Edwardian Murder Mystery 01; Snobbery with Violence emm-1

by M C Beaton

  ♦

  When he had reached the safety of his own home, he went through the letters and put them into neat piles on his desk. Apart from the ones from Lady Glensheil, there were letters from six other members of society.

  He wrote down the six names and asked Becket to find him their addresses, and when his manservant returned with the information, he set out. First he called on Lady Glensheil, who cried this time with gratitude, and then he tracked down the six others, making sure each time to see them on their own and without their husbands. It seemed unfair that the six should get his services for nothing whereas Lady Glensheil had to pay, but he was afraid that if he asked for money, they would assume he was a blackmailer as well.

  When he returned to his home in the evening, it was to find a furious artist on his doorstep. Hecker’s manservant had remembered Harry’s name. “I am bringing the police into this,” shouted Hecker. “You broke into my desk and stole my property.”

  “I must say you have a bloody nerve,” said the captain. “Let’s both go to Scotland Yard, now. Of course it will come out that you are a blackmailer and you will be ruined.”

  Hecker’s bluster left him. “No need for that. But I warn you –”

  “No, I will warn you. All the money you blackmailed out of these ladies must be discreetly returned, every penny. In a few days’ time, I will check to see if you have done so. It would give me great pleasure to ruin you, but in doing so I would ruin your victims’ reputations as well.” He leaned forward on the doorstep and smiled into Hecker’s face. “If you do not do what I say, I will shoot you.”

  “You can’t do that!” Hecker turned pale. “This is England.”

  “Marvellous country, isn’t it? Now, stop fouling my doorstep and make a noise like a hoop and bowl off.” Harry put his hand on the artist’s face and shoved and sent Hecker flying down the steps to land on the pavement.

  Harry let himself in with his key. He doubted that he would hear from Hecker again.

  ♦

  High summer spread across the English countryside. Society moved out to Biarritz and Deauville, returning in August for grouse shooting in Scotland. Lady Rose read, walked through the countryside, and sometimes thought she might die from boredom and loneliness.

  As August moved into September, the earl received a visit from Baron Dryfield, who owned one of the neighbouring estates. The little earl was glad to receive him. Because of Rose’s disgrace, he felt ostracized from local society. The baron was a huge jovial man, a great favourite of King Edward’s.

  “I need to talk to you privately,” said the baron. Lady Polly, who was in the drawing-room with her husband, rose to her feet and left the room.

  “What is it?” asked the earl, alarmed. “What is it that my wife can’t hear?”

  “You will shortly hear from the palace that His Majesty is going to favour you with a visit in September.”

  “But that’s wonderful news. It means the scandal is buried. Great expense, of course.”

  “Well, the bad news is there’s a buzz at court that our king wants to try his luck with Rose. She’s become a sort of challenge, see. They call her The Ice Queen.”

  “What am I to do?” wailed the earl. “How can I protect Rose? If he asks, say, to go for a walk with her, I can hardly refuse.”

  “Bless me, I don’t know. But thought I’d warn you.”

  ♦

  Captain Harry Cathcart had been busy all summer. Word had got around, and in a society rife with scandal, his services were in demand. There was nothing very dramatic, mostly petty business which could be solved with shrewd advice, but his bank balance was getting fat and he now had a carriage and pair.

  He found to his surprise that he was also much in demand socially. His taciturn manner, damned before as boring, was now considered Byronic. But he accepted few invitations. His experiences in the war seemed to have left a dark, sour patch inside him.

  One morning he received an urgent telegram from the Earl of Hadshire, asking him to travel to the earl’s home, Stacey Court, as soon as possible.

  The captain packed a suitcase and set out with his man, Becket. They took a hack to Paddington Station and the Great Western Railway train to Oxford, planning to take the local train at Oxford, which would bear them on to Stacey Magna, the nearest station to the earl’s home, where they would be met.

  Harry was unusual in that he had bought first-class train tickets for himself and Becket. Normally the master travelled first class and the servant in the third-class carriages at the back of the train.

  Half-way to Oxford, Becket fell gently asleep and Harry studied his servant’s face. After his discharge from the army, Harry had taken to walking around the streets of London to exercise his injured leg. One morning early he had been in Covent Garden market, watching the porters carry in great baskets of vegetables when one of them collapsed and sent the contents of the basket of potatoes he had been carrying spilling across the cobbles.

  “Bleedin’ milksop,” jeered one porter. “Leave him lie, Bert. Ain’t nuthin’ but a shyster.”

  Harry had picked Becket up and supported him into a nearby pub and had bought him a brandy. Then, realizing by the man’s emaciated form that he was starving, had ordered him breakfast. Becket had fallen on the food, shovelling it desperately into his mouth.

  “I’ve been hungry like that,” thought Harry with compassion, a picture of lying under the hot sun on the African veld swimming into his mind.

  When the man had finished eating, Harry questioned him. Becket, too, had been a soldier, and having left the army, found it hard to get work. He had a thin, sensitive white face, straight brown hair combed severely back, pale grey eyes and a thin mouth. He said he’d been in the army since he was a boy but would offer no further clue to his background.

