Chapter Twelve
Time passed pleasantly, and by five o’clock there was still no one in the library.
We’d brought fresh cups of tea from the sitting room and made ourselves comfortable in our favourite chairs.
The day’s main meal had been Peggy Crawford’s spectacular Sunday roast so supper was to be light, and much later. No recital was planned.
All of which meant that there was no urgent need to change, and no need to work ourselves into the right frame of mind to be sparkling company at cocktails. But it also meant that the evening sprawled intimidatingly ahead of us with no routine to fill it.
At home we might have read, played games or, in Lady Hardcastle’s case, made music. If that failed to enchant us, we could stroll into the village for a drink at the pub with our friends. Here, though, there was no escape.
We could read, of course, but further perusal of the shelves had revealed that the dreary A Schooner to Nova Scotia was one of the livelier books in JB’s collection.
Music had been a major part of the weekend so far, but Lady Hardcastle wasn’t in the mood for more, and it would have required us to trudge up the stairs to the drawing room, anyway.
There was a rather lovely scrimshaw chess set with pieces inspired by JB’s favourite book, Moby-Dick, but neither of us was in the mood for that, either. I wondered, briefly, why there was no copy of Moby-Dick on the shelves, but then remembered seeing one in JB’s office.
This left cards or conversation. Or, preferably, cards and conversation.
There were several packs in most rooms, along with notepads and pencils for scoring, so we had found two sets and prepared them for a game of bezique.
There was a card table by the window, but we were too comfortable in the wingbacks so we decided to make do with the low table that held our teacups.
We had been playing for some time and I had been winning convincingly.
‘What do you want for your birthday?’ asked Lady Hardcastle as she arranged her newly dealt hand.
‘Oh, I have everything I need, thank you.’
‘Of course you do. But do you have everything you want?’
‘I do hope not. Can you imagine how empty life would be if we had nothing left to want?’ I fiddled with my cards. ‘A trip to London to see Gwen and the baby? It’s her birthday, too, after all.’
‘With dinner and a show?’
‘I’m not sure my niece is ready for the theatre. To judge from Gwen’s letters, she’s quite advanced for a seven-week-old, but I don’t think little Meg should be going to West End shows quite yet.’
She tutted and rolled her eyes. ‘We’ll bring Gwen, Dai and Marged up to Harry’s house and leave the baby with their nanny while we all go out together. My brother won’t mind.’
Lady Hardcastle’s brother, Harry, lived in Bloomsbury, so it was handy for the theatre and a number of good restaurants.
My twin sister and her husband got on well with Harry and his wife – everyone got on with Harry and Lady Lavinia – so this actually seemed like a good idea.
And Lady Hardcastle, I knew, already harboured a daydream that one day our nieces would take over where we left off, so she was keen to introduce Meg to her own niece, Addie, as soon as possible.
‘That sounds wonderful, actually,’ I said. ‘Shall I write to Gwen and set things up?’
‘No, dear, leave it all to me. You shouldn’t have to arrange your own birthday treat. Just choose the show you wish to see and I’ll sort everything out.’
‘Thank you. My birthday’s on a Monday so the theatres will be shut, but there’s an American comedy I want to see and it’ll be on at the Queen’s on Shaftesbury Avenue. Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford. They say it’s hilarious.’
‘Then I shall secure half a dozen tickets and book a table for dinner on the Saturday evening. Leave everything to me.’
We played on, making more plans for my birthday weekend in late March, and I was soon wishing we were playing for money.
JB came in. ‘Ah, there you are, ladies. We were all wondering where you’d gotten to.’
‘We’ve not been hiding, dear,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We’ve been sitting here playing cards and chattering.’
‘So I see.’
‘Ah, there you are.’ This time it was Patience.
‘They’ve been in here the whole time,’ said JB.
‘It’s not as though there are many places we could be,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Are we required for something?’
‘No, no,’ said Patience. ‘But your company always lightens the mood, both of you.’
‘Ah, here they are,’ said Bridgewater. ‘I say, Clarice, it’s Ebb and Flow.’
Clarice smiled. ‘Super.’
‘Join us, do,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘It’s flattering to have so many people so pleased to find us. I’d offer tea, but we don’t have any.’
‘It’s after five,’ said JB. ‘I think it’s time we opened up the liquor cabinet. Who’s for a drink?’
Orders were enthusiastically given and just as enthusiastically whipped up by JB, the ‘bartender’.
Lady Hardcastle declared me the winner – principally because I had a squillion more points than her – and I set about sorting the cards back into two separate packs.
