Death Devil's Bridge (3 page)

Vicar Talbot, who had performed the Sheridans' wedding ceremony, had been a friend of Kate's Aunt Sabrina. He had generously made himself her friend since her arrival from America—a friendship Kate welcomed, for it made up in part for the family she had lost.

Kate's father, Thomas Ardleigh, and her Irish mother, Aileen O‘Malley Ardleigh, had both died when Kate was a child. The orphan had been raised by her uncle and aunt O'Malley, he a policeman on the streets of New York, she the mother of six other children whom she fed, clothed, and educated, for Aunt O'Malley was determined that all her children should go to school. Kate expected to make her own way in the world and labored hard at her lessons. When she was old enough to seek employment she worked first as a governess, then as a private secretary, and then—a fate at which Kate still often marveled—as an author. To supplement her meager income, she had written a story, and then had been fortunate enough to find a publisher who was willing to gamble on her work. Before she knew what was happening, her fictions, written under the pen name of Beryl Bardwell, had been accepted by an enthusiastic reading public. Beryl's earliest stories were of the sensational variety, penny-dreadfuls with such titles as “The Rosicrucian's Ruby” and “Missing Pearl,” suitable for Frank
Leslie's
Popular Monthly, in which they appeared. “Our readers take great delight in exotic murder and its detection,” Mr. Leslie had remarked as he handed Kate the payment for Beryl's third thriller. “I advise you, young lady, to continue to dip your pen in blood, and you shall do quite well indeed.”

For a time, Kate had been glad enough to dip Beryl's pen in blood, and to trade her lurid tales for the independence money brought. But as she became more skilled as a writer, she grew increasingly weary of the frenzied drama that Mr. Leslie and his readers demanded. She particularly objected to the succession of bloody killings that substituted for plot in such novels, for her own inclination was rather to the subtler violence of the heart.

Hence, when Aunt Sabrina Ardleigh (Kate's father's sister, hitherto unknown to her) had surprised her with an invitation to come to England as her private secretary, Beryl took a brief holiday from sensational fiction. When she returned to her pen—or rather, to the new Royal typewriter Aunt Sabrina had purchased for her—she began to experiment with a different kind of writing: detective stories of a more psychological bent, with a deeper exploration of motive and feeling, stories in which the female characters were portrayed not as victims or the objects of men's fascination, but as free and independent women who made their way in the world by their wits. Mindful that the greatest number of her readers were women, Kate took care to create adventuresome heroines fired with spirit and determination. And mindful that the most powerful fictions are those that portray life realistically, she began to incorporate real people into her plots, disguising them as necessary to preserve their privacy.

This new interest required Beryl Bardwell to yield up her place as the Queen of Sensation Fiction (as Frank Leslie had crowned her) and look for a more congenial publisher. About this time, though, Aunt Sabrina, and her sister, Aunt Jaggers, died in a truly horrible way, poisoned. Kate (who had been instrumental in discovering their killer, and in fact formed her attachment to Charles during his investigation of the deaths) discovered to her surprise that Bishop's Keep and a modest fortune were hers. No longer compelled by financial exigency to tailor her fiction to tastes not her own, she could now write exactly as she chose.

The change had fired Kate with a new kind of creative energy. Recently, several of her stories had appeared in
Blackwell's Monthly,
and had been widely praised. The pseudonymous Beryl Bardwell was being hailed as a “female Conan Doyle,” a compliment that first brought Kate a great deal of amusement, to which was quickly added an equal measure of apprehension. She had not disguised some of her characters or events as thoroughly as she might have done. What would happen if the identities of these real people were discovered? What would happen if
she
were discovered?

Indeed, Kate's private life as a writer had nearly prevented her from marrying Sir Charles Sheridan. She had loved him with a growing passion for months but had been reluctant to admit her feelings even to herself, knowing that her Irish blood and American upbringing made her unattractive to a member of the landed gentry, and believing that her writing (which she fully intended to be her life's work) would make her positively undesirable to any man.

But Sir Charles, when he learned of her covert occupation, was warmly supportive—all the more, perhaps, because his fascination with the new sciences of criminal detection coincided with her interest in fictional crime. In fact, their engagement had occurred in the midst of his investigation of several murders at Easton Lodge, during a weekend house party where the Prince of Wales was also a guest, and their hostess, the Countess of Warwick, a chief suspect. Together, Sir Charles and Kate had brought the inquiry to a successful conclusion, to the grateful relief of His Highness and the countess.

