A Perilous Perspective (Lady Darby Mystery #10)(72)
“Do we ken yet what kind?” Her gaze shifted back and forth between us almost in anticipation.
“Not yet.” I tilted my head, trying to decipher whether this pleased her or not. “You told us yesterday that you didn’t know why Miss MacCowan would have gone to the long gallery.”
“I did,” she confirmed after a brief pause. “And I do not.”
“That’s interesting, because we’ve learned that Mairi claimed that you had sent her. That you’d asked her to examine the forged Van Dyck.”
The corners of Miss Campbell’s mouth tightened, and her posture turned rigid. “Weel, I dinna ken why the lass claimed that, but I can assure ye I did not.” She huffed in affront, and the sound was so much like the one I often heard Lord Barbreck make that I nearly missed what she said next. “To be sure, why would I send an upstairs maid wi’ no knowledge o’ art whatsoever to inspect a paintin’ owned by my former fiancé?”
When she phrased it that way, it did seem strange.
“Then you’re saying Mairi lied?” I pressed, wanting her to be clear.
“I suppose.” Turning to stare across the room toward the hearth, her gaze clouded with bewilderment. “Though I dinna ken why she would have done so. ’Twasn’t like her.” She frowned. “Just as it isna like Liam to deny her anythin’. So why would such a ruse be necessary?”
Gage and I stood waiting as she sorted through the implications, much as we had already done, curious if she could come up with an explanation we had yet to consider. Gage had also taught me that sometimes silence was more effective than words. That people—both the guilty and unguilty—often felt driven to fill it, revealing far more than they ever would otherwise.
When she emerged from her musings to realize neither of us had spoken but were simply staring at her, her eyebrows dipped into an angry vee. “I dinna send Mairi to examine any o’ Barbreck’s accursed paintings,” she snapped.
“Nay, dear,” a voice behind us proclaimed. “But I did.”
Gage and I turned to see Miss Margaret Campbell enter the room on the butler’s arm. She paused just inside the doorway and turned to offer the man a gentle smile of gratitude as she patted his arm to send him on his way. Her sister hastened to help her, but Miss Margaret waved her off, making her way slowly toward the chair before the hearth she’d claimed during our first visit.
“I coulda told you that durin’ your last visit, had I been allowed to see you.” She arched her eyebrows in gentle scolding as she glanced back over her shoulder at her sister.
Miss Campbell scowled.
“You sent Mairi to examine the Van Dyck?” I repeated, crossing the room to join Miss Margaret as she lowered herself into the chair with great care.
She exhaled a small grunt as her bottom settled onto the cushion. “Aye. And before ye ask . . .” She shook her head. “I had no idea dear Mairi would come to harm. I simply wanted to gather what facts I could, to spare Anne any further pain.” Her soft brown eyes hardened. “That man has caused her more than enough.”
The anger faded from Miss Campbell’s face, leaving only fond exasperation. “Oh, Meg.”
“Woulda gone myself, if these old knees woulda held me up.”
“Your lungs,” her sister protested, moving to take the seat next to her.
Miss Margaret waved this objection away. “Bah!”
I looked at Gage, interested in what he thought of this exchange. It certainly seemed sincere, but a vague stirring in my gut made me wonder whether Miss Margaret was lying for her sister. Or was it merely residual confusion and anger from yesterday’s revelation about my mother? Was I unfairly determined to blame the messenger in some way, shape, or form—even with a different crime?
My insides squirmed at the thought, and I had difficulty finding a comfortable position on the settee across from the two ladies. “We understand that you preferred Mairi to the other maids.”
Miss Margaret looked to me and nodded, sadness transforming her lively face.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I began, offering her my sympathy. “You must have trusted her greatly.”
A rattling sigh escaped her chest as she turned forlornly toward the fire, her arms hugging the shawl tightly draped over her shoulders. “Mairi was a kind lass. Didna make me feel awkward like the other maids do. And she wasna forever droppin’ trays or touchin’ my things wi’oot bein’ invited, as if my eyes didna work right instead o’ my lungs and my heart.”
I couldn’t help but feel empathy for Miss Margaret. It was never easy to be thought of or treated differently, to be eyed with pity or suspicion or disfavor. According to Miss Campbell, her sister had been sick all her life, forced to endure the slights and stares and complaints of the staff—both petty and great, silent and verbal. To lose the maid she could both trust and feel comfortable with must be a crippling blow, for I could only imagine she held Mairi in some degree of affection.
“Did you see Mairi the morning before she left for Barbreck?” Gage asked, adjusting the tails of his charcoal coat as he sat beside me. The gleam of his riding boots caught the morning sun spilling through the windows.
Straightening in her seat from the slumped posture she’d settled into seemed to require a great deal of effort, but she managed it, turning toward us with a grimace. “Aye. Brought me my breakfast tray before she departed.”