During a Christmas party, Euphemia Martins - together with Bertram Stapleford and manservant Rory McLeod - is tasked by the slippery government agent Fitzroy with doing a little snooping at the Staplefords' Highland Lodge. When Euphemia discovers the purposes of the charade for which she has been demoted back to a maid, she is furious. There are plans afoot - plans which involve signing the Official Secrets Act ... Meanwhile, Rory still isn't speaking to her and Bertram is more interested in growing his awful new beard. When the inevitable dead body turns up, they must all work together or find themselves jailed for murder.
Release date:
January 15, 2015
Publisher:
Accent Press
Print pages:
123
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Stapleford Hall, where so many memorable and unwelcome adventures have begun.
‘I shall be happy to welcome Euphemia back as my housekeeper,’ said Sir Richard Stapleford, Lord of Stapleford Hall and my arch-enemy.
‘Euphemia is my companion now,’ hissed his twin sister Richenda, ‘she requires a room above stairs!’
Brother and sister faced off across the grand black-and-white tiled hall of their modern ‘ancestral’ home, built in 1898 with all the vulgarity that their successful merchant banker father could muster. It was now late 1911, and time had neither improved the house nor the tastes of the remaining family members who occupied it. The rug, a fashionable and nightmarish organic design composed of spirals and circles of violently opposing hues that was deplored by all but the upstairs inhabitants, lay between them like some whirling vortex of horror made colour.
‘It’s all kicking off, isn’t it?’ said Merry softly in my ear.
‘I don’t understand,’ I whispered. ‘Last time I saw Sir Richard he banished me from the house and threatened to excommunicate any member of the family who had any form of intercourse, social or professional, with me. Now he wants me back on the staff?’
‘You heard how he bought the Peterfield Property and got himself a right-hand man, Gilbert Barker.’
I shivered involuntarily.
‘I see you’ve met him,’ said Merry. ‘If I had a penny for every time he’s tried it on with me I’d be richer than the Staplefords.’
‘He makes inappropriate advances to you?’ I asked, appalled.
‘To every girl below stairs. Fortunately my way of deterring him seems to be having an effect. It involves a cooking pot,’ she said, tapping the side of her nose. Seeing my horrified face, she added, ‘I only hit him in the head. Nowhere it’s going to do any damage.’
‘Merry, you can’t! You’ll be dismissed and charged with assault!’
‘I’ve got all the girls keeping a pot handy.’
‘Aren’t you afraid that one of them might accidentally hurt him quite seriously?’
‘Nah, he’s a tall chap and the girls are all much shorter. It’s a kind of up-swing action.’ She demonstrated what looked like a rather wonky tennis serve.
‘Merry!’
Merry deflated before me like a puppet whose strings had been cut. ‘Oh, all right. I’ve never actually hit him. I just sort of brandish it like I might. He’s fairly confident I wouldn’t whack him, but not completely sure. Makes him back down. As for the other girls, they’re all far too timid.’ Merry snorted. ‘Mind you, he doesn’t know that. The mere sight of a pot has him backing off like lamb that’s smelled mint sauce.’
‘I can’t think of anyone less like a lamb,’ I said. Merry sniggered.
Bertram Stapleford, the twins’ younger step-brother, touched me lightly on the arm. ‘Perhaps it would be better if we withdrew until my siblings have this matter sorted.’
I smiled at him. It was typical of Bertram to want to take me away from any trouble or conflict even when it was highly impractical. We had arrived but half an hour since from the estate of Richenda’s fiancé, the very charming Hans Muller. Our trunks littered the hallway.
‘I rather think,’ I said, ‘that it would be helpful to know whether I am to lodge above or below stairs so I know where to withdraw to.’
‘Euphemia,’ exploded Bertram, ‘you cannot possibly agree to becoming that man’s housekeeper again!’
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘If Richenda fails then I fear I must travel on to the local inn.’
‘Over my dead body!’ stormed Bertram.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Merry. ‘I might be able to clear something up here.’
Bertram looked down at her in surprise, but not in anger. Merry had been with the family a very long time, as a maid and since my departure as a sort of head maid and housekeeper combined. Even Richenda liked Merry, whose real name was Mary but was generally so happy she had been christened Merry by the staff and family shortly after she came to work at Stapleford Hall. Bertram was fond of her in a purely gentlemanly way. ‘Explain, Merry,’ he said.
‘I’m not doing bad,’ said Merry blushing slightly and casting her gaze down, ‘but I ain’t Euphemia and I’m certainly not trained to be a housekeeper when we’ve got guests in. Mrs Deighton’s been keeping me right with the food and stuff and the girls have been good at banding together, but Lord knows I can’t run the house when it’s in full steam. It’s been just the staff for ages. Lord Stapleford and Mr Barker ain’t been back long and that’s been strain enough.’
‘Isn’t Rory here?’ asked Bertram.
Merry shook her head. ‘He’s still butlering for the Earl until the Earl’s own man recovers. Lord Stapleford’s racking up a favour. If he had any sense he wouldn’t come back here.’
I shook my head. ‘The Earl wouldn’t poach him like that. He’d wait until Rory was back on staff here before he made him an offer. He’d think it ungentlemanly otherwise,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Bertram.