With a flourish, Mudd opened the double doors to the stately dining room and stepped through. “Dinner is served,” he announced.

Charles turned to Kate, a smile crinkling the corners of his sherry-brown eyes. “Well, my dear,” he asked, “shall we see what surprises from the kitchen await us this evening?”

The vicar raised his shaggy white eyebrows. “I do hope you have not lost your cook,” he said earnestly. “Sarah Pratt is among the finest in the county.”

“Mrs. Pratt is still with us,” Kate replied. “Charles has presented her with a new challenge, however, and she has not quite mastered it. Last night's dinner,” she added to the vicar, in a low voice, “was a culinary catastrophe. I hope we fare better tonight.”

“A new challenge?” the vicar asked, and chuckled. “You cannot be suggesting that there is something in the line of cookery that confounds Mrs. Pratt.”

Kate gestured at the gaslight that illuminated the drawing room. “You noticed, perhaps, that we are modernizing Bishop's Keep. Charles has piped water to the kitchen and installed a gas cooker. The water is welcome, but Mrs. Pratt is in mortal fear of a gas explosion.”

She glanced down the mahogany table, which was covered with damask and decorated with clusters of green smilax interwoven with stephanotis and rosy-pink lapageria. The silver gleamed, the crystal epergnes sparkled, and the new gas wall sconces cast a golden glow over the room. But Kate shook her head with all the apprehension of a hostess who has good reason to fear the worst.

“I do hope,” she said prayerfully, “that things are going well in the kitchen.”

God sends meat and the devil sends cooks.

—THOMAS DELONEY
Works,
1600

 

 

 

 

B
ut in the kitchen, things were not going well at all.

Sarah Pratt was rushing to assemble the lobster
bouchées
—cooked lobster and mushrooms stirred into a Mornay sauce and piled into delicate pastry cases. The sauce had scorched, in consequence of the gas jet being turned too high. Worse, Mrs. Pratt's hand was trembling so violently from nerves (the gas, after all, might explode at any moment) that she had snipped a great deal too much fennel into it. And there was Harriet the kitchen maid, standing beside the cooker, weeping, her finger in her mouth. She had carelessly stuck it in the gas flame when she attempted to remove the kettle.

“I don't care tuppence fer yer finger, Harriet,” Sarah Pratt snapped. “The soup's already gone up an' the lobster must follow without delay. Put these pastries into that miserable oven to brown. Five minutes only, not a minute more.”

Sarah spoke with greater certainty than she felt. Five minutes would have been quite adequate in her steady, predictable coal range with the capacious oven, which had been a fixture in her kitchen for over two decades. But the new gas cooker, which Sir Charles had installed in place of the dependable iron range, was of an unknown temper. Perhaps the cases should be browned for seven minutes, or ten, or even more.

“Watch,” she commanded. “Don't let'em bum on their bottoms!”

“Yes, mum,” Harriet said, eyeing the cooker as if it were the devil. Sarah turned to the next task, preparing the hollandaise sauce that would go up with the salmon, after the joint. Then there were the carrots to cream and the peas to be cooked with lettuce and tiny onions, and the sweet to send up—a gooseberry fool, ready and waiting in the galvanized box under the ice tray. And then the savory—ham croquettes wrapped in bacon and fried—and to finish off, the black currant ice, which had been worked in the ice-pail that afternoon by Harriet and Nettie. It was a menu of which Sarah might be proud. And yet she trembled, remembering the charred roast pork of the previous evening and the cheese soufflé that had emerged, cratered, from the gas oven.

Disaster was doomed to be revisited on Sarah Pratt's kitchen, however, for the bottoms of the lobster
bouchées
turned black, rather than brown. The hollandaise curdled, the vegetables were cooked to a pulp, and the savory was as soggy as old sponge. When the black currant ice went up and Sarah could at last lower her stout frame into her chair, she was near tears.

“ 'Tis that cursed cooker,” Bess Gurton said darkly. “A tool of the devil himself.” She spoke from the opposite side of the fire, where she sat with her injured ankle propped on a stool, the cat on the floor beside her, and her wet and muddy cape spread over a chair.

