Murder at Mullings--A 1930s country house murder mystery (10 page)

Despite this sensible way of viewing the matter, Florence went down to the kitchen to have her nightly cup of tea with Mrs McDonald in an unsettled frame of mind. That good lady had the kettle boiling as she entered.

‘Well, there you are, Mrs Norris, and ready for a sit-down without having to do your sums,' she said. ‘I hope you wasn't startled when Annie let out that squeal.'

‘I heard it. What was that about?'

‘Hard to make head nor tail of it, the state she was in. I'd been having a chat with Molly in the china closet and didn't charge off straight away to find out what was going on.' Mrs McDonald warmed the pot, then spooned in tea leaves and filled it from the steaming kettle. ‘Has it ever run through your mind, Mrs Norris, that there might be a little something between Molly and Mr Grumidge?'

‘No, I can't say it has.' Molly was the sensible, robust girl Florence had suggested to the Stodmarshes as the ideal person to be Ned's maid, amongst her other duties, when Nanny Stark left. She was now chief housemaid.

‘Well, I have to admit I've got it into my wee noggin that there's a fondness on both sides – nothing improper, of course – but I was rather hoping Molly would confide in me this evening. Maybe she would've done if Annie hadn't let out that squeal. I suppose it took five minutes to find out what it was this time.'

‘And?' Florence took the teapot, now dressed in its knitted cozy, and set it on the stand on the table.

‘Like I said, I couldn't get a tenth of it with all that blubbering and my ears being a bit blocked from this little cold I've got. It was utter gibberish mostly. The gist of it seemed to be that while she was heating the milk to take up to Lady Stodmarsh she saw a mouse. Well, at any rate, something about a mouse. If it had been Jeanie I'd've told her to stop her bellyaching and pull herself together. Of course, that one's tough as nails. Wouldn't turn a hair if a lion marched in and demanded his dinner – meaning her. Our Annie's always been a different story.'

‘Poor girl! She truly does have a terror of mice.' Florence sympathized, not liking them herself. This likely explained Lady Stodmarsh's mentioning that there had been a little too much bicarbonate of soda in the milk. Annie's hand would have been shaking uncontrollably when spooning it in. ‘But she must be given credit, Mrs McDonald, for taking the milk up anyway.'

‘She said something about that, too, that I didn't bother to unravel. I sent her straight off to bed, without saying what I thought – that it should be a pleasure for her, or for Jeanie, taking on this little extra job now that poor Miss Johnson isn't up to it.'

Jeanie was the other kitchen maid. Though she was not by any means a nervous Nellie, Florence had a higher opinion of Annie. Both were diligent workers, but if ever Jeanie had a mishap she was always filled with excuses to the point of lying. If she dropped a plate it was because someone had nudged her, if the soup tureen was in the wrong place it was because Annie had told her to put it there. Florence's mind returned to what bothered her more – the brief conversation with Lady Stodmarsh. Brief, but disturbing. She was relieved that after finishing only one cup of tea, Mrs McDonald looked more than ready for bed. They parted in the corridor of the female staff's sleeping quarters and Florence went into her room, expecting to lie wide awake for hours.

After taking her evening wash and brushing out her hair she got into bed and almost instantly fell asleep. Her slumber was, however, restless and she bolted upright, startled awake, when it was still dark. The end of a dream, fading with each second, had dislodged the reason for her unease that week and it slotted neatly, with only a couple of loose threads, into what Lady Stodmarsh had struggled to tell her last night. Shivering, she was about to lie down and pull the bedclothes close, when the door opened. The ceiling light switched on and Molly, the ever solid head housemaid, came into the room. Florence's heart hammered. It was obvious from the look on that usually rosy face that something was terribly wrong.

T
hat Monday morning, Alf Thatcher delivered the sad news from Mullings to a good many residents of Dovecote Hatch along with the early morning post. The shock of it had nearly caused him to tumble off his bike on the Mullings woodland path, near where Lord Stodmarsh had wrenched his ankle not so long ago. One of his early stops was at Farn Deane.

‘Say that again,' Gracie Norris, every inch the popular concept of a farmer's wife with her florid face, wiry hair and rotund build, stared back at Alf from the open farmhouse doorway.