Merry looked over, studying me. She had stood my friend since I first turned up soaking wet seeking a post as a maid, unskilled and untrained. From the sidelines she had watched my meteoric rise from maid to housekeeper to companion. She had stuck with me through the several murders and bizarre deaths that I had so unfortunately encountered, and never once had she shown any jealousy of my position, but she saw something about me was different with a clarity the others lacked. I had never told her the truth, that I was the estranged granddaughter of an Earl and that my meagre earnings were all that kept my mother and little brother from destitution. I was better-born than any of the Staplefords, and more than once Merry had seen that my knowledge of the polite world upstairs was far more extensive than any servant’s should have been.
‘I’m sure with a little help you would be an excellent housekeeper,’ I told her, and I meant it. Merry was bright, if sometimes passionately impulsive.
‘Maybe,’ said Merry, ‘but you’re here, and Richard reckons he can have you for free while Richenda stays.’
‘Cheap bas –’ Bertram broke off with a cough.
‘He’s having a party to see in 1912,’ said Merry. ‘It’s going to take a lot of work.’
While the three of us had been whispering Richard and Richenda had descended to screaming at each other. They resembled nothing more than a pair of cats squaring up over disputed territory.
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ said Bertram, and taking me by the wrist he led me up the stairs past Richard. ‘I’m putting Euphemia in the blue bedroom,’ he told Merry loudly. He didn’t exactly drag me up the stairs, but his hold made it quite clear he was prepared for a scuffle if I resisted. By this time the combination of the shouting and the lurid rug were edging me towards a tremendous headache. I went with him. ‘I’ll get a footman, if Richard still has any, to bring up your luggage and send Merry with a cup of tea. Then she can unpack for you,’ said Bertram, leaving me at the door.
‘But Richard …’
‘I doubt they have even noticed we have left,’ said Bertram. ‘Besides, at some point Richard is going to remember that Richenda has significant shares in the bank now she is of age, and so he needs her onside if he is to continue to control the bank.’ He paused. ‘If he doesn’t, Barker will be bound to remind him.’
Bertram then very properly left me. The blue bedroom, which was one of the nicer guest rooms, did have comfortable seating set around the fireplace, but as a companion and therefore almost a lady, and unrelated at that, Bertram could not stay and take tea with me in my boudoir without arousing comment. It was all so ridiculous. I had worked as his housekeeper at his wretchedly badly built estate, White Orchards, and often been alone with him. More to the point, he had on numerous occasions asked me to marry him, but rather out of a chivalric sense of protecting me from his step-brother’s malign intentions than because he loved me. I had, of course, had to say no. I had been engaged for a short time to the absent butler, Rory McLeod, twice, once unofficially and once officially. He was the son of a grocer, utterly unsuitable to someone of my true social status – and the nicest and most handsome man I had ever met.
Despite a rather uncomfortable tendency to jealousy, which I had been sure I would have been able to curb over time, Rory had decided he loved me too much to marry me. Really, sometimes I felt like a heroine in an old-fashioned gothic novel. When I was feeling low I suspected that my story might also have a dark and gothic ending. I was staring out of the window and thinking about the time Richenda had shut me in a wardrobe, just after her father’s murder and before we had reached a better understanding [1] when I heard a sharp rap on the door. Without waiting for my response the door flew open and Merry stood in the doorway, clutching a laden tea tray and with an expression of awe on her face. ‘Bleedin’ ’ell!’ she articulated breathlessly, ‘they’re saying you’ve only gorn and found another dead body.’
I nodded, ‘Two,’ I said tonelessly.
‘Bleedin’ ’ell,’ repeated Merry.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ I said defensively.
‘Never bloody is, is it?’ said Merry coming into the room and closing the door with her heel. She set the tea tray down on a small table and put her hands on her hips. ‘Look, I’m right glad to see you and all that, but will you please not find any more murder victims while you’re here. It’s becoming an unfortunate habit with you.’
Rightly interpreting that Merry’s nose was out of joint because the new lady’s maid that had accompanied us knew the full story and was doubtless already holding the kitchen spellbound with the tale, I invited Merry to sit down and join me for tea. I then unfolded the whole tale of my stay at the Muller estate.
‘So that’s it, straight from the horse’s mouth,’ I concluded.
‘Dunno about that. Richenda looks more like a horse than you do,’ said Merry.
‘You know what I mean,’ I said, biting my lip. Richenda did indeed bear an unfortunate resemblance to her favourite horse. When fighting with her brother her nostrils had positively flared and I would not have been surprised if she had pawed the ground. ‘Richenda is improving vastly away from her brother,’ I said.
‘If ’alf of what you say is true,’ said Merry, ‘not that I mean you’d be lying, it’s just a bit hard to swallow, but there were times in your story when she almost sounded human.’
‘I find allowing her access to plenty of cake helps,’ I said.
Merry nodded wisely. ‘Richenda always improves with cake,’ we both said at the same time and fell about laughing.
‘And this bloke is really going to marry her?’ asked Merry.
‘Quite soon, I think. Under the circumstances it will be a small and quiet wedding.’
‘Good,’ said Merry, ‘ʼCos when she was engaged before and you we. . .
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