The Pigeon Pie Mystery (5 page)

T
was almost a year later when the letter arrived. For several days it remained ignored, tossed by Mink onto a pile of increasingly exasperated correspondence from the Government demanding that the house be sold. At first the Princess answered their entreaties with a veiled reference to difficult circumstances, and a polite request to stay a little longer. But as no solution presented itself, and the demands continued to arrive, the perfect penmanship on the black-edged replies began to wane. “My father would not have been able to build up such debts in England,” she wrote, her nib scratching furiously across the page, “had this country not slain his mother, stolen his land, and exiled him.”

By then many of the rooms had been shut up to save having to heat and clean them. Sheets hung over their furniture like frozen ghosts, curtains were tied in hessian sacking, and pictures were covered with brown paper. Despite Mink’s habit of wanton spending, a vice inherited from her father, she finally decided that his menagerie had to go. The owner of a travelling zoo came to buy it, and gradually the servants were dismissed. At first a gardener
was given a month’s wages, followed by two of the grooms, causing panic amongst the remaining staff, who were already far too numerous. They started to scrutinise each other, searching out the dead wood in order to reassure themselves that they wouldn’t be next. The silver had never shone so brightly, bells were answered within an instant, and the topiary was trimmed to an inch of its life. Mrs. Wilson resorted to quack remedies to rid herself of her allergy. George, the second footman, whom the other servants suspected had been hired on account of the Maharaja’s affection for his mother, invested in padded silk stockings in the hope of bringing some allure to his disgraceful calves. But eventually even those two had to go, and tears of regret were shed once more for the dead Maharaja.

Only Pooki, the longest-serving servant, remained, having carried out her duties completely oblivious to the jostling of the other staff desperate to keep their positions. Demoting herself to a maid-of-all-work, or a slavey, as some called them, she took to her new role with quiet determination rather than skill. The Princess never once mentioned the dust that hadn’t been reached, the fires that were left to die, and her cooking that was something to endure rather than extol.

It was while the maid was trimming the lamp wicks that she noticed the writing on the envelope that came that morning was different from those which had been arriving for almost a year. Wearing servant’s half-mourning, a black dress with white trimmings, she placed it on the silver salver and offered it again to Mink, who was reading an old issue of the
Strand Magazine
in the drawing room, a rug over her knees and her feet in a muff. She automatically opened it, distracted by the antics of Albert, whom she couldn’t bring herself to sell. Dressed like his mistress in a sorrowful shade of grey, he had found his late master’s favourite pipe, and was sitting between the photograph frames on the mantelpiece, inspecting it. The Princess glanced at the letter.

“It’s from the Lord Chamberlain,” said the Princess, her eyes wide as she looked at the letterhead. “The Queen is offering me a grace-and-favour home at Hampton Court Palace.”

Pooki frowned.

“From what I remember, it’s full of widows whose husbands served with distinction in military or imperial service, and who have fallen on hard times. God knows what they’ll be like, but it means I can finally sell the house and get the Government off my back!” continued Mink, beaming.

The servant turned round, picked up the bellows, and squeezed them at the fire. “We cannot live in that palace, ma’am. There are far too many ghosts,” she said curtly. “You will have to think of something else.”

“But grace-and-favour residents don’t pay rent,” said Mink, staring at her incredulously.

The maid continued to pump until the embers flushed scarlet. “That is one of the most haunted places in England, ma’am,” she said, her back still turned. “Even the dustman knows that.”

“But there’s a huge waiting list,” Mink protested, holding the letter out towards her. “I’m very lucky to have been offered it. It’s a six-bedroom house with a garden, for goodness’ sake. Most of the other residents live in apartments.”

The maid put down the bellows with a loud clatter, and picked up the salver. “Even so, ma’am. It is not for us,” she said, marching out with the short steps of a servant, her jaw set.

While the Princess had every intention of accepting the offer, she wasn’t going anywhere without Pooki. She glanced at her throughout the day as she performed her duties, but there was no sign of capitulation. “That woman’s as stubborn as a dachshund,” she thought to herself, as the maid strode past her carrying a coal bucket, refusing to meet her eye. The following morning, after helping herself to breakfast from the sideboard, Mink returned to her seat and peered at the black-and-yellow mixture. “I asked for an omelette,” she said, as Pooki came in with a basket of warm rolls. “Is this a new recipe?”

“It is an omelette, ma’am,” came the reply. “They are very difficult to make.”

The Princess raised her eyebrows. “Are they? Blondin the acrobat managed to make one on a cooking stove while balancing on a tightrope stretched across the Niagara River. Isn’t he one of your heroes?”

“Yes, ma’am, but he was French. Everyone knows that the French are born with special cooking powers because their mothers eat snails.”

Mink prodded it doubtfully with her fork. “You shouldn’t have to be doing the cooking, anyway. Maybe if we sold the house and moved to Hampton Court Palace I might be able to find some money for a cook.”

Pooki frowned and headed for the door. “Domestic servants do not like to work in that place, ma’am. It is haunted. I told you that yesterday,” she said over her shoulder.

“But there are no such things as ghosts,” Mink protested.

The maid turned, her hands on her hips. “Ma’am, my grandmother visits me more often now than when she was alive. She is the reason why my hair is turning grey. I do not want the spirit of Catherine Howard at the bottom of my bed as well. Some of us have to get up early in the morning,” she added, pulling the door loudly behind her.

