Stranger at the Dower House (Strangers Book 1)

by Mary Kingswood

  Esther smiled. “I will not tell you that you wrong your sister-in-law, for I am sure you know it already. Perhaps distance will lead you to a kinder view of her.”

  “A very great distance, and no possibility of reducing it, preferably. Shall I confess the worst of my fears to you? I shall, I think. The reason I have put off sending Pamela my direction is that I have a terrible fear of finding her standing on my doorstep one day. She and her father are great travellers, perpetually leaping into the carriage and haring off about the northern counties. If she knows where I am, perhaps she will have a yearning to hare off to Shropshire, and I am not sure I could cope with that. Oh, let us not talk about Pamela! Even from two hundred miles away she rubs me the wrong way. I am the most placid person as a rule, but she is like a burr under my saddle, making me unreasonably wild. Let us speak of less contentious matters. Tell me of my new cook.”

  Esther avoided her eye, pleating her gown nervously. “Now, you must not be cross, Louisa, and truly she sounded most promising. But when I questioned her, she said that she is a good, plain cook.”

  “Oh dear! We had better have her in, I suppose.”

  Mrs Nokes was a solidly built woman of indeterminate age. She looked clean and depressingly respectable to Louisa, who had harboured hopes of finding her instantly unsuitable.

  “How do you find your quarters, Mrs Nokes? Are you pleased with your accommodation?”

  “Room’s fine, thank you, mum.”

  “And the kitchen? It is rather old-fashioned, I am afraid, although I plan to get a range installed.”

  “It’s fine, mum. It’s just as I’m used to, and the girl seems willing.”

  Louisa read Mrs Nokes’ sole reference from the niece of her last employer, finding nothing terribly alarming in it. “You have had no other employers beyond this Mr Langridge?”

  “No, mum. Started there as kitchen maid, bin cook these last fifteen years, but he died a month since, so I gotta look elsewhere.”

  “And what did you cook for Mr Langridge?” Louisa said.

  “Gruel, mostly, mum, the last year or two, and beef tea. Poultices for his leg. His leg was real bad at the end.”

  “Well, I shall want something a little more fortifying than gruel and beef tea,” Louisa said. “If I dine alone, I shall want about six or eight dishes, just the one course. What would you prepare for me, if you had a free hand?”

  “Spit-roasted mutton, mum, and a clear soup.”

  “Vegetables?”

  “Boiled tatoes and whatever’s in season.”

  “Boiled potatoes. I see. What about fish?”

  “Don’t hold with fish, mum. Too many bones, but if you insist, I’d fry it in butter.”

  “Suppose I have two or three guests, and would like to impress them with two courses?”

  “Spit-roasted mutton, boiled beef, and an ox-tongue in aspic. A pigeon pie, mebbe. Fried fish if you insist. Vegetables.”

  “Boiled potatoes again?” Louisa said. “What about something sweet, a blancmange, say.”

  A long pause. “I could try. Apple pie… I can do an apple pie.”

  “Meringues? Soufflé?” A very long pause. “How would you cook pheasant?”

  “Spit-roast, mum.”

  “Woodcock? Larks? Swan?”

  “Spit-roast.”

  From her corner of the room, Esther’s giggles were audible.

  “Thank you, Mrs Nokes. You may go and begin work now. I shall dine at six o’clock.”

  “Six o’clock!” the cook said, in outraged tones. No doubt her elderly employer had still dined at three, in the old manner. “Well, as you please, I daresay.” And out she stumped.

  The door was barely closed before Esther burst out laughing. “Oh, Louisa, you will never stand for mutton and boiled potatoes every day! I give it a week.”

  “Oh, but spit-roasted mutton… and woodcock and pheasant. And do not forget the ox-tongue in aspic.” She groaned. “Oh, how I miss Chambers! It took me five years — five years! — to persuade his lordship to engage a man-cook, and another two to find one who was not French, for heaven forfend that the sacred halls of Roseacre be darkened by the presence of The Enemy. Fortunately, I kept Marie well out of his way, and he never realised that she is French. And now I am reduced to boiled potatoes and fried fish.”

