“Ah, now, this is one that was laid down some years ago. I obtain my supplies from a man in Bristol, and although his standards are very high, there is no guarantee of anything quite like this. I shall let you have his latest list.”
“Thank you! I should be most grateful. It is not an easy thing, I find, to start up a household from nothing, when every store cupboard, every still room shelf, is empty. It is excessively disheartening.”
“We cannot have you disheartened, Mrs Middlehope,” he said gently. “I believe Timpson’s shop provides most essential foodstuffs, Birch’s will supply poultry, meat comes from one or other of the farms and everything else may be had in Market Clunbury, which is only a few miles away. Or Shrewsbury, for larger purchases.”
“It will suit me better to obtain the necessities from local sources, if I can,” she said. “Except for wine. Your Bristol vintner will deliver to me, I take it? I shall not be obliged to travel to Bristol?”
Laurence confirmed it, although her aversion to travelling, even for shopping, struck him as unusual in such a stylish lady, whose fashionable gown had the distinctive aura of London about it.
The rest of the evening passed off pleasantly, as usual. They had fourteen for cards, which made up two whist tables and one of loo. There was some masculine jockeying for the places of honour on Mrs Middlehope’s table, to Laurence’s amusement. It was not surprising that such an attractive widow should draw some attention, for Great Maeswood was unused to women of her sophistication. Laurence himself could admire the lady’s charms without being tempted by them.
The women were not pleased. Viola had not shown overt disapproval of the peach velvet gown with its generous décolleté, but her pursed lips now were a sign that Mrs Middlehope’s respectability ranking had taken a tumble since dinner. Perhaps she had discovered some disreputable aspect of the widow’s history while Laurence and Edward had been having their Greek conversation over the port.
It was not until the end of the evening that Laurence had another chance to speak to Mrs Middlehope. Everyone was gathered in the hall making their farewells, but she stood a little apart, gazing up at Catherine’s portrait.
“Your wife?” she said. “She is lovely. I see the resemblance to your daughter.”
“Yes, Henrietta has something of her mother’s looks and temperament, but she will never rival her. No one could, for Catherine was perfect.”
“No one is perfect, Mr Gage,” she said, her expression one of amusement.
“My wife was,” he said firmly.
“Then I am glad of it, for her sake and for yours, but for myself, I far prefer humanity as it mostly is, a swirling mass of quirks and foibles. There is far more of interest in the imperfect, to my mind.”
Laurence could not disagree openly, so he smiled and said nothing.
~~~~~
Louisa felt rather beleaguered. She had expected to slink into her little house almost unnoticed and have time to settle in before invitations arrived. This deluge of open-handed hospitality was more than she had anticipated or wanted. She was not at all prepared for it, with little in the house to offer visitors and almost all her good clothes not yet arrived.
On the morning after the Gages’ card evening, she walked briskly around the village, looking in at the various shops to surreptitiously inspect the cleanliness of the premises and the freshness of the goods, and, when she had satisfied herself on these points, to assure the shopkeepers of her custom. She quickly came to terms with Mr Timpson to employ his twin sons as gardeners, and agreed to take on his daughter as a maid. At the smithy, she acquired the services of Mrs Preece’s sister on two days a week to help with laundry and other heavy indoor work.
Her final visit was to the apothecary to make some trifling purchase, where she found Mr Edser to be a sensible man, tidy in his shopkeeping, and honest enough to point out that the village also boasted a physician.
“Well, as much surgeon as physician — Dr Beasley will do whatever needs to be done, and has been so kind as to share much of his expertise with my humble self,” Mr Edser said. “Between us, we cater for all needs in the way of illness or injury. And death, too, when circumstances require it. Dr Beasley is the coroner for these parts and is most skilled at… at…” He tailed off, perhaps realising belatedly that the subject of dead bodies was hardly fit for discussion with a lady.