“We both bin cursed,” Sarah said. “If ‘twould of bin a carriage instead of Lord Marsden's motorcar that come round the corner, ye could've got out o' the way wit'out mishap.”

“An' pore Old Jessup,” Bess Gurton muttered, reaching down to stroke the cat. “Give me quite a start, y‘know, findin' 'im like that, face up i' the ditch. Stark starin' dead, 'e was.”

“But it wa‘n't Lord Marsden's motorcar that kilt 'im,” Harriet reminded her, wringing out the washing-up cloth. “Ye said ‘e di'n't bear a mark.”

“Ye-es,” Bess replied slowly, “but it might still of bin the motorcar. Say ‘e died o' fright at bein' near run down. 'Oo kilt ‘im then, I'd like to know? Young Jessup, 'oo come along not two minutes after I found ‘is old dad, 'e was askin' that question. ‘ 'Spose me dad died o' fright,‘ 'e sez. ‘ 'Oo kilt ‘im then?' ”

“ ‘Twere drink an' the devil that did fer Old Jessup,” Sarah remarked. “The way 'e beat ‘is pore ol' wife, the man had it comin' to 'im, I say. I doubt Tilda Jessup'll grieve overlong.”

Bess frowned down her long nose. “All the beatin's in the world don't give folks the right to act like maniacs. No regard fer anybody. Mad fer speed they are. That motorcar was flyin' faster'n a bullet!”

Harriet drew close, her eyes large with excitement. “Faster' n a bullet!” she marveled. “Oh, Bess, ye'r lucky to be alive!”

Bess nodded. “Would of bin dead as mutton 'f I hadn't flown into the ditch. But they'll git wot's comin' to them,” she added, with grim satisfaction. “I laid one o' Gammer Gurton's best curses on that motorcar, I did. They'll find out it don't do to treat Bess Gurton oncivil-like. Sooner er later, they'll go smash.”

“Ye better watch out, Bess Gurton,” Sarah cautioned. “Ye don't want to go layin' curses on the gentry's motorcars. Curses come home to roost, same as chickens.” She heaved herself out of her chair. “Ye'r probably wantin' to git home an' put that wrenched ankle to soak. Pocket kin take ye i' the pony cart, an' come back fer the vicar. I'll git the blood.”

She paused, looking down at her friend, hoping to hear Bess's reason for walking out on a dark night to acquire a pint of fresh pig's blood. But Bess, still stroking the cat, was staring into the fire with such concentration that she didn't notice. So Sarah went to the pantry and fetched the glass container of blood, along with a packet of cake and a small crockery pot that had until recently contained a fine Dijon mustard. It was now full of quince jam. The cake and jam were a gift from Sarah to Bess, in honor of Bess's recent birthday.

“Here be some cakes and jam,” she said, handing the packet to Bess, “and the blood. Put it in yer basket an'—”

At that moment, disaster struck again. Sarah's fingers slipped, the jar dropped to the stone floor, and smashed. The pig's blood, no longer as fresh as it had been, showered the cat, splashed the hem of Bess Gurton's woolen skirt, and puddled, stinking and greasy, on the stones of the hearth.

The cat jumped off Bess's lap and streaked for the door. Bess cried out and leapt up, knocking over ajar of vinegar and herbs that had been set to steep near the warmth of the fire. The sharp tang of vinegar mingled with the heavy stench of blood.

“Ooh!” Harriet moaned, backing away superstitiously. “Spilt blood comes from the divil!”

“Stuff an' nonsense,” Sarah snapped. “ 'Tis just blood an' vinegar. Git the mop, Harriet, an' clean it up.”

But Harriet's face had gone white and her teeth were chattering. She clasped her hands under her chin. “Oh, please, Mrs. Pratt, I beg—”

“Oh, git on wi' ye,” Sarah said disgustedly.
“I'll
do it.” She had just fetched the mop when Mudd entered the kitchen, his jaw set, his glance lowering.

“Well, now, Mrs. Pratt, ye've gone an' done it,” he said, in the tone he reserved for pointing out Sarah's errors. In his late twenties, Mudd was young for a butler's position. He compensated for his youth by imitating an authority he could scarcely claim from experience.