Death at the Wychbourne Follies

by Amy Myers

  Contents

  Cover

  Recent Titles by Amy Myers from Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  Wychbourne Court

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Recent Titles by Amy Myers from Severn House

  The Nell Drury Mysteries

  DANCING WITH DEATH

  DEATH AT THE WYCHBOURNE FOLLIES

  The Jack Colby, Car Detective, Series

  CLASSIC IN THE BARN

  CLASSIC CALLS THE SHOTS

  CLASSIC IN THE CLOUDS

  CLASSIC MISTAKE

  CLASSIC IN THE PITS

  CLASSIC CASHES IN

  CLASSIC IN THE DOCK

  CLASSIC AT BAY

  The Marsh and Daughter Mysteries

  THE WICKENHAM MURDERS

  MURDER IN FRIDAY STREET

  MURDER IN HELL’S CORNER

  MURDER AND THE GOLDEN GOBLET

  MURDER IN THE MIST

  MURDER TAKES THE STAGE

  MURDER ON THE OLD ROAD

  MURDER IN ABBOT’S FOLLY

  DEATH AT THE WYCHBOURNE FOLLIES

  Amy Myers

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  First published in the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of

  110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  Copyright © 2018 by Amy Myers.

  The right of Amy Myers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8850-1 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-974-0 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0183-6 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The county of Kent boasts many splendid ancient houses, castles and stately homes. Wychbourne Court is one of the latter and located between the famous Knole and Ightham Mote and not far from Anne Boleyn’s Hever Castle. Unlike them, Wychbourne Court and its occupants, local residents and guests are fictitious. London’s Gaiety Theatre, spoken of so fondly in this novel, is also factual, as was the Guv’nor. The Gaiety finally closed its doors just before the Second World War. The actors who appeared there in this novel are also fictitious, as are the other characters.

  Wychbourne Court didn’t materialize all by itself; it had tremendous help both from my agent, Sara Keane of Keane Kataria, and from my publishers, Severn House – Kate Lyall Grant and her incomparable team, including Sara Porter, copy-editor Emma Grundy Haigh and Piers Tilbury have expertly magicked Death at the Wychbourne Follies and its predecessor, Dancing with Death, into being. To all of them my deep gratitude.

  WYCHBOURNE COURT

  Members of the Ansley Family appearing in Death at the Wychbourne Follies

  Lord (Gerald) Ansley, 8th Marquess Ansley

  Lady (Gertrude) Ansley, Marchioness Ansley

  Lord Richard Ansley, one of their three sons

  Lady Helen Ansley, their elder daughter

  Lady Sophy Ansley, their younger daughter

  Lady Clarice Ansley, sister to Lord Ansley

  The Upper Servants

  Nell Drury, chef

  Frederick Peters, butler

  Florence Fielding, housekeeper

  Mr Briggs, Lord Ansley’s valet

  Jenny Smith, Lady Ansley’s maid

  Guests, other residents and visitors

  Arthur Fontenoy, former lover of the 7th Marquess

  Rex Beringer, guest

  Lady (Katie) Kencroft, guest

  Lord (Charles) Kencroft, guest

  Lynette Reynolds, guest

  Neville Heydock, guest

  Alice Maxwell, guest

  Tobias St John Rocke, guest

  and

  Inspector Alexander Melbray of Scotland Yard

  ONE

  ‘Follies!’ A snort from Mrs Fielding.

  Nell Drury struggled to hold back a giggle. The housekeeper’s disapproval was only to be expected, but as chef Nell could beg to differ.

  ‘Crackling crumpets,’ she whipped back, ‘why shouldn’t they put on a show for fun? The Ansleys can beat the Ziegfeld Follies any day of the week.’

  ‘Pierrots indeed. Fancy her ladyship dressed up like a clown like those we see at the seaside. It isn’t right.’

  ‘It’s for good causes,’ Nell said brightly. She knew the only reason Lord Ansley had reluctantly agreed to his offspring’s demands was that the money raised would be given to war charities. In this year of 1926, the war had been over for seven years, but how did one calculate ‘over’? The surviving men and women had come back to their homes physically but many were still stuck in 1918, some with physical injuries, others with mental wounds and all with scars that they struggled to deal with.

  Mrs Fielding stood up, thus tacitly declaring the gathering at an end. ‘And it’s beginning to snow,’ she added darkly, ignoring Nell’s point.

  Nell peered through the windows of the butler’s room, still affectionately known as Pug’s Parlour, where she and the other upper servants of the Kentish stately home of Wychbourne Court had gathered for a brief lunch. To her surprise, Mrs Fielding was right. Snowflakes were indeed drifting past the window and settling on the kitchen yard outside. The first this month, though as it was only mid-January there was plenty of time for more. In a few hours, the guests would be arriving, and this threat from the weather wasn’t a good omen for the smooth passage of the weekend ahead – or for the Wychbourne Follies.

