5 Check-Out Time (12 page)

“Poppycock,” the colonel muttered, still addressing the clock.

Arthur sent him a startled look, but since the colonel had his back to him, he returned his attention to Phoebe, who sat gazing up at him as if she’d found paradise.

Cecily wondered what Mrs. Chubb would say when she discovered that Arthur was spreading his favors around to more than one lady. She and Phoebe had been close if unlikely friends for years.

After Sedgely Carter-Holmes’s untimely death, Phoebe had returned with her son to Badgers End, with nothing more than a trunk full of clothes and a few personal possessions.

Mrs. Chubb and her husband, who was still alive then, had taken Phoebe and the boy in until the estate had been settled.

The meager sum that the Carter-Holmes family had grudgingly given to Phoebe had been barely enough to feed even one mouth for more than a few months, but Phoebe’s pride wouldn’t allow her to accept charity any longer than necessary.

She had moved into a rented cottage and begun working for the local vicar, cleaning the church and the vicarage until Algie had subsequently inherited the position, with a great deal of help from his persistent mother.

Phoebe had never forgotten the housekeeper’s kindness. She was one of the few people allowed to call Mrs. Chubb by her Christian name. And now, apparently, she was a rival for the attention of an attractive Irishman with more than his fair share of blarney.

Cecily looked down on Phoebe’s sparkling face and hoped fervently that the woman would not be hurt. She had been hurt enough in her life. She couldn’t help wondering if perhaps Baxter had been right in his assessment of the new doorman.

At that moment the clock began to chime the hour. “Good heavens,” Cecily exclaimed, “I hadn’t realized it was that late. I do beg your pardon, Phoebe, for keeping you so late. Perhaps we should have our meeting tomorrow instead.”

“Oh, no, not at all.” Phoebe fanned her face with her handkerchief. “The wait has been most interesting, I can assure you.” She sent a coquettish glance up at Arthur, who gave her his one-sided grin.

“It has that, sweet lady. A pure pleasure, to be sure.”

“Well,” Cecily said, a trifle impatiently, “would you like to come down to the library, Phoebe? We can have our meeting there. I don’t suppose it will take that long—”

She was interrupted by a bloodcurdling howl. The last of the chimes died away, and a shocked silence settled over the foyer as everyone turned to look at the colonel.

He stood with his back to the clock, his hair standing out on each side of his head as if he’d crawled through a hedge backward.

His eyes were wide and staring and appeared to be fixed on Arthur’s face, while the doorman stood as still as a lighthouse.

“You are not going to shoot me down like a mad dog,” the colonel howled, taking a step forward. “I’ll cut you to pieces first.”

He brought his hand from behind his back, and Phoebe screamed. The light from the gas lamp fell across the blade of the saber, illuminating the deadly razor edge.

“Colonel!” Cecily’s horrified voice rang out as she started forward. She had taken only one step when Arthur’s arm was thrust in front of her.

“No, ma’am. I’ll handle this.”

Cecily wasn’t so sure anyone was going to handle the
situation. She had never seen the colonel look so wild, and it was the first time she had ever seen him with any kind of weapon.

“By george,” the colonel said in a strange, choked voice, “I’ll cut you into tiny pieces and feed them to the wolves. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, you blithering bastard. You can’t fool me. I know you have a blasted gun tucked away in the corner, just waiting to shoot me between the eyes.”

He brandished the saber as Phoebe screamed again. “Don’t deny it!” he shouted.

“Colonel,” Arthur said with amazing composure, “I am your friend, that I am. I have no wish to harm you. I don’t even know how to use a gun. Never did like the blasted things.”

“Don’t lie! I know your sort. Think you can fool me, what? What? Damn you, sir!”

The colonel took another step forward, and Cecily looked wildly in the direction of the hallway. She had to get help and quickly. It looked very much as if Colonel Fortescue had finally gone over the edge. Apparently he had every intention of running Arthur Barrett through the heart, and the onlookers were powerless to stop him.

CHAPTER
12

It was fortunate, indeed, that Baxter, upon hearing the commotion from his office, arrived promptly on the scene just as the colonel crouched for his final charge.

Cecily was most impressed with the way her manager grasped the colonel’s upraised arm, narrowly avoiding being sliced by the saber. She did have a nasty moment or two when it looked as if the colonel’s strange fit had endowed him with extra strength and would overpower the larger man.

