05 - Mistletoe and Murder (3 page)

Clara gave a smile to Annie,
who was obviously relieved to learn she was not headed for the attic.

“Might I escort you there now?
Humphry is working tirelessly on preparing the garden room for Mr Fitzgerald.”

“Thank you for that.” Tommy
said.

“There is hardly a need for
thanks, Mr Fitzgerald. A hostess must provide for her guests’ needs. Let me
show you upstairs Miss Fitzgerald, I have had your luggage taken to your rooms
already.”

Miss Sampford led the way up
two flights of stairs, exiting onto the second floor and walking down a short
corridor.

“Here is your room Miss
Fitzgerald.” She pushed open a door to reveal a neatly appointed bedroom, “Mr
Bankes I have put you opposite.”

“Thank you Miss Sampford, the
room looks delightful.” Clara stepped into her room and was pleased to smell it
had been recently aired.

“I shall let you get on.
Dinner is at seven, but I ask you to be down by six for drinks.” Miss Sampford
gave them another little nod and disappeared off down the corridor.

Clara admired her room, taking
in its chintz wallpaper and four-poster bed. There were fresh flowers on the
dresser and a smouldering fire in the hearth. Annie went past her and found the
dressing room, set out with a single bed and a night-stand.

“We shall be very cosy, I
reckon.” She said.

“Indeed, I suspect, in fact, that
I shall sleep too soundly for any ghost to disturb me.”

“Don’t jest about that Clara,
you know I don’t like ghosts.”

“They aren’t real Annie.”
Clara shrugged, “They are tricks of the light and such. No ghost is in this
house, but there is someone playing tricks.”

“For what end, Clara?”

Clara shook her head.

“At the best, simply for fun,
but at the worst…” Clara sucked air through her teeth, “I just hope, for Miss
Sampford’s sake, that whoever is playing this game has nothing malicious on
their mind.”

“And if they do?”

Clara looked at the flowers on
the dressing table and gave a long sigh.

“If they do, I just hope I can
catch them before it is too late.”

Annie made her way down the back
stairs to the kitchen, where she anticipated finding the household servants.
She was nervous. Clara wanted her to win their trust and see what she could
find out, along with persuading them not to flee the house should any more
bizarre experiences befall them. Annie appreciated the trust and confidence
Clara had placed in her, but she found the thought of striding into a strange
kitchen a little daunting. In Annie’s mind there was a whole world of
difference between ordinary servants and those who worked in big houses in
London. London servants were cosmopolitan, sophisticated, they knew all sorts
of fancy French and Italian words for everyday foods like jelly and custard.
Annie half imagined herself being assailed with all these foreign words without
a clue as to what they meant. Perhaps they would ask her to bring a
poussin
from the pantry – she had read that word in a cook book – she was pretty
certain it meant either a chicken or a fish. But what if she got it wrong in
front of everyone? How mortifying!

Annie found herself in a long
corridor, doors on either side of her, none were open and she didn’t like to
pry. Fortunately, as she strolled along, she came across the kitchen by chance.
It was at the front of the house and extra windows had been let into the wall
dividing it from the hall to provide light for the dim corridor. Annie peered
through the windows and saw an older woman preparing pastry for a pie, while a
maid scrubbed vigorously at a copper pot. Annie popped her head around the door
and tapped lightly on the frame. The pastry cook glanced up.

“Who are you then?”

Annie stepped forward as
confidently as she could manage.

“Annie Buckle, servant to Mr
and Miss Fitzgerald.”

“Ah, so you’re with those
guests the mistress asked down unexpectedly?” The cook thumped her ball of
pastry down on a floured table, “I’m Mrs James, the cook. That over there is
Flo.”

Flo glanced up from her
scrubbing and waved a wet hand.

“Very pleased to meet you. I
brought something.” In her hands Annie was carrying a white enamel cake tin – it
was her poshest one, reserved for special cakes and items to be taken to the
Church’s yearly fete. She placed it on the table, “We came down on such short
notice, seemed a shame to leave it at home after all the work gone into it.”

She opened the tin and
revealed her perfectly iced Christmas cake. White royal icing, as smooth as
silk, covered the rich, whisky-soaked, fruit cake. A small marzipan robin
nestled on a holly leaf right in the centre and Annie had spelt out ‘season’s
greetings’ in red icing around the bird. Mrs James looked down approvingly.