  “Well, if Mrs Nokes does not work out, then you can engage a French man-cook if you wish, for you do not need to persuade anyone now.”

  “Very true,” Louisa said, brightening. “A French man-cook — that would be just the thing. Come, let me show you around my humble abode.”

  The house was quickly shown, and Esther soon abandoned the attics — “Too many cobwebs, but there are all sorts of intriguing boxes there” — but she insisted on being shown the site of the gruesome discovery in the wine cellar, and every minute detail recounted.

  “And she was just… lying there?”

  “Covered by her cloak, but yes, just lying there, all curled up.”

  “Curled up how, precisely?”

  After a moment’s hesitation to remind herself that Tilly had scrubbed the whole floor very thoroughly, Louisa lay down and positioned herself as she remembered the body to have been.

  “Ha! Then it is as I thought,” Esther said with an air of triumph. “Nobody sleeps so tightly curled like that. I wager you anything you like that she was murdered elsewhere and then brought here to be concealed.”

  Louisa laughed and shook her head, as she rose and brushed herself down. “A very imperfect concealment, when the door is merely latticed metalwork. Better to have hidden her behind a wooden door, surely. Besides, she had the key in her pocket.”

  “The key is only to make it look like suicide,” Esther said eagerly. “And look, she was hidden behind a wooden door — the door to the butler’s room is solid enough, and you unlocked it for us to enter, then the wine cellar door and then this inner door. Three separate doors, all locked.”

  “They are all locked now but—” Louisa frowned, trying to remember. “No, you are right. When we first came down here, Mr Gage and I, and the footman, I had to unlock every door. I had keys for the outer wooden door and the wine cellar, but not this inner door. Mr Gage’s footman had to pick the lock to open it. He has replaced it now, for there is the lock on the sideboard there. Everything was locked, but only one key was found on her. Wait a minute… there are two sets of keys for the house. I wonder if there is a key for the inner door on the other set.”

  But rapid investigation showed that there was not, and Esther immediately pounced on this evidence. “There you are! Someone murdered her, placed her very carefully inside the inner door with the key in her pocket, and then locked the outer doors as he left. He will have thrown away the second key for the inner door.”

  “He?” Louisa said, amused by her friend’s imagination. “Must it be a man? Not an irate mother or employer?”

  “Pft! Of course it was a man!”

  Esther wanted to see the gardens, too, so they donned pelisses and bonnets, and set out to brave the sharp wind. The Timpson twins had scythed and raked the lawns into submission, and were hard at work creating some vegetable beds. Their tidying had revealed a series of neat paths, one leading directly to the intriguing gate at the bottom of the garden and one meandering round the perimeter. The gate was locked and none of Louisa’s keys fitted, so they could do no more than peer through the latticework at the wooded grounds of Maeswood Hall beyond.

  “There may be a key at the Hall,” Louisa said, and they continued their perambulations. “If not, I shall get Mr Gage’s enterprising footman to pick the lock. It will be very pleasant to have the grounds to walk about in.”

  “You do not suppose they might mind?” Esther said anxiously. “Is Lady Saxby very starchy?”

  “A little,” Louisa said. “I am renting her house, though, so why she should object to my walking about this end of her vast estate I cannot imagine. It is not as if I shall be strolling on her terrace.
What a pleasant little arbour! Shall we sit for a while?”

  It was a simple stone shelter with a seat inside, built in the same style as the house, and angled so that it caught the late afternoon sun. Louisa immediately decided it would be the perfect spot to avoid the summer heat and hide away with a book. Dusting off the stone seat as best they could, they sat to admire the view across the gardens to the house.

  “It is very pretty, your new home,” Esther said, with just a hint of envy in her voice. “So modern and elegant. Not like the Rectory! We have dry rot again, did I tell you? There is no end to it.” She sighed. “But this is lovely! Shall you be happy here, dear, do you suppose?”

  “I cannot see why not,” Louisa said robustly. “It is very peaceful, which is exactly what I need just now.”

  “Have you made any progress with your little project?” Esther said. “You say nothing of it in your letters but then you are always so discreet when you write.”

