Must the Maiden Die (19 page)

It puzzled me to know
.

—Emily Dickinson, circa 1860

Glynis stood outside the parlor until she
could regain some balance before approaching the Brants' cook. When
she started down the corridor to the kitchen, she heard her name
called.

And then called, again. "Miss Tryon?" The
voice came from the upstairs.

Glynis turned and went back to the foot of the
steps. Above her on the landing, Helga Brant stood leaning on her
cane, apparently not as unwell as Konrad had earlier
portrayed.

"If you have a moment, Miss Tryon, I should
like to speak with you. Will you come upstairs, please?"

"Yes, of course," Glynis said, thinking
herself fortunate to have dodged Konrad, an unlikely,
bourbon-breathing, knight-errant guarding his mother's drawbridge.
Or, perhaps he was more chivalrous than drunk. She
had
seen
him pour out his bourbon, so he might be making an effort not to
further distress his mother. Although it might also be that he
feared his brother Erich. The word in town was, so Cullen had told
her, that Konrad had been expelled from medical school because of
his dissolute behavior. A rumor borne out as fact, if Erich's
comment the previous night was any indication.

Glynis lifted the hem of her dress before climbing
the steep flight of stairs to the landing, where Helga Brant had
lowered herself onto a bench built under the stained glass window.
A moment later, the white cat sprang from the banister to land on
his mistress's lap with the lightness of a snowflake.

After Glynis's covert glance assured her
that all doors along the upstairs corridor were closed, she seated
herself next to Mrs. Brant.

"What a magnificent window," she said,
looking up at the stained glass, composed of pearl-white lilies and
red poppies traced against a field of brilliant emerald green. The
flower motif obviously extended beyond the parlor. Had perhaps
crept into every corner of the house like overgrown ivy, save for
Roland Brant's library.

Helga Brant, stroking the cat with a
tremulous right hand, while her left grasped the edge of the bench,
gazed at the window, saying, "It is magnificent, isn't it. My
father had it shipped to me from Munich as a wedding gift. Munich,
in Bavaria," she added. "Naturally he knew how much I love
flowers."

And yet she had no garden, Glynis thought
with sadness. She made herself smile in response to the comment,
hoping the woman's usual restraint would lift to reveal something
more about herself. "Did you grow up in Bavaria, Mrs. Brant?" she
asked.

There was more than a touch of sorrow in the
woman's voice, when she nodded and said, "It was so long ago, my
growing up. My mother, too, loved flowers, Miss Tryon. For some
time, my father employed five full-time gardeners, and Mother kept
them busy every minute. There were so many roses that their scent
carried throughout the region where we lived. Oh, we had splendid
large gardens then, known for miles around. It was as if we lived
in a park."

Her father must have had considerable
wealth, Glynis assumed. But she shouldn't try to make assessments
now. There would be time later to comb through this
information.

"As you may have noticed," Mrs. Brant was
saying, "there are no gardens here. My husband did not like
flowers."

She said it in such a way, her voice tight
with emotion, that Glynis could not find the right words to
respond. Even if Roland Brant had not liked flowers, would it have
been such a hardship to allow his wife something she cared for so
much? It was a side to the man Glynis would not have expected.

She was spared a response, for Mrs. Brant
said, "Enough of the past. I asked to speak with you, Miss Tryon,
because I want to know if there has been any word of the kitchen
maid. Has she been found?"

"I'm afraid not. Not yet, but Constable
Stuart has men searching for her. Mrs. Brant, do you have any idea
where the girl might have gone?"

"None at all. I have asked myself that
repeatedly, but I cannot think of any place. I am quite fearful for
her safety. As I believe Clements told you, she does not
speak."

"Yes, he told me. But she wasn't always
mute, was she?" Glynis didn't want to reveal to the woman what had
been Elise and Derek Jager's reaction to this question, but she
wasn't sure why. She had learned, however, that with this sort of
thing she should trust her instincts.

Helga Brant was staring up at the window when she
said. "No, the girl wasn't always mute."

"When did she stop talking, do you
know?"

"Well over a year ago, as I recall."

