01 - Murder at Ashgrove House (3 page)

‘Excuse me, m’lady,’ Stafford gave a little cough and half bowed towards
her ladyship. Lady Withers, who had been in the process of arranging some
flowers rather haphazardly in a vase, jumped, knocking the vase over, water and
flowers spilling out on to the table and floor.

‘Oh, Stafford, now look what you’ve made me do! I do wish you wouldn’t
creep up on one so, it isn’t natural. Why can’t you make a noise like everyone
else?’

‘Quite so, m’lady, please forgive me. I’ll arrange for Martha to clear up
straightaway.’

Although certainly not his intention to make her ladyship start, he
thought on reflection that the outcome was not disastrous. After all, he always
sent Martha to rearrange the flowers whenever Lady Withers took it upon herself
to start flower arranging. Her ladyship, in his opinion, had many fine
qualities, but arranging flowers in a vase was not one of them. Of course, when
only Sir William and Lady Withers were at Ashgrove it did not matter so much
because Lady Withers always thought her flower arrangements looked wonderful
and Sir William was not one to notice such things, but when guests were
staying, and titled ones at that … Stafford almost grimaced despite himself,
that would never do at all. ‘But I thought you’d like to know m’lady,’ he
continued, ‘as soon as I had been informed.’

‘Informed of what, Stafford? Oh, do stop talking in riddles or drawing
things out.’ Lady Withers sunk into a nearby chair and dabbed at her wet hands
ineffectually with her handkerchief. ‘Out with it, Stafford. What was this
thing that was so important to tell me that you had to sneak up on me and worry
me half to death?’

‘Yes, m’lady, very sorry m’lady.’ Had Lady Withers looked at him instead
of busying herself with drying her fingers she would have seen that, despite
his tone, he did not look particularly contrite. ‘I thought you’d like to know,
m’lady, that I’ve just taken a telephone call from Sedgwick Court. It appears
that the Earl and Countess of Belvedere are on their way down.’

‘On their way down, whatever do you mean, on their way down?’ Lady
Withers had stopped dabbing at her fingers, her handkerchief now clutched in
one hand that was beginning to tremble. 

‘It appears, m’lady, that the Earl and Countess have it in mind to stay
the weekend, here at Ashgrove.’     

‘What!’ The handkerchief was flung to the floor as Lady Withers sprang up
from her seat with a speed that surprised even Stafford, although he was
careful as always not to show it.

‘William! William!’ Stafford was just in time to rush over to the door
and hold it open for Lady Withers as she fled from the room in search of her
husband. Such was her distress that she did not wait until she had found him,
before starting her conversation. ‘Oh, William, William, it’s so awful.
Stafford has just brought me the most dreadful news …’

‘Mr Stafford, you could have knocked me down with a feather when I met
with her ladyship this morning to go through the menus!’ Mrs Palmer was sitting
at the highly scrubbed kitchen table, a steaming cup of tea before her and
Edna, the little scullery maid, standing beside her, fanning Mrs Palmer’s face
with pages from a day old copy of
The Times
newspaper.

Stafford secretly thought that the effect created was a little
melodramatic, even by Mrs Palmer’s standards. She was a short, dumpy woman who
always looked hot and flustered as a result of standing over a hot stove all
day and barking orders at the scullery and kitchen maids. Today, however, he
had some sympathy for her predicament.

‘Not only does her ladyship say that she thinks it likely that Master
Cedric will bring his friend down with him from Oxford, you know, Lord whatsit,
but she tells me that the Earl and Countess of  Belvedere are coming to
visit as well!’