But then Arthur leapt into the fray, drawing a gasp of admiration from Phoebe. Her eyes glittered with all the excitement.

Between them the two men managed to subdue the crazed colonel, who seemed to deflate right in front of their eyes once he was relieved of his weapon.

“Baxter,” Cecily said, feeling a trifle shaky at the knees, “would you be so kind as to escort Colonel Fortescue to his room? I’ll go and ask Mrs. Chubb for one of her powders. It will ensure him of a good night’s sleep, at least. I will see how he is in the morning before I decide what should be done.”

Baxter nodded his agreement and took hold of the now complacent, if somewhat dazed-looking, colonel. “Come along, sir,” he said quietly, “please allow me to assist you to your suite.”

“Dashed decent of you, old chap,” Fortescue murmured and obediently accompanied Baxter to the staircase.

Footsteps scurried down the stairs to the kitchen as Cecily approached them, and she sighed. No doubt one of the maids had witnessed the entire scene. She knew, only too well, how such things became exaggerated out of all proportion.

She couldn’t imagine what had come over the colonel, or why he had chosen to attack Arthur, who was surely the most congenial member of her staff. But she was going to find out as soon as possible.

Down in the kitchen she found Mrs. Chubb busily engaged in a discussion with Michel about the next day’s menu. Gertie and Ethel were at their usual posts at the sink, stacking wet dishes and whispering amongst themselves.

Cecily wondered which of them had seen the colonel’s attack. She could only hope the housemaids would adhere to the hotel rules and keep all gossip to themselves. She strictly enforced the rule, and she would hate to be put in the position of having to let someone go for breaking it.

Michel and the housekeeper cut off their conversation as she approached. “I don’t wish to interrupt,” Cecily said with a smile of apology, “but I wonder if I might have one or two of your powders, if you please, Mrs. Chubb?”

The housekeeper looked at her in concern. “Are you not feeling well, mum?”

“Perfectly well, thank you. One of our guests, however, is
a little under the weather and needs something to help him sleep.”

“Oh, right away, mum.” Mrs. Chubb hurried into the pantry, while Michel twirled the end of his mustache with his fingers.

“I do ’ope, madame, ze gentleman is not feeling ze collywobbles from my cooking tonight.”

“No, Michel,” Cecily said with a reassuring glance at her chef, “I am quite sure that no one could have a single complaint about your excellent cuisine.”

“Ah, I thought not. One can find no complaint with the greatest chef in the British Empire,
non
?”

“Blimey, ’ark at him,” Gertie muttered, clattering a plate loudly onto the pile.

Michel sent a smoldering glance across the kitchen, but at that moment Mrs. Chubb bustled back with two small envelopes in her hand.

“Here you are, mum, one of these and the colonel will be sleeping like a baby.”

So the news had already begun to spread. Cecily hoped passionately that rumors of a madman running berserk in the hotel would not generate a panic.

Just to make sure, she said loud enough for everyone to hear, “I sincerely hope that the unfortunate incident which took place tonight will not be mentioned outside of this room. Since no harm was done, I see no reason why it should not be forgotten.”

Mrs. Chubb nodded with a great deal of vigor. “Rest assured, mum, I shall see that no one tattles on the poor man. What was it, do you think? A bit too much sun? Sunstroke can do terrible things to you, I know.”

Seizing on the excuse, Cecily hastily agreed. “I’m sure he’ll be a new man in the morning,” she added, without too much conviction.

She glanced around the kitchen. “By the way, where is Master Stanley?”

“Oh, he’s with Samuel, mum.” Mrs. Chubb looked
anxious. “I do believe he’s out in the stables, helping to muck out the horses.”

Cecily rolled her eyes. She could just imagine the state the boy must be in by now. “Well, I think it’s time he came inside,” she said, glancing at the small clock on the mantelpiece. “It’s past his bedtime.”

“Yes, mum, I’ll go and fetch him. He’ll more than likely want something to eat before he goes to bed.”

“Just don’t let him get his sticky little hands on my ptarmigan pie or the smoked salmon in the larder,” Michel said darkly, forgetting his French accent.

Mrs. Chubb gave him a scathing look. “As if I would.”

