Page 12 of Ghost in the Garden
Angela blinked rapidly but didn’t appear to be angry about the intrusion.
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “More for Caleb than for myself. He’d have loved a son to leave all this to. To work for. Instead, he’s always in such a hurry for more and more success, as if he’s afraid time will run out before he’s done everything. If we’d had a son, he might have left something for him to do. As it is…” She trailed off, shrugging.
“Your husband is an ambitious man, then?”
“Oh, he’s very ambitious, is Caleb,” Angela said ruefully. “That’s men for you, though, isn’t it?”
“Tell me about the servants. How long have they worked for you?”
“Duggin’s worked for Caleb forever. He came with us when we moved here, keeps the rest of them in line.”
“He’s the butler, yes?”
Angela’s lips twitched, as though with some secret amusement. “I suppose you could call him that. He’s got the right kind of imposing face for it, ain’t he? I brought Mrs. Feathers in five or more years ago so I didn’t need to cook. She’s a bit of a sot, but it don’t interfere with her none. Even in a stupor she can whip up something delicious.”
“And the man who brought me to you? Bert. Is he a footman?”
“I suppose so. Caleb don’t hold with livery. He likes the servants to blend more. He hired Bert a couple of years ago to look after me, run errands for me, take me out when I need to go somewhere. Pat and Robin do much the same for Caleb.”
Bodyguards, Constance thought. Footmen often were, to a greater or lesser degree, so that wasn’t necessarily significant. “What about the maids?”
“They do the cleaning. Goldie—Marigold—is Duggin’s daughter.”
“So you can count on her loyalty, too?”
“Oh, yes. She came a couple of years ago when we moved here. Brought her friend Denise, the other maid.”
“Do you trust her?”
“I trust them all.”
“Then none of the servants have cause to upset you by making up stories about ghosts, or even dressing up as one to scare you or your husband?”
Angela regarded her pityingly. “No one’d try to scare Caleb. Or me, by association.”
So Caleb Lambertwassomeone to be afraid of. Which made sense of Angela’s reluctance to tell her husband about the investigation.
“A successful man like Mr. Lambert,” Constance said tactfully, “must have made a few enemies on the way.”
“I told you he has,” Angela said. “But this ain’t exactly cornering him in a dark alley, is it? What sort of revenge is it to creep about his garden pretending to be a ghost? Which he hasn’t ever seen anyway!”
“Fair point. Though I suppose it depends exactly what this person is doing in the garden.”
“That’s what I don’t understand. She don’tdoanything. Do you think… Do you think it reallycouldbe a ghost? Haunting the house or haunting us?”
“Is that what you believe?” Constance asked, mostly to avoid answering. She always felt the atmosphere of a house, which some of her friends called sensitivity to spirits, though she had never seen one. It was another odd contradiction in the down-to-earth, practical Angela Lambert, though.
“Sometimes,” Angela said bleakly. “Nothing we can do if it is, except move! But I need to know.”
Constance stood up. “Then why don’t you show me the kitchen and the garden to start with?”
It quickly became clear why the Lamberts employed no housekeeper—the lady of the house undertook that task herself. On the way down to the kitchen, Angela looked in on the drawing room where the two maids were busy chattering and cleaning.
“You can do the dining room next and the upstairs landing,” she said, with a nod of approval that seemed to please both the maids.
In the kitchen, Ida Feathers was busy pounding dough for bread, surrounded by other bowls and pots and a miasma of delicious smells. She didn’t curtsey to her mistress, but she did glance up and nod with an oddly sweet smile.
“She likes to cook,” Angela said. “Here’s the kettle and the pot and the mint and chamomile for my tea. China tea is here. The laundry room is through here.” She lowered her voice again. “Starch is here, and you can heat the irons there. You do know how to use a flat iron, don’t you?”
