All That Glitters: A Maggie Power Adventure (Maggie Power #2) *Unedited version*

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

It was to be my final evening at Hill House. Blake had called earlier that afternoon to question Morelle once more, I supposed. I saw the back of his long, great coat, as he stepped out through the tradesmen's entrance, an obvious fall from grace in light of his previous visits, when he was granted the distinction of leaving through the front door.
    Unfortunately, I was unable to receive any signal as to how the case was progressing from his side. If I had have found a moment to convey any information to him, it would been to inform him of how little I had discovered. For then, I believed we had been mistaken that the house held any secrets to whereabouts of William Templeton-Wells, or indeed could lead us to Mr Penny's murderer.
    It was late and I was preparing to finish my chores and set off for bed. The bell rang, all had gone to bed and I was the last remaining servant in the kitchen. I was exhausted and was beginning to think that my plan, so clever and insightful in the abstract, was merely serving as a warning to avoid a life in service.
    It was then I saw the newspaper. It had been left on the stool by the fire. I had often seen Cook sitting upon that seat, but had never seen her read. Especially not The Times newspaper.
    The bell rang again and I ignored it, hoping Davies was dealing with the urgent matter. I picked up the newspaper and began to scour the page for news, until my eyes fell upon words which shook me from my listlessness:
    "after the body of man pulled from the sewers beneath the city was identified as one Paul Eastman – a person missing since early October. "
    Why had a newspaper with that particular story been left here, where I was sure to find it?
    Somebody had left it here deliberately, I thought. But who? One of the servants? Cassie? Could she even read? Cook perhaps?
    They knew that I could not read, so why leave it here where I was sure to see it? Spite? Malice? Was this some sort of joke? Was it Cook's way of showing me how mean and low she could get with me? Leaving out, so casually, the news that my supposed father had died, to tease me, knowing I could not read...And why had I not been informed by the person who had left it on the seat? Was this some sort of trick or a way to test me, perhaps? Did the person who left it here wish to smoke me out? To see if I was, indeed, telling the truth about whom I said I was, and whether or not I could read?
    My tired mind was assaulted by too many wildly varying conclusions.
    Then it dawned on me. That was why Blake had been here. Perhaps it was he who had left the newspaper behind, as a way of warning me that my supposed father was dead, and that I now had to be more careful than ever how I proceeded. Or was it his way of saying, enough. An instruction to leave?
    Then the bell went again, it's swift, hollow ring a torment mocking my tiredness. I looked to whom it was in need of service at this late hour. It was the master of the house, I presumed. It had to be him. For whoever it was, was in the study – a place he retired to for the evening before bed.
    It rang again.
    Then Davies, the butler, entered. He saw that I had the newspaper in my hand.
    "What should I do with this?" I asked.
    "Well, it's of little use to you, is it my girl?" he said. "Besides, you're required. He wishes to see you, girly. That bell is for you. Go see what he wants."
    I nodded and put the paper back where I had found it.
    "Hope you've been a goodly girl. Not afflicted with light fingers, I hope," he shooed me. "Quick now, girl. Be quick about it, he's been waiting on you for these past ten minutes."
    I raced quickly through the house and knocked at the study door. I waited until I was ordered to enter.
    Morelle was sat at his desk, sipping spirits from a glass, in an easy, relaxed manner.
    "Please, do take a seat, Lizzie."
    I did so, but my mind was distracted by what I had read in the newspaper and I began to wonder whether or not Mr Morelle was aware of the news, too.
    "How have you found life during your short time here, Lizzie?"
    "I am indebted to your kindness, sir," I replied. "All have treating me well. Thank you, sir."
    "That's very good. Very good. Indeed my lovely wife has taken quite a fancy to you, I see. Indeed she suggested – no, informed me rather – that she's thinking of having you trained to become her own personal maid."
    I smiled and nearly laughed aloud. "Thank you for saying so, sir. Your wife's beauty is matched only by her unending kindness," When I said those words, I was thinking that perhaps I may not return to London at all, but rather take up the position offered by my mistress.