"Did there seem to be any reason? By that I
mean did something happen that might have caused it?"

Helga Brant gave her a quick sideways look.
"Such as what, Miss Tryon?"

"For instance, had she been ill? Did she
have the measles or the pox?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Although, there was
the incident of..." Helga Brant's voice trailed off, and she seemed
reluctant to say more.

"Mrs. Brant," Glynis urged, "anything you
can tell us about the girl could be of some help."

"Well, she did love animals," the woman said
with some hesitation. "I recall one time, when the maid Phoebe was
ill and the girl had to clean the bedrooms—which she had never done
before—she became distraught when she found Konrad's butterfly
collection. And then, the day my husband had to shoot a horse that
became lame, the girl was inconsolable."

"Was that close to the time she stopped
talking?"

But Helga Brant's face had suddenly
blanched, and beads of perspiration formed on her upper lip. She
put a hand to her throat, saying, "I can't remember, Miss
Tryon."

"Are you feeling ill?" Glynis asked, alarmed by the
abrupt change in the woman.

"No. No, I'm quite well, but I am rather
tired. If you will excuse me, I believe I must say good day to
you."

Glynis rose and started to ask if she could
help Mrs. Brant to her room, but the woman was already rising with
the aid of her cane. And Glynis sensed she would be
embarrassed
,
or even offended by an offer of assistance.
Meanwhile, the white cat, having jumped to the floor, streaked off
as if pursued by the hounds of hell.

Mrs. Brant took a few unsteady steps to the
stair railing and pulled on the bell cord there. A moment later a
door along the upstairs corridor opened and Konrad Brant looked
out, just as Clements came running up the steps, taking them two at
a time, belying his apparent age.

"Mother," Konrad said anxiously, "are you
having another spell?"

"I am just fatigued," she said, her voice more firm
than frail. She turned and said, "I trust you will let me know,
Miss Tryon, when the girl is found?"

She looked as if she expected an answer, but
before Glynis could do more than nod, Konrad intervened. He took
one of his mother's arms and motioned for Clements to take the
other, and with Helga Brant between them, they led her to a nearby
door. When Konrad opened it, Glynis had a brief glimpse of a
rose-colored bedroom, which looked as cluttered with furniture as
the parlor. Then Konrad closed the door behind them.

Glynis was standing at the top of the
stairs, reflecting on what might have caused Mrs. Brant's sudden
malaise, when Konrad emerged from the room. He seemed surprised to
find her still there. "Mother is resting comfortably now, Miss
Tryon. And I'm sure you're wanted downstairs."

Meaning she was not wanted upstairs.

"I hope your mother is all right, Mr.
Brant."

Konrad smiled and nodded, obviously waiting
for Glynis to leave.

As she descended the stairs, it occurred to
her that the steps might be difficult for Mrs. Brant. She would
probably require assistance, which, if no one were there to help,
could keep her a virtual prisoner in the upstairs bedroom. But
then, Konrad and Clements appeared to be highly solicitous of her.
And Clements also seemed to be omnipresent.

The smell of freshly baked bread and
roasting chicken met Glynis before she entered the large kitchen,
two of whose windows looked out onto the same grassy track as did
that of the music room.

"I'm Glynis Tryon," she said to a wiry Negro
woman of middle age, who was standing at a table and rolling dough
with practiced motions. "Are you Addie?"

"Yes'm," came the reply. The woman barely
glanced at Glynis from large hooded eyes in a square face the color
of cherry wood. Her sinewy arms were dusted with flour, and she
wiped her hands several times on her long, cotton apron. It was
rare to see a cook so thin, Glynis thought, although she recognized
the woman.

"I know your cousin Isaiah Smith," Glynis
said to her. "His wife Lacey is my niece's assistant at EMMA'S
dress shop. And I think I've seen you in town at the Fourth of July
picnics."

Addie gave Glynis a longer look, and nodded, then
picked up two thinly rolled circles of dough and draped them over
the pie plates. As she lightly pressed the dough into place, Glynis
said, "Constable Stuart is asking everyone in the household about
Roland Brant's death, and I offered to talk to you. Would you mind
answering some questions?"

