Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery (Father Christmas) (27 page)

8 A
UGUST

Dear Mum
,

I hope your sleep was better than mine. I had the worst nightmare. In the one I can remember, I was being chased around and around a
labia
labyrinth in my nightie only there weren’t the nice bordering hedges they have here—it was all twisting chimney pots and towers and turrets instead, like the ones on the roof of Eggescombe Hall, looming and lurching towards me and trying to block me, which they didn’t do, though as much as I ran I never got to the centre. I only kept running and running in a panic! I couldn’t see who was chasing me either as it was nearly dark, but I sensed who it was, the way you do in dreams. It was DS Blessing, who I’ve mentioned before. I went to school with his older sister Sandra. He was nearly upon me like some great awful dog (not like Bumble) when I seemed to burst out of the dream and found myself in my bed in the Gatehouse, heart pounding, quite relieved, but very
vexed with DS Blessing. I couldn’t think why he was being so disagreeable. His sister was always perfectly nice to me. I can’t think what the dream means, Mum. I’d ask Mr. Christmas, but at breakfast in the past when I’ve told him about a haunting dream, he always looks at me very seriously and says it means Thornford Regis shall have 7 years of plenty and 7 years of famine which is silly. Joseph told that to
Faroh Phar
the king of Egypt in the Bible, of course, but at least there were 7 things in the king’s dream so it was easy-peasy for Joseph to work out. I have said before to Mr. C. that in the Bible, God likes to use dreams when He fancies a natter with one of His creation, but Mr. C. says as far as he knows God’s rather gone off that practice now, which I suppose is true, as anyone
whom who
whom God talks to in his dreams these days is usually thought completely daft. Anyway, the bad dreams and poor sleep are probably because there’s a bit of an atmosphere here at Eggescombe, including at the Gatehouse. You wouldn’t credit it, what with all the sun we’ve been having, but a kind of woe has settled over the place. At least the children don’t seem to be too bothered, which I suppose is
good
all right. Miranda and Maximilian, Lord Boothby, are having a grand time doing their own investigation. Maximilian even has a deerstalker hat, though it doesn’t fit properly. Mum, you wouldn’t believe how many times a day he changes clothes! He is a bit of a show-off. The only thing that doesn’t seem to be in his wardrobe at the minute is an Inverness cape, but I expect that’s coming now that he and Miranda are “on the case,”
so to speak. We see a fair amount of the two of them “below stairs” as it were. Ellen and Mick have been staff to Lord and Lady Fairhaven less than a year, but Maximilian seems to have very much taken to them. Poor lad is shunted off to boarding school most of the year, of course. His father is gruff with him and Lady Fairhaven as distant as a stone. Ellen’s gone a bit stern and stout, as I’ve said, but she does pay mind to the lad’s witterings, and Mick goes all soft for children. He’s quite the proper butler-valet to the household, but below stairs he can be quite the comedian, really. It’s almost as if he and Maximilian are in a conspiracy together. Perhaps Maximilian reminds Mick of Dominic fforde-Beckett when he was a boy. They’re a bit alike. (I think I told you Ellen and Mick worked for the Anthony fforde-Becketts. I’m including a rough family tree with this letter. Should help.) Anyway, I’m writing all this in aid of what’s happened since yesterday afternoon’s letter—which by the way I was able to post, as the nice PC let me out the gate. (Some journo ran up to me and asked what I could tell them about Lord Morborne’s murder. “No comment,” I said, smart as you please.) As I said, it’s all gone a bit gloomy here. The police
assmembled
assembled the household at teatime yesterday and asked some very pointed questions about what we’d all been up to in the wee hours of Sunday morning, which made me think that
THEY
think that one of us had something to do with Lord Morborne’s death. Anyway, it’s put everyone off their feed
AND
their good manners. Supper was cold beef, a sorrel, leek, and mushroom tart, and a tomato, corn, and avocado
