by Cathy Ace
Henry’s tummy was awash with acid. He squeezed his fiancé’s hand for courage.
TWO
Monday, February 24th
‘Chrissy? You decent, doll?’ Annie Parker called up the wrought-iron spiral staircase that led to Christine Wilson-Smythe’s apartment at one end of the converted barn on the Chellingworth Estate now used by the WISE Enquiries Agency as its office.
A muffled reply told Annie her best course of action was to make a pot of tea. She was the first to arrive for the Monday morning meeting. She hadn’t exactly run out of her little cottage in the village of Anwen-by-Wye, but she had scarpered the moment she’d heard her mother, Eustelle, head for the bathroom. ‘Bye, Eustelle, mustn’t be late for me meeting,’ she’d called as she slammed the small but sturdy front door behind her. She’d just about got used to having to duck her head before she left, or entered, her home of just two months. A far cry from her ex-council flat in Wandsworth, the chocolate-box thatched cottage looked like her dream home from the outside, but she was having a difficult time coming to terms with the fact that four hundred years ago, when the cottage had been built, people weren’t usually five feet ten inches tall, as she was. She was just grateful that a previous tenant had been allowed to dig into the foundations of the cottage to create much taller rooms on the ground floor, and that the upstairs rooms reached up into the rafters.
Its dimensions dwarfing her own little cottage, the converted barn was perfect for the agency’s new HQ, not least, Annie ruminated as she filled the kettle in the kitchen beneath her colleague’s apartment, because they got to use it for free. She’d been able to sell her flat in London for a good deal more than she’d paid for it, and now she had enough money in her bank account to allow her, for the first time in her life, to know she could feed and clothe herself for the next couple of decades without having to worry too much about how long she’d have to wait for a pension, or how tiny that might be when it eventually materialized. Of course, the fact that Henry Twyst didn’t just allow them to use the barn for free, but was also allowing her to rent the cottage in the village for a ridiculously small amount of money every month, helped too.
Returning to the bottom of the stairs Annie shouted, ‘Kettle’s on. Come on, doll, shake a leg. Car and Mave’ll be here in a mo, and you don’t want to be running about in your ninnies when they get here, do you?’
The Honorable Christine Wilson-Smythe appeared at the top of the spiral stairs wrapped in a floral silk kimono, looking tousled. Annie sighed as she realized Christine would look beautiful if she was covered in mud and dumped on a rubbish tip in a sack. She also knew that, at twenty-seven years of age and a natural beauty, Christine would shortly reemerge with her brunette locks looking lustrous, her flawless skin not needing any make-up and sporting an outfit that flattered her lovely figure. Annie automatically rubbed the fuzz of hair on her shapely head as she thought of this, and cursed at her knobbly freckles, which she felt marred her otherwise silky, dark skin. She reckoned the freckle-bumps came from her African, rather than Caribe, heritage. The freckles and her big bum.
‘Ten minutes. Promise,’ said Christine as she headed for the bathroom. ‘Could I have coffee, not tea?’ she asked as she disappeared.
‘Gordon Bennett, what did your last servant die of?’ said Annie half-heartedly as she returned to the kitchen, realizing as she did so she knew the answer to the question; Christine’s old Nanny Mullins had dropped dead in the Waitrose supermarket on the Kings Road in Chelsea a few weeks earlier. Annie shook her head silently as she recalled how she’d had to bite her tongue when Christine had told her that her beloved nanny had collapsed while reaching for a dozen quail’s eggs.
How the other half lives, thought Annie dragging the cafetière from the top shelf, then she corrected herself mentally, or the other one or two percent live, in any case.
‘How was your walk from the village to the office this morning, dear?’ asked Mavis MacDonald as she bustled into the barn, letting the cold wind follow her through the door.
‘Fine,’ said Annie, sounding like a truculent schoolgirl. Of the four women who worked at the agency, Annie was the only one who couldn’t drive – a fact that hadn’t overly concerned her when she’d been living in her beloved London. She’d already admitted to herself it wasn’t an ideal state of affairs if they were going to make a go of it in the wilds of Powys, Wales. What she was struggling to admit to anyone, herself included, was that the idea of driving frightened her; it seemed there were far too many things to concentrate on at one time, and she wasn’t known for her ability to prevent her mind wandering.
