When Delores was close enough, Hazel extended her hand. Delores took it, and Hazel wrapped both of her hands around it. “It is such a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Belaney, though I hope you’ll let me call you Delores as Duncan does. Please call me Hazel.”
“Pleasure to meet you as well,” Delores said, but her smile did not reach her eyes. She pulled her hand away and turned her attention to Duncan, who was still standing ramrod straight and looking at a point above the parlor door. “Where do I sit, Duncan?”
He snapped out of his rigidity and ushered her to the settee before going about pouring her tea, even though it was Hazel’s responsibility as mistress of the house to perform the task. Duncan handed Delores the cup and saucer and began making her a plate, though it should be up to Delores to choose what she wanted from the service.
Hazel lowered into her chair. When Delores had her cup and her plate piled high with biscuits and scones, she turned a much softer look to Duncan and thanked him. He nodded in acknowledgment and began filling his own plate.
Delores met Hazel’s eyes again with a sharp look. “This is a very fine house.” There was a touch of derision in her voice.
“Thank you,” Hazel said. “We are quite comfortable here.”
“Must have cost a pretty penny.”
“Forty-five pounds for the year,” Duncan said. He had taken a seat on the opposite end of the settee so that Hazel faced them both. “The price included the cook and the housemaid. She covers the usual duties of housekeeper, chambermaid, and butler. There is a manservant who comes twice a week for repairs and to manage the garden.”
Hazel kept her smile in place, determined not to apologize for Duncan’s lack of manners in discussing money and servants. She was suddenly very grateful she had been alone when the Marcums had visited.
“My, my, that is fancy,” Delores said before taking a sip of her tea. “I suppose even I would marry if it earned me this kind of livin’.”
Hazel paused in reaching for her tea and looked at Delores, who was staring her down. Of course. She knew about Duncan’s inheritance and thought Hazel had married him for his wealth. As much as Hazel wanted to protest her innocence, she couldn’t tell her the truth. She reached for her teacup again and filled her plate with a few of the sweets the cook had included on the tray.
An awkward silence grew in the room, so Hazel fell back on the universal remedy of small talk, though she felt inadequate to the task.
“So, Delores, have you always lived here in Ipswich?”
“No,” Delores said, her attention on her plate much like Duncan’s was. In fact, they held their plates in the same way, balanced on the palm of their left hands while they picked up the finger foods with the other. Was it her imagination or did they have similar noses: long, straight, but with a slight upturn at the end?
“Where did you grow up, Delores?”
“South Suffolk.”
Again, Hazel waited for additional details. None were offered.
“What village?”
Delores and Duncan picked up a shortbread at the same time and took a bite. The movement was eerie in its symmetry, but then maybe anyone sitting beside Duncan would give the impression of synchronized movement.
“I understand you were a friend of Catherine’s?” Hazel tried another topic.
Delores looked at her over the remaining shortbread in her hand and nodded.
“She was my aunt, you know,” Hazel said, keeping her voice light. “I never met her, but I understand that she and my mother looked a great deal alike.”
“She dinna talk much of her family to me.”
That did not surprise Hazel. None of the Mayfields seemed to count their family as a priority, except maybe Uncle Elliott.
“What did she talk about?” Hazel asked.
“Pardon?”
“What did you and Catherine talk about? What brought you together as friends?”
“Catherine and I lived in the Burrow Building, and Delores worked in the pub on the street level. They became friends,” Duncan explained oh-so-unhelpfully. Hazel had wanted Delores to answer the question.
“Then you must have had things in common,” Hazel said, still trying to get through whatever walls Delores had built up against her.
“We was of an age with one another,” Delores said before eating her last cookie. Duncan took her empty plate and made as though to fill it up, but Delores waved him off. “Much more of such rich food and I’ll be bent over with stomach pains half the night,” she said.
How could Hazel point out that Catherine was the daughter of a viscount and Delores was a barmaid and therefore the large chasm between their stations made their friendship unusual, at best? And yet, hadn’t Catherine given up her station? Did that equalize them somehow? Hazel would need to build a great deal more trust between them before she could ask such questions.
“Did you also know Duncan’s father?”
Delores hesitated again, her lips pursed as she stared across the tea service at Hazel. She nodded slowly. “I knew Leon.”
Had Hazel ever heard Duncan’s father’s name before? Leon Penhale, her father-in-law.
“You knew my father?” Duncan said, sitting up straighter.
“A bit,” Delores said, leaning forward to put her cup and saucer back on the tray. “I best be goin’.”
“So soon?” Hazel asked in surprise.
“I got work to do.” She looked at Hazel, her expression still hard. “Thank you for the tea.”
Hazel inclined her head. “It was nice to meet you, Delores.”
“I shall show you to the door,” Duncan said, springing to his feet.
Hazel watched them go, Duncan leading the way and Delores following. She listened to all the goodbye noises, and then Duncan returned to the room.
“Yes, well, now you have met Delores.”
“She did not stay very long.”
“She is not one for tea, as I explained before I invited her.”
“I know you used to see her every day when you picked up your dinners. When do you see her now?”
“I have no need of dinners. I saw her on Monday when I invited her for tea.”
Was that the reason for Delores’s cold reception? Was it the only reason?
“Perhaps you should create a new routine of stopping in at the pub a few days a week after finishing your office hours.”
“But there is no reason to stop at the pub since we do not get dinner from the pub any longer.”