‘Indeed, Mrs Palmer. I did try and forewarn you as soon as I had taken
the telephone call from Sedgwick Court,’ Stafford said, biting his tongue as always
to stop himself from reprimanding Mrs Palmer in front of the lower servants for
calling Lord Sedgwick, Master Cedric, as if he was still a small boy come
creeping in to her kitchen to snatch a freshly baked sausage roll, not a grown
man who in the fullness of time would inherit an earldom.   ‘But it
was your afternoon off yesterday and I didn’t want to trouble you when you
returned, given the lateness of the hour.’ Stafford broke off from what he was
saying to give her a pointed stare. Really, he thought, Mrs Palmer should set
an example to the maid servants. ‘And then this morning, I thought I’d leave it
until after breakfast before telling you, but her ladyship was herself a little
unsettled by the news and took it upon herself to rush to see you to make sure
that you had the necessary stores in, and if you didn’t to give you the chance
to order more in.’

‘It’s just as well we’ve got a large kitchen garden, Mr Stafford,’ Mrs
Palmer said recovering a little and flapping Edna away with instructions to pour
her another cup of tea. ‘We shan’t have a problem with the vegetables, it’s the
meat and fish I’m worried about, because of course I’ve had to change my menus,
it’ll have to be fancy cooking now, what with the countess coming.’ She looked
up sharply at the scullery maid. ‘Stop that gawping girl and go and fetch Mr
Stafford a nice cup of tea.’

‘Yes, Mrs Palmer,’ the girl looked as if she could not get away quickly
enough.

Mrs Palmer started thumbing through her copy of
Mrs Beeton’s Book of
Household Management
. Like most cooks of her generation she considered it
her cooking bible and, when alarmed by news of an impromptu dinner party, she
was in the habit of clutching it to her breast to provide her with the
necessary moral support. 

‘Her ladyship said she would come down again in half an hour or so once
I’d had time to put together some dinner party menus. Perhaps I could pass some
ideas by you, Mr Stafford, if you don’t mind? As you know, I do like a nice
dinner party, gives me a chance to be creative and stretch myself a bit, can
make a nice change from the usual plain cooking that her ladyship likes, but of
course, it would have been nice to have had a little more notice to get
prepared like. I’m not just thinking of the food, neither. I could really do
with some more hands in the kitchen. I’m going to need more help than I’ll get
from those two dolly daydreams.’ She pointed vaguely at the scullery and
kitchen maids. ‘Heads in the clouds most of the time they have, Mr Stafford,
boys, dresses and dancing is all that fills their heads most of the time. But
like as not I’ll have to make do with them. Too short notice I expect to get
help in from the village.’

 ‘I expect you’re right, Mrs Palmer. But I’m sure you’ll cope
magnificently, you always do,’ replied the butler soothingly as he and the
cook-housekeeper made their way to her sitting room. ‘I think her ladyship
feels a little overwhelmed too. She was expecting to be entertaining just a
small house party this weekend, her old school friend and Lady Lavinia and her
friend and instead she is being bombarded by the gentry! Still, I’m sure we’ll
get through it, Mrs Palmer, as we always do.’

‘And of course, Mr Stafford, what with me being housekeeper as well as
cook, I’ve all the bedrooms to sort out, decide who’s having what. I suppose
we’d better make sure that we give the best room to the countess otherwise
she’s sure to complain, and then there will have to be doubling up between the
housemaids and footmen to act as ladies’ maids and valets as I’m sure they
won’t be bringing down any with them.’

Edna and Bessie, the kitchen maid, stole towards the sitting room and
listened at the closed door with bated breath. They could just about make out
what Mrs Palmer was saying.

‘I was thinking, Mr Stafford, clear beef consommé to start with, can’t go
wrong with that, followed by cheese soufflés, and then the fish, of course. A
whole dressed salmon followed by a meat course of chicken in aspic with
duchesse potatoes? Then, for pudding, peaches and raspberry mousse. And then
just in case any of them is still hungry, you know what an appetite Master
Cedric’s got, I’m sure they don’t feed him properly at that university, I’ll
send up savouries – eggs stuffed with prawns, angels on horseback, chicken
liver on toast, curried shrimps and sweetbreads and suchlike. What do you
think, Mr Stafford, will that be posh enough for the countess? I don’t want to
show up her ladyship.’

‘Indeed it will be, Mrs Palmer, indeed it will. I don’t think the earl
and countess could expect a better meal if they’d been invited to dine with the
King himself at Buckingham Palace!’

