by Rhys Bowen
And of course I realized at that very moment that we upper classes are open to all kinds of fiendish tricks with which our servants can vent their anger and frustration. I’d heard once about a butler who peed into the soup. I wondered what the servants did at Castle Rannoch. The motto is obviously always to treat servants as one would wish to be treated. The golden rule does make a lot of sense.
Feeling more satisfied now, I started in the back bedrooms and removed the dust covers very carefully. I swept. I even went down to the coal cellar and I laid fires. That went smoothly enough, although I was out of breath after carrying a full coal scuttle upstairs several times. Then I came to the main bedroom, looking out onto Eaton Place.
This room was dominated by a giant four-poster bed, the sort that Queen Elizabeth had obviously slept in on her way north. It was a ghastly affair with faded velvet curtains. The rest of the room was no more conducive to a good night’s sleep. On one wall was a hideous mask with tusks, on another a print of a battle scene. As I went to shake out the satin quilt that covered the bed, I misjudged its weight. It flew up, knocking that mask off the wall. Almost as if in slow motion, I watched the mask fall and, in its turn, knock a small statue off the mantelpiece. I flung myself across the room to grab it, but I was too late. It hit the fender with a neat clunk and broke in half. I stared at it in horror.
“Stay calm,” I told myself. “It’s just one small statue in a house full of ornaments.”
I picked up the two pieces. It looked like some kind of Chinese goddess with several arms, one of which had now snapped off at the shoulder. Luckily it was a clean break. I stuffed both pieces into my apron pocket. I’d take it away, have it repaired, and then slip it back into the house later. Hopefully nobody would notice. I could bring up another, similar piece from downstairs to replace it until I could return it.
I had just heaved a sigh of relief when I froze. Was I now oversensitive, or had I heard footsteps down below? I stood, holding my breath, until I heard the unmistakable creak of a stair or floorboard. Someone was definitely in the house with me. Nothing to get alarmed about, I told myself. It was broad daylight in a fashionable London square. I’d only have to open the window and shout for help and any number of maids, chauffeurs, and delivery boys would hear me. Remembering how Mrs. Bantry-Bynge and her friend Boy had arrived earlier than originally planned, I presumed it was a member of the Featherstonehaughs’ entourage. I just prayed it wasn’t Whiffy.
There was a big wardrobe in the bedroom and I was tempted to hide. Then the voice of reason won out. Since servants were supposed to be not seen and not heard, I decided I shouldn’t announce my presence. A servant would just go on with her work, no matter what was happening around her in the household.
The footsteps came closer. It was hard to keep making that bed without turning around. In the end I just had to peek.
I jumped a mile as Darcy O’Mara stepped in through the bedroom door. “Holy mother of God, what an impressive bed,” he said. “This certainly rivals the Princess and the Pea, doesn’t it?”
“Darcy, what are you doing here?” I demanded. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“I thought I saw you crossing Belgrave Square earlier, looking rather furtive, so I decided to follow you. I watched you go in the tradesmen’s entrance of the Featherstonehaughs’ house when I knew they were still in the country. And I was intrigued. Being of a curious nature I wanted to know what the hell you were doing in someone else’s empty house. I waited. You didn’t reemerge, so I came to take a look for myself. You didn’t lock the door after you, naughty girl.”
“All right,” I said. “You’ve discovered my guilty secret.”
“Your secret pleasure is to go around making other people’s beds? Sigmund Freud would find that interesting.”
“No, silly. I’ve started a new career. I’m running a domestic service to get people’s houses ready for them when they want to come to London and save them the expense of sending staff in advance.”
“Brilliant notion,” he said. “Where is the rest of your team?”
“It’s just me so far,” I said.
He burst out laughing. “You’re doing the housecleaning yourself?”
“I don’t see what’s so funny about that.”
“And when have you ever cleaned a house? I bet you’ve been polishing the floors with the stuff they use to clean the silver.”
“I didn’t say I was doing the spring cleaning,” I retorted. “My service offers to air out and dust off a few rooms. Make ready the house, that’s all. I can run the carpet sweeper, put clean sheets on the beds, and do a good dust.”
“I’m impressed—but I bet your family wouldn’t be.”
“We’ll just make sure they don’t know. If I start doing well enough, I can hire a staff to do the actual work.”
“Very enterprising of you. I wish you luck.” His gaze strayed back to the bed, now in half-made disarray. “My, but that is a fine-looking bed,” he said. He gave the mattress an experimental push to test the springiness. “Who knows what notable historical characters might have had a romp on this bed? Henry the Eighth, do you think? Nell Gywnne and King Charlie?” Then he looked up at me.
He was standing very close, so close that I found it unnerving, especially given the subject matter of the conversation and the way he was looking at me.
I moved away. “I don’t think the Featherstonehaughs would approve if they arrived early and found a strange man in their house, bothering the servants.”
He smiled, his eyes flashing a challenge. “Oh, so you’re getting bothered by me, are you?”
