Thrown Out on Christmas Eve, She Took Shelter in an Empty House — Unaware the Duke Was Coming Home
Chapter 16
Theme:
Font Size:
24px
"I'm a chandler's daughter, sir," said Hannah, "not a housemaid. But anyone who has kept a house knows what dust does. If those candlesticks had stood on that cloth until Boxing Day, the circles beneath them would be as white as the day the cloth was laid. They aren't. The dust has been settling on those circles for years. I'd say five at least, perhaps more."She turned to the room. "Those candlesticks left Ashmere House years ago. Somebody took them down the hill and burned his own tallow candles in them. And then, when he needed a thief, he remembered he had them."Sir Henry looked at the linen for a long time. Then he looked at Jacob Moss, the clerk, who had been sitting very still on the bench beside Mr. Pike for the whole of the hearing."Mr. Moss," said Sir Henry, "stand up."Jacob Moss stood up. He was perhaps 19, with ink on his fingers and a face that had gone gray."You swore," said Sir Henry, "that you saw these candlesticks in Miss Lowe's trunk at the bakery. I'm going to ask you once whether that is true. And before you answer, I want you to think about the assizes at Kendal, and what the judge there does to young men who swear false oaths. Think hard."Jacob Moss looked at Mr. Pike; Mr. Pike did not look back."He gave them to me," said Jacob Moss in a whisper. "Mr. Pike did. He gave me the candlesticks in a sack and told me to put them in her trunk when Mrs. Tibbs was in the shop. He said she'd never know. He said if I didn't, I'd be turned off without a character, same as her." He put his face in his hands. "I'm sorry, miss. I'm so sorry."Sir Henry turned to Mr. Pike, but Mr. Pike was already on his feet and already moving toward the door. He got as far as the end of the bench before he found the way blocked by the Dawson brothers, both of whom were very large and neither of whom moved."Tom Fenn," said Sir Henry, "I believe you have some work to do after all."They took Silas Pike away to the lockup behind the church.Later that winter, the assizes at Kendal would find that he had taken nearly £4,000 from the estate over nine years through false accounts for candles, coal, wages, and repairs. And he had turned the Lowes out on Christmas Eve because Walter Lowe, a month before he died, had come to his office and asked, very politely, why the estate books showed his name against so many candles he had never made.But that morning, what mattered was that Sir Henry Dalby stood up, took off his spectacles, and spoke to the whole room: