Free Whom the Gods Love by Kate Ross Page B

school. When did he have this change of heart?"
    Nelson was on his feet again, bubbling over with information. "It was a Saturday, sir, the second of April. I remember, 'coz it was a wash day, and wash days are the first Saturday every month. Mr. and Mrs. Falkland and Mr. Eugene were sitting here after luncheon, and Mrs. Falkland up and told Mr. Eugene he was to go back to Harrow in a fortnight." 
    "How did you overhear all this?" Nichols demanded sternly.
    "Begging your pardon, Mr. Nichols, but I was bringing coals into the library next door and closing the blinds, and I couldn't help hearing a word now and again." He put on an injured look, as if eavesdropping on his employers were a painful necessity of his job. "Anyhow, Mr. Eugene made a great combustion—said Mrs. Falkland only wanted to be rid of him and begged the master to take his side, seeing as how he was his guardian. But the master said Mrs. Falkland was his sister, it was for her to say what was best for him, and he couldn't stand against her any longer. And Mrs. Falkland said it was all decided, and there was nothing more to be said."
    "Would you say Eugene was disappointed in Mr. Falkland?" Julian probed delicately, glancing around at the other servants.
    They hesitated. "Mr. Eugene was very unhappy, sir," said Nichols at last. "And I'm afraid he was quite angry with Mrs. Falkland. But I never observed him to show any rancour toward the master."
    "You see, sir," put in Nelson, "he knew it was Mrs. Falkland as wanted to send him away, and she'd overborne the master. He was in a very bad skin with her after that. He'd hardly speak to her."
    "Had they been close formerly?"
    Nichols knit his brows. "I don't know quite how to answer that, sir. The mistress, she isn't one to make a show of her feelings, and Mr. Eugene—well, he's given to moods. I'd say they rubbed along together as well as might be expected." 
    Julian interpreted this to mean, as well as a boy with a disgraced father and no money could be expected to get on with a wealthy and irreproachable sister. "Did Mrs. Falkland seem to take the rift with her brother much to heart?"
    Several of the servants spoke up at this. Mrs. Falkland had seemed under a strain in the weeks following the decision to send Mr. Eugene away. Not that she went about weeping or starting at shadows—she wasn't that sort. But she was pale, she held herself very rigid, and some days she hardly seemed to have slept.
    "Did she continue in that state up to the night of Mr. Falkland's death?" The servants exchanged glances, then broke out in nods and murmured assents.
    "Had anything else happened to disturb her in the first few weeks of April?"
    The servants searched their memories. There had been a failure to deliver flowers for a party. A banker's wife trying to get into society had pestered the mistress with calls and card-leaving. And a week before the master was killed, Mr. Eugene had stayed out all night in the rain and made himself ill, so his return to school had to be put off.
    All at once Joe Sampson, the coachman, took his pipe from between his teeth and said, "P'raps the mistress was worriting about her friend as was took sick."
    The others looked at him in surprise—all except Luke, who froze and stared straight ahead, as if he feared his slightest movement might give something away.
    "What friend do you mean?" asked Julian.
    "The one as lives near the Strand," said Joe.
    "Near the Strand? Are you sure?"
    "Sure as eggs is eggs, sir."
    Julian tried to imagine a friend of Mrs. Falkland's living in that neighbourhood of shopkeepers, theatres, and loose women. "You had better tell me all you know about this friend."
    Joe pondered a short while. He was clearly not one to put himself forward, but having once brought up a subject, he would see it through. "Here's how it was, sir. I drove the master and mistress out one day in the town carriage. Luke, he rode up on the box with me. I took 'em to a shop called Haythorpe and