Murder at Mullings--A 1930s country house murder mystery (8 page)

With little further said, Mrs Wilks led the way into the only downstairs room except for the kitchen. Here there was wallpaper that had to be sixty years old, with only one enlarged photograph hung from the picture rail, a sepia-tinted view of a grandiose house, at least three times the size of Mullings. A scarred dining room table and chairs occupied one corner. There was no couch; instead a scattering of mismatched, misnamed easy chairs huddled up to the unlit gas fire. Despite there not having been a hint of a chill to the day, its glow would have been welcome, if only to add a little colour.

Though he was rarely self-conscious, George wondered if the maroon tie he was wearing with his one and only suit might be a little too bright, and if he should have put on the black one he'd worn to Mabel's funeral. Then he realized from Florence's expression that things weren't going quite as well as she'd hoped and he beamed as if he felt right at home. When invited to sit down in the chair between Mrs Wilks and Florence, he did so to a cantankerous creaking of springs – not surprising, given his weight, although a fly landing on the seat would have brought the same result.

‘It's kind of you, Mrs Wilks, to let me come along with Florence.'

‘That's all right. She's told me a bit about you, of course. It's nice to know she has a new friend; so many of the old ones die off, even at her age.'

‘Well, so long as there's still some of us left kicking,' George managed jovially.

‘My other daughter, Ada, and her husband should've been here by now. Fred's got a cold or something.'

Florence wasn't entirely sorry that her brother wasn't coming; he'd grown sour since his wife had left him for a man who showed up at the door selling bibles. ‘She must have read that passage about “whither thou goest”,' Hattie Fly had said when hearing about it. But Florence didn't remember that now; her focus was on her mother. When had her voice become so flat? Where had the remembered magic flown?

‘How are you, Mother?' she asked.

‘Not so bad.'

Had she always sounded like this when she was not talking about what really interested her? Surely not. Or, a thought nudged unwillingly, had she always talked and not listened?

‘You look a little tired.'

‘No more than usual. You mustn't have Mr Bird taking me for an invalid, like your poor mistress at Mullings.'

‘A lovely woman, as more than Florence would tell you,' enthused George, wondering if he should offer to go and make the tea. There were no cups or saucers, let alone anything else set out to suggest it was forthcoming. It couldn't be expected, of course, the poor old lady didn't look or sound as though there was much spark left in her. Then, suddenly, it was there in her face and voice, a glimpse of how she must have looked when young and wholly alive.

‘Lady Tamersham was always the picture of bloom and health.' Her eyes went to the photograph on the wall. ‘That's Cragstone, the Tamershams' estate in Northumbria, where I was in service as a girl. I still believe there isn't another place to equal it. A dozen chandeliers in the drawing room, and the library designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and oh, the thrilling history of all the people who lived there before! Such personalities they all had! I suppose Florie's told you how she loved to hear me tell about the ornamental hermit?'

Until Mrs Wilks had got going on the topic of Cragstone and the Tamershams, George had thought her unlikely to put more than four or five words together at one time. Now he finally found himself relaxing, thoughts of a cup of tea forgotten, as she explained that what he'd taken to be a garden ornament was something – someone – much more interesting. She had many more stories to tell about Cragstone, of the very sort he'd hoped would be connected with Mullings. So absorbed did he become that he failed to notice that Florence sat silent.

For a few moments she too was captivated. This was the woman who had brought enchantment into her childhood, fuelling her imagination and stirring up a thirst for all the stories to be found in books. These were wonderful gifts for which she would be forever grateful, but there crept upon her a discomfort that shifted painfully into a revelation – one so clear she was startled she had not seen it before. It had to be sensing George's reaction that had brought enlightenment. Her mother had in a sense stopped living after leaving Cragstone. Any real enjoyment she experienced came from memories of that brief, gilded period of her youth. As a result, her own husband and children had always had limited reality for her – except as listening ears – and Florence had been the best listener. Other than that, she and the rest of her family had been pasted over by far more interesting images. One painful thought followed another. Florence could no longer believe her mother had refused her and Robert's invitation to come and live at Farn Deane because she had too many family ties in Westbridge. How much more likely that she'd been glad to have the house to herself at last – empty of human distractions, as it was of any comforts that might take her prisoner to the present. All she needed, all she wanted, was somewhere to sit and wait for time to dissolve into a mist, through which she could step at will to find Cragstone and the Tamersham family unchanged.

