Immediately upon her arrival Miss Mulchop reported to Mr Wallace Emerson. Holiday help doesn't come cheaply after all & she was certain (as well as aware of his reputation as a workaholic) that he would want her to get right to work.
Emerson, already in tails but once more seated in the library, looked at her bleakly.
"Ideally, I would like you to start work at seven tomorrow morning in here with me," he told her. He pointed to a small desk in one corner of the library. "That will be your working area."
"However," he went on. "My wife is rather perplexed by the sudden cancellation of two of our guests for the Christmas party. Put off by the weather apparently. Both females. It leaves our numbers very unbalanced. So my wife has requested ... and I have concurred ... that you should join the house party for meals and so forth ... although you will be expected to provide emergency secretarial cover as well over the period."
"So, in the light of tonight's dinner party, I imagine you will be more than a little tired. So tomorrow you may have something of a lie in and start work at nine o'clock sharp."
"Certainly. Very kind of you to invite me." Miss.Mulchop responded briskly. She was about to say that seven - even on Christmas Day - would not be a problem when she decided - a girl shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Well then if there's nothing further I'll go and dress for dinner...I am so looking forward to working with you Mr. Emerson, not to mention meeting your lovely wife."
At seven thirty sharp, the first of the guests from the train made their way down the great staircase and was shown into the morning room by Beech.
Their hosts were already there, each holding small crystal schooners of sherry.
Madame Escuskiovna seemed almost to float down the stairs, partly since the low slippers she wore made practically no noise, and partly because she moved in a veritable cloud of pale blue gauze. The dinner dress was not precisely in the latest fashion (indeed, one might be hard put to it to say what fashion it was in), and designed more to conceal than to reveal, but it lent the spiritualist a certain ethereal air. Her iron-grey hair was mostly hidden by a blue spangled turban, decorated at the frond with a plume of peacock feathers.
Brandon entered almost immediately after Madame Escuskiovna, though his appearance was far less notable. While his dinner jacket was serviceable enough, he had allowed it to get a bit more worn than was done in high society. He wandered into the room, smiling at no-one in particular. He seemed completely recovered from the trip to the Hall.
"There you are," said Anja, a faint note of bored reproach in her voice, as though the mishap with the car was all their fault. She was a perfectly lovely ice maiden tonight, in a very sheer black silk chiffon dress with an almost festive rhinestone design at neckline and torso and a smattering on the skirt, that shimmered with every movement. The sheer fabric showed her pale limbs to perfection, and one would have to look rather more closely than decorum agreed to be assured that she was indeed wearing a nude slip underneath ... On her shining dark head she wore a full head-dress, worn over the head with beaded bands and cascading over her own dark shingle almost to her shoulders, giving a glassy music every time she turned her head. It was beaded with silver and white beads in the most amazing design with large amber colored glass stones on the headband and a beaded tassel at the mid back.
"It was so kind of you to invite me, Miss Ericksson," Madame Escuskiovna greeted her hostess, extending a hand to her that jingled with narrow ring bracelets. "I hope already for great things. This house . . . it has such atmosphere. I have felt it from top to bottom!"
Drifting up behind her, Dr. Lawrence snorted softly. Looking Anja over rather clinically, he smiled a bit more sharply than usual, "It's good to see you're looking well. Have you been eating as we discussed?"
It wasn't exactly polite to jump in before Anja had even had the chance to respond to Escuskiovna, but he seemed oblivious to this.
Wallace, resplendent in white tie and tails, was rather more welcoming.
"I understand you folks have had a helluva journey. I hope my people have made you comfortable?"
"Quite comfortable, I thank you, Mr. Emerson," Anna replied, again extending her hand. "The snow . . . it is nothing. It gets much worse in Russia, I assure you."
"Would you care for a glass of sherry?"
"Thank you, Mr. Emerson, but only one . . . only one. One, I think I may risk, and not too much to drink at dinner. It would not do to court disaster, now would it?"
Brandon looked oddly at Anna for a moment, then turned his attention to Emerson.
"No, I'm afraid not. Haven't been able to drink in years, I'm afraid. They say a doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient, but I at least know enough to follow my own advice."
He smiled more broadly, then wandered off into the room.
"Mister Emerson, Mrs. Ericksson, thank you for the invitation." Major Dessard said, shaking Emerson's hand and bending to kiss Anja's. "Actually, I don't mean to be gauche, but I'd prefer something a little harder, to get the chill from my bones. I'm not used to this weather," Dessard commented jovially.
Davyd sat at the far end of the room and looked shyly around him. The sherry was quite fine, but what really held his attention was Anja. She was very beautiful in a cold sort of way. But still just another pampered civilian.
He shrugged and tried to look approachable; hoping that someone with slightly more social skills than he might come and talk to him.
At this moment Gladys, the upper parlourmaid came quietly into the room and moved to stand beside Anja. "Excuse me, Mrs Emerson, but there is a phone call for you. You can take it on the library extension."
"What?" exclaimed Anja, annoyed. "But I am entertaining guests!"
"It's Mr Philburn, ma'am. He says it's most urgent."
Without waiting another minute, or making any apologies, Anja turned and hurried from the room.
"Her agent," explained Wallace, looking rather annoyed. "She is up for a rather big part. Still he should know better than to interrupt us on Christmas Eve."
