The Mantle of God

by Caron Allan

  Her sister Flora—becoming a very determined match-maker of late—had suggested it was time for a more calculated approach to husband-hunting.

  Dottie sighed for the eleventh time. She had put an end to all dalliances of that kind because there was one particular man who she wanted to ‘hunt’, but after an apparently increased intimacy, he had once again gone into a frustrating retreat. She had heard nothing from William Hardy, police inspector and former prospective beau, for nine whole days.

  She noticed the knitting on the arm of the chair. It was yet another tiny garment for Flora’s expected baby, due now in just two short months. She and Flora had been knitting furiously, and even their mother had contributed a lovely shawl. But once again, the pleasure had gone out of the pursuit and Dottie regarded the two-inch frill of soft leaf-green wool with dissatisfaction.

  She decided she would go for a walk, perhaps some fresh air would do her good and lift her dull mood. She went through to the kitchen to let the staff know she was going out. Cook offered her a cup of tea, but Dottie declined. She had to get out. She felt suffocated by the house. At the kitchen table the maid Janet was perched on the knee of her gentleman friend, the solid and reliable Sergeant Frank Maple, sidekick to the inspector and Dottie was absolutely certain, party to the inspector’s every thought and intention.

  She’d have liked to grab Maple and shake him by his huge shoulders until he told her what was going on with William Hardy, but her pride would never allow her to do such a thing. She contented herself with wishing them a good afternoon, and went out into the rainy London street.

  A half-hour tramp around the locality brought her home cold, wet through and almost as fed-up as when she went out.

  Her mother was now home from doing good in the community. Dottie ran upstairs to change and have a long soak in the bath. She was not willing to be lectured on the need for respectable young women to help the needy.

  Tomorrow would be Mrs Carmichael’s funeral. The two-week delay since her death seemed unusually long, but finally she would be laid to rest. Dottie was dreading it. It would be an ostentatious affair, and practically a social event, given the status and wealth of the majority of those who would be attending. This would not be an occasion for sorrow or bereavement, or even a sober reflection on the transient nature of life. Nor would it be about remembering the deceased. It would be about being seen by all the right people and wearing all the right clothes. It would be, in Dottie’s opinion, a complete farce.

  At least she would be spared the post-burial luncheon, to be served at a hotel near the cemetery. She had received a letter a few days earlier asking her to attend Mrs Carmichael’s solicitor’s office immediately following the funeral. This had puzzled her, but her parents and Flora had all said it could only mean she was a beneficiary of Mrs Carmichael’s will. That didn’t seem at all likely to Dottie, but she had gladly made arrangements to go, if only because it meant she would miss the luncheon.

  NOT VERY FAR AWAY FROM the Mandersons’ stylish, comfortable home, William Hardy was frowning at a letter. He should have been at work, but he had been forced to take a few hours off to attend to some personal errands.

  If Dottie Manderson only knew how difficult the last nine days had been for him. It was true that he was a police inspector now, and the salary was much better than he had earned as a sergeant. But he had a younger sister and a brother to support. The brother, only fifteen years of age, was at Repton, that excellent private school in Derbyshire, and the letter William frowned at related to the matter of non-payment of fees for that school.

  How long had it been since the fees had been paid?

  Just as Dottie had suffered the loss of Mrs Carmichael, William’s own mother had died suddenly of a heart attack only a few weeks before that, and now he was beginning to understand the full situation of the family’s finances which, when under his mother’s control, had been more or less a closed book to him.

  That morning he had been to both his mother’s solicitor and his bank manager. Neither interview had been a pleasant nor a rewarding one. His mother’s private income had, unbeknown to him, been greatly reduced of late due to losses in the investments the interest from which provided his mother with her income, and certain things—Edward’s school fees, for example—had not been paid. With the loss of almost two-thirds of his mother’s money, debts had piled up and the money that should have almost covered the fees was now woefully short of doing so.

