by Rhys Bowen
“Max is having the jolly German Christmas. I’m not,” she said. “He’s gone to spend the holiday with his aged parents in Berlin and he thought it wiser that I not accompany him, since they are very prim and proper and don’t know about me.”
“Oh, dear,” I said. “I thought he was anxious to marry you.”
“He still is,” she said, “but he thought this wasn’t the right moment to spring me on the old folks. And frankly I’m delighted to have a chance to spend Christmas in England for a change. I’m already looking forward to carols and Yule logs and flaming plum pudding and crackers.”
A wonderful picture floated into my mind—Mummy and I sharing Christmas with all the trimmings at a swank London hotel. Glorious food, glamorous parties, pantomimes . . .
“Are you at the Ritz?” I asked.
“At Brown’s, darling. I had this great desire to be horribly English for once and they are so lovely and old-fashioned. What’s more, they’ve conveniently forgotten that I’m not a duchess anymore, and one does so enjoy being called Your Grace.”
“You were the one who walked out on Daddy,” I reminded her. “You could still have been Your Grace if you’d wanted to.”
“Yes, but it would have meant spending half the year on those ghastly Scottish moors, wouldn’t it? I’d have died of boredom. At least now I’m having fun.”
With a great many men on all six continents, I wanted to add but didn’t. My mother was one of the first of the notorious bolters, having left my father for a French racing driver, an Argentinian polo player, a mountain climber, a Texas oil millionaire and most recently a wealthy German industrialist.
“So you’re going to be spending Christmas at Brown’s Hotel, are you? Or do you think you may come up to Scotland to visit us?” Of course I was angling for an invitation to join her in London, but I was too proud to come out and say it.
“Come up to Scotland? In winter? Darling, I’m very fond of you, but wild horses wouldn’t drag me to Castle Rannoch in winter. Perhaps you could pop down to London when I’m back in the new year and we’ll go shopping and do girlie things.”
“Back? I thought you said you were spending Christmas in England.”
“Yes, darling, but not in London. Don’t laugh, but I’m off to a village called Tiddleton-under-Lovey of all things. Isn’t it a divine name? I thought Noel was making it up when he told me. It sounds as though it comes straight from one of his plays, doesn’t it?”
“Noel? You mean Noel Coward?”
“Is there any other Noel, darling? Remember I mentioned earlier this year that he wanted to write a play for us to star in together? Well, he’s demanded that we hole up together over Christmas and work on the dialogue. Imagine, little moi in a play with Noel. Utter heaven. Of course he’ll hog the limelight and give himself the best lines, but who cares?”
“Will Max approve of your holing up with another man?”
She laughed. “Darling, it’s not another man. It’s Noel.”
“And what about your going back into the theater? Will Max approve of that?”
“Max can like it or lump it,” she said breezily. “I’m not Frau Von Strohheim yet, and anyway Max wants me to do anything that makes me happy. And I’ve been away from the theater for too long. My public still yearns for me.”
I could find no response to this except to wonder how a mother with such supreme confidence in her own wonderfulness managed to produce a shy and awkward daughter like me.
“Where is this Piddleton-under-Lovey?” I asked.
She gave another tinkling laugh. “Tiddleton, darling. Not Piddleton. In Devon. Tucked at the edge of Dartmoor, one gathers. Noel chose it because of its name, I’m sure. You know what a wicked sense of humor he has. But also because it was featured in Country Life as one of England’s most charming and quaint villages. He’s rented a thatched cottage on the village green and promises me roaring fires and hot toddy and all the delights the countryside has to offer.”
“It sounds lovely.” I tried not to sound disappointed.
“I’d invite you to join us, darling, but it really is a working holiday and Noel insists that he wants no distractions. He can be so intense when he’s creating. He’s already slaving away furiously in his London flat and naturally he’s left all the domestic details of this Tiddleton-under-Lovey business to me. I’m supposed to come up with a good cook who can produce plain old-fashioned English food and someone to look after us, which means, I suppose, that I’ll have to abandon Brown’s and go down to Devon ahead of him. I can’t see any staff I’d hire in London wanting to go down to Devon in the bleak midwinter, can you?”
