‘Bertram’s up at the house,’ I blurted out. ‘He found Lucy.’
‘What an unpleasant introduction to my estate,’ said Muller. ‘I think I had better take Grodin’s brandy with me when we go up.’
‘Haven’t you …’ I begun.
‘Yes,’ said Muller, ‘plenty of the good stuff in the house, but you know traditionally it’s cooking brandy one uses for shock and this isn’t far off.’ He looked at the label. ‘Good Lord, no wonder it made you splutter. I am so sorry, dear girl.’
‘Aren’t you concerned about Lucy?’ I asked, drying my eyes.
‘Euphemia, I have over four hundred men and women working on my estate. Nature dictates that occasionally there will be accidents. I am sorry naturally that this has proved to be a lethal one, but death is a sad fact of life. As I know only too well.’ He looked down at his hands and sighed.
‘Of course, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to remind you.
Muller shook his head and levelled his gaze to meet mine. ‘We both know that after tragedy life continues whether we want it to or not.’
I found myself reaching out a hand to touch his. Entirely inappropriate! But he took my hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘So no more about murders then?’ he said.
What either of us would have said or done next I have no idea. The door flew open and Richenda erupted onto the scene. Instead of dropping my hand, Muller gave it one more squeeze before releasing it in clear sight of Richenda. He then stood.
‘What is going on?’ said Richenda. She did not sound happy.
‘That is exactly what I intend to find out,’ said Muller. ‘I did not want to leave Euphemia alone. She has had a bad shock. Would you mind escorting her to her bedchamber, Richenda? I don’t want the rest of the staff gossiping until we have matters sorted. I believe it was your half-brother who found the body.’
‘Bertram!’ said Richenda in accents that boded ill for the absent gentleman.
Muller laid a hand on Richenda’s shoulder as he passed. ‘I knew I could rely on you,’ he said and left.
‘What an earth is going on?’ demanded Richenda of me.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said slowly, ‘but I think the famed Muller charm almost overcame me!’
Chapter Eleven
Death of Innocence
‘Almost?’ demanded Richenda. ‘What were you doing in here before I arrived? You were holding his hand.’ If looks could kill.
‘I think Lucy’s been murdered. Muller didn’t want me to keep saying that.’
‘So you held hands?’ Richenda snorted.
‘I thought it was trying to console me,’ I said. ‘Only now I’m not so sure.’
‘You don’t think he killed Lucy, do you?’
‘He’s been with his factor all day. Or at least that is what he told us he was going to do.’
‘And who the hell is Lucy anyway?’ asked Richenda.
‘She’s the maid I was going to pay for information.’
‘Did you get it?’ asked Richenda single-mindedly.
‘She didn’t meet me …’
‘On account of being dead?’
Richenda pulled a captain’s chair round from the other side of the desk and sat down with a whumpf. The chair creaked alarmingly. ‘That’s not good,’ she said. ‘Did you tell Muller about our arrangement?’
I shook my head.
‘Good. Don’t,’ said Richenda. ‘People might get the wrong idea.’
‘But don’t you see she might have been murdered to stop her telling us what she knew?’
‘Did you tell anyone about meeting her?’
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘I’m not a fool. Did you?’
Richenda gave me a look that would have halted an army in its tracks. ‘I’m no fool either.’
‘No, of course not,’ I said quickly. ‘But it is odd that she should be killed at the same time as she was meant to be meeting me.’
‘You mean highly suspicious,’ said Richenda. ‘You are sure you didn’t tell anyone else about this?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t happy about having anything to do with it at all. If you remember.’
‘How did she die? How did they do it?’
‘I don’t know. Bertram came running into the house shouting about a dead maid in the driveway. At first I thought he or Merrit had run her over.’
‘Had they?’
‘No. Merrit’s not here. And she wasn’t on the driveway. She was lying on the grass as if she’d tumbled off a stone bench.’
