When Euphemia Martins accompanies her employer Richenda Muller to London, she envisages a pleasant few days spent taking tea and visiting the shops. Her hopes are dashed when Richenda gets her involved in a suffragettes? march which soon turns nasty. Euphemia finds herself getting quite physical in the defence of her fellow marchers when the police turn on them, and she is imprisoned for her pains. Euphemia soon realises this is no ordinary imprisonment when her old acquaintance Fitzroy enrols her in the latest of his schemes for King and Country. An important civil servant has been murdered, and Fitzroy believes one of the women imprisoned with Euphemia knows the reason why. Euphemia must work out who it is? a task made more complicated when one of her fellow prisoners is also murdered. It?s up to Euphemia, with help from Richenda and Richenda?s brother Bertram, to trap the guilty party ? and fast!
Release date:
September 17, 2015
Publisher:
Accent Press
Print pages:
168
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We were in the morning room when Richenda made the announcement. I had been summoned from the gardens by a maid, who told me the mistress wanted me ‘awful bad’. I had picked up my shawl, for even here the end of summer was becoming decidedly cool, asked the maid to return my book to the library, and reluctantly left my chair set by the weeping willow.
On entering the morning room, a room Richenda favoured above all others, I saw the stout table was well-laden with a mid-afternoon tea. There were elegant slices of bread and butter with their crusts neatly cut off, tiny sandwiches in which the cucumber would have been sliced so thin it shimmered like gauze between the bread, a token plate of fruit from the estate’s hothouse, and three large cakes. The Victoria sponge had suffered most under Richenda’s anguished onslaught.
Indeed Richenda, wife to Hans Muller, and to whom I am a paid companion, did appear to be in, as the maid had confided to me on the way through the gardens, ‘a bit of state’.
‘Did you hear me, Euphemia? I’m not pregnant!’
I did not think that such a bad thing, but it did not seem the right time to tell her so. Circumstances in the household are difficult enough. Amy, Richenda’s adopted two-year-old daughter, continues her nightly terrors and arrests the sleep of the whole household. I assume the child is improving, as with each day she seems to gather more and more courage to explore her environs of the Mullers’ estate, and with ever-increasing energy. Richenda still continues to insist that she must spend as much time as possible at the child’s side, and while this is commendable, it is also proving foolhardy as Richenda is constantly exhausted. This is, of course, what led her to believe she might be pregnant. That she is not has struck my employer a cruel blow. She was sobbing, in a quite un-Richenda-like manner.
Amy, so the little maid further informed me, having been intercepted attempting to climb up the dining room chimney, had been handed over to my old friend Merry (a housemaid posing as temporary nursemaid, on loan from Richenda’s unsavoury twin Richard) for bathing. However, Amy’s loud protests over this enforced cleanliness ensured we were all still aware of her presence.
My little escort then bobbed a small curtsey, threw me a beseeching look, and fled. Yet again, it appeared the household staff were looking to me to make all things right. I felt somewhat put upon, but internally I had the grace to concede that Richenda in this state was not a job for her lady’s maid, nor the housekeeper – and with Merry, a maid she had known since childhood and the only other member of staff able to take Richenda to task for her behaviour when it was very bad, occupied, that left me.
Since Amy’s arrival I have ended up taking on more and more of the household’s affairs. Then of course there was the unfortunate affair of the piggery.1 Although I was away from the house for no more than a week, complete chaos had descended by the time I returned. I also had been unaccountably lethargic after that last escapade. Having witnessed first-hand the state of the survivors from the doomed Titanic, one might have thought that an adventure in rural England would have been just the thing, but no, I felt in lower spirits than I had done since the death of my dear father, who had expired in a dish of mutton and onions.2 Either my mood had affected the household’s, or we were all in low spirits for our own reasons.
The estate on which we all live, so superbly managed by Hans Muller and his factor, is running as smoothly as ever, but the running of the household has become almost entirely dependent on Amy’s whims. This has led to Hans occasionally staying overnight in his London apartment when work was particularly pressing. Hans does have reason to travel for business, but his staying over in town because he is too busy to return home (with, it seems, no more warning than a short message delivered to the butler over the telephone apparatus), is a new departure for the Mullers’ marriage and not a welcome one.
