Chapter 7 – Jen and Etta chat
Jen was sitting on the bed, shoes off, pillows heaped behind her, reading a story about a sheik and a shop girl in a magazine called Peg’s Paper that she had borrowed from the Servants’ Hall. She had spotted a cute, black Art Deco style radio on the dressing table. After admiring it for a while, she had switched it on and fiddled with the knob until she found a frequency playing music that she liked. It was a lot easier with DAB radios, she thought. Once again, she was reminded of her granny. She was half listening to “Stormy Weather” when the bedroom door burst open. She looked up. Etta rushed in, looking flustered and carrying a white tennis dress and a pair of white plimsolls. Jen put the magazine down.
‘What’s happening now?’
‘I’ve been asked to play tennis.’ Etta dumped the dress and plimsolls on the bed and began undressing.
Jen picked up the plimsolls and put them on the ground to stop them making the coverlet dirty.
‘Can you play tennis?’
‘Course I can. I learnt at school,’ answered Etta, pulling off her blouse.
‘Well, that’s all right then. Sooner you than me. What are they like, the nobs, I mean?’
‘They’re like characters out of one of your Winnifred Warlock novels, Mum.’ Etta stepped out of her skirt.
‘Really?’
‘You’ve got a femme fatale, you’ve got a silly ass, you’ve got a rich American, you’ve got a baronet and his wife and their family. Plus you’ve got Miss Mittens.’ Etta was counting them off on her fingers as she spoke. Then she picked up the tennis dress. It a sleeveless white cotton dress with daisies embroidered around the hem. There was no zip that she could see.
‘Could you help me put this on?’
Jen assisted her to struggle into the dress. It was a little too large and too long for her.
‘Whose is it?’
‘Marjorie’s.’
‘Which one is she again?’
‘She’s married to Dennis Mowbray, the eldest son. I get the impression that she doesn’t like Evangeline Spinoza very much. To be honest, I got the impression that not many of the women like her very much.’
‘Evangeline Spinoza, that’s the film star. They were talking about her down in the servants’ hall. I met her maid, Miss Potter, she didn’t seem that impressed with her either.’
Etta sat on the side of the bed to take her shoes, stockings and garters off and put the socks and plimsolls on.
‘Do the plimsolls fit you?’
‘Yeah, they’re ok with socks. What’s it like in the servants’ hall?’
Jen motioned her to sit in front of the dressing table. Etta sat down and Jen began to pull her hair into a minute ponytail with the ribbon and hairpins that lay on a pink glass tray on the dressing table.
‘Pretty much as I expected. Mr. Cook is funny and a bit bossy.’
‘Who’s he? Ouch! Not so tight.’
‘Sorry. The tiny butler.’
‘I thought he was quite nice.’
‘That’s because he thinks you’re a guest and one of ‘them upstairs.” If you were below stairs, you might think differently. But Fraser the chauffeur seemed nice. Anyway, what did you talk about to Miss Mittens?’
‘Yes. She told me that I’m a wealthy orphan and to be wary of fortune hunters.’
‘That’s interesting because I was putting your nighty away and guess what? I saw the label and it says it’s rayon not silk.’
‘So?’
‘Rayon was a cheap material that felt like silk. But if you’re rich, why are you wearing rayon?’
‘She did say that ‘you’ve become a wealthy young woman.” That sounds like I’ve only just become rich. Perhaps I haven’t had time to buy an expensive nighty yet.’
‘Yes but I’ve had a look through your wardrobe. Everything else looks and feels expensive. And I’ve found something else odd in my handbag. It was a card from a private detective agency.’
‘Why would you have a card like that in your handbag?’
Jen shrugged her shoulders. ‘Beats me. But don’t you think it’s starting be more and more like a Winnifred Warlock novel? And you sound as if you’re a character from one of her books too.’
Jen looked at Etta’s reflection in the oval mirror that hung, suspended over the dressing table.
‘It’s a dream,’ Etta insisted.
Jen shook her head. ‘It’s been going on too long for a dream. We should have woken up by now. I think it’s time we faced it, Etta. We’re in a Winnifred Warlock novel.’
‘No, we aren’t,’ argued Etta. ‘How did we get here?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Besides, they’re always murder mysteries, aren’t they and no one’s been murdered.’
‘Not yet,’ Jen said.
Murder and Mittens Page 7