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  ROYAL PURPLE

  Susan Barrie

  Paul Avery was only a waiter—yet he owned a delightful country cottage, and indulged in the most expensive tastes.

  Lucy was intrigued by him; her employer, a member of an exiled royal family, frowned on him. Which of them was right?

  CHAPTER I

  AUGUSTINE was in the kitchen, peering gloomily into the larder, when Lucy went in to see about the dogs’ midday meal.

  “Scraps for the dogs?” she echoed, tightening her lips and sounding very grim. “It would be good if there were scraps for us, mademoiselle, and never mind about dogs! You can tell Her Excellency that the butcher refuses to deliver any more meat until his last bill is paid, and the milkman also is very nasty. I do not care to have to deal with these tradesmen and be expected to provide for a lot of dogs at the same time!”

  Lucy sat down on the edge of the scrubbed kitchen table and did her best to soothe her. It was quite plain that she had had a bad morning, for there were lines in her wrinkled brown forehead like wavy tramlines, and she had general air of being flushed and heated after a recent exchange of invective with the milkman.

  Lucy asked to see the butcher’s bill, and was shocked by the amount charged for a simple thing like a leg of lamb and a couple of ox kidneys.

  “But this is enormous,” she protested. “Surely we don’t eat that amount of meat in a month...? Fifteen pounds six shillings and fourpence! It’s colossal! And as a matter of fact we haven’t got it,” she added, with the flatness that supervenes when an unpleasant side issue is recollected suddenly.

  Augustine tightened her lips until they disappeared into her head and reached for the flour bin ... one of her substantial puddings as a supplement to the lunch menu being the only practical move she could make at the moment.

  Lucy groaned feebly.

  “Oh, not treacle again, Augustine!”

  This time Augustine tossed her head.

  “Treacle is wholesome—we used to mix it into a purgative when I was young—and at least I was wise enough to buy a fourteen-pound tin of it while I had the chance. And it is no use criticising me because the butcher’s bill is large. The best gravy-beef only is for the dogs, and Her Highness insists that they are stuffed to capacity. They are gross, those dogs, and it is small wonder that they snap at the ankles...” She banged the floury duff on to the board in front of her. “The milkman protested only this morning, and that was one reason why his temper was so high. It is lucky for us he didn’t fetch a policeman!”

  “Oh dear,” Lucy said, appalled. “Was it Mitzi again?”

  “It was.”

  “She doesn’t like ankles ... not the ankles of the proletariat, anyway.”

  “Her Highness must realise that the old days are past,” Augustine declared violently, kneading the duff. Then she permitted herself a disdainful sniff. “In the old days a vulgar creature like a tradesman would have been ordered never to darken the door again if he complained of a bite from one of the dogs. We kept no fewer than twenty-six, mostly ill- tempered hounds ... And in the old days the butcher was lucky if he was not required to wait for as long as a year for his money.” She sat down heavily in a chair, and suddenly a tear trickled down her withered cheek—a tear conjured up out of pure nostalgia. “And in the old days there were always several sides of venison hanging up in the larder, to say nothing of dozens of chickens already plucked for the oven, and an array of sucking-pigs like newly-born infants waiting to be cooked at any hour of the day or night. Cooked in wine...”

  Her voice cracked with wistfulness, and a second tear joined the first in the mixing-bowl.

  “The very best claret, that glowed like blood against the light when you held it up in a goblet so fine it could shiver at a touch.”

  “Then, unless your domestic helpers were a little less clumsy than they are nowadays, you must have had an awful lot of smashed glass,” Lucy observed, her sense of humour coming to her rescue.

  Augustine’s eyes flashed angrily as she recollected the daily woman who did the various tasks her rheumaticky limbs would not permit her to undertake nowadays, like scrubbing the kitchen floor, once or twice a week, and she made a sound of utter contempt between her teeth.

  “Domestic helpers! Is that what you call them? Ah, bah, if I had a stick I would flay them all alive!”

