Sally

M. C. Beaton
is the author of the hugely successful Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series, as well as a quartet of Edwardian murder mysteries featuring heroine Lady Rose Summer, several Regency romance series and a stand-alone murder mystery,
The Skeleton in the Closet
– all published by Constable & Robinson. She left a full-time career in journalism to turn to writing, and now divides her time between the Cotswolds and Paris. Visit
www.agatharaisin.com
for more, or follow M. C. Beaton on Twitter:
@mc_beaton
.

Titles by M. C. Beaton

The Poor Relation
Lady Fortescue Steps Out · Miss Tonks Turns to Crime · Mrs Budley Falls from Grace
Sir Philip’s Folly · Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue · Back in Society

A House for the Season
The Miser of Mayfair
·
Plain Jane
·
The Wicked Godmother
Rake’s Progress
·
The Adventuress
·
Rainbird’s Revenge

The Six Sisters
Minerva
·
The Taming of Annabelle
·
Deirdre and Desire
Daphne
·
Diana the Huntress
·
Frederica in Fashion

Edwardian Murder Mysteries
Snobbery with Violence
·
Hasty Death
·
Sick of Shadows
Our Lady of Pain

The Travelling Matchmaker
Emily Goes to Exeter
·
Belinda Goes to Bath
·
Penelope Goes to Portsmouth
Beatrice Goes to Brighton
·
Deborah Goes to Dover
·
Yvonne Goes to York

Agatha Raisin
Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death
·
Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet
Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener
·
Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley
Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage
·
Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist
Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death
·
Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham
Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden
Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam
·
Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell
Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came
Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate
·
Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House
Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance
·
Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon
Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor
Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye
Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison
·
Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride
Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body
·
Agatha Raisin: As the Pig Turns
Agatha Raisin: Hiss and Hers · Agatha Raisin and the Christmas Crumble

Hamish Macbeth
Death of a Gossip
·
Death of a Cad
·
Death of an Outsider
Death of a Perfect Wife
·
Death of a Hussy
·
Death of a Snob
Death of a Prankster
·
Death of a Glutton
·
Death of a Travelling Man
Death of a Charming Man
·
Death of a Nag
·
Death of a Macho Man
Death of a Dentist
·
Death of a Scriptwriter
·
Death of an Addict
A Highland Christmas
·
Death of a Dustman
·
Death of a Celebrity
Death of a Village
·
Death of a Poison Pen
·
Death of a Bore
Death of a Dreamer
·
Death of a Maid
·
Death of a Gentle Lady
Death of a Witch
·
Death of a Valentine
·
Death of a Sweep
Death of a Kingfisher · Death of Yesterday

The Skeleton in the Closet

Also available
The Agatha Raisin Companion

Sally

M. C. Beaton

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

It all began the morning the baby was sick on the breakfast table—a small thing to start such a revolution in the mind of Sally Blane, but it was just the last of many things that made her decide she was better off living on her own.

Sally had come to live with her married sister, Emily, a year ago, and already it seemed like a lifetime. She had been with her parents in India when they had died. Emily, already married some ten years, had remained behind with her husband George Bessamy, a solicitor, in Sussex. Emily was a mature thirty and mother of five, and Sally was unwed, being a mere eighteen years of age.

The girls’ parents, Colonel and Mrs. Anthony Blane, had died at a dinner party in Bombay at which the host’s British-hating Indian cook had put arsenic in the mulligatawny.

Fortunately for Sally, she was not present at the dinner. Her father had never believed in saving a penny, and after his mess bills were paid, there was enough left to pay for orphan Sally’s passage home, leaving only two hundred pounds sterling to set her up in life.

Sally had hoped that some handsome young man would be traveling on the same P & O ship and would promptly propose marriage. But although there were plenty of young officers going home on leave, none seemed to want even to flirt with the small girl with her hair scraped back into two braids.

Emily had welcomed Sally into her home in Churchwold, in Sussex, appointed her unpaid nursery maid, and seemed to expect her to be content with that lot until the children should grow up. Sally was small and slight with a wistful little face and huge gray eyes. She had masses of light-brown hair, which, so far, no one had ever suggested she wear up. It flowed down her back in a rather Burne-Jones manner, and on Sundays it was sedately confined at the nape of her neck with a large satin bow.