"Don't s'pect I have a choice." Addie turned
to the far end of the table to throw several handfuls of flour into
an immense bowl filled with pieces of cut rhubarb steeping in
sugar, then tossed the mixture with a long-handled wooden spoon. "I
got to get these pies done, though."

Glynis went to the table in the center of
the room. "May I sit here?" she asked, motioning to a high wooden
stool.

The woman brought the bowl closer to the pie
plates, and with raised eyebrows said, "Nobody ever asked leave to
sit in this kitchen before. Go ahead."

"Addie, were you here in the house Sunday
night?" Glynis asked, perching herself on the stool.

"I was home. Never sleep over here 'less
there's a big doin' early the next day," Addie answered, spooning
the rhubarb mixture into the pastry-lined pie plates. Glynis felt
her mouth pucker even as Addie poured in more sugar, then sprinkled
a half cup of raisins over the top of each filling. "Where is
home?" she asked.

The woman's glance said she thought this was
no one's business but her own. She answered, however, "Same road
as Isaiah and Lacey, but down a piece from them." She gave Glynis
another hooded look, before she added, "You can ask them, Lacey and
Isaiah, about that, 'cause I stopped there on my way home Sunday.
Don't like working on the Sabbath, but I got to keep my job."

"Do you remember what time it was when you
left here?"

"Not exactly, I don't. It was before dark,
though."

"Were all the family members in the house at
that point?"

"Missy, I don't know where the family
members were. I stay in here, they stay out there. I like it that
way." She spoke the last sentence slowly, as if Glynis should take
particular note of her preference. She began rolling out dough for
the top crusts.

"I apologize for intruding," Glynis said
with a sigh, "but I'm afraid this has to be done. Surely you want
to see the one who killed Mr. Brant brought to justice."

The rolling pin paused as the woman looked directly
at Glynis, her expression impossible to interpret. Glynis waited to
see if Addie would comment, but she only looked down again and
continued to roll out the dough.

"How long have you worked here?" Glynis asked,
wanting to leave the unfriendly kitchen, the brooding house, and
the peculiar Brant cadre altogether.

" 'Bout a year and a half," Addie replied,
taking a knife from a drawer and beginning to cut off strips of
dough to form latticed crusts.

"So the girl Tamar had already been working
here for some time when you came?"

Addie shrugged. "Guess so."

"Well, was she here, or not, Addie?" Glynis
said, trying to keep impatience out of her voice and aware she was
not succeeding.

"She was here."

"What did you think of her? Did you like
her?"

"Didn't think of her at all. She was just a
kitchen maid, not worth thinking about. No more'n these nosy
questions of yours."

Glynis slid off the stool and went to stand
across the table from the woman. "I've apologized for intruding,
but whether you consider them worthy or not, Addie, these questions
have to be answered. You have a choice, you know. You can talk to
me now, or Constable Stuart can make you go to his office at the
lockup to answer them. Frankly, I think you have too much dignity
to want to do that. But it's up to you."

In return for what she knew was an
ill-advised outburst, Glynis was forced to stand and wait while the
woman began laying the strips of dough in a crisscross pattern
across the rhubarb filling. When Addie had finished one pie and
started on the other, she finally relented. "So what else you want
to know?"

"What was the girl Tamar like. For
instance, did she talk to you?"

"Didn't talk to no one."

"Did you ever hear her say anything?
Anything at all?"

The floury hands stopped moving, and it
seemed the woman was about to answer, but she pressed her lips
together and said nothing.

"Do I understand," Glynis persisted, "that
you never heard the girl make a single sound?"

Addie shook her head, the flour dust flying.
"Didn't say that. You asked about talking, not about making sounds.
I heard her cry a couple times."

"When?"

"Mornings, sometimes, she'd be crying when I came
in. But she always stopped, soon as I told her to do
something."

"So she wasn't a girl who wept often?"

"I wouldn't say she was weepy, no." Addie
picked up a pie and with the knife began trimming away the excess
dough of the crust, twirling the plate on her upturned fingers like
a circus juggler.