look, but continued. ‘In the old days, up until the Act of 1823, they couldn’t be buried in Church ground at all. They had to be buried at night at a crossroads, and their goods and chattels were forfeit to the Crown.’

‘She didn’t have any goods and chattels,’ said Rose.

She had made sure to be on hand very early in the morning when the undertaker, Mr Folsham, had arrived with Mrs Cargill, the woman from the village who did the laying-out for poor people.

She didn’t watch the process, but when the body had been laid in the plain pine box, she had gone in to place the photograph under poor Deena’s hands.

The book she had abstracted earlier and burned on the back of the kitchen fire.

It would do no good to anyone to read that.

Otherwise, all Mrs Oxlea had owned was her clothes and shoes, brush and comb, hairgrips and pins.

Her wages had all gone to the little boy, so how could she own anything more?

‘I’ve never understood about the crossroads,’ Miss Hatto said. ‘Why there?’

Mrs Webster answered quickly while Moss was still drawing breath, fearing he might be about to mention stakes through the heart. There’d been enough fuss already with maids claiming to be having nightmares. ‘It was where felons were buried,’ she said.

‘Yes, but why a crossroads?’ Miss Hatto persisted.

‘To stop them wandering,’ Miss Taylor answered. ‘Damned souls were thought to be restless. All the boots and wheels passing overhead were supposed to keep them down. Of course, we know better now,’ she said ironically with a ripe stare at the younger members of staff.

‘Wot, you mean like wandering like ghosts?’ Wilfrid asked.

Ellen made round eyes. ‘Ooh,’ she said, ‘I’m feared of ghosts.’

‘I’m not!’ he said stoutly. ‘I ’ope she comes a-haunting of us. Wooo! Wooo!’ He waved his hands about in what he hoped were ghostly gestures. ‘They rattle chains and you feels their ghostly touch at midnight like an icy— ouch!’

Rose had taken the trouble to get up and walk round the table to give him a clout on the head. ‘Have a bit of respect,’ she snapped.

‘But will she really come haunting us, Rose?’ Ellen pleaded. ‘We never done her no harm.’

‘Never done her no good, either,’ said Mabel, through a mouthful of bread. ‘Nobody never liked her, so why pretend?’

‘There’s no such thing as ghosts,’ Rose said impatiently. ‘When people die, they’re dead, that’s all.’

‘Now, Rose, that’s not a Christian thought,’ Moss rebuked her. ‘We all go to our judgement at the Throne of God.’

‘Then you can all stop judging her and leave it to Him,’ Rose said.

‘I don’t believe in God,’ Cyril announced, and looked round to see what effect he had made.

Moss glowered at him. ‘That’s enough of that. There’ll be no not believing in God in this house.’

There was a section of the churchyard, a neglected patch at the back up against the wall of the sexton’s yard, where suicides were buried.

Rose knew from Miss Eddowes, who had it from the rector, that his lordship had asked him to conduct a Christian service – the earl didn’t know anything of her history, but she was an employee of the house, after all.

But her ladyship had got to the rector first, and he had refused his lordship’s request, as was his right.

So Deena Oxlea went into the ground without ceremony.

His lordship hadn’t attended – that would have been excessive – but he had sent flowers, white lilies, which Rose thought very kind.

She and Miss Eddowes had been the only people there.

Miss Eddowes had brought white irises. When the grave began to be filled in, they had turned and walked together to the gate, exchanged one look, and parted without a word. What was there to say, after all?

Her ladyship had also used her influence over the inquest. Reputation said that coroners were the least swayable people in the land, but Mr Fothergill, the solicitor who acted as custos placitorum coronae for the area, was a fervent supporter of the local landed families and believed no one, rich or poor, benefited from the undermining of their status and influence.

Lady Stainton had asked for the matter to be dealt with quickly, and he saw no reason not to comply.

He held the inquest two days after the death, and called only Gale, the carpenter, to testify that the door was bolted on the inside, and Rose, to testify to the deceased’s state of mind, before giving the verdict of ‘suicide due to temporary insanity’.

‘Why did she go for to do it, though?’ asked Mabel. ‘I’d never have the courage.’

