Death at the Wychbourne Follies

by Amy Myers

  Still snowing. Nell donned her coat, hat and scarf, seized her torch and struggled into her wellington boots as she waited by the east wing door for Miss Smith and Muriel to arrive. This was real life, battling the elements, and at least she didn’t have to dwell on the uncanny image of Mary Ann Darling that she had seen. Could the spirit of Mary Ann have been hovering? Somehow, having met Mr Trotter, Nell couldn’t quite believe it.

  Where were her fellow travellers? she thought impatiently. It was time to leave for the Coach and Horses. Moreover, she had a sneaking suspicion that Michel had forgotten the devilled salmon sandwiches for the late supper, and Kitty was not at her best either. Nell steeled herself. Tonight she was going to the Follies, snow or no snow, and had to ignore Kitty and Michel’s woeful expressions at being left in charge.

  ‘I’m here, Miss Drury.’ Muriel, the young scullery maid who had been reluctant to take the enormous step of joining the Coach and Horses audience alone, scuttled towards her, already in her boots and throwing a scarf round her neck. It was hardly necessary as her cloche hat was so far over her ears that her tiny face and neck were almost buried in it.

  ‘Let’s go then. I don’t think Miss Smith is coming,’ Nell said crossly. She wasn’t sure what to make of Miss Smith. She was certainly not in the same traditional mould of lady’s maid as her predecessor, Miss Checkham. There’d be no ‘knowing her place’ for Miss Smith. She already spoke informally of ‘Richard’, omitting the title that was the accepted courtesy in the servants’ wing. Miss Smith had certainly charmed most of the servants, though. Kitty was overawed and Michel was tickled pink at this exciting addition to the daily routine.

  Nell strode along the drive in her boots with Muriel trotting in her footsteps, feeling like Good King Wenceslas plodding along with his page. Even the Wychbourne cat, Welly (short for Wellington because of his four white ‘boots’), had disdained coming out into the snow today, despite his name. No help for it, though. With no motor cars functioning, all the wagons, carts and carriages had been snaffled after transporting props, scenery and costumes for conveying the family and guests and so walking was the only choice.

  The hall was almost full when they arrived. Nell could see Lord Ansley in the front row with his mother, the dowager Lady Enid, Lord Kencroft, the Reverend Higgins, vicar of St Edith’s, Lady Clarice with Mr Trotter, Arthur Fontenoy – and, yes, Miss Smith. So how had she arrived? Not by walking, Nell thought.

  ‘Where shall I sit, Miss Drury?’ Muriel whispered.

  ‘With me,’ Nell replied. ‘There’s Mrs Squires and her friend. We’ll join them.’ She could see them in the middle rows; she recognized Gentle John with his wife, Ethel, whom she now realized was one of the two village laundresses.

  ‘Won’t they mind if I come too?’ Muriel said awestruck.

  ‘Of course not. This is a theatre. We can sit anywhere,’ Nell said briskly, wondering whether this was as true in practice as in theory. This might be a show to raise money for the war charities, but the reason most of the village was gathering here was to see the Ansleys of Wychbourne Court and their famous guests. To the village, they were exotic creatures from another world, but Nell was thinking of them quite differently – as a group of people who seemed to be sharing a secret from long ago. Even so, she reprimanded herself, that wouldn’t affect the Follies.

  Just as they were about to take their places, however, Arthur Fontenoy came over to greet her. ‘My dear Miss Drury, do pray join me. And your companion too, of course,’ he added courteously.

  Muriel turned bright red, but her shoulders grew straighter as she followed Nell and took her place with them in the front row.

  ‘Only ten minutes to curtain up,’ Arthur observed. ‘What mysteries await us this evening, I wonder?’

  Sophy Ansley was marshalling her strength. She was going to need it. Richard wasn’t taking this evening seriously enough; his initial enthusiasm for the Follies had suddenly evaporated, thanks to his flirtation with Mother’s new maid Jenny Smith, with whom he had driven off in the governess cart, leaving Sophy to walk. Luckily, as poor old Rex was bringing Helen in a wagon he had stopped for her. At least Miss Smith had expertly attended to Helen’s hair and greasepaint before taking a seat in the audience. She’d offered to make up Sophy’s face too, but Sophy had declined the honour. She had no intention of being under the bright lights for more than her brief appearance in the pantomime and Pierrot line-up. She’d be too busy organizing everyone else.

