Murder in the Servants' Hall

by Addison, Margaret

  ‘But don’t you see what this means?’ interrupted Rose. ‘It’s highly unlikely that Albert’s the thief. He may well have stolen the snuff box but I can’t see how he could possibly have stolen the necklace.’

  ‘Miss Cooper, I’m surprised at you. Making a scene at supper like that. Quite disgraceful. And in front of a visiting servant, too.’

  Mrs Field bristled with indignation. While the lady’s maid was not directly answerable to her, she considered it her place to berate the woman for her unseemly conduct. To this end, she had been waiting for a suitable opportunity to give the woman a piece of her mind ever since the servants’ supper had been cleared away. The chance had presented itself soon enough when the lady’s maid returned from dressing Millicent Grayson-Smith for dinner. Fortuitously, the servants’ hall happened to be empty at that moment. The butler and the footman were busy in the dining room, the kitchen staff were in the kitchen making final preparations for the dishes and Miss Denning was still with Lady Lavinia. Mrs Field could not have asked for more favourable conditions in which to unleash her anger. Even so, she took the precaution of persuading the lady’s maid to accompany her to her sitting room on the pretext of indulging in a glass of sherry.

  ‘Someone had to say it, Mrs Field.’

  There was a touch of contempt in Velda Cooper’s voice as she uttered the word “Mrs”. It was only a courtesy title after all. Mrs Field was as much a spinster as she was herself. Not that the housekeeper didn’t harbour secret thoughts of being married one day. Anyone could see that. They’d all seen the look in her eyes when she addressed old Mason, the way she fawned over him and tried to ingratiate herself with him. It was pitiful, that’s what it was. Velda Cooper smiled her nasty little smile. She’d caught all the servants gossiping and sniggering about it at one time or another, even the scullery maid who hardly ever left the scullery. And pompous old Mason, who thought himself so very proper, had no idea of the fluttering that he caused in the housekeeper’s withered breast. Quite blind to it all he was. At least that’s the impression he gave. It was possible that he was more astute than she supposed. Either way, he wouldn’t want to encourage the old bat. It was clear to even the errand boy who delivered the groceries once a week that the butler had not a morsel of interest in her …

  ‘No they did not.’ Mrs Field could feel her cheeks burning a deep crimson shade. The lady’s maid’s thoughts were so transparent. They appeared on her face in that awful sneering grin of hers as clearly as if she had written them in pen and ink on her forehead. ‘And if you wanted to speak as you did, why you couldn’t have waited until this evening when you might have spoken to Mr Mason and me in private, I don’t know.’

  ‘I was not going to just sit there and let Albert talk to us in that manner. It was disrespectful saying what he said, calling the cook a thief and saying how you could not do your sums.’ Miss Cooper smiled. She had seen the housekeeper wince at mention of her deficiency with figures. ‘It’s a cheek, it is, when we know as eggs are eggs as how he’s the thief. Why Mr Mason lets him get away with it, I don’t know. He may be his kin, but even so.’

  She paused and looked around the room. Her position was an odd one, she always thought. She straddled both worlds. Her existence was lived out in the gloomy servants’ quarters, but she also had sight and experience of her employers’ bright and splendid world. It was true she was more an observer of the latter world than an inhabitant. She watched her mistress enjoying it rather than being permitted to partake of its advantages herself. But she could take in the wonderful furnishings, the very opulence of it all. How poorly this little sitting room compared with the lavish comfort of her mistress’ equivalent room. It grated on her the disparity of it all. It made her grit her teeth. When she looked about her as she did now, the general impression was of a room having fallen on poor times. There was a genteel shabbiness to it, with passed down furniture, which in its heyday had graced the drawing room, but was now worn and faded, a bit like their lives, she thought. They were supposed to feel grateful, being given things their betters no longer wanted or required.

  ‘You know as well as I do that if anyone else had spoken like that, Mr Mason would have been down on them like a ton of bricks, so he would,’ the lady’s maid said with bitterness in her voice, reflecting her recent thoughts.

  She usually took a delight in talking disparagingly of the butler’s conduct in front of the housekeeper. She liked to see the little woman bristle, her expression pained at having the object of her adoration mocked. Today, however, it did not seem enough. It could not make her feel any better about her situation or her station in life. Whatever she said could not transform Mrs Field’s sitting room to a grandeur it had never known; it would always look like a servant’s room.