    "She has certainly taken to you, young Lizzie. My wife is indeed a unique creature. She has such a wonderful understanding of the human heart; an almost supernatural ability to see into the very soul of the people she encounters."
    "I'm glad she has taken to me so favourably, sir."
    "You have intrigued her since the very first day you arrived clutching that letter. Although, she did say there were things about you which puzzled her greatly."
    "How so, sir?"
    "Well, it is most difficult to explain. However, she has begged me to ask one, single question of you."
    "Anything you so wish, sir."
    "She wishes to know why it is you lie so much?"
    "I beg your pardon, sir."
    "She believes you to be a compulsive liar, Lizzie. That you are lying about who you say you are, your past, the story you fabricated to get into our home. She's not even convinced Lizzie is your real name."
    I was fixed rigid with fear. It felt like he was toying with me. A sly smile crept across his face. He seemed to measure the timing of each word, most deliberately, so as to unnerve me.
    "I've no idea what you is getting at, sir."
    "No? My wife is never wrong. She said she doesn't believe a word of your so-called story."
    "But we were out walking yesterday, sir. She gave no indication of mistrusting me. Indeed–"
    "See there – that's what she picked up on," he stopped for moment, shaking his head and smiling.
    "It is the way you speak, especially your vocabulary. Not the language of someone who has had to live hand to mouth, she said. And she should know. She has was reduced to a grim existence at an early age. She was not born to this life. She has had to learn to act as a lady, to learn it from watching and copying. Sometimes, she said, you speak with the lowliest and most vulgar tongue of those of any London slum. And sometimes you...you seem to forget. For instance, you said 'were' just now – correctly. Whereas you have on other occasions used 'was' in the same context. Wrongly as you very well know. And of course at times you use words such as 'indication', as you have just so done now. Not the language of the gutter, Lizzie, is it? On the contrary, I believe it to be the language of somebody who reads well and widely."
    "I've little knowledge of the world, sir. And only a little education–"
    "And as you probably know, Lizzie, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."
    "I knows I'm ignorant, sir. I've picked up so many words that I don't know the meaning of; words I use like a parrot taught to speak. Spending a little time in your wife's presence teaches me so much about–"    
    "Stop! Stop this pretence now, and tell me who exactly you are, Lizzie?" he said. He looked to the inside of the glass, avoiding my eyes, then took a sip. 
    "I ain't nobody but your scullery maid, sir," I replied.
    "No. That's who you say you are. But your story does not make sense to me – now I think upon it," he looked at me, his eyes giving no hint of what he was thinking. But the kindly way he had looked at me, two weeks or so ago when he first decided to speak to me, had now disappeared.
    "Then why would you give me a chance of work, sir?"
    "To find out what your game is, of course. My, you are a bright little thing aren't you?"
    "I have no game, sir. Everything is, as I told you before. All as was written in that letter, sir. A letter I am as yet unable to read proper."
    "Come on now, Lizzie. We both know the letter to be a fake. There is no way your father, this missing artist, could have ever known about me. That I have one of his paintings is purely by chance. So, I ask again, Lizzie, who are you, and what is your game?"
    "My name is Lizzie, sir. And I am the daughter of Paul Eastman and I came here to you because–"
    "Enough!" he roared. The change in his manner was complete. He put down his glass and stared at me. "I have watched you closely since you have been employed here, Lizzie. You may be diligent and hard-working, but there is something you are not telling me. Those sharp eyes of yours are always watching, on the look out, taking in everything around you. And my wife has seen through your performance, too. Believe me, if she says you are lying, then I know it to be true."
    "Sir, I don't know what has been said. But I am most thankful to you for giving me a chance–"
    "You still don't get it, do you, Lizzie? I know that you are fraud. I listened to your lies when you first entered this house – telling me about how your father had sold a painting to a kindly gentleman. Me, the kindly gentlemen, the one who believed in his art. Me, Lizzie? Do you still stand by that?"