‘What if he has taken a mistress!’ wailed Richenda, clutching the side of the well laden tea table for support. ‘I know that after his wife died …’
‘Hush, Richenda,’ I said quickly, ‘that is not something a wife should ever consider, and certainly not discuss with a spinster!’
Richenda wiped one reddened eye with a lacy handkerchief. She is a not a woman who can cry to her advantage, being red-haired, freckled, and overly fond of cake. ‘Oh, you told me you grew up on a farm. You probably know the facts of life better than me!’ The last words again ascended into a wail. I passed Richenda her discarded plate of light and airy Victoria sponge. In general Richenda is vastly improved by the addition of cake. To my dismay, she placed the plate back on the table untouched. ‘It’s so unfair!’ she protested. ‘I cannot even ask him.’ She gulped back tears. ‘I know it is unthinkable for a lady to have affairs, but that she cannot even ask her husband if he has strayed. It’s all so very unequal.’ Richenda sighed, picked up her plate, and ingested a large forkful of cake.
I tried to gather my thoughts. Richenda is of the most recent nobility and has perhaps taken on board a rather rough mixture of morals. She is desperate to be thought refined, but has never actually been a great deal among the higher echelons and so has a rather rosy vision of them. I do not.3 By upbringing and by occupation I have learnt not to see the upper classes as my superiors. With a Vicar as a father, neither can I condone adultery, even when committed by the handsome and charming Hans Muller under very trying circumstances. I confess to sharing Richenda’s suffragette sympathies, and so could not but think that what was sauce for the gander should also be sauce for the goose, as it were … but then I also believed marriage to be a sacred vow.
‘Do you think he’s having an affair?’ asked Richenda, spitting crumbs across the newly upholstered chairs.
‘Richenda, I know that many married men have affairs, but I cannot think it right and I also cannot believe Hans would do this to you so soon after your marriage.’
‘It has been an ill-fated marriage.’ Richenda gave an enormous sniff. ‘It’s not as if he married me for love.’
I came and sat down on the edge of a chair close to her. Richenda and I have never had the kind of relationship where we fall into each other’s arms amidst girlish exclamations of eternal friendship.4 But I was not unfeeling towards her in her distress.
‘Richenda,’ I said in what I hoped was a calming tone, ‘you and Hans arranged this marriage between you. Hans wanted an heir and you sought be to properly established away from the influence of your twin. However … I am unsure how I can present this to you without causing further distress, but …’
Richenda wiped her eyes on her sodden handkerchief and put down her cake plate; an indication, if ever there was one, that she was about to say something serious. ‘You are skirting around the fact that despite the fact Hans is half-German I was far from being his only option.’ She sighed. ‘I think you forget about my banking shares.’
I shook my head so vigorously a pin flew out. ‘If I have learnt one thing from sharing Hans Muller’s home, it is that he despises those who do not earn what they own. He is not the sort of man to live off his wife’s property. It would not surprise me to learn that he is considering approaching you about leaving those shares in trust for any offspring you may have.’
Richenda’s jaw dropped.
‘He’s already asked you, hasn’t he?’
‘Sometimes, Euphemia, I wonder if you are a witch. I mean, after all that business with Madam Arcana and you being linked to the dead …’5
‘Never mind about that,’ I said briskly. ‘It was all nonsense. The important point is that Hans chose you as his wife for a reason.’
Red-eyed, dishevelled, with a figure enlarged by having her own over-indulgent cook, mottled-cheeked and past the first flush of youth, Richenda looked hopefully at me. I placed my hand on one of hers. It was sticky, I could only hope with jam.
‘I think,’ I said, willing each word to be true, ‘that Hans sees in you kindliness and a goodness that others may have not. I think he thought that you would make each other good companions for life, and that you would be a good mother to his children.’
Richenda stood up. ‘I see,’ she said. Two words and I felt foreboding overcome me. ‘What you are actually saying is that any mistress is a mere diversion and that I am his for life, so I should overlook his escapade.’ She hissed the last word through gritted teeth. ‘For all I know you may be more au blackcurrant6 with his current situation.’
She had stopped short of accusing me of being Hans’s mistress myself, but not by much. The signal was clear. If I had any sense I would stop defending Hans now. And I would definitely not put into words the thought that after the frequent miscarriages of his ethereal first wife, Hans had chosen a wife of good English breeding stock, with suitably wide hips.7
‘There is only one thing to be done,’ declared Richenda, ‘we must speak to Hans tonight at supper. I shall have Stone telephone his office to inform him he is required to dine at home tonight.’