‘Pretty cold to be sitting outside,’ said Richenda. ‘I thought you were meant to be meeting her in the rose garden.’
‘I was.’
‘Had she hit her head?’
‘What? No. She was lying all curled up, but with her limbs all over the place.’
‘Like she’d had a fit?’ asked Richenda. ‘Some people do have them. Especially when they are feeling under pressure.’
‘I didn’t think of that,’ I said slowly. ‘You mean it might have been a natural death?’
‘The way I see it,’ said Richenda, ‘either this maid had a history of fits that we knew nothing about and she got herself so worked up about meeting you that it killed her or she did know something suspicious about the late Mrs Muller and someone killed her for it. The problem is that no one knew she was meeting you. If they’d known she had known something suspicious why hadn’t she been dealt with before?’ Richenda sighed. ‘Sense would suggest she was stringing us along and it all got too much for her.’
‘If she was prone to fits,’ I said. "And that is a big if. We’ll have to wait and see what the local doctor says.’
‘Oh, Euphemia,’ said Richenda, ‘how can you be so naive. We’re in the country. Muller is the biggest employer around here. He owns everything as far as the eye can see. The doctor will say whatever Muller tells him to.’
‘And since there were rumours about his wife’s death, whatever has happened you think he’ll try and keep it quiet?’
‘I would,’ said Richenda honestly. ‘Wouldn’t you? No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to be made to feel guilty.’
‘Then we’re back where we started,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Richenda, ‘and it’s almost time for dinner. We need to get back to the house and dress.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Certainly, I need to show Muller I am a woman who can take everything in her stride.’ The words ‘unlike you’ floated on the air. ‘Besides, I want to hear the story from Bertram. He found her.’
By the time we returned to the house there was no sign of Lucy. A small car was parked to the side of the property and I assumed this was the doctor’s vehicle. We made our way to our rooms without being accosted and changed for dinner. I chose something suitably sombre. Richenda, when I met her on the landing, was wearing a bright red dress. ‘Too much?’ she asked seeing my face.
‘It is a little bright,’ I said. ‘I’m not convinced red is your best colour.’
Richenda bridled. ‘When I need you to be my fashion consultant I will let you know. I’ll have you know I went to a finishing school where we were taught about these things.’ She gave my sombre dress a quick up and down. ‘Appropriate for hired help,’ she sniffed, and walked off ahead. This was the old Richenda I had come to not love. I sighed. One murder and the status quo swung back to the way it always had been.
We found Muller and Bertram having a quick pre-prandial drink in the drawing room. ‘Mother didn’t feel up to coming down tonight to dine,’ explained Muller. ‘It’s so much harder to cope with disturbances like this when you are older, and she has had such a hard life.’
Bertram murmured something. I deliberately didn’t listen hard enough to hear; as a man whose father had been murdered, who’d lost a step-sister before he’d even met her, had had servants murdered and lost what he erroneously thought of as the love of his life not that long ago, I suspected he had something to say about what
constituted a hard life. And, of course, I’d been involved with every single one of those incidents. I decided the sherry glass Muller had passed me was quite fascinating. Meanwhile Richenda blundered in. ‘Of course, poor old thing,’ she said heartily. ‘Slings and arrows and whatnots.
‘How kind of you to understand,’ said Muller. ‘I believe we are having turbot tonight. I do hope you all like it. Mrs Samson, our cook, has quite a way with it, but then I am biased. You will have to tell me what you think.’
‘So you’re restarting your autumn ball, Muller?’ asked Bertram. ‘Is that why I’ve been invited early – to help with the heavy lifting?’
‘No,’ said Muller, ‘the flower arranging!’
And they both burst into laughter at some old joke that lay between them. I could see Richenda was bursting with curiosity, but she took her lead from Muller and told him that the invitations were coming on nicely. (She’d either been rummaging through my desk or was taking a shot in the dark that I was coming up to the mark.) ‘Of course, if dear Mrs Muller is indisposed I would be more than willing to take on any extra tasks.’
