Free Death Sits Down to Dinner by Tessa Arlen

to turn things to their own advantage. This opinion had been formed years ago, when Mrs. Jackson had started her career in London as a lowly housemaid at Montfort House, and had been reinforced by reports relayed by Miss Pettigrew when she returned from trips to London with her ladyship. “If that Mr. White was offered a job by some rich American he would be off like a shot,” was a pronouncement often made by Miss Pettigrew when she came back from London brimming with information on new fashions, society scandals, and the inevitable report on Montfort House servants’ hall, which was kept confidentially between the two of them.
    Mrs. Jackson politely answered the Montfort House servants’ questions and gave no further information as she ate her supper. She had to admit the food was delicious: a stew of pork, bacon, and white beans, a cassoulet, the cook had been proud to tell her, that must have cost a fortune in ingredients. No shepherd’s pie made up from yesterday’s leftover roast mutton from upstairs dinner in this servants’ hall, she thought as she finished her meal in silence.
    “Her ladyship asks that you go up to see her soon as you can, Mrs. Jackson. You’ve plenty of time to finish your supper as they are leaving at eight o’clock. She’s in the large drawing room.” Mr. White certainly was a good-looking man, standing tall at six foot two, nicely proportioned, and perfectly attired with a pleasant, well-modulated voice.
    “Very well, Mr. White. Thank you, Cook, that was an interesting dish, perhaps you will share the recipe with me before I leave.” And without a backward glance she was on her way upstairs to the drawing room, hearing as she went an elevation in the hum around the servants’ hall table.
    *   *   *
    Mrs. Jackson climbed the back stairs to the fourth floor of the house, to the old nursery and schoolrooms. When she opened the door, the rooms brought back a flood of memories of her first days as a housemaid in Montfort House, fifteen years ago, when the children were young and Nanny was still able to run after them, in the days before she got too stout to be really effective. The schoolroom was now used for storage, and the furniture that crowded the nursery was covered in dust sheets. But a fire had been lit in the grate and Nanny’s old room was warm and comfortable, with familiar sagging easy chairs, tables and bookshelves filled with classics from bygone days. On the wall was a print of the late King Edward VII and, farther along, another of Queen Victoria when she was a young woman.
    The prospect of the old nursery did a good deal to soften Mrs. Jackson’s stern countenance. Her handsome, classic profile had acquired rather a frigid cast since she had left Lady Montfort a few minutes ago, and her shoulders were still expressing some of the exasperation she had felt toward the end of their conversation. She had dropped all her Christmas and New Year preparations for the season, left her plans for the Iyntwood hunt ball dangling, to come up to London to help Miss Kingsley rescue her charity evening from disaster. Now she had discovered that this was not the only reason why she had been summoned.
    She swung her suitcase up onto the bed, flipped open the lid, and removed two gray-and-black pinstripe skirts and a smart, well-made black bombazine silk dress, which she snapped briskly to expel any dust from the journey and then carefully brushed and hung in the wardrobe. She pulled open two drawers in the dresser and laid a sheet of lining paper inside each one. She next unpacked a stack of starched white cotton blouses, her underclothes and stockings, and a black full-length apron that she wore if she had to do something extremely messy, like arrange flowers. She laid her clothes carefully in the drawers and slid them closed. She placed her felt slippers underneath the bed and slipped a flannel nightgown under the pillow. Finally, she took out her rose-pink, woolen dressing gown