‘Oh, my dearest,’ exclaimed her mother, ‘never think such sacrilege! Take my smelling salts instead!’
Sir Winthrop nobly forewent glancing longingly at his newspaper. ‘What’s this about a flat?’
‘We must have one.’
‘Ah! Wouldn’t have thought that something any Stodmarsh would be keen as mustard about. I’ve heard it said the family’s secret for maintaining and, must be admiringly said, increasing its fortune is that traditionally the heirs have not come into their full inheritance until their twenty-seventh birthdays, an age when they should be less easy prey for sponging relations.’ Sir Winthrop spoke with the aplomb of a man who never admitted even to himself that in his youth he had hounded every aunt, uncle and cousin after his parents had finally refused to honour his debts. That his own son was now blithely going through money like water, he laid down to these modern times. ‘Any idea what Ned’s relatives’ current situations are, Lamorna?’
‘You mean his aunt and uncle? They’re in the same boat as Ned, having to make do with what’s dolled out to them every quarter, so there’s no hope of them coughing up any lolly.’
‘My dear, such a turn of phrase,’ rebuked Lady Blake.
Lamorna ignored this. ‘My darling understands completely that we must have a flat in London as an escape from Mullings on weekends and,’ she added fervently, ‘almost every day in between, because I’d simply die if I had to live at Mullings with that horrible woman presiding over every inch of it.’
‘Could he not ask his maternal grandmother for assistance?’
‘He won’t. He says it would be a wretched thing to do seeing he’s never been as thoughtful of her as he ought to have been. I adore him for being noble, but it is rather a nuisance.’ Lamorna raised beseeching eyes to her parents. ‘So it’s all up to you, my precious poppets – to help us out financially until we can swing things on our own. Ned didn’t want me to ask, he said he’d think of something.’
‘Clarice?’ Sir Winthrop retreated crab-like further back in his leather chair.
Lady Blake chose to delay what was bound to be one of Lamorna’s worst tantrums ever – and she certainly had a gift for them – by keeping the blame where it rightfully belonged. ‘I do agree with you about Edward Stodmarsh mismanaging the whole business dreadfully. He was a foolish man and undoubtedly believed every word fed to him by Regina – about her having lived a life of miserable dependency on her brother and his family. Utter falsehoods from what I now hear from mutual acquaintances, but ones gaining her the ends she desired – that she not be put in a similar position at Mullings should he die before her.’
‘I know, Mummy, but I can’t tell Ned I despise his grandfather.’ Lamorna drew her feet fastidiously away from the spaniel who had presumed to edge her way. ‘He was dotty about the old man and says that it’s absolutely understandable that Edward Stodmarsh acted to protect Regina’s interests, especially knowing his scowly son William would have bunged her in the coal cellar, or something equally vengeful, given half a chance. Now, of course, the boot’s on the other foot and she’s the one having the merriest time watching everyone squirm. Yes, one day someone really should chop off her head and set it spinning like a top on the floor.’
Sir Winthrop found the blaze of ice-blue in his daughter’s eyes so bone-chilling it shocked him into silence.
‘Darling,’ her mother replied, ‘your being melodramatic will get us nowhere. Shall not Ned receive an inheritance from his late mother?’ A depressing thought, which nevertheless had to be addressed in order to continue appearing sympathetic.
‘Yes, but not until he’s twenty-five. Her family, like the Stodmarshes, thought twenty-one too young. Horribly stuffy, but there you are! Ned definitely won’t like the idea of you both having to buy us the flat in London …’
There could be no further delaying and Sir Winthrop was visibly incapable of doing his part in bringing down the axe. All this talk of beheading did intrude! Lady Blake squared her shoulders and braced herself against the avalanche of rage imminently hurtling her way. ‘Regretfully, Lamorna, that is impossible. Your father and I may disagree with Regina’s Stodmarsh’s decision to withhold financial help, but it would be entirely wrong for us to intercede and thwart her obvious opposition to the marriage at this time.’ She saw her daughter’s mouth open in what seemed to be slow motion. ‘Am I not right, Winthrop?’
