Murder at Mullings--A 1930s country house murder mystery (24 page)

‘Better an emerald, then,' said her father.

Lamorna let this pass. ‘Ned's fearfully sweet!'

‘Is he?' Lady Blake feigned interest.

‘And incredibly amusing.'

Her Ladyship wished her daughter back at finishing school. To forbid the marriage might sit so ill with that witch Regina Stodmarsh that all social intercourse between the two families would be severed. The prospect was too utterly humiliating! Anyone who was anyone was to be encountered at Mullings these days, on weekend or overnight visits. Initially, Regina had played the role of a woman not given to entertaining lavishly, claiming to have lived a quiet, almost reclusive life in Northumbria. That had all changed after Edward Stodmarsh was lowered into the ground.

Reaching for her bottle of smelling salts, Lady Blake begged her husband and daughter to give her a few moments. How to face the smirks of those toadies the Stafford-Reids and Palfretts with their insufferable delight in declaring themselves intimates of Regina Stodmarsh, if they, the Blakes, were ostracized by her! But for her prestige as a hostess, she was a ghastly creature – arrogant, needling, and so diabolically clever.

It had been a brilliant stroke on her part to reveal that story of her seventeen-year-old daughter running off with the groom years ago, denying anyone else the pleasure of doing so behind her back. Not a woman to willingly risk making one's enemy. Oh, that Edward Stodmarsh's lachrymose first wife had not petulantly succumbed to what with another woman might have been a trifling cold! Lady Blake was tempted to pass over the smelling salts and slap her daughter's face instead. Never had she more devoutly wished that Mullings was located two hundred rather than twelve miles from her gates. Why God could not think of the Blakes above all others she had always deemed the most mysterious of His ways. It was so very tiresome of Him, but that was the male species for you! Let Him not expect to see her in church on Sunday morning! Meanwhile, she must make an attempt at reasoning with Lamorna.

Her daughter's voice broke in on her thoughts. ‘Have you died, Mother?'

Lady Blake was tempted to respond that she hadn't the emotional energy to do anything so taxing. She smiled. ‘Darling, I'm sure Ned Stodmarsh is a fine young man, but at twenty, rather
too
young, one would think, to be contemplating matrimony.'

‘That's silly, he's frightfully mature! You should just see him on the tennis court. Felicity Giles nearly swoons every time he serves.'

‘The girl should see a doctor,' said Sir Winthrop.

Lamorna ignored this callousness. ‘Ned never lets that rotten cheat Miles Palfrett get under his skin. Playing doubles with Ned for always and forever is my every dream come true. Last month I thought it would be scratching Elizabeth Palfrett's eyes out for having the nerve to wear the same gown that I wore at the hunt ball, along with the Palfrett diamonds to give her all the sparkle she doesn't have. But since then I've grown up and am quite content to go on despising her in a perfectly friendly way, just like every other girl in our crowd.'

‘Admirable.' Sir Winthrop judiciously refrained from pointing out that Elizabeth Palfrett, despite the scorn heaped upon her by competing eligible females, had just become engaged to young Viscount Briarwood. ‘But where would you be, Lamorna, if Ned Stodmarsh should injure his knees or otherwise be forced to stop playing tennis three days after the wedding? I can't see such a situation being grounds for an annulment.'

Lamorna pouted, fully aware that it made her look even more heartbreakingly beautiful. Rising from the sofa, she gracefully threw out her arms in despair. ‘I suppose, Daddy, that what you and Mummy really want is to make me wait until I'm as ancient as his cousin Madge Bradley before getting engaged.'

‘The woman's hardly old, can't be more than forty.' Sir Winthrop had a kindly streak, which he must have come upon accidentally, because it wasn't an inherited trait, and his nanny had instilled in him that soft-hearted little boys didn't grow up into manly men.

‘She's had to settle for a bookkeeper, of all creepy things.'

Lady Blake agreed this was indeed scraping the bottom of the trough.

‘Those ink-stained fingers!'

‘Honest work,' said Sir Winthrop, ‘unless there's some fiddling of accounts, of course. More of that sort of thing going on these days than when I was a boy.'