‘Lady Stodmarsh is gone.' Alf's lined face worked. ‘Slipped away in the middle of the night, quiet as a mouse. Nobody heard a peep.'

Gracie admitted to her husband Tom later that she'd gone soft in the head for a moment picturing a knotted sheet rope being tossed out of a bedroom window followed by a nightgowned leg coming over the sill. Then of course the penny dropped. ‘You mean she's died, Alf?' Even as she said this she clutched at straws. Could he be talking about Mrs William Stodmarsh? A nice enough woman, no doubt, but not the sort to inspire village loyalty, and with all that weight on her maybe a stroke had been just a matter of time.

‘Afraid so. His Lordship woke around four-thirty and went to look in on her, like he often does during the night.'

Not Mrs William, then. It had been foolish to hope.

‘Doctor said she'd been gone hours before he found her.' Alf sank down on the step. ‘Pegs are still unsteady under me. Heartbreaking, in't it?'

‘Best come in, lad, for a cup of tea,' said Gracie kindly. ‘Get something inside you before you get back on your bike. I suppose it shouldn't come as a shock, what with her having been poorly all these years, but it fair knocks you back, it being so sudden, don't it?'

She led Alf into the friendly-looking kitchen hung about with cooking utensils and other housewifely paraphernalia. Her mind was filled with what would be going on this minute up at Mullings. Oh, poor Lord Stodmarsh … she winced away from the image conjured. Then there was Florence. Gracie still considered her a sister-in-law, though Robert had been gone these many years. It couldn't be said that her and Florence had become close friends; since marrying Tom, Gracie's life had been wrapped around him and the farm. And, Florence was reserved, but – like Tom said – you couldn't know her without feeling the world wasn't such a bad old place after all.

‘Heart attack, was it?' Sighing, Gracie drew out a kitchen chair for Alf.

He sat down gratefully. ‘Seems that's what Doc Chester thinks – that her ticker just gave out. Said all those tablets and whatnot she had to take for the pain gets to be hard on the system. But there was no way round it with her rheumatics being so bad. He'd just left when I got to Mullings.'

‘Who told you what'd happened?'

‘Jeanie Barnes as works in the kitchen. I always take the post round the back and hand it in. The other one, Annie Long, was all of a heap. Quaking sort of lass at the best of times.'

Gracie set the kettle on the stove. ‘My heart bleeds, it does, for His Lordship.' Her voice cracked and tears glistened in her eyes. ‘That good man won't know what's hit him.'

‘That's what keeps going round in my head.' Alf nodded bleakly. ‘Your Florence come into the kitchen just as I was leaving. Looked and sounded calm enough, like you'd expect of her, but she has to have taken it bad, her having bin with the family on and off since she wasn't much more than a child, and always so devoted to the family. The ground may've shifted under Mullings, but she'll hold things steady.'

Gracie nodded. ‘Fourteen, she was, when she first started out there. Two years younger than what Master Ned is now, and him still but a lad. Florence started bringing him for tea here one Sunday a month when he was around six or seven and now he's over here every chance he gets, eager to learn all Tom can teach him about farming. Right fond he is – was – of his grandma, though it's clear Florence is more of what you'd call a mother figure to him, her having done most of the rearing of him since she went back to Mullings. I've heard him say, time out of mind, he wouldn't know what he'd do if she ever left.'

‘I can see why, though it in't what you could call realistic not to figure that one day she mightn't want a personal life again.'

‘Lads Master Ned's age don't tend to be realistic.' Gracie filled the glazed brown teapot. ‘I've nephews of similar years that's making their mums and dads tear their hair out.'

‘I suppose it's bin that way since Adam and Eve annoyed God; either visit people with floods or plagues of young 'uns.' It settled Alf's mind a little to shift his thoughts sideward. ‘You'll know Florence has been seeing something of Birdie these past months. Me an' Doris have had them over for Sunday dinner a few times and yesterday she took him to meet her fam'ly. Oh, they both say it's naught but a friendship, but I can't keep from hoping that it'll come to something more. Though don't go telling Doris I said so, Gracie, if you meet up. She'd have my innards for garters.'

‘My lips are sealed, Alf.'

His face turned bleak again. ‘Shouldn't be getting off the subject of Lady Stodmarsh – it isn't decent.'

