Authors: M.C. Beaton
Kitty
M. C. Beaton
is the author of the hugely successful Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series, as well as a quartet of Edwardian murder mysteries featuring heroine Lady Rose Summer, several Regency romance series and a stand-alone murder mystery,
The Skeleton in the Closet
– all published by Constable & Robinson. She left a full-time career in journalism to turn to writing, and now divides her time between the Cotswolds and Paris. Visit
www.agatharaisin.com
for more, or follow M. C. Beaton on Twitter: @mc_beaton.
Titles by M. C. Beaton
The Poor Relation
Lady Fortescue Steps Out · Miss Tonks Turns to Crime · Mrs Budley Falls from Grace Sir Philip’s Folly · Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue · Back in Society
A House for the Season
The Miser of Mayfair · Plain Jane · The Wicked Godmother Rake’s Progress · The Adventuress · Rainbird’s Revenge
The Six Sisters
Minerva · The Taming of Annabelle · Deirdre and Desire Daphne · Diana the Huntress · Frederica in Fashion
Edwardian Murder Mysteries
Snobbery with Violence · Hasty Death · Sick of Shadows Our Lady of Pain
The Travelling Matchmaker
Emily Goes to Exeter · Belinda Goes to Bath · Penelope Goes to Portsmouth Beatrice Goes to Brighton · Deborah Goes to Dover · Yvonne Goes to York
Agatha Raisin
Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death · Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener · Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage · Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death · Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden
Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam · Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came
Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate · Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance · Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor
Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye
Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison · Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body · Agatha Raisin: As the Pig Turns Agatha Raisin: Hiss and Hers · Agatha Raisin and the Christmas Crumble
Hamish Macbeth
Death of a Gossip · Death of a Cad · Death of an Outsider Death of a Perfect Wife · Death of a Hussy · Death of a Snob Death of a Prankster · Death of a Glutton · Death of a Travelling Man Death of a Charming Man · Death of a Nag · Death of a Macho Man Death of a Dentist · Death of a Scriptwriter · Death of an Addict A Highland Christmas · Death of a Dustman · Death of a Celebrity Death of a Village · Death of a Poison Pen · Death of a Bore Death of a Dreamer · Death of a Maid · Death of a Gentle Lady Death of a Witch · Death of a Valentine · Death of a Sweep Death of a Kingfisher · Death of Yesterday
The Skeleton in the Closet
Also available
The Agatha Raisin Companion
M. C. Beaton
Constable & Robinson Ltd.
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com
First electronic edition published 2011
by RosettaBooks LLC, New York
First published in the UK by Canvas,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013
Copyright © M. C. Beaton, 1979
The right of M. C. Beaton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-47210-121-1 (ebook)
Printed and bound in the UK
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Cover design copyright © Constable & Robinson
CHAPTER ONE
The sound of the church bells vibrated in the icy air of the bedroom as Kitty struggled awake. She lay burrowed beneath the bedclothes, staring at the frost flowers on the window, and wishing in a most unchristianlike way that it would turn out to be any day other than Sunday.
Sunday meant church service at St. John’s, standing in the snow on the porch after the service, writhing under the patronizing remarks of Lady Worthing and her daughters while her mama smiled and simpered. Sunday was also Mama’s “visit to the poor” day where, in her turn, she could enjoy her weekly luxury of patronizing her social inferiors. Sunday meant a heavy stolid meal under the glare of her taciturn stockbroker father and then back out into the cold again for evening service.
With a sigh, she threw back the bedclothes and scurried, shivering, to crack the ice on her pitcher of washing water on the stand. Her little white face overshadowed by an enormous pair of gray eyes, stared back at her from the looking glass over the washstand. Kitty struggled into her camisole and stays, shivering at the bite of the icy whalebone against her body. She pulled on her cotton stockings, twisting them slightly to hide the darns at the heel. Now the one good silk dress, smelling of benzine from overfrequent cleaning. It was of an uncompromising shade of brown with plain tight sleeves and a simple skirt.
How poor Kitty longed for warm, pretty, and feminine clothes!
She brushed her fine brown hair till it crackled down to her waist. If only she could wear it up. But mama said she must not put it up until her coming-out, but how and where she was to come out was a mystery since the Harrisons were obviously in very straightened circumstances.
The house on the edge of Hampstead Heath in North London was of elegant proportions, but the heavy Victorian furniture was old and worn and the curtains and carpets, threadbare. Unlike their wealthier neighbors, the Harrisons only kept a small staff, one general cook-housekeeper, one parlor maid, and a “daily” to do the heavy work.
