In the Crypt with a Candlestick Page 2

  In any case, for all his antipathy to the book he had never read, Sir Ecgbert didn’t hesitate to exploit the connection. There was a whole section of the house dedicated to Prance, with the theme music piped in, and pictures of the future James Bond, holding his famous teddy, Dogmatix, while chatting with his co-stars between takes.

  Perhaps Lady Tode overheard a couple of the guests singing, very quietly, after the committal, because she was humming it herself on the way back to the house. People aren’t supposed to hum at their husband’s funerals, least of all the tune their husband most disliked. Her daughter, walking beside her, told her she was being ‘gross’. Lady Tode apologised and stopped at once. They trudged along in silence – snatches of the theme tune reaching them from the ranks, as the ‘people’ intermittently, inadvertently, broke into song.

  The aristocratic family in the novel was glamorous, elegant, winsome, impossibly charming – and in the TV show (where the title was abbreviated to a more manageable Prance) the house was always bathed in golden sunlight, it was full of people being witty and having picnics from hampers. And there were servants in uniforms and shiny, old-fashioned cars and—

  ‘Shame, though, isn’t it?’ said Mad Ecgbert, walking between his mother and sister. ‘We’re a lot frumpier than they were in the show.’

  ‘Nonsense, Ecgbie,’ said Lady Tode. ‘Don’t run yourself down.’

  * * *

  They reached the house eventually. Mrs Carfizzi had made some little canapés and laid them out in the Yellow Drawing Room before the service. She and her husband, Mr Carfizzi, had ridden back to the Hall on Mellors’s trailer, so they were there in time to welcome the guests – rather, Mrs Carfizzi, who was the cook, could get back to the kitchen, and Mr Carfizzi, who was the caretaker/butler, could stand at the door looking sombre, and take the coats.

  Like everything in Emma Tode’s life to date, her husband’s wake passed in a haze of small talk and pointlessness. It was held in the (aforementioned) Yellow Drawing Room, which was normally laid out for public goggling, with a red rope preventing anyone from touching objects or sitting in seats. It was very grand. There was a Stubbs and a Reynolds on one wall, and a gaping hole on the other where, normally, there hung a large Gainsborough. However, due to a complicated deal with the government involving death tax avoidance, the painting was currently hanging in one of the public rooms at 10 Downing Street, and nobody knew quite when, or if, it would ever be returned.

  Guests sipped on cheap white wine and nibbled on Mrs Carfizzi’s disgusting canapés, and felt intimidated by their surroundings. Everyone agreed it had been a lovely service and that Sir Ecgbert had lived to an impressive age. Then they went home, leaving the Carfizzis, who lived in a flat in the cellar, to clear up.

  By then it was four o’clock. Emma Tode retired to her room for a snooze, and the children retired to the Long Gallery to watch separate TV shows on their iPhones.

  And then there was dinner.

  CHAPTER 4

  Lady Tode didn’t know her children very well. After a busy life of dutiful delightfulness, she hardly knew herself. She assumed, quite rightly, that her children would be cross with the news she was due to share with them, but she hadn’t considered quite how cross, or even, with any seriousness, their reasons why. They always seemed to be a bit cross with her in any case, for their own inexplicable reasons. So in a way it wouldn’t make much difference.

  Dinner was due to be served at 8 p.m., as usual, in the Red Dining Room (Tode Hall had three dining rooms: this was the smallest), and everyone knew it was inconsiderate to the staff to be late. After a pleasant snooze and a long, hot Floris-infused bath, Lady Tode combed her hair, dabbed a few understated colours here and there on her still-handsome face, and in such an orderly manner prepared herself for the night ahead. With luck there wouldn’t be too much of a scene.

  A knock on her door. It was Mr Carfizzi. As always, he breathed in deep, inhaling the scent of her bedroom as she pulled back the door. Always the same smell. So feminine. So light and exquisite. So understated. So Lady Tode. After all these years, she was still his idea of a perfect woman: aloof, untouchable, delicious smelling. His poor, innocent wife of forty years had yet to realise, but when it came to matters touchable, Mr Carfizzi much preferred men.

  He apologised to Lady Tode for disturbing her. Mrs Camer was downstairs, he said, insisting on a meeting.

