Death at Bishop's Keep by Robin Paige Page B

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—”
    â€œChristian!” 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—”
    â€œTemple 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—”
    â€œGolden 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.”
    â€œAnd 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 stem 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 Jaggers, 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 Bernice’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.
    â€œWhat is it, Amelia?” Sabrina asked.
    Amelia sketched a curtsy. “A lady t’ see ye, mum.”
    â€œWhere is her card?” Bernice asked testily. “Have I not instructed you how a guest is to be admitted? You are to