01 - Murder at Ashgrove House (2 page)

Fortunately unaware of the concerns expressed by Lady Withers and her
servants regarding her possible character and wardrobe, Rose Simpson studied
her reflection in her dressing table mirror. She sighed and, not for the first
time, wondered whether she would pass muster with Lady Withers and, perhaps
more importantly, with her servants. 

She made a face at herself in the mirror and turned her gaze away from
her reflection and then turned back again to the mirror and tried to imagine
what Lady Withers’ first impression of her would be, based on her appearance.
She tried to view herself objectively, as if seeing herself for the first time,
her dark brown hair arranged in finger curls and her figure which, although it
could never be described as slender like Lavinia’s, was not altogether
unpleasing. Her face, she thought, was pleasant without quite being pretty,
although she hoped few would be so unkind as to describe her as plain. How
unfair, she thought, that Lavinia should have it all; not only was she rich and
a peer’s daughter, but she was also startlingly beautiful in that cool,
aristocratic way. Lavinia’s beauty was the sort that made both men and women
stare. With her tall, willowy figure, that made her look both aloof and fragile
at the same time, her platinum dyed hair and her face with its even, delicate
features; she could easily have passed for a film actress.

Rose thought back to when her friend had first suggested that she
accompany her on a visit to her aunt’s.

‘Don’t worry,’ Lavinia had assured her, finding it hard to contain her
excitement, ‘it will be fine, an absolute hoot. Dear old Aunt Connie can’t wait
to meet you. You’ll absolutely love her. She
is
awfully old fashioned
and a bit vague, of course, but an absolute sweetie just the same, do say
you’ll come.’

Rose had agreed that she would, because everyone always said yes to
Lavinia; she could be awfully persuasive when she set her mind to it for she
was someone used to getting her own way. How else had Lady Lavinia Sedgwick,
only daughter of the fifteenth Earl of Belvedere, managed to defy her parents
to work in a clothes shop, but still retained her monthly allowance?  Much
to the surprise of her brother, shock and dismay of her mother, and obvious
delight of Madame Renard, the proprietor of the shop where both she and Rose
worked, Lavinia had stuck it out so far for some four months or so and showed
no signs of quitting. How much of this was because she actually enjoyed the
work, and how much was because she did not want to lose face with her younger
brother was hard to tell. Although it must be different for Lavinia, Rose
acknowledged, knowing that the situation was only temporary and that in two
months’ time she could walk away from it all, head held high, back to her
pampered, upper class life.        

Rose sighed again. If only the same could be said of her. If only she was
not destined to earn her living working in a shop.  Still, at least for
one glorious weekend, she could pretend she inhabited Lavinia’s privileged
world. But she was beginning to feel nervous. What if she did not manage to
pull it off, even though, so Lavinia had told her, it was to be a very small
house party. Besides themselves there was to be only one other guest, Edith
Torrington, a distant relation and old school friend of Lady Withers’, so
really there was nothing to worry about. Thank goodness for the recent wave of
reasonably priced ready-to-wear copies of the Paris fashions that meant that
even a girl on a low income such as herself, could afford clothes made in the
style of the top fashion houses. Working in a dress shop had helped too for one
of the perks of her job was having the option to buy clothes at a discounted
rate.   Unlike some of the other girls, who opted for the up to the
minute fashion items, Rose chose more classic styles that would not date so
quickly.

‘I can always lend you something to wear,’ Lavinia had said. But despite
the exquisiteness of Lavinia’s gowns, Rose knew that she could never have worn
one to Ashgrove House.  It was not just that she was afraid of ripping
them or spilling something down the front, but more it was the imagined
embarrassment she would feel, and she could feel her face going red and hot
just thinking about it, if Lady Withers were to say: ‘Oh, what a lovely dress, Miss
Simpson, where did you get it?’ and she was forced to tell her the truth or,
even worse, if Lady Withers was to look at her curiously and say nothing,
leaving her wondering whether or not Lady Withers had recognised her dress as
being one of Lavinia’s.       