Later that afternoon, when Mink returned from her walk in Kensington Gardens, she glanced at the servant as she opened the front door and saw that her jaw was still set. Deciding that the only way forward was a bribe, she sat in the drawing room with the newspaper, waiting for Pooki to come in with her sewing. The servant had long abandoned the lady’s-maid’s sitting room on account of the Princess’s terrible loneliness. It wasn’t long before Pooki took the seat opposite her, bent her head in silence, and started to mend the seam of a blouse. Five minutes passed and there was none of her usual chatter that made Mink wonder how anyone could have so much to say, let alone a servant, who was only supposed to speak when necessary. Ten minutes later, and not a single tradesman’s joke had come from her lips. Mink glanced at her, then cried from behind her newspaper: “Look what they’ve got on at the Royal Aquarium—performing dogs!”

The needle suddenly stopped and the maid slowly raised her dark eyes.

“I wonder what they get up to,” enthused the Princess from behind her paper. “Maybe it’s one of those charming dog orchestras where they all play a musical instrument. Who could resist a fox terrier playing the drums?”

The servant remained transfixed.

“I don’t believe it!” gasped the Princess. “It says here that Professor Finney is performing his great dive from the roof in flames. I hope he doesn’t burn to death. And if he survives that, there’s always the risk he’ll drown.”

Pooki dropped her needle, her eyes wide.

The Princess drew the newspaper even closer. “Goodness me.
They’ve even got Countess X in a den of lions. Imagine if you were sitting in the audience and they bit off her head …”

“We must go tomorrow, ma’am, and sit at the front!” Pooki suddenly burst out.

Mink folded up the paper, and pulled the rug up higher over her knees. “I’m afraid there’ll be no little treats for us,” she said with a sigh. “I’m trying to cut back on any unnecessary expenditure. If we stay here any longer I’m going to have to attend to the gardens, though I don’t know what with. If I sold the house, then at least I’d be able to repay the Government their loan. But where would we go then? At this rate I’m not even going to be able to afford to buy you gingerbread.”

The maid picked up her needle and bent her head. It wasn’t until the following morning that she finally changed her mind. “Maybe they have got rid of the ghosts at that palace, ma’am,” she said, doing up Mink’s dress. “There are machines for everything these days.”

As soon as the reply was posted to the Lord Chamberlain, the house and some of the furniture was put up for sale, along with the carriages, and the oil paintings in the Maharaja’s study of women who must have been chilly while they posed. But some simply came to peer at the sumptuous Indian interiors they had coveted in the society magazines, and the bedroom of the man who had died in such unusual circumstances. The owner of the travelling zoo, whose beard was no match for that of his pygmy goat, returned for Albert. However, Pooki left the man standing on the steps and shut the door, refusing the Princess’s instruction to fetch the monkey’s tiny suitcase.

“Ma’am, you cannot sell Albert,” she protested, standing in the hall with her hands on her hips. “The Maharaja had him brought over from India especially. He fell overboard after a mango and even the captain prayed that he would live when they fished him out, he loved him so much.”

But the Princess was adamant. She had had several letters on
the matter from Mrs. Boots, the palace housekeeper, who also acted as the Lord Chamberlain’s representative. “I don’t want him to go either, but she was quite insistent. No pets are allowed, apart from lap dogs.”

“But ma’am. How will that man with the mangy beard know when it is time for Albert to come out of mourning and put on his red velvet trousers?” she asked, pointing to the door.

“I suggest you tell him, though I’m sure the issue of clothing will be of no interest,” said Mink, walking off to the library to avoid seeing Albert go.

When the day of the move arrived, a telegram was dispatched to Mrs. Boots informing her of the time their train was due to arrive at Hampton Court. It followed copious correspondence from the woman, much of which disclosed the torment of her bronchitis, as well as the insistence that they arrive on a Friday, when the palace was closed for cleaning. But when the four-wheeler arrived to take them to Waterloo, Mink invented so many things that still needed to be done that the driver fell asleep and the horse discovered an appetite for the tulips. When no more excuses could be found, the Princess finally tied the ribbons of her grey bonnet and walked down the front steps for the last time. As the carriage slowly headed down the drive, she looked back at the only home she had ever known, blinking away the tears that rose, lost in the bewildering no-man’s-land between her past and her future.

The driver of the ponderous growler dropped them at the entrance to the station, choked by a scrum of hansom cabs, carriages, omnibuses, vans, and carts collecting or disgorging passengers. A porter loaded their luggage onto a barrow, and they followed him inside. Newspaper boys yelled the day’s news over the thunder of the trains, shoeblacks cast admonishing looks at
passengers’ boots, and pickpockets slunk past, preying on the confusion. The Princess sought out the bookstall while Pooki, tightly clutching her mistress’s jewel case, went to buy the tickets.

“But they’re third-class,” said Mink, when the maid returned with them.

“Two first-class tickets would cost four shillings, ma’am. Those people who came to the house did not pay what we asked for the furniture, and some just wanted things for free. Ladies also travel in third class on trains. It said so in one of your newspapers.”

Mink instantly recognised an attempt to control her extravagances. “It’s all very well travelling in third class as long as people know you can afford to travel in first,” she replied.

“But ma’am. You were one of the first ladies to travel on the top of an omnibus.”

“Yes, but that was for an entirely different reason. Men had had the best view for far too long.”