In a Gilded Cage - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,62

She didn’t ask you to go with her?”

“No, miss. Didn’t take a single one of us, not even Cook, who had been with the family all those years. But then it wasn’t Miss Lydia’s decision, I’m sure of that. He ruled the roost from the moment he showed up, didn’t he?”

My landlady nodded. “Pity that the Johnsons had to go and die.”

“It was. It was a grand place to work at one time,” Sarah said wistfully. “The house always just so and the gardens were really lovely. Old Mr. Johnson loved his garden, didn’t he. Employed a pack of gardeners—mostly foreigners . . .”

“I remember you were sweet on that one Italian gardener,” my landlady said, giving Sarah a nudge in her amply cushioned side. “What was his name? Antonio?”

Sarah snorted, then chuckled. “Go on with you. That was just girlish fantasies. He never looked at me twice, even though I have to say I was a good deal slimmer and better-looking in those days. If you ask me, it was Miss Lydia he was sweet on. Not that anything could have come of it, given the difference between their stations. But I remember how he used to push her on the swing and she’d look up at him, just so. . . . My, but he was handsome, wasn’t he?”

“What happened to him?” the landlady asked. “Did he go back to Italy?”

Sarah’s face clouded. “No, don’t you remember? He was killed. They reckon he drank too much at the saloon and fell off the bridge on his way home. His body was found floating in the river. Poor man. So young, too.”

She picked up the tray of dishes. “I dare say I’m better off with my Sam. Even if he’s not a barrel of laughs.” She chuckled again as she carried out the tray.

The landlady and I exchanged a glance.

“So would you know of any families around here who were friendly with Miss Lydia and the Johnsons?” I asked. “Someone must have stayed in touch with her when she moved.”

She stood, the coffee pot poised in one hand, and a cup in the other, thinking. “I never had dealings with the family personally, you understand, but Miss Lydia and I were around the same age, so I did hear of her from time to time. Those Johnsons kept a close rein on her, I can tell you. She wasn’t allowed to parties and dances like the other girls. And any young man who showed up on the doorstep was deemed unsuitable. Old Pa Johnson thought the world of her. No man was going to be good enough for her.”

“But she chose Horace Lynch,” I said, thinking of the unpleasant, bald-headed face and the sagging jowls.

“After her father died,” my landlady said. “I think she needed someone to boss her around the way her father used to. It’s funny how we women make the same mistakes over and over, isn’t it.”

“But as to friends around here?”

“The Johnsons were not what you’d call social people,” she said. “He was caught up in his work and she was a shy thing. I suppose they must have given dinner parties and ladies’ teas like anyone else but I can’t tell you who they invited to them. I wasn’t of that class. And as to the daughter—well, she went to the ladies’ seminary with the other girls of good families. Miss Addison’s, it’s called.”

“It’s still in operation?”

“Oh yes. Miss Addison—she’s an institution around here. On Buckley Street. That’s to the right off Main. I’m sure she’s kept a list of past pupils and will be able to help you.”

I drank my coffee, nodded to fellow guests, and went up to my room. That night a fierce storm blew through, rattling the window frames and howling down the chimneys. I lay awake in the unfamiliar bed, trying to think things through. What was I doing here? What did I hope to discover? I had heard the basic facts—Lydia’s parents died. Any remaining family was in Scotland. She had married Horace Lynch and moved to New York to be near the bright lights and high society. End of story as far as Williamstown was concerned. My thoughts turned to Fanny Poindexter, and her friend Dorcas. If Fanny’s husband had killed her, we’d have no way of proving it. I was glad Dorcas looked as if she was on the road to recovery, or my life would become impossibly complicated.

By morning the wind and rain had abated