The Importance of Being Ernestine

Nine

“What my colleague means to say,” I got in before Mrs. Malloy could spout off another word, “is that we hope her ladyship’s condition will not create any financial problems for you. That’s what social workers are for.” I squeezed out a laugh. “To try and sort through these potential difficulties.”

“Oh, quite!” He looked as though he yearned to fade into the paintwork.

“Good!” I brightly smiled. “Then I hope we’ll talk later, Mr. Edmonds. In the meantime we do,” I continued, latching on to Mrs. Malloy’s arm, “need to see Lady Krumley before the doctors do another round.”

“Absolutely.” He stood working his hands together. “Must put Aunt Maude first. She’s in the next room to this. Please tell her I’ve just arrived and will be in to see her as soon as is convenient. Cynthia, my wife, is with me, or will be when she finishes parking the car. I don’t drive. Regrettably I never could get the hang of it.”

“We all have our individual gifts,” responded Mrs. Malloy with a girlish giggle that was meant to go with the powder pink raincoat and the false eyelashes, one of which had come slightly askew.

“Yes, well… off we go,” I prodded her forward.

“My dearest love to Aunt Maude,” Mr. Edmonds murmured faintly in our wake. “And tell her not to upset herself over Vincent, just think of him as off on another adventure.”

“Who? What?” I turned to ask, but he was already halfway down the corridor. Life, I thought sourly, got more complicated by the minute. Here I was pretending to be a private detective pretending to be a social worker, when all I wanted was to have a make-up session with my husband. It was all getting to be rather too much. And I hadn’t even had lunch. There was one person who was primarily to blame, and if I’d had a mean bone in my body I would have said something really snippy.

“There’s no need for all that nasty breathing down my neck,” Mrs. M. complained. “Course I understand you being jealous because of how I was the one what figured out from the start there’d be a nasty nephew somewhere in the picture. But look at it this way, Mrs. H., you still get to play Milk’s partner and my boss.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I should think so, seeing that means you’re the one what gets to open that door and take a peek inside to see just how horrible her ladyship looks before giving me the okay. All them machines and tubes hooked up to that other old girl made me insides go all queer.”

“Very well, you stay out here and keep guard in case Mr. Edmonds comes creeping back to have a listen at the door.”

“Not on your Nelly!” she fumed, and was on my heels as I went into the room that was the right one this time. To say I was shocked by Lady Krumley’s appearance is putting it mildly. No one looks their best in a hospital bed under lighting that is worse than that found in department store changing rooms, but even so the woman I had been visualizing clinging to a life raft bobbing its way toward death’s portals looked remarkably… bobbish. She wasn’t flat on her back; she was sitting up with a crocheted shawl around her shoulders and her mahogany hair, far from hanging drearily around her shoulders, was tidily pulled back in a coil. As for her hooded black eyes, they had lost little of their intensity as they turned toward the door.

“So you came.” She beckoned Mrs. Malloy and me over to a pair of stiff-looking armchairs positioned at the side of the bed. “The circumstances are not what I expected for our second meeting. You did make sure that door is closed? Good! One wouldn’t wish to invite passers-by to listen in on our conversation, given how very odd it would all sound. And yet if there was anything needed to convince the skeptical of the validity of my fears concerning Flossie Jones, I would think it must be this new tragedy.”

“Nasty things, car accidents.” Mrs. M. took the more comfortable looking of the chairs and sat with legs crossed at the ankles for the best display of her fishnet hose. “But it don’t look like you took too bad a pasting.”

“I am not talking about myself. I’m sure I would have been perfectly fine if I hadn’t allowed myself to become so upset, which I wouldn’t have done under other circumstances. After all, not wishing to be callous, I hadn’t seen Vincent in twenty years. Not until he showed up at Moultty Towers so unexpectedly the night before last. However, blood being thicker than water, one could do no less than make him welcome, and I encouraged him to stay for a few days. Regrettably, he had not been in the house two minutes before he offended Watkins’s, the butler, sensibilities by being too familiar.” Her ladyship drew the shawl up around her chin. “Watkins is not cut from the same cloth as his predecessor Hopkins. But even so, servants do not care for that sort of thing. My late husband Sir Horace did not approve of Vincent. Went to Eton together. Thought him a blot on the old school tie. Unfortunate, considering they were first cousins, but there it is and now… he has been added to Flossie’s list of casualties.”