  On impulse, Harry explained that he, too, had recently returned from the wars and was on a small budget, but if Becket liked to follow him home, he would find work for him.

  And so Becket had fallen into the role of manservant. He could read and write and studied books on how to be the perfect gentleman’s gentleman. He only spoke when spoken to, never complained, even when his wages were late.

  As Harry did not like people asking him questions, particularly about the Boer War, he respected his servant’s reticence.

  Although Becket was expected to eat the same food as his master, he was still thin and pale, but apart from that seemed healthy and strong enough.

  Harry, resplendent in new morning dress and silk hat, arrived finally at Stacey Magna, to be met by the earl’s coachman and two footmen who bore them off in a well-sprung carriage to Stacey Court.

  Stacey Court was a Tudor mansion, built of red brick and with many mullioned windows which flashed and twinkled in the summer sun as the carriage bowled up a long drive under an avenue of lime trees. Harry was surprised to think of Lady Rose in such an antique setting. He had pictured her in a stately Georgian home with portico at the front and long Palladian windows.

  Brum, the butler, was on the steps to meet them. Two footmen followed the butler with the luggage up an old oak staircase and then along a corridor which seemed to be full of steps up and steps down and threatening overhead beams, in places so low that the captain had to duck his head.

  The room Harry was ushered into had a magnificent four-poster bed. A small adjoining room had been allocated to Becket. Somehow Harry was glad that his manservant was to be close at hand and not confined to the servants’ quarters, although Becket would be expected to take his meals in the servants’ hall. Harry was told the earl expected him in his study as soon as he had freshened up after the journey. There was a spot of soot on his shirt-front. Becket changed him into a clean shirt and bent down and gave his master’s shoes a polish.

  “What will you do?” asked Harry after he had rung the bell to be conducted to the earl’s study.

  “I will go down to the servants’ hall, sir.”

  “Get on all right, will
you? I mean, you haven’t been with other servants before.”

  “I am sure I shall manage.”

  Harry looked at him doubtfully, wondering how his manservant would cope with the rigid class system that existed among servants in large houses.

  A footman appeared and Harry followed him along the corridor and then back down the stairs under the gaze of family portraits to the hall, where Brum was waiting to take over. He led Harry across the hall and into the study on the ground floor.

  “There you are again,” said the earl gloomily. “I’m in a fix. Sit down. Have sherry. Help yourself. Have you eaten?”

  “I had lunch on the train. Let’s get to business.”

  “Right. His Majesty is threatening to come on a visit.”

  “A great expense.”

  “That’s not the problem. It’s Rose. I’ve heard a whisper that His Majesty is going to try his luck with her.”

  “And you want the visit stopped?”

  “But how?”

  “Leave it to me.”

  ♦

  The earl and Lady Polly had intended to keep the news of the captain a secret, but Rose was accompanied on her walks by her maid and a footman. Two days after the captain’s visit, as she was walking along a country lane, she was only dimly aware of the footman, John, and her maid, Yardley, talking in low voices. But she heard the name ‘Cathcart’ and swung round.

  “What about Cathcart?” she demanded.

  “I was saying that we did not often get callers,” said Yardley, “and John here was remarking that the last caller was a certain Captain Cathcart.”

  “Back to the house,” ordered Rose and set off at a great pace.

  She marched into her father’s study as soon as she arrived home. The earl was asleep in an armchair by the window, a newspaper over his face. Rose snatched the newspaper away and shouted, “Pa! Wake up!”

  “Eh, what?” The earl struggled awake and looked up into the furious face of his daughter.

  “What was that man doing here?”

  “What man?”

  “Cathcart.”

  “Oh, him. Just a social call.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Don’t you dare to question me, my girl! I told him to call if he was ever in the neighbourhood and he did, and that’s that. Now run along.”

  ♦

  After a few days, as Rose was being dressed for dinner by Yard-ley, she heard a carriage arriving and went to the window and looked down. Her mouth tightened into a thin line. Captain Harry Cathcart descended and then helped a woman down from the carriage. He held out his arm to her and they disappeared below the window up the stairs to the main door. “Hurry up!” snapped Rose to her maid. “We have visitors.” She waited impatiently while the maid finished strapping her into a long corset and putting on her stockings and attaching them to the long suspenders. Then came the knickers, several petticoats and a taffeta evening gown. Her hair was then pulled up over the pompadours, or rats, as the pads were commonly called, and pinned in place. Rose snatched up her evening gloves and put them on as she headed rapidly out of the room. She made her way down to the drawing-room to find only her mother there. “Dinner has been delayed a little,” said Lady Polly. “You father has business to attend to.”

  “What business?”

  “I am afraid I do not know. I never interfere in your father’s business affairs.”

  “It’s something to do with me. I know it.” Rose paced up and down.

  “The world does not revolve around you,” said the countess sententdously. “Do sit down.”

  But Rose continued to pace.

  The doors were thrown open and the earl appeared, followed by Harry and a cheaply dressed over-made-up girl. She was wearing a tight gown of lavender crepe de Chine. The neckline was very low and the gown appeared to be held up by two strings of beads on the shoulders. Her hair was an improbable shade of gold. Rose thought she must have travelled in evening dress, for there had surely been no time for such a quick change.