‘I’m afraid so; not at all the done thing.’ He had no time to plug his ears before the scream erupted.
That piece of hysteria accomplished, Lamorna swept towards the library door, where she stood poised for a poignant moment, before issuing the ultimate threat. ‘I shall never speak to either of you again as long as I live.’
‘Think she means it, Clarice?’ Sir Winthrop inquired after the reverberations from the slammed door had quivered away.
‘At this moment I most devoutly hope so, Winthrop. You will accompany me to church on Sunday.’
Twenty minutes later Lamorna telephoned Ned at Mullings. He had been expecting the call, having spoken with her earlier, and when notified by Grumidge, he took it in the study. In his haste he left the door to the hall ajar. That he adored her was unquestionable, but a night’s reflection had left him uncertain that he’d done right in asking her to marry him with circumstances being as they were. The thought nagged that his grandfather would have been disappointed in him on this account and that Florie would also think that he had been thoughtlessly immature, which was why he hadn’t confided in her that morning.
‘Lamorna?’
‘Darling,’ she spoke through a cascade of sobs, ‘I was petrified you might be out, that you’d gone over to that farm.’ Over the past weeks she had made it clear in the sweetest possible way that she did not understand his enthusiasm for working with Tom Norris at Farn Deane.
‘Lamorna, I haven’t left the house for a minute since we talked.’
‘I wish you’d call me your treasure.’
Ned flushed at the deserved rebuke. ‘You know that’s what you are.’
‘Then say it, darling.’
Despite reminding himself he was the luckiest man in the world to have her love, he went hot round the ears. He wasn’t cut out for flowery language, had never seen the point of it. He’d have to start practising in his bedroom. ‘My treasure.’ There! Done! Next time maybe he wouldn’t feel such a fool. ‘What’s wrong? Why are you crying?’
‘You could have added – my sweet.’
‘Look,’ he said, frankness escaping, ‘I’m worried about you and that means I can’t waste time on sunshine and roses.’
‘Oh!’ Surprisingly, Lamorna sounded as though she savoured this display of masterfulness. No man had ever dared attempt such a thing with her before. ‘Well, yes, I am horribly upset. Mummy and Daddy won’t help with the flat either. They said they couldn’t possibly go against Regina.’
Ned cringed. ‘You weren’t going to ask them. You promised you wouldn’t.’
‘So I did, but …’
‘I told you I’d think of some other way.’
‘So what have you come up with?’
‘Well, I can talk to Seymour Cleerly, Grandfather’s solicitor – mine now – and see if he can’t find some loophole to free up the funds we’ll need. He’s a decent chap …’ Ned’s voice trailed away. He didn’t think it at all likely anything would come of the attempt.
Lamorna seized on his hesitancy to begin weeping again. ‘It’s all too cruel! I was just saying to Mummy and Daddy that the only hope is for someone to murder that heartless witch!’ Her voice rose. ‘Are you listening to me, precious, or are you beginning to wish you hadn’t proposed to me?’
It crept in upon Ned, that he was close to regretting his impulse of the previous evening; that what he’d really wanted was to remain forever in the dizzying delight of love’s enthrallment, with his feet never touching the ground and every breath an intake of glorious anticipation of when he’d see her next. The guilt arising from
such cowardly thinking caused him to respond forcefully to what she had said.
‘Of course I don’t wish I hadn’t asked you to marry me. As for Regina, I’d gladly murder her; I just have to think how to do it without landing in the soup!’ At that moment he saw movement through the gap in the doorway. Someone – or perhaps several people – was in the hall. No need to worry about Regina as she was gone for the day visiting the Stafford-Reids – unless she’d returned unexpectedly. And, anyway, neither she nor anyone else would take what they’d overheard seriously. The house was full of people bound to have wished Regina underground almost daily.
‘Would you really – for me?’ Lamorna had brightened.