  ‘That’s as may be,’ said the housekeeper, regaining her composure a little. ‘But it wasn’t your place to do it, Miss Cooper, in front of all the servants and all. Disrespectful, that’s what I call it. And what Miss Denning would have thought, I don’t know. I don’t doubt she went running off to her mistress to tell her what sort of a house we run here. We can only hope that Lady Lavinia doesn’t say anything to madam.’

  ‘I can’t see how it matters what Miss Denning thought. It’s not as if she’s a proper lady’s maid.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s her cousin whose lady’s maid to Lady Lavinia. Gone and got herself ill, she has. Miss Denning’s filling in for her, as you might say. Told me herself she did, when we were doing some ironing.’ Miss Cooper sighed. ‘It doesn’t seem right, does it, me having to move down a seat at the table to accommodate her. We don’t know what she is. She could be a scullery maid for all we know. She doesn’t know a thing about ironing, I can tell you that.’

  ‘Doesn’t she?’ The housekeeper looked preoccupied. ‘I do hope she’s not here to cause trouble. We have enough of that with young Albert. We don’t need no more.’

  ‘She seems a timid girl to me, Mrs Field. Easy enough to keep in her place. Wants to do right while she’s here. I just wish we could say the same about Albert. That’s a young man who will come to a sticky end, you mark my words if he doesn’t.’

  Chapter Ten

  When Rose awoke the next morning she forgot for a moment where she was. The miserable and barren little attic room, with its lack of furniture and dull walls, seemed foreign to her and brought no recollections of the day before. In those few moments of bewilderment, she lay tense and rigid in her bed, the bedclothes pulled up to her chin. It was only when she set eyes on Edna walking timidly towards her, carrying a cup of tea, that she remembered she was at Crossing Manor. She realised that she must have been awakened by the sound of Edna knocking quietly on her door. The reason for her visit to the house returned to her so forcefully that she sat up, alert and fully conscious.

  ‘Oh lor, I spilt a bit,’ cried the kitchen maid. ‘I’m ever so sorry about that, miss. Those stairs are treacherous, so they are, when you’re carrying something you don’t want to drop or spill. The tea’s still steaming, I’ll say that for it. It’s come straight from the teapot.’

  ‘Thank you, Edna,’ said Rose, taking the proffered cup and saucer and taking a sip of tea. ‘I say, this tea’s very good. I think it’s the best cup I’ve had in a long while.’

  ‘I made it myself,’ said Edna, with something akin to pride. ‘Pearl, she’s the scullery maid here, takes Cook her cup of tea in the morning. Likes it so strong, she does, it looks like treacle. You could stand a spoon up in it, as my father would say.’

  ‘Well, this tea’s just right,’ said Rose, taking another sip. ‘Neither too weak nor too strong. It’s just the way I like it.’

  She looked up at the maid who was hovering awkwardly beside her bed, her hands clutched behind her as if she did not know quite what to do with them now that she had dispensed with the tea. Under Rose’s scrutiny, the girl began to fidget, shifting her weight from one foot to the other in a childish fashion.

  ‘Won�
�t you close the door and pull up a seat?’ Rose indicated the solitary chair in the room. ‘It’s very good to see you again, Edna. You do look well. I’m sure you’ve grown a bit since I last saw you. How old are you now?’

  ‘Sixteen, miss, though I know I don’t look it. Mother says as how I’ve filled out a bit since I came here.’ Edna had initially perched herself gingerly on the edge of the chair. Now she leaned forward with enthusiasm. ‘I wasn’t sure it was you, Miss Simpson, not at first. Not with you dressed so strange. I think it was the spectacles. They made you look different. And your hair of course.’

  ‘Yet despite my elaborate disguise you recognised me,’ said Rose smiling.

  ‘I’d have recognised you anywhere, miss,’ said Edna, with feeling.