    "Yes, of course, sir." I said. I was unsure what he knew, but I could not change my story. He had something on me. The idea that his wife had been scrutinizing me closely since my arrival also unnerved me. I tried to focus on Mr Morelle, but I was distracted by the idea that his wife had somehow known I was lying. How, I thought? She had been so kind and welcoming towards me. She had allowed me to be so close to her.
    "Sadly, Lizzie, I never did meet your father. If the man you described to me was indeed your father. That painting came into my possession via another man. Somebody, I fear, who is also no longer with us. And I assure you, I never, ever spoke a single word to your father, Mr Eastwood. Now do you wish to change your tune?"
    I remained quite. 
    "You see Lizzie, my partner, the famous, though now probably deceased William Templeton-Wells was the purchaser of your father's painting. Mr Templeton-Wells gave the painting to me. He met your father, not I."
    I was shaken, confused, unable to reply. My plan was unravelling and I had been found out. Yet, Mr Morelle spoke knowingly, as if he were constructing a riddle.
    "I knew you were lying when I was presented with that ludicrous letter. All I required was to find out the extent of your deceit. That's were my brilliant wife came in handy."
    And yet I knew he was lying somewhere along the line. He had to be. I had seen the very painting he spoke of, behind me now, out of view, but close to the entrance of this very room. It was him. And he had told Blake his wife had loved the painting, that he had met the artist once and bought it from him directly. However, if I repeated those words, words he had spoken only to Blake, he would know that his suspicions were real. And that I wasn't who I said I was.
    "Let us play a game shall we, Lizzie. It may be difficult for someone of your background to understand. But let us attempt it, nevertheless. It's called the truth. It's quite a simple game to play – you merely construct sentences, minus the lies."
    He stood up from his desk, removed a letter opener from inside one of the drawers and moved closer, the ivory handle of the small blade in his hand dangling between his thumb and forefinger.
    "Now, the whole truth, Lizzie," he said gripping the knife's handle in his hand, the blades' sharp point moving as close to my cheek as possible without touching.
    "Sir, I was given the letter by a friend of my father's. He had written it on behalf of my mother–"
    "Enough! I want the truth!" He slammed the blade hard into the desk.
    I shuddered. "It's true, sir!"
    As he pulled and twisted and finally removed the blade from the desk, he looked at me as if trying to figure out if I was really telling the truth.
    "Lizzie, I find it strange that the day before you arrive, a man from the Home Office appears; two days after you arrive, that awful detective calls again. And then he calls again today. And I suspect he will be back again. Do you see how I could become very suspicious in such circumstances?"
    "I don't know no police, sir. I ain't never been in trouble before."
    "And you've never seen this Mr Whitmore before? Nor ever met Detective Blake?"
    Whitmore. Had I misheard? Had he really been here too? And would he come again?
    "I don't know either of them, sir. Honest. You must believe me. Never heard of them."
    "She is lying, again," a female voice from behind said. It was her, Mrs Morelle. The lady of the house. "Put that knife away. Are you a complete fool," she continued addressing her husband. She had entered the room so silently, I had not heard. Or perhaps the noise of her entering was suffocated by my concentrated fear of that blade which he had held so close to my face.
    I dared not turn around, for fear that she could see – as her husband had persuaded me – into the very depths of my soul.
    "What were you planning to do? Kill her right here! Add another bloody corpse to the list? And in the study of all places..." She laughed mockingly. "A simply wonderful idea, my love," her tone changing from reproachful to ironic. "Marvellous thinking, especially with that detective and the man from the Home Office paying unexpected visits."
    "What do you suggest? We need to find out how much she knows," he said.
    "And when her guts are spread out across the carpet, how then do you suggest we question her?" She sighed audibly. It was as if they had forgotten I existed for a moment, and they had become engaged in a domestic squabble over an careless servant's misdemeanour.
    I hadn't yet turned to look at Mrs Morelle, but by now she had joined her husband at his desk. Had she found out that I was lying? Had she, or indeed her husband, left the newspaper regarding Eastman's death? Were they testing me, to see if I had read it? I resolved to stay silent on that matter.
    Still, I dared not look up and kept my head down and looked to the floor below.
    "Look at me, Lizzie," I heard her command. "Look at me."