‘If I was to do it, I’d drown meself,’ said Tilda. ‘They say it’s just like going to sleep, drowning. I couldn’t do it any way that would hurt.’

‘I don’t reckon hanging’s so bad,’ said Cyril.

‘Shut your mouth,’ Speen said sharply. ‘You know nothing about it.’

Cyril was undeterred. ‘I reckon it’d be about like holding your breath, sort of. I bet it doesn’t hurt. What d’you say, William? You saw her.’

William, who had been staring at his untouched plate – he had always a grand appetite, even for Mrs Oxlea’s indifferent cooking – suddenly shoved back his chair and stood up, muttered something that included the word ‘excused’ in Moss’s direction, and almost ran from the room.

Rose watched him go thoughtfully. Of all the household, he was the one who seemed most affected. Him and her ladyship, who had shut herself away and spoke to no one unless she had to, and went for long rides to escape company.

‘Poor William – he’s really cut up about it,’ Dory said to Sebastian as she sewed up a tear in a blouse of Lady Alice’s. ‘He didn’t know her, any more than anyone, so it must just be seeing the body. Can’t have been a nice sight.’

‘I believe not,’ Sebastian said mildly.

‘One good thing, though – it seems to have made him forget all about Milly. He hasn’t given her a glance since it happened, which is a relief to her.’

‘Who is he in love with now?’

‘No one at the moment. I don’t think love is on his mind.

He’s been going down to the Dog and Gun at Ashmore Carr a lot.

I think it’s just to escape – he’s not a drinker.

I know the barman there, Roddy, and he says William has a half of ale and sits and looks at it all evening.

Mr Corbie, the landlord, doesn’t like it – says he’s putting off the other customers.

But he’s a miserable old besom, Corbie, anyway. ’

‘I suppose he doesn’t like people using up seats and not buying drinks. It’s reasonable,’ said Sebastian.

‘What I’ve never understood,’ Dory said carefully, eyes on her work, ‘was why Mrs Oxlea was cook here in the first place, if she wasn’t any good.’

Sebastian ran a few scales through his hands before replying. ‘She was kitchen-maid here a long time ago, under the old cook, whose name was . . . wait, I’ll have it in a minute . . . ah, yes, Mrs Duxbury. She drank, as I remember. I suppose all cooks do?’

‘No use asking me, sir,’ Dory said, with an impish look. ‘I couldn’t boil an egg.’

‘Well, Mrs Duxbury was all right with plain food. But she drank more and more, and finally had a dreadful accident. Fell in the fire while in her cups and was so badly burned she died soon afterwards. Mrs Oxlea took over the cooking as an emergency measure. Her skills were limited, but his lordship and her ladyship never cared much about food so she was good enough for them, and they never troubled to replace her. But things have got worse over the years. I suppose she caught the drinking habit from her predecessor.’

‘Well, I hope Ida doesn’t go the same way.’

‘Ida?’

‘Head kitchen-maid. She’s been doing some of the cooking recently anyway, and now she’s taken over as cook until they find a replacement.’

‘How history repeats itself,’ Sebastian murmured.

‘Oh, I hope not, sir,’ Dory said, looking up. She wondered what he really knew about the whole Oxlea situation.

He looked back, wondering the same thing. ‘It’s astonishing what rumours fly about in a big house like this,’ he said. ‘Unfounded gossip . . .’

‘Silly stories,’ she agreed, ‘that couldn’t possibly be true . . .’

‘The important thing is to give them no credence, and to sit on them firmly whenever they lift their ugly heads.’

‘I do, sir,’ Dory said, resuming her work. ‘I’ve seen enough in my life of the damage gossip can do.’

‘Yes,’ said Sebastian, staring at her thoughtfully. Then he roused himself. ‘Chopin, I think,’ he said. ‘To liven us up.’ And he plunged into the Revolutionary étude.

After a bit, Dory lifted her head to watch in admiration. ‘I don’t know how you manage to play all those notes at the same time,’ she said.

‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘I miss a lot out. But there’s only us here, and I’m sure you won’t tell.’

Maud was in a state of white fury. She had put up with the hateful presence of Mrs Oxlea in her household in a lifelong determination to avoid talk; and now the creature had precipitated her into a filthy sump of gossip.