01 - Murder at Ashgrove House

  MURDER

  AT

  ASHGROVE HOUSE

  by Margaret Addison

  A Rose Simpson Mystery

  Copyright

  Copyright 2013 Margaret Addison

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without prior written permission from Margaret Addison except for the inclusion of quotations in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Chapter One

  ‘Oh, William, I am so frightfully worried about our house party this weekend,’ said Lady Withers floating into the library at Ashgrove House, where Sir William was seated on a Chesterfield sofa reading The Times. ‘I’m afraid that it’s going to be a disaster. I’d invited all the right people, that’s to say the ones that go together so to speak, but now I’m awfully afraid that it’s not going to work at all.’

  ‘There, there, Constance my dear, it can’t be that bad,’ said Sir William, soothingly. Such an announcement had not worried him unduly for he was well used to his wife’s exaggerations. Indeed, to her annoyance, as far as Lady Withers could tell he was carrying on reading his newspaper.

  ‘Darling, I’m being absolutely serious.’ Lady Withers perched herself beside him on the sofa and fought with the newspaper until, with a sigh he closed it and put it on the coffee table resigning himself to giving her his full attention.

  ‘What can you mean, my dear, I can’t imagine anything nicer than having young Lavinia down for the weekend. It seems an age since we last saw her.’

  ‘It has been ages, William. She’s been working in that awful little dress shop. How she can possibly bear it, I don’t know. I don’t think they even usually give her Saturdays off, can you imagine. But you know what young girls are like these days. I blame it on the war, don’t you, all that ambulance driving and men’s jobs, not of course, that Lavinia did any of those things, being just a child at the time, but still it made women feel they could do all sorts of things and I expect it’s still in the air. Now, what was I saying? Oh, yes, it’s not Lavinia I’m worried about, because of course I want to see her. It’s who she’s bringing down with her that worries me. Of course, when she asked me if she could bring down a friend, I had no idea that she meant a girl who worked in the shop with her! So of course I said yes, and then when she told me who it was, well it seemed rather churlish to refuse and ...’

  ‘Connie,’ said Sir William hastily interrupting his wife’s flow, ‘I’m sure there’s really nothing to worry about. Lavinia said in her letter that this Rose Simpson friend of hers is very nice and perfectly respectable. Actually, I think it will make quite a nice change from our usual sort of guest; I was getting a bit bored of them to tell you the truth.’

  ‘William! You know what Lavinia’s like. She’s never been a very good judge of character, she just sees in people what she wants to see. Do you remember that awful girl that she brought down with her a couple of years ago, you know, that one whose face was covered in freckles and ate with her mouth open! And this one’s bound to be worse. She’s probably a common little thing covered in make-up, thinking she looks like one of those American screen goddesses. I bet she’s got an awful cockney accent too and she won’t know how to behave with the servants, she’ll probably upset them dreadfully and then they’ll all give in their notice and walk out and then where will we be? And,’ carried on Lady Withers quickly, seeing that her husband was about to protest, ‘can you imagine what Marjorie will say when she hears about it, as she’s sure to?’

  Marjorie was the Countess of Belvedere, Lady Withers’ older sister and Lavinia’s mother. ‘She’s never forgiven me for Lavinia working in that blasted shop. She blames me, as if it had been all my idea. Just because it was here at Ashgrove that Lavinia and Cedric made that silly bet that she couldn’t earn her own living for six months, and Cedric only did it because Lavinia said that she was sure he didn’t do any work at Oxford, just flounced around pretending to be intellectual and copying everyone else’s essays. They really can behave like a couple of children sometimes, the way they wind each other up. I tried to explain it to Marjorie, that I hadn’t even known that they had made a bet until she told me about it, but she was not impressed and I could tell she didn’t believe me; you know how she can be sometimes.’

  ‘I do,’ conceded Sir William. Much as he loved his wife, he often found her endless rambling conversation infuriating, but then he had only to remind himself how much worse things would have been if he had married her sister. Poor Henry. He didn’t know how the Earl of Belvedere stuck it, but he would never admit as much to his wife.

