Ти Кинси - Christmas at The Grange - A Lady Hardcastle Mystery (Kindle Single)

‘Is there no end to your sartorial expertise?’ said Lady Farley-Stroud.

‘Tailor, cobbler, and all-round clever boots,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

‘Or possibly cordwainer,’ I said.

‘Quite so, dear, quite so,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

Lady Farley-Stroud still looked puzzled.

‘Cobblers mend shoes,’ explained Lady Hardcastle. ‘Cordwainers make them.’

‘Well, I never,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud. ‘Every meeting with you two is an education.’

‘It shouldn’t be too hard to match the print to the shoe if we should ever find a suspect,’ I said. ‘There.’ I pointed to a triangular notch in the print, near the toe.

‘He couldn’t have done better if he’d signed it,’ agreed Lady Hardcastle. ‘We’ll have your niece’s pendant back in no time at this rate, Gertie. We’ll just need a bit of thinking time, and maybe some snooping. And food, definitely food.’

Lady Farley-Stroud turned to look at the clock on the mantel.

‘Oh my goodness,’ she said. ‘Food. We’d best get back downstairs. Cook will be all on end if we delay her Christmas lunch.’

We hurried down to the library, where the household guests were already assembled for preprandial drinks. Somewhere along the way we lost Lady Hardcastle without either Lady Farley-Stroud or me noticing. She joined us again after a short while and gave the secret ‘I’ll tell you later’ signal in response to my questioningly raised eyebrow.

* * *

The champagne was perfectly chilled and the company seasonably merry. As on the previous evening, Mr Goodheart and Sir Edward were the self-appointed Masters of Mirth. They kept everyone’s glasses topped up and were ready with a quip or a snippet of song whenever anyone appeared to be taking themselves too seriously.

The four children had been invited to lunch, too, but they needed no encouragement from the Mirthmeisters. They were boisterously excited and I was worried that they might be sent back upstairs on more than one occasion. There was also an addition to the family group whom we had not met on Christmas Eve. Cradled in Henrietta Beaufort’s arms was a baby of indeterminate gender, dressed in a white gown decorated with embroidered holly leaves.

Mrs Beaufort approached us.

‘Aunt Gertie tells me that you’re going to be looking into the burglary for me,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I do so want to get the pendant back, but involving the police would bring exactly the wrong sort of publicity for Cornelius. Gertie never stops singing your praises. I’m so glad you’re on our side.’

‘Think nothing of it, dear,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We’re only too happy to help. And we always love a puzzle.’

The younger woman smiled warmly.

‘And who’s this little chap?’ asked Lady Hardcastle, indicating the infant. ‘We haven’t been introduced.’

‘This is Prudence Charlotte Tessingham Beryl Beaufort,’ said the mother, proudly.

‘Tessingham is a family name, I presume,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

‘Yes. Worst luck. By some peculiar tradition that was once explained to me but which I have long since ceased to understand, the third child born to a member of Cornelius’s family must face a hostile and bewildering world with “Tessingham” as one of its middle names. Her future husband will stumble over it at the altar, of course, but she’ll be pressured into saddling her own third-born with it in due course, nevertheless.’

‘I confess I rather enjoy that sort of thing,’ said Lady Hardcastle with a smile. She held out her arms. ‘May I?’

Mrs Beaufort handed her the baby, who immediately began to howl in protest.

‘It was worth a go,’ said Mrs Beaufort, taking her back and quietening her immediately. ‘Don’t take it personally; she always cries whenever a stranger so much as brushes against her. Cornelius insists it’s an important primitive survival instinct – keeps a baby from being abducted by evildoers from the neighbouring tribe or some such tommyrot – but I just think it’s rude.’ She kissed the baby’s forehead. ‘You’re a rude one, Baby Pru, aren’t you? Standoffish and rude. Yes, you are.’

The gong sounded from the hall, calling us into the dining room for lunch.

‘I’d better get this one back to Nanny,’ said Mrs Beaufort. ‘Don’t let them eat all the roast potatoes.’

Still clutching our champagne glasses, we strolled through to the dining room in an informal gaggle. I paused in the hall for a few moments to admire the enormous Christmas tree which had appeared there overnight. It stood easily twelve feet tall and was bedecked with so many ribbons, glittering glass baubles, ornaments and garlands of tinsel that it was hard to tell, in some places, that there was a tree there at all.

We found our places at table and settled down to a sumptuous feast. The oak-panelled room was festooned with yet more greenery, ribbons, tinsel and baubles, while an enormous holly centrepiece dominated the table.

Mrs Beaufort slipped back in before the soup arrived, but even had she been detained until after the main course was served, she needn’t have worried about a shortage of roast potatoes. Or of anything at all. Over the next two hours there was enough soup, fish, turkey, beef, roast potatoes, boiled potatoes and vegetables to keep us all well-fed far beyond Easter. The arrival of mince pies and Christmas pudding brought groans from the already overfull company, but no one refused a helping of one or other – or both – of them. Only the cheese board escaped relatively unscathed, although the accompanying port decanter took a bit of a bashing.

The adults sat quietly contemplating the consequences of gluttony, either longing for a quiet nap or, in the case of the ladies, wishing it were possible to discreetly loosen a corset while sitting at the dining table. Meanwhile, however, there came a mutinous murmuring from the children. The tradition in the Farley-Stroud household was for gifts to be exchanged immediately after lunch, and it seemed that this wasn’t happening immediately enough for Humphrey, the group’s self-appointed leader.

‘Father Christmas worked hard last night to bring presents for all the good boys and girls,’ he said, loudly, when his mother tried to shush him. ‘And I think that the least we can do is to show our appreciation by opening them.’

‘That’s right,’ agreed his elder sister.

‘Presents, presents, presents,’ chanted the two remaining Beaufort children.

‘He’ll be taking silk like his father, that one,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud. ‘Come on then, you lot. Back to the library with you. Let’s see what Father Christmas has brought us all.’

THREE

We stayed through the gift-giving. We had already wrapped presents for Sir Hector and Lady Farley-Stroud, but Lady Hardcastle had also somehow managed to buy, wrap and deliver gifts for the rest of the family, too. I was going to have to look out for my job if she were able to organize that sort of thing without me.

But by the time Lady Farley-Stroud began mumbling about how lovely it would be to have some of that cold beef in a sandwich – or perhaps the turkey – we simultaneously gave the secret ‘it’s time to leave’ signal and began saying our goodbyes.

With Sir Hector’s blessing, I went below stairs to wish my pal Maude Denton, Lady Farley-Stroud’s lady’s maid, a merry Christmas. I extended the season’s greetings to anyone I bumped into, and made an effort to pop my head into the kitchen. Rose, the kitchen maid, smiled and nodded before getting back to washing the pots and pans. Mrs Brown, the Farley-Strouds’ ill-tempered cook, bustled over to us and I feared I had earned poor Rose a ticking off for slacking. Instead, she wrapped me in a warm and matronly hug.