by Robin Paige
The drawing room, at the front of the house, had a pretty ceiling in low-relief plasterwork and a white-manteled fireplace topped with an ornate gilt-framed mirror. Oriental carpets were spread on the parquet floor, and on them were arranged a high-backed sofa and two large armchairs, covered in a light damask. In the bow-window recess stood a pretty Pembroke table, topped with a tray on which rested the remains of the luncheon that Amelia had carried to Kate—a plate of cold chicken, a bowl of hot vegetable soup, a custard, some cheese, and a glass of wine, arranged on a lace napkin.
And against the wall beside the recess was a desk, the top pulled down to reveal Kate’s Royal typewriter, which she had brought, boxed, in her luggage. It was meant to encourage her to undertake the latest Beryl Bardwell novel, which (as her publisher reminded her, lately with growing impatience) was long overdue. Perhaps, now that she was out of London and away from sad memories, she could begin. She not only had Rud Kipling’s encouragement to write a story about Rottingdean’s smugglers, she had as well, delivered from The Elms this morning, the draft of a poem from Kipling. The accompanying note said, “Perhaps these lines will inspire you, Kate. And I quote to you from the old Law: As soon as you find you can do anything, do something you can’t.”
This was the first verse of Kipling’s poem:
If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet,
Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street.
Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark—
Brandy for the Parson,
‘Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Kate had been intrigued by the lines, but they had not sent her to work on Beryl Bardwell’s story. Still holding Kipling’s poem in her hand, she sat idly in the recess, her feet pulled up and her arms clasped around her knees, gazing out the window at the peaceful, picturesque scene in the High Street: pedestrians hurrying to Mr. Grantly’s grocery or Knapton’s tobacco shop, or to the post office or Landsdowne’s chemist shop, or to Mrs. Howard’s Ladies’ Fashions for Fashionable Ladies, several doors down on the opposite side. A young boy in a rough smock herded a half-dozen noisy geese up the middle of the cobblestone street, headed for the pond on the Green, and a shawled woman with two water buckets suspended from a wooden shoulder yoke visited the village pump. Two pretty young nurse-maids pushed perambulators toward the beach, and from the opposite direction came the man Kate had met earlier this morning, the self-styled antiquarian. He was still bearing his heavy pack on his back and wearing his smoked-glass eye preservers, even though heavy clouds had come up from the southwest and darkened the sky. He touched the brim of his canvas hat to the blushing, giggling nurse-maids, then strode purposefully onward, up the High Street. Where was he going? Kate wondered. Would he call at Aunt Georgie’s, since she had invited him to drop in? Or was he off into the downs in search of more antiquities?
It was not quite an hour since Kate and Aunt Georgie had returned from their visit to Mrs. Radford. Lady Burne-Jones, who was usually full of observations and recommendations about everything, seemed to have been considerably chastened by the young widow’s bitter outburst. She announced that she had changed her mind about a house-to-house canvas of the village, at least for the moment. Kate herself had been shaken by Mrs. Radford’s indictment of the village and profoundly saddened by the sight of the lonely sheet-covered corpses on their way to Brighton in the back of the wagon, and she could not summon much in the way of conversation. Patrick, too, had said very little on the drive back to Rottingdean and had followed Aunt Georgie without a word when she remarked that she could use his help in the garden.
Kate had felt increasingly certain that Patrick knew more than he had told them and she worried that his knowledge, whatever it was, might put him in serious jeopardy from whoever had killed the two coast guards. Privately, out of Patrick’s hearing, she had told Aunt Georgie what she feared and suggested that they keep a close eye on him. Aunt Georgie who seemed genuinely fond of the boy, had readily agreed, adding that she would also see if it would be possible to move him out of Mrs. Higgs’s cottage and into North End House, where his comings and goings could be better governed. Kate smiled a little at Aunt Georgie’s confidence, since she had the feeling that Patrick was the kind of boy who would resist governing. But it was a step in the right direction. Kate planned to have a serious talk with him once she had thought things through.
