A Death in the Wedding Party (2 page)

The dinner party lasted long into the night. Rory, as butler, had the disputable joy of waiting up for the master to retire for the night. As I was awoken on more than one occasion during the night by shouts of excitement, it would seem the gentlemen had celebrated long into the night.

A new day dawned and I did not expect it to hold any surprises for me. Tipton had been Lord Stapleford’s right-hand man for some time now. His marrying Richenda did little more than formalise his position within the family. Of course, there would be the marriage day itself, but I had no doubt that it would be held in London amidst the grandest of the fashionable crowd. It might well be that Richenda (who I had never liked since she locked me in that cupboard
⁵
) would be giving us all the gift of the family’s absence for some time. I smiled at myself in my tiny mirror. I felt sure it was going to be a very good day.

Then someone screamed.

______________

¹
See my journal,
A Death in the Highlands
, for full details.

²
See my first journal
A Death in the Family

³
For all these shenanigans please see
A Death in the Asylum

⁴
Despite me being almost twenty, my mother would make me wash my mouth out with soap for criticizing our sovereign

⁵
See
A Death in the Family

In Which Things Become Even More Disordered

As a servant I have come to hear many screams. The surprised squeak of a housemaid caught alone upstairs is a sharp piercing noise as opposed to, say, the wail of a scullery maid who has dropped a piece of fine china and is watching her next three months’ wages lie shattered on the floor.

But this was a different kind of scream. This was the scream of a woman in fear of her life. I picked up my skirts and ran.

I had finally taken over the old housekeeper’s room on the ground floor, so I rushed into the central hall with its large staircase. I hoped to be able to ascertain the direction of the scream. Another scream broke over my ears echoing more loudly. The noise came from upstairs. Disregarding my duty to use the servants’ stairs I pelted up the main staircase. Still the sound came from above. I rushed up the stairs once more and turned onto the wing with the main guests suites. As I did so, Rory darted out of one the servants’ passageways onto the corridor.

‘Where?’ he gasped.

We both stopped and waited. Another scream gave us a direction. ‘This way,’ I cried.

‘Euphemia!’ shouted Rory. ‘Wait!’

I flung open the door of Baggy Tipton’s bedroom and almost fell over Daisy, our newest maid. She was lying on the floor soaking wet. Her eyes wide with terror as she turned her face to me. A large red stripe ran from her temple to her chin. In front of me stood Tipton his hand raised and in that hand a whip.

Without thinking I stepped over the sobbing maid and put myself between her and her assailant. Those treacherous eyes, the only part of him that had not been covered when he attacked Mrs Wilson, bored into mine. His hand was still raised. I lifted my chin and faced him as an equal daring him, without words, to do his worst.

I have no idea if he would have hit me, as Rory appeared that moment in the door way and let out a startled, ‘Dear God in heaven! What has happened here?’

Tipton broke off from my gaze and looked past me to answer him. ‘The shaving water was cold,’ he said. He smoothed one hand through his hair as he dropped the whip onto a chair. ‘Have some more sent up at once.’ His voice chilled me. There was no note of anger nor regret. ‘And have my lazy valet sent up to me,’ he added. ‘I need to be presentable this morning.’

Rory began to answer, stammering confirmation of his instructions. I helped Daisy to her feet. ‘Come,’ I said. ‘We should go.’

I took her down the servants’ stair because I did not wish her to be seen by the family. I was all too aware that they would be more likely to blame her than Tipton. ‘I can’t lose this job. I can’t,’ the poor girl kept whimpering.

‘You won’t,’ I assured her. ‘And very soon we will be rid of that man and Lady Richenda.’

‘Oh no,’ said Daisy. ‘She said she’d make me her lady’s maid.’

‘If you follow her then you will be on the Tipton staff,’ I pointed out gently.

We emerged into the warm light of the kitchen. Mrs Deighton came hurrying forward. ‘Do you have any of your salve made up, Mrs Deighton?’ I asked. ‘Poor Daisy has had an accident.’

‘Accident be blowed,’ said our stalwart cook. ‘The man’s a menace.’

‘Oh no,’ said Daisy. ‘He said the water was cold. It was my fault.’

‘You shouldn’t have been taking up shaving water to him in the first place,’ I said.

