Miss Seeton Rules (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 18)

by Hamilton Crane

  Nigel, thoughtfully knotting his tie, spluttered. “Life classes are one thing, Mother, but surely even Miss Seeton can’t propose to attend an Official Opening in the nude. The imagination boggles—sorry.”

  But his grin did not suggest undue repentance, and his mother shook her head at her undutiful son, and sighed.

  Miss Seeton shook her head, and sighed. The mirror—not always, she felt, an entirely reliable guide. Lady Colveden had said that the sort of clothes one had worn to the Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace would do very well—but, as one would have expected her ladyship to recall, that had been in the middle of summer: this was November. At least the forecast was neither for fog, nor for rain—which meant that a warm suit should suffice, being mostly, as one understood, indoors, rather than standing about in the open air. Lady Colveden—intending, no doubt, to be helpful—had added but warmer, of course. Perhaps one should, after all, wear over one’s suit the Parisian coat which, when reversed, was so sensible a shade of gaberdine, but which was an undoubtedly smart, if a trifle flamboyant, red-and-black check on the other side. It did not exactly match the suit, but that would hardly matter, since it was unlikely to require unbuttoning in so short a time ...

  The suit: a discreet and reassuring tweed, with a sensible blouse. One’s yellow beads—dear Cousin Flora! A hat? Naturally. Even on normal occasions, it was seldom that one cared to venture forth with one’s head uncovered: but with what to cover it now? The red felt with its cheerful cockscomb would be an exact colour match, but perhaps somewhat too ... spritely, for a teacher there in her official capacity. On the other hand, to reverse the coat to gaberdine would mean a hat in fawn or grey, which by itself, as a contrast, would do, but which with an entire coat would be—for royalty always wore such gay colours—imperial purple, royal blue—not only a little dull, but also, perhaps, disrespectful.

  Miss Seeton bobbed a hurried curtsey at the very idea, and continued planning her wardrobe. Gloves, of course. Not white, which was a summer colour, as one’s neat straw had been a summer hat: but leather, black and soft, with those three neat lines along the back. Court shoes, despite the suitability of the name, were perhaps a trifle lightweight for a royal occasion in November: luckily, one had a pair of walking shoes in grey which, at a pinch—except that they in fact fitted very well—would do. A new handbag; and, naturally, no other umbrella but the black silk, with the gold handle. Dear Mr. Delphick! What, wondered Miss Seeton idly as she began to button and zip herself at last into her chosen attire, was he doing now?

  In Scotland Yard, Chief Superintendent Delphick had turned from his mid-morning perusal of the Daily Negative to gaze with some amusement at his long-time sidekick, the enormous Detective Sergeant Ranger.

  “What did you say?”

  Bob coughed. “Sorry, sir, I’d forgotten all about it. You know how busy we’ve been recently with ... Sorry, sir.” He coughed again. “We heard a day or so ago, when Anne’s mother rang.” Bob’s wife, the former Miss Knight, had before her marriage lived in Plummergen, where her parents still ran the local nursing home. “It was only when you mentioned Dungeness just now that I remembered.”

  “Remembered,” prompted Delphick, “what?”

  “That one of the, er, Plummergen kids has won some newspaper competition for the job of handing a bunch of flowers to Princess Georgina, sir, when she goes to open the blessed thing.” It had been Delphick’s heartfelt comments on the probable traffic and security problems attendant upon the princess’s visit, and his gratitude that the Yard, for once, was spared such problems, which had jogged Bob’s memory. “Mrs. Knight says most of the village seems to be going to watch the fun, sir, even poor old Miss Wicks, with her arthritis: and half the, er, ambulatory patients”—Bob shot a look at his superior: jargon didn’t always impress the Oracle—“are cadging lifts on one of the buses.”

  “And who, might one ask, goes on the other?”

  “The, er, school, sir. All fifty of the kids, with the, er, teachers.” Bob shot another, more wary look in Delphick’s direction. “All three of them, sir.”

  There was a long, thoughtful pause.