If I’d known how to cook, I’d have volunteered for the job myself. But since my repertoire didn’t go beyond toast, boiled eggs and baked beans, I didn’t think I’d prove satisfactory.
“Anyway, I must toddle off, darling.” Mummy cut short my thoughts. “I’ve a million and one things to do. Should I order the hamper from Fortnum’s or Harrods, do you think? I seem to remember I was rather disappointed in Harrods last time—terribly bourgeois in their choices.” (This from someone who was raised in a two-up, two-down house in Barking where luxury consisted of an extra helping of chips on Saturday night.) “So have a lovely Christmas, won’t you, my sweet, and afterwards we’ll meet in London and I’ll treat you to a lovely shopping spree as a Christmas present. All right?”
Before I could say good-bye the line went dead.
Chapter 3
STILL CASTLE RANNOCH
Blizzard still continuing.
I came down to dinner with what I hoped was a confident and jaunty air. I was not going to let Fig and her mother know that I had overheard their conversation.
“Beastly day,” I said as I took my place. “Did any of you go out?”
“Absolutely not,” Fig said. “I have to be careful that I don’t catch a chill after all that I’ve been through.”
“Nobody in their right mind would go out in weather like this,” her mother added.
“I went for my usual walk,” Binky said in his jolly fashion, oblivious to the fact that he had just admitted to not being in his right mind. “It wasn’t too bad. Blowing a bit hard, but one expects a good stiff blow at this time of year. You didn’t go out riding, did you, Georgie?”
“Of course not. I would not expose Rob Roy to this weather, poor thing. But I did tramp around the estate a bit this afternoon before I was nearly buried in the blizzard. One does need some exercise, doesn’t one?” I gave Fig a swift glance. She frowned. “So have you decided what we’re going to do about Christmas?” I went on cheerfully. “Don’t you think it would be more fun in London? It’s so remote up here and nobody will come to visit.”
“On the contrary,” Lady Wormwood said, “we are expecting the rest of our family to join us. Hilda’s sister, Matilda, and her husband and daughter. I believe you met them in France earlier this year.”
Oh, God. Not Ducky, her lecherous husband, Foggy, and their dreadful daughter, Maude!
“Maybe you can help Maude with her French lessons again while she’s here,” Fig said. “You two became great chums, I remember.”
In fact, it had been a case of mutual loathing. I cleared my throat. “Ah, well, I don’t think I’m going to be here after all. I’ve decided to go down to the London house, if it’s all right with you. There are parties and things going on, and I know you all want me to meet a suitable chap, don’t you?”
There was a silence you could cut with a knife, punctuated only by the clink of silver spoon against tureen as the footman ladled out soup.
“I’m afraid that’s out of the question, isn’t it, Binky?” Fig said.
“Is it?” Binky looked up from his soup, clueless as usual. “If that’s what Georgie wants to do I think it’s a splendid idea. Young thing like her needs her Christmas parties, what?”
“Binky!” Fig’s voice developed a knife edge to it. “We discussed this before, remember? We decided it was far too
expensive to open up the London house in winter, even with the small amount of coal and electricity that Georgiana would use. So I’m afraid you’re stuck here with us, Georgiana, and you can make yourself useful for once keeping Maude amused.”
With that she turned her attention to her cock-a-leekie soup.
I sat fuming, but could find nothing to say. I wanted to remind her that I had only come here in the first place because she had begged me to keep her company. I had only stayed on so long because Binky had begged me to do so. Surely they owed me something for my months of enduring Fig. But she didn’t seem to think so. Rannoch House was the property of the current duke and I no longer had any claim to it. In fact, nothing belonged to me. I began to feel like a Jane Austen heroine. I was stuck in Scotland with relatives who didn’t like me and didn’t want me there. Frankly, I couldn’t think of a worse Christmas ahead, but I also couldn’t think of a way to escape from it.