“That looks right nice. Done
it yourself?”

“Absolutely.” Annie affirmed.

“Got a clever hand there. I
haven’t iced our cake yet, maybe I’ll leave it to you. Reckon you would do a
finer job then I could with these big old things.” Mrs James held up her floury
hands and smiled.

Annie realised she had been
accepted and beamed back.

“So your mistress is here to
solve this ghost business?” Mrs James’ became serious. She was a stout woman,
as the best cooks tend to be, with a soft round face and a florid complexion.
She had fading red hair, swept up under an old-fashioned mob-cap, and lively
green eyes. When she smiled she revealed dimples and lines that indicated she
was more inclined to be happy than sad and was clearly a woman content with her
lot.

“Miss Fitzgerald doesn’t
believe in ghosts.” Annie said honestly, “She thinks someone is playing tricks
on your mistress.”

“That crossed my mind at
first.” Mrs James suddenly could not meet Annie’s eye, she grabbed up a rolling
pin and went back to work.

“But now?” Annie asked.

Mrs James gave a strange look
that seemed directed at Flo. The maid was focusing on her scrubbing, though she
had already worked the copper to within an inch of its life.

“Flo, I don’t have enough
parsley for my pie. Go out to the green house and see if there is any left,
would you?” Mrs James said.

Flo glanced at them both; she
seemed aware she was wanted out of the way, but she made no comment and left
the kitchen by the back door.

“She’ll only be a moment.” Mrs
James spoke hastily, “Just between you and me, that mistress of yours better
have her eyes open. There is something wrong in this house. I seen it for
myself.”

“What have you seen?”

“A shape, like a cloaked figure.
In the second floor corridor. It was late afternoon and at this time of year
the corridors are as pitch black as night. I had a candle because I had been to
my room to fetch a book. I always read a little between lunch and dinner, if I
have a chance. So I slipped to my room for a book and came down the back stairs
and the door was open to the second floor corridor. I assumed either Flo or
Jane had been careless about it and I went to shut it. That was when I saw
someone standing in the dark corridor. Just standing. I knew it weren’t Miss
Sampford, it was too tall, so I imagined it was Mr Humphry on an errand. I
closed the door and went downstairs. Imagine my surprise when I found Mr
Humphry here at my very kitchen table going through the weekly accounts book! I
tell you I started to feel quite queer. I told him what I had seen and he
assumed there was a prowler in the house. But search as we might he never found
anyone.”

Mrs James rolled and rolled
the pastry until it lay in a penny-thickness on the table. There was something
determined and anxious in her thrusts of the pin. Annie suspected the woman was
working hard to avoid showing that her hands were shaking.

“It
could
have been a
prowler who spotted you and slipped out.” Annie suggested.

“No, my dear, it was the
ghost.” Mrs James fell silent as the door opened again and Flo returned.

She walked to the table and
deposited a handful of parsley.

“It’s bitter out there, I
think I should get the fires in the bedrooms lit.” The maid said, her eyes
turning to Annie, “Do you know what your mistress wants to wear tonight? We
could hang it before the fire so it gets warm. This house holds the cold better
than it does heat.”

Annie sensed the girl was
trying to get her away from the kitchen so they could talk. She wasn’t about to
miss the opportunity, especially as it seemed the servants were not talking
about ghosts around each other if they could help it.

“Yes, that’s a sound idea.
I’ll follow you up.”

Flo grabbed some matches and a
basket full of kindling, Annie gave a nod to Mrs James as she left. The cook
resolutely focused on her pie, in a world of uncertainty pastry was at least
one thing she could understand.

Flo didn’t say anything until
they were on the back stairs and heading upwards.

“Mrs James is very scared, we
all are.” She announced as they hit the first landing.

“No one has really explained
why to me, yet.” Annie answered.

“It’s this ghost business.
Your mistress might take it for nonsense, but believe me it’s not. There are
footsteps, things going missing, strange lights, groans in the night and now
this figure!”

“Have you seen the ghost?”

“Not yet, and I don’t want to.
From what I hear the girl I replaced saw it one night and went stark raving
mad.”

Annie felt a shiver run up her
spine.

“But it can’t be real.”

“Who says?”

