by Leslie Meier
“Exactly. We should save talk of business for tomorrow,” said Poppy in the unusual position of agreeing with her aunt. “I do hope everyone knows everyone. Aunt, I don’t know if you’ve met our new vicar, Robert Goodenough and his wife, Sarah.”
Sarah, who had curly blond hair and was wearing a dazzling African print dress, gave everyone a big smile. “We’re so pleased to be here.”
“I suppose this is quite an improvement from Africa,” said Lady Wickham. “What with that ebony virus and those Loko Harem terrorists.”
“Actually, we’re from Hoxton,” said Robert with a smile.
“And it’s Ebola virus and Boko Haram,” said Flora, rolling her eyes.
“And the children?” inquired Poppy. “Are they settling in?”
“Very well,” said Sarah. “They like their new school very much, and I’ve been enjoying the garden. I’m growing lettuce and all sorts of lovely vegetables.”
“I love gardening,” said Lucy. “Coming from chilly New England, I’m terribly jealous of your gentle English climate.”
“You must come and see my garden,” invited Sarah. “Are you free tomorrow? For high tea?”
“High tea. A workingman’s meal,” sniffed Lady Wickham. “Beans on toast, I suppose.”
“I’ll do you better than that,” said Sarah with a tolerant smile toward Lady Wickham.
“I’ve heard such lovely things about your house, Your Ladyship,” said Maurice as Dishy Geoff made another pass with the tray containing glasses of sherry. “Can you tell me about it?”
“It’s nothing very fancy,” said Lady Wickham, accepting a fresh glass. “Just a simple Georgian, but I do think that’s the nicest sort of house.”
“I quite agree,” said Maurice. “Lovely proportions.”
“And I do have some rather nice bits and pieces from my family,” she continued.
“Do tell,” urged Maurice, before savoring a sip of sherry.
“Well, this ring you see,” she said, presenting him with a rather plump, unmanicured hand. “I’m told it’s a rather good emerald.”
Maurice took her hand and bent his head to take a better look. “It’s magnificent. Such clarity.”
“Don’t swallow the damn thing,” advised Gerald, draining his glass of sherry and reaching for another.
“Maurice is revising the manor’s guidebook,” said Poppy. “He’s discovered a wealth of information—”
“Costing a damned fortune, too,” grumbled Gerald.
“These old houses are so rich in history,” said Sue.
“Well, of course. You have no history to speak of in America,” said Lady Wickham.
“Our town was settled in the sixteen hundreds by people who left England,” said Lucy, who was finding Her Ladyship’s condescension rather irritating. “They must have been very unhappy to risk their lives on a treacherous sea voyage and to struggle in a new land.”
“Probably thieves or pirates,” sniffed Lady Wickham.
“Do tell us about your upcoming show, Desi,” said Poppy, eager to change the subject.
“It’s Sleeping Beauty. One of my favorites,” said Desi.
“Are you the prince?” asked Sarah.
“Prince! That’s a good one,” scoffed Gerald. “He’s a prancing priss.”
Lady Wickham shrieked with laughter. “He’s a prance, get it? Not a prince. A prance!”
The sudden noise startled Dishy Geoff and he dropped the tray full of empty glasses, smashing several of the precious crystal wine glasses.
“No matter,” said Poppy, determinedly calm.
“I’m terribly sorry,” said Geoff, stooping to gather up the broken bits.
“It wasn’t his fault,” said Desi, defending Geoff.
“I think we should go in to dinner,” said Poppy.
Lucy turned to Sue, who was now standing beside her. “How many courses?” she asked, under her breath.
“Probably far too many,” replied Sue.
Chapter Eight
Lucy groaned and rolled over in her sleep.
Someone was running a chain saw in her bedroom and another crazed lumberjack was driving a wood-splitting maul into her skull. She wanted to call for help, but her mouth was filled with cotton. She was gagged. This was bad, very bad indeed. She had to find a way to save herself! But that would require opening her eyes and she could tell . . . right through her closed eyelids . . . that the light was intensely bright. So bright that it would hurt.