Anxious to see the colonel settled for the night, Cecily left them arguing and made her way up the stairs to the third floor. She wasn’t too sure what she was going to find, but she hoped fervently that Baxter had managed to get the old gentleman into his bed.

“I tell you, Ethel, it were a bleeding sight for sore eyes all right.” Gertie clasped a plate to her bosom and grinned. “There he was, standing in the middle of the flipping foyer, waving that sword around his head and bellowing like a sick cow. I thought he was going to bloody chop his ear off, so help me I did.”

Ethel nodded, her arms moving through the soapsuds as if she were searching for a lost tiddlywink.

Gertie grunted with exasperation. She was relating the juiciest story she’d had in days, and Ethel was acting like she was hearing the laundry list.

“Well, anyway,” Gertie went on, determined to get her friend’s attention, “Arthur stood there facing him, looking like he’d just shit in his drawers. Never moved a muscle, he didn’t. Then the batty old colonel lunges forward”—she thrust her hand toward Ethel to demonstrate—“and bugger me if he doesn’t run that blade right through Arthur’s blinking heart.”

The gasp came from the wrong direction. Gertie had been
testing her friend to find out if she was really listening. What she hadn’t expected was for Mrs. Chubb to come rushing at her, arms waving and face as white as a bag of flour.

“You didn’t tell me that!” the housekeeper cried. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“It ain’t true, that’s why,” Gertie said, taken aback by the hysterical note in Mrs. Chubb’s voice.

She was even more astounded when the housekeeper stood for several seconds, her mouth opening and shutting as if she’d forgotten how to use it. Then she said in a tone Gertie had seldom heard her use before, “Gertie Brown, if you ever, and I mean
ever,
say anything like that again when it isn’t true, I’ll wallop you on your behind, big as you are. Do you understand?”

Gertie could feel her face growing warm. Ethel still wasn’t saying anything, but she’d heard it all right. It would be just like her to go and tell everyone what Mrs. Chubb said.

Gertie put down the plate she was holding and undid the strings of her apron. “I’m not staying around here to be talked to like bleeding muck, that I’m not. I was only having a bit of fun, that’s all.”

She glared at the housekeeper and threw the apron at her. “You can’t bleeding talk to me like that, so there. I’m not some bloody little guttersnipe, stealing and thieving everything I can lay me hands on. I’m a respectable woman, I am, and soon to be a mother. And no one bloody talks to me like that.”

Mrs. Chubb folded her arms. “Is that so? Well, listen to Miss Hoity-Toity. Where do you think you are going if you walk out of here? Answer me that. You have a room here for you and the baby when it comes, and plenty of people to help keep an eye on it when you’re working. How many places can you go and do that, hey?”

Gertie struggled for several seconds, her boiling temper pitted against her common sense. The old witch was right.
She had no bleeding choice. It was stay there and take whatever they handed out to her, or starve on the streets.

She stared belligerently at Mrs. Chubb, longing to tell her what she thought of her, and knowing she was powerless to do anything.

Finally the housekeeper handed her apron back to her. Without a word, Gertie tied the strings and turned back to the sink.

She waited until Mrs. Chubb had left the kitchen before muttering, “One day I’ll have the last laugh on the lot of ’em, you wait and bloody well see.”

“What are you going to do, marry a toff?” Ethel said with more than a touch of scorn in her voice.

Gertie felt tears prick behind her eyes, but the look she turned on Ethel was full of defiance. “What’s so bleeding strange about that? It’s happened before, you know.”

“Yeah? But not to a grown woman with a kid in her arms, it hasn’t.”

Gertie put the plate down so hard she thought it would crack. “Look, Ethel, I don’t bleeding know what’s the matter with you, and if you don’t want to tell me, then I don’t bleeding care. But don’t take your troubles out on me. I’ve had enough of it as it is, what with the old bat out there,” she said as she jerked her head in the direction of the kitchen door, “and that flipping Stanley is driving me bonkers, and now you being sarky with me—”

Ethel dropped a plate back into the suds. “I’m sorry, Gertie, I really am, it’s just I …” The rest was drowned in a flood of tears.

Gertie immediately forgot her resentment. She put an awkward hand on Ethel’s shoulder and gave her a damp pat. “’Ere, ’ere, don’t carry on, then, luv. What’s the matter? You can tell me, I won’t say nothing to no one, honest I won’t.”

Ethel gulped and sniffed for a moment or two, then said between sobs, “Joe’s asked me to marry him.”