  ‘You mark my words, nothing good will come of it.’ Mrs Fielding gave a final sniff and marched out in a swirl of her old-fashioned bombazine skirts. Mr Peters, the butler, shot a compassionate look at Nell as he followed the housekeeper out. He’d no choice, as his tendresse for Mrs Fielding was now an open secret. That just left Lord Ansley’s valet, Mr Briggs, as Lady Ansley was awaiting the arrival of a new lad
y’s maid. Mr Briggs, Lord Ansley’s valet, was as usual in a world of his own, with a happy smile on his lips. He had been shell-shocked during the war, and now had his own way of dealing with life.

  Privately, Nell too had her doubts about the Follies, but she dismissed them. Her job as chef was to get moving with such a splendid dinner this evening that it would ensure that the path to the Follies and the weekend was a smooth one. A welcoming dinner that included sea bass in champagne sauce, followed by pheasant and then apples with cream of kirsch could not fail to please the guests who would be joining them this Thursday to stay until Sunday. Why shouldn’t everything go smoothly anyway? Snow outside, the warmth and comfort of Wychbourne Court inside, and her cooking – what more could anyone ask?

  These were the 1920s; the war was behind them and despite the problems it had bequeathed, a brave new world was springing up all over the place – and so were ideas in her mind. Cooking was an art, the kitchen was her studio and her job was to see that the dishes she produced lived up to that. Gone were the heavy meals of the past, gone were the restrictions of wartime rationing. Coming in their place was the excitement of rediscovering scents and spices of the past and adding them to the glories of exotic new flavours and dishes from far afield. And Wychbourne Court, with its own herb and vegetable gardens, together with its orchard, was a paradise for Nell to fulfil her dreams of creating her very own cuisine. Away with doubts and worries. All would go well this weekend.

  Gertrude, Lady Ansley, however, was still battling with her doubts. Until this change of plan for the Follies had been sprung on her by her children, it had seemed such a pleasant idea to hold a reunion of her former Gaiety Theatre friends at Wychbourne Court together with an impromptu performance in the ballroom. She had seen little of them since her marriage over thirty years ago to dear Gerald, 8th Marquess Ansley, and very occasionally she still hankered after those old exciting days on the stage. Her career there had been short but successful thanks to her role in The Flower Shop Girl.

  ‘Did you find those old postcards, Helen?’ she asked her elder daughter anxiously. The cards of her friends and herself in their Gaiety years had sold in their thousands, but a new generation occupied the London stage now. Displaying the old cards would bring pleasure to her former friends, and indeed herself, for memorabilia of those times were usually consigned to the Velvet Room. Here she could relax from her duties as the Marchioness Ansley and dwell briefly in the past.

  Helen yawned, adjusting her elegant pose on the chaise longue. If only the fashion for Eton crops would pass, Gertrude lamented, so that her daughter’s golden hair could once again soften her classically beautiful face, but Helen was adamant on remaining à la mode. ‘All on display in the Great Hall,’ Helen reassured her. ‘Peters is looking after it. That annoying little man’s helping him.’

  ‘Mr Trotter means well, Helen,’ Gertrude said placatingly, ‘and it keeps your aunt busy.’

  That was an understatement. Gerald’s sister Clarice, who lived with them, was always busy where the ghosts of Wychbourne Court were concerned. She was dedicated to their welfare – as Clarice put it – and had arranged for Mr Timothy Trotter, a well-known spirit photographer, to spend a few days at Wychbourne. Naturally, being Clarice, she had not remembered to mention this either to her or to the servants. Yesterday Peters had to make urgent arrangements for a dark room to be set up and equipped, which had involved her son Richard motoring to Sevenoaks for chemicals, plates and other strange objects. Mr Trotter had anxiously assured them all that he was bringing his own enlarger and he would be of no trouble at all – which of course ensured he was the opposite, as he fussed around.

  Gertrude reverted to her principal worry. ‘Did you arrange for the posters and programmes too?’ It was a pity that her younger daughter, Sophy, was so busy with the local Labour Party that she couldn’t have given this task to her. Helen was a darling, but unpredictable and easily bored. That was the burden beautiful women carried, Gertrude thought. They had too much attention paid to them and could not see the right path for all the tinsel lying along their way. If only Helen would marry that nice Rex Beringer.

  ‘Done,’ Helen answered languidly. ‘We’ve spread them among the breakfast room, the library and the bedrooms. But have you done the dirty deed yet?’

  Gertrude blenched at this turn of the tables. ‘Not yet,’ she said defiantly. ‘I thought I’d tell them during dinner.’

  ‘Tell them after dinner. Then that stuffy Hubert Jarrett will be full of port.’

  Gertrude sighed. This weekend had originally been planned merely as a reunion and somehow she hadn’t plucked up the courage to tell her guests that the Follies, which had begun as such a jolly idea for their own amusement, had somehow turned, courtesy of Richard, into a fully-fledged performance to be held in Wychbourne village at the Coach and Horses inn. Furthermore, the purchase of tickets would be open to the villagers and of course the Wychbourne Court servants. All in a good cause, Richard had assured her jauntily, and after all it was a splendid notion to give the proceeds to charity. Nevertheless, Gertrude shivered at the thought of what might go wrong. Suppose that troublemaker Jethro James bought a ticket?

