Polly
Authors: M.C. Beaton
M. C. Beaton
is the author of the hugely successful Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series, as well as a quartet of Edwardian murder mysteries featuring heroine Lady Rose Summer, many Regency romance series, and a stand-alone murder mystery,
The Skeleton in the Closet
– all published by Constable & Robinson. She left a full-time career in journalism to turn to writing, and now divides her time between the Cotswolds and Paris. Visit
www.agatharaisin.com
for more, or follow M. C. Beaton on Twitter: @mc_beaton.
Titles by M. C. Beaton
The Poor Relation
Lady Fortescue Steps Out · Miss Tonks Turns to Crime · Mrs Budley Falls from Grace
Sir Philip’s Folly · Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue · Back in Society
A House for the Season
The Miser of Mayfair
·
Plain Jane
·
The Wicked Godmother
Rake’s Progress
·
The Adventuress
·
Rainbird’s Revenge
The Six Sisters
Minerva
·
The Taming of Annabelle
·
Deirdre and Desire
Daphne
·
Diana the Huntress
·
Frederica in Fashion
Edwardian Murder Mysteries
Snobbery with Violence
·
Hasty Death
·
Sick of Shadows
Our Lady of Pain
The Travelling Matchmaker
Emily Goes to Exeter
·
Belinda Goes to Bath
·
Penelope Goes to Portsmouth
Beatrice Goes to Brighton
·
Deborah Goes to Dover
·
Yvonne Goes to York
Agatha Raisin
Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death
·
Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet
Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener
·
Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley
Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage
·
Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist
Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death
·
Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham
Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden
Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam
·
Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell
Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came
Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate
·
Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House
Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance
·
Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon
Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor
Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye
Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison
·
Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride
Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body
·
Agatha Raisin: As the Pig Turns
Agatha Raisin: Hiss and Hers · Agatha Raisin and the Christmas Crumble
Hamish Macbeth
Death of a Gossip
·
Death of a Cad
·
Death of an Outsider
Death of a Perfect Wife
·
Death of a Hussy
·
Death of a Snob
Death of a Prankster
·
Death of a Glutton
·
Death of a Travelling Man
Death of a Charming Man
·
Death of a Nag
·
Death of a Macho Man
Death of a Dentist
·
Death of a Scriptwriter
·
Death of an Addict
A Highland Christmas
·
Death of a Dustman
·
Death of a Celebrity
Death of a Village
·
Death of a Poison Pen
·
Death of a Bore
Death of a Dreamer
·
Death of a Maid
·
Death of a Gentle Lady
Death of a Witch
·
Death of a Valentine
·
Death of a Sweep
Death of a Kingfisher · Death of Yesterday
The Skeleton in the Closet
Also available
The Agatha Raisin Companion
M. C. Beaton
Constable & Robinson Ltd.
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
First electronic edition published 2011 by RosettaBooks LLC, New York
First published in the UK by Canvas,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013
Copyright © M. C. Beaton, 1980
The right of M. C. Beaton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-47210-097-9 (ebook)
Printed and bound in the UK
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
For Sharon and David Chesney
CHAPTER ONE
One more household chore to do and then she would have the rest of Sunday to prepare for her first job. And she had the house to herself.
Polly Marsh poured cold water onto the cake of black lead that stood in a jam jar by the kitchen sink and absentmindedly began mixing it into a paste. Every Sunday it was her job to blacklead the kitchen range until it shone. The range was the center of the Marsh household. It took up a complete wall of the little kitchen. There was the boiler on one side and the oven on the other. In the middle was the fire, with an iron bar across the top for hanging the kettle or the frying pan.
The range took an hour to polish and then the steel fender had to be scrubbed with emery paper and then buffed to a high shine.
Polly automatically went about her work, half listening to the cries and shouts of the traders in the street below. Stone Lane Market in London’s Shoreditch was in full Sunday swing.
The other members of the Marsh household, Polly’s mother and father, grandmother, and little brother and sister were all downstairs in the shop selling fruit and vegetables as hard as they could.
Marshes had been greengrocers in Stone Lane for as long as anyone could remember. Every morning, Polly’s father, Alf, would rise with the sun and push his wooden barrow to Covent Garden Market to get the best prices. It was hard work, but the Marsh family had been able to buy the two flats above the shop and convert them into one household. Polly had that unheard-of luxury in Shoreditch—a room of her own. And the Marsh family had one other luxury that was the envy of the neighborhood: The kitchen in the top flat had been converted into a bathroom with
running water
. The neighbors had shaken their heads and prophesied everything from pneumonia to tuberculosis as a result of this unheard-of cleanliness. But they envied them just the same. Hot baths suggested a world of luxury far removed from noisy, working-class Shoreditch.
Still dreaming, Polly gave the range a final polish and lit the fire. Tomorrow morning she would leave Stone Lane and walk across all those mysterious class boundaries to start work in the City of London. Not only in the City but in a company owned by a real-live duke.
Westerman’s was the name of the import-export firm that had graciously agreed to employ Miss Polly Marsh as a stenographer.
Polly could still remember the pale March sunlight sparkling on the ducal coat of arms over the door, the quiet musty interior, and the dreaded interview. She had acquitted herself well and had been inordinately pleased when Mr. Baines, the manager, had asked her if she was a foreigner, as her voice was completely without accent. Polly had smiled and shaken her head and sent up a prayer of thanks for her elocution lessons.
The elocution lessons had been the brainchild of her schoolteacher, Miss James. Miss James had assured Polly’s mother that a girl with startlingly good looks and superior intelligence should not be condemned to go through life with a hideous cockney accent. She had recommended a retired elocution teacher, who would give lessons for a small sum. In a more middle-class environment, Polly’s newly refined voice would have caused acid comment, but the cockneys of the market were proud of anyone who wanted to get on and simply called Polly “the duchess,” with their usual nonchalant friendly good humor.
Polly glanced in the oval mirror on the wall and shuddered. She seemed to be black from head to foot. That was the curse of black lead. No matter how careful you were, the stuff seemed to creep out of the cleaning rag and end up all over your body.
She scrubbed herself down vigorously in the bathroom upstairs and then began to carefully make her preparations for her working debut. First her hair had to be shampooed. She shaved a precious bar of Knight’s Castille soap into a cup and mixed it into a paste with hot water, then added a teaspoon of alcohol to remove any excess oil from her hair. Next, she added a teaspoon of cologne to perfume it. A large jug of chamomile tea stood ready for the final rinse.
Next came the manicure—the cuticles to be pushed back with an orange stick with a small piece of cotton on the tip dipped in cuticle acid and then the stick run under the tips of the nails in order to remove any stains. The nails had to be cut into an oval shape and smoothed with the emery board. And then Polly came to the final step in her manicure—the application of her precious hoard of nail polish. She carefully dipped the buffer into the powder and drew it back and forth across her nails, with light, even strokes, until they gleamed and shone.
With the daring purchase of nail polish, she had also bought rose-tinted rice powder—so much more expensive than the ordinary kind, which had a cheap metallic base—and real bone hairpins, instead of wire ones. She had toyed with the idea of buying a lipstick but a beauty article in
Queen
magazine had said that this cosmetic could thicken the skin of the lips, and who on earth wanted that to happen?
Now all she had to do was stitch sweat pads into her new serge business dress and brush up her best felt hat, polish her button boots, and leave her corset by the window to air. Thank goodness it wasn’t raining, otherwise the newly cleaned corset would have had to be hung up on the pulley in the kitchen and by now would be smelling of Ma’s roast beef and bubble and squeak.