My first jab at fiction. It’s probably crap.
Winters are always cold at Sparseford Manor. By the time September breaks out of its august shell, the glades are already blanketed with a pristine white. Yet this is not the warm cold that one feels as he awaits Christmas in front of a crackling fire in the company of good friend, while watching the outdoors through frost-covered windows. Rather, it is a bone-chilling wintriness, epitomized by the solitary oak on the grounds, which, while in summer was actually quite magnificent, is reduced to a blackened, skeletal state by the biting chill and the cruel frost. Every patch of green is greedily swallowed up by the ever-spreading alabaster beast of winter.
Sir Pritchard Greaves, the incumbent Lord of Sparseford, was a tall, dignified man in his middling forties. As always, he was immaculately dressed in a black waistcoat, an impeccably pressed white shirt, and his Oxford tie. His thin face and high cheekbones gave him the look of an intellectual, while his heavy brows and perpetual frown left one with the feeling that he was perpetually preoccupied with matters of grave importance. Indeed, a large part of his working career was spent rubbing shoulders with the great intellects of the Royal Air Force, crafting the events that today form the greater part of our historical textbooks. Apart from his household staff of two young housemaids, an old gardener and the chauffeur, he shared the one hundred and twenty eight rooms of Sparseford Manor only with his daughter Eve.
All of twelve years old, Eve was already showing signs of becoming a great beauty, what with her shining golden hair, flawless skin, perfect white teeth and captivating blue eyes. The people of the adjoining village of High Weald always remarked that she was becoming more and more like her late mother, a famed actress who had passed away when Eve was three. She, Eve, was the apple of Sir P’s eye, to the extent that in all her life, he had never so much as raised his voice against her. She was well-mannered and liked by all in the village, which was quite unusual in a girl of such high breeding.
The gardener was an old man who had been working at the manor since the days of Sir P’s father. Age was taking its toll on his vitality and he was going quite deaf in his right ear, but his gardening remained as irreproachable as ever, and his discretion was something that bankers in Zurich could learn from. The two housemaids were the daughters of the previous housemaid, a plump old matron whose efficiency had made her the envy of every household in the countryside. Before she passed away, she had drilled into her two daughters all the skills necessary to make a good homekeeper. Now, they were given the duty of keeping the house in shape, and on occasion, acting as nannies to Eve. The older girl, Martha was also given the job of cook of the household. They had grown fond of the little girl and treated her as another sister. The chauffeur was a military man, a former Seargent of the Royal Armed Forces. He had found out at his own expense that too much of anything, even honesty, could harm. He had ignominiously been given the boot on trumped up charges. Sir Pritchard heard of his situation from a former colleague of his, and finding him to be a man of unshakeable loyalty, employed him on the spot.
Sir Pritchard Greaves was gazing out of the french windows with his brow furrowed. “Martha! Susan!”, he called. The housemaids hurried into his presence. “We are having guests. Mr. and Mrs. Cassock are staying with us for a few days.”
Gilbert Cassock was an adviser to the national defense staff during the previous leadership. Quite prudently, he had hedged his position against a lordship while his colleagues were scrambling for promotions. When the reign changed, the bulk of them were demoted, suspended or worse as a part of the backlash against the controversial policies of the predecessor. But the peculiarities of the state are such that a lordship granted by the state cannot be taken away by the state. And hence Sir Gilbert Cassock had a comfortable income and a manor at Redwood-on-Sea while his more ambitious colleagues were left penniless.
After retirement, Sir Gilbert had married a shrew of a woman, who was neither beautiful nor rich nor cultured. Indeed, it was quite a surprise for many when they read that the distinguished Lord of Redwood was engaged to Catherine Tepplet, background unknown (or perhaps not mentioned by design), and even more of a shock when they saw the goods first hand. Short, stout, whiny and possessing a face that showed no intelligence but remarkable cunning, Sir Pritchard had taken an aversion to her at first sight. Sir Gilbert’s life slid from one of happy bachelorhood to one of gloom and misery, punctuated by occasional bouts of manic drinking. Sir Pritchard felt sorry for his old friend and left an open invitation to Sparseford Manor at any time, which he gratefully took advantage of every year. This year would have been the same, and his life would have been pleasant for a week or two but for Catherine insisting she be taken along this time.
It was five in the evening, but apparently the sun didn’t think so. It was one of those dreary winter days in which all time tumbled over itself, in which you could not see five in the morning for five in the evening. The lacklustre sun seemed to be up at all time, but in short supply of light and radiance. Eve, wrapped in a warm muffler and gloves was playing in the snow along with Susan. A motorcar pulled up through the driveway, which was neatly shovelled by Henry, the old gardener, and stopped by the house. A tall, haggard-looking old man got off the car followed by a dumpy, irritable woman wearing a flashy pink parka. Eve approached them and upon recognizing Sir Gilbert, ran up to him in delight, for the little girl loved the old man like an uncle. In doing so, she accidentally splashed a small puddle onto Catherine’s clothes. “What a nasty brute!”, exclaimed the shrew, and raised her hand to hit the her on her face. The little girl cringed and ran away.
