Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains (39 page)

‘Nonsen—’ began Great Aunt Gertrude and then coughed. ‘I mean to say, I don’t think I would go that far, Lollie my dear, but your generosity of spirit, unflagging, most admirable, dear me, yes.’

‘And I feel the responsibility,’ said Lollie.

‘For what?’

‘Not
for
anything exactly,’ Lollie said. ‘Just the responsibility of so much money. All that money. When Mr Ettrick came back to see me yesterday and told me the figure . . . in cold hard pounds sterling . . .’

Great Aunt Gertrude was as still as a statue, quite breathless, waiting.

‘And especially at a time like this when one only has to look out of one’s window to see the most wretched plights that tattered humanity could endure . . .’

I turned my eyes to the window onto Heriot Row and the railings of Queen Street Gardens, thinking that tattered humanity did not make a habit of enduring its wretched plights just there. Great Aunt Gertrude was breathing again – in fact, almost panting.

‘One must be prudent, dear,’ she said. ‘One cannot let one’s tender heart lead one to . . .’

Give away any of that lovely loot to anyone but Great Aunt Gertrude, I guessed to be the end of the sentence.

‘It’s poor Stanley’s family, you see,’ said Lollie.

‘My dear Walburga,’ said Great Aunt Gertrude, ‘no one in the world could lay that at your door. You needn’t let it trouble you for one second, truly.’

‘I
needn’t
,’ said Lollie. ‘But I shall. Maggie’s parents and Miss Abbott’s sister too – Mrs Light. She’s terribly distraught and I think a cruise would be the thing for her.’

Her aunt, soothed by the inexpensive sound of this, smiled fondly. Then Lollie dropped the bomb.

‘And I was wondering,’ she said, ‘about buying a mine. A coal mine. They don’t have any other kinds around here. And I could probably get one on quite reasonable terms just now.’

‘I shouldn’t doubt it,’ I said. I did not trust myself to look at Great Aunt Gertrude, from whom gurgling sounds could be heard. Bunty lifted her head and gave the old lady an enquiring glance before going to sleep again. ‘But do be careful, Lollie, won’t you? Take advice, dear.’

‘I shall,’ she said, ‘but I’m determined to carry on the Balfour tradition and going against the tide of popular thinking is very much the Balfour way. It’s something I should like to pass on to my children, if I marry again, even though, of course, they won’t actually be Balfours, but perhaps if I had a son I could give him Balfour as his Christian name, if his father didn’t mind too much of course, and then Pip
will
carry on, in a way.’

She seemed to be skipping ahead rather lightly for a woman whose husband was not yet in the ground, but she was twenty-five and rich with reddish curls and blue eyes and so I supposed that husband number two would not, indeed, be very long in arriving and might easily agree to all manner of things.

‘Now, Lollie dear,’ I said, shoving Bunty off my feet and giving my shoes an ineffectual rub with my hanky, ‘if you will excuse me, I really do want to pay a visit downstairs.’

I had only been away two nights, but stepping through the door under the stairs opposite the dining room and descending those stone steps onto the flagstones felt like something from a half-forgotten dream.

There they all were, what was left of them anyway: Mrs Hepburn and Eldry in their pink dresses with their aprons on, Clara and Phyllis in black with lace caps for serving the tea, and Mattie in a waistcoat and striped trousers.

‘You look very smart,’ I said, smiling at him.

‘Look who’s talking,’ said Mrs Hepburn. ‘Not that I should speak to you that way now, madam, I don’t suppose. But you’re Fanny Rossiter to me for all time and you’ve only yourself to blame so you can lump it. And you were a lovely girl to have around and that kind and brave so I’m sorry I spoke that way.’

‘I’ve got to answer the door now, miss,’ said Mattie. ‘I’m the only man left in the house now. If you think that John’s the chauffeur and he’s outside really.’

‘Where’s Harry?’ I asked.

‘Sacked,’ Eldry said, sounding mournful. ‘Or at least let go. He wouldn’t take on the footman’s duties so there was nothing else for it.’

‘Well, my goodness,’ I said. ‘There are going to be a perfect stream of interviews, aren’t there?’

‘You don’t half sound funny,’ said Clara, and she mimicked me. ‘A perfect
stream
!’

‘Mind your cheeky tongue,’ said Mrs Hepburn. ‘No, madam. Mistress hasn’t the heart. She’s keeping us on and she says she’ll get a housekeeper too if I can’t manage the cooking and the running of it all with just Eldry to help me – Millie’s away home to her mammy, you know; she didn’t have the makings of a maid and even I who love her to pieces knew it really. But she says she’ll never have another butler and she doesn’t want the fuss of a footman and that what did she call it, Phyllis?’

