01 - Murder at Ashgrove House (5 page)

I must remember this weekend, Rose thought, every tiny detail of it because
there will never be another one like it, not for me. With that she sighed
contentedly and settled back into the luxurious leather seats of the yellow
Rolls Royce that Lady Withers had sent to collect them from the railway
station. How strange it felt to be seated next to Lady Lavinia Sedgwick in a
chauffeur driven car about to enjoy the weekend at a country house, the guest
of the local landed gentry. She really must try and savour this moment, this
wonderful feeling of excitement and anticipation and just a little
apprehension. 

Rose looked over at her friend and wondered if Lavinia had any idea how
much this all meant to her. But she seemed totally oblivious, smiling and
laughing at their recent exploits at Madame Renard’s, how they had managed to
convince a particularly odious customer to spend far more money on clothes than
she had intended and mimicking the way Madame Renard spoke when she introduced
Lavinia to her more up market customers. She caught Lavinia’s eye and they both
threw back their heads and giggled like a couple of school girls, each finding
the other’s laughter so infectious that they did not know if they would ever be
able to stop. Rose, who initially had been very aware of the presence of the
chauffeur up in front, idly wondered what he must think of them laughing as if
their sides would burst. But she could not help it, and she soon gave up caring
what he thought.

Indeed, to Rose, Lavinia suddenly looked very young and carefree, the
lack of worries or responsibilities showing in her face as she suddenly whisked
the red straw hat from her head and let the wind tug at her hair until it had
come tumbling down around her shoulders, becoming a mess as stray wisps of hair
blew in the wind around her face. Rose thought Lavinia suited the windswept
look, which gave a warmth to her cold aristocratic beauty; in contrast, Rose
had never felt so plain.

‘We are going to have such a wonderful time, Rose,’ Lavinia had assured
her earnestly, grabbing hold of her hand. ‘Of course, while I love Ashgrove
absolutely to bits, I would have suggested that we go to Sedgwick Court, but
it’s too far away to go just for a weekend and besides there’s my mother which
is enough to put anyone off. She’d be quite impossible, you know. She wouldn’t
leave me alone for a moment trying to make me change my mind about the shop and
she’s such a snob. I’m afraid she’d be rather horrid to you.  It’s much
better that we go to Aunt Connie’s. You’ll adore her, I know you will, because
she has that effect on everyone, everyone simply worships her, even the
servants. I can’t think why really, because sometimes she comes out with the
most outrageous things, you know says what everyone is really thinking but are
too polite to actually say.’ She became aware of the look on Rose’s face which
had been one of alarm. ‘Oh, I’ve made her sound a bit intimidating and I didn’t
mean to at all. You’ll absolutely love her. Do you know, when Ceddie and I were
little, we used to pretend that Father had married Aunt Connie instead of
Mother because it would have been absolutely magical if he had done, and I
think it could have happened because from what I’ve heard, Connie and Daddy
used to be sweethearts when they were young. But Aunt Connie married Uncle
William instead and I must say he’s an absolute sweetie too.’

Rose was suddenly aware that they had turned off the road. She looked up
quickly at her surroundings and caught a first glimpse of Ashgrove House
through the trees which lined the long drive along which she found they were
driving, and which eventually led up to the house. Ashgrove House sat deep in
its own land made up of gardens, including a croquet lawn, pasture land and
woodland, the predominant trees in the latter being ash from where the house
had derived its name. Level fields enclosed with fences or hedges gave way to
steep banks down to the river and the house itself, made of red brick, dated
from the late eighteenth century, although some later Victorian alterations had
been made to it by a previous owner. It was
three-storied and five-bayed, with
a fine pillared entrance portico
and roofs of slate from which protruded a number of ornate gothic chimney
stacks. Rose caught her breath. Ashgrove House was more imposing and impressive
than she had expected. When Lavinia had spoken of it, she had been almost
dismissive. ‘It’s quite delightful, absolutely lovely,’ she had assured her,
‘but of course it’s not a patch on Sedgwick.’ To Rose, whose experience of such
residences was admittedly limited, it looked very grand indeed. Its owners were
clearly affluent as both the house and drive were in a good state of repair and
the gardens, she was to discover later, were well-kept and tendered by
gardeners.

