Chapter 1
Edwina should have known that there would be trouble when Beryl had asked if she did not feel guilty about lazing around the house while her housekeeper, Beddoes, slaved away. Her friend simply could not understand the relationship between household members and domestic servants. It wasn’t her fault. After all, Beryl was an American, and as such could not be expected to comprehend the nuances of such time-honored arrangements in England. Still, even with that sort of warning, Edwina had not anticipated the uproar the second day of cleaning had entailed.
When Edwina’s jobbing gardener, Simpkins, had come into an enormous fortune only a few weeks previously, he had generously gone to the extortionate expense of acquiring a member of household staff. In fact, he had arranged the entire affair with the assistance of his elderly aunt before Edwina even knew he was planning such a thing. She had been shocked by his thoughtfulness, as well as his generosity.
And as much as Simpkins was an entirely inferior gardener himself, he did know just what made for a proper, old-fashioned sort of servant. There was no denying that Beddoes was exactly that. In fact, if Edwina had been in a position to secure a housekeeper on her own, she would have offered the post to Beddoes without a moment’s hesitation.
What she could not have foreseen was how her years without the ability to pay for household help had changed her. She had become quite used to not needing to soothe the servants’ ruffled feathers or to think about their pride. She prized Beddoes’s work ethic and understood her fierce devotion to her domain, but she did not in any way enjoy the thickly churlish atmosphere filling the home any time that superior woman felt her toes being the least bit trod upon. Regrettably, Beryl had a maddening way of doing just that, several times each day.
Recently, there had been a palpable uptick in tensions between the two. The week before, Beddoes had announced her intention to give Edwina’s home, the Beeches, a good bottoming out. She had gone so far as to remark that the large house did none of them the least bit of credit in its current state, and that she did not consider it in any condition to receive visitors.
Beddoes did not request permission to embark on the project, of course, and Edwina would not have thought to disagree with her. She knew her place in their arrangement and was perfectly happy to allow Beddoes her head in all such matters. Edwina had asked if hiring on a charwoman from the village to assist with the heavier duties would be welcome. When Beddoes had arched her eyebrows in disapproval at the suggestion, Edwina knew to drop the matter entirely.
Between Beddoes making pointed comments intended to encourage Beryl to desist her interfering and the ruckus caused by the turning out of every cupboard, closet, and drawer in the house, Edwina had not had a moment’s peace since dawn had broken. Edwina did not like to think of herself as an artistic diva. Not in the least. But she did need a semblance of quiet in order to work on the novel she was secretly writing.
Even if she were so inclined, she could not very well stomp around and demand peace and quiet while she worked since she had not made anyone besides Beryl aware that she was working on anything other than the odd invoice or advertising notices for the fledgling private enquiry business. Still, it would be almost worth exposing her closely held secret in order to have the other members of the household quiet down.
She pushed back from the typewriter with a wistful look and gave the whole thing up for the day. She secreted her manuscript into a locked drawer and pocketed the key before whistling for her little dog, Crumpet. He raced into the hallway to meet her just as she plucked her third-best hat from the hall tree and adjusted it on her head in front of the glass. She retrieved her beloved camera from the hall table and looped the strap over her neck. If she could not work on her novel, perhaps she might encounter something interesting to photograph.
“Let’s leave all this fuss behind and have a good ramble instead,” she said to him as she bent down and snapped on his lead. He capered about her feet as they struck off for the rolling fields and hedgerows just beyond the gates at the end of the drive.
There were few things Edwina liked more than a jaunt through the English countryside. The winding lanes and leafy trees and the hotchpotch of greenery all filled her with a sense of well-being with each step she took. Crumpet paused now and again to sniff extravagantly at both herbaceous undergrowth and irregular patches on the road itself. Edwina didn’t care in the least as she had no particular destination in mind and no schedule to keep.
In fact, considering the state of the household at present, the longer she stayed out-of-doors, the better. She would consider the time well spent no matter where they roamed. During such walks her thoughts tended to wander down even more paths than her feet, and she always returned home bursting with ideas and notions.
Edwina’s mind turned to the present difficulty in her novel. She had trapped her hero, Bart Dalton, in a canyon blocked by a gang of bandits with no water and very few bullets left in his gun. She had delighted in getting him into that bit of bother, but she was having rather more trouble figuring out how to get him out of it again.