Then a lovely idea popped into my head. I’d stay with my grandfather! That would shake them up. You see, my mother’s father is a retired Cockney policeman who lives in a little semidetached house in Essex with gnomes in the front garden. All the years I was growing up I wasn’t allowed to meet him. I had since made up for those years and I adored him.
I took a deep breath. “Then I think I may go and stay with my grandfather if the London house isn’t available to me.”
Spoons clattered. Someone choked.
“Your grandfather?” Lady Wormwood said in the same tones Lady Bracknell used regarding a handbag in the Oscar Wilde play. “I thought your grandfather had been dead for years.”
“Her mother’s father,” Fig said coldly.
“Oh, her mother’s father. I don’t believe I ever met him.”
“You wouldn’t have met him,” Fig said. “He’s not . . . you know.” Then she lowered her voice and muttered, “N.O.C.D.” (which is upper-class shorthand, in case you don’t know, for “not our class, dear”).
Binky was looking rather red around the gills. “I say, Georgie. Your grandfather’s a decent old stick and all that, but it’s simply not on. We’ve been into this before. You can’t stay in a cottage in Essex. Think of the embarrassment to Their Majesties if the press found out about it.”
“Anyone would think it was the Casbah or a den of ill repute,” I said hotly. “Anyway, how are they going to find out? It’s not as if the society reporters follow me around the way they do my mother. I’m nobody. Nobody cares if I stay in Belgrave Square or in Essex.”
Suddenly I felt tears welling at the back of my eyes, but I was not going to allow myself to cry in public. “I’m over twenty-one so you can’t stop me from doing what I want to,” I said. “And if Their Majesties are embarrassed by my behavior, they can give me an allowance so I don’t have to live as a penniless hanger-on all the time.”
With that I got up and walked out of the dining hall.
“Well, really, such hysterics,” I heard Lady Wormwood say. “Takes after her mother, obviously. Bad blood there.”
* * *
I HAD JUST reached the top of the first flight of stairs when the lights went out. This was a normal occurrence at Castle Rannoch, where electricity was a recent addition to a centuries-old building and the wires were always coming down in gales. Thus we had candles and matches all over the place. I felt my way up the last two steps, then along the wall until I came to the first window ledge. There, sure enough, was a candle and matches. I lit the candle and continued on my way. Outside, the wind was howling like a banshee. Windows rattled as I passed them. A tapestry billowed out to touch me, making me flinch involuntarily. I had grown up in this environment with stories of family ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night and usually I took them all in my stride. But tonight even I was on edge.
The hall went on forever with darkness looming before and behind me. My candle flickered and threatened to go out every few yards. There was no sign of another living soul although the house was full of servants. I realized that they must all be at their supper down in the depths of the servants’ hall. At last I reached my door. As I stepped into my room a great gust of wind blew out my candle. I felt my way to my bed, knowing there were more matches on the bedside table. As I reached out for the bed my hand touched cold, flabby flesh. I stifled a cry as a white shape rose up at me, looming larger and larger until it seemed to fill the room.
“Bloody ’ell?” muttered a voice.
“Queenie?” I demanded and fumbled to light my candle. My maid stood before me, hair disheveled, cap askew, blinking in the candlelight.
“Cor blimey, miss,” she said. “You didn’t half give me a nasty turn there. Scared me out of me ruddy wits.”
“I scared you?” I tried not to sound too shaky. “How do you think I felt when I touched a cold hand when I was expecting to feel an eiderdown? What were you doing on my bed?”
She had the grace to look somewhat sheepish. “Sorry, miss. I came up after me supper to put your hot water bottle in and I just sat down for a minute on the bed and I must have nodded off.”
“I’ve told you before about lying on my bed, haven’t I?” I said.
“I know. And I didn’t mean to, honest. But I get so sleepy after all that stodge they feed us in the servants’ hall. I swear we’ve had stew and dumplings three nights in a row.”
