A Death in the Family (9 page)

‘But she is the scullery maid,’ I protested weakly. It had taken me less than a day to understand that the position of scullery maid was of less significance than the kitchen cat. Moreover the cat was never asked to take out the night soil.

‘Indeed. I am glad to see you are picking up the structure of the household so quickly. Fortunately for you, my girl, her mother can’t afford to lose the income and she’s sent her youngest son, Johnny, to cover many of her duties.’

Mrs Deighton coughed loudly. The cough sounded rather like “trouble”, but I may have been mistaken as the cook continued to stir the eggs and did not turn round.

Mrs Wilson paused for a moment staring hard at the cook’s back. ‘Johnny will naturally be doing most of his work with the male staff.’

‘Male staff?’ I interrupted curiously. ‘I thought there was only Mr Holdsworth.’

‘Good gracious,’ gasped Mrs Wilson. ‘How on earth could we manage such a large house with so few staff?’

I had been wondering this myself, but I kept my mouth shut.

‘We have drivers, gardeners, boot boys, valets and, on special occasions, footmen.’

I longed to ask where the footmen were stored in between special occasions.

‘However, you will not be meeting any of them. Unless there is a party of note, when you might – only might – see a footman in the kitchen. I keep my girls well away from the male household. The master did not have separate male and female servant stairs built for nothing!’

Mrs Wilson misread the alarm in my eyes as I realised my list of suspects was growing by the moment. ‘So if you have any thoughts of finding yourself a husband here I will remind you that Lord Stapleford will not allow any of that to go on under his roof! This is a respectable household.’

So many retorts sprang to my mind, but I continued to keep my tongue behind my teeth.

‘This morning, Euphemia, I need you to go down to the kitchen garden and collect cabbages and broad beans.’

I nodded.

‘If you can manage that,’ added Mrs Wilson on a note of contempt and glided off, her long black skirts trailing behind her.

‘You do know what a cabbage looks like, don’t you?’ asked Mrs Deighton.

‘Of course,’ I said. She handed me a large basket with a large knife in the bottom and pointed me at the garden door. I was picking my way down the muddy path to the side garden when I realised what that had all been about and broke out laughing. Mrs Wilson did not believe I was a maid. She clearly was still holding to her darling idea that I was an immoral female with nefarious tendencies. She did not expect me to be able to spot a cabbage in its raw form. This was a test. Possibly my mother when she had first married my father would have been flummoxed to uncover a cabbage in its raw form, but any member of a poor vicar’s family knew about growing garden vegetables.

I found the cabbage patch and set about hacking away with a will. It was most enjoyable. Cabbages do bear a remarkable resemblance to some heads and have about as much sense in them as some people I could mention.

No one had told me how many to collect. I stopped after five. The basket was getting very full and very heavy. I wandered off in search of the broad bean frame. The kitchen garden was large. Different areas were segregated by neat box hedges. I rounded one corner and was assailed by the fine smells of rosemary and thyme. A really very lovely herb garden was growing there. This garden had been laid out in concentric circles with pretty little seats scattered here and there. I spotted lavender pots. Doubtless, this was an area the ladies of the house sometimes visited.

I was standing admiring the view and wondering where exactly I would find beans, when a boy of about 12 in clothing so muddy it defied description came into view closely followed by a youngish man in a rough brown suit. I stepped back out of view behind the hedge. ‘Come on, Jimmy me lad,’ said the man in a wheedling voice. ‘I’ve got a bright, shiny penny here for you if you can tell me what I need to know.’

‘I’ve told you. I don’t know nofink!’ protested the boy, who clearly needed an operation for his adenoids. ‘I don’t have nofink to do with the master.’

‘But you knows people that do. A clever lad like you, Jimmy. Bet you’re the pet of the staff. A little word here. A little word there. Mr Martin the driver seems a very chatty bloke. Lovely motor he’s got. You interested in motors, Jimmy?’

‘Of course I’m interested in motors!’ piped up Jimmy.

‘Well then, it wouldn’t be a big hardship to go talking to Mr Martin about the runs he’s been on in the car recently, would it?’

‘Why don’t you ask him yourself?’ asked the boy.

‘Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. You’ve got a lot to learn about how the world works, lad. You do this little favour for me and I’ll give you a bright new penny.’