  ‘“Ladies from our class do not work in dress shops, Constance.” That’s what she said to me as if I didn’t know it already. Apparently even Mrs Booth, who in Marjorie’s opinion is totally middle class even if the lady in question considers herself to be from the top drawer, said to her that it would be totally unthinkable for anyone in her circle to serve in a shop, even in the smartest couture house in Paris, which of course Madame Renard’s certainly is not, as it’s in a little London back street and sells ready-to-wear dresses, not even bespoke. Really, William, Marjorie can be so cruel sometimes. She said that it was all my fault, that they would never have made that silly bet if they hadn’t been here at Ashgrove. So can you imagine what she’ll say if she finds out about this Rose girl? She’ll say that I’m condoning Lavinia’s bad behaviour, no, worse, she’ll say that I’m encouraging it.’

  ‘There, there, Constance, my dear, you’re worrying far too much.’ Sir William patted her affectionately on the arm. ‘Stafford will make sure that everything goes alright.’

  ‘Yes, dear Stafford, I don’t know what we’d do without him. But that’s not all, William, if only it was. Cedric’s coming down this weekend as well. He wired to know if we could have him and you know what boys his age are like. He didn’t wire until it was too late and he’d already set off, so I couldn’t wire back and say “No”.’

  ‘Why on earth would you want to say no, Constance, it will be nice to see Cedric again, and it will be nice for Lavinia to see her brother. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed though that they don’t make any more bets while they’re here.’

  ‘Well, I expect that’s why he’s coming down this weekend. Not to see Lavinia or to make any more bets, but to see what this shop girl of hers is like. Oh ...’ Lady Withers broke off what she was about to say as a sudden thought flashed across her mind and absentmindedly she clutched onto Sir William’s arm, digging her nails into his flesh until he winced. ‘Oh, William, I’ve just had an awful thought. What if this girl decides to set her cap at Cedric! He can be such a silly boy, so very young and impressionable, just the sort to fall into her trap. He’s probably never come across a scheming little minx before. Whatever will Marjorie say if they elope to Gretna Green while they’re here? It will be such a scandal, Marjorie will never speak to me again what with Cedric being heir to the title and the estate and …’ Lady Withers looked up and caught the pained expression on Sir William’s face. ‘I know, dear, that you think I’m over reacting and being a dreadful snob, but really, I’m not. You see the real reason that I’m so worried about Cedric coming down this weekend is that Edith’s coming down as well. We arranged it weeks ago, so you see I can’t really do anything about it without offending her; you know how sensitive Edith can be, William. I do so hope there won’t be any well u
npleasantness, this time. You do remember what happened last time, don’t you, when they both happened to come down at the same time; of course it couldn’t possibly have been foreseen, not by anyone, but it was still very unfortunate.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I do.’ For the first time during their conversation, Sir William sounded concerned. ‘It’s likely to be damned awkward my dear, but if there’s nothing we can do about it we’ll just have to manage it the best we can. Make sure that they sit at opposite ends of the table and all that, and that they see as little of each other as possible while they’re here.’

  ‘Yes, you’re quite right. I suppose we’d better explain the situation to Stafford, although I’m sure he’ll already have everything in hand. You know how awful I am, darling, trying to work out whom to place next to whom at dinner. I do hate those awful uncomfortable silences which one is obliged to fill by saying the most silly, trivial things. Nowadays I just tend to leave it to Stafford to put out the placement cards at dinner parties because he never gets it wrong.’

  ‘Indeed, Sir William, m’lady.’ Neither Sir William nor Lady Withers had heard their butler enter the room. At times Sir William wondered whether Stafford actually walked like other people, because he seemed always to glide noiselessly from one room to another.

  ‘Oh, Stafford, I knew you would’, said Lady Withers, sounding relieved. ‘Although I do wish you wouldn’t creep up on us so, it’s most disconcerting. But I should have known that you’d have everything under control.’ She clapped her hands. ‘Oh, I feel so much better about things already, everything’s going to be all right, nothing will go wrong, nothing to worry about …’ And she drifted out of the room in very much the same manner as she had floated in, humming a tune softly to herself, blissfully unaware that her original misgivings were to prove quite founded.

