A Christmas Guest Read online

  She awoke in the morning to hear one of the maids screeching and banging on the door. Was there no end to the lack of consideration in this house? She sat upright in bed just as the stupid girl burst through into the room, face ashen white, mouth wide open, and eyes like holes in her head.

  “Pull yourself together, girl!” Grandmama snapped at her. “What on earth is the matter with you? Stand up straight and stop sniveling. Explain yourself!”

  The girl made a masterful attempt, took a gulping breath, and spoke in between gasps. “Please ma’am, somethin’ terrible ’as ’appened. Miss Barrington’s stone cold dead in ’er bed, she is.”

  “Nonsense!” Grandmama replied. “She was perfectly all right at dinner yesterday evening. She’s probably just very deeply asleep.”

  “No, ma’am, she in’t. I knows dead when I sees it, an’ when I touches it. Dead as a skinned sheep, she is.”

  “Don’t be impertinent! And disrespectful.” Grandmama climbed out of bed and the cold air assailed her flesh through her nightgown. She grasped a robe and glared at the girl. “Don’t speak of your betters like farmyard animals,” she added for good measure. “I shall go and waken Miss Barrington myself. Where is Tilly?”

  “Please, ma’am, she’s got a terrible chill.”

  “Then leave her alone. You may fetch Miss Barrington’s tea. And mine also. Fresh, mind. No leftovers.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The girl was happy to be relieved of responsibility, and of having to tell the master and mistress herself. She did not like the old lady, nor did any of the other servants, miserable old body. Let her do the finding and the telling.

  Grandmama marched along the corridor and banged with her closed hand on Maude’s door. There was no answer, as she had expected. She would rather enjoy waking her up from a sound, warm sleep, for no good reason but a maid’s hysterics.

  She pushed the door open, went in, and closed it behind her. If there were going to be a bad tempered scene over the disturbance, better to have it privately.

  The room was light, the curtains open.

  “Miss Barrington!” she said very clearly.

  There was no sound and no movement from the figure in the bed.

  “Miss Barrington!” she repeated, considerably more loudly, and more peremptorily.

  Still nothing. She walked over to the bed.

  Maude lay on her back. Her eyes were closed, but her face was extremely pale, even a little blue, and she did not seem to be moving at all.

  Grandmama felt a tinge of alarm. Drat the woman! She went a little closer and reached out to touch her, ready to leap back and apologize if her eyes flew open and she demanded to know what on earth Grandmama thought she was doing. It was really inexcusable to place anyone in this embarrassing position. Gadding about in heathen places had addled her wits, and all sense of being an Englishwoman of any breeding at all.

  The flesh that met her fingers was cold and quite stiff. There could be no doubt whatsoever that the stupid maid was correct. Maude was quite dead, and had been so probably most of the night.

  Grandmama staggered backward and sat down very hard on the bedroom chair, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. This was terrible. Quite unfair. First of all Maude had arrived, uninvited, and disrupted everything. Now she had died and made it even worse. They would have to spend Christmas in mourning! Instead of reds and golds, and carol singing, feasting, making merry, they would all be in black, mirrors covered, whispering in corners and being miserable and afraid. Servants were always afraid when there was a death in the house. Most likely Cook would give notice, and then where would they be? Eating cold meats!

  She stood up. She had no reason to feel sad. It would be absurd. She had barely met Maude Barrington, certainly she had not known her. And there was nobody to feel sorry for. Her own family had not wanted her, even at Christmas, for heaven’s sake! Perhaps they were tired of the endless stories about the bazaar at Marrakech and the Persian gardens or the boats on the Nile and the tombs of kings who had lived and died a thousand years or more before the first Christmas on earth, and worshipped gods of their own making, who had the heads of beasts.

