Chapter Seven #3
‘I’m afraid we’ll be roughing it tonight,’ said Kevin. ‘I hired extra staff to come in for the party tomorrow, but it’s just us and Dorty right now, and she’ll keep to herself once supper is laid out. This way if you please, my lords and ladies.’
They followed him up the stairs to the first storey.
He beckoned to Sparks and Tony.
‘You don’t mind sharing a wing, do you?’ he asked as he took them to the east hall.
‘We’ll scrape by as best we can,’ said Sparks.
‘That’s the old Newnham spirit!’ he said. ‘Fine, I’m putting you in sister Lucinda’s room. You have your own bath, and everything should be sufficiently girly for you. Tony, you’re taking my old room.’
‘Where are you going to be?’ asked Tony.
‘As the momentary master of the house, I am taking the master suite,’ said Kevin.
‘Your father would have your hide if he found out,’ said Tony.
‘Which is exactly why I’m doing it,’ said Kevin. ‘Get yourselves settled. It’s just us chickens, so no need to dress for dinner tonight. We’ll rendezvous in the dining room in twenty minutes.’
‘Kevin, I’m still standing here,’ called Sauce from the other wing.
He looked at her, then back at the two of them with a wolfish grin.
‘Make it thirty,’ he said, then he scurried towards her.
‘I think gratitude is about to be expressed,’ commented Tony.
‘He has put us in adjacent rooms,’ observed Sparks. ‘Far from the madding crowd.’
‘He has,’ said Tony.
‘A girl might suspect a plan behind that,’ she said, glancing at him coyly.
‘A plan? By moi?’ he replied innocently.
‘Hmm. Go unpack, then let’s take a quick stroll about the grounds while there’s still some daylight. I want to see how the other one-half of one per cent lives before I return to my campaign of social revolution.’
‘Doesn’t this opulent adventure contradict that?’
‘It’s research, dear boy, nothing but research.’
‘I am at your service, comrade.’
‘Let me get this straight,’ interrupted Gwen. ‘This was a weekend of what sounds like typical young upper-crust debauchery at a country estate with you and Tony in adjacent rooms.’
‘Yes,’ said Iris.
‘And you ended up sleeping in the same bed together?’
‘Yes again.’
‘That same night?’
‘Still yes.’
‘Yet, and again I don’t require details, you didn’t consider yourselves lovers?’
‘No,’ said Iris. ‘The devil is in those details, but they will remain in the dark. What mattered is that’s where we ended up late that night, after dinner, after dancing to the gramophone for hours, after much, much champagne and risqué badinage and drunken flirtation, after we all retired to our respective wings.
And Tony and I were fast asleep in sister Lucinda’s bed when we snapped awake to the sound of Sauce screaming. ’
Sparks sat bolt upright immediately, then shoved Tony a few times until he groaned groggily.
‘What the hell is going on?’ he said.
‘It’s Sauce,’ said Sparks, jumping out of bed and grabbing her dressing gown.
She picked his off the floor and tossed it to him.
‘Should we, I don’t know, arm ourselves or something?’ he asked as he threw it on.
‘No time,’ she said, tying her dressing gown and quickly stepping into her slippers. ‘Come on.’
There were no lights on in the hall, but the moonlight came down through the skylight into the void separating the wings from each other. The last echoes of the screams faded as Iris ran towards the landing.
‘Sauce!’ she shouted. ‘Where are you?’
There was no answer.
‘Kevin! Bruce!’ she called. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ said Kevin, emerging from a doorway on the other side, the lit room behind him putting him into silhouette.
‘What do you mean “everything’s fine”? She was screaming.’
‘Well, she was upset at something, I guess,’ said Kevin. ‘She had too much to drink, and suddenly flew off the handle and turned into a banshee.’
‘Where is she? I want to talk to her,’ demanded Sparks, walking around the landing to reach his side.
‘That may be a problem,’ said Kevin. ‘She’s run off.’
‘Run off? Where?’
‘No idea,’ said Kevin, looking up and down the hallway.
‘We should go look for her,’ offered Tony, who had come up behind Iris.
‘Let her sulk the night away somewhere,’ said Kevin. ‘She’ll be fine in the morning.’
‘She is drunk, upset and wandering around in the dark in a giant house she doesn’t know her way around in,’ said Sparks. ‘She could hurt herself.’
‘It would serve her right,’ said Kevin.
‘She could also break something,’ Tony pointed out. ‘Something valuable.’
A fleeting expression of agony passed over Kevin’s face.
‘A valid point,’ he said. ‘Sparks, head down to the ground floor. I’ll take this level. Tony, work your way up. Turn the lights on as you go.’
‘Should one of us fetch Dorty?’ asked Tony.
‘My guess is she’s already up and on the hunt,’ said Kevin. ‘Whoever finds Sauce first, bring her back to her room so she can sleep it off.’
Sparks immediately headed for the staircase, feeling her way with one hand on the banister, the other holding up the skirts of her dressing gown.
