The Black Diamond Read online

  As she had to come no farther than from the other side of London, she arrived that same evening. Her coming left me free to prepare my belongings for the trip, regretfully sorting out to leave behind anything of elegance or a partying nature. The impoverished daughter of a curate would not be so fashionable as Miss Thompson, living with her well-to-do aunt. My gold locket and my watch were the only pieces of jewelry I took with me. When anything fine I possessed had been removed, there was only one trunk to go to Widecombe with me. We had it sent to the hotel in a hackney cab the evening before I was to leave, in case it had to be there early for storage on the train.

  I had the intervening day to say goodbye to my few friends, and to invent a story to account for my absence. A connection in Scotland was turned into an ailing aunt who required my services, for I did not intend to tell anyone but my aunt where I was going. I slept little the last night at home. In my mind, I was already at Palin Park, searching for Rosalie.

  Chapter Two

  The railways held an awful fascination for me—for anyone, I expect, who was familiar with them only from the outside. To see them roaring and shrieking through the countryside, belching smoke and ash, was a fearful sight. I was pleasantly surprised to discover them to be more comfortable than the horse-drawn carriage—smoother, faster. Box lunches were taken on board by the passengers, for of course there was no food available on the train. I sat with a servant called Molly Darby, who had come with the Palins to London to visit her ailing mother.

  “Mr. Palin, he said I could come,” she told me, her little bosom swelling with pride. She was a young girl, not more than seventeen, with bright eyes of a peculiar reddish-brown color. Her hair was more or less the same shade, her two claims to beauty, for her teeth were wide-spaced at the front, and her nose a poor snub little thing more fitting to a piglet than a girl. “Miss Martin didn’t like it, I can tell you.”

  “That is Mrs. Palin’s woman, is it?” I asked, looking down the carriage to where Mrs. Palin sat with her companion.

  “Her dresser. Spends all her time fixing up the mistress’s outfits. She has a round hundred of them, I warrant.”

  I had been admiring one of the hundred for the past minutes. Mrs. Palin was extremely fashionable, and extremely pretty. I would not quite use the word “beautiful,” though she had such a majestic air about her that the word might apply. She was smaller and younger than I had expected. She had hair the shade of burnished copper, done up high on her proudly erect head. The face was delicate, a white oval, dominated by a pair of green eyes, heavily fringed. Her mouth was small, a mobile mouth. She talked and smiled while she sat with her woman, and even pouted occasionally, I wondered what she was saying. The traveling suit she wore was of moss green, exquisitely cut. A fur had fallen from her shoulders to rest on Martin’s knee. Everything about the woman was feminine, dainty, elegant.

  “Where is Mr. Palin?” I asked Molly, wondering he did not sit with his wife.

  “Off talking to men in another car. If madame didn’t have Martin with her, he’d be at her side. He don’t like Martin above half, but the madame is that fond of her, she takes her everywhere. She’d set her beak at the master’s table if he allowed it.”

  It was difficult to see in what the fondness had its basis. Miss Martin was a dark-haired, middle-aged dragon. She did not once crack a smile, nor even speak much to her mistress, except to say an occasional word in response to some comment. She was very high on her dignity.

  I wished to discover what I could of Palin Park from Molly while I had this opportunity of privacy and leisure, but the girl had a million questions to put to me, and as soon as I answered them, some new feature of our trip would intrude. It was exhilarating to be hurtling along, the scene ever changing before our eyes. We were sweeping through the autumnal countryside, where yellow fields of stubble would suddenly give way to darker tracts of forest, to be replaced within minutes by a village, a river, a mansion, a hovel or cathedral. I could not draw my eyes from it. This was the way to see the country! No stopping every fifteen miles to change horses, but only occasionally to disgorge or take on passengers, or to refill the coal car. By the day’s end, the gentle meadowlands of Surrey and Hampshire had given way to the wilder terrain of the west country, the irregular chalk hills of Dorset, dotted with sheep, and also herds of cattle grazing on the undulating meadows of the fertile sections.

