The Chilbury Ladies' Choir(3)
As I entered, my eyes caught a pretty twist of a maid, standing on the stairs to avoid the rush, a tray of sherry glasses balanced on one hand, her long neck elegant but her mouth sour as curd. She came to me with gonorrhea she’d got from Cmdr. Edmund last year, just like half the bleeding village. She told me he’d promised to marry her, promised her money, freedom, love, and then he’d vanished into the Navy as soon as war broke out. I felt sorry for her, so I told her about his other women—the previous maid, the gardener’s wife, the Vicar’s daughter—all with the same condition. I treated them all, and Edmund, too, the disgusting beast. Elsie was the maid’s name. I think she was a bit unsettled that I told her everyone’s secrets, worried about her own, no doubt. But I told her it was because we were friends, her and I.
I smiled at her in a conspiratorial way, and took a glass of sherry from her tray. You never know when these people could come in handy.
I joined the condolence line behind gloomy Mrs. Tilling, nurse, choir member, and deplorable do-gooder. “He will always be remembered a hero,” she was saying with immense feeling. She is so excruciatingly well-meaning it makes me want to plunge her long face into a barrel of ale to perk her up.
“Never should have happened,” snapped Mrs. B., another member of the choir, all upright with traditional upper-class fervor, the insufferable next to the insupportable. Her full name is Mrs. Brampton-Boyd, and it exasperates her that everyone calls her Mrs. B.
As I came to the front, Mrs. Tilling sucked her cheeks in with annoyance. She’s never approved of me. I’ve stepped into her nursing territory, become too close to her village community. She may also have heard about some of my less orthodox practices. Or the payoffs.
“It’s so terribly tragic,” I said in my best voice. “He was taken so young.” Planting a closed-lipped smile on my face, I swiftly moved away to the side, standing alone, people glancing over from time to time to wonder what business I had there.
Just as I was thinking of opening a few doors and having a little nosy around, a hunched goblin of a butler directed me into the drawing room, where I was rather hoping to partake of some upper-class funeral fare but found myself alone in the big, still room.
The distant clang of someone banging out the Moonlight Sonata on a piano clunked uneasily around the ornate ceiling as I ran my fingers over the crusted gold brocade couch. Then I picked up a bronze sculpture of a naked Greek, heavy in my fist like a lethal weapon. The opulence of the room was dazzling, with the floor-length blue silk drapes, the majestic portraits of repulsive forebears, the porcelain statues, the antiquity, the inequity.
I couldn’t help thinking that if I had that sort of cash I’d do a much better job, cheery the place up a bit. It smelled like death, as old as the dead men on the walls, as fusty as the eyes of the disembodied deer watching from the oak-paneled wall, the settle of dust and ashes. I was reminded of the last war, the Great War, when all the money in the world couldn’t buy an escape from mortality. It was the one great leveler. Funny how things went back to normal again so quick—the rich in charge, us struggling below.
I pulled out my packet of fags and lit one, the sinewy smoke meandering into the drapes, making itself at home.
A gruff voice came from behind. “May I have a word?” A hand grasped my elbow, and before I knew it I was being pulled to a door at the back of the room. I turned to see the Brigadier, purple veins livid on his temples—he must have been at the Scotch late last night. He shoved me into a study, thick with male undercurrent, lots of leather chairs and piles of papers and files. The tang of cigars mingled unpleasantly with the dead-dog smell of rank breath.
As he twisted the key in the lock behind him, I knew this was going to mean money.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, surveying the surroundings, trying to cover up any trepidation. The Brigadier’s a bigwig, an overpowering presence, officious and rude and unlikable, yet powerful and ruthless. He’s one of the old types, the ones who think the upper class can still bluster their way through everything. The ones who think they can boss the rest of us around and act like they own the country.
“I knew you’d come,” he muttered in an irritated way, his voice slurring from drink. “Which is why I had Proggett put you in the back drawing room. I have a service for you to perform. Time is of the essence.” He sat down behind his vast desk, all businesslike, leaving me standing on the other side, the servant awaiting instruction. I considered pulling over a chair, but fancied this act of rebellion might lose me a few bob, so I just plonked my black bag on the floor and waited.
“Before I begin, I must know I have your full confidence,” he said, narrowing his eyes as if this were an official war deal, when I knew outright it was going to be nothing of the sort.
“Of course you have it, like you always do,” I lied, glowering at him for even doubting my integrity. He didn’t scare me with his upper-class military ways. “I’m a professional, Brigadier. If that’s what you mean? I’m never surprised by what is asked of me. And I always keep my mouth shut.”
“I need a job done,” he said brusquely. “I’ve heard you’re willing to go beyond the usual services?”
“That depends on what the service in question is,” I said. “And how much I’ll be paid.”
A gleam came to his eye, and he sat up. I was speaking the language he wanted to hear—more interested in the money than the nature of the deed. “A lot of money could be yours.”