The chainsaw noise stopped, which was a mercy, but was immediately replaced by the cheerful ringing tones of
“Frère Jacques”—her cell phone’s ring tone. If only she could answer it, she could call for help!
She woke with a start and lifted her head from the pillow. Immediately, she felt nauseous, so she let it fall back and groped the nightstand with one hand. Realizing her hands were mercifully not tied, she gave a grunt. She wasn’t a captive after all.
Finding the phone, she held it in front of her face and peeped at it through slitted eyes, making out a familiar shape.
Bill! It was Bill calling. He would rescue her.
She swiped at the phone with a clumsy gesture and heard his voice. “Lucy! Lucy!!”
She wanted to speak, to tell him about the maul in her head, but her mouth was so dry that all she could manage was another groan.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “What’s the matter?”
“Hung . . . hunggg . . .”
“You have a hangover?” he asked.
“Unnnh!” she replied.
“That’s too bad, but all you need, sweetheart, is the hair of the dog. That’ll cure you.”
The very thought made her nauseous. She waited for the feeling to pass then ran a fuzzy tongue over her lips. “Unh,” she replied.
“Well, since you’re monosyllabic, I’ll do the talking,” said Bill, his voice brimming with enthusiasm and energy. “Remember that friend of Toby’s, Doug Fitzpatrick? Well, I ran into him at the pub. I just got home, actually. I was headed to bed and then I remembered the time difference and figured you’d be up since you’re such an early riser. This news is too good to keep. Anyway, we got talking, Doug and I, and he’s building a deck and said he wasn’t sure if he should use treated wood or mahogany or that AZEK stuff and I gave him some ideas. Anyway, it turns out that he’s a financial planner and he said since I’d been so generous with my knowledge about decks, well he had a really good tip for me.
“We know that Zoe’s four years at Strethmore will cost in the neighborhood of two hundred forty thousand bucks, and they’re giving her ten a year so that brings it down to two hundred thou. There’s seventy thousand left in the college fund and that’s only enough to send her to the state university . . . which she really doesn’t want to do. Anyway, this Doug told me he has this amazing opportunity that would double the seventy thousand in three months, so with a hundred and forty thousand, we’d only have to come up with fifteen thousand a year. We could use the home equity line for that, which is much smarter than taking out those education loans. The interest is much lower. So what do you think?”
“Mmmm,” replied Lucy, who hadn’t really been listening after he started rattling off numbers.
“I know. You probably think it’s too good to be true. That’s what I thought at first, but Luce, you know, ever since I left Wall Street, I’ve missed wheeling and dealing and making real money. This is the sort of thing that the big guys, the insiders, do all the time. This is my chance to get back in the game.”
The maul was still stuck in her head, but Lucy figured she could live with it. She let out a big sigh and sank into sleep, the phone slipping from her fingers.
* * *
When she woke up a couple hours later, she still had a headache, but it wasn’t nearly as bad. She still felt horrible, but her mind was clear enough to recall the lavish formal dinner of the night before. How anyone could manage to consume eight courses accompanied by six different wines, fol
lowed by coffee and liqueurs was a mystery to her, but the rest of the company seemed to have no difficulty.
Her Ladyship, for one, had chomped her way through every course, leaving nary a crumb on her plate. It was no surprise that Gerald drank heavily, but he wasn’t the only one. Quimby had kept pace with him, and Vickie and Sue hadn’t been far behind. Even Robert Goodenough drank rather more than she would expect of a man of the cloth, but perhaps she was simply reflecting the Puritan attitudes that lingered in New England. She certainly felt a nagging sense of guilt and considered her headache was well deserved, but that didn’t stop her from downing a couple Advil. She thought she might have actually spoken to Bill on the phone, but she wasn’t sure, and resolved to call him later when she felt a bit better.
Lucy assumed Sue was sleeping off the effects of the booze. When she cracked open the door to Sue’s room from the connecting bathroom, she found her bed was empty and neatly made. Returning to her own room, Lucy got dressed slowly and attempted to tidy up the clothes she’d tossed every which way the night before but found that bending down to gather the stockings and underwear strewn on the floor was really too painful. Maybe later, she decided, heading downstairs for some coffee.