  Delphick ended it. “Wherever Royalty goes, police officers and members of the security forces—MI5, MI6, and, for all I know, MI one-hundred-and-thirty-seven—go with it: before, behind, between, above, below. Done, as one might say”—he permitted himself a brief smirk, though the joke was lost on Bob—“to a turn. There will—or at least there should—be a copper on every corner, directing errant cars and buses to their appointed place; there should be plainclothes men and women mingling with the crowds, their eyes watchful for the least hint of trouble. Given the, ah, combustible nature of this particular occasion ...

  “I wonder,” he murmured, “how many of them have been deputed to keep an eye on Miss Seeton?”

  Miss Seeton, with Miss Maynard and Mr. Jessyp, was too busy keeping an eye on her fifty small charges to notice whether anyone else might be keeping an eye upon herself. It would have interested Chief Superintendent Delphick to know that there was, in fact, no such curious, overseeing eye. Moreover, had there been, and had Miss Seeton noticed it, she would have considered this attention on the part of the security forces to be quite unnecessary on her own account. Miss Seeton, as has already been mentioned, does not—cannot—accept that she leads on occasion a life of incident, of drama, of criminal connection deserving of official concern: her involvement in such occasions, she believes, has ever been a matter of mere passing chance, and is in no circumstances anything over which she—or anyone else—need feel the slightest concern.

  As Crabbe’s coach pulled into the car park at Dungeness D, Miss Seeton’s immediate concern was for the health and safety of those who had been entrusted to her particular care. The journey from Plummergen may have been short—no more than a dozen miles, along level marshland roads—but it had been crowded with incident. Children, wildly waving Union Flags, had prodded other children in various soft portions of the anatomy. Umbrage had been taken, insults hurled, challenges issued. A fully-fledged fencing duel had been fought up and down the central aisle before anyone could prevent it. The juvenile jousters had been forcibly parted by Mr. Jessyp just as they closed, their broken weapons discarded, in hand-to-hand combat on the floor; their supporters, leaping and squealing on either side, had contrived to sit on their packed lunches, to the detriment of the sandwich fillings, the seat covers, and the children’s nether garments.

  Several infants had succumbed to the first stages of motion sickness, and now drooped, pale and glassy-eyed, across the armrests overlooking the aisle, their heads bumped by other children, more robust, rushing (despite every stricture from Mr. Jessyp and—striving valiantly against her own nausea—Miss Maynard) to and fro as they sought the best view of the tall, brooding shape of the power station which loomed at them out of the distance.

  Amid all the chaos, Miss Seeton’s seat was a haven of calm. No riot or upheaval, no duelling or fisticuffs dared approach the place where she sat with young Sally and her mother, chatting brightly, reminiscing about her attendance at the Buckingham Palace Garden Party and the graciousness of Her Majesty the Queen, assuring her charge that curtseys would come easily, especially after so much coaching, since she herself—the yoga, of course, but Sally was so very much younger—had managed without any coaching at all ...

  Sally and her mother held out until Jack Crabbe pulled on the brake and switched off the engine. Forty-nine shrill voices were raised in a clamour to be first off the bus; one sad pipe addressed itself to Miss Seeton’s ear.

  “Please Miss, Mum—I don’t feel well.”

  “It’s only natural you should be a little excited,” said Miss Seeton, after a quick look at the girl’s mother had shown that such comfort as the child required must be offered by herself alone. “A short walk, you know, in the fresh air will work wonders.”

  Miss Seeton hopped nimbly up from her seat, and twitched her umbrella down from the overhead ra
ck. Holding it like a baton, she brandished the brolly before the startled noses of the other forty-nine children, and made it plain that the first to leave the bus should be herself, young Sally, and—as pale, now, as her daughter—Sally’s mother.

  Jack Crabbe caught her eye, and pressed a lever to open the door with a hiss, and a rubbery thud.

  The little procession descended the steps into the cool, windswept landscape of the shingle flatlands which comprise the unique promontory of Dungeness, the headland at the tip of Denge Marsh. Overhead, seagulls swooped and wheeled, screaming; higher still, clouds scudded across a slate-grey sky. The air felt damp against the skin, and there was a sudden taste of sea-salt on the lips.

