Far more interesting than that, though, was an article alongside it all about his career. I have to admit that I considered my grandfather something of a hero. Rather than staying in Cranley his whole life to live off the fat of the land, he decided that he wanted to make something of himself and so joined the police. Not only did he become one of the most celebrated officers in Britain, he shunned his family contacts and went in at the lowest rung of the ladder. Starting off as a constable, he worked his way up through the force on his own merit. I imagine that everyone at the time thought he was a raving loon.
Perhaps it was this, even more than the ball, which caught my curious peers’ attention. Suddenly everyone looked at me differently, but there were still two distinct trends to their behaviour. Three quarters of my schoolmates attempted to charm me in the hope of gaining an invitation for their families and the rest… well, let’s say that they were a little more hostile.
“Reckon you’re something special, don’t you, Prentiss!” Marmaduke Adelaide (known in the faintest of whispers behind his back as Marmalade) was a six-foot-three ape with luminous ginger hair and fists the size of megaliths. I’d lived in fear of him since we were five years old but he’d never paid me much mind, until now.
“Not at all,” I told him, as he grabbed me by the cravat to lift me off the surface of our small, muddy recreational yard. “I actually think I’m remarkably normal.”
“Well I think you’ve got a remarkable cheek answering back to me.” Marmalade was as well-spoken as any lord, and his family had more money than King George, but there were unflattering rumours about where the Adelaides’ wealth had come from.
“Um,” I replied, wishing I’d learn to keep my mouth closed. “I don’t honestly know how to reply as you might think I’m answering back again.”
The fingers in his right hand flexed, then curled together. He pulled his arm back, and I closed my eyes to prepare for impact.
“Master Adelaide,” a voice interrupted. “Would you please return your friend to where he was previously standing and be on your way? Master Prentiss has two perfectly good brown eyes, I doubt his mother would wish you to turn them black.”
Finding myself on terra firma once more, I stared out through tiny slits. Standing up close to Marmalade was our ox-shaped headmaster.
The bully’s grip relaxed and he offered a smarmy explanation. “I’m sorry, Mr Hardcastle. I was just giving little Chrissy here an astronomy lesson.”
The top man of The Oakton Classical and Commercial Academy for Distinguished Young Gentlemen had more to say on the matter. “That’s one thing you’ve never quite grasped in the years you’ve been here, Adelaide. You see, it is we teachers who are in charge of doling out the lessons and you boys who must learn them.”
If there was one person Marmalade was scared of, it was our headmaster. “Of course, Mr Hardcastle. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
The trusty educator watched Marmalade rejoin his gang of equally thuggish friends then walked away smiling.
I let out the breath I’d been holding for the last minute, just as Marmalade reappeared to deliver a swift, sharp dig to my ribs. I made a noise like a bellows with a hole in, as he delivered the complementary warning.
“You got away with it for now, but next time even Hardcastle won’t be able to save you.” I was doubled over with my hand to my stomach, so he grabbed my hair and yanked me up to look at him. “Don’t forget it.”
He released me to stagger away, then disappeared off to class.
For some reason, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Marmalade. On the one hand he was a thug and a menace, but I was certain he would have had an easier run of things if he hadn’t had to spend his life in his dishonest father’s shadow. No matter what he went on to achieve, talk of his family’s criminal connections would never leave him.
Perhaps inevitably after our one-sided brawl, I had my mind on other things. What I wanted, more than anything, was to be back by the hearth in Cranley’s cosy kitchen, with lovely Alice and Cook being nice to me. I wanted to see how the work was progressing and discover whether Grandfather had made any wild new resolutions.
Instead, I had a week at school to get through. A week spent learning algebra equations, quotations from Chaucer and Latin ablative constructions, which I would never need again once the class was over. A week being taught by large men with proportionally massive sideburns whose love of teaching came from the corporal punishment they could inflict upon the younger boys.
If my tone isn’t clear enough, I think it’s fair to say that I’ve never been a fan of my school’s educational methods. Though my father always insisted that Oakton Academy was where he learnt to be a man, I’ve yet to discover what he would have otherwise turned into.
My three best friends were all called William. They were shy, bookish types who looked and talked just like me, but weren’t the sort you call for help when someone wants to knock your block off. As we snuck about the school each day, with our eyes peeled for Marmaduke Adelaide’s attack force, William, Will and Billy were good company. It was a little like having my own personal guard, except, instead of a trained squad of career soldiers, I had three podgy boys who liked nothing more than a spot of afternoon tea.
I managed to escape any more physical punishment that week, both from my sadistic teachers and my sadistic peers. When Friday finally arrived, and I found Todd waiting for me at the school gates to drive me to Cranley, I forgot all about Oakton with its red bricks and screeching blackboards and dived back into my grandfather’s world.
He was even more animated than the last time I’d seen him, and things were changing faster than I could have imagined. Work on the front façade of the hall was nearly completed, the ballroom had been refreshed and modern equipment had been installed in the kitchen – including Captain William Howard Livens’ hand-powered dishwasher, which I had to try myself as I simply couldn’t believe that such a convenient device could exist.
