Death At Epsom Downs

Her mistress gone to luncheon, Amelia had taken the back stairs down to the butler’s pantry to inquire of Mr. Williams the hours at which tea and dinner would be served, and about the arrangements for breakfast in the mornings, and hot water, and necessary laundry. A few minutes later, the staff of twenty-minus the butler and the footman, who were serving luncheon upstairs-gathered for their own lunch in the servants’ hall, and Amelia joined them. With a quick query, she discovered that Mrs. Langtry’s personal maid was a stout young woman with cheeks like a cottage loaf. Her name was Margaret Simpson, and Amelia took care to sit beside her.

With so many at table and the butler absent, lunch was a noisy affair, the mutton hash being passed, and potatoes and gravy and stewed cabbage, and bread pudding at the end, with plenty of hot coffee. Amelia was grateful for the clatter, since it gave her an opportunity to talk to Margaret, who welcomed her little confidences and seemed flattered by her attention. Amelia understood why, when it emerged that Margaret was not Mrs. Langtry’s personal maid after all, only an upstairs maid who had been temporarily elevated to the position when Mrs. Langtry’s own maid, Dominique, fell ill and was left behind in London.

But this substitution proved a boon, as Amelia discovered, for the gossipy Margaret lacked the tight-lipped loyalty that Dominique would undoubtedly have displayed. Margaret had come to work at Regal Lodge shortly before Mrs. Langtry acquired it, and, with just a little urging, seemed eager to show off her knowledge of the household and its workings. After lunch, she offered to show Amelia around, and the two of them fell into an easy, friendly conversation that grew even more confiding as they went through the belowstairs area-the kitchen, the scullery, the pantries, the laundry-then up the narrow linoleum-covered service stairs to the second floor.

“If you don’t mind my sayin’ so,” Amelia remarked as they climbed, “twenty seems a large staff for this ’ouse. Only five bedrooms upstairs, is it?” She already knew the number of bedrooms, for she had counted the doors on her way to lunch, subtracting one for the service door.

“It is big,” Margaret agreed without rancor. “Until ’is Nibs comes, or Bertie, as she sometimes calls ’im. She calls all the great men by some silly name er other. A bit cheeky, don’t ye think?”

“ ’Is Nibs?” Amelia asked, blinking, as they entered the second-floor hallway. “You mean-” She stopped.

Some three years before, Amelia had attended Lady Charles-Miss Ardleigh, she was at the time-during a visit to the Countess of Warwick’s Easton Lodge, where the Prince of Wales had also been a guest. Amelia had seen and heard the Prince and been much impressed by his stoutness, his gutteral voice, and the curious way he rolled his rs. The servants there-quite disrespectfully, Amelia thought-called the Prince “ ’Is Nibs” and “Bertie” because that was what the countess called him.

“O’ course that’s ’oo I mean,” Margaret said. “When ’e comes, the staff ain’t big enough by ’alf. ’E brings five er six of ’is own servants, and they takes our quarters, so us maids ’as to crowd all in together.” She made a dissatisfied face. “What’s worse, we ’as to wait on them, too, as well as ’im and ’er. Makes fer plenty of ’ard work, b’lieve you me.”

With a flourish, as if this were her own private secret, she opened the nearest door. “This is where ’e sleeps when ’e comes. Mrs. L. too, o’ course.” She pushed Amelia into the room and closed the door behind them. “We shouldn’t be ’ere, so we need t’ be quiet.”

Amelia murmured an appropriate appreciation and looked around, making careful mental notes in case her mistress might want to know what she’d seen-although these intimate details were definitely not the sort that could be shared with the readers of The Strand. Mrs. Langtry’s suite was large and ornately decorated, with Oriental rugs laid over the thick gold carpet, gold damask draperies at the windows, and a pair of matching mirrored dressing tables. Three walls were hung with costly looking Oriental tapestries, while against the fourth stood an enormous four-poster bed with a royal-purple and gold bedspread, the letters HRH and a crown inscribed on it. On one of the dressing tables lay a pair of gold-backed brushes, also inscribed with the letters HRH.

“Oooh…” Amelia breathed a shivery sigh and wrapped her arms around herself. “Oh, to think of it! Right ’ere in this very room!” She gave Margaret an admiring glance. “I’ll bet you could tell a few stories, couldn’t you, now?”

“She’d ’ave me ’ead if I did,” Margaret replied. Her frown was darkly disapproving. “Ye should ’ear ’em in ’ere together, laughin’ an’ rowdyin’ around like a farmer and ’is wife rollin’ in the ’ay wiv the cows lookin’ on. And ’im with a sweet Princess and a sainted mother at ’ome.”

