A Death by Any Other Name Read online

  “Very well, m’lady. Number one: Mr. Haldane, according to Mr. Urquhart and Mrs. Lovell, is very jealous of his wife. Mr. Urquhart said she had a close friendship with Mr. Bartholomew, which made her husband extremely angry. And both the butler and Mr. Stafford have said that he is a ‘petty domestic tyrant.’” She quoted the last part and watched her ladyship write it down in her notebook.

  “And, according to a conversation I had with Mr. Stafford, Mr. Bartholomew’s death was most useful to Mr. Haldane’s business. He was quite clear on this point.” Again she watched her ladyship write this down before she lifted her head. “How would Mr. Stafford know this, do you think, Jackson?”

  “He said that when he first started here Mr. Haldane would wander down occasionally to see what Mr. Stafford was doing. He said that Mr. Haldane found the business of making a lake fascinating and that they had one or two conversations about Mr. Haldane’s business, and his hope of gaining a government contract for his stew.” Mrs. Jackson faltered, having had no reason of her own to doubt Mr. Stafford’s opinion.

  “I have most definitely been made aware of the bullying. But I had no idea about the business connection.”

  “Mr. Stafford told me that Mr. Haldane belongs to a group of businessmen whose sole aim is to secure government contracts in the event of there being a European war.”

  “Mr. Stafford told you all this? My goodness, he is a mine of information. What sort of businesses, did he say?”

  “Two of Mr. Haldane’s friends make canvas rucksacks, kit bags, and tents, m’lady. Another makes bars of chocolate. Chocolate bars wrapped in tin foil, portable energy, Mr. Stafford says Mr. Haldane called it.” Mrs. Jackson laughed at the idea that soldiers on the march would do so much more effectively if they all had bars of chocolate in their pockets.

  Lady Montfort evidently saw the funny side of this too, and they both shook their heads at soldiers being rewarded like schoolchildren. “My goodness, what a strange world we live in,” said Lady Montfort, her good humor almost restored. “Go on, Jackson, you have been very busy.”

  “My second suspect is Mr. Wickham. After that scene on the terrace just now, he was visibly angry when his wife carried on in that way about Mr. Bartholomew’s roses. She is the worst kind of flirt.” Mrs. Jackson thought of all the young and pretty housemaids she had known in her time, and their flirtations with the footmen. There was always one young woman who had to have every man in the servants’ hall running after her. Luckily their troublemaking did not last long, and when they had set everyone belowstairs on edge, they went on their way to conquer other households, leaving a wake of ill feeling that took weeks to disappear. She had not been slow to see how often Mrs. Wickham had glanced over to see how her observations were received by Mr. Stafford. “If Mr. Wickham suspected that his wife had a … romantic…”

  “An affair, Jackson, we need to be clear that this young woman might well have had a relationship outside of marriage with Mr. Bartholomew, not just romantic daydreaming and silly flirtations, but an adulterous affair.” Mrs. Jackson’s eyes strayed to the other side of the room at this uncomfortably plain language.

  “Very well, m’lady, an affair, then, with Mr. Bartholomew. Perhaps Mr. Wickham felt that enough was enough and he decided to do away with him. And there is something else that makes me feel that Mr. Wickham does not have a particularly strong grip on reality: his attitude to his roses.”

  “Oh good heavens, you have hit it bang on the nose as usual.” Lady Montfort leaned forward. “These people are completely batty about their roses. Can you believe how competitive and jealous they are? I thought Mr. Wickham was going to curl up and cry when Miss Jekyll praised Golden Girl to the high heavens, after evidently doling out some stringent advice for his hideous Court Scarlet. The only one of them who took Miss Jekyll’s criticism of her dreadful roses on the chin was Mrs. Lovell. But go on, Jackson, I interrupted you.”

  “Not at all, m’lady, you clarified exactly what I was thinking. If Mr. Wickham knew that his wife was making a fool of herself with Mr. Bartholomew, and Mr. Bartholomew’s rose is praised as being superior to his, which the entire group of them were saying long before Miss Jekyll’s arrival, then all I can think is that there are two reasons why Mr. Wickham would want Mr. Bartholomew out of the way.” She paused, somewhat out of breath, and realized that her ladyship was out of the doldrums and was scribbling away in her book with all her customary enthusiasm and energy.