  ‘Oh, Mr Stafford’, said Mrs Palmer, the Withers’ cook-housekeeper, as she relaxed with her after dinner coffee that evening in the ‘Pugs’ Parlour’, a sitting-room-cum-dining- room used by the upper servants, ‘I fear we have quite a weekend in front of us. I suppose everything’s been done as much as can be, to avoid disasters?’

  ‘Indeed, Mrs Palmer, it has.’ Mr Stafford’s voice, as always, so Mrs Palmer thought, was wonderfully calm and reassuring, indeed she was sure that she had never seen him look ruffled or flustered. ‘Spencer has been instructed to unpack Miss Simpson’s suitcase as soon as she and Lady Lavinia arrive, and then Spencer and Miss Crimms will cast their eyes over her dresses and check that they’re all suitable, especially the dress that Miss Simpson is proposing to wear for dinner.’

  Miss Crimms, Lady Withers’ lady’s maid, who was also sitting in the parlour, nodded in agreement between sips of her coffee, careful not to spill any in front of Stafford.

  ‘And what if they’re not?’ Mrs Palmer asked, intrigued. ‘What then?’

  ‘We have contingency plans in place, Mrs Palmer,’ replied Stafford solemnly. ‘Miss Crimms has already looked out some old gowns of her ladyship’s that we can give Miss Simpson to wear if necessary, gowns that her ladyship is very unlikely to remember that she ever owned.’

  ‘Yes, we don’t want her ladyship to turn around and accuse Miss Simpson of stealing one of her dresses from out of her wardrobes, now do we!’ Miss Crimms said, unable to suppress a giggle.

  ‘No, indeed not, Miss Crimms,’ Stafford glared at her, ‘that would never do. Her ladyship is not to be distressed or inconvenienced in any way, not if it is within my power to prevent it. As I was saying,’ before I was so rudely interrupted, he would have liked to have added, but didn’t, although the look that he gave Miss Crimms said exactly that, ‘if necessary a suitable gown will be given to Miss Simpson to wear in place of her outfit, and then it will merely be a case of persuading her to wear her ladyship’s gown instead of her own.’

  ‘And how will you do that, pray?’ asked Mrs Palmer, enjoying the lady’s maid’s obvious discomfort at being admonished by the butler.

  ‘We have our ways,’ replied Miss Crimms, wishing to redeem herself as quickly as possible. ‘Gentle persuasion in the first instance if Miss Simpson appears amenable, and then if not more rigorous measures can be adopted if necessary, such as accidently spilling a vase of water or pot of rouge over her dress when she is about to go down to dinner or, if the dress is too awful, offering to press it and then scorching it with an iron!’

  ‘No!’ Mrs Palmer looked appalled. She was quite sure Lady Withers would not approve of such drastic measures.

  ‘I only ever did that once, Mrs Palmer,’ confided Miss Crimms, leaning forward, ‘When I was lady’s maid to a very young lady who shall not be named, but who was going to go to a ball in a very unsuitable dress, that would have brought much distress to her mother and shame on the whole family if she had ever gone out in such a thing. But there was no reasoning with her, I can tell you, for she was a headstrong young madam if ever there was one, stubborn as a mule. So I said to myself, there’s only one thing to be done, my girl, you’ll have to ruin that dress so it can’t be worn. So I told her that I’d just go and press it, and then I scorched it good and proper with the iron, right down the front!’

  ‘You never did!’ exclaimed Mrs Palmer. ‘And how did the young lady take it, did she guess that you had done it deliberately?’

  ‘Of course she did! And she was that angry that she went as if to slap me across the face! But I said, “If you do that m’lady, I’ll take this dress here and show it to your Mama and say as how you were intending to wear it out and I was only trying to stop you making a right spectacle of yourself, that I had tried everything else, but that you’d just not listened to me.” Well, that soon took the wind out of her sails, I can tell you, became as meek as a lamb, she did. Scared of losing her allowance from her parents, I’ve no doubt!’

