Bright Young Dead

by Jessica Fellowes

  ‘Gone home or to bed. There’s only Mrs Windsor but she’s in her sitting room,’ said Louisa. ‘So long as we don’t bump into either Mr Curtis or his sister, no one will realise you weren’t one of the maids working at the party. You’d better take your coat off though.’

  ‘Oh, yes, good thinking,’ said Dulcie. She unbuttoned her brown wool coat, another piece in her wardrobe that could have come from Louisa’s, and left it draped over a kitchen chair. All their life was uniform, it seemed, whether as maids or the lower class. They both knew that even if Clara or Sebastian saw her, they wouldn’t connect her as the maid at the Curtises’ party in London. It was rare for a servant in another household to be recognised: who took a drink and looked at the face of the person holding the tray?

  ‘Follow me, we’ll go up the back stairs.’ The pair of them went up two floors, sticking close to the edge of the staircase, where it was less likely to creak. Just before the landing, Louisa held a hand out behind her to stop Dulcie. She looked up and down the passageway – there was nobody there. In the faint distance, they heard squeals of laughter and muffled footsteps running on rugs.

  Along the passageway to the right were the bedrooms she had already checked. Louisa pointed out the door to Dulcie. Lord Redesdale’s door was closed and no light appeared beneath.

  ‘Be quiet,’ she whispered, ‘Lord Redesdale has only just gone to sleep. I’ll keep an eye out, make sure no one comes in and surprises you.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There,’ said Louisa, pointing to thickly swagged curtains opposite the bathroom, the window behind them overlooking the churchyard.

  ‘Right,’ said Dulcie. She swallowed hard, then turned right and Louisa turned back.

  * * *

  After a quick sweep of the hall, which was empty, and the morning room – only Oliver was in there, examining a letter opener on Lady Redesdale’s desk – Louisa stopped outside the dining room. She could hear Nancy and another female voice – Charlotte’s? – in the smoking room. She guessed that Adrian, with his reputation for being brilliant, according to Nancy, would have moved on to his second clue already and she hoped his answer lay close by; she didn’t want to hunt all over the house. Louisa approached the door, her heart beating fast, going over and over the lines in her head that she had promised to say. Her hand on the glass handle, she stopped when she heard two voices inside. Adrian’s, yes, she was sure but also … Pamela’s. She had a talent for clue-solving, clearly. Louisa thought quickly and stepped inside.

  The dining room was only half lit. The table had been cleared away from the family’s pre-dance dinner, and no candles had been left burning but there were two electric lamps in the wall that had been switched on. Their pools of light were bright but did not circle far and the rest of the room was in shadow. Pamela was rummaging through a drawer in the sideboard, Adrian standing on the other side in the semi-dark, smoking a cigarette. He was talking in his deep monotone, and Pamela was making girlish noises, half-protestations.

  ‘… Ted knows you’re much more suitable,’ he was saying, ‘I’ve told him so. He can’t keep on with that tart, Dolly.’

  ‘I’m sure she’s very nice,’ Pamela said into the drawer where the napkin rings were held. Not that they were ever used, Lady Redesdale not agreeing with the fuss and cost of laundering napkins.

  Louisa stepped inside and closed the door behind her. At this, Adrian spoke tersely.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Beg pardon, Mr Curtis. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ve got a message for Miss Pamela.’

  Pamela had already stopped her rummaging and was looking at Louisa bashfully, as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have been doing.

  ‘Lady Redesdale wants you in her bedroom,’ Louisa said. It was all she could think of. At least by the time Pamela and her mother had had a confused conversation establishing that she wasn’t wanted after all, Louisa’s part in this would be over.

  ‘Oh bother,’ said Pamela. ‘Now I’ll be all out of order with everyone else and get behind. I was so sure I was doing well.’ But she didn’t question Louisa’s message, nor consider that her mother could be disobeyed, as Nancy would have. Pamela left the room but Louisa didn’t follow her. Adrian stepped towards the sideboard and pocketed a fork but when he saw Louisa was still standing there he gave her a quizzical look.

  ‘I’ve a message for you, sir,’ she said.

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘Miss Iris Mitford.’ She paused, allowing the inference to sink in. ‘I can show you the way.’