‘Flummery,’ Phyllis said. ‘I didn’t think it sounded quite nice but it’s in the dictionary. And I’ve seen enough of butlers to last me a lifetime, so I’m happy. I’m mortified, so I am, to think that black-hearted devil had the cheek to
like
me.’ Clara gave her a friendly shove and told her not to be a daftie but Phyllis shook her curls and pursed her mouth, comical in her indignation.

‘You should be grateful you were such a favourite with him,’ I said. ‘Or you could have ended up like poor Stanley.’ Phyllis clutched Clara’s arm and stared at me.

‘What?’ she said. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve been puzzling over this, I have to tell you,’ I said. ‘I know you went to Mr Faulds and I think you must have let slip that you knew something, but he didn’t harm you, did he? He . . . distracted you. With gifts. Didn’t he?’

‘What?’ said Phyllis again.

‘That very first day after master was killed,’ I said. ‘You went out for the afternoon in your pretty yellow coat and hat, remember? And Mr Faulds had given you a little gift.’

‘I did go to Mr Faulds that day,’ said Phyllis, ‘and asked him for a wee sub so’s I could get my black coat and my prayer book out for the funeral. Is that what you mean?’

‘Get them out?’ said Mrs Hepburn. ‘Oh Phyllis, you’re never at that lark again. You promised me and I promised your ma. I could take my hand to you sometimes.’ She sighed. ‘Aye, but it’s hard for you all these days with them pictures showing you all what you’ve not got. I wouldn’t be young now in this world of ours for a fortune, you poor loves.’

‘And he
gave
you this “wee sub”?’ I said, leading Phyllis back to the point again.

‘He gave me a whopping great big sub,’ said Phyllis. ‘I cleared my slate.’

‘So the question that interests me,’ I said, ‘is why. Can you remember what exactly you said to him?’

Phyllis screwed up her face, thinking, then shrugged.

‘Nowt,’ she said. ‘I mean, we were talking about what had happened – of course we were – master and all that and I might have— Oh!’ She clapped a hand over her mouth and above it her eyes were wide open.

‘You might have what?’ said Mrs Hepburn.

‘I was moaning about Stanley,’ Phyllis said. ‘Like we all used to, didn’t we? Even if it sounds bad now he’s gone. I told Mr Faulds he’d said he kent something and he was being a pain about it, you know the way he was? Dropping hints and thinking he was it?’ Clara and Mrs Hepburn nodded, but Eldry and Mattie – innocent youths – looked unwilling to malign the dead in this way. ‘And I asked Mr Faulds if he thought I should tell the policeman about it.’

‘Oh Phyllis!’ said Mrs Hepburn and Phyllis’s eyes brimmed.

‘And Mr Faulds said no and not to worry my head about it and that he’d see to Stanley himself.’

‘See to him!’ said Mrs Hepburn. Two great fat tears like goblets slid down Phyllis’s face.

‘And he gave me . . . a fiver,’ Phyllis said. She did not look at me.

‘He gave you a fiver and you never wondered why?’ said Clara. Still Phyllis would not meet my eye, for I knew it had been much more than that and if a fiver should have set alarm bells jangling then seventeen, or probably twenty, ought to have been as good as a signed confession.

‘I didn’t think,’ she said. More tears followed the first two, and faster. The others said nothing.

‘Don’t dwell on it,’ I told her, trying to speak kindly but not quite managing, I fear. ‘It’s too late now.’

‘And anyway,’ said Mrs Hepburn. ‘Stanley, after all, I mean to say, he only had himself . . . and it’s Mr Faulds that should be . . .’

‘Thoughtlessness born of innocence is not a crime,’ I said, taking pity at last. ‘It’s a virtue.’ Phyllis smiled her thanks.

‘Exactly,’ said Mrs Hepburn. ‘Well said, Fanny my girl. And it’s all over now. We can leave all that behind us when we go.’

‘You’re moving away?’ I said.

‘That’s right,’ Mrs Hepburn said. ‘We’re away up north to the lodge tomorrow afternoon, or maybe Thursday if it takes them until then to get the trains straight again.’

‘The strike’s definitely going to end then?’ I said. ‘I didn’t think that stupid Astbury ruling could possibly stand.’

‘What’s that, miss?’ said Phyllis.

‘Judge Astbury said it was illegal,’ I told her.