Much to her surprise, Sue was already in the kitchen, looking remarkably perky as she sat at the scrubbed pine table with her mug of coffee. Perry was toasting up crumpets, which Poppy was buttering, and a woman Lucy had not seen before was getting in their way. She was tall and thin, with very short and badly cut hair, and was wearing an extremely plain gray dress topped with a faded black cardigan that did nothing for her pasty complexion. It was hard to guess her age, but Lucy thought she was probably younger than she looked, since it was clear she wasn’t interested in her appearance. She moved surely and quickly, however, which probably meant she was in her early sixties.
“M’lady must have her tea,” she was saying. “Where would I find a tray? And why is it taking the kettle so long to boil, may I ask?”
“We prefer coffee in the morning so the kettle’s not on,” said Perry. “You have to plug it in.”
“What sort of house doesn’t have a kettle on the boil in the morning, I ask you,” fumed the woman, lifting the pot and finding it empty. She rolled her eyes dramatically before taking it over to the sink and filling it. “M’lady had a terrible night, you know. There’s an awful pong in her room. It’s very noticeable.” She sniffed. “Not at all the sort of thing you expect in a grand house like this, but then again, I told her, things aren’t what they used to be.”
“Lucy,” said Perry, “I don’t think you’ve met Harrison, Aunt’s, um, companion.”
Lucy had seated herself beside Sue at the table and was trying hard not to look as awful as she felt.
Harrison tightened her lips and glared at Perry. “I am not a companion. I am a lady’s maid.”
“Probably the last of a noble breed,” said Poppy. “Coffee, Lucy?”
Lucy managed a nod and a grateful smile.
“They ought to put her on the endangered list,” cracked Perry with a mischievous grin.
“Enough of that,” chided Harrison with a sniff. “I will need tea and a pot, a cup and saucer, cream and sugar, toast and silverware, a pot of jam.”
“And you know exactly where to find all of those things since you’ve been here many times and know this kitchen as well as you know your own,” said Poppy, filling a mug with coffee and bringing it over to Lucy.
“Humph,” said Harrison, setting a small teapot on a tray with a thump. She continued collecting the items she needed for Lady Wickham’s breakfast tray, constantly crossing Perry and Poppy and even tangling with the dogs. “Blasted beasts,” she finally declared, kicking Churchy, who yelped before slouching off to his bed in the corner.
Poppy protested. “There’s no need for that.”
But she was speaking to Harrison’s back as she disappeared through the doorway, bearing the breakfast tray. When she turned to push the swinging door open with her bottom, Lucy noticed a strange bulge in the sweater beneath one of her arms and wondered, fleetingly, if she had some sort of tumor.
“Awful woman,” muttered Perry, setting a platter on the table. “Crumpets, anyone?”
“Yummy,” declared Sue, eagerly reaching for a couple crumpets and surprising Lucy, who had never known her friend to actually eat breakfast.
“Maybe later,” said Lucy with a sigh, staring into her coffee cup.
“Oh, dear,” said Poppy in a sympathetic tone. “I think Lucy has a case of the Irish flu.”
“Oh, dear. You’re undoubtedly suffering the wrath of grapes,” said Perry.
“My mother, who knew a thing or two about the horrors, used to rely on a Prairie Oyster. You take an egg and break it into a glass of beer,” suggested Sue.
“I don’t think so,” said Lucy, feeling a surge of nausea. She rose quickly from the table and pointed in the direction of the downstairs loo, making it just in time to throw up in the toilet. She was horribly embarrassed and wanted nothing more than to slink back to bed, but neither Sue nor Perry and Poppy seemed to disapprove of her condition.
“What you need,” said Perry in a bright tone, “is fresh air.” He glanced to the windows where sunshine was streaming in. “It’s a perfect day for a picnic in the bluebell woods. What say you all?”
“That would be delightful,” said Sue. “Do you think you could manage a picnic, Lucy?”
