A Death in the Loch (5 page)
In answer to him I held up the contents of the briefcase.
‘A maid’s outfit!’ exclaimed Bertram.
‘There is a note attached,’ I said coldly. I read in silence, while Bertram attacked his facial hair once more. ‘It seems that Fitzroy does share your moral misgivings after all. He writes the only way to have me at the lodge without a chaperone is for me to go in disguise as a maid. He has the effrontery to add that this will also enable me to see another side of the negotiations.’
‘How the hell do we explain this to Merry?’ asked Bertram.
‘Or Susan,’ I said darkly, referring to the woman who had been ‘local help’ when I was at the Highland Lodge.
‘Richard made her permanent housekeeper,’ said Bertram.
‘Wonderful,’ I said. ‘This little jaunt just gets better and better.’
‘Would you like to play chess to pass the time?’ said Bertram timidly, ‘I brought a travelling set.’
‘Certainly,’ I said, gritting my teeth. I then proceeded to thrash him game after game until we arrived at our destination. Bertram had the sense not to complain.
A return to old haunts
I changed in the ladies’ restroom at the station. Then without explanation climbed into the servant’s cart in my maid’s outfit. Merry’s eyes grew wide as saucers, but something about my demeanour advised her not to ask questions – yet. Rory scowled at me ferociously as if he thought I was playing some deliberate trick to annoy him. I turned my back. The cart began its long, uncomfortable drive across the wretchedly bad Scotch roads as the day slid into a purple dusk that in different circumstances I might have appreciated.
We arrived after much bumping and shuggling at the servants’ entrance to Lord Stapleford’s lodge. By this time, Merry, always a poor traveller, was fit for nothing more than her bed. It was left to Rory and me to unload. We entered through the servants’ entrance. I sent Merry straight upstairs, presuming that we had been put in the room we had shared before.
As we made our way through the labyrinth of servants’ passages we heard the familiar cursing of Jock the chef as he wrangled with the old cooking range. Bertram’s trunks had gone on ahead with him. I had no idea how he had had them taken up to his room, but as protocol dictated we left our bags backstairs and went to meet the housekeeper. We were, after all, invading her domain.
I was not looking forward to this meeting. Susan Simpson, the widowed maid with whom I had such a difficult relationship, due it is only fair to say to the interference of various men, was now housekeeper at the Lodge.
[2]
‘Oh, how the mighty are fallen!’ Susan stood with her hands on her hips and stared at me. She looked much better than when I had last seen her. There was colour in her face and her frame was no longer thin from lack of nutrition – on her previously small salary she had been forced to choose between feeding herself or her children.
‘I – er – um,’ I began. I looked up hopefully at Rory, but the gaze he returned to me was impassive and cold. ‘I hope …’ I began, when Susan rushed over to me and threw her arms around my neck.
‘Away with yer, yer silly bissum!’ she said, ‘it’s thanks to you I’m housekeeper here. I tell you it’s the grandest place to work for the Staplefords. They never come near or by the place.’
I felt myself relax. Tiredness swept over me and tears pricked my eyes. ‘It’s good to see you doing so well,’ I managed to say. My throat was sore with emotion. Rory’s cold impersonal attitude was taking its toll on me.
‘Was there not another maid coming with you? We’ve got a right houseful coming by all reckoning. Might even need a lady’s maid.’
‘Really?’ I said surprised. ‘Merry’s with us, but she travels so badly she’s gone straight to bed. She’ll be good for nothing until the morning.’
‘Come sit yourselves down,’ said Susan pointing us to the big kitchen table. ‘You must be guy starving. Jock’s cooked up some guid stuff to stick to your ribs. Goodness knows yous is going to be worked off your feet the next few days.’
‘If you don’t mind, Mrs Simpson, I will take my repast in the butler’s pantry,’ said Rory.
The Susan I had known would have told him what she thought of his standoffishness, but this version had obviously grown with her job. ‘Certainly, Mr McLeod,’ she said, ‘I will have our footman bring it to you.’ Rory nodded curtly and left.
‘What’s up with the stuffed shirt?’ she asked me when he’d gone. ‘I always thought you two would make a go of it.’