  I was glutted with scenery as we at last approached Devon in the afternoon. A pain nagged at the back of my head, caused, I believed, by the spectacles, that threw everything into such sharp focus. Devon was not so bleak as I had feared from a rapid perusal of a travel book my aunt kept at home. She had been all the way to Lands End once, to the very outermost tip of England, where the land meets the sea. She spoke disparagingly of the moors of Devon. The moors, Molly told me, lay beyond our destination, “with that awful Dartmoor Prison at Princetown,” she went on, her brown eyes goggling. “They break out, you know, and lurk on the moors. There was one hiding for a week, before they caught him.”

  “Did he hurt anyone?”

  “No, he was weak from hunger and cold. It was in the winter. You never want to venture on to the moors, Miss Bingham. A soul can get lost. There’s naught but rocks and heather, heather and rocks, far as the eye can see. No landmarks for spotting, but only space.”

  A soul can get lost. A strange image loomed up in my mind, of Rosalie wandering, a lost soul on the moors, with the prison somewhere nearby. Was it possible she had disappeared on the moors? “Do you know of anyone who did get lost there?” I asked her, making it a general, safe question.

  “You never do know what happens when folks just go away, do you, miss?” was her ambiguous reply. Her tone was wistful. Before I could say more, she jumped up in her seat. “There’s our river!” she exclaimed, excitement lending a rosy hue to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eye.

  “What is it called?” I asked, seeing a winding black snake in the distance.

  “Why, it’s the East Webburn, miss. Fancy a smart girl like you not knowing that! Look now, you can see our roof there, to the left,” she ran on, pointing to a long line of roof, pierced with gabled windows and chimneys behind, with a regal pediment at its center. The house was of gray stone. I could see no more. “That there is Palin Park,” Molly told me, as proud as if she owned the place.

  There were two vehicles awaiting us at the station, a fine black carriage pulled by a pair of black-legged bays for the master and mistress, and a simple trap for the servants.

  “I see Martin has got herself into the family carriage,” Molly scolded as she directed the boy to move over and make room. To be fair to Miss Martin, the trap was crowded with the three of us, and the boy took little enough space.

  I looked about with increased interest as we neared Widecombe, with Palin Park just beyond its boundary. The fields were cultivated, the land more fertile than I expected. Widecombe was nestled in the lap of a broad valley, but even here there were outcroppings of the native granite. Molly drew it to my attention when we reached Mr. Palin’s property.

  There was a parkland through which a roadway of crushed stone went along fairly straightly. The house sat at the top of a circular loop of drive. The house was austerely beautiful, with only a small fountain in the circle of grass enclosed by the drive to add any frill. The house had no porch, no columns, just the pale granite stone, standing massive, foursquare, the facade pierced by nine latticed windows on each level. There was a Grecian pediment protruding from the second story to the roof, with the gabled windows spotted from afar, smaller than the windows below, but also latticed. At this close range, it was seen there were arms extending behind the building, to give it the shape of a squared horseshoe. Looking over my shoulder as we drove toward the rear, I saw a gently rolling hill, with a gazebo off in the distance, sitting like a fancy cup in a saucer.

  We entered by the back door, with Molly warning me to watch my step. The Palins had alighted at the main entrance to ent
er in the accustomed manner of the upper classes. The housekeeper was busy making them welcome. It was Molly who took my coat, hung it in a corner of the large, warm kitchen, behind a door, and made me known to Cook. This dame soon had us sitting at her table, eating freshly baked bread and cold meat, with a pot of strong tea “to take out the wrinkles,” as she described our travel-weary condition.

  I said very little; this was Molly’s hour. She related to Cook the features of her visit to her mother, whose health was recovering. This done, she recounted for the country-bred Cook the wonders of London—the streets as bright with gaslight by night as with the sun by day, the shops full of marvelous things, each one of them more expensive than the last. “Isn’t that a caution!” Cook remarked at frequent intervals. Molly handed, with a proud-shy look, a brown parcel to Cook. It was a prayer book, received with as much joy as though it had been a Gutenberg Bible.