“I ’spose it’s ’cause they’re Quality,” Amelia said, sobered by Margaret’s censure.

“’E is,” Margaret said, with emphasis, “so we can’t expect better of ’im. But she’s a parson’s daughter ’oo was raised to know right. She should niver ’ave gone to actin’. That wuz ’er downfall.” She sighed. “While we’re ’ere, you’ll want to see the bath.”

The bathroom was large and bright, its white tile floor and walls sparkling. Like the one in Lady Charles’s suite, it was equipped with a water closet and gas hot-water heater. This bathtub, however, was big enough for an elephant, and the taps were gold, while the thick, luxurious towels were emblazoned in gold with the royal insignia. The two women contemplated the splendor, Margaret with a proprietary, albeit censorious, air, Amelia in outright admiration, wishing that she could show it to Lady Charles.

At last, Amelia turned to Margaret. “Wot’s she like? Mrs. Langtry, I mean.” She put on a starry-eyed look. “I’ve seen ’er on the stage ever so many times, but never thought to be standin’ right ’ere, where she baths.” She grasped Margaret’s hand. “Wot’s she really like, dear?” she asked in a coaxing tone. “Tell me, please.”

“Well,” Margaret said hesitantly, then stopped.

“Tell me, Margaret, you must!” Amelia begged. “Is she kind? Is she as soft and lovely in ’er ’eart as she is in ’er person? She must be soft and lovely,” she added artlessly, “or the Prince wouldn’t love her, now, would ’e?”

Margaret’s mouth grew scornful. “Kind? Soft? Why, Mrs. L.’s ’eart is as ’ard as them diamonds she wears. She niver ’as a pound to ’er name, so she buys everything on the nod, more’s the pity for the poor butcher and baker. And she’s allus slow to pay our wages, little as they are. Mr. Williams ’as to go and beg fer us, which ’e shouldn’t ’ave to do-although she doesn’t cheat us, at least not ’ow she cheats ’er bookie.”

Now that she had gotten started, Margaret didn’t seem to want to stop. She dropped her voice, becoming conspiratorial. “And ’aven’t ye ’eard about her daughter, Jeanne-Marie? Mrs. L. calls ’erself Aunt Lillie, but she’s really the girl’s mother, more’s the pity fer the child, ’oo everybody knows is a Royal bastard. Lives out-of-the-way wiv Mrs. L.’s mother on Jersey, and sometimes in London wiv Mrs. L.”

Amelia was struck with a sudden pity for a young girl growing up in what must be a terribly confusing situation, no father, and a mother who claimed to be her aunt. But she didn’t have the opportunity to speak. Margaret was going on.

“Oh, she’s a terror, that one,” she said darkly. “She murdered ’er poor ’usband, too. ’Ad ’im pushed under the Irish Mail at Chester Station, she did. All because ’e wouldn’t give ’er a divorce.”

At this sensational revelation, Amelia was moved from pity to something like horror. She drew in her breath. “But I thought she got a divorce. In America, it was. Leastwise, that’s what I read in the newspaper.”

Margaret made an impatient noise. “That’s America, ye silly goose. An American divorce ain’t worth the paper it’s writ on ’ere. If Mr. Langtry wouldn’t give ’is wife a proper English divorce, she couldn’t marry an Englishman, now, could she? And that would spoil ’er scheme to marry Lord de Bathe, or wotever lord she ’appens to fancy.”

“Oh, my,” Amelia said helplessly. Perhaps she shouldn’t tell any of this to Lady Charles, because it was not the sort of thing her ladyship could write in her article. On the other hand, Lady Charles had said quite explicitly that she wanted to understand Mrs. Langtry’s true nature, and-

From downstairs, the sound of a slammed door reverberated in the silence, followed by the crash of falling china. Margaret gathered her skirts.

“That’s enough talk fer now,” she said. “We’d best get to work.” Nervously, she eyed Amelia. “You won’t tell wot I said, will ye?”

Amelia gave her a warm smile and a pat on the arm. “Tell? ’Oo would I tell? We’re friends, and yer secret is safe with me.” She made a little sign over her right breast. “Cross my ’eart.”

Back in her suite after another tour of the garden, Kate glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantle and saw that it was nearly four. Amelia came in just then to say that her bath was ready.

“There’s oceans of ’ot water, m’lady,” she said appreciatively, her arms full of fluffy towels. “And nobody ’ad to carry it up the stairs, neither. It’s all owin’ to that little gas ’eater beside the bathtub.”