That might be some time, however, for a great many questions were tumbling about in Kate’s mind in the same confused, inchoate way they often did when Beryl Bardwell was turning over the plot of one of her stories. But these events weren’t part of a light, frivolous entertainment created to fill an idle reader’s empty hour. They were agonizingly, irrevocably real. A family had been destroyed, a husband and father lost forever, his widow and children forced to leave their home. Two coast guards were dead—one, the captain, a trafficker in smuggled goods. At least, that was Mrs. Radford’s claim. What was more, she had implicated the entire village, and her passionate words had rung with the urgent truth of her belief. “Are you blind? Are you foolish?” she had cried. “The whole village is in on it!”
Suddenly struck by the awful significance of the woman’s words, Kate half rose from her seat. She must find Charles and tell him what she had heard! But he had not yet returned from Brighton, where he had gone with the Chief Constable. She would have to watch for him, and when he arrived, tell him the news as quickly as possible. He would want to question Mrs. Radford himself before she left for Manchester, and discover whether her claims had any substance. Perhaps her accusations sprang from her bitter grief.
Kate sank back on the window seat, turning over more questions in her mind. Mrs. Radford had claimed that her husband was not involved in the smuggling. What, then, was the connection between the two murdered coast guards? Had the same person killed both the guilty man and the innocent? And why were they killed? George Radford might have been stabbed in a moment of rage or fear, or in a desperate, hand-to-hand fight. But Captain Smith’s relaxed posture—the man had been seated beside a wall of the abandoned mill, smoking—suggested that he had been waiting for his killer. There had been no signs of a scuffle in the dirt floor; no indication that he had attempted to defend himself, the only clue the green pasteboard ticket that Patrick said had come from the bathing machines. What of the man whom Patrick claimed to have seen taking George Radford’s body out to sea? Was he the killer, or someone trying to dispose of the body? And what was to be made of Constable Woodhouse? He was the authorized representative of the Queen’s law, yet he had not done his duty where George Radford’s death was concerned. Why? Was the constable involved as well?
Kate frowned, thinking once again of the bitter young widow in the cottage at Black Rock. “Your village may have a good heart,” she had said, “but its soul is rotten right through.” Was she right? Was the picturesque peace of Rottingdean a camouflage for something sinister, something evil, in which the entire village was engaged? Or was it only Beryl Bardwell’s vivid imagination—the fancy of a novelist—that made her think so?
There were too many questions and not a single answer, too many mysteries and not a single clue. Kate glanced once more out the window. Very little had changed, but the scene seemed darkened. Those two men on the opposite side of the street—their faces looked pinched and anxious, she thought, and their conversation seemed furtive. The scurrying woman with the large paper parcel appeared to be glancing from right to left, almost as if she expected to be apprehended. And the man coming out of the post office, ripping open an envelope and pausing to read, suddenly turned pale, thrust the letter into his pocket and hurried off. What had happened to Rottingdean’s calm tranquillity? Or was she merely seei
ng with new eyes?
Kate stood. There was something she could do while she waited to share her news with Charles. She could talk with Mrs. Portney, who was probably in the kitchen making plans for tea and the evening meal. The cook-housekeeper might be able to shed some light on some of these events, or offer some insight into the affairs of the village. And there was the business of the brandy spill in the cellar, which had made Kate very curious. Kipling had mentioned brandy in his poem about smuggling, as well as tobacco and lace.
Kate frowned. Was Mrs. Portney involved in whatever was going on now? Well, there was only one way to find out, and that was to talk with her. She picked up the luncheon tray. When the lady of the house wanted to speak to one of her employees, the servant was usually summoned abovestairs, for it was considered beneath the lady’s dignity to appear in the lower regions—and even, in some households, an intrusion on the servants’ privacy. But baroness or no, when Kate was at home at Bishop’s Keep, she was accustomed to having regular conferences with her cook beside the comfortable warmth of the kitchen fire. And her unexpected appearance in the Seabrooke House kitchen would have the advantage of surprise. She might catch Mrs. Portney off guard, or encounter one of the other servants—the timid little tweeny or the upstairs maid—who might be willing to tell her something.