  But then her family could not have been nice people or they would not have turned Maude away at Christmas. They would have listened with affectation of interest, as Caroline and Joshua had done. Indeed, as she had done herself. She could imagine the water running over blue tiles in the sun. She did not know what jasmine smelled like, but no doubt it was beautiful. And to give her credit, Maude had loved the English countryside just as much, even in December. It was wretched that she should have died among people who were veritable strangers, taking her in out of charity because it was Christmas. Her own had not loved or wanted her.

  Grandmama stood still in the middle of the bedroom with its flowered chintzes, heavy furniture, and dead ashes in the grate, and a hideous reality took her breath away. She herself was here out of charity as well, unloved and unwanted by anyone else. Caroline and Joshua were good people; that was why they had taken her in, not because they cared for her. They did not love her, they did not even like her. No one did. She knew that as well as she knew the feel of ice on her skin and the cold wind that cut to the bone.

  She opened the door, her fingers fumbling on the handle, breath tight in her chest. Outside in the passage, she walked unsteadily to the other wing of the house, and Joshua and Caroline’s room. She knocked more loudly than she had intended, and when Caroline opened the door to her she found her voice caught in her throat.

  “The maid came and told me Maude died in the night.” She gulped. Really this much emotion was ridiculous! She had barely known the woman. “I am afraid it is true.”

  Caroline looked stricken, but she could see from the old lady’s face that there was no doubt. At her age she had seen enough death not to mistake it.

  “You had better come into the dressing room and sit down,” Caroline said gently. “I’ll have Abby fetch you a cup of tea. I’m so sorry you had to be the one to find her.” She held out her arm to support Grandmama as she stumbled across the room and into the wide, warm dressing room with its seats and wardrobes and one of Caroline’s gowns already layed out for the day. Grandmama was angry with herself for being so close to weeping. It must be the shock. It was most unpleasant to grow old. “Thank you,” she said grudgingly.

  Caroline helped her into one of the chairs and looked at her for a moment as if to make sure she were not going to faint. Then, as Grandmama glared back at her, she turned and went out to set in motion all the endless arrangements that would have to be made.

  The old lady sat still. The maid brought her tea and poured it for her, encouraging her to drink it. It was refreshing, spreading warmth from the inside. But it changed nothing. Why was Maude dead? She had been in almost offensively good health the short time she had been here. What had she died of? Certainly not old age. Not any kind of wasting away or weakening. She could march like a soldier, and eat like one, too.

  She closed her eyes and in her mind she saw Maude again, lying motionless in the bed. She did not look terrified or disturbed, or even in any pain. But there had been an empty bottle on the table beside her. Probably the peppermint water. The stupid woman had given herself indigestion guzzling all the nuts, just as Grandmama had told her she would. Why were some people so stupid? No self-control.

  She drank the last of her tea and stood up. The room swayed around her for a moment. She took several deep breaths, then went out of the dressing room and back along the corridor to Maude’s bedroom. There was no one else in sight. They must all be busy, and Caroline would be doing what she could to settle the staff. Staff always behaved erratically when someone died. At least one maid would have fainted, and someone would be having hysterics. As if there were not enough to do!

  She opened the door and slipped inside quickly, closing it after her, then turned to look. Yes, she had been quite right, there was an empty bottle on the bedside table. She walked over and picked i
t up. It said “peppermint water” on the label, but just to be certain she took out the cork and sniffed it experimentally. It was quite definitely peppermint, clean and sharp, filling her nose.

  Maude had brought it with her, with only one dose left. She must use it regularly. Stupid woman! If she ate with any sense it would not be necessary. Curious that they should have it even in Arabia, or Persia, or wherever it was she had come from most recently. And the label was in English, too.

  She looked at it again. It was printed with the name and address of a local apothecary in Rye, just a few miles away around the Dungeness headland.

  But Maude had said she had not left Snave, in fact not had the chance to go out at all. So someone had given it to her, with one dose in it. Presumably that was to treat the result of eating the macadamia nuts! But one dose? How very odd. Especially when they could have been all but certain that she would require it. Surely no household would be short of so ordinary a commodity, especially over Christmas, when it could be guaranteed that people would overindulge? There was something about it that was peculiar.

