The Pigeon Pie Mystery, page 5
The Princess and the maid peered through the darkness at the large, flat-fronted house looming beyond it. Built around 1700, it offered not an ounce of cheer. The housekeeper followed their gaze. “This is Wilderness House. Yours on account of Mrs. Campbell having just died. Don’t ask me about the circumstances. Turns me queer. I haven’t eaten brussels sprouts since. Usually there’s squabbling amongst the residents when one of them dies. If the deceased’s apartments are better than theirs, they fire off letters to the Lord Chamberlain asking to swap long before the body’s cold. But Mrs. Campbell has been in the ground for almost three weeks and not a whisper.”
She patted herself as she searched for the keys. “This is the back way in. The front door is on Hampton Court Road, but we can’t get to it from the palace, as all the gates are locked by now, given your late arrival.” She continued clutching at her pockets. “There’s no gas. A couple of years ago the residents petitioned for it, but it was thought too dangerous, what with the fires we’ve had. And electricity is too costly. There’s no good complaining. When Michael Faraday lived in a grace-and-favour house overlooking Hampton Court Green, a few doors up from Dr. Henderson’s practice, he didn’t have any electricity either, despite his discoveries in the field. And don’t bother looking for the bathroom. There isn’t one. Mrs. Campbell wouldn’t pay for one to be installed. She’ll have to lug the water up,” she said, nodding to Pooki, who immediately frowned. “Hard to believe that Henry VIII had hot and cold running water when he lived here.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Campbell didn’t have the means,” suggested Mink.
“Didn’t have the means, or didn’t want to spend the money?” the housekeeper asked. “The biggest misconception about this place is that the residents are destitute, despite William IV having called it the quality poorhouse.” Residents needed a certain amount of money to afford to live at the palace, she continued. Not only were they obliged to cover the maintenance of their homes and any alterations, but they had to pay for heating, lighting, insurance, as well as an extra supply of water at a constant high pressure in case of another fire. “Some of the ladies end up having to give up their apartments, as they can’t afford to live here anymore,” she added.
The Princess fell silent.
“You look a little surprised, Your Highness. All the payments and obligations are set out in the warrant that was sent to you.”
Mink hesitated. “I’m a little behind in my letter-opening, Mrs. Boots. I did, however, receive your note about all pets being prohibited apart from lap dogs, so we’re fine on that score.”
“Glad to hear it. If it were me, I’d ban the lap dogs too. It’s enough having to put up with that pile of manure at Trophy Gate, without having to dodge all the deposits they leave around the place.”
Pooki pointed to the high hedging that ran alongside the house. “What is that?” she asked, speaking for the first time.
“It’s the maze,” Mrs. Boots replied, handing Mink the keys. “The keeper’s just been given an official warning. Someone was stuck in there for two days last week. Apparently he was still walking in circles when they finally escorted him out.”
CHAPTER III
The Ominous Arrival of the Undertaker
SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1898
OLLOWING a night of intoxicating dreams, Dr. Henderson looked at his unruly curls in the mirror and decided that it was finally time to master the plastered look, all the rage in New York. Bending over the china washbowl, he slowly poured a jug of water over his head, the coldness banishing the stubborn remains of slumber. After rubbing his hair with a towel, he carefully parted and combed it, and, with a quick glance at the diagrams in his gentleman’s magazine, swathed his head with linen bands. He fetched his cleaned boots from outside the door, carefully closed it again, and pressed inside them two pieces of India rubber he had cut into a pair of soles. Hitching his white nightshirt up to his knees, he then proceeded to tread around the room, listening for the indignity of creaks.