“Actually,” said Lucy, finding herself taking an interest in her coffee, “I’m feeling much better.”
“Terrific,” said Perry. “I will start packing the picnic basket.”
“Hold on,” protested Poppy. “It’s all very well and good for you to go chasing after bluebells and butterflies and rainbows, but I have to meet with Quimby. He had the builders in yesterday and I suspect he has bad news for us.”
“How can I help?” asked Perry, raising an eyebrow. “Do you want me to hold your hand?”
“That would be ever so nice,” said Poppy.
“Quimby will be gentle, I’m sure,” said Perry, rising from the table and disappearing into a pantry, from which he returned carrying a vintage picnic basket.
“You’re a rat,” said Poppy with a smile.
“No, I’m more like Toad,” said Perry. “I think that’s why I’ve always loved The Wind in the Willows.”
“It’s all right. You go and tear around the countryside, just like Toad. I’ll make you pay when you come home.”
“Speaking of paying,” said Perry, staring into the open refrigerator. “I could have sworn we had a couple bottles of May wine in here.”
“We do,” said Poppy.
“No. We only have one.”
“Perhaps Flora or Desi had a late-night party,” suggested Poppy.
Or perhaps, thought Lucy, remembering the mysterious bulge under Harrison’s arm, the lady’s maid was planning an early-morning tipple.
Lucy felt much improved after drinking the coffee, so she headed back upstairs to tidy up the clothes still scattered on the floor. She didn’t have much energy, though, and after gathering everything into a heap, she threw it onto the closet floor, sat down with her phone, and called Bill. The call went to voice mail, however, so she left a message for him to call her back. Then she brushed her teeth, grabbed her jacket, and went into Sue’s room to see if her friend was ready.
Sue was studying her limited wardrobe and trying to decide whether to stay in the tailored slacks she’d worn to breakfast or to change into jeans.
Lucy knew it could take quite a while, so she decided to go on without her. When she reached the big family kitchen, she found the picnic basket sitting on a table, ready to go, but there was no sign of Perry or anyone else. She added her jacket to the pile of neatly folded blankets and, at a bit of a loss for something to do, decided to explore the main house. She had been wondering what the rooms that were not included on the tour were like, so she made her way through the underground tunnel to the manor. Rea
ching the utilitarian flight of stairs, she continued on up past the first floor with its enormous hall and followed the twists and turns of the staircase until she reached the next landing.
When she stepped through the doorway, she found herself in a wide, carpeted hall where the doorways to various rooms were interspersed with antique chests, tables, chairs, and lots of paintings. There were numerous bouquets of garden flowers, and the window at the end of the hallway was open, but the air was not fresh. Harrison was right; there was an undeniable stink in the air. Lucy, who lived in an antique house in the country was familiar with the smell and put it down to an animal that had died inside a wall. She knew from experience that the corpse of a tiny little house mouse could give off a fearful stench.
Fortunately, she also knew from experience that it didn’t last long and in a day or two the smell would certainly be gone. She returned to the stairway and descended to the bottom, where she met Sally in the tunnel.
She was marching along, pushing an upright vacuum cleaner and muttering to herself. “Hares, hares, hares.”
“Hares?” asked Lucy.
“It’s the last day of April, so I’m saying hares,” she answered.
“Whatever for?” asked Lucy.
“Good luck. Between you and me, they could do with a bit of luck around here.” She rolled her eyes. “D’you know there was a body in the maze? You’d think people would have the decency to die in their own backyards, wouldn’t you? I don’t know what the world’s coming to, I tell you. So I’m doing what I can and tomorrow, the first of May, I’ll say rabbits.”
“Well, with any luck that awful smell will be gone. Probably a mouse or something.”
“Oh, yes,” said Sally, grimacing. “Lady Wickham has been on about it, that’s for sure. And that Harrison has probably gone through several cans of air freshener, which just makes everything smell worse.” She paused, thinking. “Do you and your friend have any special plans for today? I was just wondering because I’d like to hoover those rooms.”
“Perry is taking us on a picnic in the bluebell woods,” Lucy said.
“Well, better wear your raincoat.”