  She picked up the bottle again and, keeping it concealed in the folds of her skirt, returned to her room, where she hid it in the drawer with her underclothes.

  Then, with Tilly’s assistance, she dressed in the darkest clothes she had with her—not quite black, but a gray that in the winter light would pass for it. She went downstairs to face the day.

  Caroline was in the withdrawing room before the fire. Joshua had gone to fetch the local doctor so that the necessary authorities could be satisfied.

  “Are you all right, Mama-in-law?” she asked anxiously. “It is a terrible experience for you.”

  “It was a much worse experience for Maude!” Grandmama replied with tart candor. There were troubling thoughts in her mind, but she was not quite certain exactly what they were. She could not share them, especially with Caroline, who had never detected anything, as far as she knew. She might even wish to avoid scandal, and refuse even to consider it, and Maude deserved better than that! Perhaps it rested with Mariah Ellison, and no one else, to face the truth.

  A few minutes later the doctor arrived and was taken upstairs.

  “Heart failure,” he informed them when he came down again. “Very sad. She seemed in excellent health otherwise.”

  “She was!” Grandmama said quickly, before anyone else could reply. “She was a world traveler, walked miles, rode horses, and even camels. She never spoke of any ailment at all.”

  “It can come without warning,” the doctor said gently.

  “An attack that kills?” Grandmama demanded. “She did not look as if she were in that kind of agony!”

  “No,” he agreed with a slight frown. “I think it more likely that her heart simply slowed and then stopped.”

  “Slowed and then stopped?” Grandmama said incredulously.

  “Mama-in-law!” Caroline remonstrated.

  “I think it may well have been peaceful,” the doctor said to Grandmama. “If that is of comfort to you? Were you very fond of her?”

  “She barely knew her!” Caroline said tartly.

  “Yes, I was fond of her.” Grandmama contradicted her, equally tartly.

  “I’m very sorry.” The doctor was still gentle. He turned to Joshua. “If I can assist with arrangements, of course I shall be happy to.”

  “Thank you,” Joshua accepted.

  “We shall have to inform the rest of her family,” Grandmama said loudly. “Bedelia whatever-her-name-is.”

  “I have been thinking how on earth I can write such a letter,” Caroline acknowledged. “What to say that will make it … better sounds absurd. If I simply say that we are terribly sad to inform them, will that be best?” She looked worried, and “sad” would be no exaggeration. There was a grief in her face that was quite genuine.

  Grandmama’s mind was racing. What was she allowing herself to think? Heart slowing down? Nuts that everyone knew were indigestible? One dose of peppermint water? Had Maude been murdered? Preposterous! That’s what came of allowing one’s daughter to marry a policeman. This was Caroline’s fault. If she had been a mother of the slightest responsibility at all she would never have permitted Charlotte to do such a thing! Thomas Pitt, as a law enforcement official, was not a suitable husband. He had absolutely nothing to commend him, except possibly height?

  But if someone like Pitt could solve a crime, then most certainly Grandmama could. She would not be outwitted by a gamekeeper’s son, half her age!

  And if Maude Barrington had been murdered, then Mariah Ellison would see that whoever had done so was brought to justice and answered to the last penny for such an act. Maude might have been an absurd woman, and a complete nuisance, but there was such a thing as justice.

  Grandmama felt as if a light and a warmth had gone out of the air and a heaviness settled in its place, which she did not understand at all.

  “You should not write,” she said firmly to Caroline. “It is far too dreadful and sudden a thing to put in a letter, when apparently they live so near. Snake, isn’t it? Or something like that.”

  “Snave,” Caroline corrected. “Yes. It’s about four or five miles away. Still well within the Marsh. Do you think I should go over and tell them myself?” Her face tightened. “Yes, of course you’re right.”