For a moment I considered blurting out the full story, but all I said was, ‘I have no idea.’ Susan gave me a long look that said she saw right through me. Then she passed on the plate Jock handed to her. ‘Get yourself around them tatties and sausages, hen.’
The next morning came and went in a flurry of dusting, cleaning, and making up the bedrooms. Susan would have mucked in with us, but Rory called her away to sort through menus and other matters ‘more suited to her station’, as he put it. Merry had yet to comment on my sudden demotion. I think she was simply glad she had help. Whoever was coming to this meeting, the actual numbers had only been given to Susan yesterday.
Merry, Susan, and myself were finishing a fine early lunch. The male servants were eating elsewhere. Suddenly the doorbell rang.
‘Oh Lord, they’re early,’ said Susan. She stood up, straightening her skirt.
Rory appeared in the doorway. ‘I looked for you in the housekeeper’s room,’ he said coldly. ‘Come now. The guests must not ring twice.’ He said this as if it meant the world would end. Merry and I also rose, but he shook his head.
‘Too lowly to be seen,’ said Merry when they’d gone. She sat down again with a shrug. ‘Pass those flat floury things, will you, Euphemia.’
‘Potato scones,’ I said sadly.
‘Hmm,’ said Merry, ‘whatever they are they’re very tasty. I’m still hungry from …’
‘No details please, Merry. I saw enough of your suffering on the cart.’
‘I’ve been meaning to ask –’ began Merry, when Susan burst through the door.
‘The whole lot of ’em have arrived at once and they want luncheon in half an hour! Girls, you’re going to have to help serve.’
‘Who are they?’ I asked.
‘There’s a Miss Flowers, who you can tell is going to be trouble, and the Mr Smiths.’ Then she was off again to check on the dining room.
‘Did she say the Smiths as in more than one?’ asked Merry.
I achieved a creditable shrug despite my mother’s training. ‘No idea. Jock, what do you need doing?’ I asked.
Merry was given the task of taking in the soup tureen. Rory would serve from it, but Merry had to hold it level. I was to precede them with a selection of rolls. Merry was frankly terrified. The tureen was old, expensive-looking, and very heavy. I curbed the thought that it had been given to the tinier Merry because Rory didn’t want to stand next to me. Fortunately there was a dumb waiter, so the tureen was winched up while we maids pelted up the stairs. Rory was already in situ in the dining room.
Around the table sat six men and one woman.
[3]
Bertram sat at one end of the table. He was thoughtfully scratching his beard, but stopped when he felt my eyes on him. Goodness knew how he was going to manage with the soup.
At the other end of the table sat a middle-aged man in a well-tailored discreet dark suit. Everything from his neat blond hair to his clean fingernails was smartly average. I guessed this must be the representative in charge of the meeting.
[4]
On his right sat a female, her hair so bright in colour I had trouble believing it was natural. Despite the early hour the ruddiness of her cheeks was also false and she had a sparkling necklace around her neck. Even if it was real, it was definitely not the time of day for such a thing. She was, as Merry would later put it, ‘no better than she ought to be’. My mother would simply have sniffed and snubbed her. I, on the other hand, offered her the rolls. She paid no attention to me as she took one of the larger ones. Her hand hovered over the tray for a second. A glance around the table and she withdrew it. Greedy too, I thought.
The other four diners were all men in suits. None of them were in the least flamboyant. The woman among them stood out like a parrot in a field of sheep. The atmosphere in the room was strangely tense. The woman and the man in charge seemed relaxed enough, but the five men, including Bertram, were all sitting on the edges of their seats. Bertram’s face had the bemused, worried expression I had so often seen when workmen came to tell him yet again that another part of his cursed estate had been found to be falling down again. I suspected he felt out of his depth and somewhat lost, like the rest of us, at what was actually going on. At least I had something to do. Merry’s arms, I noted with alarm, were beginning to shake with effort, so when the footman appeared I tried to catch his eye to get him to take over from her. He ignored me – as footmen usually do with maids, above stairs, and tried to whisper in Rory’s ear, but Rory’s furious face made him back off immediately. Rory set the ladle down in the soup. He tapped me on the shoulder, gesturing that I should take over and left with the footman. I placed the roll tray on the buffet and ignoring Rory’s suggestion took the soup tureen from Merry. She gave me a silent look of gratitude. I flicked my eyes at the woman, but Merry served the man at the top of the table first, only spilling a few drops on the tablecloth. Bertram coughed and she immediately realised her faux pas. The woman, however she looked, should have been served first.