The general practitioner was so consumed by his impolite footwear that he failed to hear the uneven gait of his housekeeper coming down the landing. Mrs. Nettleship was dressed in the black uniform of mourning, despite the years that had passed since her husband sunk silently to the bottom of the North Sea. Her rust-coloured hair, as coarse as a horse brush, stuck out from underneath her white widow’s cap. With hands as large and red as a butcher’s, she opened the door with unrestrained determination, forgetting, as usual, to knock. She stood staring, her mouth open, as she took in the doctor’s wet curls taped to his head, his nightwear drawn up to his knees, and his bare legs sticking out of his boots. Once she had recovered her senses, she quickly pulled the door shut, having instantly recognised a gentleman maddened by love.
But there was no escaping the woman. “Dr. ’enderson,” she called, her lips against the crack. “There’s people what’s waiting houtside the front door. I told them you don’t start until nine hon a Saturday, and that no doctor can cure without heggs hin ’is stomach. But they say they’ll catch their deaths in the rain. Tom Saddleback says ’e doesn’t want to be seen by hanyone, neither. Says ’is nose his pointing the wrong way. North-heast hinstead hof south-west, happarently.”
The doctor parted the curtains and looked down to see the palace gardener holding his nose, and suspected he had been brawling in the King’s Arms again with one of the monument’s warders. “Show them in, Mrs. Nettleship, I’ll be right down,” he called. “I would be grateful if you would get out the nose machine. It’s the small wooden clamp that you mistook for part of my bicycle last week. It should be in the bottom drawer of my desk, though I think I spotted it in the dining room where the cigar cutter should be. And my eggs, Mrs. Nettleship. Please remember that I prefer them scrambled. With cream.”
He started hunting for a clean collar, which could have been anywhere, given her penchant for secreting his possessions in arbitrary places. Seldom a week went by without the doctor fantasising about replacing Mrs. Nettleship. But he could never go through with it, as the widow, who insisted on being called his housekeeper despite being a maid-of-all-work, had five children to feed. And then there was the odd occasion when she managed to find the correct ingredients for a ginger cake, and all resentment would vanish as the smell of it baking drifted under the door of the waiting room and sharpened even the dullest of appetites.
Mrs. Nettleship had come with the practice overlooking Hampton Court Green, a handsome house next to the former home of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect commissioned by William and Mary to rebuild their main apartments in the palace. Dr. Henderson had bought it the previous year with no knowledge of its perilous financial state, as by then its owner had thrown himself into the Thames, weighted down like a sack of unwanted kittens. With its close proximity to the palace and its well-connected residents, he had assumed the business would be sufficiently profitable. Aware that an overworked doctor could reach his grave sooner than his coughing patients, at first he insisted on keeping to the hours stipulated on the brass plaque he mounted outside the front door, with the exception of emergencies. But it soon became apparent that he needed all the business he could get. For the grace-and-favour residents treated his bills with the same indifference as those from their milliners. Not only did they assume they could put his services on account, but they refused to attend the practice, unwilling to share a waiting room bench with the unfragrant poor or the ill-bred soldiers. Some of his afternoons were therefore spent on home consultations that not only incurred an extra fee but involved patients who were more difficult to treat, as the higher classes were prone to exaggerate their symptoms. However, the aristocrats, who could afford to pay, wouldn’t, and the poor, who wanted to pay, couldn’t. And he found himself at night trying to balance the books, the gas turned pitifully low to save some pennies, with only his jar of leeches for company.
He ate his savoury omelette in silence, fearing that any mention of the wrong breakfast would elicit a comment from Mrs. Nettleship about his aborted new hairdo. Once settled behind his desk in his consulting room, he called for the first patient. After Tom Saddleback left with his nose clamped as straight as a weather vane, a short, young woman with the telltale pallor of a maid took his place. Her eyes travelled over the microscope, the urinary cabinet, and the gynaecological couch kept discreetly in the corner.
“You’ve got rid of them stuffed birds,” she said, looking at the walls.
“They belonged to the previous doctor,” Dr. Henderson replied. “I take it you were one of Dr. Barnstable’s patients.”
“I was for a while, then …”
There was silence.
“Then?”
“If you don’t mind, sir, I don’t care to talk about it,” she replied, tucking away a blond strand that had escaped from her bun.