  “No!” Grandmama said quickly. “I agree it should be done personally. After all, she was their sister, however they treated her. Perhaps they will even feel an overwhelming guilt now.” She thought that extremely unlikely. They were obviously quite shameless. “But I will go. You have arrangements to make for Christmas, and Joshua would miss you. And I imagine I actually spent more time with Maude than you did anyway. I may be able to be of some comfort, inform them a little of her last days.” She sounded sententious and she knew it. She watched Caroline’s expression acutely. It would be a disaster if she were to come, too; in fact it would make the entire journey a waste of time. In order to have a hope of accomplishing anything she would be obliged to tell Caroline what she suspected with increasing certainty the more she considered it.

  A spark of hope lit in Caroline’s eyes. “But that is a great deal to ask of you, Mama-in-law.”

  Of course she was dubious. Mariah Ellison had never in her life been known to discomfort herself on someone else’s behalf. It was totally out of character. But then Caroline did not know her very well. For nearly twenty years they had lived under the same roof, and for all of it Grandmama had lived a lie. She had hidden her misery and self-loathing under the mantle of widowhood. But how could she have done anything else? The shame of her past continually burned inside her as if the physical pain were still raw and bleeding and she could barely walk. She had had to lie, for her son’s sake. And the lie had grown bigger and bigger inside her, estranging her from everyone.

  “You did not ask it of me,” she said more sharply than she meant to. “I have offered. It is the answer that makes the greatest sense.” Should she add that Caroline and Joshua had made her welcome here and it was a small repayment? No. Caroline would never believe that. They had allowed her in, she was not welcome, nor was she stupid enough to imagine that she could be. Caroline would be suspicious.

  “I have nothing else to do,” she added more realistically. “I am bored.” That was believable. She was certainly not about to admit to Caroline, of all people, that she actually had admired Maude Barrington and felt a terrible anger that she should have been abandoned by her family, and very possibly murdered by one of them. She waited for Caroline’s reaction. She must not push too hard.

  “Are you certain you would not mind?” Caroline was still unconvinced.

  “Quite certain,” she replied. “It is still a pleasant morning. I shall compose myself, have a little luncheon, and then go. That is, if you can spare the carriage to take me there? I doubt there is any other way of travel in this benighted spot!” A sudden idea occurred to her. “Perhaps you fear that …”

  “No,”
Caroline said quickly. “It is most generous of you, and I think entirely appropriate. It shows far more care than any letter could do, no matter how sincere, or well written. Of course the coachman will take you. As you say, the weather is still quite clement. This afternoon would be perfect. I do appreciate it.”

  Grandmama smiled, trying to show less triumph than she felt. “Then I shall prepare myself,” she replied, finishing her tea and rising to her feet. She intended to remain at Snave for as long as it required to discover the truth of Maude’s death, and to prove it. Knowing alone was hardly adequate. Her visit might well stretch into several days. She must succeed. It was not a matter of sentimentality, it was a matter of principle, and she was a woman to whom such things mattered.

  PART TWO

  The journey was bumpy and cold, even with a traveling rug wrapped around from the waist downward. There was a bitter, whining wind coming in off the sea, though now and again it cleared the sky of clouds. The light was chill and hard over the low-lying heath. This was the invasion coast where Julius Caesar had landed fifty-five years before the birth of Christ. No such thing as Christmas then! He had gone home and been murdered the following year. That had been by his own people too, those he had known and trusted for years.

  Eleven centuries after that, William, Duke of Normandy, had landed with his knights and bowmen and killed King Harold at Hastings, just around the coast from here. Somehow she was faintly satisfied with Caesar coming. Rome had been the center of the world then. England had been proud to be part of that Empire. But William’s invasion still rankled, which was silly, since it was the best part of a thousand years ago! But it was the last time England had been conquered, and it annoyed her.

  King Philip of Spain’s armada would probably have landed here too, if the wind had not destroyed it. And Napoleon Bonaparte. Only he went to Russia instead, which had proved to be a bad idea.