Mrs. Jeffries Stands Corrected (17 page)

“Thank you.” She smiled as the waiter put their tea on the table and then left.

“What’s your name?” he asked. “You never did say.”

“Velma Prewitt.” She blushed slightly and looked down at her lap.

Smythe felt like the worst of blackguards. Her shy smiles and blushes convinced him the poor girl was as innocent as a baby lamb. She’d no idea he had any ulterior motives. Velma was no doubt thinkin’ he was really interested in her and all he was doin’ was usin’ her. He cleared his throat. “My name’s Smythe.”

She raised her gaze and smiled. “That’s a lovely name. Would you like me to pour?” she asked, nodding at the teapot.

“That’d be fine.”

“You’re a coachman, you said?” she inquired, lifting the heavy china pot and carefully pouring the tea into the waiting cups.

“That’s right,” he replied. “Work for a Scotland Yard police detective.”

“Then we’ve something in common.” She laughed. “We both work for the law. My employer is a barrister. Well, young Mr. McNally is only a solicitor, but his father is a QC.”

“That’s interestin’.” Smythe picked up his cup of tea. He hadn’t a clue how to get her talking. But blimey, he didn’t want to go home without learnin’ a ruddy thing. “So how long have you worked in that ’ousehold?” he asked, saying the first thing that popped into his head. He knew one thing, he had to keep her chattin’. Once he got her rattlin’ on a bit, he could lead the conversation around to where he wanted it to go. Namely, James McNally.

“Not long.” She helped herself to an iced tea cake. “They’re decent people to work for.” She hesitated and gave him a timid smile. “Well, not as bad as some places I’ve worked.”

“That’s nice,” he said. Bloomin’ Ada, he must be losin’ his touch. He weren’t able to think of a ruddy thing to say. Too bad he’d gotten in the habit of buyin’ information off people. That was his trouble. He had more money than he knew what to do with, and on the last few cases he’d gotten shiftless and lazy. Now he couldn’t think how to bring the subject round to where it needed to be. Blast a Spaniard anyway, this wasn’t the first time his money had caused him trouble. He frowned, remembering he had to try to fit in a visit to his ruddy banker today. The silly git kept pesterin’ him with letters. His last one had been right nasty. Old Pike virtually threatened to come round to Upper Edmonton Gardens if Smythe didn’t stop in to the bank and give them instructions about his latest investment.

“Is everything all right?” Velma asked softly.

Smythe started. “Yeah, why?”

“You were frowning.”

“Sorry.” He pushed his money problems to the back of his mind. He’d deal with Pike later. He had enough worries trying to get this shy, homely young woman to confide in him and glarin’ at the poor girl wasn’t helpin’ none. He gave her a cocky grin. “I was thinkin’ of something else.”

“Oh good.” She gave him another shy smile. “I thought perhaps something I’d done had made you angry.”

“Don’t be daft, I’m enjoyin’ myself,” he lied. “So, I guess your employer must treat you decent, then.”

“Oh yes. Mind you, I work hard. But I’m a parlor maid now. I started out in the scullery, but that was ages ago and I’ve worked my way up.”

“That’s nice. You must be a real ’ard worker,” Smythe
said expansively. Perhaps if he flattered her she’d relax a bit and start talkin’. “Startin’ in the scullery and workin’ your way up to parlor maid takes some doin’.”

“I do my best. How does your police inspector treat you?” she asked.

“He’s a real gent, ’e is.” Smythe helped himself to a bun. “Kind. Decent. Takes good care of ’is ’ousehold.”

“So you like him, then?”

“Sure I do,” he replied. “Wouldn’t stay there if I didn’t.”

“Don’t think I’d like it much,” she murmured, dropping her gaze to her lap as though she were frightened by her own boldness.

He stared at her curiously. “’Ow come?”

“Well”—Velma raised her chin and stared him straight in the eye—“I guess you could say it was because I hate coppers.”

“Thank you for coming,” Mrs. Jeffries said to Sarah Hewett. As she hadn’t given her much choice in the matter, she’d been relieved when she’d spotted the woman and a small child coming into the park. She smiled down at the little girl peeping from behind her mother’s skirts. “I take it this is your daughter?”