Muller tut-tutted about not asking guests to help. ‘But I have been a house guest so long I almost feel like …’
‘One of the family?’ finished Bertram cruelly. Richenda turned a deeper red than her dress. What with the colour of her hair, she resembled the inside of an overcooked rhubarb pie. Muller tactfully wandered over to the door to check if dinner was forthcoming.
‘Honestly, Bertram, how could you?’ Richenda was close to tears.
‘If you’re serious about Muller you need to show a bit more tact,’ said Bertram brutally. ‘He’s not the kind of man to rise to the obvious. He will want a wife who can be diplomatic. Not someone who will go muscling in.’
‘I was not! And I can be diplomatic,’ said Richenda, stomping her foot.
‘So I see,’ said Bertram.
‘Are none of you concerned about what happened to Lucy?’ I asked quietly, so Muller wouldn’t hear.
Both of them turned to me as one and said, ‘Not before dinner, Euphemia!’
Muller came back from the doorway where he had been talking to a footman. ‘It appears our dinner is ready. More like a little family supper really,’ he smiled at Richenda, whose blush rose again. He turned to me. ‘Euphemia, may I take you into dine? I’m sure Richenda and Bertram have a lot of catching up to do.’
And so it was I walked into dinner on Muller’s arm with Richenda looking daggers at my back. Muller made a fuss of seating me next to him and seeing that I was given a glass of cool and light wine. Then a first course of mussels in yet more wine arrived and we were suddenly busy with attempting to eat the inside of the shells in a delicate manner. When I had worked at White Orchards I had seen Bertram more than once pick up the shells and suck the mussels out when he was dining alone. Tonight he fiddled with a tiny fork that looked ridiculous in his big hands. He sighed occasionally, and I knew he was wishing us all to the devil so he could tuck in. He loved seafood.
Richenda coped with the fork, but dribbled sauce down her front. I saw Muller looking at her askance from under his eyebrows. He did not appear impressed. Instead he kept up a flow of small talk with me, asking me about my upbringing in the vicarage and comparing it with life here on his estate. Obvious parallels between my youth and the youth of his wife came up despite my best efforts to sidestep them. By the time we reached the turbot both Bertram and Richenda were sending me glances that didn’t bode well for a friendly after-dinner game of bridge. Or indeed any form of future harmony. Muller rose above all the discord by simply refusing to see it.
Later, after a dessert of cream, raspberries, and toasted oats, something Scotch I believe and therefore a little odd, we did play bridge. We cut cards for partners, but unfortunately I ended up paired with Muller. We beat the other two soundly, not least because they began to argue much as they must have done in the nursery, blaming the bad play on each other. Richenda did not appear to advantage.
When the game was finished Richenda and Bertram fell into a detailed and argumentative discussion of how each of them should have played better. Muller drew me aside. ‘Shall we leave them to it?’ he asked. ‘I have no siblings, but I have often observed how fiercely they can quarrel one minute and yet be best of friends the next.’
‘It would seem better to withdraw,’ I said. ‘I am quite tired. I think I shall retire to my room to read.’
‘You are a very smart young woman,’ said Muller. ‘So many modern women think little beyond fashion and dances.’
‘I could be going to read a fashion magazine,’ I said.
‘I think not.’ Muller tapped me lightly on the arm. ‘It is lovely night outside, clear and bright and not yet too cold. Would you do me the honour of taking a short walk with me in the gardens?’
His request startled me and it must have shown in my face. ‘It is the only place we can talk where I am certain we will not be overheard,’ said Muller. ‘I promise to behave like a gentleman.’
‘I would expect nothing less,’ I said promptly, though my immediate fear had been that this was an ungentlemanly proposal.