Halfway down, it occurred to her that Bruce hadn’t come out.
She wondered about that, but given the amount of alcohol they had consumed it wasn’t all that surprising.
She reached the bottom of the stairs, then felt around the wall by the foyer until she found a light switch.
‘Sauce?’ she called.
There was no response. She thought back through her hazy recollection of the last few minutes.
She didn’t think she had heard the front door open, so Sauce was probably still in the house somewhere.
Unless she had escaped through the rear and was wandering the hedge maze like a lost, diaphanous apparition from a Victorian ghost story.
She made a circuit of the rooms they had been in, turning on lights as she went. The galleries, the parlours, the dining, reception and game rooms were all empty. From the floors above she could faintly hear the two men calling Sauce’s name with no apparent success.
She saw a door leading from the dining hall. Towards the kitchen, she guessed. She opened it and nearly screamed herself as she came face to face with the forbidding visage of Mrs Dorter, who regarded her impassively. She held a covered tray in one hand.
‘I’m so sorry,’ gasped Sparks. ‘You gave me a fright.’
‘What are you doing?’ asked Mrs Dorter.
‘I’m looking for my friend, Sauce,’ said Sparks. ‘I mean Nancy. Miss Spurlock. She was upset about something.’
‘Screaming her bloody head off would be a more accurate description,’ said Mrs Dorter. ‘It’s all right, Miss Sparks. I have her. I was just fetching something from the kitchen to soothe her nerves.’
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ said Sparks. ‘Is she all right? I should go to her.’
‘She doesn’t want to see anyone at the moment,’ said Mrs Dorter. ‘She’ll be fine. I’ll take care of her. You and the gentlemen—’
There was something in her tone on that last word, thought Sparks. Something contemptuous.
‘—should go back to bed,’ continued Mrs Dorter. ‘You have a busy day tomorrow.’
‘But—’
‘Goodnight, Miss Sparks,’ said Mrs Dorter. ‘Please be so kind as to extinguish all the lights you turned on. You’re wasting the electricity.’
She passed by her, going through another door Sparks hadn’t noticed before. Then Sparks heard her steps ascending.
A separate stairway to the servants’ quarters, she guessed.
Her heart was still pounding, but she forced herself to retrace her path through the rooms to turn off the lights before she returned to the first-storey landing.
‘Kevin! Tony!’ she called. ‘She’s been found.’
Kevin appeared from the wing where she and Tony had been sleeping. Tony appeared a minute later, coming down from the second storey.
‘Where is she?’ he asked.
‘Mrs Dorter found her,’ said Sparks. ‘She’s taking care of her.’
‘Good old Dorty,’ said Kevin. ‘Sauce is in good hands. Right, I’m turning back in.’
‘Why does she need to be taken care of, Kevin?’ asked Sparks.
‘It’s been a long night, Sparks,’ said Kevin. ‘Let’s discuss things in the morning when we’re sober and less frantic.’
‘But—’
‘Come on, Sparks,’ said Tony, taking her hand. ‘There’s nothing more to do now.’
He pulled her hand. She resisted for a moment, then allowed him to take her across the landing.
‘Oh, Tony?’ called Kevin, watching them.
‘Yes?’ replied Tony, looking back over his shoulder.
‘I noticed your bedclothes were undisturbed when I checked your room,’ said Kevin.
‘Did you?’
‘Yes,’ said Kevin, smiling approvingly. ‘Good for you, lad.’
‘Get some sleep, Picky,’ said Tony.
Kevin disappeared. They returned to her room.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Sparks.
‘Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it in the morning,’ said Tony. ‘I’m going to finish the night in my assigned bed, Sparks. Appearances and all that.’
‘Appearances for whom?’ she asked.
He smiled sadly, then left her, closing the door behind him.
She woke the next morning with a splitting headache. It took her a minute to identify her surroundings, then the events of the night before came back to her. She dressed quickly, then headed downstairs in search of Mrs Dorter. She found her in the kitchen stirring a pot of porridge.
‘Good morning, Miss Sparks,’ said the housekeeper.
‘Good morning, Mrs Dorter,’ said Sparks. ‘How is Miss Spurlock?’
‘Gone.’
‘What? Where?’
‘She decided that she would not attend the party after all,’ said Mrs Dorter. ‘She’s taking the nine-twenty train to Kettering, then changing to a Cambridge train there.’
‘Is she all right?’
‘She said to tell you goodbye, and not to worry about anything.’
‘Who is driving her to the station?’ asked Sparks.
‘Mr Danforth took her in Mr Cater’s car.’
‘Tony took her? Why not Bruce?’
‘She preferred that Mr Danforth drive her,’ said Mrs Dorter. ‘Would you care for some breakfast? There are eggs and sausage in the breakfast room. I will bring out porridge momentarily.’
‘Thank you,’ said Sparks, who was still trying to absorb the information.