T Kinsey - A Quiet Life in the Country (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery Book 1)

‘Fear not, tiny servant,’ she said. ‘When Jasper rented me the place he put me on to the local landowners and they’ve sorted out some people for me to interview. It’s all in hand.’

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ I said, and put the kettle on to boil.

‘Of more pressing concern,’ she said, looking about, ‘is what shall we eat? The Great Western Railway offers a punctual service but a lacklustre lunch. I shall be somewhere beyond starving by dinner time.’

‘Fear not, ageing employer,’ I said. ‘I ordered some supplies before we left London and asked that they be delivered to the house. If all is well, there should be plenty in the pantry.’

I opened the larder door and indicated the shelves, chock-a-block with groceries.

‘Well done, you,’ she said. ‘We shall have our tea, and then I’ll leave you to practise your culinary witchcraft while I make sure that my equipment has been safely stowed in the orangery.’ She pointed to the door beside the large sink. ‘Is that the way out to the garden?’

‘Through the boot room, yes,’ I said.

The kettle soon boiled and I filled the pot and joined her at the table.

‘Lamps!’ she said suddenly.

‘What?’

‘Have we got any lamps? I’ve grown so accustomed to having electricity in the flat that I completely forgot.’

‘All taken care of, my lady,’ I said. ‘Lamps, oil, candles, matches . . . all in that tea chest over there.’

‘What would I do without you?’

I thought for a moment. ‘Starve to death, my lady. In the dark.’

I awoke early the next morning and got to work. New staff would be a boon, but there was little chance of us even interviewing applicants within the next couple of days, much less actually employing them. And I confess that I felt myself better qualified to handle the important matter of settling in than would hired help from the village, no matter how eager they might be.

I woke Lady Hardcastle with tea and toast on a tray and it wasn’t long before she came down to breakfast, which we ate together in the morning room.

‘What are your plans today, my lady?’ I asked as I poured her another cup of tea.

‘I need to get things properly organized in the orangery,’ she said. ‘But other than that, I think we ought to take our leisure. It’s been a hectic couple of months since that awful business at the Bulgarian embassy and I think we deserve a rest, the pair of us. What shall you be doing?’

I outlined my main tasks for the day and hinted at some of the minor ones.

She laughed. ‘So much for taking your ease,’ she said. ‘Well, don’t overdo it. We’ll have a housemaid and a cook by the end of the week and we must leave them something to do.’

I raised my eyebrows sceptically. ‘I’ll do my best to make sure they’re kept busy, my lady,’ I said, though I remained unconvinced that we’d manage to find anyone quite so quickly.

We finished our breakfast amid more chit-chat and she left to find her overalls. By inclination she was an elegant dresser, favouring fashions that flattered her tall, graceful figure. She often chose dark blues to bring out the blue of her eyes, or deep, rich purples, which made her dark hair seem to glow. Dun-coloured engineer’s overalls did nothing for her, but did at least make the laundry easier after a day in her studio.

I returned to a list of chores that would have made Hercules blanch.

During the course of the morning my labours were interrupted no fewer than half a dozen times by the ringing of the doorbell. In London a lady might just about manage to make the acquaintance of her nearest neighbours after a few years if she were particularly gregarious. Out in the West Country it seemed that everyone and his dog wished to find out more about the stranger in their midst.

The Reverend James Bland, vicar of St Arild’s Church, was the first to call, bearing a rather formidable fruitcake baked in Lady Hardcastle’s honour by his wife who, he assured her, would be calling on her own account within a day or two. A butcher’s boy from Spratt’s called with a note introducing his employer’s shop, followed closely by lads from the baker’s and the grocer’s bearing similar introductions. I couldn’t help thinking that the three establishments might have saved themselves a few pence by employing just one of the lads to run the errand for all of them, but the boys were delighted – Lady Hardcastle gave them each a few coppers for their trouble.

The village policeman called next. Sergeant Dobson said he couldn’t stop. Nevertheless he wanted to pay his respects and reassure Lady Hardcastle that he and his assistant (whose name went in one ear and out the other) were there to keep us safe. Not, he insisted hastily, that we would need it. His village was the safest in the district. If we needed anything, we had only to ask.

True to his word, he didn’t press us for a cup of tea as our friends on the London force might have. Instead, he bade us both good day and strolled back down the garden path whistling a music hall song.

Lady Hardcastle invited the sixth caller, Dr Fitzsimmons, into the drawing room. I made up another tray of tea and pondered the wisdom of inflicting the vicar’s wife’s cake on the poor chap. On the one hand it seemed the very opposite of hospitable to subject the man to such a terrifying fruitcake, but on the other it was all we had. I felt sure that he would have been exposed to Mrs Bland’s baking before and would be inured to it by now. I cut small slices and served it to them.

From the kitchen I could overhear snippets of their conversation and it seemed that Lady Hardcastle had tried to explain her new obsession to him.

‘. . . all very interesting,’ he said, and I heard the clink of cups and saucers being replaced on the tray. ‘I don’t imagine many of the villagers will take to it – I sometimes suspect that many of them regard my own simple talents as witchcraft . . .’

She laughed. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

‘Well, I shall bid you good day,’ he said, and their voices reverberated in the wood-panelled front hall. ‘I’m sure you have much to do. Moving in is such a busy time.’

Yes, I thought, it really rather is. For some of us.

‘Thank you, doctor,’ she said.

‘It’s all go, isn’t it?’ she said, joining me in the kitchen.

‘It certainly does seem to be,’ I said. ‘It seems my doubts about the frequency of callers were entirely misplaced.’

‘Your assumptions have been proved wrong so far, yes. What’s for lunch?’

‘Lunch, my lady?’ I said. ‘After all that cake?’

She groaned. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t eat any of Mrs Bland’s cake. It seems like the sort of thing they’d load cannons with when the ammunition had run out. Luckily Dr Fitzsimmons correctly guessed its provenance, so your reputation as a pâtissière remains untarnished, but we both agreed to give it a miss.’

‘I don’t blame you,’ I said. ‘In that case, you’ll be ready for a slice or two of the gala pie I ordered before we left London and which lurks, e’en now, in our extraordinarily well-stocked pantry.’

‘It’ll not be as good as yours, but I’m sure it’ll do nicely. Is there chutney? Tomatoes?’

‘All that and more, my lady. Will you be changing for lunch?’

She laughed. ‘I might wash my hands – I seem to have become rather grimy. The vicar and the doctor looked a little taken aback by my appearance, I must say.’

‘I suspect that was less to do with the grimy hands and more to do with the engineer’s overalls.’

‘Hmm, perhaps,’ she said. ‘Ah well, that’ll teach them to call on a lady unannounced. I can’t be expected to be dressed for visitors all day – I have work to do.’