Mrs. Harrison was already fussing around the dining room when Kitty made her entrance. She was a thin, angular woman with peculiarly light, colorless eyes. Her heavy iron-gray hair was swept up on top of her head and anchored in place by a battery of ferocious steel pins which were forever escaping from their moorings and rattling to the floor. She wore a long tweed jacket and skirt, more suited to the winter’s day than Kitty’s best silk.
The meager breakfast was spread among a selection of tarnished silver dishes on the sideboard. Selecting two pieces of kidney and a thin sliver of toast, Mrs. Harrison turned to her shivering daughter. “I do wish we could persuade Mr. Harrison to let you have a length of wool for a winter dress, my dear. But as it is, I am afraid you must wear your silk. We must always remember to keep up appearances in front of Lady Worthing for, although we cannot aspire to her level of society and must always know our place, I know she appreciates our efforts to be always well-dressed.”
Kitty edged toward the tiny fire in the grate that seemed unable to combat the stuffy cold of the overfurnished room with its heavy marble nudes—bought at an auction at Jobson’s in a rare extravagant mood by Mr. Harrison—the heavy red, plush chairs, the draped mantel crowded with photographs and ancient seaside shell mementos, the dining table swathed in three heavy cloths and the massive, threadbare velvet curtains with their dingy bobbles framing the winter’s scene of the Heath. Various oil paintings in need of cleaning decorated the walls with their massive gilt frames. Hot and airless in summer and cold and suffocating in winter, it seemed a fitting room for the massive, heavy Harrison meals of cuts of cheap meat and tired vegetables bought for a few pence at the end of the day, in the stalls of Camden Town market.
Mrs. Harrison was wont to bemoan the fact that no amount of solid feeding would plump out Kitty’s delicate, slim figure into the rounded hour-glass mold which was
so
fashionable. Mrs. Harrison had long put away dreams of getting a foot into high society by means of a dazzling marriage for her daughter. In her eyes, Kitty was plain and depressingly timid. The fact that her own overbearing personality had brought about the latter fault never once occurred to her and the more shy Kitty became, the more raucous and bullying her mother grew.
With a martyred sigh, she finished her breakfast. “Come along, Kitty. Don’t dawdle. Have you got your Bible? Now do remember to smile when Lady Worthing addresses you. It is a most important connection for me. “She hustled Kitty before her and out into the hallway, past the study door where her father sat alone with his mysterious accounts, and then into the freezing air of the winter’s day.
The frozen trees on the Heath stood mournfully under their coating of hoar frost and raised their twisted limbs up to the leaden sky as if praying hopelessly for spring.
Mrs. Harrison hurried up the icy road pushing Kitty in front of her like an angry mother hen with a recalcitrant chick. Kitty’s long tweed cape was insufficient to keep out the bite of the wind, sweeping over the frozen ponds on the Heath from Highgate. The way other people dreamt of riches or power, Kitty dreamt simply of warmth. Only listening with half an ear to her mother’s complaining monologue, she conjured up visions of enormous blazing fires burning merrily in bright uncluttered rooms.
“Kitty, you are
not
attending.”
“Yes, Mama. The housekeeper…”
“Exactly. It is a disgrace. Mrs. Bennet wants 70 pounds a year. Ridiculous, I told her. Servants these days are getting so uppity. I told her there were only three of us to care for and…”
Kitty went back to warm her hands at her dream fire. Cook-housekeepers came and went—each one more slovenly than the last. Mrs. Harrison always referred to each new addition as “our old retainer.”
“I would turn her off tomorrow but one must look after old servants,” unaware that everyone knew that the old retainer had been with them only a few months.
At last they reached the church. Kitty waved to several of her old schoolfriends and got a lecture from her mother. “You must cut these connections, Kitty. Not at all the thing. Miss Bates’s seminary may have been excellent for the money, but do remember these are the daughters of
shopkeepers
. You must try to get more elegant connections.”
Kitty bowed her head and followed her mother into the church. The familiar Anglican smell of oil heaters, damp prayer books, and incense greeted her. With a sinking heart, she noticed that Lady Worthing was already ensconced in her pew with her two daughters, Ann and Betty. As usual, she was unseasonably hatted. Her puglike face stared round the church from the shadow of a broad-brimmed straw hat that was topped up with a plethora of shiny, hard, wax fruit. The dead skins of several small ferrety animals hung around her ample bosom, their glass eyes gazing fixedly at the congregation in a ludicrous parody of their owner’s stare.
The Reverend James Ponsonby-Smythe was reading from the Old Testament and the passage he had selected seemed entirely composed of who begat whom. Kitty sat on in an agony of boredom. Her despised friends were giggling and whispering and passing each other notes. “What fun it would be to be part of it all,” thought poor Kitty. “Must I always be condemned to live in this sort of social isolation—neither belonging to the one class or the other?”