Read The Importance of Being Ernestine for Free Online Page B

Krumley reached out a hand for the half-empty packet of cigarettes on the desk. “I haven’t touched the things in months. Doctor’s orders.” She lit up. “But what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
    I wanted to say that it wasn’t her doctor we needed to worry about. But who was I, after my recent stint with tobacco, to tell a seventy-plus titled woman she would be better off sucking her thumb? Cowardly of me. But I couldn’t see into the future to know how bitterly I would regret not snatching that cigarette out of her mouth.
    â€œDespite being amused by Flossie’s cheek, as Mrs. Snow called it, Sir Horace told her that she would have to do as she was told about the name business, or find other employment.” Her ladyship dangled her cigarette above the ashtray. “For several months she must have performed her duties adequately enough for I heard no more about her, until one morning Mrs. Snow reported to me that the girl was pregnant by the under gardener. And not evincing an ounce of shame! The young man was willing to make an honest woman of her, but seemingly Flossie wasn’t sure that she wished to be married.”
    â€œHanging out for a decent engagement ring, is my guess.” Mrs. Malloy nodded her blonde head. “One with a proper diamond, not the sort you can’t see even with a magnifying glass. Or perhaps the girl preferred emeralds. Taken a fancy to your brooch, had she? Is that why you thought she stole it?”
    Her ladyship stubbed out her cigarette and lit up another. “On the day the brooch disappeared Mrs. Snow informed me that she had seen the girl sneaking out of my bedroom, a place where a parlor maid had no business being. I had already, with the assistance of my personal maid, searched not only my bedroom and bathroom but also Sir Horace’s adjoining suite, all to no avail.”
    â€œBecause the brooch had dropped off the dressing table and was lodged between the skirting board and the wall?” I looked up from the scrawls I had been making on the notepad. “Meaning it wasn’t found in Flossie’s possession. Did you act entirely upon Mrs. Snow’s information?”
    â€œWell, you have to admit that made things look bad for the girl,” tut-tutted Mrs. M., who would have taken the utmost offense if barred from any room at Merlin’s Court and indeed would have taken up permanent residence in my wardrobe if she felt like it.
    Her ladyship stared bleakly through a cloud of smoke. “Flossie didn’t act the innocent when I sent for her. Her self-satisfied smirk was most annoying. She was pretty in a pert, snub-nosed sort of way. When I told her that the brooch was missing and that Mrs. Snow had seen her exiting my bedroom she tossed her head and was insolent, to put it mildly.”
    â€œWhat did she say, your ladyship ducks?” Mrs. Malloy leaned so far forward on her folding metal chair that she almost toppled into the wastepaper basket.
    â€œTo repeat her precise words: I was a spiteful old cow. Jealous that she was going to have a baby when I never would, because I was too old, along with being as plain as a flannel nightgown. She said the brooch was just a trumped-up excuse for my getting rid of her. If she had wanted it she would have taken it, but she hadn’t. And Mrs. Snow was a snake in the grass.”
    â€œHardly surprising that you sacked her.” I didn’t add that I thought Flossie might be right about Mrs. Snow.
    â€œI told Flossie the room she shared with the kitchen maid was being searched as we spoke, but that didn’t seem to bother her in the least. Indeed, she grinned more broadly than ever”—Lady Krumley was now onto her third cigarette—“making me sure she had hidden it elsewhere. So I wasn’t surprised when it did not turn up. There was no doubt in my mind as to her guilt. Only anger when she said she would go to Sir Horace