  Adrian looked taken aback but recovered quickly. ‘I didn’t see that one coming,’ he muttered. ‘Right, on you go. Be quick about it.’

  Louisa walked out into the hall, Adrian behind her. Clara was there, on her hands and knees, her head and shoulders hidden by the marble-topped console table.

  ‘That’s quite some sight,’ laughed Adrian as he walked past. There was a thud, then an ‘ow!’ and Clara slid her head out. She didn’t stand up but remained on all fours, her hair fluffed up and a huge grin on her face. But when she saw Adrian, she blanched, before going back under the table.

  ‘Not sure she’ll find what she’s looking for under there,’ said Adrian, half to himself. ‘Though it’s not the first time Clara’s tried to get what she wanted on her knees.’

  Louisa halted slightly when he said this, and Adrian coughed but said no more and the two of them continued up the stairs. On the second floor, Louisa could see the light on behind the guest bedroom door, with a pair of slippers placed outside it. This was their pre-agreed sign that the way was clear. Now she thought about it, it was a piece of good luck that Pamela had been in the room with Adrian; hopefully she would delay Iris’s return. Wordlessly, Louisa stopped by the door and indicated to Adrian that they had arrived. He didn’t even look at her as he went inside.

  After another quick check that there was no one in the passageway to see her, Louisa slipped behind the curtains. From here she should be able to hear if Iris came back and forewarn Dulcie. The slippers outside were not just a signal; if the aunt saw them there, the noise she would make picking them up would give Dulcie time to position herself as a maid in the room turning down the bedcovers. Adrian they would leave to splutter and try to explain himself, if it came to that. Hopefully, it wouldn’t.

  Behind the curtains was a low bay window, and Louisa was able to perch on the sill, drawing her feet up, so that there would be no sign of her toecaps. She tried to relax but her heart was pounding and the blood was rushing through her ears like the waves on the beach at St Leonards. She had a sudden memory of sitting by the sea, eating hot salty chips with Guy Sullivan and had a pang of missing him. For all the complications that had followed that moment, Guy himself was a man of straightforward goodness. She wasn’t sure that, right this second, she could say the same for herself.

  Louisa’s ears pricked suddenly. There was shouting coming from the guest room. Adrian’s voice was the loudest, with Dulcie’s quieter but insistent. She tried desperately to make out what they were saying but with the thick curtains and a door between her and them, all she could hear were the occasional words: No right, outrageous and liar.

  Only a minute later did Louisa realise she had been listening so intently to the shouting that she missed the sound of someone else coming along the hall and stopping by the buttercup bedroom. Louisa pulled the curtains apart, less than an inch, enough to see Pamela standing by the door, her head in the Madame Pompadour wig bent towards it. Louisa couldn’t see her face, only her rigid shoulders, but there was no mistaking her fear and seriousness. Like Marie Antoinette facing the guillotine.

  What should she do? She knew Pamela mustn’t hear any more and mustn’t see Dulcie coming out of the room. Dulcie had been adamant that no one knew about her and Adrian, and she wanted to keep it that way. ‘People only interfere and make trouble,’ she’d said.

  Then, before she could make a decision, there was the sound of a
loud crack from behind the door. Sudden, quick and grisly. A stick? Bone? Like a starting gun, it sent Pamela running off down the passage, flying down the stairs to the hall. Louisa panicked and fled, too, down the back stairs to the kitchen, but not before she heard the door open and close behind her and heavy footsteps that could only have been Adrian’s.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Flushed, Louisa had only just made it into the kitchen when Pamela came in, calling her name in distress.

  ‘Louisa,’ she said, her skirts bunched up around her waist where she held them up, so that she didn’t trip over them as she ran. Her wig was askew, her face ashen with alarm. ‘Louisa, I think something ghastly has happened.’

  Louisa steadied herself, grateful that, in her distress, Pamela hadn’t noticed Louisa catching her own breath.

  ‘What is it? I’m sure it can’t be that bad,’ she said, using the standard grown-up’s response to a child’s anguish. She had learned it from Nanny Blor, who could take the sting out of the worst of her charges’ fears, whether a teddy bear’s head had come off or there was a snarling stray dog on the village road. Louisa wished Nanny’s stalwart person was here now but she was tucked up in bed.