“Post mortem examination, do you mean?” Louisa said, unruffled. “I have always thought that must be a fascinating field of study. To be able to dissect the human form after death and say, ‘Aha! The heart was defective all the time, and the poor fellow might have dropped at any moment’ is a great skill, and a comfort to the bereaved.”
“Yes, indeed, madam,” Mr Edser said, eyeing her warily.
“When my husband died, it was a relief to know that it was the result of a long-standing heart defect. My father-in-law was about to dismiss the cook for poisoning him.”
Mr Edser’s eyes widened and Louisa thought it best to say no more on the subject. Poor Ned! He had eaten a hearty dinner, as always, but he had complained that the tongue tasted a little odd. When he simply fell from his chair later that evening, poison had seemed a very likely cause.
“You dined at the Hall on Monday, I understand, madam,” Mr Edser said, with a sudden burst of garrulity. “How were the young ladies? And her ladyship, of course. Bearing up nobly in their grief, I expect.”
Bearing up… yes, there had been no sign of excessive grief. “They were as well as might be expected under the circumstances,” Louisa said diplomatically.
“Did they give any hint as to when they might emerge from seclusion? We miss their smiling faces around the village… we miss them something fierce. Always so cheerful, the Miss Saxbys. Especially Miss Agnes… was she well, Miss Agnes?” His face was eager… too eager.
“She was very well,” Louisa said, rather amused at such obvious yearning. An apothecary was ambitious indeed if he dared to lift his eyes to the daughter of a baron. Which was Miss Agnes? The plain one, she rather thought. In which case… but no. Still too unequal.
She returned to the Dower House with the virtuous feeling of having accomplished a great deal. She breakfasted on fresh buns from Mr Seldon’s bakery, and then settled down in the study to work on her list of store cupboard essentials. How she wished she had not left Roseacre so abruptly! If only she had taken a little time to consider, she might have compiled a list of staples from the Roseacre household accounts, instead of struggling to remember what might be needed, and with no cook to help with the task. She might even have brought some things with her, instead of scrambling together a box at Esther’s. The new maid would be running back and forth to the shop twice a day for lemons or nutmeg or— nutmeg! Quickly she added it to the list.
The door knocker sounded. She listened for William’s heavy tread ascending the stairs to answer it, but there was only silence. Probably he was busy in the coal cellar and could not hear. Laying down her pen, she went to the front door herself.
Mr Gage’s smiling face peered in at her, doffing his hat with a bow. “Why, good day to you, Mrs Middlehope. I am bound on a mission of mercy — rescuing a damsel in distress.”
“Am I in distress, Mr Gage?”
“Certainly you are, for you told me your wine cellar is completely empty. That is a crisis of the first order, I am sure you will agree. And so here I am as… well, not quite a knight in armour, and I seem to have inadvertently mislaid my white charger, but as the bearer of gifts. At least, John here is the bearer.”
Louisa now noticed the footman, almost hidden by an overgrown rose bush, struggling under the weight of a wooden box.
“You have brought wine?” she gasped, in disbelief. “Come in! Come in at once. Oh, Mr Gage, you are a prince among men, although the lack of a white charger is a trifle disappointing.”
The smile widened. “Shall we take these straight to your wine cellar and bestow them safely?”
She could only nod, ch
uckling with merriment. Wine! And, she devoutly hoped, of a similar quality to last night’s. Pausing only to fetch her keys from the study, she led the two men down the stairs to the servants’ quarters and along the passage to the butler’s room. It was all ready for her non-existent butler, with a curtained bed area, a cupboard, table and two chairs, and a high window. The small fireplace had a fire laid but not lit. Along the wall were two latticed iron doors which protected the silver store and the wine cellar.
Lighting a couple of candles, Louisa began trying keys in the lock of the wine cellar door. “I have not even bothered going in here,” she admitted. “I could see at a glance that the shelves were quite empty. Ah, there we are.”
She threw open the door and they all went inside. The footman set his burden down carefully on the floor.
“Well, plenty of room in here,” Mr Gage said. “You even have a locked bay at the end there for your special purchases.”
