CHAPTER 5

       Tears Before Dinner

      I emerged from the drawing room with not the faintest idea of where to go, though distant voices coming from a certain direction gave me a clue. I was about to follow the sound of laughter and chatter when I heard, from the other side of the house, a more disturbing noise: loud sobbing.

      I stopped, wondering what was the best thing to do. I was famished after my long journey, having been offered nothing since I arrived, but I did not feel I could ignore a display of distress so close to where I stood. Scotcher’s kind words to me in the drawing room—and the knowledge that he, a complete stranger, held me in such high regard and that therefore there might be other strangers out there who did not think too badly of me—had made me feel altogether jollier and more buoyant than I had for a considerable time. I was determined to hunt down and be similarly kind to whomever was crying so piteously.

      Sighing, I went in search of the sobber and soon found her. It was the maid, Phyllis—the poor unfortunate described by Claudia as scatter-witted. She was sitting on the staircase, rubbing at her tears with her sleeve.

      ‘Here,’ I said, passing her a clean handkerchief. ‘It can’t be all that bad, surely.’

      She looked up at me doubtfully. ‘She says it’s for me own good. Yells at me morning to night, she does—for me own good! I’ve had enough of me own good, if that’s what it is! I want to go home!’

      ‘Are you new here, then?’ I asked her.

      ‘No. Been here four years. She’s worse every year! Every day, I sometimes think.’

      ‘Who are you talking about?’

      ‘Cook. “Get out of my kitchen!” she screams, when I’ve done nothing wrong. I can’t help it, I says to her—I try, but I can’t help it!’

      ‘Oh dear. Well, look—’

      ‘And then she comes after me, as if I’ve run away instead of been thrown out by her! “Where the blazes have you got to, girl? Dinner won’t serve itself!” She’ll be after me any second now, you watch!’

      Was Phyllis supposed to be serving our dinner, then? She did not seem in a fit state to do so. This alarmed me more than her tears and tirades. I was starting to feel light-headed from hunger.

      ‘I would have run away by now if it weren’t for Joseph!’ Phyllis declared.

      ‘Joseph Scotcher?’

      She nodded. ‘D’you know about him, Mr …?’

      ‘Catchpool. Know what about him? Do you mean his state of health?’

      ‘He hasn’t long. Crying shame, I call it.’

      ‘Indeed.’

      ‘He’s the only one as cares about me. Why can’t one of the others die? One of them as never so much as looks at me.’

      ‘I say, steady on. You really ought not to—’

      ‘Nasty snooty-nosed Claudia or bossy Dorro—they all look past me like I don’t exist, or talk to me like I’m dirt on their shoes! I swear it, once Joseph’s gone, I’ll be gone too. I couldn’t stay here without him. He says to me all the time, he says, “Phyllis, you have great strength and beauty inside you. Silly old Brigid’s not half the woman you are.” That’s Cook, that is—he calls her Brigid, which is her name. “She’s not a patch on you, Phyllis,” he says to me. He says, “That’s why she needs to shout and you don’t.” It’s the weakest as have to shout the loudest, make others suffer, he says.’

      ‘I expect there is some truth in that.’

      Phyllis giggled.

      ‘Did I say something funny?’ I asked.

      ‘Not you. Joseph. He says to me, he says, “Phyllis, I don’t have a kitchen, but if I ever do, if I am ever the proud owner of a kitchen …”—because that’s how he talks! Oh, it makes me laugh, the way he says things. And, d’you know, I think that pompous Randall Kimpton copies him, the way he comes out with things, but he’s not got Joseph’s charm and he’ll never have it, no matter how he tries. “If I am ever the proud owner of a kitchen,” Joseph says to me, he says, “I hereby solemnly swear that I shall never throw you out of it. On the contrary, I should want you to be in it all of the time and not least because I cannot so much as poach an egg!” See what I mean? He’s so kind, is Joseph. I only stay for him.’

      Joseph Scotcher appeared to know precisely what to say in order to make others feel better. It was jolly decent of him to take the trouble, I thought—with strangers like me who happened to be visiting; with the servants.

      As for Phyllis’s contention that Randall Kimpton had it in mind to copy Scotcher, I found that rather puzzling. Kimpton struck me as very much himself and the sort of purposeful, fully formed chap who had always been that same self. From what little I had seen of him, I could not imagine him changing course for anybody. Well, perhaps for his beloved Claudia—but certainly not for Joseph Scotcher. Still, I had to concede that Phyllis probably knew both men far better than I did.

      I wondered how many ripples of discomfort at Lillieoak Scotcher had been skilfully smoothing away since he had arrived. How would the other inhabitants of the house manage after his death?

      Some people were more virtuous and self-sacrificing than others, there was no doubt about it. Claudia Playford, for instance, struck me as a woman who would do and say nothing for the benefit of anyone but herself.

      At that moment the floor beneath me started to shake. Phyllis leapt to her feet. ‘She’s coming!’ she whispered, frantic. ‘Don’t say I’ve told you anything or she’ll have my guts for garters!’

      A short, compact barrel of a woman came into view, stomping towards us. She had a red face and curly, iron-grey hair that formed a stiff sort of circle around her head, like a wire crown.

      ‘There you are!’ She wiped her chunky red hands on her apron. ‘I’ve got better things to do than run around looking for you! Do you think the dinner’s going to grow legs and walk to the dining room on its own? Do you?’

      ‘No, Cook.’

      ‘No, Cook! Then get in there and serve it like a good girl!’

      Phyllis scuttled away. I tried to make my escape at the same time, but Brigid moved to block my way. After looking me up and down for a few seconds, she said, ‘Meeting with the likes of you, bottom of the stairs when there’s no one about—just what that girl needs! On and on she goes about that Scotcher fellow—wasting her time, whichever way you slice it—but next time, not when I’m trying to get dinner started, if you don’t mind.’

      I think my mouth might well have fallen open.

      Before I could protest, Brigid was marching away at speed, shaking the ground as she went.