“On the Somme,” he said, but didn’t elaborate.
She nodded. “Indeed. I lost a son at Mons and another at Ypres. I didn’t want to live myself, at first, but it’s not in my nature to die. Which of my many committees and sponsorships brings you to my door tonight?”
“I’m afraid it’s none of them, Mrs. Talbot. We’re trying to find anyone who might have known a young woman by the name of Lily Mercer. She worked here in this house as an upstairs maid for a time some fourteen years ago.”
“And why do you wish to find this young person?” Mrs. Talbot asked, her eyes narrowing. “Is it in her interest or yours, this search?”
“Mine,” I admitted. “I never knew Lily Mercer. But her family moved to New Zealand, and so I’m unable to contact them. I was hoping one of your present staff might remember her. Lieutenant Philips is as interested as I am to learn more about the girl. One of his friends was accused of harming her, you see, and I’d like to know if it is true, or if he was falsely accused.”
We had discussed in the cab coming here what to admit to and what not.
Mrs. Talbot considered us a moment, then picked up the silver bell at her elbow. The maid who had admitted us answered the summons. Mrs. Talbot sent the maid belowstairs to question the staff.
Mrs. Talbot, meanwhile, turned her attention to me.
“You are doing nothing to help with the war, Miss Crawford?”
I could see myself leaving here as part of any number of committees, or dispatched to Hampshire to grow vegetables on the lawns of some great estate.
“I was serving on Britannic, Mrs. Talbot, when she went down, and my arm was broken when she was struck. I can’t return to duty until it’s fully healed.”
She nodded approvingly. At that moment there was a tap at the door, and the maid was back.
“There’s the laundress, Mrs. Talbot. She remembers the young person in question.”
“Then bring her here.”
“If you’ll forgive me, she might be more comfortable speaking to us in the servants’ hall,” I suggested quickly.
But Mrs. Talbot wouldn’t hear of it. “Nonsense. Bring her here, Mattie.”
And in due course, Mattie returned with the laundress. She might have been young and pretty fourteen years ago, but hard work had toughened her skin and reddened her hands and taken away her youth.
Her name, Mattie informed us, was Daisy.
“Hallo, Daisy,” I said. “It’s kind of you to speak to us. We’re concerned about Lily Mercer. Did you know her?”
“She’s dead,” Daisy answered bluntly. She was clearly ill at ease.
“Yes, I know that. But as her family has left England, I’m hoping to find someone who can tell me a little about her.”
“We was employed here, when this house was let to visitors to London. That was when Mr. Horner owned it, and didn’t want to live here anymore. He said it was haunted by his wife’s ghost. Which is absurd, o’ course. But he believed it. And so we stayed on as staff, those that chose to stay, and went with the house, so to speak. When Mr. Horner died of his grief, the house was sold to Mrs. Talbot’s brother, and then she inherited it from him.”
“What happened to the rest of the staff?”
“Some stayed. Others gave in their notice.”
“Tell me about Lily?”
“There’s nothing to tell. She died here-” Her eyes slid toward Mrs. Talbot’s face. “And soon after, her family went away. Like you said.”
I tried another approach, but Daisy remained tight-lipped. I was surprised that she’d even admitted she knew Lily. I thought it likely that curiosity had got the better of her, and she was here to satisfy it. Or see if there was anything in it for herself?
“Speak up, Daisy, the lady and the gentleman want to hear what you have to say.”
But Daisy stuck to her story, and that was that.
We thanked Mrs. Talbot after she was dismissed, and Mattie came to see us to the door.
“Damn!” Peregrine said as it shut behind us.
The snow was a little thicker, but not intending to last. I thought the temperature had eased up a very little.
We were about to walk toward the corner in search of a cab when the tradesman’s door opened and closed quietly, and there was Daisy, a shawl thrown over her head, coming quickly toward us.
“Miss!”
I stopped, my hand on Peregrine’s arm. “Daisy?”
“Yes, Miss. I’m sorry, but we were all sworn to secrecy when Lily died. Mr. Horner didn’t want the story getting about, scaring off people wanting to let the house for the Season. I couldn’t tell Mrs. Talbot, could I?”
“No, of course not.” I looked around, searching for somewhere we could stand and talk without freezing to death. But there was no place except the square and we didn’t have a key.
“Did you like Lily?” I asked, trying to learn as much as possible while Daisy was in the mood to talk to us. But she hesitated, and I said, “There’s five pounds for you, as a reward for helping us.”
Her eyes lit with avarice. “Thank you, Miss, I could use the money.”
I took a five-pound note from my purse but held on to it.
Daisy said, her words coming quickly, “She didn’t just die here, did she? She was murdered. The staff had the evening off, except for Lily, who was set to looking after the little boys. But she was to meet the young man she was walking out with, and she wasn’t happy about missing him. Still, she went upstairs to see the lads to bed. It was the last time I saw her. She hadn’t come back down again, by the time I was leaving. Later we heard that one of the lads had killed her, that he’d used his pocketknife on her, mutilating her something fierce. But I don’t see how that can be, do you? A pocketknife? He must have come down to the kitchen for something larger. At any rate, the family left London sudden-like, and Mr. Horner paid off any of us that wanted to leave, but swore us all to secrecy. Bad for business, he said. That’s what murder was.” She finished, eyeing the five-pound note.
“What was Lily like?”
“She was always out for herself. Always looking to better herself. She’d study the photographs in the London Gazette, and carry herself like them, head up, back straight, and copy their style of clothes for her day off. Silk purse out o’ a sow’s ear, that’s what it was, and her telling me that my hands were too big and my fingers too thick. And how was I to help that, I ask you, when I was the laundress!” Her grievance might have been old but it was fresh. “She had a temper too.”
“Was Lily good to the children in her care?”
Daisy shrugged. “I can’t say. But I remember one of the lads leaned over the upstairs railing one day and called her a nasty name, and she told him he was a monster and God would see to him one day.”
I could feel Peregrine stirring beside me.
“Which one? Do you remember?”
“Lord if I know,” she said, “I was never abovestairs. We come home at eleven that night, as we was told to do, to be ready for church service the next morning, and there was police everywhere, and Mrs. Graham crying as if she’d never stop, and Mr. Graham was pacing, his face black as Satan, and I don’t know where the lads were, but I heard they’d been clapped up in their rooms. I came to the servants’ door to bring hot water to the housekeeper, and I could hear Mrs. Graham begging them not to take her son from her.”
Mr. Graham-Peregrine’s father-was long dead by that time. It must have been Robert who was pacing.
“Do you remember anything else?” I asked.
“They said someone had cleaned away most of the blood before the police got there. That was strange, wasn’t it, but Mrs. Graham claimed she couldn’t have the poor girl seen like that, it was indecent and horrid. All I know is, there was three sheets missing, the next time I counted the wash, and I got the blame for ruining them and hiding it.”
“Did you go to the services for Lily? Did you see her family there? How did they take their daughter’s death?”