fire to her employer?
“What about Mrs. Sechrest?” I asked. My mind went immediately to that white figure creeping down the corridor in the night.
“The Sechrests have gone home and will be dressing there. I wonder what she’ll wear this year. She always goes in for frightfully elaborate costumes. Last year she was Nell Gwynne.” I tried not to smile at this.
I went to find Queenie to try to instill in her the fear of God and dismissal from my service, but she seemed pleased with herself that she was going to act as lady’s maid to all and sundry. “They don’t have no more proper maids like me here, so her ladyship actually begged me to help them get dressed.”
“She had no idea what you’re like, Queenie. Please try not to do anything too stupid, for my sake.”
“I always try, miss. It’s just that sometimes things happen.”
At least she hadn’t been asked to dress the dowager countess.
I went through the dressing-up box and found my red scarf and gold earrings, then I noticed a long black wig and added that. It’s amazing how a difference in hair color changes a personality, isn’t it? When I tried on the costume I looked quite sultry, like a Mediterranean temptress. I was rather pleased with my choice, especially as Darcy would be my gypsy partner.
Lady Hawse-Gorzley served a high tea at five, as we would be having a late supper at the ball. This included boiled eggs and Welsh rarebit as well as the usual tea fare and took me back to nursery days when Nanny and I would share such a meal in our own little world. How long ago that seemed now.
Around seven everyone dispersed to prepare for the ball. I told Queenie I could dress myself and sent her off to help the other ladies. As I stood alone in my room I realized that the day was almost over and nobody had died. Maybe our surmise had been true after all—the farmer’s wife had been an accident and Wild Sal had been responsible for at least some of the other deaths. I felt a great wave of relief sweep over me. I realized that I had been almost holding my breath, waiting for the next stroke of doom to fall. I was almost ready, only fiddling with tying the scarf around my false locks, when I heard an awful scream. I came flying out of my room, as did those around me. The scream was coming from the far end of the hallway and we raced down it, flinging open a door.
The sight inside was not a pretty one. Mrs. Upthorpe was standing in front of a mirror, wearing a Marie Antoinette costume and screaming her lungs out while Queenie stood behind her with a look of terror on her face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“The stupid girl has zipped me,” she shouted, her broad North Country vowels coming through in this moment of stress. “Now she can’t get it open again.”
That didn’t sound too bad until I saw that what Queenie had done was to catch a fold of Mrs. Upthorpe’s copious skin in the teeth of the zip fastener and, being Queenie, to keep on tugging. It took several minutes and a great deal of comforting of the distraught Mrs. Upthorpe before we managed to release her back from the zip fastener. There was an ugly red welt that was bleeding in places where the teeth had been.
“Queenie, go and ask the butler for first aid supplies,” I said.
“No, don’t send that girl. She’ll probably come back with caustic soda or weed killer,” Mrs. Upthorpe wailed.
“I’ll go,” I said and dragged Queenie out with me. “How could you?” I demanded as soon as we were clear of the room. “I asked you to be careful.”
“I was,” she said. “I ain’t too used to them zip fasteners and I thought it was just stiff. How was I to know I’d got her caught in it? She don’t half have a lot of flesh.”
I sighed. “I suppose you’d better go help Mrs. Rathbone, since Lady Hawse-Gorzley promised you would,” I said.
“I already been with her. She sent me away because I stuck a hatpin in her bum by mistake.”
“Queenie!”
“It didn’t make her bleed or nothing. And she shouldn’t have turned round so quickly. I don’t know why she made such a fuss.”
“What am I going to do with you, Queenie?”
“I never mean no harm, miss,” she said, staring at me with those big cow eyes.
“I know you don’t. But you’re a walking disaster area all the same.”