Conversations sparked up. Bridgewater started telling a story.
‘Gran, darling?’ said Patience. ‘Do give it a rest, there’s a good boy. Let someone else have the floor for a change.’
‘Right you are, Speedy, old thing. So who knows a good joke?’
‘Matter of fact,’ said JB, ‘I heard one a little while ago. There’s a one-horse town out West. You know the sort of place – just a general store, a saloon and a jailhouse.
And one day this fella rides in. He’s dusty from the trail, burned by the sun, and he hitches his horse outside the saloon and steps inside.
There’s a piano playin’ in the corner. There’s a couple fellas playing cards at a table near the window.
And he walks across the room, boot heels clomping on the floor, spurs jingling.
He bellies up to the bar and says to the bartender—’
‘Ah, there you all are.’
There was a slight groan from the small throng at the interruption, followed by cheerful greetings as Wilson and Lily returned from their walk looking windswept and more than a little pleased with themselves.
‘Come on in, you two,’ said JB. ‘Let me get you a drink and I’ll carry on with my tale.’
The joke was an old one, but either JB had learned from Bridgewater or he, too, had a knack for adding colour and detail to make an ordinary joke into something special.
And somehow, because those details were a little alien to us, it had an exotic flavour that made even the entirely predictable punch line seem funnier than it ought.
In spite of everything, it looked like it might be a pleasant evening after all.
By the time JB started mixing up the second round of drinks, the atmosphere in the library was positively festive. More jokes had been told, more reminiscences shared, and the mood was about as far from the tension of lunchtime as it was possible to get.
A lot of that, I suspected, was probably down to the continuing absence of Sidwell-Plant, but it was still a little odd that both he and Dotty were elsewhere while all the fun was happening in the library.
I took Lady Hardcastle to one side. ‘Don’t you find it odd that neither Sidwell-Plant nor Dotty is here? Do you think we should go and look for them?’
‘It might not be a bad idea, actually. Unless they’re—’
‘Are you seriously about to suggest that they might be canoodling somewhere?’
‘And why shouldn’t they be? They’re both very attractive people who are at loggerheads with their spouses. Or exasperated by them in Dotty’s case, but it amounts to the same thing. Who’s to say they haven’t found solace in each other’s arms?’
‘Well, yes. But . . . it doesn’t fit Dotty’s public persona. She’s like the group’s mother.’
‘Mothers need a little canoodling, too, you know. And perhaps little Bobby needs some mothering.’ She chuckled.
‘You’re incorrigible.’
‘And her public face might not match the private one, anyway. We don’t know what she’s like behind the closed bedroom door.’
‘Still,’ I said. ‘It’s hardly the time and place for those sorts of shenanigans.’
‘You’ve been to enough country house weekends to know what’s what, dear. They’re in and out of each other’s beds all day and all night. It’s the reason many of them choose to attend.’
‘I know, but—’
Suddenly all eyes turned to the doorway, where an ashen-faced Dotty had just burst in.
‘Dotty, darling,’ said Patience, ‘whatever’s the matter?’
‘It’s . . . it’s Robert, darling. He’s . . . he’s dead.’ She began crying.
Patience gave JB her drink and went to her friend. ‘What do you mean, “dead”?’
‘I mean dead. I’m so sorry just to blurt it out like that, but . . . well . . . I mean . . . he’s dead.’
‘Do you know what happened?’ I asked. ‘Was it another heart attack?’
Dotty sniffed. ‘No. No, he was stabbed. Through the heart. With a long knife.’
Patience fainted.
The party atmosphere evaporated at once. JB, Bridgewater, Lady Hardcastle and I rushed to help and comfort the two women. Clarice found the arm of a chair to sit on and waited to be told more about what was going on.
Once he was sure that Dotty and Patience were all right, JB drew Lady Hardcastle and me to one side.
‘I need you two to come with me and look at the body again.’
‘Where is it, dear?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.
‘I’m so dumb I never asked.’ He turned back to the group. ‘Dotty, honey, where did you find Robert?’
‘In . . . in our room. I’d been in the drawing room playing the piano and I went back to the room to get changed for dinner. I found poor dear Robert lying on the floor by the washbasin. I can’t even begin to imagine what he was doing there.’
‘Thank you. Gran, you look after these two. Wilson, you and Lily make sure Clarice is OK. Emily and Florence: with me.’
He strode out and we followed.
In the Bridgewaters’ room we found exactly the scene we’d expected. Sprawled on his back between the bed and the washbasin stand was Robert Sidwell-Plant, with a long sailor’s knife protruding from his chest.