  ‘Mrs Camer? What, now? But it’s almost dinner,’ replied Lady Tode. ‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’

  ‘Unfortunately she says this isn’t possible.’

  Mr Carfizzi left his childhood home in Calabria more than fifty years ago, but he had never lost his strong Italian accent. (His Italian wife, who left Italy at about the same time, spoke English so badly it was impossible to understand a word she said. The Todes had always suspected she made herself incomprehensible on purpose but – inasmuch as they had ever bothered to wonder about it at all – nobody could work out why.)

  ‘Not possible? Is she all right?’

  ‘She is perfectly all right…’ Mr Carfizzi was ready to burst with the news.

  ‘Well – why is she still here? I thought everyone left hours ago. She wasn’t working, was she? She works too hard, poor thing… Really, on a day like this she should allow herself a little time off. Don’t you think?’

  Mrs Camer, forty-eight, divorced and often lonely, had her own office in the East Wing of the house, in the Estate Offices courtyard. She lived in an estate-owned cottage and was also provided with an estate-owned car. Her official title was ‘House and Grounds Manager, Tode Hall Estates’, although she would have preferred something that sounded more executive. Unfortunately Sir Ecgbert, who’d come up with the job title when he took her on, ten years previously, thought she was being impertinent when she suggested it, and wouldn’t entertain that idea. Mrs Camer had borne a grudge against her employers ever since. It was unfair. Lady Tode had never been anything but polite to her, and had even supported her in the argument about the job title. It didn’t make any difference. Mrs Camer had always been jealous of Lady Tode and disliked her specifically.

  ‘I think,’ said Mr Carfizzi, who could no longer contain the news, ‘she has a train she wants to catch. She’s leaving us, Lady Tode. She says she’s found a gentleman who wants to marry her, but I don’t think it’s possible, do you?’

  ‘What?’

  Mr Carfizzi shuddered. ‘Some poor man has proposed marriage to her, so she says. And now she’s going to make his life a misery by moving in with him in…’ He paused. ‘She told me where she was going but I don’t remember. She wants to say goodbye. She’s leaving us tonight.’

  Lady Tode took a moment to ponder this. ‘It’s a bit sudden,’ she said.

  Mr Carfizzi shrugged. Indeed it was.

  ‘Well… well, I suppose I had better go and say goodbye, then.’ Lady Tode sighed. ‘She might have waited a day or two, really. Never mind. We’ll have to replace her… put an advertisement in somewhere… Does The Lady still exist?’ Emma Tode followed Mr Carfizzi out of her extravagant bedroom (her bed had once been slept in by George II) leaving her Slovakian housekeeper, Kveta, to switch off lights and restore the order while she was gone. ‘Thank you, Mr Carfizzi. I’d better go and deal with her. Will you tell the children I’ll catch up with them? They should start dinner without me. I won’t be long. We don’t want to keep Mrs Carfizzi waiting.’

  In the time it took for Lady Tode to leave her bedroom, travel the long corridor and arrive in the Great Hall (two minutes of solid walking) she was feeling a teeny bit cross with Mrs Camer, because really – to do this just before dinner, following Sir Ecgbert’s funeral was beyond bad form. It was shocking.

  She didn’t invite Mrs Camer to have a drink. By the look on Mrs Camer’s face she probably wouldn’t have accepted it anyway. For a moment they stood, one in front of the other, before the roaring fire, beneath the echoing seventy-foot dome, two small women in an insanely large room, waiting for
the other to begin. Then they both began at once.

  —‘I’m ever so sorry to disturb you, Lady Tode…’ began Mrs Camer (suddenly nervous) and fell silent.

  —‘Carfizzi tells me you’re leaving us,’ began Lady Tode, in her frostiest voice. (It was of course Lady Tode who continued.) ‘I’m so sorry to hear it.’

  ‘I’m ever so sorry too,’ said Mrs Camer again. She’d been looking forward to this moment since the day she ever arrived at the job. And then she burst into tears.

  Lady Tode comforted her and sent her packing in the time it took for her children to finish the first course (toasted cheese on white sliced bread, cut into soldiers), argue about the moon landing, and ring the bell for Mrs Carfizzi to clear the plates.