“This is my Amanda.” Sarah smiled and stroked the child’s golden curls. Then she looked up, her smile vanishing. “I told Moira, Amanda needed to get out in the air. It’s not good for her to be shut up all day in a house of mourning. That was my excuse for getting out, you see.”

“Did you need an excuse to leave?” Mrs. Jeffries asked gently.

Sarah laughed harshly. “Not really, I suppose it was just habit. It was a good idea, meeting here in the park.” She gently pulled the child out from behind her dress. “Amanda, say hello to Mrs. Jeffries.”

Amanda stared at the housekeeper for a moment then grinned. “Hewwo,” she lisped.

“Hello, Amanda.”

The little girl pointed to the open space in front of the park bench where the two women stood. “Pway,” she babbled. “Pway, pway.”

“All right, darling,” Sarah said, “but stay right here where I can see you.”

Amanda skipped off a few feet and plopped down. Immediately, she began picking up twigs and tossing them into the air.

“How old is she?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“Two and a half,” Sarah said. She sat down on the bench, her attention riveted on her child. “And she’s the most precious thing in my life. I’d die if I lost her.”

“Is that what Haydon Dapeers was threatening you with?” Mrs. Jeffries asked quietly. “Taking your child from you?”

Sarah turned her head and regarded Mrs. Jeffries speculatively. “The only reason I’m here at all is because Michael insisted that talking to you might be easier than talking with the police. I didn’t want to come.”

“Mr. Taggert is correct,” Mrs. Jeffries replied, returning the young woman’s direct gaze with one of her own. “Talking to me will be a lot easier for you than speaking to the police. Providing, of course, that you didn’t murder Haydon Dapeers.”

Sarah jerked her head around to look at her small daughter. “I didn’t kill him. But I’m not sorry that someone else did. You must promise me, Mrs. Jeffries, that what I’m about to tell you will go no further.”

“I can’t make you that promise—”

“It has nothing to do with Haydon’s death,” Sarah interrupted quickly. “It’s about my daughter.”

Surprised, Mrs. Jeffries glanced at the little girl. She was
now lying on the soft grass and kicking her feet in the air. “Your daughter?”

“Yes, but I’ll not say a word unless you give me your promise.”

Mrs. Jeffries hesitated. “All right, providing the information you give me isn’t connected to Haydon Dapeers’s death, I give you my word it will go no further.”

Relieved, Sarah sagged against the back of the park bench. “Good. Michael’s sure we can trust you. I hope he’s not wrong. But you asked me if Haydon had threatened to take Amanda from me. The answer to that is no. He had no interest in her. All he wanted to do was to ruin her life.”

Mrs. Jeffries stared at her. “How could he possibly do that? She’s little more than a baby.”

Sarah stared blankly into space for a moment, then her gaze focused on the child. “He could have done it easily. All it would have taken was for Haydon to tell the truth about Amanda and her entire life would have been in shreds.”

Mrs. Jeffries cast a quick glance at the little girl. There was nothing odd looking about the child at all. In fact, she was exceptionally beautiful. “Your daughter appears perfectly normal to me,” she murmured, wondering if the poor thing was deaf or perhaps a bit slow mentally.

“Do you know what it’s like to be a foundling?” Sarah’s voice dropped to a whisper. “A bastard?”

“No,” Mrs. Jeffries said softly, “I don’t.” Anguish flashed in Sarah’s eyes, her cheeks flamed pink and her mouth trembled. “But I imagine you do,” she finished.

Sarah’s eyes widened in surprise and then she laughed bitterly. “You’re very astute, Mrs. Jeffries. I know precisely what it’s like. You see, I am one.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Growing up was awful,” Sarah continued. “The whispers
behind my back, the fact that other children wouldn’t play with me: it was terrible. I would do anything to make sure my child didn’t suffer the same fate. You see, when my mother found herself unmarried and pregnant, she had no choice but to throw herself on the mercy of her family. They didn’t quite turn her and me out on the streets, but they made both our lives a living hell.”