‘I still don’t understand why yous can’t ask him yourself.’

At this point I revealed my presence. ‘That is quite correct, Jimmy,’ I said in my best vicar’s daughter voice. ‘Run along now and leave this man to me.’

Jimmy threw me a look that said he thought I had but recently escaped from the mad house. However, he was obviously not overly enamoured of the penny-man either and took the opportunity to, I believe the term is, leg it.

‘As for you, sir. I shall not enquire of you your business. Anyone who propositions a child for information is hardly likely to be working for one of our more respectable periodicals.’

To give the man credit he did remove his pork pie hat at the sight of me, but his tone was not respectful. ‘Respectable! Respectable! I like that coming from you!’

‘Sir, you know nothing about me!’ Goodness, could he be a relative of Mrs Wilson? ‘I need you to leave now. I have beans to collect.’

He approached me pointing a finger in my direction and ignoring my vegetable dilemma. ‘I’d like to know how you equate respectable with the death and destruction your family has caused.’ He gestured at my basket. ‘How do you eat? How do you swallow that knowing your family fortune is coined from the blood of others?’

I moved backwards as far as I could until the hedge pressed against me. He kept coming and I confess I was frightened. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ I blurted out. ‘My father might have been responsible for sending a number of men and women to their final rest, but he was no murderer!’

‘Ha! So you admit it!’ cried the man. ‘But it’s not your father I am interested in, but his son.’

It dawned on me then that he had mistaken me for one of the Staplefords. This lent me strength. ‘Leave this garden at once or I shall summon the police!’

‘And how are you going to do that?’ The man sneered showing nasty yellow teeth.

‘I shall scream,’ I replied with dignity. ‘There is still a sergeant at the house.’

The man’s face contorted in anger. He shoved his hat upon his head. ‘Don’t you think I will let this matter rest, ma’am. You can’t stifle the press no matter who you are. The country don’t want the likes of him in power. You mark my words. Not when they know the truth.’

I took a deep breath. It was enough. I was gratified to see him beat a hasty retreat across the garden. The beans transpired to be around the next corner, so I was able to fill my basket to the brim and return to the house feeling accomplished. Though I must admit the newspaper man’s conversation, no matter how many times I replayed it in my mind, left me with a considerable number of questions. Regretfully, due to my lapse in commenting on my father’s existence, not to mention his propensity to bury the dead, I felt I could not mention the conversation to another in case they tracked down this man and inadvertently exposed my origins.

I entered the kitchen triumphantly bearing my full basket proudly before me. The cook was frantically whipping up something in a bowl. As I came in she stopped, held up the whisk and looked in dismay as a thin line of liquid dribbled from it. I had no idea what she was making, but even I with my limited culinary skills could tell it was not going well. She noticed me and annoyance suffused her face.

‘Where have you been, Euphemia!’ cried Mrs Deighton. ‘I need those beans now! Take ’em through the scullery and, while you’re at it, scrub those cabbages. I hope you got four. You never bothered to ask before you flounced off.’

I nodded. I had got four, more than four, but I didn’t think now was the time to be pedantic.

‘Good. Waste not, want not. That’s what I always say.’ Mrs Deighton indicated the scullery with a nod of her head.

It was a dingy little room with only a small window set high up in the wall. There were three bars across it. The scullery had a large, low sink with a cold water pump attached and a big wooden draining board. It managed to have both the most modern of conveniences and the most miserable of ambiences.

I dumped my basket down angrily on the side. I knew, as my father had taught me, that all people were created equal in God’s eyes. ‘All men,’ I muttered savagely pulling the outer leaves off a poor cabbage. I was aware that even in this house, even between the ranks, there was some camaraderie between the men, but the women, like the poor scullery maid, were all lowly creatures bent on seducing the men and secluded for their own protection against their immoral tendencies.

‘Ha!’ I cried dumping the shorn cabbage in the sink. I thought of Merry’s tear-stained face and her belief in good old Cousin Georgie. Good old Cousin George who might well have taken advantage of Richenda if Bertram’s suspicions were correct. This house was a seething morass of – of wrongs! Worse than even I suspected if there was any sense behind that newspaper man’s incomprehensible accusations.

