Very sad it was. She was eating seed cake one day, you know, and one of the seeds got the wrong way. Something like that and she choked and she choked and she choked and she died of it. Oh dear, that’s very sad, isn’t it?’ said Mrs Barber. ‘Very sad indeed. One of my cousins died choking,’ she said. ‘A piece of mutton. It’s very easy to do, I believe, and there are people who die of hiccups because they can’t stop, you know. They don’t know the old rhyme,’ she explained. ‘Hic-up, hic-down, hic to the next town, three hics and one cup sure to cure the hiccups. You have to hold your breath while you say it.’
‘Can I speak to you a moment, ma’am?’
‘Oh dear,’ said Tuppence. ‘Not more problems?’
She was descending the stairs from the book-room, brushing dust off herself because she was dressed in her best coat and skirt, to which she was thinking of adding a feather hat and then proceeding out to a tea she had been asked to attend by a new friend she had met at the White Elephant Sale. It was no moment, she felt, to listen to the further difficulties of Beatrice.
‘Well, no, no, it’s not exactly a problem. It’s just something I thought you might like to know about.’
‘Oh,’ said Tuppence, still feeling that this might be another problem in disguise. She came down carefully. ‘I’m in rather a hurry because I have to go out to tea.’
‘Well, it’s just about someone as you asked about, it seems. Name of Mary Jordan, that was right? Only they thought perhaps it was Mary Johnson. You know, there was a Belinda Johnson as worked at the post office, but a good long time ago.’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘and there was a policeman called Johnson, too, so someone told me.’
‘Yes, well, anyway, this friend of mine—Gwenda, her name is—you know the shop, the post office is one side and envelopes and dirty cards and things the other side, and some china things too, before Christmas, you see, and—’
‘I know,’ said Tuppence, ‘it’s called Mrs Garrison’s or something like that.’
‘Yes, but it isn’t really Garrison nowadays as keep it. Quite a different name. But anyway, this friend of mine, Gwenda, she thought you might be interested to know because she says as she had heard of a Mary Jordan what lived here a long time ago. A very long time ago. Lived here, in this house I mean.’
‘Oh, lived in The Laurels?’
‘Well, it wasn’t called that then. And she’d heard something about her, she said. And so she thought you might be interested. There was some rather sad story about her, she had an accident or something. Anyway she died.’
‘You mean that she was living in this house when she died? Was she one of the family?’
‘No. I think the family was called Parker, a name of that kind. A lot of Parkers there were, Parkers or Parkinsons—something like that. I think she was just staying here. I believe Mrs Griffin knows about it. Do you know Mrs Griffin?’
‘Oh, very slightly,’ said Tuppence. ‘Matter of fact, that’s where I’m going to tea this afternoon. I talked to her the other day at the Sale. I hadn’t met her before.’
‘She’s a very old lady. She’s older than she looks, but I think she’s got a very good memory. I believe one of the Parkinson boys was her godson.’
‘What was his Christian name?’
‘Oh, it was Alec, I think. Some name like that. Alec or Alex.’
‘What happened to him? Did he grow up—go away—become a soldier or sailor or something like that?’
‘Oh no. He died. Oh yes, I think he’s buried right here. It’s one of those things, I think, as people usedn’t to know much about. It’s one of those things with a name like a Christian name.’
‘You mean somebody’s disease?’
‘Hodgkin’s Disease, or something. No, it was a Christian name of some kind. I don’t know, but they say as your blood grows the wrong colour or something. Nowadays I believe they take blood away from you and give you some good blood again, or something like that. But even then you usually die, they say. Mrs Billings—the cake shop, you know—she had a little girl died of that and she was only seven. They say it takes them very young.’
‘Leukaemia?’
‘Oh now, fancy you knowing. Yes, it was that name, I’m sure. But they say now as one day there’ll maybe be a cure for it, you know. Just like nowadays they give you inoculations and things to cure you from typhoid, or whatever it is.’
‘Well,’ said Tuppence, ‘that’s very interesting. Poor little boy.’
‘Oh, he wasn’t very young. He was at school somewhere, I think. Must have been about thirteen or fourteen.’
‘Well,’ said Tuppence, ‘it’s all very sad.’ She paused, then said, ‘Oh dear, I’m very late now. I must hurry off.’
‘I dare say Mrs Griffin could tell you a few things. I don’t mean things as she’d remember herself, but she was brought up here as a child and she heard a lot of things, and she tells people a lot sometimes about the families that were here before. Some of the things are real scandalous, too. You know, goings-on and all that. That was, of course, in what they call Edwardian times or Victorian times. I don’t know which. You know. I should think it was Victorian because she was still alive, the old Queen. So that’s Victorian, really. They talk about it as Edwardian and something called “the Marlborough House set”. Sort of high society, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘yes. High society.’
‘And goings-on,’ said Beatrice, with some fervour.
‘A good many goings-on,’ said Tuppence.
‘Young girls doing what they shouldn’t do,’ said Beatrice, loath to part with her mistress just when something interesting might be said.
‘No,’ said Tuppence, ‘I believe the girls led very—well, pure and austere lives and they married young, though often into the peerage.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Beatrice, ‘how nice for them. Lots of fine clothes, I suppose, race meetings and going to dances and ballrooms.’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘lots of ballrooms.’
‘Well, I knew someone once, and her grandmother had been a housemaid in one of those smart houses, you know, as they all came to, and the Prince of Wales—the Prince of Wales as was then, you know, he was Edward VII afterwards, that one, the early one—well he was there and he was ever so nice. Ever so nice to all the servants and everything else. And when she left she took away the cake of soap that he’d used for his hands, and she kept it always. She used to show it to some of us children once.’
‘Very thrilling for you,’ said Tuppence. ‘It must have been very exciting times. Perhaps he stayed here in The Laurels.’
‘No, I don’t think as I ever heard that, and I would have heard it. No, it was only Parkinsons here. No countesses and marchionesses and lords and ladies. The Parkinsons, I think, were mostly in trade. Very rich, you know, and all that, but still there’s nothing exciting in trade, is there?’
‘It depends,’ said Tuppence. She added, ‘I think I ought—’
‘Yes, you’d best be going along, ma’am.’
‘Yes. Well, thank you very much, I don’t think I’d better put on a hat. I’ve got my hair awfully mussed now.’