  “I’ll cherish it, dear,” Cook said. She was round and red and happy, as a good cook should be. Her name was Mrs. Fabber, but she was called Cook. A few polite remarks were made to include me in the conversation.

  “You’ll like Miss Bingham,” Molly told Cook. “Her pa was a curate. She’ll know all the prayers and gospels.”

  I assumed Cook was more than usually religious, and hoped she would not truly expect me to know all the gospels, for my reading was more likely to be of novels, poetry or history.

  We were soon visited by the housekeeper, Mrs. Steyne, an altogether more imposing female than the other servants encountered. She was a stately dame, sixtyish, with gray hair pulled into a tight knob on top of her head. She wore a black dress, and an air of authority, but kindly authority. She told Molly to take me to my room and see if the boys had gone for the trunks, then she turned to Cook to order dinner for the master and mistress. I went upstairs with Molly, by the kitchen staircase. It was narrow and dark and had a sharp turn halfway up.

  “You’ll be sleeping in the nursery wing,” Molly told me, turning right at the top of the stairs. “The rest of us sleep above, except for Martin, of course. She always has to stick like a burr to madame. You’ll not be bothered by the likes of her. She sleeps in the main wing.”

  The right wing had been set aside for the children, the nursery wing, leading me to believe that at some point in the Palin history, they had been more fertile than at present. Only the one set of rooms was occupied, the little boy’s and my own chamber adjacent to it. A schoolroom and a playroom also showed signs of occupancy.

  “Where is the boy I am to tend? Robert, I think his name is.”

  “Cook said she’d fed Bobby already, not knowing what time we’d land in. He’d be at the stables, likely as not. He prefers horses to people, that one.”

  “Should I go and get him?”

  “John Groom will send him back when he’s tired of him. It’s coming on dark. He’ll be here soon enough.”

  Before long, my trunk arrived from the station. I busied myself making a temporary home of my little room. It was a cozy spot, the oak floor planks partially covered by a lively braided rug, the walls white with yellow flowers, the window hangings of crisp, clean cotton. As I hung my few simple gowns in the clothespress and laid my linens in the drawers of the oak dresser, I was overcome with the strange sensation that eight months ago, Rosalie had stood here, on this spot, doing the same thing.

  The bed where I would lay my head this night had held hers only two months ago. I looked carefully about every nook and cranny of the room for any reminder of her occupancy. At the back corner of the top drawer of the dresser, I found one of the tortoiseshell hairpins she used. Such a small, fragile link, but it was all I found. I put it on the dresser, sat on the side of the bed and glanced to the window.

  Darkness had fallen in the approximately sixty minutes I had been busy. Surely Bobby was back from the stables by now. I went belowstairs to learn from Cook that he had come in grimy from head to toe, and was that minute being scrubbed by a footman, who was to put him to bed.

  “You’ll start out with him fresh in the morning, dear,” the kindly woman said. “Mr. Palin thought it might upset him to see a new face just before he went to his bed.” I was keenly disappointed to have to wait.

  The kitchen was all abustle. Tempting meats and vegetables were being ladled into silver-covered serving bowls for rapid transfer up to the dining room.

  “Master don’t like his food cold,” Cook took time to inform me over her shoulder. When the food had left the kitchen, she sat down for a brief rest before dessert should be required. The blue enamel teapot, always warming on the back of her great black stove, was brought forth.

  “I’ve made him up a nice gingerbread for his dessert. He likes that, with some of my own peach preserves. He’s not much of a sweet tooth, but he does like my gingerbread,” she admitted with modest pride.

  It was strange she made no mention of the mistress, who might more naturally take an interest in her cooking. I mentioned this.

  “She is not an eater,” was the strange reply. “Doesn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive. She lives on meat, like a wild animal. Never touches a sweet.”

  “That’s how she keeps her trim figure,” Bess said. Bess was a bright-eyed, pert upstairs servant, who kept a pretty trim figure herself. She managed to make a decent blue gown and white apron look not only attractive, but fashionable. It was the tiny waist that did it, and the black curls peeping out from under her cap.