Sir Pritchard exited the house just then and found the shrew fuming and his friend looking miserable. Spotting him, Catherine immediately put on an unctuous tone and in her nasal way said, “Thank you for having us over Sir Pritchard. Gilbert was telling me that it was rude for me to impose upon you, but I said that you would not mind having a friend’s wife over. I can’t imagine what was going on in Gilbert’s – oh! is that Honeysuckle? The nectar is so good for my rheumatism…” She pranced off toward the greenhouse, trodding on several flowers and happily ignoring the sign that said ‘no plucking’. Sir Gilbert turned wearily to Sir Pritchard. “Dashed menace she is. Pour me a brandy old chap, I have been cooped up with that thing for five hours now.”
Dinner was a sordid affair. The food was excellent as usual, but Catherine would not stop talking about the “amazing housekeeper at the Shamrock Residence” and how “cooks these days do not have a shred of loyalty and gratitude in them”, while Martha was waiting on them all the while. The rest of the company gave up on making any conversation, and simply concentrated on finishing their food in the shortest possible time. Sir Pritchard and Sir Gilbert then retired into the game room for a spot of brandy and some billiards, while Catherine went up to her room.
The next day was no better. At five in the morning, she commandeered Percy, the chauffeur (“She was shaking the damned door of its hinges, the vile old bat”, Percy was to recount) and spent half an hour lecturing him on sloth and how if he were in her employ, she would make him sleep in the open. Then she ordered him to drive her around all day, indulging her every whim, all the while commenting on his ‘piss-poor driving’. She constantly ridiculed the good Seargant’s military service, making some very personal and outrageous statements indeed, all while taking swigs from her canteen of what smelled suspiciously like the finest scotch from the cellars of Sparseford Manor. By the time they returned to the manor, it was eight in the evening, and Percy’s patience was stretched to it’s limit.
The next morning at six o’ clock, the entire household was awoken by a panicked scream. When Sir Pritchard and Sir Gilbert rushed out to see what the problem was, the saw Catherine was sputtering in rage at a distraught Susan.
“Tha.. That nasty little scoundrel… My emerald brooch.. i-its gone, and she took it, I’m sure! “
“Now, now Cathy, lets not jump to conclusions…”, started Sir Gilbert, but was immediately silenced by renewed hysterics. It was three hours before he could convince her that she may have misplaced it somewhere, and start a search of the mansion.
They split up into two groups. Sir Pritchard took Henry, Percy and Martha to search the west wing, while Sir Gilbert, Cathy, Eve and Susan took the east wing.
“I will search alone. I don’t need anyone, least of all this thieving little minx to help me search”, spat the shrew, shooting a vicious look at the young housemaid and stalked away.
The black gravel wound sinuously across the sheer white of the vale. The lone tree set against the backdrop of the virgin white expanse set off unbidden thoughts in Catherine’s mind, as she found herself at the top of the east wing tower. Leaning over the low, frost-covered railing, she reflected.
“These stupid people, they think they are all better than me, just because they have their money and their ‘class’, the snobbish pricks. I wasn’t always like this either. I too had money, a rich father, nice clothes and all the love in the world.”, she thought. “I too was once pretty, young and well-loved, just like the little one in this house. If it weren’t for…”, she shuddered, as a fat, cold pair of hands from her past slid across her young, smooth skin. “If it weren’t for that beast, I probably would have stayed that way.” A gleam entered her eyes. “But I got him good, didn’t I? He didn’t know it was coming. And when he did, it was too late, wasn’t it? He ended up real dead”, she smiled savagely, the image of her uncle laying sprawled on the ground flashing before her eyes. She gazed down at the road winding through the pristine snow. “I must be imagining things, or is that road a little closer than before? No, its coming closer. And what the dickens is this draft? “. And then all she saw was white.
Inspector Drake of the High Weald police office was fairly certain that it could not have been foul play. After all, the railings were low, and the floor was slippery from all the melted frost. And the people in the house were all respectable law-abiding citizens. Also, the household helps were trusted folk who had been serving at Sparseford Manor loyally for years. It was unthinkable that anyone from the house had even thought of committing such an atrocious deed. As he looked around at the solemn faces in the room, his conviction that this particular case was not a crime was only strengthened. As he bent down to stamp the file and close the case, he did not witness the beautiful, blond-haired face twist into an evil grin.