  “You’d better let me have the latest batch of bills,” Lucy suggested, realising that something would have to be done about the housekeeping problem. But she couldn’t think what. “Her Highness is already overdrawn at the bank, and her allowance isn’t due for another month, so I don’t know how we’re going to settle them.”

  “Tell her to sell some of her jewellery,” Augustine snapped. “What use are diamond bracelets and earrings when we starve? And the next thing will be the arrival of the landlord himself upon the doorstep to collect his rent!”

  But Lucy couldn’t see that happening, for Her Excellency’s solicitors despatched a regular quarterly rent cheque for the ugly maisonette in one of London’s tallest houses; and in any case the landlord was a dapper gentleman who owned vast blocks of flats and other property, and would certainly not demean himself by stepping from his Rolls-Royce outside their door to collect the rent.

  But she had every sympathy with Augustine and her dislike of constant hostilities at the basement entrances, and with many of the sentiments she expressed, and she told her to cheer up and substitute currants for the noisome black treacle that came out of the fourteen-pound tin when she put the pudding on to boil, and then climbed the narrow stairs to Her Highness’s bedroom with a sheaf of bills in her hand.

  ‘Her Highness’ was a title that was nowadays purely complimentary, for the daughter of a reigning monarch of a European principality—defunct since 1906—had married a commoner, and although he had been granted a title, and she called herself the Countess von Ardrath, the little money they possessed had dwindled so rapidly that even twenty years before people looked when she insisted on being referred to as ‘Excellency’, or the even more unbelievable ‘Highness’.

  But to Lucy she was what she insisted she was, and the incongruity of an unfashionable corner of London in which to live, faded trappings and an occasional summons for failing to oblige with a necessary payment meant nothing at all. She knocked on the Countess’s door, received permission to enter, and found her employer lying comfortably propped up against pillows in an enormous bed that was more like a catafalque. She was still supporting a breakfast tray on her knees, and the first thing she did was complain because the China tea was too weak.

  “Why doesn’t Augustine get in a proper supply?” she demanded. “She knows I like my tea strong, and if she is short then she should go to the nearest shop and buy some more.”

  “And what would she use for money, madame?” Lucy enquired gently.

  The old lady appeared surprised for a moment, and then made a slightly pettish gesture with her thin shoulders swathed in a number of shawls.

  “Money? What a horrid subject that is for such an early hour of the day.” She smiled at Lucy, a sweet, beguiling smile, but there was also a touch of appeal in it, and something so evasive that Lucy’s heart sank, for when the Countess was deliberately evasive it was not easy to pin her down to anything. “Put another lump of coal on the fire, Lucy love, and give it a good poke so that I can see a blaze.”

  The room was already so warm that Lucy wanted to rush to the window and draw back the curtains—which at that hour were still rigidly closed—and throw it wide, so that a little of the exhilarating spring sunshine and freshness outside could find their way into the room and break up the overpowering odour of fustiness compounded of various liniments, soot from an unswept chimney, and the dust collected by rotting tape
stries throughout several generations. But she knew that it was more than she dared do (and her unpaid position was worth) to submit the Countess to the dangers of a sudden draught when she was unprepared for it, and would hate it in any case.

  So she made up the fire and put the coal scuttle aside for refilling (she would do it herself when she went downstairs, to save Augustine’s legs), and then went and sat on the edge of the bed and waved her sheaf of bills under the Countess’s nose.

  The Countess continued to smile—and she was one of the most amiable-looking old women Lucy had ever seen—although she also blinked her eyes a trifle.

  “What are those, Lucy mia?” Her endearments covered most of those in use on the Continent, as well as England, and occasionally even Ireland. “Not the newspapers, I can see! And from your expression they are not as pleasant as newspapers, which have the most delightfully horrid headlines sometimes.”

  Lucy explained that they were demands from various tradesmen for settlement of their accounts, and her employer asked for her spectacles so that she could examine each one carefully. She did so as if they were pieces of transcript which demanded the maximum of attention and intrigued her quite considerably, and then she made the remark that Augustine was a bad housekeeper, and it was all the fault of her having been trained to be a lady’s maid, and not for the more useful task of running a household.