The doctor picked up his pen. “What’s the name?” he asked.
“Alice Cockle.”
“How old are you, may I ask?”
“Nineteen, sir.”
“And you work at the palace, I presume?”
“I’m a maid-of-all-work for Lady Bessington,” she replied. “You’d have thought a countess would be able to afford a household of servants. Not her.”
“I hope she doesn’t overwork you,” said the doctor, who had assumed the teenager too well spoken for a maid-of-all-work.
The maid shook her head. “Oh, no, sir, she treats me fair, not like some people down there …”
After pressing her further about her symptoms, he called Mrs. Nettleship to prepare her for examination. It didn’t take him long to find the cause of her troubles, and she returned to the seat opposite him, her coat drawn back over her grey morning dress.
“Alice,” he said gently. “The reason you’re vomiting so much is because you’re in the family way. And quite far gone.”
No amount of soothing could console the teenager that she wouldn’t necessarily lose her position. The doctor showed her into the drawing room, where she sat drying her cheeks on his white silk handkerchief as he returned to his patients. When, eventually, she was sufficiently composed to return to work, she made her own way out. Wondering who the father was, the doctor watched her from his window as she headed back to the palace. He then thought once more of the woman he had seen at Trophy Gate the previous evening, the blueness of her eyes contrasting with the rich mellow hue of her skin, and instinctively he smoothed down his curls.
MINK WAS STILL DEEP IN her dreams when she first heard the shout. She had gone to bed late the previous night, having had to wait up for the two furniture vans to arrive, as their drivers had got lost. After they had spent considerable time circling Richmond, helped in no part by two schoolboys who wilfully gave them the wrong directions on each revolution, they happened to find themselves on Hampton Court Road through no genius of their own. A further two hours were lost when they asked their whereabouts from the drunk woman selling pig’s trotters outside the King’s Arms. Despite its location next to the Lion Gates, the main northern entrance to the palace, the woman insisted that they were still miles from their destination. Into the pub they went to escape their frustration, paying her twopence to guard their loads. Eventually, on hearing of their dilemma, a footman sitting at the bar said that if it was Wilderness House they were after they should look out the back window, as it was on the other side of the wall. By the time they arrived, night had long descended and they were forced to work by candlelight, as many of the lamps had broken en route. Such had been their thirst that the dining room sideboard was taken up to one of the bedrooms, the davenport was carried down to the kitchen, and the Maharaja’s ceremonial sword was left propped up in the scullery.
When the second shout came, Mink sat up, her long dark plait hanging down the back of her nightdress. Uncertain of where she was, she looked around in alarm. Recognising her surroundings, she lay back down, but immediately heard the voice again. “To the left!” it cried. “That’s the right, sir. I said to the left. That’s it. Follow it down. No, you’ve gone the wrong way. Turn round. You’re still facing the same way. Follow that dog, sir, he’s got the measure of it.”
She climbed out of bed, walked over to the window, and peered out between the curtains. There, sitting on a chair on a platform, was a man in a navy uniform issuing directions to an increasingly baffled visitor deep within the maze.
“The dog, I said,” yelled the keeper. “Don’t follow that lady. She’s been in there for almost an hour. In fact, ma’am, would you care to follow the dog as well? Not that one. He’s as lost as his master. The white one with the boot in his mouth. No, there’s no need to hand it in, thank you, sir. It belongs to someone who attempted to tunnel out through the hedging. He won’t be needing it, as he’s still in custody.”
At that moment Pooki came in, carrying a tray bearing the Princess’s morning tea and thin slices of bread and butter. “There is someone shouting outside, ma’am,” she said. “I was worried he would wake you with all that noise he is making. No one should have that much to say.”
Mink tapped on the pane. “It’s that man sitting on the chair over there,” she replied. “I presume he’s the Keeper of the Maze.”
The maid put down the tray and joined her at the window. “Why is he shouting at them?” she asked.
“Because they’re lost.”