  Unbeknown to Rose, she had made quite an impression on the maid at Ashgrove. Ever so kind, Edna had thought her, when Rose had found her crying her eyes out in the kitchen garden. Edna remembered her surprise when Bessie, the kitchen maid there, had told her that Rose worked in a dress shop. ‘But she’s got ever such nice manners and she talks quite posh, you’d never know.’ That’s what she had said at the time, and she blushed at the recollection. ‘I don’t care that she’s just a shop girl. I think she’s a real lady.’ The words came floating back to her as if she had uttered them only yesterday. It was, however, with a certain degree of smugness that she recalled now that she had been quite right. Despite Rose’s humble origins, Edna had predicted a marriage between Rose and Cedric. Perhaps one day Miss Simpson would be a countess; that’s what she had told her friend.

  Rose saw the admiration now in the younger girl’s eyes and smiled. She remembered how Edna had confided in her with regard to her own career aspirations and had sought her advice concerning information that she had overhead which she thought might have some relevance to the murder investigation, in which they were embroiled. She had been correct on that score. She had also been able to provide Rose with some additional vital details that had helped her solve the case.

  ‘Are you still hoping to be a cook one day, Edna? I suppose that’s why you changed jobs and came to work here. How do you find Crossing Manor?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Edna, making a face. ‘Mr Mason is a bit like Mr Stafford, though, he’s ever so strict, which Cook says is no bad thing knowing what girls can be like these days. But he’s kind. His heart’s in the right place as my mother would say. And it’s nice not having to scrub the vegetables or clean the pans no more now that I’m a kitchen maid. I cook all the servants’ meals myself and help Cook with the sauces for the family’s meals.’

  ‘For Mr and Mrs Grayson-Smith? Well, it sounds to me that you are well on the path to becoming a cook.’

  ‘That’s what my mother says. She says I’ve done well for myself and shouldn’t complain, but –’

  ‘But you’d rather be doing something else?’

  ‘That’s just it, Miss Rose, I would,’ said Edna excitedly. ‘It’s not that I mind a life in service, because I don’t. But being kitchen staff is quite lonely. It is here, anyway. We’re always the first up in the morning and we never get to eat with the other servants. We see the same four walls every day. The kitchen windows are that high up that we never get to see what the weather’s really like. And that’s not all.’ She paused a moment to catch her breath and muster her indignation. ‘Cook works her fingers to the bone preparing the dishes, and I do my bit standing over a hot stove making the sauces, and we never really know if the family enjoys our food.’ She smiled. ‘To give him his due, Mr Mason does report back the odd favourable comment, but I never know whether to believe him or not. He’s kind, he is. Sometimes I think he only says what he does because he knows how much it means to Cook and me.’

  ‘Isn’t there anyone else you could ask?’

  ‘Only Albert,’ said Edna, with obvious distaste, ‘and I wouldn’t ask him. You can’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth. He’s the sort of fellow who takes a delight in upsetting people. He once told Cook that her soup was so foul tasting that the master had been forced to spit it out. Had her in tears, he did. And it was a lie and all, of course. Mr Mason was ever so cross with him, called him wicked, so he did.’

  ‘Well, from what little I’ve seen of Albert, I tend to agree with the butler. He seems a thoroughly unpleasant young man,’ said Rose with feeling. ’I’m rather surprised that he’s employed here.’

  ‘That’s only because he’s Mr Mason’s nephew. His younger sister’s son, Albert is. Mr Mason’s devoted to his sister, so he is. Poor woman’s had a hard life. Not very strong and she was widowed ever so young and left with four mouths to feed. Albert’s the eldest. Mr Mason felt sorry for her and so he gave Albert a job. I bet he regrets it now. All Albert does is cause him misery and embarrassment.’

  ‘And the servants think he’s a thief, don’t they?’

  ‘Oh, you mean the snuff box? Well, yes they do. We all do. He was in trouble with the law, you see. Before Mr Mason gave him a job, I mean. Poaching, I think it was. It might even have been taking the church collection. But that’s the same as stealing, isn’t it? Poaching I mean?’

  ‘Taking the church collection certainly is,’ said Rose, who secretly had some sympathy with families forced to poach during the current hard times. ‘Look here, Edna. You haven’t asked me why I’m here pretending to be a servant. Surely you were surprised?’

