Jane and the Stillroom Maid Read Online Free PDF

near enough in style to my fashionable brothers’ to suggest that he was a person of some means. A traveller such as ourselves, perhaps. An admirer of the beauties of the Peaks. Certainly not an angler, for there had been no sign of abandoned tackle. But what traveller wandered alone through hill and dale, so far from Bakewell, and without an equipage or a mount? And where were his party—the friends who might have put a name to his broken form?
    Not a traveller, then. A person long familiar with the Peaks. An excellent walker, who had come from a farm or a nearby estate in the first light of morning and mounted the path above the Wye by slow degrees, lost in heavy thought, until he achieved the heights—and a meeting that had brought his death.
    “Jane!”
    It was my sister Cassandra’s voice. I turned and espied her in the doorway of the confectioner’s opposite, waving a gloved hand. Her chestnut curls peeked demurely from a lace cap, and the cut of her gown was sober; for the briefest instant I might have been gazing upon the image of my mother, drawn from life a score of years ago.
How old we are become
, I thought, and waited for the passage of a waggon before traversing the paving stones.
    “You must sample one of Mrs. Carver’s puddings,” my sister urged. “Only think—they are called Bakewell puddings, and are peculiar to the region. I have been enjoying mine this quarter-hour, but I am certain Mrs. Carver would not hesitate to bring another for yourself.”
    I sank onto a stool in a corner of the close room and placed my head in my hands. “I could not bear the sight of food at present.”
    “What has happened?” Cassandra enquired. “I did not look for you in Bakewell until the dinner hour, at least. Are you unwell, Jane?”
    Her gentle hand was upon my shoulder. A great weariness had me in its grip, and it was enough to rest there amidst the warm smells of pastry and jam and say nothing. But Cassandra would have an answer.
    “Where is my cousin?”
    “With the blacksmith.”
    “Has Mr. Hemming’s pony thrown a shoe?”
    “The blacksmith, Cassandra, is also the surgeon. There has been … an accident.” I raised my head and looked at her; she was all anxiety.
    “Mr. Cooper,” she breathed in horror.
    “No.” I gripped her wrist in reassurance. “A person quite unknown to us all. A gentleman, rather young, with blond curls and the face of an angel. He had the look of a poet about him—rather as Cowper ought to look, and never could. He was murdered, Cassandra.”
    “Murdered! Oh, surely not—”
    “It was horrible.” I shuddered with all the force of memory. “A great wound to the temple from a lead ball, and his bowels entirely cut out. His tongue had been severed, and there was a welter of blood about the rocks. I shall never forget the cawing of those crows—”
    A stifled scream alerted me to the presence of Mrs. Carver behind her counter, and to the rising tendency of my own conversation. It would not do to cause a fit of public hysterics.
    Cassandra’s right eyebrow rose in reproof. “It sounds to be a scene drawn straight from a horrid novel,” she observed. “One of Mrs. Radcliffe’s. Only it should have been in Italy, several centuries ago, and the victim a wandering prince. Take some tea, Jane. I find that it is delightfully restoring, despite the heat of the day. Or perhaps Mrs. Carver might compound a cordial.”
    “When she is done imparting the news of murder to her neighbours,” I replied.

     
    T HE R UTLAND A RMS IS A FINE, MODERN BUILDING OF stone commanding the top of Matlock Street, with all of Bakewell falling away before it. A posting-house named The White Horse was formerly upon the site, but some two years since the Duke of Rutland, who owns the land upon which the old inn sat, pulled down the building and threw up this new one, to our infinite satisfaction. I find myself in possession of an airy bedchamber overlooking Matlock Street, where every