‘My dear Euphemia,’ said Muller lowering his voice, ‘believe me, if I was intending to suggest anything improper it would be in a garden on a sunny afternoon, or at least a warm summer evening. Though the sun is about to set and we do get spectacular sunsets here.’ Then he chuckled. ‘It is unkind of me to tease. I give you my word I only want to talk to you. Will you come?’
I could hardly see how I could refuse. My mother would have known how to get herself out of this situation, but my experience since I had left home had been largely below stairs and I was no match for Muller.
We slipped away from the others, who appeared to be now arguing about the ownership of a long-deceased family pet. ‘They will not miss us,’ said Muller. He helped me into my wrap rather than calling a servant and led me through a side-door I hadn’t noticed before out into the rose garden.
Twilight had fallen. The scent of roses was heavy in the air. Muller took me down a path and there suddenly in front of us was a bright orange sun, huge on the horizon, sinking below a distant line of trees. The sky was a dazzling mixture dappled with pink, purple and gold.
‘Beautiful,’ I said involuntarily.
‘Indeed,’ said Muller. ‘This is why I work so hard in the city, so I can come home to this.’
‘You have built a very lovely estate.’
‘It functions well too,’ said Muller. ‘Forgive me if I sound proud, but unlike the Staplefords and Tiptons of this world I did not start with advantages.’
‘You were educated beside them.’
Muller nodded. ‘It was thanks to a legacy from my godfather, but that was all I had – an education.’
‘It has obviously stood you in good stead.’
‘If I am honest it is as much about whom I met at school as what I learned,’ said Muller. ‘I am a self-made man. I think that is why I admire you so much. You started as a housemaid and here you are, companion to the lady of the house.’
I gave him a quizzical look. Richenda wasn’t yet lady of this house. Muller continued to stare at the setting sun. He had a nice profile, no beard. Since kissing Rory it has occurred to me that kissing a man with a beard might be unpleasant. Especially if he wasn’t scrupulous in keeping it clean. The taste of old soup would ruin a moment of romance. Never mind the prickles. But Muller was speaking again, ‘My mother has taken to you very much. She has been suggesting certain options to me.’ He turned to look at me. ‘Has she spoken to you?’
‘No more than to discuss matters concerning your ball.’
Muller nodded and made an affirmative noise in the back of his throat. ‘She said you were proving especially adapt at managing invites and even seating plans. She said you knew the rules of social etiquette better than her.’ He gave me a wry smile. ‘You have no idea how much it will have cost her to make such an admission!’
Muller half turned to me and placed a hand briefly on my shoulder. ‘Euphemia, you can do no wrong in her eyes and I’m rather afraid that is becoming the problem.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Of course not,’ he said kindly. ‘I never thought for a moment that you did.’ He paused, ‘But I fear that in time you would be unable to miss my mother’s implications. She is not – er – subtle.’ He took a deep breath, ‘My mother’s inclination, which I must stress is not mine, is that you would make her an excellent daughter-in-law.’
I was grateful for the glow of the setting sun. ‘I see,’ I said tightly.
‘I do not think you have suggested this to her in any way,’ said Muller quickly. ‘I think you are completely blameless in this whole situation.’
‘I have certainly never sought to …’
‘Oh blast it, Euphemia!’ Muller said abruptly. ‘If it weren’t for other circumstances I’d leap at her suggestion.’
‘I’m a servant,’ I said quietly.
‘I don’t bloody care,’ exploded Muller. He walked a pace or two away from me. Stood as if collecting himself and then returned. ‘Please let me apologise for my language,’ he said.
‘I’ve heard worse.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t have,’ said Muller. ‘Richard Stapleford is a cad.’
I nodded, feeling completely out of my depth.
‘It has been my mother’s dream as it was my father’s to establish this estate. My parents as you know lived in Germany when I was younger. My father was German and my mother, despite her proper English Christian name, is half-German. It was important to them that I became an English gentleman.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
A Death in the Pavilion: A Euphemia Martins Mystery Page 7
