Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding Page 10

  “Didn’t you have no maid where you came from?” she asked.

  “I was staying with a Polish princess and I borrowed her maid,” I said. “My own maid wanted to stay near her mother in Ireland, I’m afraid.”

  “A princess,” she said for a moment, looking almost like an impressionable young girl. “Fancy that! What was she like, this princess?”

  “Very glamorous but very generous.”

  “Did you ever meet our princesses? Elizabeth and Margaret, I mean.”

  “They are going to be bridesmaids at my wedding,” I said.

  “Go on!” She smirked as if she didn’t believe me.

  “No, really. I’m their cousin.”

  “Blimey,” she said. “Mr. Plunkett never told us. So might royalty be coming down here?”

  “Quite possibly,” I said. I grinned to my reflection in the mirror as she departed. That news would certainly shake them up. Maybe I’d get better service in future.

  As I came down to dinner I smelled quite an appetizing smell coming from the kitchen. Frying onions, I believe. Perhaps Fernando was working hard to make up for my dismal luncheon. I had a glass of sherry in the morning room before Plunkett came to announce that dinner was ready. I felt quite hopeful as I went through to the dining room. A candelabra had been lit on the dining table, making it look quite festive. I sat and McShea brought in a dish hidden under a cover. The cover was removed and what was placed before me was about the least appetizing thing I had ever seen: a piece of boiled cod, so overcooked that it was dry, a solitary boiled potato and cabbage that had been boiled to the point of turning gray.

  This was the final straw. I jumped up.

  “Is something wrong, my lady?” McShea asked.

  “There certainly is,” I replied. “Bring Fernando to me immediately.”

  I waited, heard voices rising in an exchange, and soon Fernando appeared with Plunkett hovering in the doorway.

  “What do you call this, Fernando?” I demanded, pointing at my plate.

  “Is fish,” he said.

  “Yes, I know it’s fish. Was it a piece you had ready for the cat?”

  “No. Is good fish.”

  “I never had a meal this bad even when I was at school,” I said. “Look at it. The fish is positively dry. There is no sauce. And the cabbage . . .”

  “You say you like your food well-done,” he said. “So I make it well-done.”

  “No, I didn’t say that,” I snapped. “At least I didn’t mean you to interpret it that way. I believe I said I wanted my food cooked well. Well prepared. Prepared properly. Not overcooked.”

  “And you say no garlic and spices,” he went on belligerently. “So how I make the sauce?”

  “I’m sure there are plenty of sauces that don’t have to be spicy. Use your cookbook.” I pointed at the table. “And you can take this away.”

  “You don’t want?”

  “What are you having for dinner tonight in the servant’s hall, Fernando?” I asked.

  “We have the fish stew.”

  “Then I’ll have some of that.”

  “Has garlic in it,” he replied, his chin stuck out defiantly.

  “I’ll risk it. Have a bowl sent up to me. Oh, and some of that good wine I saw on the kitchen table. Châteauneuf-du-Pape. My, but the servants drink well. Either Sir Hubert is generous or he’ll be counting the bottles when he returns.”

  Fernando glared at me. As he turned to go I added, “One more chance, Fernando. If you can’t prove to me that you are a good cook, then I’m afraid I’ll have to let you go.”

  “You can’t do that,” he said, still looking defiant. “Sir Hubert, he my boss. He hire me. He the only one who can sack me. I no leave until he tell me to go.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I said. I resumed my place at the dining table and waited until a bowl of stew was brought up to me with a glass of wine. I took a large gulp of the wine to steady my nerves. Golly, what a day! The fish stew was delicious, and after it McShea brought up a plate of strawberries and cream. I decided that I’d meet with Fernando in the morning and plan out menus for a week. That way there should be no more horrible surprises.