‘Oh, Lor,’ said Bessie snatching Edna’s hand and dragging her back to the
kitchen before the butler and cook-housekeeper came out of the sitting room and
caught them eavesdropping. ‘This weekend’s going to be something dreadful for
us. You’ve not been here when we’ve had a proper house party before, have you?
You won’t believe the amount of additional work that’s involved, we’ll hardly
have time to catch our breath or go to the lavatory even, and Mrs Palmer will
be that flustered and bad tempered, she’ll be about to blow a gasket any minute
and she’ll probably cancel our half day off on Sunday as well!’

Edna’s face crumpled and there was clearly the threat of tears spilling down
her young face.

‘Don’t worry, Edna,’ Bessie said, kindly, holding her hand and pushing a
black curl, that had come loose, back under Edna’s mop cap. She was only a few
years older than the scullery maid, but Edna suddenly looked so young and frail
that instinctively Bessie felt pity for her. ‘No need to give on so, Edna.
Happen I did speak rather hasty like.  All I meant was that it’s going to
be a lot of hard work for the likes of you and me, but it’ll be exciting
too.  There’ll be a real buzz around the place, loads of comings and
goings. They’ll be delivering the fish and meat and Mrs Palmer will be
examining them, super critical like, she’ll be very exacting in what she’ll
accept and she’ll give them an earful I can tell you if it’s not of the very best
quality. And Ernie will probably be delivering stuff as well.’

At the mention of the delivery boy, Edna blushed and started to brighten.

‘And Mrs Palmer will be creating the most wonderful dishes, Edna, they’ll
be a sight to behold. If you watch and listen you’ll learn such a lot. That’s
what I’m going to do. And I’ll offer to give her a hand with some of the
trickier dishes, because it’s the only way to learn, Edna. You know I’ve set my
heart on being a cook before I’m thirty. And when I am, you’ll be my kitchen
maid and we’ll have so much fun.’

With that, in something approaching high spirits, they raced to lay up
Mrs Palmer’s table with all the utensils she would need to cook from scratch; two
chopping boards, one big, one small, two graters, several sieves, including a
hair one and a wire one, five mixing bowls and an impressive range of knives
and forks, spoons and whisks. By the time Mrs Palmer had thumbed through a few
pages of her cooking bible to double check recipes she already knew by heart,
the table was fully laid.

‘Well girls, that’s what I like to see,’ Mrs Palmer took a deep breath
and rolled up her sleeves. ‘Let’s make her ladyship proud, shall we? Let’s show
them what the kitchen at Ashgrove is made of!’

‘My dear, whatever are you doing hiding yourself away in here?’ enquired
Sir William, wandering into his wife’s morning room which was situated on the
first floor of Ashgrove House, next to the linen cupboard.

‘I’m keeping out of the way, William,’ Lady Withers replied closing her
copy of
The Lady
magazine, the pages of which she had been flicking
through listlessly in an attempt to try and keep herself occupied. ‘You should
have seen Mrs Palmer’s face when I told her Marjorie and Henry would be staying
this weekend. She looked as if she was going to explode, I was so worried, I
almost called out for Stafford; you’d have thought I was telling her that the
King and Queen were coming, the way she kept going on, saying as how she’d have
to change all the menus and bring extra staff in.’

‘Well, I’ve been thinking, my dear,’ Sir William said, ‘about Edith and
well, I think you were right to be worried yesterday. I think it really would
be best for all concerned if you put her off.’

‘Oh, William, how very tiresome of you,’ Lady Withers said, giving her
husband a stare of exasperation. ‘If only you’d shown half as much interest in
everything yesterday, when I was tearing my hair out with the worry of it all.
I can’t possibly put Edith off, it’s simply much too late now. Why, Harold’s
probably bundling Edith into a train carriage as we speak. And besides, now
that I know Marjorie and Henry are coming down too, I think it might prove
rather useful having Edith around, it might help to defuse things.’

‘How so, my dear?’ Sir William looked distinctly puzzled.