  She looked up from her writing and said, “Now then, Jackson, what on earth do you make of Mr. Urquhart’s bit of gossip last night that Mrs. Haldane and Miss Lovell were both so infatuated with Mr. Bartholomew that their jealousy made it most uncomfortable for the group when they gathered here?”

  Mrs. Jackson turned over several pages to find what she had written. It was not much. But she had felt that Mrs. Lovell seemed to be far more protective toward Mrs. Haldane than envious of her. At breakfast this morning she had expressed approval of her; she was her champion rather than her competitor.

  “I am not too sure about that, m’lady. I think Mr. Urquhart might have misinterpreted what he saw. It seems to me that Mrs. Lovell is a very close friend of Mrs. Haldane, and that she dislikes the way her husband condescends to her. Mrs. Lovell strikes me as being a very solid and practical woman; I can’t imagine her forming a romantic attachment to a married man. She doesn’t appear to have a flighty bone in her body. Whereas I can see that Mrs. Haldane might be easily swayed by another man’s attentions, and as for Mrs. Wickham, she is…” She stopped, stuck for the word, and Lady Montfort laughed and said, “She is a committed flirt, she simply can’t help herself, and I don’t think she is particularly bright. It’s all emotion and passion with that young woman, very dangerous.”

  “Yes, m’lady, whereas Mrs. Lovell has her feet firmly on the ground. I like the way she took her criticism of her ugly roses from Miss Jekyll. I liked her dignity.” She then repeated her breakfast conversation with Mrs. Lovell and, in particular, how Mrs. Lovell believed that Mrs. Haldane would surprise the world one day with her ability to breed a great rose.

  “I see what you mean, Jackson. Well done, you picked up on that one nicely. Yes, perhaps Mr. Urquhart was exaggerating in his opinion of their jealousy. We must bear in mind with this group that what they reveal about themselves and each other is merely their point of view. It is important we rely on our own intuition and observations too. And it is Miss Lovell, by the way, isn’t it?”

  “I believe it is Mrs. Lovell, m’lady. She was married many years ago and is now a wealthy widow.”

  Then she glanced at the fob watch she had pinned to her blouse and said, “If I am to pack before luncheon, m’lady, I should start straightaway. And I must remember to tell the butler that I will not be taking tea with them this afternoon.”

  “Oh, let’s give it another day, shall we, Jackson? I mean, after all, what can be so terrible about having dinner with Mr. Haldane?” But as she said this her voice trailed off at the end, and Mrs. Jackson watched her withdraw as if the very thought of Mr. Haldane was more than she could tolerate.

  * * *

  Miss Jekyll left almost immediately after luncheon. Clementine stood in the drive and watched her motor-car disappear down the road at an alarming rate. Oh dear, she thought as she turned and walked back into the oppressive gloom of the castle’s baronial hall, I hope I have not ruined a friendship by bringing Miss Jekyll to Hyde Castle.

  Luncheon had been a hurried and joyless affair. The food had been quite delicious, and after her restless night Clementine found she was extraordinarily hungry. But the delights of a delicious cream-of-leek soup had been refused as too rich by Mr. Urquhart, whose happy mood after the results of the rose competition had turned to one of sour irritation as the soup was put before him. He fretted and complained about disorders of the system and plaintively asked the butler to provide an alternative to superbly grilled lamb cutlets. Used to the chatty enjoyment of those gathered around her own
table, where it was considered ill mannered even to remark on the food they were eating, it was torture to Clementine to listen to his catalog of likes and dislikes. Mrs. Haldane had evidently guessed that he was behaving poorly in Clementine’s eyes because she leaned toward her a little and said, “I am dreadfully afraid that poor Finley is feeling quite unwell today.” And Mrs. Wickham, who had heard her remark, chipped in, “He is simply upset because his beloved roses were acknowledged to suffer from leaf wilt. There is nothing more unattractive than a pink rose with sickly yellow leaves.” And then she peeked to see if he had heard her.

  This exchange had been so unpleasant that Clementine had been unable even to look across the table at Miss Jekyll, who was talking quietly with Mrs. Jackson about the merits of a well-organized cutting garden.