  By the time I’d had a second glass of wine I was feeling exhausted. I announced that I was going up to my bedroom to read and that Joanie should come up to undress me. She appeared soon after and asked me about the little princesses as she hung up my clothes. It seemed I might have one ally among the staff after all. I sat in the small armchair reading for a while. There was an unpleasant odor in the room, sulfuric. I wondered if a dead mouse lay undetected under the wardrobe. And I realized that my windows weren’t open. I had been raised at Castle Rannoch, where windows were religiously kept open, even in the most howling gale. I went over and opened the windows. Night sounds drifted toward me: the gentle sigh of the wind through the trees, the hoot of a distant owl. In every direction no sign of a light. It felt like being lost at sea.

  Then I heard voices, male voices, kept quite low. I leaned out of the window and they seemed to be coming from the far wing, where Sir Hubert had his rooms. I bet that telephone was not turned off, I thought. One of them is using the phone. Tomorrow I’d go and investigate. The voice or voices were too far away for me to make out what they were saying. I was too tired to go on reading, and the light was not good. In fact my eyes were feeling heavy and my head was beginning to throb a little. Too much wine, I thought. I wasn’t used to drinking much and the wine was very rich. So I gave up, turned out the light and went to bed.

  As I lay there I was conscious of complete stillness. It seemed that the breeze had dropped. Nothing stirred outside. But then my acute hearing picked up the smallest sound. A slight hissing noise. It was the sort of noise the gaslights used to make in houses that didn’t have electricity. I got up, turned on the light again and examined the room. I hadn’t noticed before but a gas fire had been installed in the fireplace and . . . and the gas tap was partly on. I turned it off hurriedly and stood staring down at it, my heart thumping. Someone had made sure the windows were closed and turned the gas on. Not full on, or I might have been dead by now if I hadn’t smelled it. But if I’d fallen asleep in a closed room with that small amount of gas escaping, would I have woken up in the morning? Did someone want to kill me or just scare me off?

  I got up and did what Darcy had shown me when we were in Stresa together. I took the upright chair and placed it beneath the door handle. Now nobody could enter my room without the chair clattering over. But I couldn’t fall asleep. They were trying to scare me off, I thought. They had been enjoying an easy life doing very little work and now they would have to buck up and spend the housekeeping allowance on me instead of themselves. Well, I wasn’t going to be intimidated! But as I lay there, watching the curtains stirring in the breeze, which had picked up again, I felt very alone. If only Darcy hadn’t had to go away. If only I were back with Zou Zou.

  I was almost drifting off to sleep when I heard a noise. Surely that was the crunch of motorcar tires on gravel? I got up, removed the chair from under my door handle and crept out onto the landing. I made my way down the hall to one of the rooms that faced the front of the house. The only one with a good view of the forecourt was piled with furniture under dust sheets. I attempted to squeeze past and in my haste I caught my foot in one of the dust sheets and stumbled, putting my hand out to save myself. My hand touched the sheet, and then I was pitching forward into nothing. I tried to stay calm as I attempted to get up. It was dark in the room, the only light coming in from the anemic bulb farther down the hallway. I pulled the sheet away and saw to my utter surprise that there was nothing beneath it. I removed the other cloths. There were three bed frames in the room, that was all, and the cloths were draped between them like the tents one made as a child. But why? I could have sworn I saw shapes beneath the cloth when I was taken on my tour of the house. How could they have just vanished?

  I draped the cloths back into place. Nobody should know that I had been here. Then I remembered my original purpose: the sound of car tires on gravel. I pulled back the heavy curtains and peered out. The forecourt below lay in complete darkness. No headlights, no sign of a motor that I could see. And no sound. Maybe noises carried easily on the night breeze and the motorcar I had heard was driving onto a nearby property. Still feeling uneasy, I went back to bed.

  Chapter 13

  THURSDAY, JUNE 27

  EYNSLEIGH, SUSSEX

  Had a bad night’s sleep. That gas tap gave me a nasty scare, so perhaps I was imagining the other things that happened. But I’m not going to let Plunkett and his motley crew defeat me. This is going to be my home, whether they like it or not!

