The Penningtons (10 page)

He raised his eyebrows. ‘You must have a young man. An admirer.’

She shrugged then brightened. ‘I think the young man in the solicitor’s took a fancy to me!’

‘I’d be surprised if he didn’t. Men can’t resist hair like yours.’

‘But it’s so frizzy!’

‘It’s the colour, Daisy. Burnished gold.’

‘Ma calls it ginger.’

‘She doesn’t want you to grow up vain! Believe me, it’s very attractive.’ He put his head on one side, listening. ‘I think the girls are arriving. Better let them in, I suppose.’

By ‘girls’ he meant his sister and sister-in-law, and he was right. Dilys entered first and nodded to Daisy and stared at her brother as he waited at the bottom of the stairs to greet them.

She said, ‘I never thought to see you up and about again, Montague. Hettie told me about the transformation!’

‘Well, hardly that!’ he protested as she kissed his cheek.

Hettie was already studying the floor of the hall and nodding with satisfaction. ‘Your Mrs Gray is certainly a treasure,’ she told Dilys.

Daisy said, ‘You should see the kitchen floor – and she did some of the laundry wash.’

Monty laughed. ‘She swept in like a small tornado!’

Pleased by the praise, Dilys allowed herself a smile. ‘But don’t think you can poach her, Hettie. I found her, remember. She’s been with me for some time. She was simply on loan to Montague. But now let’s inspect the house before the new woman turns up.’

Miss Willis was personable, middle-aged and quietly spoken and Daisy could see no reason why she would not be offered the post. While Hettie showed her round the garden, Dilys discussed her with Monty.

‘Hettie and I are agreed that she would be quite suitable,’ she told him. ‘We had a very nice reference from her last employer who said—’

‘And why, Dilys, is she leaving that position?’

‘Why? I don’t know why. It hardly matters.’

‘Doesn’t it?’ He wagged a finger. ‘Remember what Mother used to say about servants? That it’s not what the reference says but what it leaves out that matters.’

Dilys frowned. ‘What are you talking about? She said no such thing.’

‘Not in your hearing, perhaps. I heard it more than once. Is she healthy?’ he asked. ‘She might have a disease. She might be consumptive.’

‘Oh? Does she
look
consumptive?’

‘No but I’m just saying we should not take her at face value. I’d like to read the references.’

‘But there’s no need. Hettie and I have read them.’

‘But she’s applying to be
my
housekeeper! I shall be paying her wages. Suppose she drinks? Some of them do, you know. Secretly, that is. Does she smell of spirits?’

‘I – I don’t think so.’ Thrown by the question, Dilys frowned. ‘Why do you ask? Did you notice something on her breath?’

At that moment Daisy entered the room and Montague asked her the same question.

Daisy shook her head. ‘No. But she does smell of peppermints.’

Monty nodded. ‘Ah! That’s a giveaway, that is. It’s to cover up the smell of the gin or the whisky!’

Daisy regarded them innocently. ‘But the peppermint might be for medicinal purposes. Maybe she has a bad digestion.’

Monty shrugged. ‘I just don’t want to fritter family money on a drunk, that’s all I’m saying. Is she cheap, this woman?’

Dilys swallowed hard. ‘Not particularly.’

Daisy laughed. ‘My aunt had bad digestion. She ate peppermints all the time to stop her from burping.’

Monty frowned. ‘Burping! How unpleasant!’

Dilys was wavering. The mention of family money had reminded her of the talks she had had with her sister on the subject.

‘Maybe we should think it over,’ she suggested. ‘Talk about it later.’

Daisy nodded. ‘Miss Dutton told me that where she was working before she came here, when she was only a parlour maid, the housekeeper used to steal from the housekeeping money and they never did find out. The employers, I mean. The staff all knew but they thought it a bit of a lark.’

Dilys rose to the bait. ‘But how did she get away with it? I’d know if my housekeeper was trying to cheat me!’

‘The housekeeper was in cahoots with the butcher. He used to overcharge for the meat and the two of them would split the difference!’

Dismayed, Dilys sat down. ‘Well really! I’ve never heard such a dreadful thing!’

Daisy looked at Dilys. ‘Well, I don’t mind carrying on as I am for a few more weeks until you find someone you feel satisfied with. If you could spare your Mrs Gray from time to time it would be a help.’