  Louisa did not mention that her discretion arose entirely from the fact that Esther’s husband liked to read all her correspondence. No power on earth would bring her to disclose her innermost thoughts to a man as pious and censorious as Dr Joseph Deerham. She had never understood Esther’s choice, but then Esther had never understood why Louisa had married Ned.

  In person, however, there need be no restraint, so she chuckled and said, “I am progressing, although with due caution. It is a risky endeavour and I must not be precipitate. At first I was sure I would be out of luck, for all I found were callow young men or greybeards or married men, which would not suit my purposes at all. But I now have two possibilities in mind. One is the wonderfully generous Mr Gage, who brought me an emergency supply of wine — and helped me drink some of it.”

  “Ooh!” Esther said, eyes wide. “Tell me all about him, for I have forgot what you said of him in your letters. He is an older man, I think you said? A widower?”

  “He is, and still deep in love with his late wife, so there will be no likelihood of complications. He is… oh, perhaps forty but still very youthful in body and mind. Not fashionable! I daresay he buys himself one new coat a year because he feels he ought to, even though there is plenty of wear in the old one yet. He reminds me a little of Ned, in that respect.”

  “Is he handsome?”

  Louisa considered the point dispassionately. “Not handsome, exactly, but there is no displeasing irregularity in his features. He seems very open and friendly towards me, so I am optimistic. The other possibility is a fine fellow indeed, very handsome and his clothes all in the first style of elegance — complete to a shade. He is the clergyman here, and he knows you and Dr Deerham, for he is from Shrewsbury too. Truman is his name.”

  “What, Theodore Truman?” Esther’s eyes widened. Was that dismay in her expression?

  “Oh, do tell,” Louisa said easily. “He seems to be highly regarded here, but if you know of something to his discredit, I should prefer to hear of it from you, rather than find it out later.”

  “Oh, no, no, nothing… nothing bad, but… my brother was at school with him, for they are the same age, eight and twenty, and Norman said he was not well liked. Kept himself to himself. You know how it is with boys sometimes… well, I daresay you do not, having no brothers, but some boys are popular and some are… just not, and there is no obvious reason for it.”

  Louisa frowned, considering that. “Nothing more? Just… he was not popular when he was at school?”

  “Oh, well, he was always running about for the masters, you know… a bit of a toady. And then later, there was a very elderly man, a deacon, I believe, and Mr Truman was very… solicitous of him, and the old gentleman left him all his money. Twenty thousand pounds, I believe. And this living—” She stopped, biting her lip.

  “Go on,” Louisa said.

  “It is all gossip and hearsay,” Esther said. “You should not regard it, I daresay, but it is rumoured that Mr Truman bought the right of first presentation a year or so ago, and then recommended the previous incumbent for a position at Lichfield, so that he might be put in as curate. He was something of a favourite with the Archdeacon, so he got his wish, but there was some grumbling about such manoeuvring. And then the poor fellow died of a seizure not a month after he went to Lichfield, so Mr Truman got the living in full, which was a great piece of good fortune for him.” She paused and then said in a stronger voice, “It is all jealousy, I expect, if he is so fine a young man as you say. I should not give it another thought if you like him.”

  Louisa smiled and nodded, but it gave her pause. Mr Truman was certainly very handsome and agreeable, but he was younger than she would like, and a bachelor, too. No, it would have to be Mr Gage after all. Oddly, the thought made her smile. Perhaps she had preferred Mr Gage all the time.

  8: Dinner For Twelve

  Laurence found his thoughts returning often to Mrs Middlehope. With her womanly curves and hedonistic ways, she was the very antithesis of his beloved Catherine, yet he felt the strongest affinity towards her. It was inevitable that they would meet often, at the card evenings on Tuesdays and Thursdays, at church, and occasionally on his morning outings with the dogs. Now that she had her own cook, however, he no longer had the opportunity to invite her for dinner and he rather missed the gown of peach velvet that draped itself around her so enticingly. Even though he laughed at himself for having such thoughts, and at his age, too, he could not help a twinge of disappointment when she had arrived for their card party in a rather plain blue muslin gown. So his thoughts began to turn in a different direction.

