Murder at Mullings--A 1930s country house murder mystery Page 2

  In the coming years her opinion of Lord Stodmarsh as a kind and considerate man was confirmed, as was the case with Lady Stodmarsh in her gentle way. When Florie’s father died unexpectedly, Mrs Longbrow told her that the master and mistress wished to see her in the drawing room to express their sympathy. She returned to the kitchen additionally heartened by permission to go home for a week without loss of wages. On every Christmas Day each member of the staff was presented with a gift, handkerchiefs or gloves, and on New Year’s Eve the entire staff was invited into the hall for a celebratory cup of punch.

  By the age of twenty-four Florie was head housemaid and had gained sufficient assurance of being liked and respected at Mullings to no longer feel the need to conceal the fact that much of her free time was spent reading. Indeed, on encountering Lord Stodmarsh outside Craddock’s Antiquarian Bookshop one Saturday afternoon, she unhesitatingly responded to his enquiry as to what she had purchased by showing him the volume – a copy of The Tempest.

  ‘Ah, yes!’ his eyes revealed a wistful gleam. ‘When I was a very young man we performed that play at the house. I played Prospero. Wonder where my costume for that part and others went! I expect up to some trunk in the attics. We Stodmarshes have always been loath to throw away anything that might one day be put back to use, even a hundred years hence! Good day to you, Florie. I trust you find your mother well if you are about to go and visit her.’ How could some members of the gentry regard him as a buffoon? He hesitated before adding, ‘I hear you and the younger Norris boy are courting. I consider you both fortunate.’

  Florie knew herself to be so. The Norrises were the tenants of Farn Deane, the home farm. She had become acquainted with Mrs Norris, conversing pleasantly in the village street, before being invited to tea on a day off when she wasn’t going home because her mother had gone to nurse a cousin who was ill. It was on that occasion that she met Robert, the older son – his brother Tom was off at market – and was immediately drawn to him. She liked his warm respect for his parents; saw he had a sense of humor that had at its core a keen intelligence. And there was something else. A fluttering of attraction that had her fearing she would flush when he looked at her. He wasn’t handsome – his build was too lanky, his face long and bony – but she felt that he was a man she’d never tire of seeing come through the door.

  Florie and Robert married within the year and such was her happiness that she felt little sadness at leaving Mullings. Besides, she could frequently walk over for a visit with the staff or have them over to visit. Tom was yet unmarried and shortly after Florie’s settling in at Farn Deane her mother-in-law suffered a heart attack, which left her permanently fatigued and often breathless. It was a relief to her and her husband that Florie could take over the running of the house. As the years passed without her conceiving, Florie tried not to give up hope that she and Robert would be surprised, like other couples, by the eventual arrival of a baby. Otherwise their marriage had in every way fulfilled the promise of their courtship.

  Then came the declaration of war against Germany in 1914. A dark cloud swamped the village at the thought of its young – and not so young – men donning uniforms and marching off to who knew what fate. The former bootboy at Mullings, now a tanner’s assistant, was amongst the first group to go. Florie shared the general anguish, but had little dread for Robert or his brother Tom: surely farmers were too much needed at home to be called upon. She should have known her husband would writhe against what he perceived as an avoidance of duty. One sunny morning – she was always to remember the incongruity of the cloudless sky – he told her the decision he had reached. Tom could manage well enough without him and their father, although in his sixties, still relished getting up at five and going down to the barns and dairy before heading for the fields. There was no argument she could bring to this, and the depth of her love for him and her respect for his viewpoint made selfish pleas unthinkable.

  She knew with a numbed certainty the day she saw him off in 1915 that she would never see him in this life again. She read the same anguished awareness in his mother’s eyes and they clung together before reminding themselves it was wash day and humble duties must go on. A telegram brought the news of Robert’s death three months later. Florie was yet another war widow; more fortunate than many in that she didn’t have to worry about keeping a roof over her head or putting food into hungry little mouths. And yet she chafed to leave Farn Deane, to escape the aching emptiness of rooms he would never again enter. Unfortunately she was more needed than ever, especially when her mother-in-law died in 1919. Everything changed the following year, when Tom married Gracie, a farmer’s daughter from Kingsbury Knox, who was more than capable taking over the household reins.

  Florie was considering her future with an optimism she had not felt for a long time, when Mrs Longbrow, the housekeeper under whom she had worked at Mullings and who was now well into her seventies, came to see her. This was not an unusual occurrence – she quite often stopped by for a cup of tea and a chat – and Florie had retained her fond interest in life at Mullings. She had gone to the church to see Lionel marry and had grieved when he and his wife were killed in a motoring accident, the fault of the other driver, on returning home from a weekend in London. They left behind them a two-year-old son named Edward after his grandfather but called Ned. His presence, Mrs Longbrow had assured Florie on several occasions, had done a world of good in bringing solace to Lord Stodmarsh and his good lady. Mr William had also married. When those who had not seen his bride asked for a description of her, the most frequent response was, a fine figure of a woman – so often the more tactful way of saying stout. On the occasion of her latest visit to Farn Deane, Mrs Longbrow brought news on her own account.

  ‘It’ll be a sad wrench, Florie, but the time has come for me to take life easier. I’m going to live with my widowed sister in Weymouth, and what I’m here to suggest is you take over from me at Mullings. You’re the right age, close enough to what I was when I was taken on as housekeeper.’

  Florie’s teacup rattled as she set it down in its saucer. ‘It’s very good of you to think of me.’

  ‘I did think of you,’ the old lady’s face crinkled into a smile, ‘but it was His Lordship that suggested it. He’s always thought very highly of you. So don’t go disappointing him or Lady Stodmarsh, who’s none too well, as you’ll have heard – crippled now with the rheumatism and so tired much of the time.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Longbrow – there’s nothing I’d like better.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief! I’m sure it won’t make difficulties that Mr Grumidge the butler and some other members of the staff are new since your day. You’ve got what it takes to get along without giving in, which, when it comes down to it, is what this job entails.’

  And so Florie returned to Mullings at the age of thirty-five. In doing so, she felt that she had left Robert’s grief-imprinted image behind at Farn Deane, allowing her to remember only the happiness. She received an especially warm and respectful welcome from Mrs McDonald the cook, who looked very little different from the old days, and was just as nimble on her feet despite her fifteen stone.

  ‘Nice, hard-working little Florie is how I thought of you when you first come here, Mrs Norris, if you’ll forgive the remembering.’

  Almost imperceptibly over the years she had become ‘Florence’ to her family, with the exception of her cousin Hattie Fly in London, whom she did not see as often as she would have liked, but was in regular correspondence. In the eyes of the others, she had gone too far up in the world from her beginnings for ‘Florie’ to be right or proper. She wished it weren’t that way, but nothing she lovingly said or did had any effect, except to bring awkwardness to the situation. Even her mother rarely slipped back to the shortened version. Other than Hattie, there was only one person who still addressed her as Florie.

  This was little Ned Stodmarsh. Now seven years old, he was a remarkably articulate child who quickly captivated her heart with his pluck a
nd 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?