  ‘Yes, well, Miss Crimms,’ said Stafford, gravely, ‘hopefully we will not have to resort to such drastic measures in this case!’

  Chapter Two

  Fortunately unaware of the concerns expressed by Lady Withers and her servants regarding her possible character and wardrobe, Rose Simpson studied her reflection in her dressing table mirror. She sighed and, not for the first time, wondered whether she would pass muster with Lady Withers and, perhaps more importantly, with her servants.

  She made a face at herself in the mirror and turned her gaze away from her reflection and then turned back again to the mirror and tried to imagine what Lady Withers’ first impression of her would be, based on her appearance. She tried to view herself objectively, as if seeing herself for the first time, her dark brown hair arranged in finger curls and her figure which, although it could never be described as slender like Lavinia’s, was not altogether unpleasing. Her face, she thought, was pleasant without quite being pretty, although she hoped few would be so unkind as to describe her as plain. How unfair, she thought, that Lavinia should have it all; not only was she rich and a peer’s daughter, but she was also startlingly beautiful in that cool, aristocratic way. Lavinia’s beauty was the sort that made both men and women stare. With her tall, willowy figure, that made her look both aloof and fragile at the same time, her platinum dyed hair and her face with its even, delicate features; she could easily have passed for a film actress.

  Rose thought back to when her friend had first suggested that she accompany her on a visit to her aunt’s.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Lavinia had assured her, finding it hard to contain her excitement, ‘it will be fine, an absolute hoot. Dear old Aunt Connie can’t wait to meet you. You’ll absolutely love her. She is awfully old fashioned and a bit vague, of course, but an absolute sweetie just the same, do say you’ll come.’

  Rose had agreed that she would, because everyone always said yes to Lavinia; she could be awfully persuasive when she set her mind to it for she was someone used to getting her own way. How else had Lady Lavinia Sedgwick, only daughter of the fifteenth Earl of Belvedere, managed to defy her parents to work in a clothes shop, but still retained
her monthly allowance? Much to the surprise of her brother, shock and dismay of her mother, and obvious delight of Madame Renard, the proprietor of the shop where both she and Rose worked, Lavinia had stuck it out so far for some four months or so and showed no signs of quitting. How much of this was because she actually enjoyed the work, and how much was because she did not want to lose face with her younger brother was hard to tell. Although it must be different for Lavinia, Rose acknowledged, knowing that the situation was only temporary and that in two months’ time she could walk away from it all, head held high, back to her pampered, upper class life.

  Rose sighed again. If only the same could be said of her. If only she was not destined to earn her living working in a shop. Still, at least for one glorious weekend, she could pretend she inhabited Lavinia’s privileged world. But she was beginning to feel nervous. What if she did not manage to pull it off, even though, so Lavinia had told her, it was to be a very small house party. Besides themselves there was to be only one other guest, Edith Torrington, a distant relation and old school friend of Lady Withers’, so really there was nothing to worry about. Thank goodness for the recent wave of reasonably priced ready-to-wear copies of the Paris fashions that meant that even a girl on a low income such as herself, could afford clothes made in the style of the top fashion houses. Working in a dress shop had helped too for one of the perks of her job was having the option to buy clothes at a discounted rate. Unlike some of the other girls, who opted for the up to the minute fashion items, Rose chose more classic styles that would not date so quickly.

  ‘I can always lend you something to wear,’ Lavinia had said. But despite the exquisiteness of Lavinia’s gowns, Rose knew that she could never have worn one to Ashgrove House. It was not just that she was afraid of ripping them or spilling something down the front, but more it was the imagined embarrassment she would feel, and she could feel her face going red and hot just thinking about it, if Lady Withers were to say: ‘Oh, what a lovely dress, Miss Simpson, where did you get it?’ and she was forced to tell her the truth or, even worse, if Lady Withers was to look at her curiously and say nothing, leaving her wondering whether or not Lady Withers had recognised her dress as being one of Lavinia’s.