There was a freshly dug grave with a brand-new headstone dedicated to Pixie Dust, who, at twenty-nine, was the youngest of the three “old ladies.” Her epitaph was touching.
PIXIE DUST
DECEMBER 1987–APRIL 2016
SPRINKLE YOUR MAGIC IN HEAVEN
I felt a lump in my throat as I remembered the morning I found Pixie Dust motionless in the straw. Ian Masters, the vet, told us that she’d just fallen asleep in the night and didn’t wake up. I found some consolation in knowing that her passing had been so peaceful.
“Mind if I join you?” I asked Edith.
She looked up and nodded. Her face was pale and drawn. For once, Mr. Chips seemed subdued—as if he was sensing his mistress’s distress—and only acknowledged my presence with a desultory wag of his stumpy tail.
I sat down on the wooden bench, glancing at the gold-plated plaque inscribed with the words RUPERT—MY BROTHER, MY BEST FRIEND. I wondered if Rupert had ever told his sister about the location of the double-hide but didn’t think this was the right time to ask. It was obvious that Pandora’s death had upset Edith far more than I realized.
“How is Harry?” said Edith at last. “Has he settled into his new school?”
“I think he’s still trying to make friends.”
“He should have stayed at Blundell’s,” she said bluntly. “He was with his own kind there and not the riffraff from the village. It doesn’t do to mollycoddle boys. The world is a hard place. No one is doing these children any favors by fussing over them and making it easy.”
“I think Harry is more sensitive than most,” I protested.
“All the more reason for him to toughen up.”
“Harry mentioned you are thinking about selling the Titanic mourning bear,” I said, changing the subject. “Don’t you think the Hollar drawings should generate enough revenue? A lot of Hollar’s work was lost in the Great Fire of London and it’s highly sought after by collectors.”
“I have no idea,” said Edith. “Rupert has arranged for a restoration expert to take a look at the ceiling next week.”
“What about Rupert’s train set?” I remembered he’d mentioned having one up in the attics. I suspected it could be highly valuable.
“Frankly, it’s all a drop in the ocean, Katherine,” said Edith. “We’re slowly going bankrupt.”
“I know you are against opening it to the public—”
“Absolutely not—”
“Please hear me out,” I said. “The Historic Houses Association offers tours of private homes. You’d be open whenever you wanted to be. The tours are for a limited number of people and it’s ticketed.”
“What could anyone possibly find interesting about the Hall?”
“The Museum Room, for one,” I said. “And the grounds—the grotto, stumpery, sunken garden—there is so much here to see.”
“But even to get it to a point of being acceptable to visitors would cost a fortune.”
Edith definitely was right about that. We lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.
“Rupert was so sure that he’d find the silver coins in the double-hide,” she said at last. “So sure! Finding the tools…” She shook her head. “All so frightful.”
I knew I had to say it. “I’m so sorry about your friend.”
“Friend? I’m not sure if I would call Pandora a friend,” said Edith with a trace of bitterness. “We were pen friends. I had met her in London just the once. We had a lot in common. My parents had died in the Blitz and hers had been killed in a car crash on the Continent.”
“So you were both orphans.”
“She had a guardian but of course, Pandora did exactly as she pleased.” Edith paused. “She was unforgivably rude to the servants. Even struck poor Joan who couldn’t have been more than eighteen at the time. My mother always told me that servants are trained to do skilled work that we could not possibly do and should be treated with the utmost courtesy. They are in no way inferior. They are part of the family.”
“And Pandora didn’t understand?”
“Well. She was American. Of course she didn’t understand.” I could see it still upset Edith. “You must always be polite to people whose position forbids them to be rude to you, Katherine. Otherwise they will despise you.”
“And they despised Pandora.”
“We had a frightful row the night of the ball. It all sounds so childish now, but it was my birthday and she stole my costume.”
“The one my mother had made for you?”