  “She can mend lace better than any woman of her class I ever met,” she observed. “And years ago she used to dress my hair to my complete satisfaction. But nowadays I haven’t any hair”—her wig of slightly hideous red curls was definitely askew as she rested against her pillows—“and what I require is someone to perform miracles in the kitchen, and practise a really careful economy, and not an old dunderhead like Augustine, who hasn’t the wit to cope with tradespeople and see that their backs are merely arched a little, and not put up so badly that they demand their money.”

  But at that Lucy felt forced to protest, and take up the cudgels quite vigorously on behalf of Augustine. She insisted that the poor old servant was badly overworked in any case, and that she was crippled with rheumatism. She adopted the attitude that Augustine had worked miracles for several years, and only a very faithful retainer would pinch and scrape as she did, making a little go a long way. No other housekeeper would take on the job of looking after the Countess and providing for her wants with such a little money—and no wages whatsoever—and feed three dogs as she did, day after day, week after week, year after year. For nothing but love of the Countess!

  The dogs—Mitzi, Carl and Heinrich—who were all three on the bed, concealed by various portions of the coverlet, acknowledged the mention of them with rather a vigorous motion of the bed which shook the tassels on the faded curtains, and three long sleek tails beat time like metronomes.

  The Countess lay back and regarded Lucy with interest. She decided that her companion was very pretty and that a flush of indignation suited her, but she would be much prettier if her hair was shorn into some sort of recognised shape, and she had a dress to wear that was a more attractive colour than the one she had on at the moment.

  What was it? A sort of slate-grey, with a collar and cuffs that had once been white but were yellowed now as a result of much hasty washing and ironing. And in any case, it looked more like a uniform than a dress, and a girl with fair hair like a cloud of silk and an English apple-blossom complexion ought not to be encased in a uniform. Particularly one that was too tight under the arms, and dipped in the middle of the back where the hemline was dropping.

  “Tell me, my dear,” the Countess enquired sweetly. “What sort of salary do I pay you, and when did you receive your last—er—instalment?”

  Lucy flushed still more brilliantly, for she was not at that moment concerned about her own salary, and the last thing she wished to do just then was grind an axe on her own behalf. Nevertheless, she had been brought up to be truthful, and the Countess’s eyes were very bright and very compelling as she watched her. Lucy’s grey eyes looked abashed.

  “As a matter of fact, since you engaged me to work for you six months ago, you haven’t paid me anything that could be called salary, your Excellency,” she admitted. “You—you occasionally give me small sums of money when I go shopping for you.”

  “But, so far, not a penny for yourself?”

  “No ... not—not so far.”

  The Countess clicked her tongue between her teeth. She stretched forth an imperious hand, burdened with some very dirty-looking rings.

  “Give me my jewelbox,” she commanded. “Take the key and unlock my wardrobe and get it down off the top shelf. We shall have to see if we can’t part with one or two of the smaller pieces.”

  “But, madame,” Lucy objected feebly. “Aren’t you keeping the contents of your jewelbox intact to help swell the fund that will one day be used to restore the monarchy of Seronia?”

  “Tsck, tsck!” the Countess exclaimed. “At the moment we are dealing with practical matters!”

  CHAPTER II

  THE jewelbox was brought, and Lucy returned to her seat on the bed and watched as the Countess unlocked it. The usual shivers of pleasurable excitement crept up and down her spine as she did so, for this was by way of being a familiar experience, and a method of enjoying herself the Countess was pleased to share with her. She spread the jewels all over the bed and ran her fingers through them, playing with them as if they were toys.