  CHAPTER 5

  Cottage pie for mains. Ecgbert’s favourite.

  Her children wanted to know what had been the cause of the delay. When she told them the news, they cheered: united on this. None of them had ever taken to Mrs Camer. ‘Plus,’ said Mad Ecgbert, ‘she hated us.’

  ‘Of course she didn’t,’ said Lady Tode.

  ‘Yes she did,’ said Esmé.

  ‘How could she possibly?’ asked Lady Tode.

  ‘How could she not?’ snarled Nicola from beneath the hat. ‘Our family literally owned her – we “owned” her house, her car, the food she put on her table—’

  ‘As usual Nicola,’ Esmé answered, ‘you’re being ridiculous. We didn’t own the food she put on her table. She paid for her food out her income.’

  ‘Which we paid her.’

  ‘Well, obviously. She had this funny thing called “a job”. Perhaps I should explain how it works?’

  ‘You disgust me,’ Nicola said. ‘This family made its fortune out of slavery.’

  ‘No it didn’t, darling,’ Lady Tode corrected her. ‘Actually, we made our money out of agriculture. Which is not—’

  ‘We made our money out of the exploitation of workers. I don’t care what you call it, but I call that slavery.’

  ‘Call it whatever you like, you mad cow,’ said Mad Ecgbert. ‘Call it salsa dancing, for all I care. Only pass the ketchup.’

  She passed the ketchup, and they fell silent a while. Lady Tode cleared her throat.

  ‘It was a lovely service, I thought,’ she said.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Esmé replied. ‘If you ignore the bit where Father fell out of his coffin. A splendid service.’

  ‘And by the way Nicola, that was your fault,’ said Ecgbert. ‘It would have been perfectly OK if it hadn’t been for you forcing us to send poor Father off in a bloody fag packet. You should be ashamed of yourself. Our family will probably never live it down.’

  ‘You should be ashamed, not me. I wasn’t the one who treated my own father’s funeral like a funfair ride and tipped the poor sod out of the box.’

  Once again, Lady Tode cleared her throat. ‘But anyway…’ she said.

  ‘I agree with you, Mother!’ Ecgbert cried. ‘ “But anyway.” Good for you. For God’s sake, let’s move on. Esmé, you’re a twat. Nicola, words don’t even cover what low regard I have for you. But never mind that. I think we should toast the future. Father had a very long life… indeed… And obviously we’re all very sorry he’s gone. That being said I, for one, look forward to seeing a few changes around here. Mother – are you going to jazz things up now the old man’s out the way? I certainly hope so.’

  Again, Lady Tode cleared her throat. Third time lucky. ‘It’s a good question, Ecgbie, and I’m very happy you’ve asked it…’

  Something about her tone made the three junior Todes pause in their feasting, for just a moment. Their mother looked the same. Elegant and neat, detached and unruffled. But she sounded serious. Nervous. Until that moment, it had not much occurred to any of them that anything would actually change. Not really. Lady Tode was still young, after all: to all intents she’d been running the estate for years. Their father had only been wheeled out for ceremonies – to shake hands and open fetes, etc; but he hadn’t even learned how to switch on a computer. He’d not had the faintest comprehension of how the business ran, because his young wife oversaw everything. So why would anything change?

  Across the shimmering expanse of silver and mahogany, Mad Ecgbert gazed at his dreadful mother, and voiced the question that was on all their lips: ‘What’s up, Doc?’

  ‘Well Ecgbie…’ she began, ‘I think you may be going to be a teeny bit cross.’

  ‘With you, Ma? Never!’

  ‘I think you may. Esmé – Nicola. This concerns all of you, and I’m afraid you’re all going to be a teeny bit cross. But the thing is, darlings, I feel…’ She seemed to cast around for the right words. ‘I really do feel as if I’ve done my bit. For the Todes and Tode Hall.’

  They stared at her, still not clear what she was trying to say, or rather, in what way whatever it was she was trying to say might possibly impact on them.

  ‘You’ve done an awful lot,’ said Esmé. ‘Everyone knows it, Mother. You’ve been an absolute brick. If it weren’t for your amazing efforts, this house would been have sold off to an oligarch years ago.’