  “Is it time for us to have a few people round for dinner?” he said to Viola one morning at breakfast.

  “It is not so long since our last dinner,” she said, looking at him with suspicious eyes.

  “We must owe a few people,” he said. “I feel sociable. How about next Wednesday?”

  “Very well, if you wish. I shall talk to Mrs Rogers about it.”

  “Who shall you invite?” he said.

  She gave an impatient lift of one shoulder. “Oh, do give me time to think about it, Laurence. I shall have to see who has invited us recently.”

  He hesitated, knowing that she was perfectly well aware of his purpose, but unwilling to mention Mrs Middlehope by name and invite a lecture on the subject of rapacious widows. Fortunately, Henrietta rescued him.

  “Will you invite Mrs Middlehope?” she said. “She is all alone, and would enjoy the company.”

  Viola looked even more suspicious, looking with narrowed eyes from Laurence to his daughter as if considering whether they had cooked up the whole scheme between them.

  “And Mr Truman,” Henrietta added, going very slightly pink. “He is alone, too.”

  “Not forgetting Miss Cokely,” Laurence added. “One does not like to leave her out, even though she cannot return the invitation.” Then he held his breath while Viola considered her response. She was perfectly capable of making an issue of it, and he was quite prepared to insist — he was the head of the household, after all, and entitled to choose whom he entertained in his own house — but Viola could make life deuced unpleasant if she chose to.

  She did not. “Very well,” she said, although her lips were pursed in disapproval. “Shall we say twelve? Mrs Middlehope, Mr Truman, Miss Cokely. The Manor family is due a dinner, too, and I shall see who else we might ask. It is too early in the year for the Woollercott people to venture so far, but the Whittels might come, if Mr Whittel’s dyspepsia is a little better. If they fail, the Platts will come. They always come. Very well, leave it to me. ”

  “May I come?” Henrietta said brightly.

  “No,” Viola said.

  “Yes,” Laurence said at the same time. “Why not?”

  “Laurence! She is too young!” Viola said. “Family dinners only until she is out.”

  “She is a very sensible fifteen, and behaved with the utmost decorum when we had Mrs Middlehope to dine. It will do the child no harm to spend an evening amongst our
good friends.”

  Henrietta jumped up, raced round the breakfast table and flung her arms around Laurence, planting a kiss on the top of his head. “Thank you, thank you, dear Papa! You are a prince among men!”

  He laughed out loud, remembering another woman using those exact same words. So many things made him think of Mrs Middlehope. “Well now, no need to be quite so much in alt. You will find it all very dull, I daresay.”

  Viola’s expression darkened and he knew he was in for a storm. Hastily getting to his feet, he clicked his fingers to the dogs under the table and beat an orderly retreat to his study. He knew he would be safe there, for Viola would be caught up in domestic matters for an hour or two, and then she would be sitting in the Roman Saloon with Henrietta entertaining callers, for today was the ladies’ day to be at home. He and Edward settled comfortably to some mathematics, or at least, Edward was entirely comfortable with it. Laurence struggled rather to keep up with his brilliant son. Eventually, he gave it up.

  “You have gone far beyond my abilities with numbers,” he said sadly. “I shall engage a tutor for you, I think, someone who understands the subject better than I. Languages I can help with, and history, philosophy, even literature. But numbers and the mysteries of science — I cannot teach you those. Should you like to try school again? Not necessarily Shrewsbury… you could perhaps try Eton or Winchester. Plenty of clever boys go there, so the masters must be clever enough to keep up with them. What do you think?”

  “What about Harrow?”

  Laurence shivered. “Not Harrow. What about one of the others?”

  But Edward shook his head.

  After setting Edward some work to be followed on his own, Laurence poured himself a glass of sherry and settled with a sigh into his chair to read the latest London newspapers. Beside him on the table were several books newly arrived from Shrewsbury. Books were such an extravagance, but he could not find it in him to cut down his expenditure. Books and wine were as necessary to him as air to breathe.