  Sally shivered. “Miss, I really don’t feel—”

  “A short walk,” said Miss Seeton firmly, deciding with regret that the girl’s mother, quaking and speechless at her side, must fend for herself. The second coach had pulled in next-but-one to their own, decanting older friends who could administer rather more brisk assistance than Miss Seeton—the child’s teacher, but to the mother merely an acquaintance—felt would be acceptable.

  “Come with me,” Miss Seeton instructed the junior star of the forthcoming ceremony. Sally trotted meekly in the little figure’s wake, taking deep breaths as Miss told her, counting the red-and-black squares on her coat, and maybe not feeling quite so queer as she’d thought she felt, five minutes ago ...

  “Look at the lighthouse, Sally.” The umbrella pointed to the solitary structure, tall and weatherbeaten, almost at the water’s edge. “Try to guess how far away it is. Could you draw it, do you think? What colours would you use?”

  “Oh, Miss, everything’s cold, and grey, and horrid!” The complaint came loud and clear. Miss Seeton smiled to herself: her prescription had worked. “Can’t we go back now, where it’s warm? Mum ’n’ the rest’ll be wondering where we’ve gone.”

  The roses had returned to the child’s cheeks; and there was sure to be one last rehearsal for her to attend. Miss Seeton nodded, turned, and headed back towards the power station entrance. There would, no doubt, be some official at the gate who could advise her where she should deliver her young charge for the final run-through ...

  Peak-capped security guards issued directions; smiled at Sally, patting her on the head; paid compliment to her appearance as they checked lists, then stamped and handed out those cardboard oblongs which granted access to the less public parts of the building. An escort would, of course, be provided for such a pretty young lady. She and Princess Georgina together would be a sight for sore eyes. Just wait for the pictures in the papers, on the television!

  The hum of voices echoed down the third—or was it the fourth?—corridor: they must be nearly there. Sally, however, was starting to turn pale again. Nothing more (Miss Seeton hoped) than the contrast between the fresh autumn breezes and the surprisingly—one had always understood such places to be air conditioned, for the sake of the delicate machinery—the surprisingly stuffy atmosphere indoors. The oppressively—one might almost say aggressively—fresh paint, she supposed, silently wondering how Royalty survived such atmospheres day after day, visit upon visit. Noblesse oblige, no doubt, as well as habit: their escort, a tall and very upright, broad-shouldered young man, did not appear to be affected, while she herself, of course, was long accustomed to paint, and its smell. But one had to admit that in such large quantities, and in these windowless passages ...

  “Miss,” came small Sally’s even smaller voice, as the trio rounded the last corner to confront the waiting crowd, to see the anxious faces; to hear the hurried footsteps of an unknown dignitary as their arrival was greeted with sighs of relief. “Miss, I think I feel—I don’t feel well, Miss, please.” A tug on Miss Seeton’s sleeve, the voice, still small, rising to a pitiful wail.

  “Miss, please—I got to go!”

  chapter

  ~ 10 ~

  IN SUCH MOMENTS of juvenile crisis, the experienced teacher well understands that there is no time at all to be lost. As the young man with the shoulders, audibly gulping, could only gaze at Sally in mute alarm and begin to edge away, Miss Seeton glanced rapidly about her. Observing nearby a female figure in a discreet check overall, she recognised with relief the uniform worn by the waitresses in Brettenden’s Cosie Tea Rooms.

  It did not occur to Miss Seeton that aprons and caps of this design were so convenient for catering personnel that they were popular among many other establishments besides that run by Miss Enden. Miss Enden’s staff were renowned for their courtesy, promptness, and willingness to help: and, at that particular moment, courteous promptitude was precisely what was needed.

  “Excuse me.” Miss Seeton, standing on tiptoe, waved her umbrella to catch the discreetly-checked young woman’s full attention. “Excuse me!”

  Drawn by the compelling force of a practised pedagogic eye, the young woman hurried over. The problem was quickly explained: the remedy less quickly found, although she spoke as quickly as anyone Miss Seeton had ever met.