“You mean he’s…?” I began.

Mrs. Malloy finished for me: “Dropped off the family twig?”

Lady Krumley folded her hands. “I had just begun the drive home last night when I heard a ringing from somewhere under the dashboard. I had forgotten there was a phone in the car. I am rarely in the vehicle these days. Watkins drives it two or three times a week when I have some commission for him. Otherwise, for the most part, it remains garaged. At all events, I was sufficiently startled to almost go off the road. When I did locate the receiver, it was to hear my nephew Niles Edmonds’s, informing me in his sad little voice that Vincent had met with a fatal accident.”

“Oooh! Nasty!” Mrs. Malloy batted her eyelashes in horror. “What sort of accident?”

“He had fallen into a well…”

“What? One of them fancy wishing well types? With a bucket hanging from its little wooden roof?” Mrs. M. looked most unsuitably entranced. “Me and me first husband met at one of them. I was wishing he’d stop looking up me skirt as I bent over to drop in a penny for luck and…” on catching my eye she continued smoothly, “just thought we should know for the record like.”

“The well is as you describe, although it is not located in a public place.” Lady Krumley shivered despite the fierce central heating. “It is in the garden of a cottage on the Moultty Towers property. They are kept for longtime family retainers. A Mrs. Hasty, who was the kitchen maid in Flossie’s time, lives in it. If she is deceased by the time Watkins retires he will be offered it. As I told you yesterday, it has long been viewed a duty by the Krumleys to honor the promise inscribed on the family crest.”

“I’m sorry I don’t have my notes with me,” I hedged. “What is the exact wording?’

“Serve Well Thy Servitors.” Her ladyship leaned back on her pillow, looking all at once like a woman who needed a nurse with a syringe at her side. “It dates back to the early thirteenth century when Hugh de Krumley took a blow on the head in a skirmish against King John. He wandered about the country for a year thinking he was a peasant, until rescued by his ever-faithful jester, a fellow by the name of Lumpkin who brought him back to his senses with another blow by way of a juggling skittle that went astray. Overjoyed, Hugh rewarded Lumpkin by not having his hands cut off. Upon his return to the manor, after taking a long hot bath one would hope, Hugh swore upon his sword and his father’s beard-or it may have been his mother’s (the Krumleys all tend to be hirsute)-to deal mercifully with those who served him. He also vowed that should this pledge not be kept, by himself or future generations, the house of Krumley would fall. One may assume that none failed in their duty until”-her ladyship’s dark eyes seemed to sink into her head-“I so cruelly wronged Flossie Jones.”

“Is it known how your cousin Vincent came to fall into the well?” I asked.

“He had gone out into the grounds in search of his dog, a Maltese terrier that he had brought down with him and had insisted be allowed to dine at the table. It was discovered missing from the house shortly after I left for Mucklesby. A tiresome, yapping creature. One would think no one could regret its absence. But Vincent was quite besotted. Credited it with having helped him stop drinking, by threatening to walk out if he ever touched another drop. One could never tell if Vincent was serious or joking. And I suspected upon this visit that he had grown addled in his wits.”

“Was he very elderly?” I inquired.

“In his nineties, close in age to what Sir Horace would have been.” Her ladyship lay plucking at her shawl. “So I suppose there is some excuse. He kept saying Niles’s wife looked like a go-go dancer and something about Daisy Meeks, another relation who was present on the evening of his arrival, having a twin. He’d chortle in a silly way. It was all extremely tedious. And I must say I was happy to get out of the house.”