‘Rubbish!' Gracie placed a cup of strong tea in front of him. ‘Thinking hopefully is what gets us through the rough spots in life. Tom and I've been thinking along those same lines about Florence and George Bird. We don't see it would be any disrespect to Robert's memory if she was to marry again. It'd be what he'd want. Lord and Lady Stodmarsh gave them the loveliest dinner service ever. Real china. It's still here, seeing as Florence took nothing much when they wed but her clothes and a framed photograph of Robert when she went back to Mullings, and I'll be more than happy to pack it up for her if she has a home of her own to take it.'

‘Of course,' Alf shook his head, ‘like we just bin reminded – there's no telling what lies round the next corner.'

‘Now, don't go all morbid, saying each and every one of us could pop our clogs tomorrow. God doesn't get his fun that way. Let's think positive about Florence and George.' Gracie poured him more tea, set a plate of hot buttered toast in front of him and sat down at the table with her own cup. ‘It's a good thing you're doing, Alf, spreading the word about Lady Stodmarsh being called above. It's best to let the village know as soon as possible, so people can comfort each other.' She blew on her tea to cool it.

‘You're a good 'un, Gracie.'

‘Feeling more yourself, are you, lad? Whatever will my Tom say when he comes in from milking? I'll wait here to give him the bad news, and then get over to see Florence. Or maybe, come to think of it, I'd do better giving you a note to take to her. Things are bound to be at sixes and seven today. Would I be sending you much out of your way, Alf?'

‘It wouldn't matter if it did, but I'll tell you what – I always finish up at the Dog and Whistle, so's to have a chat with George. He's going to be upset when I break the news to him, especially for Florence. I'm sure he'd want to telephone her right away, but knowing what things will be like today at Mullings, I'd think he'll also decide on sending something written for the time being, so as soon as I leave him I'll take the woodland path back to Mullings.'

‘Thanks, Alf. I'll ask Florence what'd be a good time for me to come and see her, or if she'd rather Tom picked her up and brought her here. What a sorrowful day this'll be for everyone hereabouts.'

Alf managed to finish off a piece of toast. ‘Them I've already told took it bad, and it'll be the same all over Dovecote Hatch. Lady Stodmarsh mayn't have got out and about much in recent years, but a sweeter lady there never was.'

Let him talk himself through the shock of it, before getting back on his bike
, thought Gracie. She had her own memories to share. ‘They had me and Tom over for tea in the drawing room, she and His Lordship did, when we was about to be wed. Treated us like they was grateful we'd bothered to come, and gave us a very nice wedding present, just like they did Florence and Robert. Ours was enough linen sheets and pillowcases to last us out and our children too, if we'd had any. Along with that was a beautiful bedspread and eiderdown.

‘The only person with anything bad to say about Lord and Lady Stodmarsh was Hilda Stark, that got turned out after being Master Ned's nanny, despite them treating her fairer than she deserved when it came to a pension or whatever. And what she put around about Master Ned's other granny being poorly a time or two don't bear repeating. Wicked, is what she is!' Gracie's eyes sparked. ‘As Tom and I well remember, Florence was on her enemy list, too, for having supposedly got her the shove. There's always one of Hilda Stark's sort, more's the pity. You'll find them in a convent of nuns bobbing up and down in prayer, no doubt! Reckon she only decided to shut her mouth when she realized she was doing herself more harm than good with the villagers.'

‘You're right for the most part about that,' Alf agreed, polishing off his second slice of toast, ‘although she did have a dig at Miss Bradley after that lady come to live at Mullings. One time when Hilda was at the Dog and Whistle, she dredged up about Miss Bradley being stood up at the church; said as how the man could've had good reason for ducking out. Birdie laid into her good and proper.'

‘Rightly so,' said Gracie staunchly, ‘though I have to admit thinking to myself that there can be two sides to one story. On the face of it the bridegroom sounds a wretched excuse for a man, but what if something happened at the last minute? Perhaps he saw her do something nasty and realized he couldn't abide living with her till one of them kicked the bucket.'

‘It won't do, Gracie.' Alf shook his head. ‘He should've told her he was ducking out ahead of time, not left her to face the organ music, waiting on him like a figure of fun.'