‘Tea’ll be ready in a minute,’ Annie added, hoping to deflect Mavis’s inevitable next comments. ‘Just in time for nine o’clock. Have you seen Car?’
Mavis MacDonald peered around Annie’s back at the tea tray; at just five feet tall she was so much shorter than her colleague that Annie was very familiar with the top of Mavis’s head. Annie smiled as Mavis hooked her neatly bobbed gray hair behind her ears and nodded with satisfaction. ‘Aye, a couple of bourbons each will be nice for a Monday morning,’ she said, patting Annie on the shoulder – a great compliment.
‘I’ll put out a couple of extras for Car – she’s eating for two, so she deserves it,’ said Annie as Mavis made her way toward the open-plan office area.
Calling over her shoulder Mavis replied, ‘Ach, no you don’t. Carol is pregnant, and my words carry the weight of decades of nursing experience when I say she’s no’ to be encouraged to overeat because of that. And certainly not bourbon biscuits. Put a couple of those apples out, and a banana. Maybe I can talk her into eating a wee bit more fruit.’
Annie smiled inwardly as she arranged the fruit on the tray. She knew exactly what Carol would say about being encouraged to eat more fruit. ‘I’m not a flippin’ fruit bat,’ was something her heavily pregnant colleague was repeating in her lovely Welsh lilt more frequently as the months passed and her midsection expanded.
Just as Christine descended the stairs, Carol arrived. Annie’s expectations of Christine’s appearance were more than met, and she was also unreasonably annoyed to note how easily the young woman skipped down the spiral stairs; Annie was pretty sure her feet would probably register as flippers if she ever showed them at a public swimming pool, and she was known to be far from light on them – clumsiness being something with which she was wearily familiar.
Carol struggled with her horribly tight winter coat, then finally flopped onto the sofa they’d brought with them from their previous office in London. ‘It’s cold out,’ said Carol, rubbing her arms as if to prove the point.
‘It’s February,’ said Mavis simply, ‘and if you’re feelin’ the cold, you’re no’ dead.’
Carol rolled her eyes toward Annie and the friends shared a smile at Mavis’s expense.
Placing the tray on the table in front of the now-seated women Annie said, ‘How’s Bump today, Car?’
Carol sighed. ‘Bump is fine. And I’m not a Car, I’m a Carol.’ Annie grinned at her – this was their little game. ‘Bump is getting a bit more active at night,’ added Carol. ‘I wonder how much more active it’ll get before it makes an appearance? I wish it would come out. I’ve had enough of this being pregnant lark now. Nine months? It feels like nine flippin’ years.’
Mavis picked up her cup and saucer – no office mug for her – and replied, ‘I was convinced my first bairn was going to play rugby for Scotland the minute he was born, he made such a fuss in the womb, but he’s very placid. It was the other way about for my second; hardly knew he was there, then he never stopped still from the minute he appeared, or so it seemed. They’re all different.’
No one disagreed because Mavis was the only one of the four who’d had children.
‘Business for the day? Plan for the week?’ said Mavis.
In her early-sixties, and therefore the oldest of the four, Mavis MacDonald had become the group’s meeting leader quite early on; it was as though
she had somehow been silently voted chairwoman.
Carol Hill powered up her electronic tablet. The one-time head of computing for a leading reinsurance company in the City of London, Carol’s choice to give up her stressful life in the hope it would help her conceive had paid off. Her prodigious talent with computers was underused by the WISE Enquiries Agency, but she enjoyed the work, and was now blissfully settled in a delightful Georgian house overlooking the common at the center of Anwen-by-Wye, where she and her husband David were looking forward to putting down roots. She, too, was a beneficiary of the generosity of the Twyst family, and paid so little rent for the spacious and well-proportioned home it was almost embarrassing. Whenever she mentioned this fact to either the duke or the dowager duchess she was told she wasn’t to worry, that the Twysts owed the women of the WISE Enquiries Agency a debt of gratitude for their having got to the bottom of a rather serious incident on the estate the previous year, and it was the least they could do.