I brought Dettol, cotton wool and Cuticura cream to Mrs. Upthorpe, who was finally pacified when she saw that the wound would be hidden by the fabric of her dress. Downstairs I could hear the sound of motorcar tires on the gravel as the first guests arrived. I put on the finishing touches to my costume and went down to the ballroom. What an incredible transformation had taken place. The chandeliers in the ceiling were ablaze with electric lights while around the wall tall candelabras sparkled with real candles. Small white-clothed tables, gilt chairs and large potted plants created an air of elegance and on a dais at one end a band was playing a jazz tune. Nobody was dancing yet, but various guests in an interesting array of costumes stood chatting—I saw a black cat, a fat schoolboy and Cleopatra, and someone was even the gorilla. Captain and Mrs. Sechrest were among them, he dressed as King Neptune and she as a water sprite with yards of flowing tulle and a sea green wig, all dotted with pearls and shells. I noticed Johnnie Protheroe eyeing her. He was dressed as a knight of the Round Table, probably Sir Lancelot, and I thought it was a pity the Sechrests hadn’t chosen to come as Arthur and Guinevere.
Then the Wexlers came in, he dressed as a cowboy, she as an Indian. Cherie, as a Spanish senorita, looked as if she were about to die of embarrassment. Only Junior seemed to be having a good time, and he went around poking people with his gun. I hoped the Wexlers had checked to make sure it wasn’t loaded. The Rathbones and Upthorpes joined us, she still looking pale and suffering. Badger, dressed as a cat burglar, made a beeline for Ethel. The band struck up “On the Sunny Side of the Street” and couples moved onto the dance floor. I experienced that moment of panic I always feel at balls—that I’ll be the only wallflower after everyone else has chosen a partner. It’s quite an irrational fear, as I suspect I’m asked to dance as often as anyone else, but I can’t stop it.
Ethel bounced past with Badger, whose dancing looked more enthusiastic than skillful. Monty was with the no-longer-pouting Cherie. I saw Bunty, as a Jane Austen heroine, looking around hopefully and her eyes lit up as Darcy crossed the floor. But to my secret delight he headed straight for me. “My brown-eyed gypsy maiden, I presume,” he said and held out his hand to me. We danced. It was heavenly.
The ballroom filled with people I didn’t know, then some I did. I saw the Misses Ffrench-Finch sitting with Miss Prendergast, the vicar and Mr. Barclay at a table in the corner. They were not in costume but were enjoying themselves watching the spectacle, nodding in time to the music. I remembered that my mother and Noel Coward had promised to come so I searched until I spotted them. He was a maharaja, with darkened face, impressive curly black mustache and huge turban and she was a veiled Eastern beauty. I went over to them between dances.
“You recognized us,” my mother said in a peeved voice. “We thought we were incognito.”
“You are my mother,” I laughed. “I recognized your eyes beneath the veil. Mr. Coward was harder to detect because of the mustache.”
“I know, isn’t it splendid? We found it in Woolworths. And this is much more grand and civilized than I expected,” Noel Coward said. “I thought it would be full of clodhopping peasants.”
I danced with Darcy again and then with Monty and even once with Johnnie Protheroe, who held me very close indeed, although he kept glancing across at the lovely Mrs. Sechrest. Then we had a Paul Jones, in which ladies and men circle each other and each lady must dance with the man opposite her when the music stops. I found myself dancing with the man with whom I had conversed about the master’s horse at the hunt.
“Rum do the other day, wasn’t it?” he said as he twirled me around. “Still no trace of him. Must have ended up in the bog, poor chap. What a way to go and who would have thought it of someone like him? Knew the country around here like the back of his hand.”
I nodded. “It’s horrible.”
“They’re saying that someone put up a wire to deliberately trip his horse. If I find the blighter I’ll personally put my hands around his scrawny neck and strangle him.” He realized that he was shouting, gave an embarrassed cough and resumed dancing. “Can’t let a thing like that ruin our evening, can we?” he added.
At around ten a “Post Horn Galop” led us in to supper—a magnificent buffet with cold poached salmon, cold chicken, a York ham and a cold leg of pork with sage stuffing, as well as various pies, pasties, jellies, blancmanges and petit fours. I wondered how the gorilla was going to eat but I couldn’t spot him.
After supper the music became slower and fewer couples took to the floor. French doors had been opened,