  Helen was now prancing around as if she were at one of Ma Meyrick’s nightclubs and being nice to Rex. Sophy knew only too well that this wouldn’t last long. He never saw that his dream was only a bubble that would burst sooner or later. Except for him, the men Helen fell for were the opposite to Rex’s role in tonight’s Beauty and Beast pantomime; Helen’s trophies were usually princes on the outside and beasts inside. At least, Sophy rejoiced, Rex had winked at her as Helen fussed around him. That was a good sign.

  Sophy spotted a friend in the audience and was relieved that the Labour movement was represented. Wychbourne was a pocket of old England, but it was high time it realized there was a stark world outside where workers and workless alike struggled and starved. Meanwhile there was a show to put on. Well, no need to be nervous. Everything was in place, everyone was standing ready. Robert, the Wychbourne Court footman, was ready to draw back the curtain – hope it doesn’t fall down, Sophy thought. Fingers crossed because only a flimsy temporary construction was holding it up. Their lampboy, Jimmy, had rigged up a limelight and sorted out the gaslighting. As for the guests, Sophy found it hard to think of them as being Mother’s chums at a time when she was not much older than she herself was now. No Labour supporters among them, that was for sure.

  When she had asked Hubert Jarrett whether he would make his exit through the audience, instead of down the back stairs by the stage, she had received a blank stare and a refusal. Miss Maxwell, however, had been reasonably gracious when Sophy had found her gazing at the ‘stage’ and ‘scenery’. ‘We are hardly taking the Golden Road to Samarkand in this public house,’ she observed, ‘but it is a worthy cause nevertheless. No doubt my speech from Medea will impress them.’

  As for the other weirdies, Neville Heydock had put his arm round her. ‘Dear Lady Sophy, what would we have done without you?’

  She had firmly removed the arm, especially as his former wife had her sardonic eye on them.

  ‘Typical,’ Mrs Reynolds had declared. ‘Ever the Lothario, aren’t you, darling?’

  By far the nicest of the bunch, Sophy thought, was Mr Tobias Rocke, a cuddly bear of a man who did his best to help and smooth things over. Even now, however, she could hear quarrelling from downstairs, where the costumes and props had been dumped.

  ‘This is not what I am used to,’ Mr Jarrett was complaining.

  ‘Come now, Hubert,’ Mr Rocke replied. ‘We all have to mingle with the proletariat at some stage in our life.’

  ‘I doubt whether you’ve ever practised what you preach, Tobias,’ Miss Maxwell shot back at him.

  ‘Do any of us, dear Alice?’ he replied laughingly.

  What with them and the calm, beautiful Mrs Jarrett floating silently through the days like the Lady of Shalott down the river, and the over-bubbly Lady Kencroft with her stiff and stately husband, this was a very strange collection, in Sophy’s opinion. Fancy still arguing downstairs when the curtain would soon be rising. Of all things, she could even hear the dreaded name Mary Ann.

  ‘Don’t you remember, Hubert?’ Mrs Jarrett was for once making her presence known. ‘We didn’t all dine at Romano’s, but except for Gertrude we were all there at the theatre, even you, Charles, and you, Gerald.’

  Her father was there? Sophy was taken aback. They must be talking about the night Mary Ann disappeared, so what had her father been doing there?

  ‘Yes,’ she heard Lady Kencroft reply. ‘You were there, Charles, although we hardly knew each other then. We dined at Romano’s too, though
in separate groups. Were you there, Gerald?’

  ‘I frequently went to the Gaiety and Romano’s even before I met Gertrude,’ her father replied stiffly.

  Sophy shivered. She knew that tone in his voice. It meant that the subject was now closed. But that must have been over thirty years ago, she thought. How could anyone remember accurately what they were doing so long ago? So very long ago.

  The smell of greasepaint. Memories flooded back to her. All she had to do was walk out on the stage and sing. Gertrude shivered in the makeshift wings that Rex and the Wychbourne Court footmen had created under Richard’s direction, and wondered whether she would be able to take that first step on to the stage tonight. Her children were on the stage now, in the middle of a sketch. At least the audience was laughing. She remembered walking on to the Gaiety stage for the first time, aware that however warm and encouraging the audience was it would be comparing her with the lovely Mary Ann. Gertrude had studied her photograph time and time again, fearful that her own performance would be a poor second. At times she felt it would. At others not. She too had a gift, even if she didn’t have golden hair and blue eyes.