‘Careful there, my pretty, I prefer my vegetables unbruised.’

I whirled round to see Mr Richard walking calmly towards me. He hesitated as he peered through the half-light.

‘Why, you’re not little Aggie! I didn’t think she was the spirited sort. Not with the vegetables anyway. You’re Euphemia, aren’t you?’

I did not entirely understand his tone, but involuntarily I edged back against the draining board. I reached behind me into the basket, feeling for the knife.

‘So then, I think it is time we got better acquainted,’ said Mr Richard in a horrid slimy kind of voice.

My fingers, still somewhat cold from my gathering in the garden, fumbled in the basket. Where was the knife? My numb fingertips scraped along something long and hard. I grasped it quickly. I pulled it out and shouted, ‘Sir, I am not that kind of a maid!’ and flourished a string of beans in his face. I had been so sure it had been the knife.

Mr Richard roared with laughter. ‘Oh yes, I really must get to know you, Euphemia.’

I was trapped. Between me and the first son of the household was only a string of beans and even by this light I could see they weren’t very good beans.

‘I’ll scream,’ I said, falling back on my favourite defence.

He was too close now. I could smell his cologne. He leaned in; there was liquor on his breath. ‘Do you think anyone will hear? Do you think anyone will care, Euphemia?’

‘Sir,’ announced a sonorous voice from the doorway, ‘I have found a bottle of the ’87. I think your father would infinitely prefer it if you decanted it yourself.’

Mr Richard swung round. ‘I doubt that, Holdsworth, but I will.’ He whispered in my ear. ‘Foiled this time I retire from the lists, little maiden, but I shall return.’

Mr Richard walked out of the room quite calmly as if nothing had happened at all. I turned and leant over the sink fighting the urge to be sick. ‘Thank you, Mr Holdsworth,’ I gasped.

‘Might I advise, Euphemia, if you have any other option at all to seek another position. This is not the right situation for you.’

I swallowed down bile as I nodded. ‘Yes, I am beginning to think you are right,’ I said before I vomited over the cabbages.

The next morning I was given the job of taking up Miss Richenda’s tray and Merry was sent down the garden. None of the family had commented on any unusual flavours in yesterday’s side dishes, but there was a general, if unvoiced, agreement to keep me out of the scullery.

Unfortunately Miss Richenda rose late in the country, so there was more than ample time for me to sort and fold the linen. This proved to be a tedious and time-consuming job. There are really no secrets to be learned from endless piles of clean sheets. However, if Aggie did not soon return I would be given the opportunity of seeing what I could learn from dirty ones. I did not relish the idea. All in all my initial enthusiasm for helping Sergeant Davies and Mr Bertram was at a very low ebb. The ladies of this house were self-centred, unpleasant and idle. The gentlemen, on the other hand, were far from idle enough. The only person among the family for whom I felt the least liking was Mr Bertram and even he was disagreeably annoying.

I tapped on Miss Richenda’s door, so as not to startle her and entered. I almost dropped the tray. The room was in terrible disarray. As my eyes took in the spilt powder on the dressing table, the items of clothing strewn across the room and the unturned chair I thought the room had been ransacked.

‘Miss Richenda!’ I called in alarm.

A tousled head appeared from under the bright crimson covers. Richenda eased herself to a sitting position. She cradled her head protectively. ‘Not so loud, Merry!’ She blinked blearily at me. ‘Oh, it’s you. Look out for that chair. Is that tea – lovely!’ Richenda swept the contents of the bedside table onto the floor. A magazine, a beaded necklace and a little notebook joined the chaos below.

I placed the tray carefully on the new space. I hovered, uncertain of what to do. I was beginning to realise it was no stranger who had created this havoc. I must have let too much show on my face as Miss Richenda frowned. ‘Merry didn’t tell you, did she? About my little problem?’

‘No, miss.’

‘I sleepwalk. Have done since a girl. I don’t tend to go far. But as you can see I do tend to leave a trail behind me.’

A thought flashed across my mind. I had heard somnambulism was caused by a troubled mind. What was it that troubled Miss Richenda? ‘Never mind, miss. I can clean this up dead quick.’ I could not manage Merry’s accent, but I felt my simpler speech was a good imitation of my station.