The green baize door in the dining room opened onto the back stairs, which descended to a flagged passageway across the rear of the house. Carrying her tray, Kate went down the dark stairs, avoiding the filled coal-shuttles at the bottom and the row of clean chamber pots waiting to be carried to the upstairs bedrooms. On the wall, on pegs, hung a variety of brooms and mops and buckets, along with several lanterns, a weeding hoe, a spade. Ahead of her, a heavyset man burst out of the door she assumed led to the kitchen and strode angrily to the outer door at the end of the passage, which he slammed behind him. She stared after him for a brief moment, wondering who he was. Then she remembered why she was there, and pushed the door open, her tray in one hand.
Mrs. Portney was standing at a huge black Eagle range, reaching for the iron kettle that was steaming on the back of the stove. She whirled around, eyes blazing, chin thrust forward. “I told ye not to come ’ere again—” she began furiously, and broke off.
“Oh! Lady Sheridan!” she cried, and fumbled a hasty curtsey. “I didn’t know ... I thought...” Her eyes narrowed at the sight of the luncheon tray. “That lazy Molly! I told her to listen fer yer ladyship’s bell an’—”
“No, no, Mrs. Portney,” Kate said soothingly, setting the tray on the well-scrubbed pine table. “I didn’t ring for Molly. I wanted to bring the tray down myself.” She smiled. “After all, we will be staying here for several weeks. I thought it might be well to let you know about some of Lord Sheridan’s favorite food and drink, so that you may take his tastes into account when you are planning menus.”
A look of momentary perplexity crossed Mrs. Portney’s narrow face. “O’ course, milady, but ... But wudn’t ye rather I come upstairs?” She twisted her hands in her white apron. “Th’ mornin’ room is where Mrs. Seabrooke always give me orders. Th’ kitchen ain’t a fit place fer—”
“I find it a very fit place indeed,” Kate replied firmly, but with a smile. “Quite warm and homey and familiar, in fact. You know, I’m an American, and we have quite different ideas about things.”
“Well, yes,” Mrs. Portney said cautiously. “I did know from yer ladyship’s talk that ye weren’t quite ...” she colored. “Quite so formal as some.”
“That’s because I grew up in New York,” Kate said. “I was an orphan, and my aunt and uncle O’Malley raised me. Uncle was a policeman, and I had six younger cousins to look out for. There wasn’t money for hired help, of course, so I spent a great deal of time in the kitchen.” She rolled her eyes. “I can swing a fine broom, I tell you! And the floors I have scrubbed—Why, they would stretch from here to Westminster.”
“Lor!” Mrs. Portney exclaimed, her mouth a round O of astonishment. “A real, true Cindereller story! Out of th’ ashes an’ off to th’ ball, so to speak. ‘Oo wud’ve thought it?” Then, thinking of who Kate had become, she reddened. “Oh, milady, I didn’t mean—”
“That’s perfectly all right, Mrs. Portney,” Kate said, with a sisterly laugh. “It is a Cinderella story. I can hardly believe that I actually came to England and married a baron! So you see, I do try extra hard to please his lordship by making sure he has just what he likes to eat and drink.” She pulled out a wooden chair and gestured at the teapot on the table. “While we talk, dear Mrs. Portney, I’d love to have a cup of the tea you were about to make.”
Having heard the story of Kate’s humble beginnings (for the most part true, although it omitted any mention of her own inherited fortune), Mrs. Portney was a great deal more relaxed and easy. She poured boiling water over the tea in the china pot—a fragrant imported tea flavored with sweet orange peel and cloves—then set out cups and a plate of biscuits. Rummaging in one of the drawers, she found a tom piece of wrapping paper and a stub of a pencil. When the tea had properly steeped, she poured steaming cups of it and took a chair on the other side of the table.