Finally able to access various calendars, Carol spoke up. ‘Christine’s off to London later today for her late-nanny’s memorial gathering.’ Looking up she added, ‘Have you decided when you’re leaving yet?’
Christine looked at her watch. ‘If you don’t need me here, I might head out around eleven.’ Heads nodded.
‘Going to the do alone, doll, or will Mister B-rrright be on your arm?’ Annie’s dark eyes twinkled wickedly as she emphasized the ‘right’ part of the word.
‘Alexander will be accompanying me,’ replied Christine. She blushed a little as she spoke.
‘Cor! Does that mean he’s going to meet your father, the Viscount?’ said Annie, asking the question all the women wanted answered.
Christine sighed, and placed her coffee mug on the table. ‘They’re both going to be here for the wedding on Saturday, and I didn’t want that to be the first time they’d meet. Tonight’s get-together will be for lots of families for whom Nanny Mullins worked over the years – the parents and the children. It’ll be a mixed bag. It’s a good chance for them to shake hands, at least.’
‘You mean tonight’s a chance for them to give each other the once-over, eh?’ quipped Annie with a wink.
‘Annie,’ warned Mavis. ‘We know the circumstances under which Christine and Alexander met and got to know each other were somewhat unusual, and that he is a man not from the same world as Christine—’
‘Oh, come off it, Mave,’ said Annie, cavalierly flouting two of Mavis’s rules at once – no interrupting, and no shortening of names – ‘Alexander Bright has a shady background Chrissy’ll say nothing about, ’cept that he comes from the estates in Brixton, and his father was probably black. Ish. Well, not quite as black as my dad is. We all know he’s good-looking and charming and got pots of money, but none of us knows how he made it. And he’s not telling. You go for it, Chrissy. He’s a good old Londoner, like me, so he can’t be all bad. But you’d better watch it, doll, ’cause who knows what your father’s going to make of him. Might even give us a quick phone call to investigate his background between tonight and Saturday.’
‘It wouldn’t do any good if he did,’ said Carol. ‘If I can’t find out anything about Alexander Bright from the age of six to his mid-thirties, then no one can. But Annie’s right, Christine—’ she glared at Annie as she emphasized the last syllable of her colleague’s name – ‘your father might not be terribly impressed by a man who’s known for his philanthropic, if controversial, attitude toward housing for the poor, and his impressive but often questionable social network. What have you told him about Alexander?’
Christine fidgeted as she replied, ‘Not much. It’s very early days. It took me a while to begin to forgive Alexander for how he acted when we first met. And I know we see each other whenever I go up to London, but …’ She trailed off looking lost, then rallied: ‘… he’s a good man, I believe. He’s told me a lot about his early life, but I respect his privacy. He can tell the rest of you what he chooses, when he chooses. Whatever he might have done during those “missing years”, he’s more than making up for it now. And he’s so—’
‘Darkly handsome?’ said Annie with a mock-swoon.
‘Knowledgeable about so many things?’ said Carol with a warm smile.
‘Dangerous,’ said Mavis with an implied ‘tut’.
Christine grinned and said, ‘All of the above.’ Having sipped her coffee she added, ‘It’ll be fine. I’m sure they’ll be polite, if nothing else.’
‘Aye, I’m sure they will,’ said Mavis in a tone that suggested the topic was at an end. ‘So, with Christine in London, what are we three working on – so long as you don’t go into labor this week, Carol?’
Carol began, ‘I have a lot to do on the accounts today, then I’m on Welsh cake-making rota at the village hall tomorrow – for the wedding. However, by this evening I should be able to tell you all if you’re going to get paid this month, and, if so, how much. That said, don’t hold your breath, ladies. December was largely swallowed up with of all of us uprooting ourselves from London and moving here, so, as you’ll recall, we did hardly any work at all. I know Christine was able to complete the job we had in hand for the fashion designer who was worried her ideas were being stolen before she had a chance to launch them. By the way, Christine, if you would drop in with our invoice while you’re in London, that would save a stamp. Could you do that today, or maybe tomorrow? Your calendar tells me you’re not coming back until Thursday. Is this time off, or have you some plans you’d like to share with us?’