“Family!” Mrs. Malloy sat looking soulful. “It’s never all it’s cracked up to be, is it, your ladyship ducks? Still, I’m sure you wasn’t pleased to hear he’d kicked the bucket… on the way down the well.”

“When I put down the phone after receiving the news from Niles I must have gone into shock. The realization that the deathbed curse of Flossie Jones had been again at work was too much for me. For I have no doubt that it was my breaking the family code of honor that empowered her. The doctors here suspected I had suffered another heart attack, but I knew such was not the case. I had merely fainted-something I had never done before in my life-thus precipitating the crash.”

“That’s all it was?” Mrs. M. looked seriously aggrieved. “No one had done nothing nasty to the brakes, or run you off the road.”

“I merely lost consciousness for a few moments.” Her ladyship sat back up with a surprising bounce. “I should have been allowed to go home instead of being kept imprisoned in this most uncomfortable bed and woken up in the night to be made to take a sleeping pill. And this morning they were talking about having me examined by a cardiologist to be brought down from London. So much nonsense. I detest having poor, sensitive Niles…”

“We met him,” I said, looking toward Mrs. Malloy, “just now outside in the corridor. He thought we were social workers and agreed to let us come in and see you first. He said he would go back to meet up with his wife who had parked the car. You didn’t mention yesterday, your ladyship, that they live with you at Moultty Towers.”

The black eyes darted my way. “I was distracted after being so late for my appointment, distressed over those flower pots being thrown at the car, uncertain as to the advisability of dealing with Mr. Jugg’s associates. My head was in something of a muddle.”

“Understandably you were agitated. It is why you smoked those cigarettes.” There was a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. I hadn’t stopped her even after she mentioned those heart attacks. And what if, despite her protests, she had suffered another? How much of the fault lay at my door? The question was enough to make me vow silently that I would take on her case, however madcap it seemed, and see it through to what I hoped would not be the bitter end. There was Ernestine to be located and perhaps a villain to unmask. I still had serious doubts of the latter’s existence. The advent of Have Gun might mean nothing. He could have been a mad prankster, out for a night’s fun at her ladyship’s expense. But how could it hurt me to spend a few days helping an ill and troubled old woman?

Lady Krumley shifted a leg, and I’m sure that only by exerting her formidable will did she restrain herself from getting out of bed and marching up and down the room. There were no tubes to restrain her, no crisply starched nurse rustling forward to instruct her to be a good girl.

“Did Niles Edmonds inherit the title?” I got up and poured her a glass of water.

“I could do with a brandy.” The black eyes flashed.

“Well, it just so happens…” Mrs. Malloy reached into her bag but susbsided on meeting my scowl. “I was only going to offer her a lemon drop,” she muttered.

“No, Niles is the son of Horace’s youngest brother. The title went to another nephew, Alfonse Krumley, whose father was next in line to my husband.” Lady Krumley straightened her leg and sipped at the glass of water. “Niles came to live at Moultty Towers when he was ten-years-old and Sir Horace and I were newly married. He has been all but a son to me.”

Mrs. Malloy and I made appropriate noises.

“His parents had died in a freak accident. Sadly, his electric train set blew up and completely gutted the nursery one night when they went in to hear him say his prayers.”

“And the poor little lamb wasn’t hurt?” Mrs. Malloy gave a knowing smirk that I itched to wipe off her face.

“He had suffered an asthma attack and gone down to the kitchen to be cosseted by the cook. Understandably, the incident affected poor Niles deeply. He was afraid to sleep alone for years after he came to Moultty Towers. Sometimes I think he married Cynthia to have someone in his bed.”

“Well, that is odd,” Mrs. Malloy said in an effort to straighten her face.

“Always so afraid of the bogeyman coming to get him.” There was a suggestive glisten of tears in Lady Krumley’s eyes. “And Cynthia, whatever else might be said against her, isn’t afraid of anything or anyone. My husband wasn’t particularly sympathetic to Niles even when it came to his asthma. Sir Horace insisted that Niles used his attacks to get me to spoil him. And it must be said that at age fifty he is still very much a small boy in long trousers. He began to wheeze yesterday when I said I was going out in the car and would not be back for several hours. I did not feel comfortable leaving him until Cynthia came in from her riding lesson, especially as Daisy Meeks who would agitate anyone, was present. A foolish, nattering woman. Another family connection of my husband, living in the village. She has the most irritating yap, like that dog of Vincent’s.

