‘What happened?’ I said.
‘The pips went,’ he said. ‘But she got a good one in just before. We’ve been sacked, Dandy darling.’
‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘Not again.’
After which it seemed immediately necessary to take a walk down the cliff steps to the lounge bar of the Crown and a restorative glass of brandy. It was rather shudder-making, as even the best brandy in a small village inn is wont to be, but all the more invigorating for that.
‘Ugh, a little more soda, please,’ I said, after the first sip.
‘You should really develop your palate for whisky,’ Alec said, which suggestion made me shudder even more. ‘It’s a safer bet in these parts. This’ – he swirled his glass – ‘is delightful.’
‘So she didn’t take too kindly to the suggestion that Fleur is a killer, it’s safe to say.’ I was resuming the conversation which had begun as we picked our way down by the path.
‘Ah yes, but it wasn’t the outrage you’d feel were I to accuse Donald, Teddy or Hugh. It was a much more well-honed rejection.’
‘She’d heard it oft before?’
‘And she wasn’t having any of it.’ Alec nodded. ‘She didn’t actually put up any counter-arguments, you understand. Just poor little Fleurikins and how dare I. Poor sweet pixie and poppet and dear little elf, their poor darling mamma and sorry old pa and it was all extremely sickening, I must say.’
‘It seemed adorable when we were girls,’ I said, not liking to hear the familiar pet names repeated in quite that sneering way, no matter how nauseating I might find them myself on occasion.
‘But she was genuinely rattled,’ Alec went on, with a relish which was worse than the sneering. ‘Doing her best to pooh-pooh any notion of a murder but stammering with the strain. Poor little elf-f-f-f-f.’
I set my brandy glass down hard and stared at him.
‘That wasn’t stammering,’ I said. ‘Elf-f-f-f? Apart from anything else, no one stammers at the ends of words, do they?’
Alec, like most men, does not welcome criticism. Unlike most men, however, he sets that aside without a care when more important matters are in hand. At that moment, he barely noticed the criticism at all, but only sat forward in his chair as eager as a puppy and stared back at me.
‘You’ve got that look, Dan,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
‘Elf-f-f-f,’ I said, ‘and I can’t believe you don’t know this but I suppose you’re rather young and from darkest Dorset, but Elf-f-f-f is the rather silly nickname of Edward Lionel Frederick Forrester-Franklin. Some sort of cousin of Aurora’s husband’s family.’
‘And?’ said Alec.
‘He died,’ I said. ‘In ’19 or possibly ’20.’
‘Eight years ago,’ Alec said. ‘And didn’t Pearl tell you…’
‘She did. That Fleur had got over the old bad time and been fine for eight years.’
‘Dear God, Dandy. What did he die of? Not old age, I take it.’
‘He was twenty-five,’ I said. ‘Suicide was the whisper, accident was what they put in The Times, but here’s the thing, darling. He died at Pereford. He died at Fleur’s family home.’
6
I slept more soundly that night than I had any right to expect I would after the horrors of the day and I dreamed, blamelessly, of Hugh and the boys and some task unknown and undone, very glad upon waking that the poor ravaged corpse and the ghost of Edward Franklin had not visited me. I stretched out in my narrow bed feeling the sheets, which were adrift under my body, twist and wrinkle with my movements. (I had never perfected the art of bed-making even after some very fierce lessons from Matron at the convalescent home and had never imagined that I might feel the want of it, but those same maids who carted dirty supper plates around for the girls of St Columba’s really did leave tender new mistresses to struggle with their own linens.) My pillow was bursting out of the end of its case too, giving it an uncomfortable sort of waist and ruining any chance of a snooze.
With a sigh, I swung my legs down and felt for my slippers on the cold linoleum floor. If moved to thank heaven for small mercies, I could always be glad that the Crown’s brandy was too unpleasant to tempt me to a second and my head was clear this morning. I wondered how Alec, so delighted by the quality of the whisky, was faring; and I hoped that, at least, he remembered the rather detailed plan of attack we had formed the evening before.
I set the first part of the plan in motion over breakfast with the girls, choosing again the gaggle of sixth formers I had met at supper on Friday.
‘With a one and a two and one two three and!’ Miss Shanks shouted from the end of the room, the girls rose to their feet and the slow chorus began.
‘Dear Lord, thank you for this new day and this good food and all our friends. Amen.’
I mumbled along, unfamiliar with the wording, and then sat and spread my napkin as the girls flopped down all around me.
‘Dear Lord,’ said Katie as she did so, ‘thank you for the fact that Hammy doesn’t make us do that music-hall routine at breakfast at least.’
‘I thought the dinner grace was rather sweet!’ I said.
‘So did we for the first year or so,’ said Stella, breaking into a roll and craning her neck for the maid. ‘Ah, good,’ she said, when the child arrived at her elbow. I was astonished to see and smell a stream of dark steaming coffee pouring into Stella’s breakfast cup.
‘Miss?’ said the maid.
‘Th-thank you,’ I managed, holding my cup up across the table to her.
‘Ugh!’ said Eileen. ‘I dread being grown-up and married and having to drink nasty coffee in the morning instead of delicious chocolate.’
‘Oh, that won’t be the worst of it,’ Stella said, drooping one lazy eyelid and making Spring and Katie giggle.
‘Now, now, girls,’ I said mildly, although privately just as startled by the talk as I was by the coffee. ‘Now, let me see… what did I mean to ask you…? Oh yes, what are you reading in English just now? I have a great deal of prep to do today.’
‘You mean French, Miss Gilver,’ said Sally, smiling rather shyly at her own temerity in correcting me.
‘Ah no, English,’ I said. ‘I thought perhaps you would have heard, but I suppose Miss Shanks will announce it at chapel. Miss Lipscott has been… called away and, since Miss Glennie came to help out with the French lessons, I’m taking over English.’
‘Juliet’s gone?’ said Spring. ‘Miss Lipscott, I mean? Not another one!’
‘She has been forced to take a leave of absence owing to a family emerg-’ I began before remembering that ‘family emergency’ was precisely the tale Miss Shanks had been spouting about them all.
‘Thank God,’ said Stella. ‘Escape! Relief! We can read anything you like, Miss Gilver, and we’ll be your devoted slaves if it’s not what we’ve been reading, I can tell you.’
‘Stella!’ This was in chorus from Eileen and Sally. ‘We can’t change books now. We’ve been studying all year for our Higher Cert.’
‘Speak for yourselves,’ said Spring. ‘I’ve been not studying all year and just hoping to be overtaken by a natural disaster before the exam!’
‘And the papers might be written already,’ said Katie.
‘Surely not,’ I said. ‘Examination papers can’t be written and lying around.’
‘Not lying around,’ said Spring. ‘Locked up in the safe until they go to the printers and then locked up again when they return. Miss Shanks is nuts on cheating.’
‘Well, I’m not about to change books this late in the term anyway,’ I said stoutly.
‘You know best, Miss Gilver,’ said Stella. She had a special way of being horribly insolent without saying anything on which one could lay one’s finger.
‘So what are you reading?’ I asked them.