  “Captain Cathcart, you know,” said the earl. “May I present Miss Daisy Levine.”

  “Pleased, I’m sure,” said Daisy, sinking down into a low curtsy. Her face was covered in white lead with two rouged circles on her cheeks and her long eyelashes were darkened with lampblack. Her large green eyes were slightly protruding.

  Lady Polly stared at her husband with a look of outrage on her face.

  “I’ve told Brum to lay two more places for dinner,” said the earl. “We’ve got fifteen minutes. I wanted to keep this from you, Rose, but the captain says that for reasons of security you must be told, and all the servants as well.”

  Rose sank down into the nearest chair, her legs suddenly weak. From the look of amazement of her mother’s face, she realized it was a mystery to her as well.

  “Perhaps you will explain, Captain,” said the earl.

  The captain courteously helped Miss Devine into a chair and then sat down himself.

  “His Majesty plans to come here on a visit,” he began.

  “But that’s wonderful!” cried Lady Polly. “It means our dear Rose is re-established.”

  “I am afraid not,” said Harry. “It appears His Majesty means to try his luck with Lady Rose.”

  There was a stunned silence, finally broken by a giggle from Daisy. “Wish he’d try me. I’d be set up for life.”

  “He must be put off coming but in such a way as not to offend him,” Harry went on. “Miss Levine is an actress. She will play the part of a servant who has contracted typhoid.”

  “Is that necessary?” asked Rose, finding her voice at last. “Could we not just tell him one of our servants has the typhoid?”

  “I think someone from the royal household will be sent here to confirm the fact. We must be prepared for that. A telegram will be sent off tomorrow.”

  “The servants will all need to be told of the subterfuge,” said Rose. “Would it not have been easier to pretend to hire Miss Devine? Then she could have pretended to have contracted typhoid. In that way, none of our servants would need to know.”

  “Miss Levine will be excellent in the part of someone dying of typhoid,” said Harry. “I doubt if she would last a day as a servant without being dismissed. Besides, there is not time to find her fake references.”

  “I’m ever such a good actress,” mumbled Daisy, beginning to be intimidated by the glacial stare the countess was taming on her.

  “Dinner is served,” intoned Brum from the doorway.

  The earl and countess went first. Harry offered his arm to Rose. She ignored him and walked alone after her parents, so he offered his arm instead to Daisy.

  ♦

  Dinner was a nightmare for Rose. She hated Harry. She was sure he must be mistaken.

  The earl was a kindly man, so he courteously asked Daisy about her theatrical career. Daisy, warmed by wine and attention, revealed she was a Gibson girl, one of that famous chorus line. She told several funny stories and the earl and Harry laughed appreciatively while Rose and her mother picked at their food.

  When Lady Polly finally rose as a signal to the ladies to follow her to the drawing-room, Rose pleaded a headache and retired to her room.

  She allowed Yardley to help her out of her dress and to unlace her corset and then dismissed her, saying she would cope with the rest herself. Rose found these days that she craved solitude. She had begun to slip out in the evening after everyone had retired, climb down the tree outside her window and go for a walk in the garden, so that when she did finally go to bed, she would be tired enough not to lie awake, playing her humiliation over and over in her head.

  When the house was finally silent, she put on a divided skirt and jacket, opened the window and began to climb down.

  Harry’s room afforded a good view of the moonlight-bathed rose garden underneath. He saw a dark figure slip across the rose garden and disappear through an arch at the end.

  He left his room and went down the stair
case. He did not want to go through the process of unlocking the great front door, which had been bolted and locked for the night, so he went into the earl’s study, opened a window and stepped out onto the terrace.

  He silently made his way round the house to the back where the rose garden lay and walked across it and then through the arch at the end.

  He found himself in a knot garden, laid out in the original Tudor lines, the low box hedges protecting the flower-beds.

  The moon had gone behind the clouds and he could dimly make out a figure seated on a stone bench.

  He went quietly forward. The moon slid out from behind the clouds again and he found himself looking down at Rose. Her head was bent and he wondered whether she was crying.

  He was about to quietly retreat when she looked up and saw him. “Why are you following me?” she asked harshly.

  “I saw a figure in the gardens and decided to investigate. Are you distressed because of His Majesty’s proposed visit?”

  “Of course. Please go away. I hate you.”

  “But why? Would you rather Blandon had seduced you?”

  “If you had left things alone, he would have propositioned me, I would have refused, and that would have been that.”

  “But he did, I gather, and you refused, and yet you made a scene and brought the whole matter to the attention of society!”

  She gave a pathetic little shrug. “What do I care? The season is a farce. I am better off without a husband. Now, please leave me in peace.”

  Harry bowed and walked off. He felt angry. Ungrateful little minx!

  ♦

  A telegram was sent off the next morning mforming the king of the servant’s illness. Daisy was confined to a servant’s room in the west wing.

  Despite her distaste for the whole business, Rose found herself becoming curious about the girl. In the first place, to be a Gibson girl at the Gaiety Theatre meant beauty and elegance. Rose had seen postcards of the Gibson girls on sale in the village shop.