Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

Perhaps it was too ambitious to start planning the house extension. Perhaps he should limit himself to something less grand but just as necessary. Mr. Winspeare would want a gatehouse, wouldn’t he? A man with a huge estate like that would need a gatehouse. Nothing grand: just a neat cottage for the gatekeeper with a pair of elegant pillars to support — yes — wrought-iron gates. He was sure he’d seen pictures of just the thing in the books of architectural designs he’d picked up cheap at the auction over Marsh Burton way. When the family over there was selling up their old library to pay death duties, that was it.

But he mustn’t reach the books down now. The grandfather clock in the parlour was inexorably striking eleven, and that was his bedtime. None of this turning day and night on their head for him. In London, they might dance the night away and go to bed at dawn. But he knew that there was a time for rising and a time for sleeping, and if he was to be up and about by six, like his father before him, there was no getting fanciful ideas to set his head racing now.

None of his ideas were fanciful. George kept a grip on his imagination and saw to that. They were honest, decent plans, costed out brick by brick, beam by beam. He’d be able to tell Mr. Winspeare to the nearest florin how much his outlay would be — materials and men alike. So many days for skilled men here; so many hours for labourers there. It took him a matter of weeks — but then, he had time to spare. No one in the village had any money to spend on any but the most essential maintenance. Mrs. Fellows’s roof had succumbed yet again; the vicarage chimney would blow down if he didn’t tackle it now. But that was work he could do on his own, mostly. It didn’t put food into other mouths. With quiet determination he rolled up the wide sheets of paper and tied them neatly. Any day now he’d present them to Mr. Winspeare. As soon as he came back to the village.

In due course, Mr. Winspeare came, sleek and polished like his car. But he didn’t come alone. And he didn’t come quietly. He swept in, he and his friends, in a veritable procession. If the lads didn’t doff their caps or the girls drop their curtseys, it was because they didn’t have time, and in any case were too busy choking on the swirling dust and acrid exhaust fumes. Mr. Winspeare believed in big cars and he believed in driving them fast. George found one of Mrs. Fellows’s chickens fluttering round in a demented circle, a wing drooping and a leg clearly broken. As gently but as firmly as he could, he twisted its neck. There. He knew Mrs. Fellows wouldn’t want to eat it; it had been a family friend too long. But in these lean times, she’d have to swallow sentiment with her dinner.

Mr. Cobbold was red to the ears with shame and embarrassment, but he stood his ground on the steps of the Big House and repeated what he’d said. That was what butlers did, no matter how old and wise they were, or how young and foolish their masters: They carried out orders. “I’m sorry, George, but that’s what the new master says. He’s too busy. He’s seeing to his guests, George, that’s what.”

“But I’ve got to see him. He told me to come today — why, you brought the message yourself, Reg Cobbold.”

The old man shook his head sadly. “I know I did. But now he’s busy.”

“What about his land agent? His man of business?”

“A London man, George, who comes down as and when. Not one of us. Mr. Winspeare says you can leave your card and he’ll pass it on.”

“Card! What’s a man like me doing with a card?” George mimed a spit.

“It’s all he would say, George. And if you ask me, you want to get on to it quick.”

“Why don’t you give me the card of this man of his — and I’ll go straight up and talk to him.”

Reg Cobbold shook his head. “You should know better than to ask, George, and that’s a fact. Off you go, now — unless you’ve a mind to call round to the servants’ hall and take tea with Mrs. Pearce?”

George gave him an old-fashioned look. He’d always been sweet on Jemima Pearce, back in the old days when she was Jemima Ford, and now she was a widow he admitted that he might still be. But if he expected to find her usual serene self, face becomingly flushed by the heat from the range, he was mistaken. Her hair — now more silver than gold — was flying from its ugly cap, and if she’d been anyone else he’d have thought her near to hysterics. And who could blame her, surrounded as she was by stacks of hampers as high as his shoulder, attended by three drooping young serving men.

“I thought I was the one who needed a cup of tea,” George said quietly. “Seems to me it’s you. Why don’t I make it and you take a tray through to your sitting room?”

“But George—”

“You do as I say, woman,” he said gently. “I’ve boiled a kettle just the odd once or twice.” And cooked all his own meals. He wouldn’t say that he’d pined for Jemima — but he would admit he’d never seen anyone as comely or with such ways with a raised pie.