The Viscount had just put the finishing touches on Jane's gown... his skilled hands adjusting the fit and attaching the fasteners just so...
"Marvie! Simply marvie!" he exclaimed as she spun for him. His own outfit was mostly black, tailored perfectly... with an silk ascot of the same flesh colour as Jane's dress.
His hand reached out suddenly, grabbing her arm and stopping her spin. Leaning towards her, eyes wide, he whispered, "Let's go have a look around while the others are sipping their drinks!"
She bubbled with pleasant laughter, and playfully patted his cheek.
"I daresay we're already a bit ahead of them in that category, anyway..."
The duo made their way down the stairs, giggling like schoolgirls trying not to be heard. The Great Hall lay before them, mostly darkened but beckoning them forward. Tip-toeing around it they peered through the dark, trying to make out what was what, when they heard Anja's voice.
They froze, listening, and then crept closer to the source. It got louder as they neared the hallway leading past the library, and they stood just outside of it...
As they stood there, a voice rang out. "No! No!"
So loud was it that Miss Mulchop, coming down the stairs, paused for a moment.
"Phillie - that's my part I tell you! Mine!" Anja's voice was shaking with fury.
Miss Mulchop moved slowly forward ... until the door of the library came into view ... with the eavesdroppers clearly visible. She shrank back into the shadow of the stairs.
"Tallulah is my oldest frrriend, my best friend! She would never do that to me!"
A pause.
"So then Tallulah must be jealous - she knows that little trollop would never upstage her ... as I can. As I will!"
"Oh, my," whispered Jane to Clifford, suppressing a giggle. "I daresay she's heard about my little motion picture contract..."
"And Douglas ... he shall pay! They shall all pay ... all of them!"
A silence.
"You're a fool, Phillie. But you know what has to be done. I want Jane Blume crushed, ruined. I don't care how you do it ... but do it - now!"
The Viscount, eyes wide, inhaled quickly, bringing manicured hand to his ascotted chest in shock.
There was a sound of the phone being furiously slammed down ... and then the sound of an object being thrown across the room in fury.
Jane supressed a squeal of excitement, and took a quick hopping step out of the line of view of the library.
And then there was the sound of raw, gasping breaths ... and then silence.
Clifford, in a rare moment of forcing action, took Jane by the arm (lightly) and quickly led her away, down the hall towards the living room.
"Oh, Cliffie dear," said Jane with humour behind her wide pale eyes. "Wait until she sees my dress now!"
Viscount Fenwick was uncharacteristically silent for a moment, still processing what had just occurred, and what it might mean to him. Turning his magnified gaze on Jane, he smiled, "Oh my yes... My poor, poor Anja..." he replied, shaking his head with pity. "I suppose I'll be visiting you next Christmas my dear! Will your parties compete with this one?" he asked her playfully, as they neared the morning room where the others were gathered.
Ten minutes, perhaps, after Anja was called off, there was the clatter of heels and the sound of voices from beyond the doorway.
"Oh, heavens, Cliffie!" came a soprano laugh. "I do believe we are late again!"
Clifford, Viscount Fenwick entered the room decorated by the lovely Jane Blume (lately his favourite mannequin). She was attired tonight in a slim crepe evening gown, swathed around the hips, and flowing into the suggestion of a train. Its colour was such, however that it was only able to be distinguished from the colour of her own warm skin by the silken sheen of the thin material.
"And Anja isn't here," she announced, " ... how I did want to show off my dress..." Show off, indeed. The dress was completely backless: so much so, that there could be no doubt that the girl was wearing neither corset nor brassiere... the only ornament to her wake was the long, sinuous line of her flesh as it slid beneath the humble silk of the gown.
"Well, I don't suppose she can be too cross with us, then, do you?" she paused a moment - posed a moment, one might say - and then added gaily, "Why, what a perfectly lovely party! And almost everyone looks simply smashing!"
"Yes, indeed!" Clifford replied with a smile, his grotesquely magnified eyes taking in the collection of people milling about. Immediately he set out towards Emerson, one hand extending.
"Mr. Emerson! How lovely of you to have us, lah! You look ready to take on the world, yes?"
Almost unseen, Miss Mulchop slipped into the room behind them, her eyes thoughtful.
Hermione wandered quietly into the room, trying to blend into the walls as much as she could. She wondered why she had came here as she was so much out of her class and most likely to make a total fool out of herself during dinner.
She studied her host quietly from across the room while slowly sipping the glass of sherry someone had given her. Having never had a drop of liquor before she round that the taste was not very pleasing.
After two glasses she finally had the courage up to move closer to her host.
On the way, however, she found Madame Escuskiovna floating across her path.
"My dear young lady," the spiritualist addressed her. "Miss Smithson, is it not? We did not have a chance to speak at the railway station. Such a crush." She looked at Hermione intently. "I sense that your spirits are oppressed. Is it not so?"
Her voice lowered to a conspiratorial tone. "It is this house, I feel certain of it. I have felt it too! A brooding resentment, an anger . . . and you are a sensitive young woman." She cast a brief glance across the room at Jane Blume, as if to say, Not like some I could mention. "Surely it must affect you."
Two minutes later, Anja walked out of the library, pale but composed (she was, after all, an actress) and joined her guests for sherry ...
End of Chapter 2
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