"The majority of servants would be judged criminal if their backgrounds and tneir actions were fully known. Many were previously discharged for lying or theft and have obtained their present places with forged credentials, while not a few supplement their honest wages by acting as paid informants for housebreakers. The careful mistress must beware of those who pretend to serve.'
I continue to believe, Sabrina," Bernice Jaggers said, feeling quite cross, "that you are making a most dreadful mistake. This young woman's reputation is not personally known to you, and it is the utmost folly to trust the word of some Pinkerton person on the other side of the Atlantic. We must be vigilant. Persons hired into our household must be of the most trustworthy sort."
Sabrina Ardleigh put down her pen and turned from the small rosewood desk in the withdrawing room. "I am not hiring a servant, Bernice. I am employing Brother Thomas's daughter."
"I hardly see the difference." Bernice sat down on a carved mahogany chair and twitched the skirt of her black bombazine, which she wore in mourning for her husband, Captain Reginald Jaggers, of whom in the last years of their marriage she had not been fond. He had fallen with General Gordon at Khartoum nearly a decade before, but like the Queen, Bernice lived daily with her husband's memory. She drew her brows together severely. "She is an American. Worse yet, Irish." Her mouth puckered on the word. "You have managed for years without knowing that Thomas had a daughter, and you have managed without a secretary as well. Why must you have one now? And why is Thomas's daughter the only one who will do?"
Sabrina rose from her chair and crossed the Turkish carpet to the window that gave a view of the sloping lawn. She spoke without turning. "We have discussed the matter fully, Bernice. You are always insisting on the virtues of Christian charity. It is scarcely Christian of you to reject an opportunity to assist a woman of our own blood-''
"Christian!" Bernice shrilled. "You talk of Christianity, when you persist in consorting with those wretched spiritualists and taking part in shamefully immodest pagan rites at that horrid Temple of Morris-"
"Temple of Horus," Sabrina corrected her mildly. "Horus was the son of Isis, the most revered of Egyptian goddesses. And the rites to which you refer-"
The mention of Egyptian deities added fuel to Bernice's fire, for she was a strict Nonconformist who attended chapel three times a week and demanded that the servants do likewise. "Morris, Horus, it's all one," she snapped. "I simply do not understand Vicar Talbot, encouraging you to involve yourself in this Order of the Golden Fawn-"
"Golden Dawn." Sabrina turned. "Really, Bernice, you could at least learn to listen, even if you object to-''
Bernice snorted. "Ever since then, you have been entirely lost to good sense. Seances, magic, fortunetelling cards. You might as well leave Bishop's Keep and set up as a palm reader in Colchester."
"And leave the Ardleigh fortune to you, my dear sister?" Sabrina asked lightly, smiling a little.
Bernice closed her eyes. "I am content," she said piously. ' 'You have been overgenerous to your poor sister, whom God in His infinite wisdom saw fit to leave with little."
But Sabrina had slipped, so to speak, a dagger into the dark heart of her sister's discontent. In her youth, Bernice had been a carefree, willful young woman. After a tempestuous courtship, she had eloped with a military man of little family and no prospects. In stern consequence, her father had disinherited her. Meanwhile, Thomas, her brother and the Ardleigh heir, had quarreled with his father, renounced his fortune, and fled to America. Through attrition, then, the sizable Ardleigh estate, gained through shrewd dealings in the woolen industry, had fallen into Sabrina's hands. It was only due to her assent-not freely given but coerced with a certain compelling piece of information-that Bernice had lived at Bishop's Keep for the past four years. For the profligate Captain Jag-gers, true to his father-in-law's dire predictions, had upon his demise left his wife only a meager pension, scarcely enough to permit the purchase of a decent annual bonnet. For Bern-ice's part, she bore her widow's fate with perpetual resentment and never resigned herself to her dependency upon her sister. It was the grossest injustice that Sabrina alone had inherited what should have been shared between them!
A moment's silence followed Bernice's outburst, and then the tentative clearing of a throat. Bernice opened her eyes to glare at Amelia, the parlor maid, a brown-haired, generously endowed wench whom Bernice suspected of having an eye for the coachman.
How long had Amelia been standing there? How much had she overheard? Servants simply could not be trusted. They battened on family discord like vultures on carrion. One was at their mercy, just as poor Lord Russell had been at the mercy of his valet, who had been inspired to murder by reading a dreadful shilling-shocker. Or the tragic Mrs. Thomas, who had been hacked to pieces and parboiled by her savagely cunning maid-of-all-work, an Irishwoman. Yes, Irish! and named Kate! Bernice shuddered.
The parlor maid took a step forward, hands folded over her starched white apron. Bernice noticed that her frilled white cap was crooked.
"What is it, Amelia?" Sabrina asked.
Amelia sketched a curtsy. "A lady t' see ye, mum."
"Where is her card?" Bernice asked testily. "Have I not instructed you how a guest is to be admitted? You are to receive the card on a silver tray. If from a footman, present it unaltered. If from the lady herself, turn up the right corner." She pursed her mouth. "And straighten your cap."
There was an unmistakable flash of defiance in Amelia's brown eyes before she obediently raised her hands to the back of her head. "Th' lady don't have no card, mum."
Bernice chose to ignore the look. "No card? What lady would come calling without a card?"
"It is Miss Kathryn Ardleigh, mum. Wot was expected tomorrow. I showed her to th' mornin' room."
"Miss Ardleigh!" Sabrina exclaimed. "Kathryn!"
"What did I tell you, sister?" Bemice said, with meager satisfaction. "The Irishwoman has scarcely set foot in the door, and already she makes herself a bother."
"Nonsense," Sabrina replied, lifting her chin. "Amelia, we will have tea for three, please. Tell Mudd to prepare the best silver service."
With a disdainful harrumph, Bemice followed her sister out of the room. Had she noticed Amelia's glance, shadowed by some darkly unfathomable emotion, she might have been less inclined to fret about her niece and more inclined to distrust the parlor maid.