Rose started practicing her make-up. Usually she applied just a touch of
rouge to her cheeks because foundation creams were so expensive, but for going
to the Withers’ she had decided to splash out on it. Expense being no issue for
Lavinia, Rose had marvelled at the ‘Gardenia’ look her friend wore each day to
the shop; it gave a white and waxen look to Lavinia’s face much favoured by the
Hollywood silver screen stars of the time, but Rose hesitated at trying the
look herself. Instead she had opted for the more natural ‘tea rose’ shade of
foundation, ivory with a touch of pink. She applied it carefully and sparingly.
When she had finished, she thought that there was a slightly surreal look to
her face that she was not sure she liked. No, it didn’t look quite right.
Sighing, she applied lipstick in a light rose shade which seemed to soften the
effect. 

‘That looks better, more like me,’ she whispered to her reflection. 
Still, she thought, I’d better take the rouge along as well, just in case. What
a pity there isn’t time to ask Lavinia for a lesson in applying
foundation.     

Lady Lavinia Sedgwick flung open the door of her wardrobe and surveyed
its contents, with something approaching satisfaction. True, it held nothing
like the vast array of dresses that hung in the massive wardrobes in her
dressing room at Sedgwick Court, but even so, she had managed to bring with her
to London a few of her favourite outfits. She giggled suddenly as a thought
struck her. Eliza, her lady’s maid, would have had a fit if she had seen the
way she had shoved and crammed all her clothes into this tiny little wardrobe
in her lodgings. She had given absolutely no thought to creases or whether the
delicate fabric of her dresses would be crumpled and ruined beyond repair by
such harsh treatment. Instead she had just leaned against the door to make it
shut, and Eliza had not been there to give her a disapproving stare. 

It hadn’t seemed quite right to bring her lady’s maid with her
somehow.  She couldn’t imagine Eliza dressing her just to go to work in a
shop serving others, and she certainly could not imagine any other shop girl
being dressed by a maid.  Eliza wouldn’t have approved anyway, far better
to let her maid stay at home with her parents and attend to her mother’s numerous
house guests.  Still, it would be nice to get back home and be pampered
again, to have someone else lay out her clothes for her, run her bath and dress
her hair. 

If she were honest, and she would admit this to no-one but herself, she
was getting a little bit bored with it all now, this working in a shop
business. It had all been quite fun when she had first started, a bit of a
lark, something to write and tell her brother and friends about. And to begin
with she had not had a moment to get bored because her friends had kept popping
in to see her, even though the shop was certainly not located in the most
fashionable of addresses and the clothes tended to be ready-to-wear or
semi-made scaled-down from the Parisian designs, not at all the bespoke outfits
they were used to. Even so, her friends had bought one or two small items,
which had gone down very well with Madame Renard, who she knew was hoping that,
by employing a member of the aristocracy, she might attract a more elite
clientele to her establishment, which might eventually enable her to move to a
more up market premises, even perhaps in time Regent Street itself, where she
could stock the genuine Paris fashions, not just cheap replicas that almost any
woman, regardless of her financial circumstances, could afford to buy. She
might even be able to employ a few more expert stream-stresses who could
produce gowns from scratch for her more favoured, well-heeled clientele …

After some deliberations Lavinia selected a brightly coloured silk
twin-print ensemble consisting of a sleeveless, drop-waisted dress with
contrasting winged collar and matching three-quarter length coat. It was one of
her favourite outfits because of the vividness of the colour and pattern, a
deep royal blue background, decorated with red and white roses, which looked
quite wonderful with her bright red, lacy Italian straw hat. When she put this
on, she would feel more like her old self again, a moneyed, young woman about
town with no cares but to shop, not a nondescript shop girl disappearing into
the background while all attention was given to pleasing the customer.

She sighed. She had found it hard work. Not so much choosing suitable
clothes for her customers to try on, or giving fashion advice for which she
prided herself on being something of an expert. No it had been the being nice
to customers bit that she had found so hard. To be polite and seem interested
in people whom she would not normally have passed the time of day, she had
found particularly trying. And then when they wouldn’t take her advice and
insisted on buying something that did not, in her opinion, suit them at all,
oh, to have to bite her tongue! And it was not even as if Madame Renard had
given her the more mundane tasks to do. She had been protected from doing the
most boring aspects of the work; Madame Renard was not a stupid woman, she
wanted to hold on to her key attraction, her prize procession, as long as
possible.