Dilys said, ‘That’s kind of you, Daisy. I’ll talk to Hettie . . .’

‘Talk to
me
,’ said Monty. ‘
I
shall be employing her. I’m already a bit dubious about this woman. I think we’ll wait a little longer until someone else comes along with whom I can feel really comfortable.’

As Dilys hurried into the garden in search of her sister, Monty turned to Daisy and winked. ‘I think we managed that very well,’ he whispered.

That night Dilys undressed slowly, her mind on the day’s event at Montague’s home. They had promised to let Miss Willis know within two days, pretending that they had another applicant to interview. In effect, however, they had decided against her but Dilys still felt uneasy about her own feelings. Had she allowed herself to be swayed by Daisy’s revelations, she wondered.

She creamed her face and then carefully wiped most of it off again. Staring at her reflection she sighed, wondering why she bothered. She had no husband to admire her – or even to notice her existence . . . but she had her friends and her charity work, she reminded herself, and it was important to maintain standards.

She brushed her hair with a hundred strokes and covered it with a muslin cap in the hope that it would not tangle during the night. In times past, her hair had been considered one of her best features only outshone by Cressida’s hair. Beautiful, adorable Cressida. So good! So perfect! Saint Cressida! Dilys gritted her teeth. She herself had been quite overshadowed by Montague’s wife. The only thing Montague’s wife had failed at had been motherhood. No son or daughter for poor Montague. That must have rankled, she thought, with a grim smile. Not that she, Dilys, had produced a child either – but then no one had ever considered Dilys perfect. Casting aside ungenerous thoughts she was soon in bed and drifting into sleep.

When she awoke it was to a feeling of alarm for which she could see no explanation. She stared round the darkened room then sat up with a shiver of apprehension.

‘What is it?’ she demanded of the empty room.

Listening she heard nothing but some instinct urged her to slide from the bed and make her way cautiously to the landing from where she looked down into the hall. Nothing unusual there. Vaguely reassured she returned to the bedroom, lit the bedside candle, pulled on her dressing gown and returned to the top of the stairs. Flickering shadows filled the space around her . . . and then she heard a sound from the sitting room below.

‘My God!’ she whispered, her heart thumping wildly. Someone or some
thing
was down there. Should she, dare she, go downstairs? Instead she called out. ‘Who’s there?’ but the sound of her own voice, weak and trembling, frightened her almost as much as the sounds she was now sure were being made by an intruder. Her first thought was to call the police but the telephone was in the hall close to the sitting room and that meant . . .

She heard something drop and it was followed by a muffled curse. Terrified, Dilys rushed back into the bedroom and slammed the door. Maybe the noise would alarm whoever it was, she thought desperately. There was no key in the door so she was unable to lock it so she sat on the floor with her back to it.

Her imagination was working overtime. Suppose whoever it was came up after her . . . sought her out and murdered her! ‘Oh please God!’ she whispered. Within minutes she could be lying dead on the floor and nobody would know.

With an effort she tried to calm her fear, aware that to panic would be a serious mistake. She must stay alert. She must find a way to protect herself. ‘I’d be safer in the bathroom,’ she told herself. There she could lock the door – but that meant abandoning her bedroom to run the length of the landing and he might already be on his way upstairs.

‘Oh please God!’ she begged again, straining for sounds of the intruder’s whereabouts.

Minutes passed. When would it be safe to venture out from the bedroom? Maybe never! It seemed that she sat there for at least an hour while her heart beat increased and she found it hard to breathe. At last she heard sounds from the kitchen and assumed the thief was making his way out. The back door slammed and she scrambled to her feet and ran to the window from where she saw a man making his way towards the gate at the rear of the house.

So she had not imagined it! The proof made her shudder with delayed shock and she stumbled to the bed and threw herself on to it, face down. Immediately she recalled the man in the queue at the soup kitchen. ‘It was him!’ she told herself. She recalled the look of him, the intense expression and his muttered word ‘Dilys’. Yes! She had been right all along and they had all been wrong to try and persuade her otherwise.

But why had he chosen her – and why draw attention to himself? Why should he make his intentions so obvious?

‘The police!’ she muttered. Now she would contact them and tell them her suspicions and they would go after him. Still shaking from the ordeal, Dilys made her way downstairs and called them.