Florence wondered if she was exaggerating, as her mother's voice flowed on past George's occasional, interested questions. After all, her mother had been very interested in hearing about Mullings when Florence had first gone there, and still sometimes asked her to describe it and the Stodmarshes. But then she realized that was because her mother could make comparisons, as she had just now when saying how much the larger Cragstone was of the two houses, and bringing up the superiority of Lady Tamersham's health to that of Lady Stodmarsh, ignoring the fact that the mistress of Cragstone was a younger woman at the time.

Florence felt wicked for allowing such thoughts; but she couldn't will away the realization now it had forced its way in, after perhaps subconsciously poking at her for years. She would love her mother none the less for it, but with the knowledge that no deep feeling was returned.

‘I'll go and make a pot of tea,' she said, getting to her feet. ‘No,' seeing a large figure start to rise from the inadequate chair, ‘you stay put, George, it's been good listening to you and Mother chatting away, and perhaps you can tell her some stories about the Dog and Whistle.'

‘Yes, that would be nice.' Mrs Wilks' voice floated after Florence as she went out into the hall. ‘There was a Tudor inn not a mile from Cragstone, and the story goes that in the early eighteenth century the Tamersham heir set up a row of tankards on a shelf for target shooting and ever after claimed he'd proved himself a crack shot by getting the innkeeper square in the eye.'

‘Well, that's one to tell my regulars,' said George.

Florence couldn't tell from his voice whether this tidbit had gone down well or not. She was by now longing for the afternoon to be over, and the small, deplorably dilapidated kitchen only increased her desire to get away. There was no clutter, no things left about to liven the place up – no kettle on the coke stove and no sign of a cake or biscuits. The familiar brown teapot was in the cupboard with the cups and saucers. Its top was furred with dust. Pity took over. No one, especially her own mother, should have to live like this. Florence tried unsuccessfully to block the thought that it was unnecessary and therefore had to be a choice. Her sister Ada would have done all she could on a regular basis if she'd been allowed to help. Florence had heard her explain more than once to their mother that with her two children now grown she had time aplenty on her hands and would be glad to get out of her own house before she forgot the way to the front gate. Her husband had chimed in each time, saying he'd much sooner have his Ada down at her mother's than at the pub, or off to the dogs. But Mrs Wilks' response had always been firmly discouraging. If she didn't mind things the way they were, why should anyone else bother? She'd never liked cooking, that wasn't something new, and it wasn't as though she was letting herself go hungry. A piece of salt beef could be stretched to do the week, and there you were.

As for today, Florence knew Ada would have turned up an hour or so ago with the cake and got everything ready for tea if she hadn't been told not to come till later. Even their brother Fred would have done his bit if he'd felt wanted at this or any other time. It was best not to think about any of it any more right now, since doing so would impede her objective that George should have as enjoyable an afternoon as possible.

A search of the larder produced a saucepan, a tin of tea leaves, a third of a bottle of milk and a few digestive biscuits in a bag. No sign of sugar. George liked two teaspoons in his tea. Whilst waiting for the water to boil in the saucepan Florence heard footsteps, more than one pair of them, out in the hall. No need to take a look. That would be Ada and Bill, having let themselves in. Voices reached her from the sitting room. She took the teapot she'd washed over to the cooker and a couple of minutes later was carrying what she had assembled on a black enameled tray through the hall. Mrs Longbrow had long ago instilled in her the importance of a servant acquiring the habit of moving as soundlessly as possible, especially when above stairs. Habit carried over with Florence even when she was not at Mullings. The others could not have heard her; the sitting room door was open, but no one glanced her way as she was about to go in. The four of them were seated. George, Ada and Bill were talking cheerfully, but her mother sat silent, hands folded in her navy-blue lap. Something shifted in the recesses of Florence's mind. She was seeing something for the second time that week. She did not know what it was, just that it had some connection to the source of her unease. Never before had she been this tantalizingly close to knowing what it was. This time it did not slide away. It was snuffed out, as if by a firm hand. She had no opportunity to puzzle over the difference. There was movement in the room and Bill said to George: ‘I'll take the tray off Florence. Ada's always on at me about being a gent.'

