Anne Perry: Anne Perry's Christmas Mysteries

She is not sane, Grandmama thought to herself grimly. No wonder her family wants to get rid of her!

They breasted the rise and the whole panorama of the English Channel opened up before them, the long stretch of sand, wind, and water bleached till it gleamed bone pale in the light. The surf broke in ranks of white waves, hissing up the shore, foaming like lace, consuming themselves, and rushing back again. Then a moment later they roared in inches higher, never tired of the game. The surface was cold, unshadowed blue, and it stretched out endlessly till it met the sky. They both knew that France was not much more than twenty miles away, but today the horizon was smudged and softened with mist that blurred the line.

Maude stood with her head high, wind unraveling the last of her hair from its pins and all but taking her shawl as well.

“Isn’t it glorious?” she asked. “Until this moment I had forgotten just how much I love the sea, its width, its shining, endless possibilities. It’s never the same two moments together.”

“It always looks the same to me,” Grandmama said ungraciously. How could anyone be so pointlessly joyous? It was half-witted! “Cold, wet, and only too happy to drown you if you are foolish enough to give it the chance,” she finished.

Maude burst into laughter. She stood on the shore with her eyes closed, her face lifted upward, smiling, and the wind billowing her shawl and her skirts.

Grandmama swiveled around and stamped back onto the tussock grass, or whatever it was that tangled her feet, and started back along the lane. The woman was as mad as a hatter. It was unendurable that anyone should be expected to put up with her.

The following day was no better. Maude usurped every moment by regaling them with tales of boating on the Nile, buffalo standing in the water, unnameable insects, and tombs of kings who worshipped animals! All very fashionable, perhaps, but disgusting. Both Caroline and Joshua took hospitality too far, and pretended to be absorbed in it, even encouraging her by asking questions.

Of course the wretched woman obliged, particularly at the dinner table. And all through the roast beef, the Yorkshire pudding and the vegetables, followed by apple charlotte and cream, her captive audience was made to listen to descriptions of ruined gardens in Persia.

“I stood there in the sand of the stream splashing its way over the blue tiles, most of them broken,” Maude said, smiling as her eyes misted with memory. “We were quite high up and I looked through the old trees toward the flat, brown plain, and saw those roads: to the east toward Samarkand, to the west to Baghdad, and to the south to Isfahan, and my imagination soared into flight. The very names are like an incantation. As dusk drew around me and the pale colors deepened to gold and fire and that strange richness of porphyry, in my mind I could hear the camel bells and see that odd, lurching gait of theirs as they moved silently like dreams through the coming night, bound on adventures of the soul.”

“Isn’t it hard sometimes?” Caroline asked, not in criticism but perhaps even sympathy.

“Oh yes! Often,” Maude agreed. “You are thirsty, your body aches, and of course you can become so tired you would sell everything you possess for a good night’s sleep. But you know it will be worth it. And it always is. The pain is only for a moment, the joy is forever.”

And so it went on. Now and then she picked at the macadamia nuts she had brought to the table to share, saying that her family had given them to her, knowing her weakness for them.

Only Joshua accepted.

“Indigestible,” Grandmama said, growing more and more irritated by it all.

“I know,” Maude agreed. “I daresay I shall be sorry tonight. But a little peppermint water will help.”

“I prefer not to be so foolish in the first place,” Grandmama said icily.

“Do you have peppermint water?” Caroline asked. “I can give you some, if you wish?”

“I prefer to exercise a little self-control in the first place,” Grandmama answered, as if the offer had been addressed to her.

Maude smiled. “Thank you, but I have one dose, and I’m sure that will be sufficient. There are not so many nuts, and I can’t resist them.”

She offered the dish to Joshua again and he took two more, and asked her to continue with her tales of Persia.

Grandmama tried to ignore it.

It seemed as if morning, noon, and night they were obliged to talk about or listen to accounts of some alien place, and pretend to be interested. She had been right in the very beginning: This was going to be the worst Christmas of her life. She would never forgive Emily for banishing her here. It was a monstrous thing to have done.

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.