  Mr. Wickham had obviously had a falling-out with his wife because he ignored any remark she addressed to him. He ate his meal in silence. Every mouthful was snapped off his fork and it was possible to hear his jaws working away from where Clementine was sitting.

  The only person at the table who was at ease was Mrs. Haldane. Clementine wondered if the accusations and brutality that she had heard last night were commonplace in her life. Was what she had heard a habitual disagreement between husband and wife, a pattern established over the years where Mrs. Haldane’s response was to sob if her husband criticized her? She knew women who said they employed this tactic to their advantage, but she suspected that Mrs. Haldane was not the type. No, that was not what she had heard; what she believed she had heard was Mr. Haldane being not only verbally but physically cruel to his wife. But one would never guess, looking at this woman in the stark light of day with her friends gathered around her, that she had begged and pleaded with her husband last night and then sobbed in broken despair. Her hostess looked up from her plate and caught her eye and Clementine realized that she had been staring at her and said the first thing that came into her head.

  “Is Mr. Haldane interested in roses?” At the mention of her husband’s name the woman’s eyes darted about the room as if she would find him standing in a dark corner, critically observing her behavior.

  “What? Oh n-no, not at all, Lady Montfort. He doesn’t have the luxury of time for little hobbies.” She laughed, a nervous, joyless sound, and Clementine felt even more awkward and embarrassed. I seem to be losing my manners completely in this house, she thought, feeling quite wretched. I don’t think I have any talent for this sort of thing at all.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was balm to the soul, Mrs. Jackson decided, to be among working people who offered one another such quiet respect and behaved with such restrained decorum. Mr. Evans ran a well-disciplined servants’ hall whose members evidently got on well enough with one another and observed the differences in their rank with good-humored deference. After the butler had introduced her to the senior members of the servants’ hall he opened the door of the housekeeper’s parlor, where they were to take tea with Mrs. Walker.

  “Mrs. Jackson, may I present our housekeeper, Mrs. Walker?” The angular woman, her graying hair pulled into a tight knot stuck through with bent hairpins, rose to her feet and bobbed her head as she regarded Mrs. Jackson with polite but marked curiosity.

  “Mrs. Jackson is companion to the Countess of Montfort,” Mr. Evans continued rather pompously. “We will not be seeing much of her belowstairs.” A self-conscious laugh as if he had secured a prize for them for tea today. “But it is important that you know who she is in case she needs any help from us in making her ladyship’s visit here a comfortable and welcoming one.” He made a little bow and pulled out a chair, and Mrs. Jackson found herself seated at the tea table, which was laid with pretty china and enough food to feed the entire servants’ hall.

  There were three kinds of sandwiches, a solid Dundee cake, and jam tarts—an abundant meal indeed even for upper servants, thought Mrs. Jackson as she sipped her tea. They were waited on by the third housemaid, a plain-faced middle-aged village woman who, though lacking the finesse usual in a housemaid to a grand country house, was reasonably deft and well trained in her work.

  As Mrs. Jackson had expected, conversation was restricted to the weather and the possibility of war between Germany and Russia.

  “I wouldn’t presume to give an opinion with what is going on in the world today. I leave that sort of thing to the menfolk and people like the master. But I don’t really think these troubles in Europe are our business. Let them all get on with it, I say. We should stay out of it,” Mrs. Walker said as she poured tea.

  “Perhaps the Russian czar will come to his senses,” Mrs. Jackson offered.

  “Willy and Nikki,” Mrs. Walker continued, referring to the Kaiser and Czar Nicholas as if they were upstairs on the nursery floor of the house, “have always been very jealous of His Majesty. If only the old king were still with us to keep the peace in Europe between his nephews. King Edward would never have put up with this sort of carry-on.”

  The European crises, summed up in the comfortable parlance of the nursery, where naughty boys were sent to bed without their bread and milk for supper and everyone said their prayers kneeling at the foot of their bed, caused a round of head nodding as sandwiches and cakes were eaten and tea was sipped.

  Mrs. Jackson felt that she had bided her time long enough to introduce the age-old discussion that rang out in many a housekeeper’s parlor and butler’s pantry: that of the problem of finding, and keeping, a good cook.