I didn’t see as much of Lord Edgington that weekend. He had purchased a new gramophone and a library’s worth of records and spent most of his time catching up on modern music. He did pop down to the kitchen on Friday night to compliment Cook on her canard aux asperges creation though and ended up staying for a hand of cards.
My grandfather had never been a man to stand on ceremony, but even for him this was unusual behaviour. During his career, he had become acquainted with every type of character from Britain’s great human tapestry, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise that he would treat his staff with the respect they deserved. And yet, since his reawakening, I felt that he was making a concerted effort to show me that the barriers I had viewed my whole life as both rigid and ingrained were nothing of the sort.
The subsequent weeks went by in much the same way and being at school felt like a punishment for some dark crime. I avoided Marmalade, got my friends to teach me rummy, as that seemed to be the game that was played most often below stairs, and read Martin Chuzzlewit for the third time, even though it’s far from Dickens’s best.
I also did my part for the preparations for the spring ball. Fellowes provided a contact for a dance band that he assured me were top notch. There was no time to audition them sadly but, as rude as he often was, I trusted Grandfather’s old faithful to come through. I even created a menu that went beyond cakes, though I did have to overrule some of Cook’s more exotic suggestions out of fear for my family’s reputation.
Those weekends passed in seconds while the weeks took years, but then the spring ball was finally upon us. School would be closed for a whole three days for the Whitsun holiday weekend and there was an air of expectancy, even within the gloomy corridors of Oakton Academy. Students who came from further afield would stay behind with Mr Hardcastle and the other teachers but I was finally free!
When Todd came to collect me, my friends peered down from the upper floor of the building
like convicts on a ship to the new world. For their sake, I attempted to hide how happy I was as I waved goodbye. For a moment I had an inkling of what my father meant about Oakton making a man of me. It was not the school itself, but the years I had spent there and now, already sixteen and getting taller by the day, I was helping to throw a society ball in one of the grandest houses in England.
This is exactly what I was thinking of as Marmaduke Adelaide came flying towards me. My joie de vivre had set me off guard and he appeared out of nowhere. His immense fist caught me right in the eye and I crumpled to the ground like a house made of straw.
“Whoop!” he yelled in celebration as he lined up his knuckles for a second blow. Like a rabbit who knows its only defence is to play dead, I lay on the ground, as stiff as a mummy.
Luckily, Todd was quick to action and sped from the driver’s seat to confront the marauding Marmalade. The chauffeur grabbed the bully by his lapels, and I don’t like to think what would have happened if the headmaster hadn’t arrived.
“Is that what you teach your students?” Todd spat the words at the teacher who blustered and faffed in reply.
Mr Hardcastle had seized my attacker to cart him back inside and attempted to recover from the insult by shouting a belated retort over his shoulder. “You’re a darned chauffeur. You’ve no right to talk that way to me!”
“Enjoy the ball, Cinderella,” Marmalade added for good measure.
Todd crouched down to talk to me. “Are you all right, Master Christopher?”
I opened my one good eye to check that we were alone. “I could be worse but… Well, I suppose I could be better too.”
He held out his hand and pulled me up to standing. “You shouldn’t let toffs like him push you around.”
I didn’t know how to reply to that, so I pretended I hadn’t heard and got inside Grandfather’s Silver Ghost. It was not the most fashionable vehicle in the Cranley collection, or even the most recently acquired, but it made me feel like a king every time I sat in the back seat for Todd to drive us off the school grounds.
“Oh no you don’t,” he complained. “Sit in the front with me. We need to talk.”
In his green livery and cap, Grandfather’s driver had a steady, competent manner about him and it was hard to refuse. He was the youngest male member of staff too and the best spoken by far. He could have easily fitted in with my brother’s friends in fact, had Albert not viewed all servants as a different class of human being.
I climbed into the passenger seat and he started the engine.
“You need to stand up to people like that chap.” He kept his eyes on the road but prodded at me with the words.
“That’s easier said than done. I don’t think I’m really cut out for… fisticuffs.” I had managed to land on the most juvenile word available.
“Then I’ll give you a few pointers.” He smiled and we drove through the Oakton Academy gates. “I did a bit of boxing when I was your age and I can’t tell you the confidence it gave me.”
I made an appreciative sound but inside I was wondering what could be worse than the sight of chubby little me in shorts and boxing gloves, coming up against Todd the stocky stallion.
He laughed briefly and we spent the rest of the journey in silence. Well, not total silence. My eye was throbbing in time with the second hand on my wristwatch and I let out the odd whimper. I’d never experienced such acute and absolute agony before and couldn’t wait to run to the ice house at Cranley to fetch a cold piece of meat to relieve the pain.
Chapter Seven
“It is not a question of who the money belongs to, Father. It’s a matter of principle.” Dressed as ever in his hunting jacket and cap, Uncle Maitland had returned with his sister to make one final attempt to derail the celebrations.
