Dancing with Death

by Amy Myers

  ‘She’s off her trolley,’ Mrs Fielding contributed.

  ‘Just daffy,’ Nell said mildly, moving towards the range and tweaking a mint leaf for the garnish of the pommes de terre.

  Mrs Fielding’s eyes gleamed. ‘You ever seen a ghost, Cook?’ she demanded.

  ‘Far too busy.’ Nell ignored the jibe and beckoned to Michel to bring her the meat.

  ‘I did once,’ Kitty whispered. ‘I heard that one who sings in the corridors – Calliope.’

  ‘I met one too, Miss Checkam,’ said Mrs Squires. ‘Jeremiah, the smuggler what haunts the cellars.’ Mrs Squires was a sturdy lady from the village who seldom took part in communal discussions, being more devoted to her pastry, so her talk of Jeremiah had credibility.

  ‘Is he the ghost who murdered—?’ Michel began.

  ‘No,’ Nell interrupted. ‘That’ll be me if you don’t get a move on. Ghosts aren’t on the menu until midnight. Dinner is in five minutes. Fish and vegetables, everyone!’

  A moment’s appalled silence and then everyone sprang into place. A crispy slice of artichoke fell off a plate, the sauce normande was lost but quickly found, to be rushed to the serving room for the Dover sole fish course (or sole de la Manche, as it was tonight), and the truffles, foie gras and pommes de terre to accompany the noisettes of lamb were behind schedule for delivery in their appropriate dishes.

  ‘Suppose Lady Clarice is right, Miss Drury?’ Kitty whispered when they’d recovered their breath. ‘Suppose there really are ghosts around?’

  ‘All adds spice to life,’ Nell replied. ‘And the ghost hunt won’t be hunting in our wing.’

  ‘Why will they not?’ Michel demanded. ‘This is old too.’

  ‘Because all those old Ansleys never put foot in the servants’ wing,’ Nell pointed out. ‘And our ghosts never go outside four walls – not the aristocratic ones, anyway. You get highwaymen and the like prancing around the countryside as ghosts, but not here. Ansley ghosts like to keep themselves warm. There’s said to be a cook haunting the old kitchens just for the warmth.’

  Michel thought this over. ‘You told us about a dairymaid ghost and the dairy is cold.’

  ‘The marquess of the time liked to be comfortable when he seduced dairymaids,’ Nell quickly improvised, ‘so he got her to climb up the ivy. She haunts the boot room now.’

  ‘Miss Drury,’ Michel said after he had thought this through, ‘you are being funny with us.’

  ‘Just a little.’

  It was better to laugh. Then she would forget the ghost hunt that awaited her later tonight.

  Time to check the serving room, Nell realized. The noisettes were ready to be cooked to their delicious pinky-grey best and the hors d’oeuvres and the fish course were under control, as were the vegetables. That left the salad, the soufflé and the final bowls of fruit. Once they were done, Nell could begin to relax – save for the thought of the ghost hunt ahead. At least the ghost list had arrived, courtesy of Jimmy.

  On her way to the serving room, however, she collided with the members of the band to whom Mrs Squires had arranged supper to be served in the servants’ hall. Nell stood aside while they went in but then she saw who was bringing up their rear, clarinet case in hand. The shock hit her like a tidal wave from the past. Tonight of all nights. Why the blazes hadn’t it occurred to her that this might happen some day? Shock or not, though, she almost laughed when she saw the thunderstruck look of recognition on his face.

  ‘We’ve met before,’ he said, recovering some of his all too familiar poise.

  ‘At the Carlton,’ she agreed.

  ‘As if I’d forget.’ He smiled at her. ‘Can’t stop, Nell. We’ll talk later.’

  Would we indeed? she thought mutinously.

  Guy Ellimore had served as an officer in the Royal Flying Corps and then the Royal Air Force during the war; he had been decorated with the DFM too, but somehow after the war ended he hadn’t fitted in. Maybe he couldn’t get a job, but she thought it was more than that. He’d told her that he preferred to roam and running a band let him do that. ‘Music, dancing, they keep me going,’ he had told her once. ‘And being on the move.’