“I’ve never seen anyone so angry. Iris was devastated.” Edith fell quiet again, and then turned to me saying, “Pandora sent me a thank you note, you know.”
“A thank you note?” I gasped. “But how…?”
“Someone forged her name,” said Edith. “That’s why I didn’t think twice about her vanishing. But to know she has been here! Here! For all these years! It’s just … it’s just too frightful to bear.”
“You couldn’t possibly have known.”
“Of course I couldn’t have known,” Edith said hotly. “But don’t you see? Someone from here forged that note. I am quite certain that it would never have been one of the servants.”
The silence between us lengthened. A peculiar feeling started to form in the pit of my stomach as I realized exactly what Edith was implying. “You think my mother had something to do with this?”
Edith didn’t answer.
“But … how would she have known about the double-hide?” I went on. “How could she physically have put Pandora in there?”
“Perhaps Iris didn’t act alone,” said Edith quietly.
“You mean…?” I couldn’t even finish my sentence. Edith’s meaning was clear. “Surely it could have been anyone who went to the ball,” I protested. “And besides, Mum told me that they were not permitted to roam around the main house.”
“I know,” said Edith.
“But … when did you receive the thank you note?”
“One week later,” said Edith. “I distinctly remember the day because it was the same morning that Braveheart was born.”
I recalled the epitaph on the hill above us: BRAVEHEART: NEVER BEATEN: A TRUE KING.
“He was born prematurely but we couldn’t get him out,” said Edith. “It was touch and go whether he would survive.” She took a deep breath. “So I can assure you that I didn’t give Pandora or her thank you letter another thought. The following week, there was all that frightful business with my brother and Walter.”
I knew that Edith was alluding to the duel that ended in both their deaths but I was surprised that she was being so candid, especially to me. It was hard to know what to say.
“I should have suspected something was wrong,” Edith went on. “I knew Pandora had planned a trip to the Orient. I should have written to her but I didn’t. She used to send me postcards on her travels—to brag, naturally—but I didn’t receive a single one. As far as I was concerned, our friendship was finished.”
“Have you told the police about the thank you letter?”
“Good gracious, no,” Edith exclaimed. “It would prompt all sorts of questions. No, far better to let things be. Pandora stumbled into the double-hide by accident—just like you did.”
“But her … injuries?”
“She died from her injuries,” Edith said firmly. “We may know the exact placement of the body but we can keep that between ourselves.”
Roxy was right when she’d mentioned Honeychurch hush-ups. “What about your brother? As the head of the house, wouldn’t he have known about the double-hide?”
Edith regarded me coldly. “What exactly are you trying to say, Katherine?”
“Nothing.” I faltered. “I just meant—or wondered if your brother knew Pandora.” I wanted to add that according to Mum’s family tree, the thirteenth Earl of Grenville would have been quite a catch and perfect marriage material for the American heiress.
“Rupert and Pandora barely exchanged more than two words
the entire time she was here,” said Edith. “No, I’m afraid … I’m sorry, my dear. Your mother has always been very loyal to me.”
My dismay must have been obvious because, in a rare show of affection, Edith reached out and patted my shoulder. “So you see, that’s why it’s best if we keep it quiet about her being here with the fair and boxing emporium that summer.”
She clicked her fingers and Mr. Chips leapt to attention, patiently waiting for further instructions. Edith got to her feet. I knew I was being dismissed.
The pair turned and began the trudge back up the hill.
“Wait!” I raced after her. “Why do you think my mother posted the thank you letter?”
“It was postmarked St. Ives in Cornwall—one of their stopping places,” said Edith. “It had to be Iris.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I’m afraid not. Please tell your mother what I said. She and Alfred were never here that summer. It’s for the best.”
I watched the slight figure weave in and out of the gravestones until they were out of sight. Did Edith know something? Was it possible that Mum and Alfred had been involved somehow and if so, why?
