Murder at Mullings--A 1930s country house murder mystery (3 page)

This was little Ned Stodmarsh. Now seven years old, he was a remarkably articulate child who quickly captivated her heart with his pluck and mischief, which Mrs Longbrow was complacently certain he'd outgrow. Equally endearing to Florence were his ginger hair and freckles. He rarely mentioned his parents, but Florence was sure that he had not forgotten them completely even though he had been several months short of his third birthday when the accident occurred. She discovered shortly after her return to Mullings that his learning of the accident and the consequence that his mother and father weren't ever coming home to him again had imprinted itself starkly on his little mind.

Shortly after midnight one evening, a tap came at her bedroom door. It was Ned's nanny, dressing gown sagging off one shoulder and cord untied. The ring of housekeeping keys lay on the dressing table, but Florence, having just finished writing a lengthy letter to Hattie, was still in her navy-blue dress with the round, silver-plated brooch Robert had given her on their wedding day at its throat. Surprise escalated into concern as she faced the woman – saw her lean into the wall, hand pressed against it as if to maintain her balance.

So far Florence had had few encounters with her. From these she had gained only an impression of sombre bustle and a disinclination to continue a conversation, let alone start one. She appeared to be in her late fifties, a shortish woman of medium build with coarse, graying hair. Anything more meaningful had been learned from other members of the staff, not Ned. She was a Miss Hilda Stark, previously employed by a family named Rutledge in the northern part of the county. Understandably, she was now bleary-eyed and frowsy-haired, as anyone would be after being roused from a night's slumber – or, possibly, from being drunk. Florence caught the fumes of whisky from her breath. Saw her stagger when her hand slipped off the wall. Belligerence, rather than distress, contorted her features.

‘What's wrong, Nanny? Is Master Ned ill?' The enquiry was unusually sharp for Florence.

‘Not the fever sort of ill.' She noted the thickened, slurred voice. ‘Just his nibs having a screaming fit; woke from a nightmare, he said; but if you ask me it was sheer naughtiness. Claimed he'd go on bellowing the house down if I didn't fetch you.'

‘Had he calmed down when you left?'

The mouth worked itself into a grimace. ‘I told him I wouldn't take a step if he didn't. What I should've done was tape his wretched mouth shut.'

‘Not so easy to do for someone lacking control of her limbs.' This was a Florence even Robert wouldn't have recognized. She'd never at Mullings had to deal with such an ugly situation, but now she had to get to Ned.

‘And why wouldn't I be all of a shake, roused out of a deep sleep by that ear-piercing racket he made? You saying anything different will be a wicked lie that'll you pay dear for!'

The woman's face, contorted by spite, verged on the grotesque, with its florid complexion and slack lips, spittle dribbling down her chin. Did she see no reason to rein herself in, or was she too sozzled to know half of what she was saying?

‘Go down to the kitchen and get yourself a cup of hot milk,' Florence ordered, and brushed past her to head down the corridor. She had been sorely tempted to add, ‘and not a buttered rum', but to have aggravated the situation would have been foolhardy. The respectable front that Nanny would seem to have created for herself, at least to pass muster in daylight hours, had abandoned her – or she it. She hurled her response at Florence's retreating back. That the words were slurred did not lessen their force.

‘Hot milk, my foot! That slop's for the likes of the mistress. It's a wonder nobody's dosed her nightly cup with more than the bicarb she takes in it! Talk about enjoying ill health to the hilt! You'd think her husband for one would've had enough of it by now. The man might as well be wed to his grandma for all the good that limp lily will do him under the sheets! Or would it be more respectful to say Lillian, you posh-voiced stuck-up piece?'

Florence pivoted. ‘Either go downstairs without another word or I'll rouse Mr Grumidge, who I'm sure will be in agreement that you should be removed from this house within the hour.' She waited for the woman to go before continuing along the corridor and taking the short flight of steps to the night nursery. First things first. She needed urgently to make sure that Ned was all right; then she would decide whether or not to wait till morning to report the situation to the butler.