“I shall have to mention it to his lordship,” Kate said, following Amelia into the bathroom and beginning to undress. Charles was always doing something to modernize Bishop’s Keep, but the kitchen and laundry were the only rooms with hot water heaters. Kate stripped off her chemise and underthings and stepped into the steaming water with a grateful sigh. No matter that the heater was hissing loudly, or that there was a distinct odor of gas in the room.

She leaned back in the tub and closed her eyes. “And what have you been doing with yourself this afternoon, Amelia?” she asked, after a moment’s relaxation in the soothing water.

There was a rustle of skirts. “Shall I tell you now, m’lady,” Amelia asked, “or would you rather wait until after your bath?”

Kate opened her eyes. Amelia’s face wore an expression of excitement and disapproval, oddly mixed.

“Tell me now,” Kate replied, thinking there might be something interesting to hear. She wasn’t disappointed.

“My goodness,” she said, when Amelia had finished her lengthy recital. “Mrs. Langtry’s maid told you all of that?”

“Margaret’s a bit free with ’er tongue,” Amelia said, with a disapproving shake of her head that suggested that she would never tell tales out of school. “Anyway, she isn’t really Mrs. Langtry’s maid, only temp’rary. She’s the upstairs maid, which is a diff’rent thing altogether.”

Kate nodded, understanding the distinction in rank and importance-and in loyalty. “Thank you for letting me know what you’ve heard,” she said.

“Well, I don’t s’pose it’s the kind of thing you can write in your piece fer The Strand,” Amelia replied doubtfully. “And some of it might not be true. You know ’ow servants love to talk.” She gathered up her mistress’s clothes. “But where there’s smoke there’s usually fire, I allus say.” And with that sage remark, she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Kate soaped a sponge with the lavender soap that lay in a crystal dish beside the tub, thinking about Amelia’s report. She was not troubled by the morality of Lillie’s relationship with the Prince or even that she had borne a child by him. If one spent one’s time and energy passing moral judgments on members of the Marlborough Set, there would be little left for more creative or productive pursuits! It was widely known that the Prince could never bring himself to finally put out the flame of a royal romance, and if there were a daughter (even one passed off as Lillie’s niece), the actress might have her own reasons for keeping the embers burning. And Kate couldn’t judge Lillie harshly for attempting to run her household on nothing, when most of the gentry were doing exactly the same thing.

No, what concerned Kate was Margaret’s more troubling allegation-that her employer had been involved in the murder of her husband. Kate would have dismissed this charge as the wild talk of a malicious servant if she hadn’t overheard a reference to the same deed in the bitter exchange between Lillie and her male visitor that afternoon. Was it possible that the charge was true? Was the world-famous actress the kind of woman who could consent to the murder of a troublesome husband who refused to give his wife a British divorce?

But the moment Kate framed the question, she instinctively felt she knew the answer. While she could not say whether the charge was true or false, she knew it was possible that Lillie had done this thing, and it was this possibility that was beginning to intrigue her. The more she understood about the woman, the more she realized that her acting career might not be limited to her appearances on the stage. Every moment of her life might be a performance, every gesture carefully theatrical, every encounter a dramatic scene-all of it counterfeit, none of it real. In one of her real-life dramas, Lillie might well have played the role of an accomplice to murder, with as little thought to the real-life consequences as she would have given to roles she played on stage. Perhaps she had imagined a reality in which this action was absolutely essential to her life and well-being, and therefore justified. Perhaps she had performed for so long, for so many different admiring audiences, that she had lost all sense of what was true and real.

But while this was an intriguing idea, especially for Beryl Bardwell’s novelistic interests, Kate told herself that surely she must be wrong. Surely no one could be onstage every moment. There had to be a real person behind the scenes, some core that was fundamentally and essentially Lillie-not the actress, not the courtesan, but the woman. What was it? Where was it? In what corner of Lillie’s life was there one true thing? If Kate could find that reality, that truth, it would be worth writing about!

Kate’s thoughts were interrupted by a polite knock at the outer door of the suite. Amelia went to answer it and returned in a moment with an envelope on a silver tray. “A message for you, m’lady. The footman brought it up.”

Kate dropped the soapy sponge into the water and reached for a towel. “For me? Open it, Amelia.”

Amelia opened the envelope, took out a folded sheet of paper, and handed it to her mistress. The note was from Charles. There were only three short sentences, but they made Kate forget all that she had been pondering:

I’ve located Patrick, my dear, well and happy, or as happy as boys may be who must work for their living. I’ll send a cab for you at ten this evening. If you can get away, you shall see him for yourself.