There were too many unanswered questions. I didn’t want to cause my mother any trouble but I just had to find out the truth.
Chapter Thirteen
“Wait a minute!” Mum shouted in answer to my knock at her office door. I heard the grumble of the rolltop desk lid come down. “Don’t come in yet!”
Balancing a tray of cheese and pickle sandwiches and two packets of crisps in one hand, I threw open the door with the other and strolled in. “I thought you might like a spot of lunch.”
“Oh, how lovely.” Mum beamed. “I was getting a bit peckish. You can just leave it there, dear.” She pointed to the coffee table next to the wingback armchair. “Off you go.”
“I thought we could eat lunch together.”
Mum looked irritated. “I’m rather busy.”
“Just for five minutes.” I opened her bag of crisps, sprinkled them onto a plate and passed her a sandwich. “Don’t you want to know what Edith had to say to me?”
Mum rolled her eyes. “You’ve got that expression on your face again.”
“Which expression?”
“The accusatory expression,” said Mum. “The one that means we’ll probably argue.”
“We won’t if you are truthful.”
“I was talking to Peggy—”
“Peggy now, is it?”
“I was telling her how oppressive you could be.”
“What else did Peggy have to say for herself?”
“Never you mind,” said Mum. “It’s private.”
“Well—I wish I could say my conversation with Edith was private, but unfortunately it involves you.”
Mum put her sandwich down. “What do you mean?”
“Did you know that Edith received a thank you letter from Pandora after the ball?”
Mum frowned. “But how can that be possible?” She thought for a moment. “You mean, she left the Hall, someone killed her and then took the body back to hide it?”
“I wish that were true, but Edith believes the thank you letter was forged.”
“Just like the book,” Mum said thoughtfully.
“Mum, I won’t be cross, just tell me the truth,” I said. “Did you write that thank you letter?”
Mum’s jaw dropped. “What are you talking about? Me? Write the thank you letter? Why would I do that?”
“Maybe you were covering something up—or you and Alfred were covering something up. I don’t know, just tell me!”
Mum’s eyes flashed with anger. “I don’t know anything about a thank you letter.”
“Just like you didn’t know anything about Lady Chatterley’s Lover!”
“That was different! Anyway, I didn’t even know about the double-hide.”
“The problem is that I never know what to believe and what not to believe.”
“You mean … you can’t possibly mean…” Mum spluttered with indignation. “You think I had something to do with Pandora’s death? Are you mad?”
“Alfred, then?”
She got to her feet. “I think you should leave now before one of us says something they will regret.”
“Lavinia said, well, it was Rupert really—actually, no, Edith—”
“What?”
“They would prefer it if you and Alfred said you weren’t here that particular summer it happened.”
“I see.” Mum fumed.
“They just want to protect you.”
“So everyone here thinks I’m a murderer! How lovely.”
“That’s not what I said.”
Mum strode over to the door and dramatically flung it open. “Good-bye!”
But I stood my ground. “I’m just the messenger! Just tell me—please tell me what’s going on.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake.” She strode back to the desk and threw open the rolltop lid. Inside was a rusty cash tin speckled with lumps of earth.
“What on earth is that?”
Mum didn’t answer. She opened it, took out an old exercise book and then closed the box with a snap. Silently—she handed it to me.
“What is this?”
I stared at the battered cover. Written in the subject box was the title, THE AMERICAN HEIRESS—NOTES. The date said June 17, 1958—that would have been six days before Edith’s birthday bash.
“Well—aren’t you going to read it?” said Mum.
I cracked open a page and tried to make sense of my mother’s scribbles. “Dunna fret thysen about lovin’ me. Sit ’ere I’th ’ut. Dunna ax me nowt now. Is this in code?”
“No, it’s not in code!” Mum exclaimed and snatched it out of my hands. “It’s written in dialect—gamekeeper dialect, that’s all. I told you, I just wanted to borrow Lady Chatterley’s Lover to see how it was done.”