  ‘I don’t think even an oligarch would have been willing to take on a place as large as this,’ sighed Lady Tode.

  ‘Well. Or even worse,’ Esmé shuddered. ‘We would have handed it over to the National Trust.’

  ‘Yuk!’ said Mad Ecgbert. ‘Nicola, are you actually planning to hog those peas for the rest of your life? What is wrong with you?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. Why didn’t you just ask me to pass them?’

  Lady Tode didn’t often raise her voice but on this occasion she needed to be heard. ‘The fact is,’ she said – almost, very nearly shouted, ‘Ecgbert, Nicola, Esmé – I don’t want to continue running things here any longer. Not without your father. I have been so fortunate. To be surrounded by so much beauty for so long. But really – that’s enough now. I’m rather tired. It’s time I passed all this on to the next generation… Of course I’m ready to stay on for another few months or so – even a year, if I must – to help with the transition. But after that, I have decided… Children, as you know I love my little house in Capri so very much, and I’ve never spent as much time there as I would like. My plan is, next week, to move out of the Hall and into the Gardener’s House. So I’ll still be around for a while, and I will still have a base here. But I’ll be spending a lot more time in Capri.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Esmé. ‘That’s ridiculous.’ There was panic in his voice. ‘Ecgbert can’t possibly run this place without you, Mummy. You know that.’

  ‘Yes I bloody well can!’ Ecgbert snapped back. But there was, beneath the outrage, a hint of panic in his voice, too.

  ‘And Nicola can’t do it. She’d turn it into some sort of twinkie WOOF hold out. Or she’d hand it over to a radical Islam lesbian fucking support group to grow organic tofu, given half a chance. Mother, I don’t actually think you’ve thought this through. And by the way I can’t do it. In case you’re thinking I can. I’m not bloody well doing it. Jesus Christ…’

  Esmé was growing increasingly agitated. He knew what was coming – from the look on his mother’s face, he knew what she was about to ask. And it was out of the question. Even thinking about it made him want to cry – everything about England made Esmé want to cry: this family, this house, this mother sitting there, waiting calmly to ask the unaskable, that father, falling out his cardboard coffin, the shelf that awaited him in the mausoleum… Esmé imagined returning to Australia and breaking the news to his wife, Chelsea: she would laugh in his face! She would tell him to shove his ancestral duties up his fat English arse (because that was how she spoke, unlike Lady Tode: it was one of the reasons he loved her). She’d take Piper and Kyle with her, because they wouldn’t come back with him. His children hated it here. And for the rest of his lonely life he’d be stuck in the middle of Yorkshire with no wife and no children, in a house the size of a fucking town, talking to pe
ople like Mrs Camer about the cost of Keep off the Grass signs.

  He was hyperventilating.

  ‘Sit down, darling,’ said Lady Tode. ‘Breathe deeply.’

  ‘I’m not doing it, Mother. Don’t ask me.’

  ‘Cool your boots, Es,’ said Ecgbert, whacking him, not unkindly, on the back. ‘No one’s asking you. Mother, if you need me to step up, you only have to say. I’d be delighted!’ But nobody paid any attention.

  Lady Tode took a moment. She considered her children, staring at her angrily across the shiny silverware. For fifty-four years, she had dedicated herself to the glory of their inheritance… (This is what ran through her mind.)… And now it was their turn. Ecgbert couldn’t do it, obviously. But Esmé could. And if he refused to do it, she would have to find somebody else.

  ‘Esmé,’ she said. It sounded very sombre. ‘You disappoint me.’

  ‘What? Why? Why me? There are three children in this family. I’m the only one who’s actually made a success of my life. Why would you ask me to wreck it all now? Ask one of these two jokers. For God’s sake, they have nothing to lose. I have a wife, kids, a successful business—’

  ‘This house,’ she said, ‘has been in your family for over three hundred years. Can you imagine how hard each generation has had to fight to keep it that way?’

  ‘I didn’t see Father fighting that hard,’ said Nicola. ‘Everything fell into his lap.’

  ‘You didn’t see,’ said Lady Tode, ‘because you chose not to look. He dedicated his life to keeping this house in the family. Now it’s your turn. And yes, Esmé – you’re right. I think you would do a brilliant job if—’