‘The only bit of a downside,’ Lavinia was saying, ‘is that Edith will be
here. She’s a distant relative of ours, or something, although I don’t think my
mother likes her much as she’s never been invited to stay at Sedgwick even
though she and mother and Aunt Connie were all at school together as girls. The
odd time I’ve seen her at Ashgrove, I’ve always found her deadly dull and
depressing, although to be charitable she does have reason to be upset. It must
have been awful for her, but it’s all so long ago now and it isn’t as if she
was the only one to have been affected by the war.

And then, of course, there was that awful episode a couple of years back
when she made an absolute fool of herself over poor Ceddie. She just wouldn’t
leave the poor boy alone. She threw herself at him and started shrieking that
she’d never let him go again, that he was safe now. It was absolutely awful.
Uncle William and old Stafford had to forcibly drag her away from Ceddie and
all the time she was kicking and hitting out and wailing. Aunt Connie had to
send for the doctor to give her a sedative. It was absolutely horrible, I’d
never seen anyone behave like that before, you know, totally out of control …
Brewster, why ever have you stopped the car?’ Lavinia looked about her suddenly
aware that the Rolls Royce was stationary. ‘Surely you don’t mean us to walk the
rest of the way up to the house carrying our own luggage!’  

‘No, no Lady Lavinia, of course not,’ replied the chauffeur looking
awkward. ‘I’m just following orders. Her ladyship asked me to stop here, before
I drove you up to the house. I’m not sure why, but she was most particular
about it, she was; I’m sure she had her reasons.’

They waited, Lavinia sitting upright in her seat gazing straight ahead of
her and looking distinctly put out, Rose, slightly nervous and self-conscious,
wondering what to expect.  The chauffeur, Brewster, busied himself
fiddling first with his steering wheel, then with the wing mirror and then with
his gloves until it seemed to Rose that they had sat there for some time. She
was beginning to feel fidgety herself and, from out of the corner of her eye,
she could tell that Lavinia was getting more and more irritated.

‘This is ridiculous, Brewster. Surely you don’t expect us to wait here
forever. Just…’

‘Psst!’

‘Good gracious whatever
is
that noise, and where’s it coming
from?’ Lavinia demanded, looking all about her wildly, before climbing out of
the car quickly to have a better look around. Brewster, taken unawares by the
quickness of Lavinia’s actions, scrambled out of the car after her to open the
door for Rose. Following Lavinia’s example, Rose looked about her but both
girls had trouble locating from where exactly the sound had come.

‘Psst! Over here.’ From out of the trees that lined the drive up to
Ashgrove House emerged a woman of over fifty, her hair pulled back in a bun that
looked as if it was coming slightly undone and which was squashed under a wide
brimmed straw hat decorated with artificial fruit, the red cherries of which
were gleaming in the mid-morning sun. She wore a calf length beige skirt and
white cotton blouse over which at her throat was tied haphazardly a
flower-patterned silk scarf. The overall effect was one of dishevelment and
that, coupled with the fact that the woman was wearing gardening gloves and
carrying a pair of secateurs in her right hand, led Rose to believe that she
must be some kind of gardener.

‘Connie!’ Lavinia rushed over to her and embraced her warmly. ‘Whatever
are you doing, Aunt, lurking in the shadows and making poor Brewster stop the
car for secret assignations? And what on earth are you dressed up in this get
up for, is it your gardener’s day off?’

‘My dear, I wanted to catch you before you arrived at the house and
pretending to have to prune the roses gave me the excuse I needed. I slipped
out of the rose garden, and came around the house and have been hiding behind
this tree for the last twenty minutes or so. If only I’d known that the train
was going to be late. Either that or Brewster was driving far too slowly. If
only William would allow me to take the wheel, I’m sure you’d have got here
much quicker.’

‘I can’t quite believe you’ve been waiting here for us that long, Aunt
Connie. We’ve been stopped here an age, I was beginning to get frightfully
cross with poor Brewster but….’