Every attempt must be made, decided Her Ladyship, to persuade their daughter to step back from the brink of incredible folly. ‘I'll concede Ned Stodmarsh is not a bad-looking boy; but, oh, my dear, that ginger hair! Think of your children! Especially if it should show up in a daughter!' She hoped she had made this sound as ominous as an offspring encumbered with two heads. ‘What is marginally acceptable in a man is not so with females.'

‘Queen Elizabeth had red hair and it did not keep her off the throne,' Sir Winthrop felt obliged to interpolate when Lamorna cast him a glance that threatened a torrent of tears.

‘Indeed so,' his wife's tone made clear he would be well advised to remain seen but unheard. ‘I've no doubt being called ginger-nob as a girl was what made her so irritable – cutting off people's heads all over the place. Such an unsanitary practice, I've always thought. Also,' Her Ladyship saw nothing amiss in turning the thumbscrew, ‘let us not forget she died an old maid.'

A dreamy expression entered Lamorna's astonishingly lovely blue eyes, fringed by those incredible lashes. ‘I wish someone would behead Regina Stodmarsh. As even you two innocents must have guessed, the wicked old thing is determined to ruin everything for Ned and me.'

Lady Blake assumed a sympathetic mien, contrary to the relief that flooded through her. Praise be to a forgiven Almighty! Here might be the way out of what had seemed for several shuddery minutes an insoluble dilemma. How utterly charming of Regina to accord herself the role of villainess! ‘Tell Daddy and Mummy all about it, my dearest darling!'

Lamorna glided over to the French windows before returning to recline artistically on the sofa. ‘The problem is with the Stodmarsh money. I know it's a horribly vulgar word, that you've taught me never to say out loud, but there's no bearing it! Regina has full control over it for years to come, because of that stupid thing old Lord Stodmarsh set up after he married her.'

‘Called a trust,' answered her father knowledgeably.

‘You're right, as always, Winthrop,' his wife congratulated him in her excess of revived good spirits.

‘Is that what it is?' Lamorna converted a yawn into a sigh. ‘Ned tried to explain the bitter facts to me, and what it comes down to, when you leave out all the fussy stuff, is that he has nothing but a quarterly allowance from the interest on the estate until he is twenty-seven, or she does the considerate thing and dies in the meantime. Ned, being so sweet, doesn't blame his grandfather for setting things up that way, but I think it was wicked of him. Anyway, Ned told me when I rang him up before coming in here that he'd spoken to her about us last night and she refused to withdraw a penny so we can buy a flat in London. Honestly, I could tear my hair out.' Untrue – Lamorna's golden tresses were one of her main reasons for climbing out of bed in the morning and staying up most of the night, but this declaration achieved the desired result.

‘Oh, my dearest,' exclaimed her mother, ‘never think such sacrilege! Take my smelling salts instead!'

Sir Winthrop nobly forewent glancing longingly at his newspaper. ‘What's this about a flat?'

‘We must have one.'

‘Ah! Wouldn't have thought that something any Stodmarsh would be keen as mustard about. I've heard it said the family's secret for maintaining and, must be admiringly said, increasing its fortune is that traditionally the heirs have not come into their full inheritance until their twenty-seventh birthdays, an age when they should be less easy prey for sponging relations.' Sir Winthrop spoke with the aplomb of a man who never admitted even to himself that in his youth he had hounded every aunt, uncle and cousin after his parents had finally refused to honour his debts. That his own son was now blithely going through money like water, he laid down to these modern times. ‘Any idea what Ned's relatives' current situations are, Lamorna?'

‘You mean his aunt and uncle? They're in the same boat as Ned, having to make do with what's dolled out to them every quarter, so there's no hope of them coughing up any lolly.'

‘My dear, such a turn of phrase,' rebuked Lady Blake.

Lamorna ignored this. ‘My darling understands completely that we must have a flat in London as an escape from Mullings on weekends and,' she added fervently, ‘almost every day in between, because I'd simply die if I had to live at Mullings with that horrible woman presiding over every inch of it.'

‘Could he not ask his maternal grandmother for assistance?'

‘He won't. He says it would be a wretched thing to do seeing he's never been as thoughtful of her as he ought to have been. I adore him for being noble, but it is rather a nuisance.' Lamorna raised beseeching eyes to her parents. ‘So it's all up to you, my precious poppets – to help us out financially until we can swing things on our own. Ned didn't want me to ask, he said he'd think of something.'