“Was it found?” I asked.

“Pipsie or Wipsie or whatever it was called? Niles didn’t say, nor did I think to ask. All that can be assumed is that Vincent must have gone looking for it in the cottage garden and got it into his panicky head that the animal had fallen in the well, and in peering down to take a look, himself fell in.”

“And who found Vincent?”

“Again Niles didn’t say.”

“And all because the dog got out,” Mrs. Malloy said. “A door left open by mistake. Easy enough done.” Mrs. Malloy didn’t fool me. She had already worked it out in her mind that the dog had been removed from the house so that Vincent would go looking for it and end up being dropped down that well.

“Lady Krumley,” I said, “matters have taken a most regrettable turn since last night. I understand your wish to bring Mrs. Malloy and myself current with the situation, but is there any other reason why you wished to see us so urgently today? Is there perhaps something you consider to be of significance that you forgot to mention? For instance,” I rattled on as she stared silently back at me, “I have been wondering if you know what became of Ernestine’s father.”

“Her father?”

“Ernest the under gardener. Was he around when she was born, or had he deserted Flossie by that time? From the way you described her living arrangements during her illness it doesn’t sound as though she was receiving any significant financial support.” Receiving no reply I kept going: “Of course the young man may not have been making much money.”

Lady Krumley stared down her eagle nose at the bed covers.

“Or was he given the sack for getting her pregnant? This all happened nearly forty years ago, and I do realize that times were different then.” I sat still, thinking that thank goodness society was less condemning now, at least to the point of not routinely referring to children born out of wedlock as illegitimate. Mrs. Malloy started to say something at the moment when Lady Krumley spoke, her voice coming out so deep-throated that I shot sideways in my chair to collide with Mrs. Malloy.

“What I told you yesterday was true. The rumor went around the house that Flossie was pregnant by this young man Ernest. Mrs. Snow, the housekeeper, apprised me of the fact that he was making quite a nuisance of himself coming indoors under any pretext in hope of seeing the girl and also waylaying her in the garden. And when her condition was revealed he offered to marry her. One may assume that he loved her. But he wasn’t the father.”

“Then who was?” I asked, surmising the answer.

“My husband. Sir Horace.”

“Rotten bugger!” Mrs. M. proffered a lemon drop, which seemed somewhat inadequate under the circumstances. “Don’t tell me he wanted to up and marry the flighty piece.”

“He wouldn’t have done that, even had Flossie been of his social standing.” Her ladyship’s mouth curved in a bitter smile. “He was fond of me. I never doubted that even then. But it was a quiet affection, of shared interests and common background. There was never any passion on his part. No fire in his loins where I was concerned. How could it have been expected? I was ever a plain woman. Without feminine wiles. What I did have-being an only child-was a fortune inherited from my family. Sir Horace was badly in need of money when he married me. Without what I brought with me he would have been unable to hold onto Moultty Towers. And the place was everything to him.”

“Until Miss Flossie showed up on the scene.” Mrs. Malloy who’d had her own trouble with errant husbands glowered in sympathy.

“As I told you she was a pretty girl, and clever with it in a pert cockney sort of way, as Mrs. Snow told me.”

“That woman seems to have been a fount of information,” I said.

“She was a loyal employee, doing her duty as she saw it. But even without her input I would have had my suspicions. I twice observed him kissing her in the conservatory.”

“Did you say anything to Sir Horace?”