‘But he kept ringing and ringing.’

Rory entered the kitchen. He looked pale around the mouth. ‘Where is that damn man’s valet?’

‘Avoiding his master is my best guess,’ I said.

‘I see,’ said Rory. ‘Then I think I will have a wee word with that mannie. Making a lassie do his dirty work. And you, Daisy, take the day off. Remain in your room and use compresses to ease the swelling. You cannot be seen with a face like that.’ He gave me a challenging look.

He had no right to order about my staff, but I completely agreed with his decision. ‘An excellent idea,’ I said. ‘If it wouldn’t be too much trouble to get the scullery maid to take a portion of our meals up to Daisy, Mrs Deighton. I hate to cause you more work.’

‘Think nothing of it,’ said Mrs Deighton. ‘I just have to burn those French kippers Mr Tipton is so fond of and then I will be right with you.’

Haddock poached in milk for you, my girl. It’ll set you up nice.’

And with that we all dispersed to our daily duties. I was careful to ensure that none of the maids were left alone with Tipton. He had never struck a member of our staff before, but I had no intention of giving him further opportunity.

The day went by with no pronouncement about the engagement. If Rory had not witnessed it too I would have begun to think it had been a fanciful dream. It was all very strange.

We had managed to get through luncheon with no further alarums. Sitting down to table had been only Tipton, Richenda and Lord Richard Stapleford, her brother. Her younger half-brother, Bertram, was away still overseeing the repairs to White Orchards, the estate he had impulsively bought and which was sliding slowly into the fens. For a brief time I had been housekeeper there before the kitchen floor vanished in a pile of dust and we all came back home to roost, as it were.

Perhaps I thought they were waiting for Bertram to return before putting any plans into action, but he had never seemed of particular importance to his step brother and sister. Beside they knew, though none of us spoke of it, that he and I had worked against them.

I was desperately in need of Merry’s companionship. Her jauntily outlook on life always shook me out of my gloom, but as best I could understand it, she had snuck away with our ex White Orchards footman and now chauffeur, Merrit, to show him ‘some views.’ I knew I should make a fuss when she returned, but between Rory and I we ran an extremely well-ordered house. And I, at least, was well aware of the strain of working for the Staplefords. Indeed they had only originally hired me, without references, because they simply could not keep staff.

The bell rang in the drawing room. It was time for Richenda to change her mind about dinner. This happened most days. I smoothed down my plain, black housekeeper’s dress and made my way to the drawing room.

Opening the door I was surprised to see all three senior members of the household waiting for me. ‘Wonderful news,’ said Richenda, before I was even fully inside the room. ‘We shall be having the wedding here. ‘

My jaw dropped.

‘That won’t be a problem, will it Euphemia?’ she continued. ‘I am thinking of only around three hundred guests.’

‘Three hundred guests,’ said Mrs Deighton, ‘Three hundred! Lord above.’ Mrs Deighton was sitting down in the kitchen for the first time in living memory.

‘I suppose it is quite normal for a young woman to get married from her family home,’ opined Rory.

‘I thought they’d all head up to London,’ I said. ‘We can’t accommodate that many people in the Hall and there is only one decent inn in the village.’

Rory shrugged. ‘I expect people will motor down and back. It is all the rage now.’

‘Hmm, trust Miss Richenda to try and do something fashionable,’ said Mrs Deighton with vehemence. ‘It will all end in tears, you see if it doesn’t.’

‘What we need to do,’ I said,’ it get some realistic plans put together. We know she will reject most of the ideas, so we’ll need to encourage her in the right direction.’

‘Oh, Euphemia,’ cried Mrs Deighton. ‘I’m too old for all this. This is it! They’ll send me packing without a pension!’

The cook threw her apron over her head and sobbed.

‘Can we use caterers?’ I asked Rory. ‘ Wouldn’t that be fashionable?’

A loud wail came from beneath the apron.

‘I think we may need something a wee bit more drastic than that,’ said Rory. And for the first time in a very long time I saw his eyes begin to twinkle. ‘And I think I know just the thing.’

‘Aye, it’s newts, sir. Baby ones.’

Lord Stapleford, Rory McLeod and I were standing in far too close proximity in Lord Stapleford’s bathroom. Despite the tradition of shaving water being brought up boiling from the kitchen, Stapleford Hall was a comparatively new building and had a most advanced plumbing system.