  I was awoken at first light by a deafening dawn chorus. One forgets, living in town, how incredibly loud birds can be. My little traveling clock said almost five. I got up and went over to the window. The first rays of sun were slanting over dewy grass. Sweet smells of roses and newly mown grass wafted in through the window. It was the sort of morning when I’d love to go out for an early ride. Horses, I thought. When I was settled here maybe I could have a horse again.

  So I was in a better mood until I remembered last night’s incident with the gas tap. Should I just say nothing or should I confront them? I tried to decide which might be more effective. Keeping cool and saying nothing? But this was more than a scare. Was one of them expecting to find my dead body this morning? I decided that I’d use the element of surprise and watch their reactions. I washed and dressed, without help from Joanie, and was on my way downstairs when I remembered that room I had been in the night before. I went back to examine it and sure enough there were only old bedsteads with cloths draped over them. Most odd. I didn’t think I’d get the right answer if I asked the question so decided to ignore it.

  I went into the morning room and rang the bell. Plunkett appeared after a long pause, still buttoning his jacket.

  “You rang, my lady?”

  “Yes, I did. Good morning, Plunkett. It seems the household is rather late to rise here. Please assemble the entire staff immediately. There is a matter of great urgency that I need to speak to them about.”

  “Now?” He was so surprised he forgot to say “my lady.”

  “Yes, right away. In here.”

  He went. I heard voices, grumbling voices. Then they shuffled in, Joanie still arranging her cap, Fernando with his chef’s jacket buttoned hastily. I sat looking from one face to the next. “Something very troubling happened last night,” I said. “When I went to bed I heard a hissing noise and I found that the gas tap in my room had been turned on. I am not sure what to believe at this moment: I would like to think it was an accident. I sincerely hope it was not a gesture of ill will from any of you and that this is not a matter for the police.”

  Fernando was not meeting my gaze. Plunkett was looking shocked, or at least pretending to look shocked. McShea was shuffling nervously from one foot to the other, and Joanie, she was looking down at her feet. “I presume you were the one who cleaned my room, Joanie,” I said. “And you were also up there helping me to undress. So I’m afraid that suspicion has to fall to you . . . and if it were ever hinted that you tried to do harm to your mistress, I’m afraid you would never get another job.”

  Joanie looked up. Her lip trembled. “I’m awful sorry, my lady. I really am.”

  I waited for the confession to go on. “I must have hit against the gas tap when I was sweeping. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

  “It had better not,” I said. I was trying to think whether it was plausible that gas had been seeping into my room since it was cleaned. Surely I would have been aware of the odor earlier. No, whoever did this came up while I was at dinner, or Joanie herself did it when she was undressing me.

  “You do all realize that you have not made the best first impression,” I said. “I may have to write to Sir Hubert immediately telling him that I have had to replace the entire staff. So I suggest you all are on your best behavior from now on. If necessary I shall go to see Sir Hubert’s solicitor and obtain his permission to dismiss all of you without a reference.”

  “Hang on, your ladyship,” Plunkett said hastily. “Joanie has said she was sorry for the accident. She’ll make sure it won’t happen again.”

  “Then let’s start anew today, shall we? Fernando, I would like a proper breakfast this morning: eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes. I expect it in half an hour and I would like some coffee brought to me immediately. And as soon as breakfast is over you are to come to the morning room to discuss menus for the coming week.”

  “Yes, my lady,” he muttered. “I be there.”

  “And after breakfast you and I will go through the books, Plunkett,” I went on.

  “Very good, my lady,” he said in a suitably humble voice.

  Had I just won that round?

  Breakfast appeared, not badly cooked, except that the fried egg was a little greasy.

  And after breakfast Plunkett appeared with the household accounts book. I stared at the columns of figures, trying to give the impression that I knew all about household accounts and how much it would take to run a great house like Eynsleigh. Actually I didn’t have any idea. I knew that Fig always complained they had no money, but I didn’t know what no money meant to them. I ran my finger down one page, then the next. I had to admit the amount coming in did not appear to be overly generous—and very much balanced the amount going out. It was just possible that Sir Hubert had been out of England for so long that he had underestimated how much everything cost.