‘So sorry,’ Merry muttered under her breath and in a shaking hand lifted the ladle once more. She managed to lift it without shaking too badly when Rory walked back into the room. Merry, startled mid-serve, emptied her ladle neatly into the lap of the woman, who shot to her feet with a screech.
[5]
Rory’s flaming eyes met mine. It was clear he thought it was all my fault.
The man at the head of the table began to dab ineffectually at the woman’s lap area with his napkin, which made her screech even louder, like a kettle on the boil. She knocked his hand brusquely away and rushed for the door, pushing past Merry and I. On the way she caught Merry by the shoulder and sent her flying. I only retained hold of the soup tureen by a supreme effort of will and by planting my feet in a most unladylike pose. Poor Merry ended up on the buffet, rolls flew everywhere, and we were treated to a distinct flash of Merry’s underwear. Bertram’s eyes grew wide as saucers and one of the other men stifled, none too effectively, a guffaw. Poor Merry scrambled to her feet and fled.
[2]
I confess I often feel if only men would stay longer in the smoking room we could all get on with things so very much more effectively. There would also be much more taking of tea and the place would be generally tidier, men being in both their persons and about themselves generally untidy. Take Bertram’s beard, for instance. Actually, please take Bertram’s beard. It is ghastly!
[3]
The more perceptive of you will note I do not refer to her as a lady.
[4]
I use the term ‘representative’ because I had no idea who he represented, simply that he was one of the discreet fellows who worked for King and Country in capacities that generally bypassed lesser mortals such as myself.
[5]
And she did sound akin to a parrot!
Messages (too many of ’em)
Of course, Rory handled the situation in cool, professional manner. He put the rolls tray in the dumb waiter, hopefully signalling to the kitchen below he needed a new stock. Retrieving the ladle, he polished it on a napkin from the buffet, glided over to Bertram, and said smoothly, ‘Soup, Mr Stapleford?’ Realising I still had the tureen I staggered over, so that by the time he lowered his ladle there was something to immerse it in. Bertram, scratching furiously at his beard, made a little bleating noise which Rory liberally interpreted as a yes and filled his soup bowl with a flourish.
The meal continued. The woman did not return and while I was in the room at least the conversation was muted, consisting of such comments as: ‘A fine soup, Stapleford’ or ‘Well-seasoned sauce, this’. No one of course referred to the incident. I felt a momentary nostalgic pang for the Stapleford House retinue, who were uncivilised enough to discuss murder over lunch and would certainly have commented on Merry’s display. Here everything hung heavily unsaid in the air. Everyone was oppressively civil. My mother would have been proud of them, but I fear my standards had been lowered and I would have been glad of hearing everything that shouldn’t be said in front of the servants. Bertram was a sad storyteller and I knew would make a fearful mess of explaining what was eventually said over the cigars.
I kept up my appearance of professional disinterest. Inside I was longing to get away to see Merry, but no footman appeared to relieve me. Instead Rory and I served the entire meal, barely looking at each other. It was agonising. I knew enough of Merry to know she would be throwing a fair fit downstairs. I also had no idea where the footman had gone, and if my life has taught me anything it is these little mysteries that often reveal the whole. I barely spared a thought for the be-souped woman. I felt she had got no more than she deserved, dressed the way she had been for luncheon!
Finally everything that could be served was served. Rory would have to stay on hand, but I loaded the final serving dishes in the dumb waiter and nodded to Rory indicating I was leaving. I didn’t wait for any response, but closed the door quietly behind me before flying down the servants stairs.
I found Susan sitting in the kitchen with a very large mug of tea in front of her. Jock was banging and clattering about the range and muttering even louder and even more unintelligibly than usual.
‘Whit do you ken about being a lady’s maid, Euphemia?’
‘Not a lot,’ I said sitting down. Jock slammed a cup of tea, unasked, in front of me. At least I think it was tea. It was darker than pitch and when I added a little milk from the jug on the table it still appeared unable to reflect light.