We all stared down into the bathwater. It wriggled. ‘Maid claimed they came out of the tap,’ said Sir Richard in a bemused way. I struggled not to giggle. The situation was too ludicrous.

He turned on the cold tap again and clear water flowed. ‘Must have been all the little blighters,’ he said sounding relieved.

‘We can hope so,’ said the butler darkly.

‘What do you mean, man?’ demanded his master.

‘It’s just in my experience an infestation is not likely to be small.’

‘Infestation? What the blithering …’

A loud scream curtailed the conversation. A shudder went down my spine, but almost at once I realised it was not Daisy.

‘Me sister,’ said Lord Stapleford and much to my surprise trotted as fast as a man in an overly tight suit could along the corridor. Rory did not follow, but leaned against the walk, his lip curling in a most unprofessional manner.

I cast him a suspicious look and ran after the figure of Lord Stapleford as it disappeared into his sister’s boudoir. The sight that met my eyes would not have looked out of place on the vaudeville stage. Richenda stood on a chair, her skirts held high, screaming her head off. I noticed the thin legs of the chair shivered under her weight. ‘My lady, I think you should come …’

‘There! There!’ shouted Richenda pointing at an overturned table. ‘A monster!’

I bent down to examine the remnants of her mother’s floral tea service that now lay in pieces across the floor. The pattern wasn’t to my taste, but I couldn’t see anything monstrous about it.

‘The s-s-spout!’ cried Richenda. The chair frame gave an alarming crack. Richard handed his sister swiftly down, and pushed her behind him. I advanced upon the tea set. The tea-pot was lying on its side towards her and away from me. Miraculously it remained intact. I turned it carefully towards me and a little greenish face peered back at me from the spout. I blinked in surprise and a small forearm pushed its way through the opening.

‘Oh, the poor thing is stuck!’ I said.

‘Have you lost your mind?’ screamed Richenda.

‘Sure, it’s only a full-grown newt, your ladyship,’ said Rory, who had finally arrived. He took the teapot off me. ‘I’ll let the little fellow go in the garden.’

‘What is a newt doing in my teapot?’ demanded Richenda in a tone that would have impressed even my mother (who does imperious better than anyone else I have ever met.)

‘It may be we have a wee infestation,’ said Rory as Lord Stapleford made frantic hushing noises.

Richenda sagged against her brother, who let out an ‘ooof’ of surprise. ‘Well, see there aren’t any more of them, Euphemia,’ she demanded.

However, as the day wore on the newts made more and more appearances. Mrs Deighton found them in the kettle. The scullery maid in her sink. Daisy found them in the vase water of the hall roses. There seemed to be no rhyme or rhythm to it. I could think of nothing except that all water to be consumed must be strained and then boiled. I had never heard of anyone dying from newt poisoning, but then I had never before come across an infestation.

This puzzled me greatly. I had grown up at a small vicarage in the country. If anywhere might have been expected to get wildlife in the water it was there. We certainly had our fair share behind the wainscoting, down in the cellars and even in the attics. My brother, little Joe, had a very fine collection of dried insect husks, small corpses and other matter that had once been animate that he delighted in leaving in the corner of the drawing room when the refined locals condescended to call on father. It had got him many a whipping. But the only time I remembered him bring newts into the house was when he had been playing down by the local river he was so fond of falling into.

At this thought I lifted my head and saw the boot boy, Sam, wander past my window whistling. A boot boy’s lot is not a happy one. They work long hours for little reward. Sam is one of the better boot boys, who knows his life is best if he stays out of everyone’s sight and does his job quickly and quietly. To see him drawing attention to himself by whistling in the garden was quite extraordinary.

It may seem strange that I am concentrating on the newts when a maid on my staff was recently attacked, but I am much saddened to say that the newts were by far the more unusual circumstance.

I closed the housekeeping accounts, pushed away from my desk and quickly made my way into the garden.

‘Sam!’

The little boy’s head came round so quickly I was afraid he’d do himself an injury. His eyes opened wide. I knew that look from old. ‘My brother has just such a look on his face when he is caught out in mischief,’ I said. ‘Don’t even think of running away from me, Sam.’