Another lattice-work door filled the far end of the little room. Louisa held candle up and peered through. “There is a pile of old sacking in it,” she said. She tried her keys again but none of them opened it. “I shall have to get a locksmith to open it before it can be cleaned out. I hope I shall have something special to put in there before too long.”
“Nothing I have brought today is quite special enough for such precautions,” Mr Gage said. “I may be able to provide a locksmith, however. John, what do you think?”
The footman peered at the lock, and then at the outer lock. “Looks much the same as this one, so I should be able to open it, sir. I’ll need my tools, though.”
“Off you go and get them, then. Well, where do you want these, Mrs Middlehope?”
“Where I can reach them,” she said promptly, picking a bottle from the case. “I brought a tolerable brandy with me, but this will be much better. Is it all drinkable now? What would you recommend for, say, right this minute?”
“This one,” he said, laughing. “A good solid claret, nothing fancy.”
“Excellent.” She rummaged in drawers in the butler’s room until she found a corkscrew. “Here you are. Do the honours, will you, and light the fire while I fetch glasses.”
And so they sat either side of the little fire, sipping rather good claret and discussing his vintner’s list, which he had brought with him. Louisa had not enjoyed an hour so much since Ned had died.
Eventually John returned with a fearsome array of oddly-shaped metal devices and began poking about in the lock for the further door. At last, with a satisfying clunk, he swung it open.
“There you are, madam. Should you like me to pick up a new lock for it next time I’m in Market Clunbury?”
“Yes, if you please. What a versatile fellow you are, John, but I am not sure I should want a footman with the ability to pick locks. How are you with safes?”
“Can’t pick a safe lock, madam. Not a decent safe, anyways. These ordinary locks are much easier.”
Mr Gage dispatched John back to the Grove with the empty box, but he sat on, talking quite easily about wine and Great Maeswood and footmen and life in general, until somehow most of the bottle was gone. It was very pleasant, and Louisa began to wonder if she had found what she was looking for.
Eventually, with obvious reluctance, he said, “I suppose I had better get back. Edward will be waiting for his Latin lesson.”
“Will he be running around breaking things? Boys are prone to that if left unattended, so I am told.”
“If I fail to set his Latin text for the day, he will simply find some Greek to read, or French, or Italian,” he said cheerfully. “He is not the sort to run around unless ordered to. Oops!”
On rising, he joggled the table, setting the candle wobbling. He caught it in time, but the wavering light caught a flash of something bright in the shadows deep in the wine cellar, something that was out of place in a pile of sacking. Louisa picked up the candle and walked into the wine cellar and then into the bay at the far end, holding the light before her.
“This is not sacking,” she said. “It looks like… it could almost be a cloak, the old fashioned kind secured by buttons and a loop of chain at the neck. Old clothes, but what an odd place to put them.”
With one hesitant foot, she lifted a corner of the cloak, then gasped and almost dropped the candle.
“Whatever is it?” Mr Gage said.
“It is a person,” she said, her voice not quite steady. “A body. It has been here for some considerable time.”
4: The Body In The Basement
Laurence had to admit that Mrs Middlehope was the most imperturbable female he had ever met. Not for her the screams or vapours or swooning that would have afflicted most women. Instead, after a single sharp intake of breath, she walked out of the inner wine cellar, held the candle out to him and said calmly, “Have a look. Quite skeletal, I should say. A woman, probably, to judge by the quantity of hair remaining.”
He went in, bending down to look more closely. The cloak, if that was what it was, was stiff with age, and beneath it was some kind of fabric — the woman’s gown, which might have been brightly coloured once, and quite a volume of it. Beneath one corner was a skeletal face, surrounded by wisps of brittle hair. Lifting the opposite corner of the cloak revealed a pair of shoes of a kind his mother had often worn — embroidered, with a low heel and a silver buckle, a style quite gone out of fashion.
“Yes, she has been here for some years. Decades, most likely.”
“Whom should we inform?” she said.