salad, which Ellen put out on the sideboard in the dining room for self-service, but half of everybody took their food off to their rooms or somewhere else in the Hall with some excuse, but really so as not to have to talk to one another. Maximilian brought Miranda with him to eat with us in the kitchen, the warm heart of a home, I always say, even at grand Eggescombe, but the kitchen wasn’t last evening. Mum, something dreadful has happened between Ellen and Mick but I haven’t a clue what. After we’d cleared the tea things, Ellen said she was going to the kitchen garden to gather some tomatoes only she was gone a very long time and then stumbled into the kitchen where I was making the pastry for the tart looking like her world had collapsed. “Madrun,” she said, “I’ve learned something awful.” Oh, my heart went out to her, but she wouldn’t tell me a blessed thing! Thank heaven it was a simple supper we were preparing as I don’t think she could have got through anything fussy. When her back was turned into the fridge I saw Mick across the corridor nip into the wash-house—which still serves as a laundry room—so I went to have some words with him as it is usually husbands that make wives unhappy but I could tell instantly that he was in a state, too. White as a sheet he was, had the big iron out, his jacket off, and had started into cleaning and pressing His Lordship’s shirt, trousers, tie, and handkerchiefs, etc. etc. in advance of some Conservative Association meeting next weekend, which seemed a bit far-off, but I expect he finds work calming as I do. He wouldn’t tell me anything either, used quite strong language in fact that I won’t record here, and so as you might imagine, Mum, supper with the
Gaunts and the children was a bit strained, to say the least, but I got them, the kids at least, onto the details of their croquet game, which Miranda’s team won by a squeak. She’s awfully good. The rest of the evening went a bit flat, really. Ellen and I were to walk around the grounds, as the weather is so pleasant, but she begged off, and so I went on my own, and nearly jumped out of my skin when a large man in a dark suit jumped out from behind a tree. Well, I’m done for, I thought—here’s Lord Morborne’s murderer. But it seems Lord Fairhaven has already put a few private security in place to keep out all the nosy folk, including the media, although I think he’s hired them mostly to appease his wife. I can’t think how successful that will be. It’s not as if there’s a wall topped with razor wire around Eggescombe Park, and there’s lots of secret paths, according to Max. When I returned to the Gatehouse, Mick was nowhere about and Ellen had already gone to bed.
I know it’s silly, but my bedroom door doesn’t lock, so I put a chair up against the knob.
You mustn’t worry, Mum. I’m quite safe here really. There’s police about and private security, as I said
and if one of the weekend guests really is a murderer, he won’t be after little me!
Anyway, I was going to say when I started this letter that when I woke from my nightmare, I could hear Ellen and Mick’s voices raised in the sitting room downstairs, but
as the chair was against the door
as I was tucked up in bed I thought better of opening the door a hair to see if I could hear anything.
I’m so worried.
I’m very worried about them. I can’t imagine what the day will bring. Poor Mr. Christmas. It’s his 40th birthday today and he was
meant to be in Gravesend with his family, and then there’s his poor ankle. I thought to suggest to Ellen yesterday afternoon that we bake a cake, but then it seemed not the best idea in the circumstances. I’m sure he’ll soldier on. He always seems to. Which reminds me—our Mr. C.’s eyes have been roving once too often in Lady Lucinda fforde-Beckett’s dreiction
direction
, if you ask me, especially when the CID were
grilling
interviewing us in the great hall. I can’t think what he’s thinking. She’s been married and divorced twice. “Manifold sins and wickedness” there as the BCP would say, I venture, though now I’m sounding a bit like Ellen! Anyway, it makes me think that we in the village must find him a wife soon, as who knows what he might get up to. It won’t do! Not in his instance. I’ve just looked out the window, Mum. There’s more light now, and I can see one of those television vans with one of those big dishes on the roof parked in the forecourt. ITV West Country News, I can read on the side. Surely Lord Fairhaven can have it removed. I thought Abbotswick was part of the Eggescombe estate, but perhaps I’m wrong. I must sign off, Mum.
I could murder a cup of tea.
If only I had my trusty Teasmade with me, but I’ll have to go down to the kitchen and put the kettle on if I’m to be refreshed. I do hope Ellen and Mick have patched things up, otherwise I shall have to put up with an “atmosphere.” It makes me wonder if I shouldn’t ask Mr. C. to talk with them, as he is so good at consilly pouring oil on troubled waters
.

Much love
,

Madrun

P.S. For a while yesterday we thought Lord Morborne’s murder solved! DI Bliss was called away when everyone was helping him with his enquiries in the great hall. A man who last week had been found wandering the grounds and frightening Ellen in the kitchens confessed to the crime! Poor man was barmy, of course. DI Bliss was not best pleased!