“Not at all,” I said haughtily. “I am being paid to do some work and you are keeping me from carrying out my duties, that’s all.”
He was still smiling. “I see,” he said. “Very well, I’ll go. I can tell when my presence is not wanted. Although I can name a long list of girls who would have found the chance to be alone in such surroundings with an attractive man like myself too good to turn down.”
I realized with a pang of regret that I may have given the impression that I wasn’t at all interested, which wasn’t exactly true.
“You said something about taking me to a party this week?” I said as he turned away. “At the Café de Paris? With Americans?”
“It turned out not to be suitable for you after all.” He was looking away from me, and it came to me that he had taken someone else in my place.
“What were they, drug fiends?”
“Journalists. And you can bet they’d just love a scoop on a real royal personage gate-crashing their party.”
“Oh, I see.” Now I didn’t know whether he was genuinely concerned for my welfare or had just decided that I was too straightlaced and boring to be bothering with anymore. He must have noticed my face fall.
“Don’t worry about it. The world is full of parties. You haven’t seen the last of me, I promise you that,” he said. He put a finger under my chin, drew me toward him, and brushed my lips with the lightest of kisses. Then he was gone.
And I stood there, watching the dust motes dance in the morning sunlight, half wishing for what might have been.
I had finished the bedrooms and finally plucked up courage to attack that drawing room. There was no way I was going to take out those Persian rugs and beat them, the way any good servant would have done. I ran a sweeper over them and then started to sweep the dust off that vast parquet floor. I was down on my hands and knees, sweeping the area around the drawing room fireplace, when I heard men’s voices. Before I could do anything sensible such as hide behind the nearest suit of armor, the voices came closer. I kept my head down and brushed away furiously, praying that they wouldn’t come in here, or at least not pay any attention to me.
“So your parents are arriving today?” One of the voices floated toward me, echoing from all that marble in the foyer, even though he was speaking softly.
“Today or tomorrow. Not sure. Better stay away, just in case
, or I’ll have the mater going on at me again. You know what she’s like.”
“So when will I see you?”
The voices had reached the open doorway on the far side of the living room. Out of the corner of my eye I recognized the stiff, upright bearing of the son of the house, the Hon. Roderick (Whiffy) Featherstonehaugh, and behind him, in shadow, another tall and lanky young man. I turned my back to them and kept sweeping, hoping to build up a cloud of dust around me. The sounds of my brush hitting against the brass fender must have startled them.
There was a pause and then Whiffy said, “Pas devant la bonne.”
This was the standard phrase for times when something was about to be discussed not suitable for servants’ ears. It means, “Not in front of the maid,” for those of you who are not conversant with French.
“What?” The other man asked, then obviously spotted me. “Oh oui, I see. Je vois.” Then he continued in atrocious French. “Alors. Lundi soir, comme d’habitude?” (Meaning, “Monday night as usual?”)
“Bien sûr, mon vieux. Mais croyez vous que vous pouvez vous absenter?” (“But do you think you’ll be able to get away?”) Whiffy’s French was marginally better, but still with a ghastly English accent. Really, what do they teach these boys at Eton?
“J’espère que oui.” (“I hope so.”) Then the speaker reverted to English as they headed out of the room again. “I’ll let you know how it goes. I think you may be wunning a fwightful wisk.”
I froze with my brush in midair. The other speaker had been Tristram Hautbois. I heard their voices disappearing down the hallway, but I had no idea which room they had gone into. It took all my self-control to finish my sweeping, gather up my cleaning paraphernalia, and deposit it in the broom cupboard before escaping through the servants’ entrance.
My heart was thumping wildly as I crossed Eaton Place. This scheme of mine was madness. Already, on my second day of work, it had led to two embarrassing encounters. Next time I couldn’t count on being so lucky and getting away unscathed. I felt my cheeks glowing pink at my choice of words.
Getting away unscathed—that was precisely what had happened to me in the bedroom. If Darcy had decided to force his attentions upon me, as the older generation so quaintly worded it, I’m not sure I would have been strong-minded enough to have resisted him.
A fierce wind sprang up as I crossed Eaton Place and I held my coat around me as I hurried home, looking forward to a cup of tea—no, make that a brandy—to calm my rattled nerves. It had been quite a morning. I let myself into Rannoch House and stood in the marble-tiled hallway.
“Binky,” I called. “Are you home? I am in desperate need of a glass of brandy. Do you have the key to the liquor cabinet?”
There was no answer. I felt the emptiness of the house pressing down on me. It wasn’t usually the brightest of places but today it felt positively chilly. I shivered and went upstairs to take off my maid’s uniform. As I passed the bathroom on the second floor I heard a loud drip, drip, drip. Then I saw a trickle of water, coming out from under the bathroom door.
Really, Binky was just too hopeless, I decided. He must have decided to have another attempt at a bath and had forgotten to turn the tap off properly. I threw open the bathroom door and stopped short, my mouth open in alarm. The bathtub was full to overflowing, and occupied. For a moment I thought it was Binky lying there.