Christine flushed. ‘Yes, a bit of time off. I covered as best I could while you three moved all your worldly goods to Anwen-by-Wye from London, and I need to collect the dress I’ll be wearing to the wedding on Saturday. Also, Alexander and I thought we might run down to Brighton tomorrow. You know, poke about in The Lanes for something for the bride and groom. I thought Henry might like something a bit quirky. We’ll check out the wares at Alexander’s antiques business first, of course, but I have something in mind I don’t think he’ll have.’
‘Gold-plated chamber pot that was once Queen Victoria’s?’ quipped Annie.
Christine answered calmly, ‘No, I rather think Henry already has one of those.’ Her smile didn’t allow Annie to work out if she was telling the truth or poking fun at her friend. She puzzled about this as Christine added, ‘I wondered if you could help me out with that a bit, Carol? I don’t feel I’ve got to know Stephanie as well as I might, and I’m not really concerned about what Henry might want, but I’d rather like to find something that might tickle her fancy. If you’re not too busy, maybe you could poke about a bit in her online life and find out if she’s got any hobbies, that sort of thing?’ Carol nodded, and made a note on her screen. ‘By the way,’ Christine added, ‘what are you all getting them?’
‘My cousin in Carmarthen is carving them a love spoon,’ said Carol. ‘He’s going to incorporate the Chellingworth coat of arms, as best he can – and he’s very good, so I think it’ll turn out alright.’
‘Althea thought my idea of a set of monogrammed face towels was sensible,’ said Mavis.
Annie perked up as she said, ‘I was stumped ’til Eustelle gave me an idea. I found a place that lets you pick your own subscription to online magazines. I got one for each of them.’ As she finished speaking she noticed that Christine’s expression clouded.
‘I see, so you’re all sorted. I think I need that help, please Carol.’ Christine sounded worried.
‘So, back to business – this week Carol and Christine are spoken for, what about you and me, Annie?’ asked Mavis.
‘I’m here all week, and my dad arrives from London on Thursday. I have to finish up my report and expenses for the Case of the Gold-digging Girlfriend that I worked on in Cardiff,’ replied Annie, looking proud.
‘You did a good job there, Annie,’ praised Mavis. ‘First of all, it was quite a feather in our cap that we picked up that chance to do some undercover work for another agency in Cardiff – it’s
important we begin to make our strengths known within Wales, as well as continuing to get work we can handle from here in other parts of the country. And a wee birdie told me you got right into character as a barmaid in that club.’
‘I’m guessing that “wee birdie” would be my mother Eustelle?’ asked Annie, mimicking her colleague’s Scottish accent. ‘Reckons I’m being paid to be nosey, she does.’
‘Your mother is proud you’ve found a career that suits you so well,’ replied Mavis tartly. ‘But she’s also told me on several occasions, over tea at the Dower House, that she’s been extremely worried about you since you left your job as a receptionist in the City to become an enquiry agent. However, I don’t think you help matters by telling her you’re a “gumshoe”, my dear, and encouraging her to read all those lurid detective novels is no’ the brightest idea. She might be proud of you, but she’s concerned that you’re going to be in constant danger and run the risk of peering down the wrong end of a revolver.’
‘Annie has been stabbed during one, and kidnapped during another of our cases,’ said Carol quietly, ‘so Eustelle might have a point. It’s something that worries David. You know, about me and Bump. But he’s a bit happier now we’re out here in the countryside, and he’s able to keep an eye on me because he works from home.’
Mavis straightened her shoulders. ‘We must admit to ourselves, if not to our loved ones, that what we do doesn’t make us at all popular with the folks we discover are dishonest, or who are taking advantage of others, as Christine will attest. I hope you’ve got over the shock of having that dye thrown over you by the wee man who was stealing those designs at the fashion house, dear?’