How composed she was, and how practical! He admired that. “Dr Beasley, first, as coroner, and Squire Winslade, as magistrate. They will determine whether there is anything further to be done. But I imagine the first task will be to identify the poor woman.”
“Someone will have an idea,” she said. “A maid who disappeared, perhaps. It is highly unlikely that a stranger stepped off the stage coach, broke into the house, somehow or other, entered a doubly locked wine cellar and then simply lay down and died.”
Laurence frowned. “That is a good point. The wine cellar was locked. She was locked in here, by someone. A body in a ditch or in a disused barn could be any itinerant, but this looks more sinister.” He picked up the nearly-empty bottle and pulled a rueful face. “Good Heavens, Mrs Middlehope, here we are, half foxed and it is not yet noon.” He chuckled. “Whatever will people say?”
“They will say, quite correctly, that you have excellent taste in wine, and that I am a bad influence on you,” she said, and the merriment in her expression caused him to burst out laughing. Or perhaps that was just the wine.
After locking up the wine cellar again in case the servants should wander in there, they returned upstairs with the remains of the wine. The hall was unexpectedly crowded. Viola was there with Miss Beasley, and William and another footman appeared to be conducting an argument on the doorstep.
“What a pleasant surprise,” Mrs Middlehope said with a calm smile, as if nothing untoward had occurred and she had not just discovered a long-dead body in the basement. “Do come into the drawing room, Miss Gage. Miss Beasley, do you go through too. William, some refreshments for our guests, if you please. Tea and the currant buns.”
Miss Beasley followed her into the drawing room, and the footman, having shut the door on his counterpart, disappeared into the nether regions. Laurence found himself alone with Viola in the hall.
“What are you about?” she hissed. “What were you doing downstairs with… with her?”
Laurence raised his wine glass with a broad smile. “Can you not guess? I brought some wine for Mrs Middlehope’s cellar and she wished to sample it.”
“You left the house almost two hours ago. Have you been drinking the whole time?”
“I imagine so. Until we discovered the dead body, that is.”
“Laurence Gage, you are drunk!”
“No, no. Perfectly… perfectly not drunk, actually. But Vi, I have to—”
“I thought you had more
sense! To be falling into the toils of a woman like that, and at your age, too. You know what sort of woman she is, I trust?”
He took a sip of wine, then said pleasantly, “No, what sort of woman is she?”
She looked taken aback. “Well… that is the point, we have not the slightest idea, yet here you are, not two days after she arrived, drinking with her before noon and falling under her spell.”
“No danger of that. She is a very pleasant woman who appreciates a good claret, that is all. But I have no time for this, Vi. Go and pay your call. I have to send for Beasley and Winslade.”
“Whatever for?”
“To see about this body, of course.”
Viola frowned, taken aback. “There truly is a body, then? Whose? And how did he die… or she?”
“That is a complete mystery at the moment. Accident… murder… a poisonous asp… who knows? That is why I need to send for Beasley and Winslade. There will be an inquest and all sorts of unpleasantness.”
“Murder? Do you mean there might be a murderer about? How can you be so calm, when we might all be murdered in our beds! Is it quite certain that this person is dead? Might he yet be saved? Beasley is very good at— Laurence, stop laughing at once! This is serious!”
He tossed back the last drops of wine in his glass. “She is well beyond saving, my dear, and has been for many years. Go and eat currant buns and ask Mrs Middlehope to tell you all about it, and tell her, if you please, that I have gone to Beasley’s house, and will send word to Winslade. I shall be back directly.”
~~~~~
Louisa’s life had veered about rather violently of late. From the endless irritations of Roseacre, she had found herself in the stultifying boredom of her friend Esther’s house in Shrewsbury. Whatever had possessed her friend to marry such a drainingly pious man as Joseph Deerham was beyond her imagination. Then her planned solitude at the Dower House had been overwhelmed by unsolicited kindness. And now there was a body in her wine cellar. It was dizzying.
Stranger at the Dower House (Strangers Book 1) Page 4