“This is your absolute last chance,” Belinda announced, as Todd brought the car to a halt at the front of the property. “Call off the ball or we’ll contact every last guest ourselves.”
Surveying the completed work as labourers packed their horse and cart with the last remnants of the scaffolding, Grandfather was not intimidated by the threats.
“How many times do we have to go over the same ridiculous arguments?” Severely unimpressed, he turned his concrete gaze on his two eldest children. “No one is trying to do you out of your inheritance, nor have my actions besmirched the family’s good name. I just want to entertain our friends and let my hair down.”
Aunt Belinda, who had lived her life with her hair particularly high on her head, looked horrified by the very idea. “Let your hair down?” She made a low, guttural noise in her throat to express her distaste. “A man your age shouldn’t even know such a term, let alone put it into practice.”
I got out of the car and tried to head inside without being noticed.
“That’s not the issue.” Maitland immediately extended his index finger in my direction. “I need you to tell me what you intend to do with that boy and why he has won favour here at Cranley!”
My grandfather looked exhausted, and I disappeared inside before they could blame me for all their worldly woes. The last thing I heard was Belinda demanding that her caddish son George came to live with Grandfather as tribute. I’d always known she was old-fashioned but it turned out that some of her ideas were positively mediaeval.
Away from their squabbling, I was free to take in the transformation that had taken place in three short weeks. Cranley Hall had been cleaned, buffed and polished from top to bottom. The smell of dust and ageing furniture, which I expected to encounter on entering the building, had been replaced by the scent of beeswax and lavender. The normally unwelcoming entrance hall, with its stuffed animals and framed horrors, suddenly seemed brighter. Its portraits of bloody biblical scenes now took on a heroic quality which I’d never appreciated before.
Though the builders had left the property as promised, they’d been replaced by a host of new faces. The ball was only a day away and my team of party-planning assistants were already hard at work. Pretty young ladies in smart, white outfits, who looked like the secretaries at father’s work, were rushing down corridors with chairs and decorations to distribute. Strapping gentlemen in smart overalls were shifting furniture in the grand salon and I decided against entering the ballroom just then. I wanted to wait until the day itself to witness the improvements that had been made there.
For the first time I could remember, Cranley Hall had come to life. It felt like a patient who had been saved from their fate at the very last moment and would go on to enjoy a full and happy existence. The buzz and bustle of the place, which would only be amplified the following night, had an incredible positivity to it. I seriously doubted that the house had been so busy in decades.
Rather uncannily, everyone seemed to know who I was and smiled at me as I explored this unfamiliar environment that I had known since I was a child. The young ladies soon set upon me with questions of floral arrangements and refreshments.
“Oh, well, I think that whatever you decide will be just perfect,” was my standard response. Normally, when I plump for such vague answers with my family or teachers I get told off for dithering, but these sunny individuals nodded and got to work. It was most refreshing.
Fellowes was at the heart of everything, and looked relieved that I had arrived to take on some of his burden.
“Chrissy!” he shouted, once I had completed the initial part of my duties. “I think there’s something you’d better see.”
The curt retainer offered up a grin and led me to the billiards room, which was being used as the centre of operations for our mission. Well, that was the plan, but you could no longer enter the room as it was filled with flowers.
“One field of delphinium, half a field of peony and a copse of lilac,” he dryly repeated. “The florist was very apologetic about the whole thing. She felt sure there’d been a mistake, but I hear you insiste
d.”
I sneezed in reply. All that pollen was going straight up my nose. “I… Oh, dear.” No great explanation sprung to mind. “Now that I see them all together like this, it does look rather a lot, doesn’t it? Do we have enough vases?”
“Did you order any vases?” I could see he was enjoying this.
“No, I…”
“And did Lord Edgington not give you a budget for the party? Or did you think that a small fortune for flowers seemed like a reasonable price?”
I had a moment of sheer panic at the thought of my grandfather’s temper being directed upon me. Eventually, Fellowes took pity and helped calm my nerves.
“Don’t worry about it, lad.” A smile curled across the butler’s face. “I told the old man already and he didn’t seem too worried. I believe the words that he used were, ‘They will add some colour to the place.’”
I took in the endless harvest which had been stuffed into the room before us. The white delphiniums were as bright as any star and their luminescence reflected back off the walls. They’d transformed the usually drab billiard room into a spring meadow. I realised that there were no peonies just as Fellowes pointed to the smoking room.
“This is just the beginning, there are more across the hall.”
It was fairly clear now that I should have taken the florist’s advice.
Despite this minor setback, all other preparations were progressing well. Our regular staff were in on the act and the work didn’t let up for a moment. Todd would be doubling as a footman for the next couple of days, when not ferrying guests about. Fellowes had more opportunities than ever to bark orders at everyone and the maids were hard at work getting the house ready for an influx of tipsy overnighters. Alice spotted me soon after I arrived and fussed herself over my black eye.
Murder at the Spring Ball: A 1920s Mystery Page 4