  Over thirty years ago she had taken that last deep breath and walked gracefully on to the Gaiety stage in her flower shop girl costume and heard herself singing ‘Song of My Heart’. Now all these years later, Gertrude, Marchioness Ansley, took another deep breath, then patted the diamond brooch that Gerald had given her on their wedding day and which she always wore on difficult occasions. That done, she walked out gracefully on to the stage of the Coach and Horses Inn, with her daughter Helen looking up encouragingly from the piano, ready to accompany her for her song.

  Neville Heydock came to the last verse of ‘Rose Marie’ with relief. Even with all the aplomb he had acquired from the Gaiety stage and afterwards, it had been hard. Luckily stage technique had come to his rescue, even with Lynette grinning sarcastically from the wings. What the blazes had possessed Gertrude to invite her?

  It was all Mary Ann’s fault. Lynette had been so jealous of her – without cause of course, and when he proposed to Lynette he had hoped their marriage would work. But it hadn’t. And now this. Of all the ill luck to meet these particular members of the old crowd here, especially Lynette on the warpath. Pierrots indeed. He wondered if Lynette had the faintest idea how ridiculous she looked jumping up and down in that Pierrot costume, but then it occurred to him that he might look just the same. Ah, well. For old times’ sake he could put up with it, even if some of those old times were far better forgotten.

  He could see the pantomime was nearing its, frankly, tedious end, with Tobias on stage doing his usual comic stuff in drag as the Beast’s mother.

  ‘Good stuff!’ he forced himself to say as Tobias came off stage.

  Tobias beamed. ‘Time for us Pierrots, Neville. I’ll switch places with Lynette if you’d like to be with her.’

  Pierrots were so funny at the seaside, but they didn’t seem so at the Coach and Horses, Katie thought. This idea had been a mistake for all she had tried to reassure Gertie. Lined up here, with their bobbles, ruffs, caps, white suits and big buttons, pointed hats and big grins, her fellow Pierrots seemed to her almost ominous, threatening. Stupid, Katie told herself, it was just a chorus line in fancy dress. Even so, they did all look so silly.

  Kick. ‘Though it breaks our hearts to leave you, Goodbye Wychbourne Green,’ Katie sang in unison with her friends, as the Pierrots linked arms. Kick. ‘Goodbye, Wychbourne, we must leave you …’ Kick. And the sooner the better, Katie thought. No, that’s dreadful. Poor Gertie. We must tell her how much we’re enjoying it. It’s a great success, this reunion. And it is, isn’t it? Tobias, Neville, Alice, Gertie, herself, Lynette, Constance … She wondered about her fellow smiling Pierrots. Nobody knew what anyone else was thinking – just as they hadn’t thirty-odd years ago, when Mary Ann disappeared. They mouthed words and that was all. Whatever suspicions they all had, no one actually knew.

  It was over. The final curtain had fallen and Nell leapt to her feet with the rest of the enthusiastic audience. Muriel was almost sobbing with excitement as she clapped away. When the applause died down and the national anthem was over, Nell left Muriel in Arthur’s charge for the walk back to Wychbourne Court.

  Nell had offered to help with a preliminary clear-up on the stage, so that the Ansleys could return for their late supper with their guests and forty minutes had passed by the time she could leave, the last to do so. The work had been much enlivened by the discovery that footman Robert had a good voice for bawdy music hall songs. She wondered what Mr Peters would have had to say about Robert’s prowess for entertaining – he’d insisted they all linked arms while they rendered a rowdy unmusical version of ‘Down at the Old Bull and Bush’ on the stage. Mr Peters might have been amused, she thought, but for traditional butlers there was much of which to disapprove in this new world of flappers and fun.

  Now she faced a long walk up the snowy drive as the wagons and carts had left. So had everyone else apparently. Mr Hardcastle had already closed because of the snow and there was no sign of anybody around. Snow was still falling although not so heavily, but apart from that and the wind stirring the bushes by the churchyard everything was still.