  ‘Well, I was and I wasn’t, miss. Once I knew it was you, it occurred to me you were investigating the theft of madam’s necklace. You’ve been involved in ever so many murder cases if the newspapers are to be believed, and I know you have a knack for it, solving crimes, I mean. They don’t say as much in the papers, but you solved the case at Ashgrove, didn’t you?’

  ‘Well, I have helped the police in a number of murder investigations,’ admitted Rose. ‘Though trying to solve a theft is a bit different.’ She leaned forward and clasped the girl’s hand. ‘Listen, Edna. Nobody knows I’m here apart from you and Lady Lavinia. You mustn’t say anything to anyone. Not even Mrs Grayson-Smith knows. She thinks I’m coming to stay in a few days’ time.’

  ‘But you thought you would come as a lady’s maid because you’d get more information from the servants?’ Edna lowered her voice until it was scarcely above a whisper. ‘You think it’s a servant who done it, took the necklace, I mean?’

  ‘Yes. It all sounds rather ludicrous doesn’t it, me coming in disguise? I can’t tell you how ridiculous I feel wearing those silly spectacles all day.’

  ‘I think it’s an awfully good idea.’ Edna, her face bright and shining, clapped her hands together in glee. ‘And it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to me since I’ve been here.’

  Rose made her way from the basement up the bare servants’ stairs, which were uneven from both age and neglect. The state of the staircase or the fact that their condition might prove hazardous to any servant struggling with a heavy load did not, however, at that moment occupy her mind. Her thoughts were focused on other matters. Rose reasoned that whoever had stolen Millicent Grayson-Smith’s necklace had been faced with the problem of how to get the jewellery out of the room unobserved. Initially, she had assumed that the thief had hidden the diamonds on their person. However, following a brief scrutiny of the servants’ uniforms and being in possession of a more detailed description of the missing necklace, courtesy of Lavinia’s own investigations, it became apparent that such a scenario was unlikely.

  The housemaids’ aprons had boasted no convenient pockets in which items might be hidden and the black dresses of the lady’s maid and housekeeper, with their high necks and tight cuffs, had likewise provided no scope for jewellery to be concealed within their folds. Furthermore, the necklace had not consisted of a delicate gold chain with a diamond cluster pendant, as Rose had first thought. It had been something altogether more exquisite and valuable, comprising instead of one hundred graduated sections, half of which were mine-cut diamonds. These in turn had swung freely
from fifty moulded gold leaves like sparkling glass flowers. The overall effect was not dissimilar to that of a heavy diamond and gold collar.

  A thorough search had been undertaken of Millicent Grayson-Smith’s bedroom as soon as it had been realised the necklace was missing. It had not been found, yet reason dictated that the necklace must surely have been hidden somewhere in that room, but so cleverly as not to have been uncovered in the search. Rose racked her brains as she tried to identify a possible place that might have been overlooked by the searchers. She soon realised it was useless to attempt such a feat without first setting eyes on the room itself. With renewed vigour, she set out to accomplish this without further ado. Of course it was too much to hope that the necklace was still there in its original hiding place. The thief would, in all probability, have removed it to a place of safety as soon as the opportunity arose. However, if she could only ascertain where it had been concealed, the place itself might offer up a clue.

  Rose opened the door to the landing and, as always, was struck by the stark contrast of the family’s domain in comparison with that of the servants’. There were no bare stairs and passages here, no floors broken into different levels by the occasional, oddly positioned step. Everything was smooth and graceful and, above else, exquisitely adorned. It was hard to reconcile the two very different parts of the house reserved exclusively for the use of their particular occupants. For a moment, it occurred to her that the opulence and richness of the family’s rooms was ostentatious and almost obscene.

  It was in this frame of mind that she made her way to Millicent Grayson-Smith’s room, safe in the knowledge that the mistress of the house and her solitary guest had embarked on a walk to the village. By Rose’s reckoning, the housemaids had now finished tidying the bedrooms and been set more mundane and laborious tasks downstairs. The lady’s maid’s whereabouts was unknown, though Rose had a sneaking suspicion that she had retired to her room. Mrs Field, she had seen with her own eyes, was currently engrossed in a heated discussion with the cook concerning the provision of supplies. There was no reason for any other servant to be in this part of the house and so it was with little caution that Rose opened the door to the bedroom of the mistress of the house.