  Pamela stopped, let her skirt fall back down and with both hands took Louisa’s in hers. ‘It’s so strange. When I went to Muv’s room she said she hadn’t sent a message.’

  Louisa could only bluff this out. ‘Perhaps I misheard?’

  Pamela shook her head. ‘It’s not important now. When I got there, Aunt Iris asked me to fetch a book from her room, something she wanted to show Muv. But when I got to the door I could hear voices in there. The door was shut and I didn’t dare open it but I swear I overheard Mr Curtis arguing with someone. He has that distinctive voice, doesn’t he?’ She looked to Louisa for approval, who nodded. ‘Then he said, “No one will believe you, no one will care,” and there was this terrible sound…’ Her words faded.

  ‘What sort of sound?’ asked Louisa, though she knew perfectly well. It was still echoing in her head.

  ‘A sort of bang, or crack. Like something being broken. Someone being hit. I’ve just seen Mr Curtis in the hall, so it wasn’t him. I think he hit someone and they might be hurt. We need to go and check.’

  ‘No!’ Louisa spoke too soon and Pamela looked at her, shocked.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you don’t know that’s what happened. You might have misheard.’

  Fear turned Pamela’s mood quickly and she became indignant. ‘I know what I heard.’

  ‘But supposing Mr Curtis didn’t hit anybody? What if it was something breaking by accident? Or what if the person he was arguing with was someone here? One of Miss Nancy’s friends?’ pressed Louisa, more soothingly this time. ‘Let’s wait and see. Perhaps it’s part of the game everyone is playing.’

  Pamela was mollified by this. ‘Yes, perhaps. Thank you, Louisa.’ She looked about her, slightly shamefully. Louisa could see she wanted to get back to the treasure hunt but didn’t want to look as if she was dismissing this event too quickly. Louisa did it for her. ‘Go back to the others. Go on, have a good time. I’ll take a look upstairs, check there’s nothing to worry about, and I’m sure there isn’t.’

  Pamela nodded and ran out of the room.

  That was close. Louisa needed to find Dulcie, and fast.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Louisa raced back up the stairs but before she had reached the top, she almost slammed into Dulcie who reared back in fright. There was a raised weal by one eye, which was only half open and bloodshot; the other was pink from tears and exhaustion.

  ‘He hit you.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Stop,’ said Louisa. They stood still on the stairs, where there was no light except from the passageway at the top and from the kitchen below. Like rats in a pipe. ‘What happened?’

  ‘What does it look like?’ said Dulcie coldly.

  ‘Is he going to tell on you? Or on me?’ Louisa could feel her job slipping away from her grasp.

  ‘No, there’s more in it for him if he doesn’t,’ Dulcie said. ‘Let me get past. I know you’re trying to look out for me but you’re only going to make things worse.’

  ‘He might not but Miss Pamela might.’

  This halted Dulcie in her tracks. ‘What? What are you saying?’

  ‘She came up to the room. I didn’t see her because I was behind the curtains and I didn’t hear her because you and Mr Curtis were shouting. She overheard. She might have heard what you were arguing about. Pamela doesn’t know you but she might guess something if she sees that black eye. What if she tells his sister?’

  Dulcie stared out into the darkness below. ‘I’ll hide until it’s time to take Miss Charlotte back, then. I’ve got to go. It’s always us lot they suspect first.’

  ‘Dulcie,’ said Louisa, frightened, though for whom she couldn’t say. She leant back slightly, and the maid pushed past her and ran off, leaping down the stairs two at a time, into the kitchen and out through the back door. Louisa’s legs shook like Mrs Stobie’s prized trifle and she walked slowly down and into the kitchen. What did she mean, they were suspected first? Suspected of what?

  Standing there, adrenalin and fear coursing through her, she couldn’t think straight as to what to do next. She didn’t trust Adrian Curtis’s next move. Louisa did not like the man, whether for his superciliousness or the pinpricks of deep black that passed for pupils in his pale blue eyes. Nancy found him charming and funny but she was swayed by his sneering jokes, his connections and his Oxford education.

