“Trousers!” Kate couldn’t help exclaiming.
Trousers! Beryl echoed, intrigued. Kate herself owned several pairs of corduroy trousers, which she found useful for outdoor work at Bishop’s Keep and for tramping across the fields and woods. And she knew that American women were wearing trousers for bicycling. But it was a little more difficult to picture Gladys Deacon in trousers.
Unless, Beryl whispered excitedly, she wanted to disguise herself.
A disguise! Kate thought. Of course. They were all imagining that Gladys had gone off, or been spirited off, in the dress she had worn the night before. But what if she had “I think a white shirtwaist is gone, too,” Bess was saying, “although I can’t be sure. And a pair of brown suede walking boots.” She cleared her throat. “I noticed the trousers particularly,” she added in an apologetic tone. “Quite… well, quite manly looking, if your ladyship wouldn’t mind my saying so.”
Of course she would notice them, Beryl remarked slyly. I’ll wager nothing gets past this ’un. Look at those eyes. Bess is a sly puss, if you ask me.
Kate agreed. Nothing escaped the attention of a good maid, particularly something as extraordinary as a man’s brown flannel lounge suit in a woman’s wardrobe. And Bess struck her as a remarkably discerning person, the kind of housemaid who would be promoted to housekeeper, if she stayed in service. That made her question about the jewel theft that much more puzzling. A good servant would have allowed such idle words to pass unremarked.
Aloud, Kate said, “What about Miss Deacon’s luggage, Bess? Do you remember seeing a small bag?”
“P’rhaps,” Bess said thoughtfully, “when I did the unpacking. But the luggage has all gone downstairs, m’lady, where it’s seen to by the odd man.” She tilted her head, frowning slightly. “If your ladyship will forgive me asking, are you thinking that Miss Deacon might have.. well, gone off?”
“I’m not at all sure,” Kate replied. “Do you have an opinion?”
“No, m’lady.”
No, m’lady, Beryl mimicked. But if she did have an opinion, she wouldn’t venture it, especially to you, Kate.
Again, Kate agreed. An experienced maid kept her own counsel, although she might have a confidante among the other servants. She led the way to the door and closed and locked it behind them. “If you think of anything else, Bess, please come and tell me. And thank you for your help. I shan’t keep you any longer.”
Bess dropped a quick curtsey. “Yes, m’lady,” she said, and went off, keys jingling, in the direction of the maids’ closet. At the corner of the corridor, she turned and cast an appraising glance over her shoulder.
I wonder, Beryl said thoughtfully, about those keys.
But Kate didn’t have time to think about that just now. She turned and went in the other direction, toward the service stairs. Below-stairs was normally out-of-bounds to guests, but Kate managed her own servants at Bishop’s Keep and knew her way around their work area very well. She did not hesitate to open the green baize door and go down the stairs.
Once below-stairs in the maze of the servants’ area, it took her a little while to locate the odd man, who was cleaning wax drippings from brass candle holders in the lamp-and-candle room. Back in America, such a person would have been called an odd-job man, but the words “odd man” seemed to fit this fellow rather well. He was a very small man, one shoulder higher than the other, with wire spectacles and only a fringe of gray hair around his bald head. He seemed a little surprised to see Kate, perhaps because ladies usually sent their maids to fetch their luggage. But upon her inquiry, he led her to the luggage room, where the empty trunks and valises belonging to the family and their guests were kept.
“Yer ladyship is wantin’ her trunk, I s’pose,” he said, scratching his head. “Let’s see, now. B’lieve it’s this’n.” He pointed to Kate’s leather trunk, with Charles’s smaller trunk perched on top. “Or did ye want me t’ fetch both yers and his lordship’s?”
“Actually, it’s Miss Deacon’s luggage I’m asking about,” Kate said, adding, “She said I might borrow one of her small bags for a day or two.”
“That’s the lot there,” the odd man said, nodding to a towering stack of trunks that completely filled one corner of the room. “All but the small valise. She come and got that ’un day ’fore yestiddy.”
“She did?” Kate asked, trying to keep the excitement from her voice.
“Yessum, her very own self,” the odd man said, adding, with a private grin, “Give me a shillin’, too.” He looked around the room. “If yer ladyship is wantin’ a valise, ye might take that carpet bag. B’lieve it b’longed to the Duchess of Manchester, and was left behind when she was last here.” He rubbed his hands together with a hopeful look. “I’d be glad to bring it up to yer room, if ye like.”
“Thank you,” Kate said, wishing that she had brought a shilling to give him. “Now that I know it’s here, I’ll send for it when I’m ready.”
Trousers, a jacket, walking boots, and a bag, Beryl said as Kate went along the back passage the way she had come, past the lamp-and-candle room and the large panel of electric bells that were connected to the upstairs bedrooms. Sounds to me as if our Gladys was preparing to go off somewhere, dressed as a man.
Beryl’s idea might seem far-fetched, but Kate had to acknowledge that it was a possibility. However, Gladys had an abundance of long, red-gold hair. If she planned to masquerade as a man, she’d need to pin it up on top of her head and conceal it under a hat or a cap.
A cap? Beryl asked with a knowing grin. Like one of those, d’you mean?
Kate stopped. On her left was the service stairs. On her right was a door that led up a short flight of concrete steps to the outside. And next to the door was a row of wooden pegs on the wall, from which hung a motley assemblage of mackintoshes, umbrellas, and several sorts of headgear-tweed caps, leather caps, a felt beret, several straw hats, and even a battered yachting cap. If Gladys Deacon had wanted something under which to hide her long hair, all she had to do was help herself.
While Kate and Beryl were chatting with the housemaid and the odd man, Consuelo had gone to her room to read. Books had always been her consolation, her escape from her dictatorial mother and now her escape from the prison of her marriage. As a girl, she had loved fairy tales, imagining herself as the enchanted princess set free by the prince’s kiss, then sentimental fiction-the sort of thing that fed romantic dreams, dreams of being loved, desired, and cared for.
But Consuelo had also been a bright, quick student, and by the age of eight, she could speak and write fluently in French and German, as well as English. Her favorite governess, Miss Harper, had encouraged her in a secret ambition: to attend Oxford University and take the modern languages Tripos. But the opportunity for formal education had been denied to her: girls of her class were not educated, for education was thought to make them unfit for marriage. But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t educate herself, and she continued to read as widely as she could. She loved poetry, and this afternoon, she sat with Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound on her lap.
The volume remained unopened, however, for Consuelo’s attention was elsewhere. She was looking out the window, beyond the Italian Garden toward the aviary where she and Kate Sheridan had gone for a talk that afternoon. She was thinking about Gladys Deacon.
Where was Gladys? What could have happened to her? Had she eloped with Northcote? Had she gone off with someone else? Or had she simply run away, as she had when she left Versailles and went off to Paris with her sister? Consuelo hadn’t wanted to tell Kate the whole story behind that dreadful escapade, but it had been more than a childish prank, much more. The two of them had had a terrible row, for she had felt responsible for Gladys and refused to allow her to spend an evening with a German military cadet who was infatuated with her. That night Gladys had disappeared and was gone for four days. Four whole days, while Consuelo fretted and worried and finally alerted the police, only to have Gladys reappear, as blithe and carefree and unapologetic as if she had been gone only a few hours.