  Nell had understood then and she did now. There had been a restlessness in him as there had been in her. She had settled hers but he had not. He’d always be travelling on, would Guy. ‘It’s the jazz inside me,’ he’d explained. He was still overcoming the horror of the war, though. ‘Dead friends dance before my eyes,’ he had told her in a rare moment of outspokenness. Music helped. He’d talked of the Dixieland Jazz Band who had come over from America in 1919. ‘Jazz is all the rage there now and it will be here as well soon. You don’t even need to read music. You just play. That’s freedom, Nell.’

  Freedom. That’s what the twenties were all about. Not the same old poetry and music with set rules, but new ways, new rhythms for the new world, like Edith Sitwell’s Façade. Fun, the unexpected. Nell didn’t regret not having thrown in her lot with Guy, though it had been hard to part at the time. She had done the right thing, though. A man in her life would stop her doing what she was born to do. After all, some day she might want to move on from Wychbourne Court, perhaps to Paris, where everything seemed to be spinning even faster than in London. How could she do that if she had a husband and children?

  ‘Later,’ she answered him now. ‘I’m running one of the groups on the ghost hunt, so after that.’

  He grinned. ‘We’ve just heard about the ghost hunt. Ghosts of the past, Nell. I can’t miss that.’

  Making a determined effort to put Guy out of her mind, she checked that nothing was amiss in the serving room then ran upstairs to her bedroom in the servants’ wing to find something suitable to change into later for the ghost hunt. Left to herself, she would have worn red or bright blue or pink, but ghosts (in the form of their mouthpiece, Lady Clarice) would not like that, so she laid out a grey sleeveless dress of voile over a slip of the same colour. It would do. Her stockings would have to remain as they were and fortunately they hadn’t so far laddered today. Black beads around the neck – no, red beads. They went better with her light brown hair. Right, add a touch of face cream and lip rouge and yes, she would be presentable.

  ‘Come on, ghosts, I’ll be ready for you,’ she announced to her mirror as she held the dress up in front of her to see how it looked. (Even though one can’t see ghosts in a mirror, she might as well be polite to them, just in case they were there.)

  Clothes laid out on her bed in readiness, she gave a sigh of relief. Now she could concentrate on the dinner ahead again. And that too held its problems. During her final check of the dining room, she had come to the conclusion that Lady Ansley must have been in one of her ‘let’s have fun’ moods when she planned the seating for this dinner. It was extraordinary considering the feud between the Dowager Lady Ansley, who lived in the Dower House, and Mr Arthur Fontenoy, who lived a stone’s throw away in Wychbourne Court Cottage. They never spoke or even acknowledged the other’s existence, but this evening they would be sitting next to each other. What a recipe for disaster! In addition to the family and neighbours of all ages, a bevy of bright young things was motoring down from London, so the guest list was already a heady mix. Add a dose of Lady Clarice and her ghosts and there could be trouble.

  ‘We should dine, Gerald,’ Lady Ansley murmured to her husband. Peters had sounded the gong some minutes earlier but the party was so dispersed that Gerald had to lead the way to the dining room.

  Here we go, Gertie, she told herself. It was performance time again. She mentally rearranged her face from this brief excursion into her Gaiety Girl past to today’s gracious hostess. She played that role expertly by now and still had the same quickening of excitement as the curtain went up on another spectacular Wychbourne Court party.

  ‘Certainly, my dear.’ Gerald, the eighth Marquess Ansley, extended his arm to his mother, the Dowager Lady Ansley – Lady Enid, as she liked to be addressed – while Gertrude decorously took the arm of the h
ighest-ranking gentleman at the rear of the procession.

  These old rules of precedence were on the way out now that the world had moved on at such a pace, but Gerald never seemed to notice that. Gertrude still loved some of the ritual, fortunately, although what she did not love was the endless decisions that had to be taken for such events. Nell – Miss Drury, as she must think of her tonight – was a tower of strength. She hadn’t taken to her at first. Nell had seemed such a determined young woman. Then Gertrude had realized that was what she liked about her. She was modern, just doing what Gertie would have done at her age – had done, in fact, for actresses were hardly highly ranked in society back in the nineties. That’s when she had met darling Gerald, who hadn’t even seemed to notice the social distance between them.

  Gertrude’s practised eye surveyed the room as guests were conducted to their seats. All seemed well, but then …

  ‘Peters!’ She beckoned him to her side, almost frozen with horror, as she saw that all the ladies were now seated.