Even in the short, narrow bed, Ned looked pathetically small when Florence went in to him. The room was dimly lit, accentuating his pallor amidst the freckles. She loved those freckles, loved everything about him, even at his naughtiest times.

She sat down on the coverlet beside him, her heart aching, brimming with the need to reassure him of the wakeful world's safety.

‘Tell me, dear.' She gently cupped his hand in hers, as if cradling a wounded bird.

‘It was a bad, bad dream,' Ned whimpered, all his customary bravado gone. ‘It was the one I often have – about Mummy and Daddy. They hated having to go and live in the cemetery. They kept trying to tell people before they got buried that they were scared of going down into the dark and the cold. They didn't want to leave me or Mullings.'

‘No, of course they didn't; but when they got to heaven they'll have stopped being sad; knowing they'd always be with you – in a different, but very special way.'

‘I want to believe that … I do most of the time.' Ned relaxed against her shoulder. ‘You won't ever leave me; will you, Florie? Not ever in a hundred years, even when I'm older than Grandpa? Promise me you'll stay!' The green, amber-flecked eyes held hers in desperate appeal. ‘Promise, honour of a Stodmarsh. You're the nearest possible to one, aren't you?'

‘Well, it's very kind of you to think so. Your family has been a big part of my life for a long time now.' How should she continue? Florence had always thought it terribly wrong to lie to a child. She knew as well as anyone that in life there is no certainty; something can always happen beyond our control or deepest wishes that alters everything. Tomorrow, next week, next year, any time during his growing-up years, the ground could shift beneath her feet and his. But she couldn't bring herself to look into those stricken eyes and slide behind the use of unsatisfying soothing noises – saying she would do her level best; that he mustn't worry about it. She drew him to her and stroked the spiky ginger hair back from his damp brow.

‘I promise, Ned.' He had insisted sternly on her third day as housekeeper that she not address him as Master Ned. ‘But what's most important is that you'll grow up here with your grandparents; they love you enormously. And they're such wonderful people.'

‘Not more special than you.' The mulish note, which had undoubtedly irritated, if not infuriated, Nanny, entered his voice. ‘Grandfather is marvellous, of course, and I do love Grandmother, but being unwell all the time she can't ever play games or even read to me very long without getting tired. I know she can't help it, but anyway … I wish a blackbird would come down and peck off Nanny's nose for saying it's all put on.'

Florence answered carefully. ‘People can be mistaken in their views at times, as is the case with Nanny about this. Lady Stodmarsh most certainly does not wish to be ill.'

‘I know.' He patted her hand, becoming the soother. ‘Nanny tells fibs. Big ones. The vicar could put her in hell for it.'

‘Try not to think about her right now.' Hopefully the woman had made it down to the kitchen and had not yet returned to her bedroom, which had access to the night nursery through the communicating door. But Florence had heard no sound from behind it.

‘I hate Nanny! I know we're not right to hate anyone, but I do her! She told me I've a bad streak in me that I got from my mother … that she was wilful, too, and that she and Daddy probably had a row in the car that night that made the accident happen, and most likely it wasn't the other driver's fault at all.'

Florence, the even-tempered, was seized by an almost overpowering urge to haul Nanny out of the house by her hair. Mrs Longbrow had described Jane Tressler during her engagement to Lionel Stodmarsh as a spirited girl but sweet-natured with it. ‘No doubt sparks will fly between them, and so much the better for both!' Nothing Florence had heard afterwards suggested the couple were not ideally suited.

‘Ned, have you told your grandparents about this?'

‘No.' He stirred nervously within the circle of her arm. ‘She said if I told she'd say I was lying or imagining it – which would be worse, because …' his voice cracked and his small hand tightened on hers, ‘… because mad people make up things and we all know what happens to them. They get locked away.'

A physical pain stabbed through Florence's outrage. ‘You're a perfectly normal, healthy little boy. No one, especially Lord and Lady Stodmarsh, could think there's anything wrong with your mind.'

‘But they might start to wonder, not wanting to, but unable to help it because of my other grandmother. She had to be sent away for a while after Mummy was born because she started thinking all her teeth were rotting and about to fall out. And that her dog, a nice old spaniel that she loved, had got possessed by a devil and was going to tear her to pieces.'