“But you’ve called this The American Heiress,” I pointed out.
“Oh. Well, I wrote it so long ago, who knows what it’s supposed to be about.”
“But why is it in that cash box?”
“I told you there was no privacy in Aunt June’s caravan,” said Mum. “And in fact, there seems to be no privacy here, either.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right, it’s none of my business.”
“If you must know, I buried the cash box out in the woods over fifty years ago and just remembered where. The trees have grown quite a bit since then.”
“Oh so that’s what you remembered burying,” I said.
“Yes, it’s my little time capsule.”
“What else is in there?”
“Never you mind—can you hear that knocking?” Mum cocked her head.
“Don’t dodge the question!” But I heard the knocking, too.
“I’ll go.”
Mum hurried out and then shouted, “You’ve got a visitor!”
To my dismay, Rupert was standing in the hallway. His expression was thunderous. In his hands was a copy of the Daily Post. I knew I should have warned him.
“Just in the middle of something. Sorry,” Mum muttered and slipped past me, darting back upstairs.
“You’ve seen it,” I said flatly.
“Why would you do such a thing?” he raged. “Why would you give an interview? How could you, Katherine!”
I was horrified. “I did not give an interview. The press are wolves. They take everything out of context. You know that.”
“Really?” He thrust the newspaper into my hands. “Really? Well, explain that!”
It was everything a tacky sensational tabloid newspaper could possibly be. A recycled photo of me had been superimposed in front of Honeychurch Hall along with a pixilated holiday snap of Pandora Haslam-Grimley laughing aboard a yacht. The caption said, “Cannes: 1957.” She looked young and beautiful, with a cloud of dark hair. There were accounts of wild orgies, costume parties and the implication that this was a house where anything and everything was poss
ible, all told in lurid detail by a “family friend.”
I stared blindly at the thick, black headline and shook my head.
“Read it!” Rupert hissed.
HONEYCHURCH HOUSE OF HORRORS
NO MORE SECRETS
AMERICAN SOCIETY HEIRESS DISCOVERED BETWEEN WALLS
EX TV CELEBRITY HOST, KAT STANFORD, NOW SHARES HER NEW HOME WITH ONE OF THE OLDEST FAMILIES IN ENGLAND—BUT WILL SHE KEEP ITS SECRETS?
The Grenvilles date back to Henry V and have had more than their fair share of scams, scandals, crimes of passion and cold-blooded murder.
What really happened to the stable manager who mysteriously left to walk the Himalayas? What is the real story behind the body in the grotto or the minister in the mire?
Join Ginny Riley in the first of an exclusive behind- the-scenes look at the shocking truth of what lies beneath the upper-class façade.
Follow us on Twitter for updates and like us on Facebook.
A further paragraph in bold print promised a financial reward for anyone living in Little Dipperton who could “share memories” and help bring the killer of the latest tragedy to justice.
I couldn’t speak. All I felt was white-hot anger. How could Ginny do this?
“Eric told me Ginny was here yesterday,” said Rupert.
“She was.” I thought of how desperate she had been when she’d called around later that night. “But this isn’t her doing. She told me her article had been rewritten. She was upset.”
“She’s upset?” Rupert was trembling with fury. “Have you any idea what this will do to my mother?”
“Yes. Of course I do,” I exclaimed. “Yes. Ginny came here. No, I did not tell her anything. She obviously got her information from somewhere else!”
“And what about Harry?” Rupert demanded. “Didn’t you stop to think how this would affect him?”
I didn’t know what to say.
Rupert shook his head. “You and your mother,” he said with disgust. “I wish you’d never come here. You’ve been trouble from the very beginning.” At some point, I no longer heard Rupert’s insults until he started shaking a finger at me. “I want you to fix this, do you understand? I don’t care what you have to do but fix it now!”
A Killer Ball at Honeychurch Hall Page 11