  Anything more paradoxical than the sheer poverty of her daily life and the display of wealth inside the jewel case Lucy could not imagine. They represented a fortune in diamonds and pearls, rubies and emeralds, yet the old lady lived on a modest allowance that was made her by her grandson, and if the allowance ran out before another quarterly instalment was due, there was nothing to meet her needs. The bank knew nothing about the treasure that lived on a shelf high up in a commodious but moth-ridden wardrobe, and they had no security on which to advance loans. To them the Countess von Ardrath was a faded and rather tiresome relic of her times who quite failed to understand the principles of banking in a country that was not her own by birth, and was not above expecting them to honour a cheque when there was nothing to meet it.

  The local branch manager sent her tart little notes at frequent intervals, warning her of the dangers of anticipating an overdraft, and Lucy had once tried to picture his face if he was suddenly informed of the existence of the jewels. She was quite sure the peevish expression which she had never seen because she had never been admitted to his official private sanctum—when she presented a cheque on behalf of her employer it was one of the junior clerks who dealt with her—would evaporate like morning mist, and he would get straight on to the telephone and implore the Countess, with overpowering urbanity, to allow him to take charge of such a priceless hoard. And even if he was told about Seronia, and the purpose for which the hoard was being preserved intact, he would still advance the superiority of bank vaults over a wardrobe shelf and urge her to entrust them to safer custody.

  But nothing would have induced the Countess to part with her jewels, and it apparently never occurred to her that they were not being very well guarded. Or, if it did occur to her, she probably lulled any temporary feeling of anxiety by remembering that Mitzi, Carl and Heinrich always slept in her room, and any attempt made by anyone to enter the maisonette without an invitation would have resulted in a positive avalanche of barking.

  And three dachshunds once launched on their favourite occupation of giving tongue in the manner bred into them in the days when they were used to scent out badgers would have provided any burglar with second thoughts. Even Lucy, who was not really afraid of burglars, recognised that; but she was afraid that Augustine might be so indiscreet as to mention them during one of her exchanges with the butcher, or the milkman, if only to enhance the prestige of her employer in their eyes.

  The Countess lifted a heavy rope of pearls and twisted them into a cat’s cradle on her bony fingers. She said dreamily:


  “These are the pearls I wore at my wedding.”

  But Lucy, who was better informed, corrected her. “Oh, no, madame ... at the first big function you attended after your wedding! They were a present from your father. Remember?”

  The Countess nodded her head.

  “How clever of you never to be confused. It was decided that, as I so much resembled a flower, my only adornment should be flowers ... white flowers. I had a lace dress, and there were so many yards of satin in my train the attendants kept stumbling over it. Afterwards we spent six weeks in the mountains on an official honeymoon, and another three months touring Europe.” She half closed her eyes, as if she was reliving the past, and then opened them to catch sight of an emerald bracelet. “I wore this,” picking it up and holding it towards the firelight, so that it blazed like green fire, “when the Emperor Franz Josef or Austria paid us a state visit, and as my mama was ill I had to undertake the role of hostess. The Emperor complimented me on my appearance and a member of his suite kept his eyes glued on me throughout an entire performance at the opera. I was told afterwards by one of my ladies-in-waiting that he threatened to shoot himself because I wouldn’t look his way.”

  “You were—single at the time?” Lucy enquired, her cheeks very pink, her lips parted expectantly.

  “No, my dear, I was married,” the Countess admitted. “Otherwise,” she added with a twinkle, “I would almost certainly have looked!”

  “Then it was rather pointless him threatening to shoot himself, wasn’t it?” Lucy said practically. “I mean, if he couldn’t possibly have you...”

  The Countess touched her cheek.

  “When you’re in love, my dear, and when you’re young ... But then you’ve never been in love, have you? Not yet! But your time will come ... believe me, it will come!”

  Not while I spend my days keeping the peace between you and Augustine downstairs, Lucy thought ruefully. But on the whole she enjoyed keeping the peace between the Countess and Augustine, and she wanted to know the stories attaching to several other pieces of jewellery lying out of the box. But the Countess started sorting them methodically, and reminded her that today they were not examining the contents of the casket purely for pleasure, but they had to find something to sell.