Mrs. Jeffries gazed at her sympathetically. She knew the woman wasn’t exaggerating. Intelligent and well-spoken, Sarah Hewett was obviously from a reasonably well-off home. Judging by her accent and carriage, her family apparently had enough income to ensure she was decently educated. Coming from her background, Mrs. Jeffries had no doubt her life had been utterly miserable when she was growing up. If she’d been illegitimate and poor, that would have been different. Not better, perhaps, since living in poverty was certainly miserable enough, but different in the sense that generally the child wasn’t shamed constantly by those around them. Mrs. Jeffries had observed that poor people were far more tolerant of those born on the “wrong side of the blanket” than other classes were. Judging from the expression of remembered humiliation and shame she’d seen on Sarah’s face, the young woman had probably spent her entire childhood being blamed for something she’d had no control over. “How awful for both of you.”

“Haydon found out”—Sarah glanced quickly around to make sure no one else was in earshot—“that Amanda wasn’t fathered by my husband. He told me if I didn’t behave myself, he’d make sure the entire world knew the truth. I couldn’t let that happen. I wasn’t going to let it happen, and then he got murdered.”

“Most conveniently.”

Sarah gave her a sharp look. “I may have hated him, but I didn’t kill him. And neither did Michael.”

“How did Dapeers find out about Amanda’s parentage?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“Be careful, darling,” Sarah called to the little girl, who was now running around in wide circles, her arms extended like wings. “Haydon was good at finding out secrets.” She sighed. “It was one of his few talents. I suppose I ought to start at the beginning.”

“That would be most helpful.”

“Before Amanda was born, I lived with my aunt. My parents had both died and Aunt Lillian took me in when I was eighteen. She was a great friend of Moira’s family. She had this huge house, you see, and when her income was reduced because the shares her husband had invested in lost value, Aunt Lillian began taking in boarders to make ends meet. Oh, she didn’t advertise or anything like that, but she rented rooms to young people from good families. One of those young men was Charles Hewett, the man who became my husband.” She paused and coughed delicately. “Charles fell in love with me right away. He was a good man, kind, decent. Honorable. But at the time I wasn’t interested. I was in love with someone else.”

“Michael Taggert?”

She nodded. “Then I got pregnant.”

Mrs. Jeffries remembered the protective way Michael Taggert had hovered over Sarah yesterday at the pub, the way he’d looked at her. “And Michael wouldn’t marry you?”

“I didn’t tell him.” She looked down at her hands. “Michael had just gotten a chance to go to Italy to study under a master painter, I couldn’t take that away from him. So I said nothing. I was terrified. Charles found me crying one day in the drawing room, he asked me what was wrong and I told him. He offered to marry me to give my child a name. We eloped that night. Amanda was born eight
months later. She was born long enough after the wedding to keep most of the gossip quiet and she was quite small when she was born, so both Aunt Lillian and Charles put it around that she’d come early.”

“If there wasn’t any gossip and both your aunt and your husband claimed the child was early, how did Haydon Dapeers know Amanda wasn’t Charles Hewett’s daughter?” Mrs. Jeffries queried.

“Unfortunately, Charles kept a diary. I meant to throw it away after he died, but I never got round to it. I don’t know how Haydon found it; I kept it locked in my trunk. But he managed to get his filthy hands on it. Charles, of course, had written the truth in the diary.”

“Why did it matter to him? Did he try to blackmail you?”

“He couldn’t,” Sarah said bluntly. “I’ve little money. Charles didn’t leave me well-off. But it mattered to Haydon because it gave him power over me. Haydon liked to control people. He liked moving them about like they were puppets or pieces on a chessboard. He had no real interest in me or my daughter, he just wanted to keep us under his power.”

“He didn’t try to pressure you into a more, shall we say intimate relationship?” Mrs. Jeffries asked.

Sarah closed her eyes briefly and cringed. “He tried. But I fought him off. After that, I was careful not to be alone in the house with him. Then Michael came back from Italy. Haydon was really a coward. I think he knew that if he tried to touch me again, Michael would hurt him.”

Mrs. Jeffries frowned. Something didn’t make sense here. “If Haydon was frightened of Michael Taggert, why did he hire him to do the artwork on his new pub?”