A young constable arrived ten minutes later on a bicycle and the two of them sat at the kitchen table, each with a mug of cocoa which he assured her would help soothe her nerves.

Dilys had dressed herself during the wait for his arrival and had also had time to discover the loss of various items.

‘A small carriage clock from the sitting room,’ she told him, ‘and a silver backed hair brush and mirror which my husband gave me for a wedding present.’

‘Any of it worth anything?’ He paused in his note-taking.

‘Worth anything?’ she repeated angrily. ‘Most certainly they were worth something. They were silver backed! A considerable amount, in fact, constable, not to mention the sentimental value!’

He wrote again and turned the page. ‘Roughly how much, would you say – for the clock?’

‘I would have to consult my insurer. Everything of worth has been listed . . . and my diamond and garnet ring has gone!’ It had gone from the dressing table, she reflected with a shiver of realization. ‘That man was upstairs, in my bedroom,
while I was sleeping!
I might have been murdered in my bed!’ She watched for his reaction. Surely he would be as horrified as she was.

He said, ‘Good job he didn’t then, or this would be a murder scene! Think yourself lucky, Mrs Manning.’

Dilys felt like slapping him. ‘It’s Maynard,’ she reminded him and spelled it for him. ‘And for your information, I don’t feel at all lucky!’ He seemed impervious to shock and outrage. Perhaps stolidity was one of the requirements for young police cadets. She felt totally violated but he was treating it as a routine burglary.

‘Maynard,’ he repeated and gave her a sudden smile. ‘I knew a man called Maynard once. Long time ago. He was a teacher at my school. Terrible wild hair, he had. Mangy Maynard we called him, the way you do at school. A nickname, you see. Mangy like a lion has a mangy mane.’

Dilys stared into his young blue eyes and prayed that he would never be given a promotion.

He finished his cocoa and picked up his pencil. ‘Now can you describe this man you think you saw in the . . .’

‘I didn’t
think
I saw him, I
did
see him!’

‘But it was dark, you said.’

‘I saw his shape – tall and thin with an intense stare and a . . .’

‘It was dark and in the garden but you could see his intense stare?’

‘Only because I’ve seen him before.’ She explained the incident in the soup kitchen. ‘It’s him. I’m sure of it.’

‘Knows . . . the . . . perpetrator . . .’ he wrote then glanced up.

‘You make it sound as though he’s an acquaintance,’ Dilys protested. ‘I didn’t say that.’

‘What is he then – a friend, a neighbour, what exactly?’

‘A
friend
?’ She almost groaned. ‘A friend would hardly break into my house and steal from me!’

‘But you said you know the man.’

‘I don’t
know
him. I recognized him from that earlier incident at the soup kitchen. I don’t know who he is but at the time I had a distinct feeling that he meant me harm.’

‘And you can’t imagine anyone carrying a grudge for something in the past? Could he be someone you or your husband sacked? A lazy gardener? Someone like that?’

‘I can’t think of anyone.’ She looked at him helplessly.

‘A jilted lover from your past?’

‘For heaven’s sake!’ she snapped. ‘Now you’re being ridiculous!’

‘Just asking,’ he said, unperturbed, and added a few more words to his report. ‘You never know.’

‘I’m a perfectly respectable widow. Put that in your notebook!’

After a pause, he said, ‘Maybe he assumes that all the people involved in the soup kitchen must be filthy rich so are worth robbing!’

‘I suppose we are, in their eyes.’ Dilys was thinking hard. ‘Has there been a similar break-in at the homes of any of the others who help at the soup kitchen?’ Her enthusiasm for the theory was growing. ‘If there have been similar incidents then it’s a pattern. You could cross-check any similar burglaries and—’

‘Are you telling me how to do my job, Mrs Maynard?’ He spoke mildly and he seemed quite taken with her idea. ‘I dare say that if you are poor enough you must almost
hate
rich people. They’ve got nothing and, by comparison, the “do-gooders” have everything.’ He wrote briefly.

Dilys gasped, finding the remarks offensive. He seemed to suggest that if you had money you were a legitimate target for those who had none. Abruptly her patience deserted her and she raised her voice. ‘You are not taking this seriously! I can see that quite clearly. I’m going to report you to your superiors! I’m giving you plenty of useful information –
vital
information – and you are hardly writing anything!’