She was vaguely aware of Crumpet digging away enthusiastically at the base of a filbert hedge, but the larger part of her mind was busy picturing the dusty pass facing her hero rather than the country lane in front of her. She could hear the sound of the bandit gang’s taunting jeers and the whinnying of her hero’s valiant steed in her imagination even more clearly than she could the birds twittering in the treetops above her head.
Suddenly, though, a very real, very nearby roar jostled her from her musings. She barely had time to jump from the edge of the road onto the overgrown grassy verge before a motorcycle tore down the lane, spewing gravel, and passed her in a swirl of dust. Her heart raced in her chest as she stared after it. Even though she could see his face clearly, she did not recognize the man driving the motorcycle. The brilliant red hair of the woman riding in the sidecar flapped wildly in the wind. The woman turned and looked at her, perhaps to assess if she was injured. She lifted her arm and waved in what might have been meant as an inadequate apology.
Edwina felt well and truly rattled. She supposed that she ought to be grateful that her beloved Walmsley Parva had not yet turned into one of those pitiable villages overrun by weekenders. Lamentably, there were a few cottages routinely let by outsiders who thought nothing of careening about the highways and byways at rates of speed no sensible person would attempt. Edwina looked down at Crumpet, who had dismissed the entire incident from his mind and returned to his investigation of the hole in the ground. She stepped back up onto the road and gave his lead a gentle tug. If there was to be any peace for her today, she would have to get right away from civilization. Crumpet followed her into the field across the lane with a sad backwards glance at the hole.
* * *
Beryl had made a botched job of things from the start. She had waited until Edwina and Crumpet were safely out of sight before launching into her plan to help with the cleaning. Edwina had proved surprisingly unsupportive and disapproving of her suggestion that Beddoes could use some assistance considering the size of the undertaking. Beryl decided it would be far more productive to surreptitiously offer to pitch in after doing everything in her power to drive Edwina away from the Beeches, at least until she had softened Beddoes towards her scheme.
Her biggest mistake, she could see that clearly now, was to seek out Beddoes in her private sanctuary. Not being encumbered by the same sense of social strata as the rest of the household, Beryl thought nothing whatsoever of attempting a chatty and informal relationship with any member of domestic staff. Beddoes, inexplicably, did not share her sense of egalitarianism and had, in fact, rebuffed her every overture of camaraderie. She had acted as if Beryl had breached some sort of invisible threshold by mounting the staircase to the third floor, where the servants at the Beeches had made their homes for decades.
Her expression had been so forbidding that Beryl wished she could have bottled the look on Beddoes’s face to use as an insect repellent for some future trek into a dense jungle. She retreated with haste, calling out that she would join Beddoes on the main floor of the Beeches when they were both dressed for the tasks at hand.
But, as Beryl was never one to allow a bad start to guarantee a bad end, she pushed on. Beryl had decided she would treat the whole endeavor as a new spot of adventure, albeit one for which she was particularly ill prepared. In all her years of rattling around the globe, besting land speed records or tracking wild beasts, she had always believed in having the right gear for the job. She could hardly credit the notion that she had nothing in her wardrobe that seemed the right sort of thing for a vigorous bout of housekeeping. After many clothing changes, she stood in front of the glass and observed her final ensemble.
Although it was an unconventional one, it would have to do. She had discovered a man’s shirt in the back of the wardrobe and had been gratified that it had fit. Truth be told, she had been rather worried she had grown somewhat stout since arriving in Walmsley Parva. In the last few weeks she had reduced her consumption of starches and had even cut back on her imbibing ever so slightly. As she rolled up the sleeves on the shirt, she congratulated herself on a job well done.
She stepped into a pair of khaki trousers from her last trip to South America and slipped her feet into a pair of sturdy boots. She wound a scarf over her hair to keep the dust from clinging to her platinum bob and added a kerchief round her neck for good measure. The judicious use of a kerchief had stood her in good stead many times over the years whether on safari or careening about in an aeroplane. There was every possibility that it would be equally of use in whatever rigors Beddoes had in mind.
Beryl descended the stairs and cocked her ear to listen for the elusive housekeeper. While she considered herself to be a dab hand at tracking, she had always found well-trained servants to be the most elusive of quarry. A bird in the wild or a shy gazelle had nothing on an old-school parlormaid when it came to blending into the surroundings. As a woman who had spent her life making a living by standing out from the crowd, Beryl found it completely befuddling.