  “Mrs. Haldane keeps a very nice table, Mr. Evans.” Mrs. Jackson decided it was time to turn to the subject of Mrs. Armitage. “Your cook must be congratulated. Has she been with you long?”

  Mr. Evans turned his dark eyes toward her and gave an ahem sort of cough, as if warning her that this conversation might be kept for later. But Mrs. Jackson was curious to hear if she could what the housekeeper had to say about the sacking of the last cook.

  “Mrs. Slocomb is indeed a very capable individual, Mrs. Jackson, and is doing her best to fit into a servants’ hall that has been established for many years; she has been with us just a few months,” Mrs. Walker said, and glanced across the tea table to the butler, who lowered his head to indicate that he would not take part in this discussion and perhaps the housekeeper shouldn’t either. “We are very lucky at Hyde Castle, you see, most of the women servants are about my age.” She smiled at the butler, who was at least a dozen years her junior. “But regardless of our ages, we have worked together for many years, so we are like family to each other. Our third housemaid is a cousin of mine, and Mrs. Haldane’s personal maid is the eldest sister of one of our gardeners. Charles, the footman, is my sister’s son. Such a bright lad with ever such nice manners.” She beamed with pride. The footman, Charles, Mrs. Jackson recalled, was a presentable young man, obviously intelligent and determined to do his best.

  “Charles could have gone to the grammar school, but there was no money to be had for that kind of an education. But he is a great reader is Charles and he collects stamps, just like His Majesty.” She nodded to affirm that her nephew had the same taste in hobbies as the king. “Mr. Urquhart, such a kind gentleman, gives Charles all his stamps from foreign places, so he has a growing collection.”

  Now that she had opened up on the subject, Mrs. Walker was most informative. “Our previous cook, Mrs. Armitage, was not only a gifted cook, but as calm and unflappable as you could wish for in the kitchen. Unfortunately she no longer works here.” And she tucked her chin down into her neck and frowned in disapproval into her teacup.

  “That is a shame. I expect she retired?” Mrs. Jackson said, refusing to look at the butler, who sighed rather audibly. But Mrs. Jackson was having none of that; she would not be silenced. This is my investigation, she thought, and if I want to talk to the housekeeper about the sacking of Mrs. Armitage, he can like it or lump it.

  “Oh no, she did not retire, Mrs. Jackson,” Mrs. Walker burst out. “She was sacked, and sacked for no good reason. It was a terrible thing.
The poor woman was let go without a shilling, except her wages. Mr. Haldane,” she practically spat their master’s name, “got it into his head that she had poisoned one of his guests and gave her notice. It was a coldhearted and shameful thing to do to a working woman who put her heart and soul into her job.” There was a moment of silence and then the butler announced that he would speak by clearing his throat.

  “There was no possibility whatsoever that Mrs. Armitage could have accidentally poisoned anyone, Mrs. Jackson. It was thought at the time, not by those of us downstairs, of course, that she had used tainted haddock in the kedgeree she made for breakfast one morning. I have no choice I suppose but to reveal the facts, as they have already been made a subject for discussion.” A long-suffering sigh as he ran his hand over his smooth head, and Mrs. Jackson saw Mr. Stafford’s perfect imitation of the gesture and had to bite the inside of her lip to avoid laughing. “The haddock arrived the previous day, a beautiful piece it was, and the cook placed it in the new refrigerated storage that Mr. Haldane had installed in the larder last year. And what a useful invention it has proved to be. It prevents the spoilage of both dairy and meat foods most efficiently. Now we really do not want to burden you with the sad business of our last cook’s dismissal.” He laughed and gave a meaningful look to Mrs. Walker with evident disapproval, which was completely ignored by the housekeeper as she clearly had much more to say on the subject. So he coughed and consulted his waistcoat pocket watch and she obediently rose to her feet with exclamations of things that must be done before dinner and what a treat it had been to meet a companion to a real countess.

  Mrs. Walker was so determined to make her feel welcome that she clasped Mrs. Jackson’s hand in both of hers and said, “So very nice to meet you, ma’am. Now you know where to find us if you have a spare moment for a chat, and if you should need anything at all just pop down here and ask for me.” And with that, she left to go about her working day, leaving Mrs. Jackson and Mr. Evans alone together.