  William felt like going to the pub and drinking rather a lot of alcohol. Instead he made himself comfortable at the kitchen table with a school exercise book and a pencil. An hour later and it was clear he would need to write to the school, sending part of the payment and asking for a little longer to pay the rest, indeed he could see he would need to ask that they would accept a number of small payments to settle the fees. He really didn’t want to take his brother out of the school unless there was no alternative, and neither did he want to ask his uncle Joe Allsopp in Matlock, his mother’s brother, to help him financially. Joe had already been very good to him, and was providing a home for his sister Eleanor, who was benefitting from a more comfortable lifestyle and the attentions of a young man of a good family in the neighbourhood. His brother had only a couple more years left to go before leaving Repton—and, William had hoped—going to university, although now that began to seem impossible.

  William felt a sense of despair. He knew in a few short years many of the claims on his income would be gone—hopefully his sister would be married and, he had always assumed that once Edward had graduated from university, he would find work and support himself. But until then...

  William went to fetch the bottle of whisky he kept for extreme occasions. He poured himself one small glass. As always when he did that, he thought back a couple of weeks to when he had got very drunk after his mother’s funeral and passed out in his bedroom. Dottie Manderson had found him there and slapped him very hard indeed; she had been furious with him for drinking so much. He could never take a drink now without remembering that night.

  He smiled at the thought of it. Then sighed, because if there was one thing that had become plain over the last week and a half, it was that his chances of supporting a wife were non-existent, even on his current salary. There had been two or three occasions lately when he had shown how much he liked her, and she had reciprocated—at least, he thought so—but now he was so glad he had not taken that ultimate step of asking her to be his wife. But how long could he expect a beautiful and intelligent young woman to wait? He felt sure he had lost her. The thought of her being claimed by some other man...

  But his responsibility was to provide for and support his family in the first instance. And he felt so ashamed of his situation. He couldn’t even afford to pay Dottie back for the simple dinner she had bought him in a local restaurant. He had wanted so much to invite her to dine with him, had thought they might go dancing afterwards. He wanted so much to spend an evening in her company, an evening where no one got murdered, no one broke into her home, an evening such as ordinary young men and women spent together, focussing purely on fun and the enjoyment of one another’s company. It all seemed like a pipe dream to him now.

  Well, at least he had found somewhere new to live. The next morning, he would be moving his few possessions into a small flat, really just two rooms, perfectly adequate for a bachelor of limited means. The savings he made there would take care of his sister’s needs. If only the bank could have made him a small loan. But they had turned him down. So his hopes were all pinned on the school being generous about the outstanding fees.

  Then after he had taken his things to the new address, he would have time for a wash and brush up before going to Mrs Carmichael’s funeral. That seemed to be all he had done of late, attend funerals. First his mother’s, then the funeral of a young woman he had known slightly, a Miss Daphne Medhurst, then a Mrs Gerard’s funeral. She had been a well-to-do lady involved in the so-called dinner-party robberies
who had killed herself with sleeping pills when she realised the investigation was closing in on her and her associates. And now Mrs Carmichael, a victim of the gang, was being laid to rest. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to this latest funeral. And to top that, he’d had a request from the lady’s solicitor to attend his office right after the funeral. Hardy couldn’t imagine why that should be, but he had said he would go, and so he was committed to doing so.

  The rest of the day yawned ahead. He packed up his few things into a couple of boxes and had an early night. He lay away for long hours thinking about his lost chance of winning Dottie Manderson’s heart. His own heart felt as though it would break.

  Scotch Mist: a Dottie Manderson mystery novella

  Available from April 2018

  Thanks for reading!

  About the Author

  CARON ALLAN WRITES cosy murder mysteries, both contemporary and also set in the 1920s and 1930s. Caron lives in Derby, England with her husband and two grown-up children and an endlessly varying quantity of cats and sparrows.

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  Acknowledgments

  I am so grateful to the Victoria and Albert museum in London for the inspiration I gained form their wonderful Opus Anglicanum event last winter (2016-17), it was truly magnificent. As was the Flemish Tapestry hall. And the café...