So Lavinia had not been asked to sweep the floor or pack the dresses into
boxes and wrap them in brown paper with string to be sent to customers on
approval, or been expected to wait on the most insignificant or dithering
customers. Madame Renard had asked her only to attend to her most fashionable
and wealthy customers, who could be persuaded to spend a considerable amount of
money on outfits if they knew that they were being recommended by a fashionable
member of the aristocracy, and they were informed by Madame Renard of Lavinia’s
identity straightaway for fear that they might be tempted to be rude to her if
they thought that she was just another shop assistant, so it had been all: ‘Oh,
do let me introduce you to Lady Lavinia, daughter of the Earl of Belvedere,
don’t you know. Lady Lavinia’s helping me out in my shop for a while, a little
bet she has made with her brother, Lord Sedgwick, so funny don’t you think, ha,
ha! Lady Lavinia has cast her eye over my new season stock and would be
absolutely delighted to give you her recommendations as to what the fashionable
young lady will be wearing this season …’

If Lavinia was honest, she had found it all rather embarrassing and sick
making, not helped by Sylvia, another of the shop girls who particularly
resented her presence at Madame Renard’s, rolling her eyes and then looking at
her with daggers in the background. But she had liked the look of shock on the
customers’ faces as they had become aware of her as a person, and an important
one at that, rather than dismissing her as just another faceless servant. They
had engaged with her as if she were their equal, although of course she was far
above them. That had not stopped them thinking she was interested in them,
asking her opinion on which clothes would suit them and going with her choices.

On the odd occasion, just for wickedness and because she could, or just
because she was bored and thought she could not possibly last out the day, she
would advise them to buy something that did not flatter them at all, and they
would go with her recommendation just so that they could say to their friends:
‘Lady Lavinia helped me choose this outfit, don’t you know, it’s going to be
all the rage this season.’ Still she had stopped doing that now ever since she
had overheard Sylvia saying to Mary, another of the shop girls, that for
someone with all her money and breeding, she had absolutely no taste in clothes
at all.

Oh, she could hardly wait to be at Ashgrove again, to be spoilt and
pampered by Constance’s array of servants, many of whom had known her since she
was a small child. Of course, it was a pity that dull old Edith was going to be
there too. She’d have much preferred it if it was just going to be Sir William,
Lady Withers, Rose and herself. Never mind, Edith was bound to still be moping
around, keeping herself to herself so she needn’t hinder their enjoyment. Just
as well Ceddie wasn’t going to be there, because how embarrassing it would be
to have a repeat of all that. Lavinia shuddered just thinking about it. No, it
was going to be good bye Lavinia, drab little shop girl, and hello Lady Lavinia
Sedgwick, the beautiful, much photographed debutant and favoured style icon of
the women’s weeklies. She would have to get up especially early so that she
could spend time making up her face and dressing her hair before they set off
on their journey, which she always found so fiddly and time consuming these
days with no maid to help. After all they must make the most of Madame Renard
allowing them to take the day off on Friday as well as Saturday. She could just
imagine Sylvia’s face when she heard the news. She giggled.

Rose was the only real friend that she had made in the dress shop. The
other shop girls had not known what to make of her and were definitely working
class, whereas Rose had appeared at ease in her presence. She would even hazard
a guess that Rose was originally from the middle classes although, from what
she could gather, her family had now fallen on hard times.  Horrid Sylvia
had made a point of either ignoring Lavinia completely or being rude to her
when Madame Renard’s back was turned, and Mary had gone to the other extreme,
hanging on her every word and trying to show her everything and do everything
for her, when all she had wanted was to be treated like just any other shop
girl, well not quite, of course, she didn’t want to do anything too boring or
back breaking or mundane. Only Rose had treated her normally and had been
genuinely friendly. She had probably been as fascinated by her as Mary had been
but, unlike Mary, she had not felt intimated by her, or felt the need to try
and please her. No, she liked the friendship she had with Rose because she felt
that Rose liked her for herself.