    I looked up to her, tears slipping down my cheeks. She moved towards me, took a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped the tears from my face. Turning to her husband, she ordered him to leave the room.
    I heard the door close behind and knew it was just the the two of us alone in the room.
    After drying my face, she clutched me like a mother, held me in a tight embrace and began shushing me as I began to shake hysterically.
    "Sshhhhhh, it's all right now, Lizzie. Sshhhhhh, I will do all I can to protect you."
    She calmed me and held me in her arms. I felt safe for a moment. Maybe she would vouch for me, inform her husband that I was indeed telling the truth.
    "As a child, my father taught me a most important lesson, Lizzie," her voice was gentle and soothing. "I was told: the truth will make you free," she paused and let its full meaning take root in my mind.  
    "And it's true, Lizzie; believe me. The truth sets you free. Always remember that. It may even save your life. Remember, I am but a mere woman. I am weak, and can only do so much to persuade my husband to leave off you. He has already killed two men. To kill you would be a simple task for him, I fear. He scares me. He is sometimes uncontrollably violent. Not towards me, you understand. But, as I have said, he thought nothing of killing two other men. It was really nothing to him. Men that were his friends and partners no less."
    In my confused state, I was trying to figure out whom she was talking of. Was one of the two dead she mentioned William Templeton-Wells? Who was the other partner? Eastman? Was that why the newspaper had been left for me? Another elaborate warning? And what of Penny? Did she know who killed him?
    "Come on, Lizzie. Please tell me the truth of how you came to be here? Why did you choose to seek out employment at our house, and at this particular time?"
    "A woman, she gave me the letter," I sobbed. "I'm an orphan. Been working on a flower stall in London these past few months. The woman, Mrs Eastman, says her husband was missing. He was a painter. Painted likenesses of people and such things. He was also out on the streets screeving. It was her idea. She sent me here. The letter was all her idea."
    "Why Lizzie?" she asked.
    "I can't tell you, ma'am," I replied. In truth, I had not thought of a good enough reason. I was trying to give myself a bit of time, while I tried to construct a valid reason why Mrs Eastman would want to send me here.
    "My husband will make you do so eventually, Lizzie. You do realise that? So tell me, please. I can plead on your behalf, make it sound as if you were not to blame."
    I produced another flood of tears – not difficult when you genuinely believe your life hangs in the balance, as I sincerely did at that moment.
    "Come on, Lizzie. I promise to do all I can to make you safe."
    "Working on Mrs Eastman's flower stall I could see the difficulty she was having making ends meet. So I asked her about the paintings her missing husband did, and whether they was worth anything, or if he was paid properly for them. She became angry and said there was one man out in Richmond, lived in a large house with beautiful objects and all, but he paid buttons for a painting her husband did. Said Mr Morelle had fleeced him."
    "So how did you find this house?" she asked.
    "She's says her husband came and went here, painted the picture of your husband that's out hanging over on the wall. I'm sorry for this, ma'am," I paused and thought over my next move. "But she asked me to come here and steal from you. She got a friend to write the begging letter, and I was to get myself settled in here. And, at the first opportunity, I was to steal something precious, perhaps the silver, and bring it back to London and sell it."
    "Is that truly everything, Lizzie?"
    "Yes, ma'am. I'm very sorry for letting you down and all. I enjoyed our walks out together...After a few days I'd forgotten about Mrs Eastman's plan to steal from you – so much was I enjoying being here. Honest, ma'am, I wouldn't have stole nothing from you."
    I paused and thought about what I should say next. I had no idea whether or not my story was working.   
    "And now you'll never want me to be your personal maid anymore, will you ma'am?"
    I began sobbing once more, even louder than before. She held me again and rocked me back and forth.
    "I've enjoyed very much having you here, too, Lizzie. You're a talented girl. We could have done so much together."
    "Will you send for the police, ma'am?" I asked.  
    "Don't worry, Lizzie. I will never do that."
    "Thank you, ma'am," I sobbed. I began shaking and suddenly felt a chill race through my body. At that moment, I would have preferred her to get the police; it was my only way out this situation. My only way to get word back to Blake.