‘Clarice?' Sir Winthrop retreated crab-like further back in his leather chair.

Lady Blake chose to delay what was bound to be one of Lamorna's worst tantrums ever – and she certainly had a gift for them – by keeping the blame where it rightfully belonged. ‘I do agree with you about Edward Stodmarsh mismanaging the whole business dreadfully. He was a foolish man and undoubtedly believed every word fed to him by Regina – about her having lived a life of miserable dependency on her brother and his family. Utter falsehoods from what I now hear from mutual acquaintances, but ones gaining her the ends she desired – that she not be put in a similar position at Mullings should he die before her.'

‘I know, Mummy, but I can't tell Ned I despise his grandfather.' Lamorna drew her feet fastidiously away from the spaniel who had presumed to edge her way. ‘He was dotty about the old man and says that it's absolutely understandable that Edward Stodmarsh acted to protect Regina's interests, especially knowing his scowly son William would have bunged her in the coal cellar, or something equally vengeful, given half a chance. Now, of course, the boot's on the other foot and she's the one having the merriest time watching everyone squirm. Yes, one day someone really should chop off her head and set it spinning like a top on the floor.'

Sir Winthrop found the blaze of ice-blue in his daughter's eyes so bone-chilling it shocked him into silence.

‘Darling,' her mother replied, ‘your being melodramatic will get us nowhere. Shall not Ned receive an inheritance from his late mother?' A depressing thought, which nevertheless had to be addressed in order to continue appearing sympathetic.

‘Yes, but not until he's twenty-five. Her family, like the Stodmarshes, thought twenty-one too young. Horribly stuffy, but there you are! Ned definitely won't like the idea of you both having to buy us the flat in London …'

There could be no further delaying and Sir Winthrop was visibly incapable of doing his part in bringing down the axe. All this talk of beheading did intrude! Lady Blake squared her shoulders and braced herself against the avalanche of rage imminently hurtling her way. ‘Regretfully, Lamorna, that is impossible. Your father and I may disagree with Regina's Stodmarsh's decision to withhold financial help, but it would be entirely wrong for us to intercede and thwart her obvious opposition to the marriage at this time.' She saw her daughter's mouth open in what seemed to be slow motion. ‘Am I not right, Winthrop?'

‘I'm afraid so; not at all the done thing.' He had no time to plug his ears before the scream erupted.

That piece of hysteria accomplished, Lamorna swept towards the library door, where she stood poised for a poignant moment, before issuing the ultimate threat. ‘I shall never speak to either of you again as long as I live.'

‘Think she means it, Clarice?' Sir Winthrop inquired after the reverberations from the slammed door had quivered away.

‘At this moment I most devoutly hope so, Winthrop. You will accompany me to church on Sunday.'

Twenty minutes later Lamorna telephoned Ned at Mullings. He had been expecting the call, having spoken with her earlier, and when notified by Grumidge, he took it in the study. In his haste he left the door to the hall ajar. That he adored her was unquestionable, but a night's reflection had left him uncertain that he'd done right in asking her to marry him with circumstances being as they were. The thought nagged that his grandfather would have been disappointed in him on this account and that Florie would also think that he had been thoughtlessly immature, which was why he hadn't confided in her that morning.

‘Lamorna?'

‘Darling,' she spoke through a cascade of sobs, ‘I was petrified you might be out, that you'd gone over to that farm.' Over the past weeks she had made it clear in the sweetest possible way that she did not understand his enthusiasm for working with Tom Norris at Farn Deane.

‘Lamorna, I haven't left the house for a minute since we talked.'

‘I wish you'd call me your treasure.'

Ned flushed at the deserved rebuke. ‘You know that's what you are.'

‘Then say it, darling.'

Despite reminding himself he was the luckiest man in the world to have her love, he went hot round the ears. He wasn't cut out for flowery language, had never seen the point of it. He'd have to start practising in his bedroom. ‘My treasure.' There! Done! Next time maybe he wouldn't feel such a fool. ‘What's wrong? Why are you crying?'

‘You could have added – my sweet.'

‘Look,' he said, frankness escaping, ‘I'm worried about you and that means I can't waste time on sunshine and roses.'