“Now, milady,” she said comfortably, “wot was it ye wanted me to make fer ‘is lordship? I do ’ope ye remember that we’re a small village, an’ not smart. Mr. Grantly, the grocer, don’t ‘ave much in the way o’ fancy food, so if it’s somethin’ special ye’re wantin’, we’ll ’ave to send to Brighton. An’ as fer drink, wot’s in the wine cellar belowstairs is the best there is in the village.”
“Oh, I imagine we’ll do wonderfully well out of Mr. Grantly’s stock,” Kate said. “His lordship is quite fond of fish of any sort. Veal cutlets always suit him, and roast partridge, and he is especially partial to a bit of lobster salad.” She sipped her tea thoughtfully. “And if this tea is any indication of what you are able to obtain here in the village, I am sure his lordship will be very pleased. It is truly delicious, and quite unique. Is it imported?”
A little frown showed between Mrs. Portney’s thick brows, and she stirred uncomfortably. “That’s good about the lobsters,” she said. “We’ve very fine lobsters ‘ere, straight out of our waters and much better’n wot ye’ll find in Lunnun. They’re much admired by all the vis’tors.”
“Then let us have lobster often,” Kate said with enthusiasm. “Breakfast, of course, can be quite simple: any broiled fish will do, or broiled kidneys, not fried, and bacon. His lordship prefers his eggs scrambled, occasionally poached, and as to fruit, he favors apples above strawberries. You might poach the apples, perhaps with a little cinnamon, and serve them with cream.”
Mrs. Portney scribbled busily with her pencil. “Well, then,” she said, as she wrote down the last, “we should get on, for there are delicious apples round about. Soups, I s‘pose. An’ reg’lar custards.”
“Yes, but not pea soup or celery soup, I am sorry to say.” Kate looked up and added, as if it were an afterthought, “Oh, by the way, I should have mentioned that his lordship is in the habit of adding a sum in compensation to the cook who pleases him.” She paused, and gave Mrs. Portney a conspiratorial glance. “Quite a handsome sum, I should add.”
The tip of Mrs. Portney’s nose grew pink. “That’s very gen‘rous of ’is lordship.”
“He can be a very generous man when his wishes are accommodated,” Kate said. “Now, as to drink, I have surveyed the wine cellar and found it quite adequate—except for brandy, of which, unfortunately there is none. There had been, recently, from the evidence of a broken bottle, but it is gone. What do you suppose—” She left the sentence dangling.
Flustered, Mrs. Portney pretended to study her list. “I’m sure I don’t know, mum,” she muttered. “Mrs. Seabrooke always saw to the cellar her own self.”
“Well,” Kate remarked, “it is a great pity, for if there is anything Lord Sheridan fancies when he is relaxing in the evening, it is a glass of fine French brandy. If my nose told me correctly, the brandy that
was spilled in the cellar was fine indeed. If more could be got, Mrs. Portney, I’m sure his lordship would be delighted to pay.”
Mrs. Portney hesitated.
“Whatever the price,” Kate added significantly.
“P’rhaps,” Mrs. Portney ventured, “I could make inquiries.”
“That would be lovely.” Kate said. “As for me, my tastes are modest. But there is one dish I truly love above all others, and now that I can afford it—” She gave a little shrug. “Of course, it is an indulgence.”
Mrs. Portney’s brows went up. “And wot’s that, milady?”
“I hate to confess it.” Kate laughed lightly. “You’ll think me quite silly and extravagant.”
Mrs. Portney shook her head vigorously. “Oh, no, milady! If it’s in me power, yer ladyship shall ’ave wot ye likes.”
“I hesitate to mention it,” Kate said, “for it involves a very great delicacy, difficult to procure and unimaginably dear—although if you were able to find it, I should be delighted to pay whatever is required, and add a substantial sum for your trouble.”
Mrs. Portney’s nose was growing even pinker. “What is it, milady?”
“It is eggs beaten with cream and cooked to soft curd,” Kate said, “with a topping of sautéed truffles.” She clasped her hands and raised her eyes. “It is a simple dish, but oh, quite heavenly! And I should be very glad to give you my recipe.”