  This wasn’t helping. For all Louisa knew he was back at the party, telling the others about Dulcie and revealing that she, Louisa, had sent him upstairs with a message that had turned out to be a lie. Pamela would be horrified. Louisa wasn’t sure quite what to do with herself. The original plan had seemed so simple, as if nothing could go wrong. The only difficulty had been her conscience, which now she could feel pricking at her like a thousand needles.

  Dulcie’s coat, which had been left on the back of a chair, had gone, and so had she. Louisa glanced at the clock that hung above the range and assisted Mrs Stobie with her perfectly timed cakes. It had just gone half past one. The kitchen was completely empty and still, though she could hear the occasional thump and running footsteps of the guests as they hunted for their clues. She knew nobody would come in here – servants’ quarters were respectfully out of bounds on the whole – but she needed to know if Adrian was causing any trouble. She would go out on the pretence of clearing up after the party, though she knew this was a risk. Mrs Windsor wouldn’t approve: after a certain hour, the family and guests were expected to see to themselves and have some privacy from the servants.

  But when Louisa went into the hall, it was empty and she couldn’t hear much of anything going on. There were signs of party detritus, though nothing too awful – a few glasses, some discarded pieces of costume on a chair by the front door. Where were they all? She felt as if she were intruding and walked on tiptoe so as not to click on the wooden floors. Just as Louisa was wondering whether to go into the drawing room, Nancy appeared. She looked at Louisa a little curiously but not at all crossly. It was easy to see that she was having the time of her life. In her hand she held a matchbox in a silver case that Louisa recognised as one usually in Lord Redesdale’s study.

  ‘I came out to see if anything needed clearing away,’ said Louisa, but her voice trailed off. She knew Nancy would see through it for the excuse it was. But she was clearly in a forgiving mood.

  ‘Oh, well, do carry on. I’m going to fetch my next clue now. I think I’m doing frightfully well. By the way, have you seen Woman anywhere?’

  Louisa was caught off-guard by this. ‘Um, not for a while. Why?’

  ‘Sebastian was looking to give her a birthday present after midnight, that’s all. I wanted to know what it was.’ She gave an arch look. ‘Poor baby, I’m sure it’s only a tease. He wouldn’t really want
anything to do with her.’

  Louisa chose not to dignify this statement and made her excuses. It would be safer to wait in the kitchen until Dulcie returned to fetch Miss Charlotte.

  * * *

  A scream.

  Was it?

  Another.

  It was. It wasn’t inside the house, definitely outside. The sound was faint but definite. Louisa had been in the kitchen reading but alert, like a dog sleeping with one eye closed, waiting for Dulcie. Hastily, she closed her book and ran down the passageway to the hall. Clara came out of the dining room, her silky Tinkerbell costume dulled and flattened now, her hair mussed. Her lipstick had rubbed off, leaving a purplish line around the edges, and her neck was flushed with red marks.

  ‘What was that?’ she said to Louisa, ‘is it part of the game?’

  Louisa felt the blood drain from her face. ‘I don’t think it was.’

  They went out through the front door and onto the path, quickly joined by Ted, who was smoothing back his Dracula hair, looking a little shamed. Sebastian came out soon after, shivering in the night air, still wearing his pirate costume, with most of his shirt’s buttons undone. Another cry, of anguish more than fear this time, came from the other side of the church wall. They all rushed through the gateway and as they did Louisa heard Charlotte coming out of the house asking what was going on, her voice shrill. Nancy was close behind her.

  Where were Pamela and Oliver? They came last, though separately, Pamela as white as a sheet. Oliver came out blinking, as if he’d been asleep.

  By this time, the group had gone through the archway into the graveyard, which lay on the other side of the path that ran alongside the front of the house. The ground was sodden with night-time damp and the moon’s light was filtered by clouds, barely pushing through. A faint wind blew and in the stillness could be heard the gentle rustling of leaves in the trees. The gravestones of men, women and children who had lived and died under queens and kings from Elizabeth I to George V were black shapes rising from the earth. Everything was cast in shadow but there was one clear sight, cruelly revealed in a shaft of moonshine.