‘Oh, go on with you! Anyone would think you was henpecked!' Ada roared a laugh.

She was a cheerfully fat woman with a mounded stack of hair and protruding eyes. In contrast, Bill was bald, short and skinny, with a habitually meek expression. Florence was fully aware that the timidity was cultivated for his and Ada's amusement. It was obvious from the gleam in George's eyes that he saw right through the charade and had taken to her sister and brother-in-law in a big way – they were his kind of people. She felt a pang of regret that she had not been as close to them over the years as she should have been. Fred had got in a dig at her more than once, saying she'd gone from a girl with a head stuffed with nonsense, to a buttoned-down woman who gave him a pain in the neck. She'd always dismissed this as completely unfair, but now she wondered, listening to George's laugh rise above Ada's, if Fred were right about her. She was rather relieved he wasn't here. He had soured considerably after his wife left him, and it wasn't only Florence he liked to criticize to the point of ridicule. Ada and Bill came in for their share, too. She'd heard him tell them they were the spitting image of the stout wife and petrified little husband in a comic seaside postcard. But was he right about her?

Ada and Bill had brought with them not only a cut-and-come-again cake but a plate of sandwiches – two kinds, fish paste and cheese and tomato. When everyone was seated, Florence was pleased to see her mother eat well and drink two cups of tea. Perhaps she'd been making mountains out of molehills, not just today, but for the better part of a week. It was so easy to let her imagination run away with her, especially as she had once had a tendency to be fanciful. ‘Backsliding' would have been Mrs Longbrow's word for it. ‘Form a bad habit and it'll always have a hold on you.' Florence smiled, remembering other strictures from the former housekeeper.

She and George stayed on for a very pleasant couple of hours. Both Ada and Bill looked sorry to see them go, but her mother was beginning to doze.

‘I like your family,' said George as they drove away. ‘Your sister and her husband remind me of Alf and Doris, down-to-earth sorts with hearts of gold. And your mother and I had that nice chat when we arrived.'

Florence looked at him. ‘Did she strike you as a little odd?'

‘Well,' he answered comfortably, ‘we all have bees in our bonnets about something or other, and hers is about that family she worked for years ago. And older people do tend to live in the past.'

‘Yes, but she was always that way. It struck me today, and I don't know why it took so long, that she never really left the Tamershams' estate in Northumbria.' Florence paused. ‘I do hope I won't end up that way when the time comes for me to retire – that I'll be able to put some emotional distance between me and Mullings.'

‘You'll do just fine, Florence. I've never heard you say anything as made me think you hankered after the place when you was at Farn Deane. If the old housekeeper hadn't asked you to go back I doubt you'd have thought of it.

‘You're probably right. What I'd been thinking about just before that conversation with Mrs Longbrow was to see if I could get a job at Craddock's.'

‘That would've suited you a treat, books counting such a lot with you. That last one you told me about kept me up at night, thinking.'

‘It was the same with me.' They turned on to the main road and Florence shifted the conversation to George's godson. ‘How's Jim doing?'

‘He wrote to say he'd met himself a nice girl.'

‘That sounds promising.'

George chuckled. ‘From the letter I just got from Sally and Arthur, I picture them down on their knees praying it isn't. Proper fusspots, the pair of them! They said she went by one of those silly, affected names that hoity-toity misses go in for these days, said they couldn't even be bothered to remember exactly what it was, but something like Fudge or …' George concentrated on turning a corner.