A low but persistent rustling noise floated towards her as she reached the bottom stair. She followed the sound to the dining room, where Beddoes stood draping the furniture with lengths of white sheeting. The table and chairs had been pushed to the sides of the room, and a ladder with a bucket of steaming water stood in readiness beneath an ornate chandelier whose sparkle was dulled by several years’ worth of dust.
Beryl stepped into the room and flashed Beddoes one of her justifiably famous smiles. Beryl felt her smile fade as the housekeeper continued about her business as though she were still alone in the room. It was a rare thing for Beryl to find herself ignored and not an experience she ever enjoyed. She noisily cleared her throat. Beddoes did not even deign to shoot a withering glance in her direction.
“Beddoes, I am ready and willing to be of service,” Beryl said when it became obvious that Beddoes was determined to ignore her presence. No matter how much she might wish not to interact with her, no servant of Beddoes’s caliber would allow herself to ignore a direct address from someone she served.
“Whatever can you mean, miss?” Beddoes asked.
Beryl stepped forward and lifted one of the folded sheets from a pile atop the dining room table. “I mean, I am able-bodied and full of pep. You cannot possibly be expected to clean the entirety of this house all on your own.”
“Really, miss, I would prefer that you let me get on with things on my own. I’ve just given the floor in here a thorough scrubbing, and cleaning the chandelier is a one-woman job.”
Beddoes reached out and attempted to relieve Beryl of the length of cloth. But Beryl held firm.
“I am more than happy to help. Just tell me what to do and I will get on with it.”
“It is not for me to tell you what you should be doing, miss,” Beddoes said.
“But you are the one with the skills here, Beddoes. I am not able to assist if you give me no instruction,” Beryl said.
“Just as you say, miss,” Beddoes said, arching an eyebrow ever so loftily and giving the sheeting a hard tug.
Beryl knew a challenge when she heard one. She yanked on the sheet with all her might. Beddoes staggered backwards and careened into the ladder. Before either of them could do a thing to stop it, the pail of water overturned, spilling its warm, sudsy contents down over the length of Beddoes and across the freshly cleaned dining room floor. The housekeeper drew in an exaggerated breath and released it with excruciating slowness. Beryl unknotted the kerchief from around her neck and attempted to use it to sop up a rivulet of soapy water running down Beddoes’s cheek. Beddoes flinched and staggered back once more.
“Beddoes, I could not be sorrier. What can I do to help make this up to you?” Beryl asked, trying to keep a note of mirth from her voice. She did not think Beddoes was inclined to find the situation amusing in the least.
“You have done more than enough already, miss,” Beddoes said, condescending to accept the kerchief Beryl thrust towards her.
With that she turned and strode out of the room, swinging the dining room door shut firmly behind her.
Beryl stood there with a folded white sheet in her arms, wondering what she ought to do with it. She never had been one to manage the servants. Errand boys, mechanics, newspaper reporters, and even Hollywood leading men had been easy enough for her to charm, but domestic staff had always been completely beyond her.
It had been one of the chief reasons for the breakup of her second marriage. It likely would have ruined her first as well had her husband not dropped dead of a heart attack during their extended honeymoon trip. She had been forgiven anything, at least for a while, by the servants, when she arrived at their estate as a solitary young widow rather than a new bride with a husband in tow.
She was still standing there thinking of the past and the baffling machinations of domestic politics when Simpkins pushed open the dining room door and stepped inside. Generally, Simpkins could be relied upon to offer up some good-natured guff, but as he stood there Beryl could clearly see that there was something off-kilter in his demeanor. If she didn’t know better, she would have said he looked nervous, and the Simpkins she knew never looked the least bit uncomfortable.
He cleared his throat and shot a look up at the ceiling as though the resolution to his problem could be found amongst the cobwebs and ornate crown molding.
“Miss Beryl, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave off with your offers to assist Beddoes in her duties,” he said, twisting his well-worn tweed cap around and around in his gnarled hands.
“Leave off helping? But Beddoes hasn’t even begun to allow me to help.”
“That’s as it should be. Beddoes prefers to be left on her own to get on with things. She’s very particular.”
“But that’s just ridiculous. There is far too much for her to do here all on her own. She needs someone to give her a hand.”
“Not to put too fine point on it, miss, but Beddoes feels your sort of help is perhaps a bit more of a hinderance.”