‘Well, as soon as Stafford told me that my sister was on her way here, I
knew the weekend was going to be an absolute disaster. Marjorie has obviously
got wind somehow about Lavinia coming down and probably intends to have it out
with her about this shop work business once and for all. Well, of course, I
realised that would mean that it was going to be absolutely awful for us all,
Marjorie doing her usual bull in a china shop routine and Lavinia is bound to
be all stubborn and tearful and sulky. We’d probably have been left to
entertain her friend and Marjorie would have been paranoid that Cedric was
going to take a shine to her and then Cedric probably would, just to annoy her
… oh, I could hardly bring myself to think about it.’

‘I still don’t see, my dear, how Edith being here will make things any
better. Surely it will only make things worse.’

‘Oh, William, you really are a typical man. Of course it will make things
a whole lot better. No matter how angry Marjorie is with Lavinia, she won’t
want to wash her dirty linen in public, will she? She may have been quite happy
to have a go at Lavinia in front of us, what with us being family and she
holding me responsible for Lavinia working in that shop in the first place,
which of course is very unfair … but she won’t want to make a scene in front of
Edith. She’s always rather turned her nose up at Edith what with her being a
poor relation and all that, no, she won’t think it the done thing at all to
have a row with Lavinia in front of her. And then, of course, Edith did go to
school with Marjorie and me, so we will be able to reminisce about the old days
when things start to get a bit heated. We’ll have lots to talk about because I
don’t think Marjorie has seen Edith since we all left school. But, best of all
though, Edith will be able to occupy Miss Simpson, what with them coming from
the same sort of class and everything, they’re bound to have loads in common.
And that will keep Miss Simpson out of harm’s way so that she can’t get up to
any mischief with Cedric.’ Lady Withers was looking relieved. ‘All in all,
William, I think things have turned out very well indeed, all things being
considered.’

‘That may be so, my dear, but I think for poor Edith’s sake she must be
put off from visiting us this weekend.’

‘But, William, I have just explained to you that it will all be fine.’

‘Not for Edith, Constance.’ There was a sharpness to Sir William’s voice
that made Lady Withers look up at her husband both in surprise and with a
degree of curiosity, for she was not used to him speaking to her in such a
tone.

‘I’m sorry, William, but it’s really too late now to change anything. You
really should have spoken up sooner if you objected to it so much.’

‘I really wish I had. Can’t you understand, Constance, I’m
afraid
.’
Sir William sat down beside his wife on the sofa and took her hands in his.
‘I’m really worried that something dreadful might happen this weekend,
Constance. You see, it’s all so
dangerous
.’

Edith Torrington sat at the breakfast table surveying the remains of her
half eaten slice of toast and half-drunk cup of tea, both of which she had
forgotten about entirely and allowed to get cold.

‘Oh, for goodness sake, Edith,’ said Harold Torrington, gently but with
obvious frustration, looking up from his morning newspaper. If he were a
different sort of man he might have cursed. ‘That’s the second cup of tea that
you’ve let get cold this morning. What on earth are you thinking about, my
dear? You seem far away today, lost in your own thoughts.’

‘I’m sorry, dear,’ Edith looked up guiltily, ‘I’m sorry if I’m not quite
with it today.’ Or any other day, she could have added.  She studied her
husband as if she was seeing him for the first time.  She saw a middle-aged
man with once very dark brown, almost black hair, now predominantly turned to
grey and which was receding at the temples. He had been handsome once, she
thought, or at least she had thought so and her mother had considered him quite
a catch, she remembered, particularly in the circumstances; the answer to their
dreams. But now his looks were going, as were her own and he looked just like
any other bank manager dressed for work in the City. She found her mind
drifting away again until she discovered herself considering how many other
such men there were, living in the suburbs of London, having their breakfast,
just like Harold, before going off to work. And then she felt her mind float
off to think about herself and what she must look like to a stranger looking
on. I’m faded, she thought, a sob catching in her throat, a washed up, worn out
version of the woman I used to be. If only I could live again, if only I could
feel something other than this numbness, if only ….