Irritation surged as it might not have done if she had been in the room with all her physical enchantments. ‘Just joking,’ said Ned, ‘as I know you were too.’
‘No, I wasn’t,’ came the petulant reply, ‘although I’ll admit it would be more convenient, as I told Mummy and Daddy, if she were hauled off to the Tower and had her head chopped off. I’m not usually bloodthirsty,’ she added reassuringly, ‘but that flat in London means everything to me – you do see that, don’t you, darling?’
Ned winced. ‘Yes, of course. Look, I have to go … sweetheart. I’ll phone Cleerly when I get back from taking Rouser for his walk. I have to see to him now.’
‘If he’s more important than I am!’
It was several prolonged moments before Ned could replace the receiver and go into the hall, now empty of any presence but his own, then head down to the lower regions, where Rouser was always to be found when not in his company. Although Mrs McDonald did not want the dog in the kitchen when meals were being prepared, she was always willing to supply him with a bone to take into the scullery. Ned was not sure that he was ready for a talk with Florie. There was so much to get sorted out in his head first, and even when that was done, wouldn’t it be cowardly to cast himself upon her for moral support? But on entering the kitchen he found her engaged in conversation with Alf Thatcher and saw at once that she was distressed. She turned to him, hands clasped.
‘Troubling news, Ned.’ She never called him that in front of others. ‘George Bird collapsed on the green early this morning and required help getting back to the Dog and Whistle.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Ned forgot his own worries – the feeling of being a rat caught in a trap. He pulled a chair out from the table for her to sit in. ‘Any word on how he’s doing?’ He directed this to Alf.
‘Popped in to see him half an hour gone, Mr Ned. He insisted he was fine, just a dizzy spell, and didn’t want the doctor. Said he’d refuse to see him if he showed up. Irritable, he was. That’s not like Birdie by a long chalk. I don’t know that I did right coming to tell Mrs Norris, but I felt she’d want to know, seeing they was friends once upon a time.’
‘I’m so grateful you did.’ Florence sat down. ‘I want to see him, but would he resent my showing up after putting him out of my life as I did? The last thing I should do is upset him.’
Alf rubbed his chin. ‘Perhaps it’d be best to leave him be till it’s clear he’s on the mend. He could be annoyed that I told you. My Doris is forever telling me I stick my oar in where I shouldn’t, but somehow I got to thinking a while back that whatever pulled you two apart, you was meant to be together.’
‘I’m not as sure as I once was that my reasons had validity and now it has to be too late for me to step back into George’s life and offer support if he’s ill with something more than he claims.’
‘Leave it to me,’ said Ned. ‘I’ll go along and see him. It’s about time I started thinking beyond myself, Florie.’
Something in his voice told her all was not well with him and that it probably had to do with Lamorna Blake, but this was instantly overshadowed by worry about George. Could it be heart trouble, or something equally serious? She had not cried in many years, but she did so on going up to her bedroom after Ned and Alf had left. Robert’s death had been anguishing, but unaccompanied by regrets. She must not allow them to consume her now; but it would not be easy to hold them at bay if Ned did not bring back encouraging news from the Dog and Whistle.
NINE
On the day after George Bird’s collapse on the village green and Ned Stodmarsh’s unhappy realization that he wasn’t as glowingly enthused about becoming engaged to Lamorna Blake as he should have been, Florence’s cousin Hattie Fly rose, as she always did, at six in the morning. After attending to her ablutions, she descended the narrow staircase and crossed the dim strip of hall to the kitchen.
In appearance Hattie epitomized the drab old maid on the shady side of fifty with indeterminate features, salt-and-pepper hair scraped back into a small bun and steel-rimmed spectacles perched on her nose. There was, however, a lightness to her step and a sparkle to her eyes – even when, as now, merely anticipating putting on the kettle for a cup of tea – which revealed that, far from believing herself short-changed by life, she was entirely contented with her lot. She was grateful to still be living in the house where she had been born. Hurst Row was a back alley off Kings Cross, and number twenty-nine was jammed midway in the sooty-bricked Victorian terrace. All the houses opened directly on to the street and had little in the way of back gardens, but the neighbours were in the main friendly, and just around the corner were several small shops that supplied household needs. Hattie considered herself supremely blessed that her home had an upstairs bathroom and lavatory, which many such dwellings lacked.