“It was difficult but I was determined to take the pragmatic approach-turn a blind eye and hope that when the hunting season began the silliness would end. He was after all a man in his late fifties, wanting to think of himself as still in his prime. I told myself that any giddy young girl’s coy ways and flattering adulation would have done to boost his male ego. So I focused my attention on Niles. A mistake. I see that now. It only added a source of irritation to our marriage. When I heard that Flossie was pregnant I clung to the hope she would marry the gardener boy and that they would make a life for themselves elsewhere. On the day that the emerald and diamond brooch disappeared matters came to a head. When Mrs. Snow informed me that she had seen Flossie coming out of my bedroom that morning, I knew the truth. She had been with Sir Horace in his connecting dressing room while I was away from the house at a luncheon. Being confronted by Mrs. Snow’s knowing look was the utmost in humiliation. And when I discovered the brooch to be missing, I lost all control, storming at my husband and threatening to leave him. He retaliated at first by accusing me of pretending to lose his grandmother’s brooch. But I could see in his eyes that he did not believe it. He knew that I was not a liar.” Lady Krumley’s face closed in to even greater hauteur. “You may doubt that, with justification, since I withheld part of the story from you yesterday. But whatever my state of mind I would not stoop to a downright untruth. Sir Horace then insisted that I had misplaced the brooch and in my spite was intent on fixing its loss upon Flossie. He went to battle for her, asserting that she would never attempt to turn his world upside down, especially with the baby on the way. It was then,” her ladyship continued, slumping back on the pillow, “that I knew two things: that he was in love with her-in the sadly desperate way of an older man for a young girl.”

I moved to the bedside, but resisted the inclination to stroke her hair back from her brow. There wouldn’t be much I could do for her if she ordered my hands to be cut off. “Was there no possibility that it was Ernest’s?”

“My husband retreated behind a wall of silence that condemned him utterly.”

“Did it cross your mind, Lady Krumley, that Flossie might have been playing both men to her own ends?”

“How could it not? But if Sir Horace doubted he was the father, why did he not say so? All I could wrench out of him was that the child must be his, and he would see it suitably provided for when the time came. It was, as even I knew, the right and honorable thing to do. But hatred had entered my soul, Mrs…”

“Haskell,” I provided, and she actually reached out and touched my hand.

“I told my husband that the girl would be dismissed for stealing and if he so much attempted get in touch with her, let alone see her, I would divorce him and take every penny of my money with me. He tried to bluster. But I knew I had won.” The hand that gripped mine tightened painfully. “Flossie was sent packing, and I became a murderess in the making. I allowed her to die in that bed-sitter by depriving her of the support to which she was entitled. Now do you understand why I am so desperate to find Ernestine? She is my husband’s daughter, and I am convinced that only by making the fullest reparation possible can I prevent Flossie’s vengeance from whittling away at every branch of the family tree.”

“And just how do you plan to put things right?” Mrs. Malloy teetered onto her high heels.

“By leaving her the bulk of my fortune.”

Which provided, I conceded silently, an interesting twist to the situation. I could tell by the glint in her eye that Mrs. Malloy was thinking the same. Or was she pondering just how much money her ladyship would be willing to pay for our services?

She named an amount and Mrs. Malloy was turning her gasp into a cough when a courtly, silver-haired gentleman stepped into the room. He wasn’t a doctor. He was introduced to us as Lady Krumley’s friend and Vicar, Mr. Featherstone. The one person, as she had told us last night, which whom she had discussed her appointment with Mr. Jugg. Mrs. Malloy looked at him with deep suspicion while he took Lady Krumley’s gnarled hands in his and stood looking down at her without speaking. Words-mere words would have been superfluous. The expression in his eyes betrayed him. Or so I would have thought. Her ladyship regarded him in the mildly affectionate manner that takes for granted the rights afforded by long acquaintance.

“Do sit down, Cyril,” she said. “These women are about to take their leave; so I depend on you to scare away any doctor with the temerity to sidle around the door. For it has been brought home to me that I am not ready to be reunited with Horace at the pearly gates. Dying at this moment would be tantamount to running away, and what ever my failings, I was never a coward.”

“My dear Maude,” replied Mr. Featherstone, “What am I going to do with you?”