  ‘Your Ladyship?’ He was there in an instant.

  ‘Lady Enid – the dowager.’ She could hardly choke the name out. How in the name of Hades had this happened? How could she have made this mistake? Her mother-in-law was seated to Gerald’s right, as regal in her long, purple evening dress as Queen Mary herself. About to take his seat next to her, however, was Arthur Fontenoy, who not unnaturally looked flabbergasted. For one terrible moment, as Peters looked poised for instructions, Gertrude feared the unthinkable would happen: that the dowager would rise to her feet and walk in slow and stately fashion out of the room.

  Instead, her mother-in-law chose to bring the battle to the enemy. Her voice rang out throughout the entire room. ‘Good evening, Mr Fontenoy. Indeed, it is so good it makes one eagerly anticipate the coming of good night.’

  Arthur, with most of the forty diners spellbound as to what would happen next, bowed his head. ‘Good evening, Lady Enid.’ With great courage, he took his seat.

  For all his seventy-odd years, he was no match for her mother-in-law, Gertrude thought pityingly. He had already lost the first round.

  ‘What happened?’ Gertrude hissed at Peters, whose usual imperturbable control seemed to have deserted him.

  ‘The seating order. Someone must have changed it,’ he babbled.

  Gertrude believed him. Her eye fell on Sophy, who was looking appalled. Surely she wouldn’t have done this? It was more likely the work of Richard or Helen, or even of the great Charlie Parkyn-Wright. Delightful and popular as Charlie was, he was renowned for his little jests. What else, she wondered, might he have in mind?

  Really, the young of today were so unpredictable. She had sensed this evening might be like going on stage – somehow one knew that this would be a performance when one forgot one’s lines or tripped over one’s petticoats. Perhaps she should have joined the young folk and worn fancy dress.

  Her children were a puzzle to her. Kenelm, currently posted abroad, was so stiff and unbending, although with a wife like Honoria she supposed that was inevitable. As for poor Richard, he looked so out of place tonight as an eighteenth-century soldier, despite his good looks. Or perhaps he was looking despondent because of that wretched Elise. Cleopatra, indeed. Did the young of today wear any underclothing? she wondered, looking at Elise’s seemingly impossible slender form. Richard was seated next to her, at his insistence, and yet owing to the way Elise-cum-Cleopatra was so animatedly talking to Charlie Parkyn-Wright on her right, he didn’t look happy. Charlie, on the other hand, did. His Tutankhamun costume rather suited him.

  And then there was Helen, dressed as Helen of Troy. Oh dear. Not that she didn’t live up to the costume. Her blonde beauty came from Gerald’s side of the family, not hers. Helen must have some goal in life but what was it? Her elder daughter was a mystery to her. Up one moment and down the next. There was something wrong with the girl, but what?

  Sophy was another problem. Perhaps her daughter had been right. That dress didn’t suit her. This evening would be an ordeal for her, although she was looking more content now. Her dinner partner was someone Gertrude didn’t know – Hugh Beaumont. He wasn’t in fancy dress and he did not look at all content. At least Sophy looked happier, though.

  Everyone else, in fact, also seemed happy – even her mother-in-law after her little victory. No, Gertrude realized, not everyone else. Lady Warminster was certainly not looking at all content. She looked extremely annoyed, gazing at someone else further down the table.

  Gradually Gertrude felt herself relaxing, however. Once they all began to eat Miss Drury’s superb banquet, all would be well. How could it not be?

  ‘What a scream!’ Nell laughed.

  The story of what had happened between the dowager and Mr Fontenoy had quickly reached them, courtesy of footman Robert. The drama of the situation had of course escaped the hired staff. There had been no time to savour it while dinner was still in full flow but now that the Wychbourne Service plates and dishes were mostly in the scullery with the boiler doing its utmost to keep up the flow of hot water, Nell had breathing space. Thank goodness the silver plates and glasses were still looked after in the butler’s pantry. Apart from the soufflé lacking a few raspberries to garnish the dish as perfectly as Nell would have liked, all had gone well.

  Mostly the servants just accepted that Lady Enid did not like Mr Fontenoy, but Nell knew the whole delightful story from Lady Ansley herself. Sometimes Her Ladyship longed for a shoulder to cry on or just to share a good laugh, and Nell provided it. She liked Lady Ansley. Despite the dowagers and Mrs Fieldings of this world, the rigid wall between the family and servants was gradually eroding and sometimes even had a gateway, such as the one that had led to Lady Ansley talking to Nell about the rift between her mother-in-law and poor Mr Fontenoy.