“Frightfully sorry, ” I muttered, then I took a second look.
A fully clothed man was lying submerged in the bath, not moving, his face under the water and his eyes wide open, staring upward. What’s more, I recognized him. It was Gaston de Mauxville.
Chapter 12
Rannoch House
Friday, April 29, 1932
I had never actually seen a dead body before and I stared at him in fascination. He can’t really be dead, I told myself. It’s some kind of macabre French joke, or he’s trying to frighten me. Or maybe he’s sleeping. But his eyes were open and staring vacantly at the ceiling. I tugged experimentally on a black-patented toe that was sticking out of the water. He sloshed around a bit, sending more water onto the floor, but his expression didn’t change. That’s when I admitted what I had known all along. Gaston de Mauxville was lying dead in my bathtub.
A cold dread seized me. Binky had been in the house earlier. Had the same madman also murdered him? “Binky!” I shouted, running out of the bathroom. “Binky, are you all right?”
I searched his bedroom, the study, the morning room. No sign of him. Then panic really overtook me and I pictured his body hidden under one of the dust sheets, so I ran from room to room, tearing them off, looking in wardrobes, under beds. I even went down to the servants’ quarters and poked around there. There was no trace of him, not even in the coal’ole. I went back into his bedroom, and I noticed his clothes were gone. A terrible suspicion began to take shape. I remembered Binky’s brave assertion that he would challenge de Mauxville to a duel. Could he possibly have killed de Mauxville? Then I shook my head firmly. Binky was brought up to be the honorable sort. He’d mentioned challenging de Mauxville to a duel. I could picture any kind of fair play and may the better man win, although I thought it hardly likely that Binky would turn out to be the better man in any kind of combat. But drowning somebody in a bathtub? Binky would never resort to such demeaning behavior, even to his worst enemy, and even if he were strong enough to hold a large chap like de Mauxville under the water long enough to drown.
I went back to the bathroom, half hoping that the body might have disappeared. But he still lay there, eyes staring upward, black overcoat bobbing in the water. I had no idea what to do next, but an extraordinary idea came to me: the document. Maybe he carried it on his person. Fighting back waves of revulsion, I reached into his pockets and extracted a soggy envelope. I was in luck. It contained the document. I proceeded to tear it into little pieces and flushed it down the lavatory. I was immediately appalled by what I had done, of course, but it was too late to retrieve it. At least the police would find no incriminating evidence on him when they arrived.
I paced up and down the second-floor landing, trying to put my thoughts in order. I knew I ought to summon the police, but I hesitated to do so. Our nemesis was lying dead in our bath, and any policeman would leap to the conclusion that one of us must have killed him. I didn’t think I could persuade the police to believe that a stranger had chosen our bathtub, out of the whole of London, in which to commit suicide.
But I had just destroyed the incriminating evidence, hadn’t I? So who knew, apart from us, that he was our nemesis? Oh, blast and damnation. Our solicitors, of course. They even held a copy of the document and I didn’t think they’d be easily persuaded to hand it over, or destroy it, even given their two hundred years of loyalty to our family. And I also didn’t think I could persuade them not to mention our association with de Mauxville when the news of his death was made public.
I peeped into the bathroom again. Absurd thoughts were now flashing through my head. Would it be possible for Binky and me to remove the body and drop it into the Thames when nobody was looking? One drowning would appear pretty much like another. But it all seemed rather daunting: de Mauxville was heavy in life, for one thing, and for another, we had no loyal servants or means of transportation in London. I could hardly see us hiring a taxi and propping the body between us while saying, “The Embankment, my good man, and make it a deserted stretch of river.” And even if it could be accomplished, it would somehow be letting down generations of fierce Scotsmen whose motto had been Death Before Dishonor. I’m not so sure about the Hanoverian ancestors. I think they could be quite devious when they wanted to.
I was still in midthought when the doorbell rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Should I answer it? What if it was only Binky, who was quite likely to have forgotten his key? Whoever it was, they might only come back if the door wasn’t answered now. I would just have to get rid of them. I shuddered at that particular choice of words. Not the best in current circum
stances. I started down the two flights of stairs, was just about to open the front door, and suddenly realized I was still wearing my maid’s uniform. I grabbed my coat from the hall rack and slipped it on, wrapping it tightly around me. Then I opened the door.
“Oh, hello, may I speak to Lady—oh, my gosh, Georgie, it’s you.”
Tristram Hautbois stood there, his dark hair flopping boyishly over his forehead, beaming at me.
“Tristram. Oh. What a surprise,” I stammered.
“Sorry to show up unexpectedly like this,” he said, still with that expectant smile on his face, “but the old boy at the solicitors I work for sent me to deliver some papers to an address just around the corner and I thought it seemed too tempting not to see where you lived and say hello. It feels like ages since I saw you last.”
Since I had seen him less than an hour ago, I didn’t know what to say to this. Obviously he didn’t associate the kneeling sweeper in black uniform with me. I pulled the coat more tightly around me.