Annie had no answer. They had
reached the second floor and Flo was moving into the corridor.

“That is where Mrs James saw
her.” Flo pointed to a spot in the middle of the hallway.

“You think it’s a woman?”

“I don’t really know, but they
say a woman was murdered in this house, so it has to be her ghost, right?” Flo
walked down the corridor until she reached the spot where the ghost had
supposedly stood, “I wouldn’t be doing this if it were dark! But you don’t see
or hear anything during the day. See this room?” She indicated a doorway
opposite her, “Miss Sampford keeps this as a library because no one dares sleep
in it. That’s where the murder happened.”

Annie, a tad anxiously, peered
into the room and saw walls lined with book cases and a desk in the middle
facing the window. It was covered in papers and a black typewriter perched in
the centre.

“Who was the woman?”

“No one seems really to know.”
Flo mused, “The scullery girl next door told me she were the lover of some lord
who did away with her. But the man in the florist said he heard she were a
servant girl who saw something she shouldn’t.”

“And her murderer?”

“No one can say, but I did
hear tell that years ago a body was found buried at the bottom of the garden.
Don’t know what became of it though.”

Annie stepped away from the
room feeling sufficiently unnerved by stories of death and violence. She was
starting to appreciate why Mrs James was so agitated.

“You see how the mistress has
put your lady in the room nearly opposite the haunted one?” Flo asked, a glint
of knowing in her eye, “She believes in this business more than she lets on.”

“But, why now? The house has
been quiet all these years, why has the ghost suddenly arisen?”

“My old mum says sometimes
spirits get disturbed. Perhaps building work being done. Now just behind us
there is a row of terraces and that Mr Hodge, a builder as what he calls
himself, has been knocking things down and building things up. He is working
right near our garden where the bones of that murdered girl were said to have
been found. I think he has disturbed something.”

That was enough for Annie; the
thought of the dead rising from their graves because they had been disturbed
chilled her to the bone. She headed for Clara’s bedroom and Flo followed. For a
moment Annie was too bemused and scared to speak. Flo began placing the
kindling in the hearth and the distraction of such a mundane task began to calm
Annie.

“Does it come every night?”
She asked, thinking she would need more rational information to satisfy Clara,
talk of half-remembered murder stories and nameless suspects would not impress.

“Most nights.” Flo said,
stacking a piece of kindling, “Miss Sampford goes to bed around nine, and
usually I’m done with my chores by eleven. Me and Jane go up to bed together,
Mrs James comes next, then Mr Humphry after he has locked the house up tight.
It usually begins about an hour after we are all abed.” Flo paused in her work,
trying her hardest to remember everything perfectly, “About one o’clock the
footsteps begin. Thud, thud, thud. Heavy they are, like someone in boots. Jane
thinks it is the sound of the murderer revisiting the scene of the crime. Then
there will be other noises; bangs, crashes, doors opening and closing, but
nothing is ever amiss when you look the next morning. Sometimes there is a
voice muttering, once we heard a scream. On another occasion all the bells in
the house began to ring at once.”

“Where does this happen?”

Flo gave an apologetic smile.

“Second floor, always the
second floor. Miss Sampford has the room at the end. If it ever moved up them
stairs I wouldn’t be here, I tell you.”

Annie sat on the bed and gave
a little groan. Not only was she sleeping on the floor the ghost inhabited but
opposite the very room it haunted. She wondered if Clara would mind if she
insisted on having a room in the attic?

“Have I worried you?” Flo
stood, looking sad.

“No, don’t worry about it.
Clara will probably attack your ghost with a poker if it comes too near.”

Flo cocked her head, intrigued
at the sudden lapse in formality, but she said nothing.

“Mr Sampford is bringing in a
ghost hunter. I hear they are going to do a séance with a real medium.”

“Oh Clara will hate that!”
Annie almost snorted at the thought, “You know she once had a case where she
had to solve the murder of a medium.”

“Really? Is your mistress
right clever then?”

“Very!”

“And does she know how to deal
with ghosts?”

Annie couldn’t answer that.
Clara was many things, but her interest in the paranormal was limited.

“As I said, there are very few
things that don’t get scared when Clara is wielding a poker.”

“Even a ghost?”

“I guess. Ghosts are just
people too, or rather, once were.”

Flo looked as unconvinced as
Annie sounded.