    "Come, my darling."
    She helped me from the chair and sat me down on a settee, close to the fire. She went to the door and left the room. Alone in that room, looking into the spitting flames surrounding the logs in the fire, I began to wonder what my fate would be. Had I persuaded the lady of the house of my criminal, yet naïve intentions?
    Soon she returned, once more with her husband.
    They ignored me, and moved towards the desk.
    "Do you believe her?" Mr Morelle asked as he sat back at his desk.
    Mrs Morelle took a seat opposite him, looked over to me and said: "She's a born liar. A very good liar, as I thought her to be. But the story she has constructed, though compelling enough, is not the truth. She's not telling us something, but I don't seem to be able to get it from her."
    "What shall we do?" he asked.
    "We need to think carefully about how to proceed with this one," she said. "It's late. We shall sleep on it"
    "And what of her?" he asked.
    "Why, she shall sleep too."
    "Might she not escape? Run away?"
    "Then we shall lock her away for the night," she replied. She looked at me and smiled. "I'm sorry Lizzie. It is for your own good. For your own protection. In case we have to get the police in the morning."
    They led me up to a small room at the top of the house. It was an empty room, along the hall and a few flights of stairs up from my chamber. Before they led me inside and locked the door from the outside, they took away my shoes.
    They said nothing and Mr Morelle pushed me inside the doorway.
    Once inside the room, I heard it locked from the outside. It was dark, but I could taste the mustiness of a room long unused. As I searched around in the dark, I made my way to a small bed, which was close to a small, round window. It had no covers or blankets. I shivered, as I became once more aware of the cold.
    After a while, once my eyes had adjusted to the dark, I stood up and explored the room as best I could. I discovered that there was also a small table and chair.
    I would not escape and my fate appeared to have been sealed. Blake would not visit any time soon, as he had earlier called. They would not contact the police, as they seemingly had much of their own to hide, including murder, if I was to believe Mrs Morelle.
    Then, as I sat in the dark, I attempted to imagine myself outside the room, out in the garden below, in a bid to work out which room I had been locked inside. I realised I was in the turret-shaped room in the roof, protruding from the side of building. Like me, it was isolated from the rest of the house; an odd addition, one which did not really belong.  
    I moved to the window and looked down into the darkness below, broken only by a couple of lights moving up and down the river at the bottom of the hill. Directly below was the garden. I tried to imagine the drop from the window, but knew it would end in a dreadful injury; or indeed death.
    I had to get out of the house, find someway of escaping. But I was locked in a room at the very top of the house. A perfect location to be trapped.
    Then I tried to open the window but the lock appeared rusted and jammed. Using the palm of my hand as a hammer, I jabbed at the rusted lock, until, eventually, it began to move. With my palm throbbing with hurt, I kept at it and soon I had the window unlocked.
    Below awaited a thick darkness. Above me, the roof of the house, impossible to climb up on to, however. Then I realised, that if I could get out of the window and move a little down the ledge, there was a large chimney stack – a base from which I could try and negotiate a path to ground.
    I opened the small window to its full height, pulled my legs to the other side and let the cold air bite at my bare, exposed feet. If I slipped now, it was to a certain death, I reasoned. If I abandoned my escape and returned to my prison, death was also a certainty.
    I had to hang my legs further down, off the window sill, until I could pull the rest of my body outside the window. When I achieved this, I then had to twist back on myself and manoeuvre my body so as I could kneel on the sill. This I achieved and I began to believe that I could pull myself up on to the roof itself.
    That I was able to do so, in such cold and unforgiving conditions, surprises me to this day.
    I made it on to the roof.
    The stars above me, my future below – if I could get to the bottom of the chimney stack and perhaps make the leap of faith to the tree opposite.  
     The tree stood some four or five feet from the ledge beneath the chimney stack. If I jumped across and grasped onto to a overhanging branch, I might be able to move myself across and find a ladder of branches, which would enable me to descend back to the ground.
    I moved downward and positioned myself at the bottom of the chimney stack. I stood up tall and, still unsteady on my feet, poised myself to jump to safety...Or unimaginable pain.
