"Thank you, Brodagan. I shall deal with Mrs. Chawton. I am sorry you had the inconvenience of looking after the door."
"Your apron, Brodagan! You have singed it,” Mama said.
Brodagan stared placidly at her charred apron. “There's two night's work and two shillings of me pittance of money gone up in flames, for I'll not disgrace you by being seen in this ruin again, meladies. It'll make dandy rags,” she said, and sailed out. Of course, she would cut off the burned edge and have Mary rehem it, but one did not introduce reality into one of her Celtic tragedies.
"I shall go up and bring Steptoe down for you to dismiss him, Mama,” I said.
Her pretty face pinched in displeasure. “Why don't you speak to him yourself, dear? You handle him better than I."
Mama dislikes trouble nearly as much as Brodagan relishes it. I fall in the middle, and am the go-between for such jobs as this. I did not look forward to confronting Steptoe, but I did not dread it either. I found him in the tower room, as Brodagan had said. He was separating my uncle's belongings into two boxes, one for the better items, one for the worn garments.
He looked up boldly. “I'll keep this lot for myself,” he said, pointing to the box of good clothes. “My tailor can do something with these jackets."
"My tailor"-as though he were a fine gent! It was the little goad I needed to lend sharpness to my words. “I have just returned from Parham, Steptoe. I told her ladyship where the diamonds were found. No legal action will be taken."
He looked sulky, but not so chastened as he ought. “I am afraid we cannot see our way clear to increasing your salary. Naturally you will not want to remain with us at your present wage. You may consider yourself free to look for another position. It will be best if you not use us as a reference. Let us say two weeks, to give us both time to make other arrangements."
His snuff brown eyes narrowed. “I might be able to get along on my present wage for the meanwhile,” he said.
"You force me to remove the gloves, Steptoe. Your services are no longer required."
His reply was not apologetic, but aggressive. “I never took nothing from you! You can't say I did."
"I did not accuse you of stealing the spoons."
"If it's that little Chinese jug from Parham you're referring to, I never took it. It got broken, and if one like it turned up at the antique store, it's nothing to do with me."
It was foolish of him to actually tell me why he had been released from Parham. Nothing was more likely to vex Lord Weylin than tampering with his porcelains. “Two weeks, Steptoe,” I said, and turned to leave, happy to put the unpleasant incident behind me.
"I wouldn't do that if I was you, miss,” he said, with a nasty smile in his voice. I turned and looked a question at him. “I've a mate at Tunbridge Wells,” he said.
"What of it?"
"I go there on my holidays and days off. Interesting, what you see at Tunbridge."
"If you have something to say, Steptoe, say it."
"I'm not one to go rashly hurling accusations, like some. But I know what I saw at Tunbridge, and I know who I saw-the weekend Lady Margaret's necklace was stolen."
I felt my body stiffen at his words. “Are you referring to my uncle?"
His lips drew into a cagey grin. “Will you still be wanting me to leave, miss?"
"There will be no salary increase,” I said, and left on that ambiguous speech.
Naturally I darted straight down to the saloon to tell Mama what had happened.
Mama paled visibly. “He'll tell the world Barry was there when the necklace was stolen! Do you think it is true, Zoie?"
"Barry had the necklace. Lord Weylin asked whether I was certain Uncle did not go to Tunbridge. We don't really know where he went. We have only his word for it."
"My own brother, a common thief!"
What bothered me more was what Lord Weylin would say if Steptoe told him. It was intolerable to be in the clutches of a creature like Steptoe. I had been looking forward to Borsini's visit, but this new development robbed it of all pleasure.
I discussed the matter with Mama over lunch, and we decided we must go over all Barry's papers to see if we could find any evidence of his having been at either London or Tunbridge Wells. He might have receipts from hotels, or his bankbook might turn up interesting sums. The deposits should be no more than his pension from John Company. If larger deposits appeared, we would know the worst. We also hoped to discover what he had done with his ill-got gains, for when he died, his total estate of thirty-nine pounds went to Mama.
I wrote to Borsini, putting off his visit, and spent the afternoon in the attic with Mama, rooting through boxes of old letters and receipts. There was nothing to indicate any untoward doings. The recent bankbooks held only a record of the quarterly pension deposits. Uncle took nearly the whole sum out as soon as it went in. He kept a running balance in the neighborhood of fifty pounds. Whatever he spent the rest on, he must have paid cash.
Taking into account the small sum Mama took from him for room and board, though, he seemed to have spent a great deal of money. He did not indulge himself in a fancy wardrobe. He had a couple of decent blue jackets, one good evening suit, and one old-fashioned black suit that he never wore. It was quite ancient. He did not set up a carriage, or even a hack. On the few occasions when he rode, he borrowed my mount. He was not the sort to spend his nights in the taverns, or eat meals out. Mama thought it was the rumors of his Indian misadventure with the account books that kept him to himself. He felt it keenly.
Mama had perched on the edge of a trunk. She called, “Look at this, Zoie. This is curious.” I went to see what had caught her interest. It was a bankbook dating back to the time of Barry's arrival at Hernefield. “He came home with five thousand pounds! It was withdrawn from the bank the week after he got here. What did he do with it?"
I stared at the crabbed entries, counting the zeroes to make sure it was five thousand, and not five hundred, or fifty thousand. Nothing seemed impossible, but it was indeed five thousand. We puzzled over it awhile, until a dreadful apprehension began to form.
"Was he paying someone off, being held to ransom?” Mama suggested.
"Steptoe!” I exclaimed.
"Steptoe was still with the Pakenhams then. He only came to us three years ago. We cannot blame Steptoe, much as I should like to."
"What is the date?” I said, running my eye along the left-hand column. “May the fifteenth, 1811. About the time Lady Margaret's necklace was stolen. Mama, Uncle Barry bought the necklace! And here we were in a great rush to give it back to the Weylins."
She clapped her two hands on her cheeks. “Oh dear, and they will never believe us. I can hardly believe it myself. Five thousand pounds thrown away on that ugly old thing."
"And to think I humbled myself to them, apologizing and listening to Lady Weylin accuse me of chasing after her son."
"Why did Lady Margaret say it was stolen?” Mama asked. “The thing was not entailed. Her husband gave it to her as a wedding gift, so if she wanted to sell it, she could. Barry must have bought it in all innocence from whoever stole it."
"Why would he do that? It is not as though he got it at a bargain price. The necklace would hardly be worth five thousand, and to buy it from some hedge bird on a street corner-it makes no sense. If he wanted a diamond necklace for some reason, he would have bought it from a reputable jeweler."