‘I shall take supper in my room,’ I said quickly.
‘Oh no you won’t, Euphemia,’ said Richenda, reaching defiantly for another piece of cake, ‘I want you present for this conversation.’
1 Please see my journal A Death for King and Country
2 So plebeian a demise that my widowed mother is yet to forgive him.
3 My mother, who ran away from her father the Earl when she fell in love with the local curate, has on more than one occasion enlightened me as to the morals of the ‘upper crust’. Chief amongst her homilies was the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ attitude they had to their servants. Of course, having chosen to marry a Vicar, she always took the moral high ground and expected me to do the same.
4 I confess I am still trying to get past the time she locked me in a cupboard with her unwashed clothes. To this day I cannot face onions at the dining table.
5 See my journal A Death in the Asylum for further details.
6 Richenda had never excelled at French.
7 Having lived on a farm, such thoughts can never be completely driven away. Perhaps my mother was right when she forbade me to have anything to do with our livestock.
Chapter Two
In which the butler is almost undone and I am forced to flee the room
We did not make it to supper.
I do not believe I have ever begged so hard for anything as I begged Richenda to excuse me from supper, but it was barely five o’clock when we heard the crunch of gravel under the wheels of an automobile. Later I heard Stone was only halfway across the hall before the door flew open and Hans erupted through the front door. ‘Practically threw his hat at me,’ Stone said, ‘begging your pardon, miss, but I have never seen a thing like it.’ He coughed. He was serving me ‘a light refreshment’ in my boudoir as dinner had been put ‘on hold for the present.’
‘In all the time I’ve served Mr Muller I have never known him show,’ and at this point Stone bit his lip, ‘I have never known him show,’ – and here his voice definitely wobbled – ‘emotion before the staff. Even in the bad days when the first Mrs Muller was still with us, he always kept himself well in hand.’
‘I fear he was alarmed by Mrs Muller’s telegram,’ I said. ‘He must have returned fearing the worst.’
‘I understand that, miss, and I have never thought Mr Muller to be lacking in the sensibilities natural to a gentleman of his standing. But a hat in the face, Miss Euphemia! It is quite without precedent.’
I did not make the mistake of offering to speak to Hans about the matter. I realised that it was a measure of how truly disturbed Stone was that he had even gone so far as to mention it to me. And then there was a moment, an horrific moment, when he had picked up the creamer before the teapot. Fortunately, he checked himself in time and replaced the milk jug before doing irreparable damage to this career. For such a faux pas Stone would have undoubtedly given himself notice to quit on the spot, but the moment passed. He retired back to his butler’s pantry to calm his nerves and to do his best to wipe that last two hours from his mind. In some butlers this might mean liberating a part of the wine cellar, but Stone, I knew, took his consolation in polishing.
I had barely taken two sips of my tea when the gong for dinner sounded. I could barely imagine Stone’s confusion. The poor man would not know if he was coming or going. I had already changed for dinner, and while it was unclear if this was the first or second bell, I made my way to the drawing room hoping for a little courage in the form of a small sherry.
Stone was present once more and his implacable face told me as far as he was concerned our previous conversation had not happened. I barely nodded at him as I collected my sherry from the tray he held out to me. His eyelids flickered at my cavalier treatment and I sensed his assent. Our respective positions were restored.8
There was no one else in the room. I went to the window and drew back a heavy drape so I could watch the evening come into its full glory. We had yet to embrace the early dark nights of winter, but the shading of blues, purples, and greys across the vast expanse of sky that hung over the Muller Estate showed that twilight had already put on her evening dress and was preparing to come downstairs. Unlike my employers.
I spent a while at the window sipping my sherry. Stone appeared at my elbow to take away my empty glass and enquiring if I required another. I shook my head. With little else to do I made my way across to the piano. The lid was a little stiff. I ran my fingers across the keys. The instrument was in need of tuning, but not badly so. I played from memory some of the pieces my mother had made me practise for hours. The learning had been torture, but they were so ingrained in me by repetition that I could now play easily and with little thought. I gazed out of the window, watching the last sigh of the day and played on.
‘I didn’t know you. . .
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