  Mrs. Steyne, the housekeeper, had her own dining room where she ate in state with the butler, but no one expressed surprise when she joined us for a cup of tea. I found her appearance daunting, but as neither Cook, Molly nor Bess retired into her shell, I assumed she was not so haughty as she looked. I said little. I had come to listen and learn, so did no more than answer the few questions that were put to me by one or the other of them.

  “Well, our holiday is over,” Mrs. Steyne said as she arose. She strode from the room, back to her own corner of the house.

  “What does she mean by that?” I asked Molly.

  It was Bess who replied. “With the mistress back among us, there’ll be no peace.”

  “Aye, you’ll have to leave off chasing Eddie, the head footman,” Cook told her with a knowing nod.

  “I don’t chase Eddie. He chases me,” was her saucy answer. “If I was to bother chasing anyone, it would be the master.”

  “Good luck to you,” said Cook, in disparaging accents.

  “Oh he’s not so stiff and proper as he looks. He told me I looked fetching in my cap. Fancy him noticing I put a blue ribbon on it.”

  “If the mistress catches you rolling your eyes at him, you’ll be out the door,” Cook warned her.

  “Is she very strict?” I asked.

  “She’d send the lot of us packing if she could. You want to get into her good graces like Bess, Miss Bingham, or your life will be a misery,” Molly told me.

  “Tell her she looks beautiful,” Bess advised, with a laugh. “I do, and she never notices whether I bothered to dust the spare rooms or air the beds.”

  “She’ll have little to do with you,” Cook assured me. “She don’t take no interest in the master’s son.”

  “What—is Bobby not her son too?” I asked, shocked at this information. Rosalie had never mentioned it.

  “Lord love us no, child,” Cook said. “He’s four years old. They’ve not been married much above twelve months.”

  “Madame will not destroy her figure by bearing a child,” Bess prophesied.

  “I didn’t realize he had been married before,” I said.

  “Oh yes. The first Mrs. Palin was a real lady,” Cook answered. She left the comparison hanging; it did not take much ingenuity to complete it.

  “So is the present one,” Bess added. “She is just a different sort of lady. I don’t mind her.”

  “You wouldn’t mind Satan, as long as he let you primp yourself up with ribbons, and didn’t ride you too hard,” Cook averred.

  Molly
began filling a basin with hot water to wash the dishes. “Shall I wipe for you?” I volunteered.

  “That you’ll not!” Cook said, her red face accepting no argument. “You’ll have your hands full tending to Master Robert. You’ll need all your strength for the job. I don’t envy you, Miss Bingham. Bess, get back here and take up a wiper,” she called after the fleeing form of Bess Burack. With a hunch of her shoulders, Bess came slowly back and did as she was told.

  I went back to my room, for the clatter of dishes and busyness of the others in the kitchen made me feel in the way. I had done no more than close the curtains when there was a tap at the door. It was Mrs. Steyne, requesting me to step downstairs, as Mr. Palin wished a word with me.

  Chapter Three

  Having entered Palin Park by the back door, and having limited my excursions thus far to the east wing and the kitchens, I was totally unprepared for the splendor that met me as Mrs. Steyne, with stately step, ushered me down the great staircase to the main floor. The broad and shallow stairway debouched into the main hall, where an expanse of well-polished floor was decorated with a Persian carpet in beautiful shades of ivory, turquoise and rose. The entrance-way was paneled and hung with framed pictures of local scenes. The soft, cozy flicker of gaslight cast a welcome warmth as it was reflected from the walls.

  On a marble-topped table under one of the wall brackets sat the largest, loveliest ginger pot I had ever seen. It was stark white, with one orange poppy looking so real one was tempted to pick it. To the left I had a glimpse of a stately saloon, but it was not in this direction I was led.

  “Mr. Palin is in his study,” she told me. Her face wore a proud, proprietary expression as she regarded me. I was doing a very poor job of concealing my admiration at all the finery.

  “It is a beautiful home, isn’t it?” I nodded, too busy looking to frame a reply. “I’ll give you a tour tomorrow,” she promised.