‘Oh, Ned! The poor lady!'

‘She got better and came home.'

‘It happens to women sometimes after childbirth.'

‘Does it? Then maybe I needn't worry, because men don't have babies.' Ned shifted closer. ‘That's a good thing … although it seems unfair that it's always left to the mother and isn't turn and turn about with the father.'

‘There's something to that,' agreed Florence gravely, ‘but I think a lot of women like being the ones to have babies.'

‘Perhaps.' Ned stiffened. ‘But after the accident it happened again, and that time Grandmother Tressler was away longer. At a place called Meadow Vale.'

‘Again, Nanny could be mistaken.' Or might there be truth to this particular revelation? Ned hadn't accused Nanny of lying about this – and would the woman have bothered inventing the name of the facility?

Ned shook his head. ‘I overheard Uncle William and Aunt Gertrude talking about it before Grandma Tressler came to stay here for a fortnight last year. Uncle William got very loud. “For God's sake, old girl, don't go upsetting the woman and send her off the deep end again!”' The mimicry of the man's deep voice by a child was uncanny. ‘“We've never in the history of Mullings had to lock up a mad woman, and I'd just as soon not bloody well start now!”'

‘I'm sorry you had to hear that.' Florence fought down fruitless anger.

‘Then Aunt Gertrude said, “No one can disagree that she's mental, William, but I'm not sure that's quite the same as mad.”' Ned did almost as good a job with his aunt's stolid voice as with his uncle's bellicose one.

‘Did you say anything to your grandparents about this?'

‘Of course not.' Ned's chin went up. ‘That would have been dishonourable. Ungentlemanly. I shouldn't be telling you now, but …'

Florence reassured him, ‘It's helping fill in the picture about Nanny.'

‘You can guess what Uncle William roared back at Aunt Gertrude?'

‘My mind doesn't work as quickly as it should at night.'

‘“Balderdash!”'

Florence smiled, but she was remembering when she'd thought the notion of a mad woman being confined to a secret room was the height of enthralling mystery. She knew very little about Mrs Tressler, other than that her Christian name was Eugenie and that she had been widowed a year or so before her daughter and only child married Lionel Stodmarsh. And then, a few years later, she had lost that child in an accident. What woman might not have fallen apart – especially if she was at that time going through the change? There had been a woman two doors down from the house where Florence had grown up, who'd been ‘taken bad' after childbirth and then again in middle life. On the latter occasion she had not recovered, as it would seem Mrs Tressler had done.

‘It's Uncle William that makes scenes, not Aunt Gertrude. Anyway,' the bravado was creeping back, ‘who cares what they think?'

Florence stroked his arm. It was not permissible for her to comment on his relations' attitudes or behaviour, but what he said of his uncle and aunt was true. Loyalty did not prevent an inward denial of fact. William Stodmarsh was a blusterer and his wife a mild woman – outwardly, at least. Florence had wondered at times if her emotions were not as well corseted as her stout figure.

Ned yawned and after a moment turned on his side. ‘I think I can nod off now, Florie.'

‘Good.'

‘Stay a little while, please.'

In a couple of minutes he was asleep, but she waited another ten or so before getting off the bed and tapping on the communicating door. On opening it she saw, as expected from there having been no sound from that quarter, that Nanny had not returned. The bed did not look as though it had been slept in earlier. A bottle along with a glass containing an inch or two of whisky stood on a table next to an easy chair. Where was Nanny – passed out in the kitchen? Florence was halfway down the corridor when she heard heavy, laborious footsteps on the back stairs. A moment later, four persons came into view at the top – two of the maids holding Nanny up under the armpits and another propelling her from the rear. She went instantly to their assistance and with their combined efforts got Nanny into bed. The room was immediately filled with raucous snores.

Annie Long, a timid and extremely nervous kitchen maid, liable to collapse into hysterics if she heard the word mouse, let alone saw one, now burst into tears, and Florence hurried her and the other two girls out of the room.