  “This all seems to be in order, Plunkett,” I said. “And I agree that there does not seem to be a lot left over to hire extra staff. I think I will have to talk to Sir Hubert’s solicitor to see if more money can be made available. In the meantime I find that the only amount that is a little too generous is your salary, Plunkett.”

  “But, my lady, the butler should be paid considerably more than the rest of the staff, surely?” he protested.

  “In a large house with a full complement of servants I would agree,” I said. “But when you are only supervising four other people, it does seem rather a lot.”

  “It was the salary agreed upon when I took this job,” he said, giving me that defiant look again.

  “Well, I won’t be too hasty,” I said, “but when my fiancé returns we may have to give this more thought.”

  He stood up, almost snatching the accounts book from me. “Will that be all, my lady?”

  “There is one more thing. I wish to go into the nearest town. Haywards Heath, isn’t it? I presume there is no chauffeur at the moment?”

  “No, my lady. He was let go when Sir Hubert last went abroad.”

  “Then I shall have to drive myself. Please have the Bentley driven around to the front of the house at ten o’clock.”

  “I doubt there’s any petrol in it,” he said. “It’s hardly been used for years now. It might not even start.”

  “Plunkett, do you take great delight in being difficult?” I could hear my voice rising now. “If there is no petrol in the motor, then someone must walk to the nearest service station and ask the mechanic to come here with a can of petrol and to make sure the Bentley is in good running order.”

  “It’s a long walk, my lady.”

  “Then use a bicycle, Plunkett.” I gave him a sweet smile. “I expect the motorcar to be ready by ten.”

  Then I made a grand exit. I was feeling jolly proud of myself. “Mistress of Eynsleigh,” I muttered again.

  I tried to maintain that air of authority and poise when I discussed menus with Fernando. He remained sulky and unresponsive when I suggested kidneys for breakfast. He didn’t even know what kedgeree was!

  “What must I catch?” he asked. “I do not know what a ree is.”

  I sighed. I told him I did not expect the standard that I was used to in great houses, no quails in aspic or seven-course meals. But I wanted simple food, well cooked: soups that did not come from a tin, grilled chops, meat pies, steamed fish with parsley sauce or grilled fillets of plaice. Maybe scones and crumpets for tea. He didn’t understand that last word.

  “A pet? This is a small animal, no? A crumb I understand.”

  “Go and look it up in the cookery books that I’m sure are on a shelf in the kitchen,” I said.

  I came away feeling that I wasn’t about to get any of the above, and again I wondered why Sir Hubert had hired him. Perhaps he had relied on an agency and had no idea what he was getting. Of course when I had lived here before I had eaten only nursery food and had no idea what the cuisine was like downstairs. But Sir Hubert had never struck me as the sort of man who wanted paella and olives at every meal. Surely my mother would have mentioned it.

  “One of the reasons I bolted was the food, darling. All that oil and garlic.”

  But she had never said that. And now the big question: how was I going to get rid of him?

  * * *

  THE MOTORCAR APPEARED miraculously outside the front door by ten o’clock. It seemed to be in perfect working order and not a cobweb in sight, making me suspect that Plunkett or his minions might have used it for personal errands when no one was watching. I drove into Haywards Heath and went first to the telephone exchange. There I was told that the line to Eynsleigh was hooked up and active. Aha. So the telephone in Sir Hubert’s study was being used. I just had to make sure the equipment in the front hall was also hooked up!

  Feeling rather triumphant at my small victories, I returned to the nearest village, called Linfield, where I went into the post office at the back of the village shop. I was now living at Eynsleigh, I said. Could any post with my name on it be held for me at the post office?

  “We can deliver, my lady. No trouble at all,” said the jolly postmistress. “Jones has one of them motorbikes now for his rural route.”