“That cannot be so. I dressed for the part, I asked what needed doing, and I awaited instruction. I don’t mind telling you, Beddoes was not the least forthcoming with any sort of direction,” Beryl said.
Simpkins shifted from one hobnailed boot-clad foot to the other before sighing deeply. “It isn’t her place to instruct a lady of the house on how to help clean it. Either you give the directions, or you stay out of the way. That is how things work in these situations, miss.”
Beryl was flummoxed. Whenever she spotted a breech where she could be of assistance, she prided herself in throwing herself into it. She had to wonder if she had been a bit high-handed at other times as well. Could it be that there were plenty of other people who had not desired her help, but that she had simply not noticed their resistance to it? She gave her head a slight shake. Surely not.
“I am certain that if I simply explained my willingness to be of use, she would be glad of my help. Where is she?” Beryl took a step towards the dining room door before Simpkins laid a restraining hand on her arm.
“That won’t do, miss. Beddoes told me that if you are determined to act as the housekeeper here at the Beeches, she will hand in her notice and seek a position elsewhere. She made sure to mention that she has had a number of plum offers recently and that although it would grieve her to leave Miss Edwina in the lurch, she could be convinced to do so. You wouldn’t want to be the one to explain to Miss Edwina why she left, now would you?” Simpkins asked, removing his hand from her arm.
A cold wave of dread washed over Beryl. While she prided herself on her nerves of steel, she could not imagine causing Edwina to lose her household help. It had been a total and unexpected coup to have secured any help, let alone someone as competent as Beddoes, in the first place.
Every day that Beddoes was in residence, Edwina seemed to have grown more and more like her prewar self. She invited friends to tea, offered the Beeches as a meeting place for the various committees upon which she served, threw herself into their new business venture, and even devoted large amounts of time to surreptitiously work on her novel.
While Simpkins and Beddoes gave no indication they knew what Edwina was up to, Beryl had been aware that the steady stream of tapping on the Remington Portable in the library was more about creating fiction than typing up correspondence for their handful of clients. She certainly did not want to do anything to disrupt the glow Edwina had on her face at the end of a morning spent secreted away at the desk.
If Beddoes were to leave, Edwina would feel compelled to head back to the scullery and to all that entailed. Beryl could not imagine being responsible for that, especially considering how much better a private enquiry agent than a housekeeper her dear friend had proved to be.
“Tell me the truth. Is Beddoes really as upset as all that?”
“She is all het up. As a matter of fact, I think it would be best if you cleared out of the house altogether. Why don’t you come with me to the potting shed, and we’ll see if we can’t find something more interesting to amuse ourselves with than pinnies and dust rags.”
Simpkins reached once more for Beryl’s arm and with his other hand slipped a flask from his trouser pocket and waggled it at her.
Although it was always her preference to stand her ground and see an adventure through to the end, she also knew when to acquiesce to local custom with good grace. She unwound the scarf covering her head and tossed it onto the dining room table. With her head held high, she allowed Simpkins to lead her out through the side door and into the garden.
Chapter 2
Edwina had just managed to catch her breath and to steady her nerves after her brush with disaster when she spotted a figure hurrying across the fields towards her. She shielded her eyes with her small hand and squinted. Her friend, local solicitor, Charles Jarvis, waved and made his way towards her with his usual long-legged, loping stride. She paused in the shade of a broad chestnut tree and waited for him to join her.
“I was just on my way to the Beeches to speak with you,” he said. “Both you and Beryl, that is.”
“Are you looking for a game of bridge?” Edwina asked. Charles was very fond of bridge and was often interested in setting up an evening party to indulge in his pastime. Unlike Beryl, Charles’s behavior most often tended towards the predictable.
“While a night of bridge sounds lovely, I am actually here at the request of another. I’ve brought you a note from Constance Maitland. From the furtive way she waylaid me on my way into the breakfast room this morning, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she wished to hire you.”
“Whatever were you doing breakfasting at Maitland Park?” Edwina asked.
Maitland Park was one of the stately homes on the outskirts of Walmsley Parva. While Charles was a well-respected member of the community, Edwina had never known him to be on terms of such intimacy with the Maitland family. She could imagine he might have procured an invitation to dinner or even for an evening of his beloved bridge if they needed to make up a fourth. But breakfast was another matter entirely. Breakfasting implied an overnight stay and unless there was a domestic difficulty of which she was not aware, Edwina could think of no reason for him to sleep in a strange bed while remaining so close to home. ...
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