  The little girl wanted the toilet? Oh dear, well, she really couldn’t say, having only just popped in to see the fun, with being busy over t’other side setting out the buffy for later: what the boss’d called a collation—not that it mattered, she reckoned, what fancy name they gave it for the likes of Princess Georgina, living on caviare all day long the way she did, never nothing so dull as fish and chips or beans on toast or scrambled eggs. Only the best for Georgy Girl—a brand-new toilet brought in special—no (as Miss Seeton managed to squeeze in a word), not the Portaloo lot, but local, KarriKlozzet, that was them, and with a mink-lined seat, she wouldn’t wonder, and a regular crying shame she couldn’t let the little girl use it first, but there it was, more than her job was worth, though if it’d bin up to her she’d have said use it, and welcome—

  “Please, Miss!” Sally’s face was pale with the agony of tension. The gulping young man gulped again, realising he would soon be called upon to act; then he allowed stiffened shoulders to relax as the unknown dignitary finally succeeded in making his way through the throng.

  “The lavatory?” Dignity’s relief, on at last seeing the missing flower-girl within a few yards of where she was supposed to have been ten minutes ago, soon changed to shocked dismay as his words boomed and echoed around the room. “The lavatory—at a time like this?”

  Immediately, every head within earshot turned towards the little group. Dignity flushed purple, Shoulders scarlet, Miss Seeton demurely pink: but she did not forget her duty to young Sally, and explained, quietly but firmly, that she could not possibly allow her pupil to present the princess with her bouquet until she had first been permitted to refresh herself.

  “Her Royal Highness,” Dignity informed Miss Seeton in an irritated whisper, “is already drawing close to Dungeness D, I am informed. Within five minutes, I must be at the main gate to welcome her.” The whisper grew more important. “And she will be making her speech, and cutting the ceremonial ribbon, within a quarter of an hour from now!”

  “In which case,” said Miss Seeton, in her best schoolmistress tone, “there should be ample time for Sally to pay a visit to the nearest cloakroom. Moreover ...” Really, one did not wish to sound rude, but if there was no other way of putting one’s message across ... “Moreover, if you will excuse my saying so, the longer we stand about discussing the matter, the more time is likely to be lost.”

  Despite clear evidence to the contrary, Dignity was so powerfully reminded by Miss Seeton’s manner of his prep school headmaster’s refusal to accept any excuses for the cricket ball’s breaking of the gymnasium window that, within seconds, the still-blushing Shoulders had been deputed to whisk Sally and her chaperone down yet another passageway to a suitably discreet door, and to comfort.

  Nigel Colveden, in company with every other male present, fell instantly in love with Her Royal Highness. Georgina’s eyes were sparkling orbs of sapphire blue; her hair was a riot of rich, burnished gold, her smile a radiant ruby c
urve about pearl-white, regular teeth. Her photographs, Nigel decided, didn’t do her justice: he doubted if anything but the reality could.

  “Gosh,” breathed Nigel, a devout worshipper, from that moment on, at the shrine of Royalty’s youngest star. “Oh, gosh, I wish I was Miss Seeton!”

  Lady Colveden had never before known her son—heir to a baronetcy, in the prime of life, tall, muscular, and (even to a mother’s partial gaze) good-looking—express the desire to be metamorphosed into a small, thin, grey-haired spinster of a certain age: but her ladyship was, on this particular occasion, unsurprised at his expressing such a desire. Indeed, she had a strong suspicion that the sentiment was shared by almost everyone else, male or female, present: for Miss Seeton was nearly as close to the princess as her lady-in-waiting, and looked set to continue this closeness for the remainder of the royal Power Station Tour.

  Returning young Sally, under escort, from her visit to the cloakroom, Miss Seeton had been asked by those responsible for the Presentation of the Bouquet to stay, in the regrettable absence of her pupil’s parent, as moral support for that parent’s child. Though the Plummergen presence was strong, it was, sadly, by one presence less strong than it had originally been. Sally’s mother, overcome with emotion, had succumbed to stage fright in a bout of mild hysteria. She was being cared for (out of sight) by a posse of first aiders armed with smelling salts, burnt feathers, and sips of cool water: but the Show Must Go On, Regardless. Should anxiety about her mother prevent the child from carrying out her ceremonial duty, there was always—the sly official remarked—the competition runner-up in reserve ...