Emily was the model of the Edwardian matron, heavy in the bust, placid in the face, and empty in the upperworks. She was a ferociously dedicated mother. Her whole life was devoted to turning out model children, and as a result they were all quite horribly miserable and spoiled. Peter, the eldest of the brood, was ten; Paul, eight; Mary, seven; Joseph, five; and then there was baby Marmaduke, aged two. The children had no hope of any discipline from their father, since George Bessamy left early in the morning for his offices in Lewes, not returning until seven in the evening, by which time the little monsters were all in bed. On Sundays, after he had been to church, George retired to his study and locked the door, not emerging until the evening, rather slurred of speech and baggy of eye.

Sally tried hard to like the children and pay for her keep by attending to their wants, but as she was not allowed to raise her voice to them or smack them or reproach them in any way, they tormented her mercilessly.

Had she had any friends or social life, her lot might have been easier, but Churchwold was a small village with a population of retired gentle-people living mostly on small pensions. Their entertainments consisted of gossiping maliciously over pots of weak tea and dry salmon sandwiches. There were several other young spinsters of the parish, but to Sally’s amazement they seemed, unlike herself, to have become reconciled to their lot and rattled their cups and gossiped as heartily as their elders.

It was a very damp village, one of those English villages that look so beautiful on calendars but are so unpleasant to live in. The pretty Tudor houses with their thatch and beams and wattle smelled of dry rot, and the sanitation had not changed much since the time of The Virgin Queen. The vicar was constantly trying to raise funds to restore the roof of the church, but no one showed any interest, not even when one of the carved angels on the hammer beam ceiling fell down one day and brained poor Mrs. Anstruther, striking her dead.

Mrs. Anstruther had been ninety and had lived long enough, the congregation had pointed out, turning neglect into some sort of divine euthanasia.

There were two greengrocers in the village, one at one end, mostly patronized by the inbred poor, and one at the other end for the gentry. Both sold exactly the same goods at the same prices, and no one could say for sure why the one got the posh trade and the other the peasant. The posh grocers also housed the village post office, which was open at mysterious hours and always seemed to be closed when one wanted to mail a particularly heavy parcel. There was a public house, which exuded a strong aroma of stale meat pies and strong beer.

Sally had tried hard to accustom herself to her lot. But now the full horror of the summer holidays was brought home to her. The children would be in and around her all day. Not only that, but the Bessamys would be making their annual pilgrimage to Brighton for two weeks, and to Sally that meant two weeks of running up and down the beach after her charges and trying not to hope that a tidal wave might drown them all.

It was not the children’s tempers that frayed Sally’s nerves but their constant whining. They were great whiners right down to Baby Marmaduke, who had a particularly grating call.

It began to dawn on Sally that apart from housemaids and parlormaids and such like, there was a new breed of women who were beginning to take jobs and earn their own livings.

On the day she made up her mind—or rather the day Baby Marmaduke made it up for her—Sally was seated at the breakfast table on a particularly blazing-hot August morning, trying to read the
Daily Bugle
to shut out the chorus of complaint that was going on around her.

Emily sat drinking tea contentedly, deaf to the whining of her children, as only a rather stupid and devoted mother could be.

Peter was picking at his spots, Paul was exploring the inside of his rather large nose with one finger, Mary was crying dismally because she could not have a new lace dress, and Joseph had caught a bluebottle and was drowning it in the honey pot. Only Marmaduke had not given tongue, since he had thrown his kippers to the cat and was watching that animal chewing them up under his high chair with wide-eyed interest.

Suddenly all sound vanished for Sally as she stared at the paper. On the front page was a political report from the Lobby Correspondent, Mrs. Mary Service. Sally’s eyes widened. A woman—a Lobby Correspondent! A woman stalking through that masculine preserve of the House of Commons, taking notes!

I could work
, she thought suddenly.
I could earn my own money. I could be free
. Sally thought feverishly. She knew she could write, for in Bombay, hadn’t she been chosen out of all the girls to edit the school magazine?