Sally Spencer - Blackstone and the New World

‘Your ermine?’

‘My robes of state,’ Blackstone amplified. ‘Didn’t I mention that I was Lord Blackstone of Chucklebuttie?’

‘No, you didn’t. So you are a lord?’

‘We prefer the term “peer of the realm”,’ Blackstone said, sounding slightly disappointed that the woman had not known that.

‘Yet you still find the need to work for a living?’

‘So it would seem, or I wouldn’t be here.’

‘Are you poor ?’ Mrs van Horne asked, putting the same emphasis on the last word as she might have put on leper .

Blackstone laughed. ‘Of course I’m not poor . I follow the profession of police officer out of a strong sense of duty. It’s what we peers of the realm call noblesse oblige.’

‘What an extraordinary breed of people you English seem to be,’ the lady said.

But the look of disdain had quite vanished from her face, and now she seemed to be regarding him almost as an equal.

‘I assume that your butler told you of the reason for my visit, Mrs van Horne,’ Blackstone said.

‘Indeed. You wish to question one of my servants — a Norma Something-or-other.’

‘Nancy,’ Blackstone corrected her. ‘Nancy Greene.’

‘Just so. But I’m afraid that will not be possible, as Boone has just informed me that the girl is no longer in my employ.’

‘Why did she leave? Was she dismissed?’

Mrs van Horne wafted her hand through the air in a way which suggested that it was an extraordinary question for him to have asked.

‘I have absolutely no idea, though given the lack of respect that the working class are allowed to display towards their betters these days, it would not surprise me if she had been ungrateful enough to have simply removed herself from my service without so much as a by-your-leave.’

Blackstone was finally catching on. ‘You have no idea who she is, have you?’

‘Indeed I do not,’ the lady said haughtily. ‘I have so many servants in my household, you see, that I could not possibly keep track of them all, even if I were inclined to.’

Blackstone was growing bored with the game — and even more bored with the woman’s pompous vulgarity.

‘Could I speak to the servants now?’ he asked.

Mrs van Horne nodded graciously. ‘I must admit that my first thought, as you entered the room, was to refuse you permission to see them, since you did not seem at all like the right kind of policeman.’ She paused. ‘All four of the police commissioners for New York City have dined at this house, you know. And on more than one occasion!’

Then it must have been the food that brought them back for second helpings, Blackstone — because it certainly couldn’t have been the company.

‘But you changed your mind,’ he said aloud.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Your first thought was to deny me permission.’

‘Ah, yes, but having spoken to you more fully, I have decided it would be wrong to go by initial appearances.’

Mrs van Horne tugged gently on the silk bell pull, and the butler appeared instantly in the doorway.

‘Lord Blackstone would like to interview the servants, Boone,’ Mrs van Horne said. ‘See to it.’

‘Certainly, madam,’ the butler said. He turned, and bowed slightly in Blackstone’s general direction. ‘If you would like to follow me, my lord, I will see to it that all you require is effected.’

Then he raised his head again, looked Blackstone squarely in the eye — and gave him a broad wink.

They were sitting at the breakfast table in the butler’s parlour. They had taken off their jackets and were both savouring the taste of the vintage port which Boone had had sent up from the wine cellar.

‘What happened upstairs was better than I’d ever hoped it would be,’ the butler said. ‘I was nearly in hysterics when you said you were a peer of the realm, and that fat sow actually believed you.’

‘So you were listening at the door,’ Blackstone said.

‘Naturally I was listening at the door. We all have to take our amusement where we can find it.’ Boone took a sip of his port. ‘Of course, you wouldn’t fool anyone with real class for a minute,’ he continued, matter-of-factly. ‘Even with a coronet on your head, a page boy walking behind you holding your train, and a company of heralds trumpeting your arrival, the Quality would have had you marked down as a fake the moment they saw you.’

‘I fooled your mistress,’ Blackstone said.

‘That just proves my point,’ Boone replied. ‘You have to be born into class. However much you might want to, you can’t buy it and you can’t acquire it through marriage. Which is why the master would still be a gentleman even if he lost everything and ended up living on the street. And why the mistress will never be anything but a tea merchant’s daughter if she lives to be a hundred.’

‘You’re a snob,’ Blackstone said.

‘Damned right I am,’ Boone agreed.

Blackstone took another sip of the ruby port. It really was an excellent vintage.

‘Tell me about Nancy Greene,’ he said.

Boone hesitated before speaking. ‘If I’m going to do that, I’d first like to know why you’re interested in her.’

For a moment Blackstone considered telling the butler a convenient lie, then he looked into Boone’s sharp eyes and quickly realized that lying would never work with this man.

‘I believe she has some information about the murder of Inspector Patrick O’Brien,’ he said.

‘You’re not suggesting she was involved in it?’

‘Not directly, no.’

‘So she’s indirectly involved?’

‘We think so.’

‘And if you find her, will she be punished for that indirect involvement?’ Boone asked, and though he tried to give the impression it didn’t matter to him one way or the other, he failed badly.

‘No, I don’t think she will be punished,’ Blackstone said.

And he meant it, for while she was certainly guiltier than Jenny had been, her guilt weighed less than a feather when compared to that of the man who had murdered O’Brien, and the man who had ordered his murder.

Boone nodded, apparently satisfied by the answer. ‘There are positions in this household that some people would almost kill for,’ the butler said. ‘Footmen, coachmen, valet, lady’s maid and the like. But there are also jobs , and some of them are so vile that even a starving immigrant, straight off the boat, would think twice about taking them. That’s why we sometimes fill some of those jobs with young girls from the orphanage.’

‘Because they have no choice?’ Blackstone asked.

‘Because they have no choice,’ Boone confirmed.

‘And Nancy Greene had one of those jobs?’

‘Yes, she did. She was a scullery maid, which is just about the lowest of the low. The scullery maid is the first one up in the morning, lighting the kitchen boilers, and she’s the last one to bed, after she’s finished cleaning up after everybody. She doesn’t eat with the rest of the servants. What she gets given is the rest of the staff’s leftovers. Now you might say that isn’t fair — and I’d agree with you — but that’s the way things have always been run, and it will take a better man than me to change them.’

‘She must have hated it,’ Blackstone said.

‘She probably did,’ Boone agreed. ‘But if she did, she was too smart to show it.’

‘Smart?’

‘Resentful scullery maids remain scullery maids for ever. But the ones who cheerfully tackle whatever task they’re given are the ones who get chosen for promotion — and Nancy had understood that within a couple of days of arriving here. She was ambitious, you see, and I did all I could to fuel that ambition.’