  ‘I fear this feud between them is all down to my husband’s late father, Hugo, the seventh marquess,’ Lady Ansley had lamented. ‘How could he have done it? His will included a legacy to his wife and one to his friend with whom he had been friendly for many years,’ Lady Ansley had emphasized meaningfully.

  Nell had seen the problem. The word ‘friend’ was one even the broad-minded Lady Ansley didn’t care to explore more fully. ‘So Lady Enid and Mr Fontenoy don’t like each other because they see each other as rivals?’

  ‘Far worse than that,’ Lady Ansley had told her. ‘The immediate legacy to each of them was comparatively tiny. The major part of the legacy was left in trust for whichever of them survived the other. Unfortunately my father-in-law died at a relatively young age, forty-nine.’

  Nell had gasped. ‘Joker, was he?’

  ‘I fear so,’ Lady Ansley had blurted out. ‘I never met him as my husband had just inherited the title when we met. I would have got on well with my father-in-law, I think. More perhaps than with …’

  She had stopped there, but it had given Nell great amusement. So Lady Ansley suffered difficulties with the dowager too and also no doubt from the two antagonists, who refused not only to speak to each other but to recognize each other’s presence. Tonight had indeed been a battlefield but Nell doubted whether it would end in a peace treaty or even an armistice.

  There was very little left for her to do towards the late supper. She had supervised the preparation of the cold buffet but its management would be largely left to Kitty and Michel, subject to her own last-minute check. Mr Peters also liked to be involved in such matters since it was to be served not in the dining room but in the supper room adjacent to the ballroom.

  It was time, Nell thought thankfully, for her to change into her evening wear and then perhaps join the servants’ hall dancing for a time – once she was sure that the band was safely in the ballroom. She wasn’t yet ready to meet Guy Ellimore again.

  Sophy was cross with herself. Here she was clasped in her partner’s arms dancing the foxtrot to ‘Toot, Toot, Tootsie’ and she ought to have been on top of the world, even if she did look like Koko the Clown in this dress. She was
sorry about her slip-up in changing the table plan that had resulted in her grandmother being next to her arch enemy, but at least she had succeeded in keeping Hugh Beaumont well away from Lady Warminster.

  Her plan had worked wonderfully well (barring one little slip-up) and no one queried who ‘Hugh Beaumont’ was. It just went to show what a farce all these rules were. ‘Hugh’ was looking splendid in his tailcoat and absolutely right for the evening, although he seemed ridiculously worried. Of course, it was a nuisance that Lady Warminster was here at all and that she had not noticed Her Ladyship’s name on the guest list until too late. Lady Warminster hadn’t looked at all happy at dinner, and ‘Hugh’ was sure she had recognized him. She hadn’t said anything, though, and so that was all right, Sophy thought. Now she wanted to enjoy the rest of the dance, but ‘Hugh’ kept twisting his head all the time to see if Lady Warminster was staring at him.

  ‘What’s worrying you, Hugh?’ she asked, as the jerk of his arms didn’t seem entirely due to the foxtrot.

  ‘I shouldn’t be here, Lady Sophy,’ he muttered in her ear. ‘She didn’t tell me she was coming here.’

  ‘Call me Sophy,’ she hissed. ‘Remember?’

  Eventually, as he continued to look hunted, she had a brainwave. ‘Let’s go into the gardens,’ she said. ‘You won’t keep seeing her there.’ That would be fun, she thought. He might even kiss her. She didn’t care much either way, but it would be an interesting experience.

  ‘Hugh’ brightened up.

  ‘We must be back for the ghost hunt, though,’ Sophy added firmly.

  Helen Ansley was also upset. It was all very well being dressed as Helen of Troy but she wasn’t doing well as a magnet as far as partners were concerned – thanks of course to the magnificent Elise, who as Cleopatra seemed to be attracting all the Mark Antonys she wanted. In particular, she was attracting Charlie. Rex Beringer was a good standby but so dull. He was always there. He danced well, he looked well and talked well but there was no excitement with him. Not as there was with Charlie.