T Kinsey - Death Around the Bend (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery Book 3)

We read the newspaper. We read our books. We played word games. We devised fantastical biographies of the people we saw standing on the platforms of the stations we passed through. The handsome young man in the luridly striped blazer whom we saw somewhere just outside Birmingham, for instance, was a solicitor’s clerk called Raymond, who was on his way into the city to audition for a part in a musical. His sweetheart, a girl called Mildred, who had a squint, a wooden leg, and a heart of gold, had packed his lunch for him and sent him on his way with a loving kiss to pursue his dreams. The snorting gentleman left the compartment at this point and never found out what became of Raymond and Mildred.

It was a relief when we finally disembarked at Riddlethorpe station to find not only that our baggage was all present and correct, but that Lord Riddlethorpe’s chauffeur was waiting for us with his lordship’s Rolls-Royce. Having so carefully planned the details of our expedition, we had been able to telegram Codrington Hall well in advance with our anticipated arrival time.

Despite the length of the journey, I was in a cheerful mood as we alighted to be reunited with our baggage. Lady Hardcastle, too, was in ebullient form, and swished through the station, charming everyone as she went.

Codrington Hall was a few miles from the small town of Riddlethorpe, and the drive gave us ample time to get to know Morgan, Lord Riddlethorpe’s young chauffeur.

‘Have you visited the house before, my lady?’ he said as we drove along the surprisingly flat road. There were slight bumps on the horizon, but nothing that would properly qualify as a hill, and with ditches lining the road instead of hedgerows, the effect was to make the sky seem far larger than I was used to.

‘No, we haven’t,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Is it a fun place?’

He laughed. ‘Fun enough,’ he said. ‘Especially if you’re interested in motor cars. But presumably you know his lordship well enough to know that.’

‘Actually, I’ve only met him a few times, and that was years ago when we were up at Cambridge. He’s a friend of my brother’s, Harry Featherstonhaugh.’

‘Ah, I see. Well, Mr Featherstonhaugh arrived last night, and he and his lordship seem to be very good friends indeed. There was much merriment in the billiards room, by all accounts.’

‘Good-o,’ she said. ‘Are there any other guests?’

‘Not yet, my lady. But we’re ’spectin’ quite a few. His lordship’s got two more comin’, and Lady Lavinia will be arrivin’ tomorrow with a couple of friends of her own.’

‘Lady Lavinia? Lord Riddlethorpe’s wife? His daughter?’

‘Sister, my lady. Lord Riddlethorpe never married.’

‘A sister? All these years and I never knew he had a sister. Well, it’ll be a houseful, then.’

Morgan laughed again. ‘It’ll be busy, my lady, but I dare say they’d need a good many more guests to actually fill the house.’

Lady Hardcastle smiled. ‘Have you worked there long?’

‘’Bout a year. His lordship saw me tinkering with a motor car at m’dad’s forge, and offered me a job there and then. Dad’s a blacksmith, see? He wanted me to follow him into it, and I’ve learned a lot, but I don’t reckon there’s much future in it. I reckon motor cars are the future, but he don’t see it.’

‘So you do more than just drive for Lord Riddlethorpe?’

‘Oh-ah, my lady. I’m his mechanic. I look after his racin’ cars. You know about his racin’ team?’

‘Not in detail, no. Harry said that’s what the party was for, but nothing further. He said his lordship has a racing circuit at the house, which sounds like fun. But I confess I don’t know quite what to expect.’

‘Thought it was a rich man’s fancy?’

She looked thoughtful, as though surprised by this perceptive young man. ‘As a matter of fact, I did,’ she said. ‘Have you read Kenneth Grahame’s book, The Wind in the Willows ?’

‘Can’t say I have, my lady.’

‘It’s a children’s book, but it really is rather splendid. There’s a character in it called Mr Toad. But no matter.’

‘I’ll be sure to hunt it out,’ he said. ‘And what of you, miss? What did you expect of your week away?’

‘Me?’ I said. ‘Oh, I don’t know. A break from the drudgery of serving such a demanding mistress, perhaps?’

‘Tough one, is she?’ he said with a wink.

‘The worst,’ I said. ‘But she hides it when we’re in company, so no one knows how I suffer.’

He laughed as Lady Hardcastle huffed and rolled her eyes.

‘If you ever need to escape,’ said Morgan, ‘just you come down to the coach house. I’m always there, and I’d be happy to make you a cup of tea.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But won’t you be busy with the racing?’

‘Oh, don’t you worry about that. I’ve always got time for the oppressed masses.’

‘Oppressed, my hat,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘And she’ll be too busy racing to be taking tea in the garage, I’m afraid. We both shall.’

‘You’ll be racin’, my lady?’ he said with evident surprise.

‘I shall be most disappointed if we don’t,’ she replied. ‘Can’t come all this way to a house with a racing track and not have a go.’

‘Well I never,’ he said slowly.

‘To be honest with you, dear boy,’ she said, ‘we never did, either. But I’ve just recently bought a motor car of my own, and I have to say I’m really rather taken with this driving lark.’

‘A motor car of your own, eh?’ he said, apparently delighted to be able to talk about his passion. ‘What did you get?’

‘On the advice of my friend’s chauffeur, I bought a Rover 6.’

‘The Rover, eh? Not a bad little motor, that. Nice little two-seater. Little bit underpowered for what we get up to up at the house, but a good place to start.’

She smiled. ‘I’m pleased you approve.’

‘And you drive it yourself?’ he asked.

‘We take it in turns. It’s such fun that I can’t leave it all to Armstrong.’

He looked at me for confirmation, and I smiled and nodded.

‘Well I never,’ he said again. ‘Well I never did.’

He spent the rest of the journey enthusiastically detailing all the things we might do to improve the performance of the little Rover, and from the gleam in Lady Hardcastle’s eye, I could tell that we’d be outfitting a workshop of our own as soon as we got home.

The lodge gate of Codrington Hall was on the other side of Riddlethorpe from the station and we seemed to reach it in mere moments.

The drive from the lodge house at the gate to the vast expanse of gravel in front of the house, on the other hand, took an absolute age. We seemed to travel for miles along a winding, wooded drive, past sheep, one or two curious deer, and a long-horned, shaggy-coated Highland cow that looked very much as though it wished it were somewhere much less flat and altogether more Scottish.

There were occasional tantalizing glimpses of the roof and chimneys of the house in the distance, but the drive had clearly been designed to hide it from view for as long as possible, building the anticipation. When we rounded the final bend and the house was revealed in all its glory, it was every bit as impressive as its architect had planned. A dish brought to the table is just another dish of food if it can be seen as the footman carries it across the room. But when the dish is covered by a magnificent silver cloche and the footman sets it down, still covered, before whisking away the cover with a flourish and a billow of steam, even the most pedestrian of dishes can seem like a culinary masterpiece.