Pooki pressed her nose against the cold pane. “Why did they go in there in the first place? It does not lead anywhere and you cannot see over the tops of the hedges.”
Mink continued to peer. “To see whether they could find their way out, I presume.”
The maid frowned. “But ma’am, why would you pay a penny to enter something just to find out whether you can get out again? And when you can’t find your way out, that man in the chair with the long whiskers shouts at you. It strikes me as exceedingly ridiculous.”
The Princess stood on her toes to get a better view of the dog. “I wouldn’t mind giving it a go. It looks like fun.”
Pooki turned to her, hands on her hips. “Where is the fun in getting lost, ma’am? Those people do not look like they are having fun. They are all clustered in that dead end arguing with each other and fighting over the map. I was lost many times in the East End, which is much more difficult to get out of than that thing, and I would not have paid a penny for it. Some people have more money than brains.” She walked over to the fire and knelt down to attend to it. “But not you, ma’am,” she added. “You have lots of brains but no money.”
ONCE MINK WAS DRESSED, THE two women set about exploring their new home. Before being turned into a grace-and-favour residence in 1881, Wilderness House had been the official lodgings of palace gardeners, at one time the celebrated Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who complained of the offensive kitchen, and the rooms being small and uncomfortable. If it had appeared mournful in flickering candle flame, daylight did little to improve it. It had been newly painted, but the fresher colours did nothing to disguise its defeated soul. As Mink and Pooki wandered from room to room their excitement soon faded into gloom. Black beetles circled the kitchen floor like ice skaters. The smell of damp was unavoidable, and they soon stopped opening the cupboards, lest it plunge them further into despair. While the maid had risen at six to light the fires, the meagre flames in the tiny grates did little to combat the wind that rattled through the gaps in the sash windows. The ornate carved furniture, much of it from India, looked out of place in the unfamiliar surroundings, and for the first time Mink questioned her father’s taste. After their inspection, they sat in silence at the bottom of the staircase, staring ahead of them, the Princess clutching the warrant, which she had finally opened.
“It says that I have to occupy the house for at least six months of the year, or it’ll be considered vacant and given to someone else,” said the Princess.
“That will not be a problem, ma’am, because you have nowhere else to go.”
“Even those tiny clerks’ houses have bathrooms these days,” muttered the Princess.
Pooki turned to her mistress. “I spoke to the butterman this morning. Apparently Mrs. Campbell did not put her fingers into her purse to maintain this house. I do not know why they thought it would be suitable for the daughter of the Maharaja of Prindur. Moths are very happy in the damp, and I have anxious forebodings about your furs. But do not worry, ma’am, no moth will get the better of me. After breakfast I shall wrap up your furs in linen washed in lye and put them in a drawer with pieces of bog myrtle. Then I will put saucers of quicklime in the cupboards to dry them out. And once we have hung your butterfly collection in the drawing room it will cover those marks on the wall.”
As the Princess stared at the chipped hall tiles she remembered the time, many years ago, when her father put a mutton bone under an oak tree to lure down a Purple Emperor. She then thought of the watercolours she had done for him of the jewel-coloured creatures they had caught together, which she found tied with a ribbon in his desk drawer when he died.
“I wonder how Albert is getting on,” said the Princess flatly. “He’d soon cheer the place up.”
Pooki remained silent.
Suddenly Mink stood up. “I’m going to hang the family portraits,” she announced. “We’ll both feel much better surrounded by those moustaches.” She headed down to the kitchen in the hope of finding some nails, Pooki calling after her that such a task was not suitable for a princess.
LATER THAT MORNING, WHEN POOKI answered the front door, she found Mrs. Boots on the step wearing a tight-fitting bonnet that squashed her beetroot cheeks. Before they had exchanged a word, the housekeeper barrelled her way inside, hoisted her skirts, and started up the stairs, elbows pointed. “Just having a quick check,” she explained over her shoulder. “You wouldn’t believe some of the pets residents try and smuggle in with them.”