That the house did appear to have seen better days beyond the exterior grime was undeniable, but it was cheered inside by the smell of polish, shining brass, cozily hued curtains, and the comfortable three-piece suite in the front room, bought from a neighbouring family who were emigrating to Canada. Hattie had loved her parents dearly and, as their only child, begrudged not one moment of taking care of them in their infirm old age. Nor did she mind the necessity since their deaths of housing lodgers to supplement what she earned from taking in ironing. There had been a series of them, always two a time – though never a couple – occupying the pair of bedrooms at the top of the stairs, leaving for her use the tiny boxroom a half-flight up from them. Mr Page, a middle-aged shoe salesman, had now been with her for three years, and Miss Toffee Jones, aged twenty-five, for four months.
Mr Page was an ideal lodger, pleasant but unobtrusive. Hattie knew little more about him than she had done when he’d first arrived – that he was a bachelor and did not eat fish, except for kippers, which he liked to have for breakfast three times a week. Hattie, in addition to breakfast, provided an evening meal for her lodgers if they wished it. Mr Page more often than not ate at a restaurant on his way back from work. Toffee usually had dinner with Hattie and made a cheerful table companion. She always insisted on helping with the washing-up afterwards, which extended their conversations, often inconsequential, but occasionally otherwise. During one of their chats she’d mentioned having recently stopped seeing her young man.
‘We found out we didn’t suit,’ she’d said lightly. ‘No broken hearts.’
Hattie, who’d quickly become fond of Toffee, wasn’t sure she believed this; the girl struck her as the sort to put a brave face on disappointments. Toffee was obviously not her real Christian name, but one that suited her perfectly. Her shiny bobbed hair and eyes were a warm brown, and the hair had a silver streak at the front. Hattie had assumed it was artificial, but Toffee had told her it resulted from being delivered by forceps and that her mother had died after giving birth to her.
Her father, a groom turned chauffeur, had passed away when she was ten. But she’d been fortunate in being from that time housed and educated at a private school by his employers until she was sixteen, at which time the son decided he was in love with her. Realistically, his parents’ generosity had its limits. They had informed her kindly but firmly that it was time to make her own way in the world, with fifty pounds to support her until she found a job. According to Toffee, this had been not only reasonable but
an exciting opportunity to spread her wings. Was this another case of her putting on a brave front? Being alone in the world at so young an age must surely have been somewhat scary. She had for several years now worked in a bookshop and said it was her dream to have one of her own. Like many young women, she was neither particularly pretty nor sadly plain, but there was a woodland nymph quality to her that had its own appeal, coupled with a vitality that was a breath of fresh air in the old house.
Hattie brewed her pot of tea and turned on the wireless before sitting down to enjoy it. There was the usual mention of what Parliament was doing, or rather not doing, before the announcer turned to the brutal stabbing on Monday evening of Ethel Joiner, aged sixty-nine, a long-time resident of three, Ockton Drive, Moorhead. A police search continued for the suspect, twenty-five-year old Arthur James Leighton, who had fled the scene after being discovered standing over the body with a bloodstained knife in his right hand by a friend of Mrs Joiner, at present wishing to remain anonymous. Mrs Joiner’s nephew, Mr Bernard Brook, had provided information to the effect that his aunt had recently taken Mr Leighton, a struggling artist, into her home because she believed in his work and wished to assist its continuation.
A terrible thing, and it had happened not more than a couple of miles from Hurst Row. It was typical of Hattie that, in addition to sorrow for the victim, she felt a pang for the perpetrator. Such a dreadful burden to have to live with, whether caught or not, because surely the wicked had some conscience left in them.
Murder at Mullings--A 1930s country house murder mystery Page 19