  Gertrude clutched at Helen’s solution. ‘Very well,’ she said meekly.

  ‘And, Mother,’ Helen said in alarm, ‘you did tell Neville Heydock that Lynette Reynolds will be coming?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Gertrude admitted. Lynette, true to form, had at first refused the invitation only to change her mind at the very last moment. Although her present husband would not be attending, Lynette would.

  ‘Neville Heydock is still a dish, even if he is an oldie.’ Helen giggled. ‘I can’t wait to see his face when he sees her.’

  Gertrude was too busy imagining his former wife’s expression to reply at once. It hadn’t even occurred to her that there might be trouble. Lynette was always so emotional, and even though she’d obviously married again that whole episode over the divorce from Neville and the subsequent hushed rumours had been so unpleasant that she wouldn’t want to be reminded of it.

  Could anything else go wrong? Nothing surely. There was Alice Maxwell of course. She was another Hubert Jarrett in her own way, taking her career (and women’s suffrage) very seriously indeed. Gertrude had heard that both of them were hoping for elevation in their status, Hubert for a knighthood and Alice to become a Dame of the British Empire. That was very unlikely, in Gertrude’s opinion, given how long even Henry Irving and Ellen Terry had had to wait for such recognition. Of course in their cases, whispers of an unconventional life had delayed their prospects and that certainly couldn’t be said of either Hubert or Alice, who both had the strictest moral principles. But what would they say when they found out about the plans for the Follies? Come to that, what would they say to one another? Helen had passed on the current gossip that the two were not on speaking terms far too late for Gertrude to change her invitation list.

  Apart from Gerald, only two people saved Gertrude from complete despair. One was the invaluable Nell. She was a brilliant chef and would ensure that dinners and luncheons would be magnificent and she was a trusty companion in arms in times of trouble. Nell would be watching on her behalf for warning signs.

  Her other saviour would be her guest Tobias. He will calm things down, Gertrude thought thankfully. Tobias St John Rocke, the comforter at the Gaiety Theatre, the keeper of secrets, on whose shoulder they had all wept from time to time. The peacemaker, the purveyor of common sense, would be here.

  In a calm sea, everyone is a pilot, so the proverb went. A stormy one demanded swift action, though. Nell drew a deep breath. Blithering beans, the clock was ticking away fast. One of her under-chefs was weeping, the other one was sulking, Mrs Fielding was gloating, Mrs Squires, her plain cook, was grimly minding her own business, the scullery maids were hovering in terror waiting for their instructions and everyone else was speedily inventing missions other than in the kitchen. Nell had just been informed that the chestnut p
urée for the pheasant had been thrown away, admittedly in error. She gritted her teeth. Blame could be apportioned later if appropriate, but what was needed now was a solution.

  ‘Right,’ she said briskly. ‘Jumping jellies, what are you all waiting for? Roast and glaze more chestnuts now. Use them as garnish. Make a Madeira sauce for the pheasant. And don’t look at me like lobsters pleading to go home. Snap to it.’

  They snapped. She could see by Michel’s expression that he was the culprit, but she knew he wouldn’t do it again. Incident over. Order began to reassert itself. Kitchens were express trains to wonderful destinations. It didn’t take much to knock them off the rails, and it didn’t take much to push them back if you knew what you were doing. After a happy year as chef at Wychbourne Court and her earlier six years’ training under Monsieur Escoffier at London’s Carlton Hotel, Nell was well aware of that. The occasional bad egg popped up, but that was to be expected. Only not this weekend, she hoped.

  As she finished her inspection of the almond soup (under-chef Kitty’s speciality), Nell saw Mr Peters coming through the doorway. What did he want? Mr Peters wasn’t a tall man, but he brought his own air of authority with him, although before he came to Wychbourne he had no training as a butler. He had been the batman to Lord Noel, the Ansleys’ son who had died at the Battle of Ypres. Kenelm, their eldest son, was in the Colonial Service and living abroad, and Richard was the youngest at twenty-six this year.

  Mr Peters’ mission proved to be straightforward, thankfully.

  ‘Tea may be served, Mrs Fielding. The last guest has arrived in the drawing room,’ he announced.

  The guests’ accompanying servants had already been shown to their rooms in the servants’ wing. Thank goodness there were only the three of them, Nell thought. They could be more troublesome than the guests themselves. One of them was valet to the diplomat Lord Kencroft, another was a formidable lady called Doris Paget, dresser to the famous actress Miss Maxwell and the third was Mr Heydock’s gentleman’s gentleman, Mr Winter, a veritable Jeeves, so Nell had heard, who accompanied him everywhere. All of them seemed trouble-free, according to Mrs Fielding.