    That second or so, in which I defied gravity – and floated through the air towards the tree – seemed as long as those interminable hours of boredom I have sometimes had to endure in the company of undesirable companions.
    That I jumped, that I grabbed out and reached a branch. That I held on, somehow. That is the unadorned truth of the matter. That is how I am able to write these words upon a page many years later.
    It took some time to navigate, barefoot, the run of branches below to the ground, but somehow I managed to  descend to the bottom of the tree.  
    My feet reached and tasted the sweet, wet grass of the garden. I was still in the grounds of the house and would not feel safe until I was over the fence and away. I stopped for a moment, fancying I had seen something in the shadow by the wall of the garden. Fear or a trick of the twilight? I waited a second, then clambered over the wall.
    Once out beyond the grounds of the house, I looked back. I saw a solitary lamp glowing inside the master bedroom. I began to run, the stones digging, cutting my bare feet as they hit the ground beneath.
    I kept on, I could not stop. I had not even contemplated how I would get back to London at this point. I told myself to keep moving; move as far and as fast as possible away from that house. 
    Exhausted, cold, but running away from that house – all the while fearing my feet would stand upon an even sharper shard of rock – I continued down the road, keeping close to the trees which lined its path back down the hill. If I could only find the river, I told myself, then I would follow its course back to London. Back to Blake. Back to safety.
    Tiredness quickly seeped into my mind and body. I breathed heavily, fighting for every breath. Eventually, I slowed to a walk, but realised I was not alone on the road.
    I must have been lost in a my own thoughts, yet before I could act, I heard a carriage close behind me. I turned and could see a small flickering light up next to the driver in the box seat.
    I jumped from the road, found a thick trunk of a tree and hid myself from sight, a dozen or so feet from where I left it.
    I waited for the carriage to pass. It didn't.
    Indeed it stopped close to where I had left the road. I could see the coachman under the hazy light of the carriage. I couldn't make out if driver was Jenkinson, Hill House's coachman. Then I saw the shadow of an open door.
    Nobody stepped from out of the carriage, though a male voice called: "Here, quickly, get inside!" It came from within the carriage. Whoever it was, he knew I was out there.
    I dared not move and stood behind the tree, my heavy breath threatening to give me away. I hoped the caller, whomever he was, would soon give instructions to the coachman to drive on.
    "I know you are there. So let's end this nonsense. Come here and get inside the carriage," the voice called.
    I was caught again. I had decided I was too tired to keep on running. Besides, in the dark, if I ran into the woods, where would I be heading? And if he came after me, would I be able to outrun him?
    If it was Morelle, then I would tell him all he wished to know and hope he would not hurt me. Or worse.
    And hadn't his wife already claimed he had killed two other men? There seemed little chance of clemency.
    The idea of running loomed, once again, as the only alternative to death.
    "Get into the carriage," the voice called again. It was then I realised it was not Morelle's voice at all. Nor was it the coachman calling. Still, it was a voice I knew, a voice I feared, for it made me pull the shawl tight around my body and pray that he would leave.
    "Come on, Maggie. Enough of these silly games. I mean you no harm. Indeed I require your help. Come, get inside the carriage, before you freeze to death."
    I removed myself from my hiding place and walked to the carriage. I might not, after all, be killed by Morelle, I thought, as I was helped inside the vehicle. But the man whose hand I held, as he pulled me up and inside the carriage, would not think twice about committing such a deed.
    Indeed this gentleman would be more ruthless than Mr Morelle, I reasoned. He had very strong grounds to see me perish. 
    But for now, what remained of my life lay in the hands of one man: Thomas Whitmore.

***

Thank you so much for reading this chapter. If you have enjoyed it, please remember to vote. Thanks! :-)

***This is a working draft of my new novel. I would really appreciate it if you could highlight any errors or any aspect of the story which you feel requires more work or altering in any way. Either leave a comment below or contact me personally via the messaging system or via email: seanmcmahon30@gmail.com ***

Thank you for reading.

Sean.