“You should be glad you have enough to eat,” I said, trying to sound like a mistress putting her servant in her place. “When I was in London you should have seen all those poor wretches queuing up for soup. You have a job and a roof over your head, so you should work harder to make sure you keep them.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I do try, miss,” she said. “Honest I do. But you know I’m thicker than two planks. You knew that when you took me on.”
“You’re right, I did.” I sighed. “But I had hopes that you might improve, given time.”
“Ain’t I improved at all, then?”
“You still haven’t learned to call me ‘my lady’ and not ‘miss.’”
“Strike me pink, so I ain’t.” She chuckled. “I try, but when I’m flustered it goes right out of my head.”
I sighed. “What am I going to do with you, Queenie? My sister-in-law is badgering me every day to get rid of you.”
“Spiteful cow,” Queenie muttered.
“Queenie. You’re talking about the Duchess of Rannoch.”
“I don’t care who she is, she’s still a spiteful cow,” Queenie said. “And ungrateful too, after all what you’ve done for her. Staying up here, month after month, because she wanted company, and now she turns on you like this. If I was you I’d get out while the going is good and leave her to get on with things by herself.”
“I may just do that,” I said. “Can you find me another candle? I want to write a letter.”
“Bob’s yer uncle, miss,” she said, instantly happy again. “I’ll go and take the one out of her bathroom—then just see how she likes going to the lav in the middle of the night in the dark.”
“Queenie, you’re incorrigible,” I said, trying not to laugh. “There’s a perfectly good candle on top of my chest of drawers. Then tomorrow morning I want you to bring my trunk down from the attic.”
“Are we really leaving, then?”
“Maybe. But I want to be ready, just in case.”
The candle was lit and Queenie departed.
I started to write the letter. Dear Granddad . . .
Then I paused, my pen in midair. Was it even right to ask him if I could stay? He had very little money himself and his health had not been the best lately. The last time he wrote to me his bronchitis had returned, aggravated by the London fog that crept out across the marshes into Essex. In truth I worried about him. At least Mrs. Huggins, his next-door neighbor, would be taking care of him and making sure that he ate well. She had designs on marrying him, I knew, but I wondered if he was more fond of her cooking than he was of her. In fact . . .
I gasped as a flash
of brilliance struck me. A wonderful thought had entered my head, so wonderful that I hardly dared to think it. Mrs. Huggins was a good plain cook and she and Granddad had acted brilliantly as housekeeper and butler one time when I’d needed to produce servants for a visiting princess. I sat there in the darkness, waiting until I heard everyone go to bed. Then I tiptoed down to Binky’s study and picked up the telephone. I knew that Fig would have a fit if she knew I was making a trunk call, but for once I didn’t care. This was more important.
“Brown’s Hotel,” came the polished voice at the other end of the line after what seemed like hours of waiting for the operators to make the necessary connections. I asked to speak to the former duchess of Rannoch.
“I cannot disturb Her Grace at such a late hour,” said the voice sternly. “It wouldn’t be seemly.”
I wondered if this was a polite way of saying that my mother was not occupying her bed alone. It wouldn’t be the first time. “This is her daughter, Lady Georgiana Rannoch, calling on a matter of great importance,” I said. “So if you could possibly see if Her Grace is still awake?”
He was instantly gushing. “Yes, yes, of course, my lady. Please hold the line and I will try to connect you.”
I waited, thinking of the minutes being added to Fig’s telephone bill. At last an agitated voice said, “Georgie darling? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Mummy, but I just had an absolutely brilliant idea for you.”
“I was sound asleep,” she said.
“You’ll be glad that I telephoned. Listen, you know Granddad’s next-door neighbor Mrs. Huggins cooks decent plain food,” I said. “I thought you could ask her and Granddad to come down and run the cottage in Tiddleton-under-Whatsit for you. They were frightfully good at playing butler and cook when I had to entertain that German princess.”
“I can’t ask my own father to wait on me,” she said. “Besides, he’d never do it. He’s too proud.”