  Nell was glad to reach Wychbourne Court though and to peel off her boots, coat and scarf. Then, highly pleased with the successful evening, she went straight to see how the late buffet was faring in the dining room. She expected to find a sulky Kitty and Michel there, together with a group of chattering, happy performers and admirers, but she was amazed to find the room deserted save for the Ansley family and Arthur. The buffet supper was relatively untouched, which explained why Kitty and Michel were looking even more martyred. It was only just before eleven o’clock and there was no sign of any of the guests.

  Gurgling gurnards, she thought. What’s going on here? Presumably either they had retired straight to their rooms or had had a quick supper already and were entertaining themselves elsewhere. What was more, she noticed that despite the success of the evening, Lady Ansley was still looking unhappy.

  Seeing her, Lord Ansley beckoned her over.

  ‘Ah, Miss Drury,’ he greeted her anxiously, ‘you saw no sign of a lost brooch at the Coach and Horses, I suppose?’

  ‘It’s my diamond brooch, Nell,’ Lady Ansley broke in. ‘The one with the sapphires. It must have fallen off in the wings or on stage when I was pulling costumes on and off.’

  ‘I didn’t see anything,’ Nell said, appalled. ‘But we’ve left the rest of the clearing up until tomorrow morning, so it might still be found. I’d be glad to go back now to look for it.’ Her heart plummeted at the thought. ‘Glad’ was stretching it; ‘willing with a sinking heart’ would be more accurate.

  ‘No, Miss Drury,’ Lord Ansley said immediately. ‘I shall go.’

  ‘Two pairs of eyes are better than one,’ Nell said stoutly, eyes pricking with tiredness. ‘Mr Hardcastle has closed for the night.’ She knew how much that brooch meant to Lady Ansley though, so she didn’t want to risk it remaining there the following morning.

  This time Lord Ansley did not demur. ‘Thank you, Miss Drury. I’ll telephone him and then we’ll go down together. If you’ve no objection, it will be quicker to walk at this time of night than to summon a cart or carriage.’

  Nell was grateful for his company. Even though the snow had stopped and with a torch to light the way in the darkness, it would not be a pleasant walk, not to mention the fact that it was freezing cold. Walking over the icy snow took all her energy and perhaps Lord Ansley felt the same for neither of them made any effort to talk. The charms of Good King Wenceslas were eluding her on this march. And Mr Hardcastle too, for when he opened the door he was clearly none too pleased.

  ‘I’ll unlock the rear door so you can take the back stairs to the stage and see yourselves out, your lordship,’ he said pointedly.

  The stage looked forlorn, with some of the scenery still in place and piles of costumes l
ying bundled up. The Pierrot costumes had merely been pulled off and thrown in a heap. Lord Ansley decided to hunt through the props in the storage room downstairs by the rear door, while Nell began checking through the pile of costumes on stage.

  She had only just begun though when she heard shouting outside. Nothing unusual about that, but wasn’t it odd for boozers to be mucking around on a snowy village green at this time of night? The church clock had just struck midnight and the pub had already been closed before she left at about twenty minutes to eleven. She peered out of a window, and in the light of the one gas lamp on this side of the green she could see someone waving his arms and running towards the pub, still shouting.

  ‘Someone blotto probably,’ Nell yelled down to Lord Ansley. Then hearing him heaving open the outside door, she ran over to the stairs and down to catch him up.

  He turned back to her as the first blast of the cold night air hit her. ‘Not drunk,’ he said sharply. ‘Hardcastle’s opened up the front entrance to talk to him – the fellow seems to be pointing at the green over towards the church. Anything wrong?’ he shouted out to the landlord.

  ‘’Tis a body, your lordship,’ he shouted back. ‘Dead, so Jethro says.’

  ‘Stay here, Miss Drury,’ Lord Ansley said grimly. ‘I’ll see what this is about.’

  But Nell didn’t stay there. A terrible fear came over her, a quite irrational one. After all, the body could be anyone’s, a visitor or a villager who’d been in the audience at the Follies. She daren’t think any further. Instead, in case she could help, she rushed after Lord Ansley. He and Jethro James – the chief poacher in the village – clad in cap and a heavy coat, began to run as best they could across the snow.

  ‘Don’t you go, miss,’ Mr Hardcastle said, shivering at the pub front door. ‘You stay here. I’ll go.’

  ‘We’ll both go. Whoever it is might not be dead.’ She began stumbling across the snow towards Lord Ansley and his companions, with Mr Hardcastle behind her. And then she could just about make out a shape lying on the snow.