‘Aye,’ said Mattie, with his face very solemn. ‘It’s ending tomorrow, right enough.’

‘Well, that’s good news,’ Phyllis said. ‘Your father and brother back at work again.’

The others, me included, looked at her with pitying looks.

‘Eh no, Phyllis,’ said Eldry. ‘The strike’s finishing – all the trains and buses and the newspapers and all them – but the lock-out’s carrying on. The miners’ll just . . .’ She glanced at Mattie and bit her lip.

‘The miners’ll just be on their own now, fighting for themselves,’ he said.

‘Don’t fret, Mattie,’ said Mrs Hepburn, ‘Mr Baldwin will make it all better. He said so. He’s going to . . . what was it he said?’

‘Ensure a square deal, to secure even justice between man and man,’ said Eldry, who was reading from a piece of paper she had been holding folded up in her hand. Phyllis giggled, and Eldry flushed. She must have copied it out, perhaps as a little billet doux to give to Harry upon parting.

I said goodbye to them all then and, for the last time, pulled the door of the servants’ hall closed behind me. I did not go upstairs to where Bunty was waiting, though, but down.

Miss Rossiter’s bedroom door was open. The door to the little washroom was closed, and I left it that way. The grate was swept and bare, the bed stripped down, with its pillows and blankets folded in a pile at its foot, and the wooden chimneypiece was empty again. I looked around. I had only spent four nights there, between the first night on Lollie’s chaise and the last night in the nurseries, but I would never forget it and might even miss the view out of the window where the cherry tree was already turning green as the grass beneath it turned pink with fallen blossom. I peered out, seeing movement. Harry was coming up the path in a smart suit and hat, carrying a small case and looking quite unlike a valet, not even trying to. I knocked on the window and waved to him, and instead of taking the steps to the kitchen door he let himself in on my level and came to my room to say goodbye to me.

‘Well!’ he said, once he had shaken my hand. ‘So this is the real you, then? Underneath that brilliant disguise.’

I laughed.

‘Hardly,’ I said. ‘If it hadn’t been for events taking all the attention off me I shouldn’t have lasted even the week I did. You made a much better job of it with less effort, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘I wasn’t in disguise!’ said Harry. ‘I’m a working man and I was doing a job that plenty of working men are forced to do, even if it is one that demeans the worker and the master both. Twelve of us, Miss Rossiter, twelve able-bodied workers toiling away all day every day to keep two more able-bodied people fed and clothed and pampered like babies.’

‘
Toiling
?’ I said. ‘We spent half our time in the servants’ hall drinking our way through Pip’s cellar. A cook-general and boot boy might have toiled, but we had a very comfortable time.’

‘Not as comfortable as the two of them upstairs. It degrades all sides the same.’

‘So why did you do it?’ I asked him. ‘And are you going to do it again with another master now?’

Harry looked at me, with a twinkle in his eye.

‘I can’t tell you that,’ he said, ‘you of all people.’ I waited, knowing he was teasing. ‘Ask John about the club we used to go to. He went for the beer and the dartboard but I went for the talk, Miss Rossiter, and he must have heard some.’

‘I worked out for myself that it was a socialist club,’ I said, feeling very much the woman of the world to know that there were such things and to mention them so casually.

‘Communist club,’ said Harry. I gasped, not so worldly after all. ‘Soviet Comrades of Scotland. We infiltrated many a house in Edinburgh, from below stairs, waiting and listening.’

‘Waiting and listening for what?’ I said and I knew that my voice had turned hoarse, for my throat was dry.

‘The call to arms,’ said Harry. ‘The uprising. The start of the revolution. I really did think last Monday that that day had dawned.’

‘And now?’ I said, in a whisper.

‘They’ve lost their nerve,’ said Harry. He looked over my shoulder and stared into a mythical distance, shaking his head. ‘They never found their nerve. The TUC was that busy keeping it small, keeping it manageable, stopping their brothers from joining up and joining in . . . they did the government’s job for them. And today they’re going to sign on the line and it’ll be over by the morning. They’re giving in, letting go of the greatest groundswell of workers’ solidarity this country has ever— but you don’t want to hear this, do you?’

‘I certainly don’t,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe it. You mean to say that you were hiding out here, you and all your . . . comrades . . . in people’s houses waiting for the moment to . . . put them up against the wall and shoot them, just for being rich? Pip Balfour? Lollie too?
Me
? My husband has spent the last ten years telling me that people like you are all around us and I’ve spent the last ten years telling him he’s imagining things and— How can you be laughing?’