‘That’s because I got rather distracted by a red admiral butterfly that I
happened to spot, haven’t seen one for ages, just usually see those boring
cabbage white ones and so I forgot to listen out for the car, but please don’t
interrupt my dear, we must be quick in case we’re caught. What I wanted to tell
you, warn you really, is that your mother’s here. She invited herself for the
weekend. Well, actually she didn’t even do that. Just got her butler to ring up
Stafford and tell him she was coming, she and your father, although how on
earth she managed to persuade him to leave his library, I can’t imagine.
Anyway, they arrived not long after breakfast. They must have set off at the
crack of dawn, either that or they set out yesterday and broke the journey
somewhere last night.

‘Somehow she’s got wind that you’d be down at Ashgrove this weekend and
she wanted to catch you as soon as you arrived. I think she wants to have a
word with you about this working in a shop business and seeing as you rarely go
home …’ Lady Withers looked at her niece somewhat reproachfully as if she held
her responsible for the arrival of her unwelcome guest ‘… she thought she’d
better come down here if she wanted to catch you.’

‘Oh, but this is awful,’ cried Lavinia and Rose thought that for once her
friend may not be exaggerating, for she had never seen her looking so genuinely
upset. ‘Oh, she’ll spoil everything. She won’t leave me alone for a minute,
she’ll badger me, going on and on at me until she has managed to get me to
promise not to return to Madame Renard’s. Well, I shan’t.  l won’t let her
get her own way, I won’t, not this time.’ Rose began to feel anxious and just a
little disappointed. Perhaps it was not going to be such a wonderful weekend
after all.

‘That’s the spirit, my dear,’ Lady Withers was saying, looking impressed.
‘This working in a shop lark seems to have toughened you up a bit. But I
thought it only fair to give you the heads up, so to speak. Fore warned is fore
armed as they say.’ And with that she attempted to swat at a wasp with her
secateurs.

Up close Rose could see that, although now a little faded and wrinkled,
when she had been young Lavinia’s aunt must have been a beautiful woman. There
was still something proud and majestic about the way that she carried herself
that showed breeding; at the same time there was something rather fragile about
her, that Rose was sure brought out the protective instinct in men, which she
felt was the desired effect and wondered idly how much of this sense of
fragility had been deliberately cultivated by Lady Withers.

‘It must have been Ceddie. He must have let it slip. Oh, the silly boy, I
should never have told him we were coming to Ashgrove this weekend.’

‘Quite probably, my dear, especially as Cedric’s wired to say that he’s coming
down too, although he hasn’t arrived yet and we’re not quite sure when to
expect him, you know how vague young men can be these days. I’m sure that
you’ll be delighted to see
him
, of course; it will be nice for you two
young things to have someone else young about the place rather than having to
make do with us old things, but it does make things all a little awkward with
Edith coming down. I didn’t want to put her off, you know how careful you’ve
got to be with poor Edith, she does feel things so dreadfully being so highly
strung and sensitive, what with everything that’s happened, but it’s going to
be all rather awkward. I just hope that we don’t have a repeat of last time.
You remember how awful it was, absolutely dreadful and made more so because one
just didn’t know what to do. If it hadn’t been for dear William and Stafford,
I’m not sure what we would have done. I mean, it was so unexpected, one
couldn’t possibly have foreseen that it was going to happen. I’m just worried
that Edith will give a repeat performance in front of your mother, oh, I can’t
even bear to think about it. Marjorie won’t be at all understanding. She’s
likely to give poor Edith a piece of her mind and then the poor woman’s bound
to go all to pieces.’

‘Oh, Aunt Connie, what a weekend it’ll be. But at least Ceddie will be
down. As well as being good to see him, at least if he’s here I will have a bit
of peace from Mother. She’ll have to divide her time between lecturing me and
talking to Ceddie. You know he’s always been her blue-eyed boy while I’ve been
rather a disappointment to her. She won’t pass up a chance to find out how he‘s
getting on at Oxford, because he goes home to Sedgwick almost as infrequently
as I do. In fact, I think he only goes back to ask Daddy for money to pay his
debts, oh what frightful and ungrateful children we are. Why … whatever is the
matter, Rose? You don’t look quite right at all, your face is all pink. Was it
the journey? I have to say it has made one feel frightfully hot.’