‘Only watch out for Effie Morton,’ I warned him when he telephoned. ‘If Lorna tells her how inflamed you are, she might just throw her watercolours and sketching pad over her shoulder in a knotted hanky and move in.’
‘She’s a bishop’s niece, Dandy,’ said Alec. ‘Even if she did get wind of how I feel about her – God, though, you should see the creature – I could put her off me with a few well-judged anecdotes about my Montmartre days.’
‘You certainly do have a callous streak,’ I said.
‘Not compared with Lorna,’ he said. ‘Or, as you still insist on calling her, “poor” Lorna. How is the kitten?’
I looked over to the combined slumbering heap of large spotted dog and tiny tabby cat, and smiled.
‘She’s fine,’ I said. ‘Her tail has the most darling little kink in it, like a piglet’s. Hugh, of course, hates her with a passion already and has the cheek to suggest that the reaction of his pack of mutts – which was to chase her all over the house, licking their chops and baying – is more properly dog-like than Bunty’s welcome.’
‘Well, I’d better go,’ said Alec. ‘That Mrs Martineau on the corner is watching me from behind her curtains again.’
‘She’ll be after you for Annette if she hears you’re on the market,’ I told him.
I hung up the receiver, gazed fondly at Bunty and the kitten for another moment, and sat down at my desk to open my morning’s letters and pick up the reins, once again, of my between-thrills, non-detecting life.
The very next morning I found out how wrong I had been to imagine that it was over.
I woke early and lay for a moment wondering what had disturbed me, then sighed with irritation as I realised I could hear the first breakfast sitting at the bird table outside. If Hugh could not be persuaded to move the thing away from the house, then I should at least tell the kitchen maids to restrain themselves a little.
I rose, bathed, dressed and let Bunty out of the side door, then I went to fetch the kitten from her overnight quarters, but kittens are notoriously early risers and, when I saw that she was up and off already, I made my way to my sitting room to wait for breakfast, nudging the french window open just an inch or two in spite of the chill so that Bunty and her little friend could get in when they had finished their morning’s ablutions in the garden.
The noise from the bird table was really quite extraordinary today; crows and magpies quarrelling over the feast, all the robins and sparrows driven off to chatter their annoyance from the terrace balustrades. What on earth had the silly girl put out there, I wondered, hoping that if it was a knuckle of ham – for that is what it looked like from the window – crows were the worst of it and I was not about to see a rat climb the solitary leg and haul itself onto the platform.
Even as I watched, I saw the second kitchen maid trooping round the corner of the house with her apron tented up in front of her, scattering crumbs on the grass as she went along. I rapped on the window and pointed fiercely to the bird table but she misunderstood and nodded cheerfully down at her bellied apron skirt as though reassuring me that yes, she was just on her way with some more. I sighed, fastened the window against the racket and was just turning away when a new, shriller cry was added to the birds’ squabble. I turned back. She was standing, apron hem fallen and breadcrumbs tumbled about her feet, her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide with horror.
I rushed outside and over the frosty grass towards the bird table. Bunty, seeing me from across the lawn, came forward at a gambol and we reached the maid together, as she flapped at the crows, weeping, trying to drive them away.
I took just one look, just enough to see a scrap of tabby fur and a dull eye, before I reeled away, shrieking.
Hugh arrived as the kitchen maid and I were comforting one another, Bunty howling with her head back – she cannot bear to see me cry.
‘What in the name of the devil-’ said Hugh, unknowingly apt for once.
I pointed behind me, but could not look at it.
‘Good God,’ he said, and I could hear in his voice that his lip had curled with revulsion.
‘Please take it away,’ I said.
‘I’ll fetch a gardener,’ said Hugh. As he was leaving, he paused, and said: ‘This is what happens, you see. Cats will hunt birds, Dandy, and this one has got its comeuppance.’
The look I gave him felt from my side like a dart of pure cold hatred and, from the way he started, it must have seemed much the same from his end too. He cleared his throat and strode away towards the kitchen gardens. The maid, with wonderful if belated presence of mind, took off her apron and threw it over the little platform, winding the strings around the pole and tying them tightly. At this, the crows lost interest in the scene and flapped off blackly.
‘I’m sorry, madam,’ the girl said. ‘But that there wee kitty never climbed that pole, and she never could have got caught by a crow because she would have jumped off again, wouldn’t she not? I don’t think Master is right.’
I am afraid that, at that moment, I said I thought Hugh was a thing which the kitchen maid clearly never expected she would hear a lady such as myself say of anyone, much less my own husband, much less in front of the very lowliest of my own servants, and she knew that I meant it.
White with rage, I stalked back in through the french windows, lifted the telephone and asked to be put through to the number for the Luckenlaw manse. The gardener had arrived outside and I put down the receiver to draw the curtains closed, so by the time I picked it up again Mr Tait’s voice was saying:
‘Hello? Hello? I’m sorry, my dear, I think the call has gone astray somewhere.’
‘It’s me, Mr Tait,’ I said, and I heard the click of the operator leaving us. ‘Might I speak to Lorna, please?’
‘I’m afraid you can’t,’ he said. ‘I can’t find her this morning. She appears to have had an early breakfast before anyone else was up and now she’s disappeared off somewhere. My old car has gone from the coach-house.’
‘How odd,’ I said, thinking of course that it was anything but. ‘I shall try again later then.’
Next, I asked to be put through to Miss McCallum at the post office and when she answered, I tried my best to sound light and cheerful, as befitted a harmless errand.
‘I know you can’t desert your post, dear,’ I said, ‘but I wonder, if anyone happens in, could you ask for a message to be given to Captain Watson down at the cottage? Could he ring Mrs Gilver, please? I’ve found him a commission, for a painting, you know.’
‘Never!’ said Miss McCallum. ‘Well, what a funny world it would be if we were all the same. Aye right, Mrs Gilver, here’s Mrs Kinnaird coming now, I’ll get her to step down the lane and tell him.’
After that I waited, trying to ignore the sounds from outside as the gardener dealt with the mess and trying to ignore Bunty, who had followed me in and was snuffling round the rugs and cushions and looking enquiringly up at me, unable to understand that her little companion was gone again.
Less than ten minutes later, Alec rang me.
‘But what was the point of it?’ he said when I had told him. ‘All the way up to Gilverton in a bone-shaker to kill a kitten?’
‘It might just be spite,’ I replied, ‘to pay me back for being the one who found her out, but I fear it’s a threat… of what exactly, I cannot say.’
‘She’s a remarkable actress, isn’t she?’ said Alec. ‘All this going on and she swans around looking like an angel.’
‘What should we do?’