Gertie stared at her in amazement. “Is that all? Blimey, I thought you was going to say he’d chucked you. I thought
that was what you bleeding wanted, weren’t it? To marry him? Don’t you love him, then?”

“Of course I love him. That’s just the problem.” Ethel wiped her nose with the back of her hand, leaving a little cluster of soap bubbles behind.

Gertie dug in the pocket of her apron and took out a grubby handkerchief. “Here, wipe your nose.” She waited until Ethel had delivered a resounding blow into the square of cotton, then said gently, “Why don’t you tell me what’s the real problem?”

Ethel handed back the crumpled handkerchief. “Joe is selling the farm. He wants to move to London and sell produce at Covent Garden. He says there’s no money in farming anymore, and he says that soon there won’t be no farms around here at all. He wants to sell his while he still can.”

“Oh, blimey.” Gertie held her breath for a moment to let the shock subside.

“So that means if I want to marry him I’ll have to go to London with him.” Once more the tears spurted from Ethel’s eyes. “I don’t know what to do … hoo….”

Gertie took a trembling breath. First her bleeding husband, now her best friend. Swallowing her own hurt, she said briskly, “You bloody well marry him, that’s what. Christ, girl, what are you waiting for? You waiting for him to go to bleeding London without you? Don’t be blooming daft, luv. Grab him while you can, before some other bugger gets her mits on him.”

Ethel turned watery eyes on her friend. “But I’ll miss everyone … I’ll miss you….”

Gertie patted her again. “I’ll miss you, too, Ethel, luv, but you can come down and visit, and I’ll come up there. Me dad lives there, remember? Not that I go to see him much, but it will give me an excuse, won’t it. Besides, you’ll love the Smoke. All those fancy shops and theaters—we ain’t got nothing like that down here, now, ’ave we?”

Ethel shook her head, looking a little less miserable.

“Look,” Gertie said, carried away by her success, “tell you what. Why don’t you knock off a bit early tonight? I’ll finish up here. Go and see Joe and tell him you’ll bloody marry him and go to London with him. All right?”

A smile crept over Ethel’s face. “Yeah,” she whispered, “I think I will. Thanks, Gertie.”

Gertie nodded. “Go on with yer, then.”

Without warning, Ethel wrapped her two arms around her neck and gave her a hug tight enough to cut off her breath.

After a moment’s hesitation, Gertie returned the hug, giving her friend a quick squeeze before dropping her arms. She held onto the tears until after Ethel had left, then let them fall into the dirty water in the sink.

She had composed herself by the time Mrs. Chubb returned. She wasn’t too happy, though, when she heard the shrill voice of the person accompanying the housekeeper.

“I don’t want to go to bed yet,” Stanley said, stomping his foot. “It’s too early.”

“It’s way past your bedtime, young man. Now, go and wash your hands in the sink this minute. You smell like a field of manure.”

Gertie could smell the little rotter before he came and stood next to her. Jostling her out of the way, he thrust his hands into the soapy water.

“Don’t you bleeding do that, you little twit!” Gertie yelled. “There’s blinking dishes in there. Whatcha want to do, poison everyone with horse shit?”

“Ger-tay!” Mrs. Chubb marched across the floor and pulled Stanley’s hands from the water. “How many times do I have to tell you not to use that language in front of the child? Now, take those dishes out of there and run some clean water. Only let him wash his hands first, all right?”

“Bloody hell, all that work for nothing.” Gertie started slamming plates down on the draining board while Stanley watched, smug satisfaction in his beady little eyes.

“Keep an eye on him while I fetch him something to eat.”
Mrs. Chubb flew off with a rustle of skirts, while Stanley poked his tongue out at Gertie.

“Keep an eye on him, be blowed,” Gertie muttered. She bent down, thrusting her face up to Stanley’s. “Rotten little bastards like you belong at the bottom of the sea, that’s where.”

Stanley opened his mouth and yelled, “Mrs. Chu-u-u-bb!”

Gertie straightened, her mouth tight, waiting for the next onslaught from the housekeeper. If he was her kid, she thought fiercely, she’d let him feel the weight of a bloody rolling pin, that she would. Right where it would do the most good. On his fat bottom. Then he could go and cool it off in the bloody ocean. And drown there. And bloody good riddance.