Dinner

Hello, and welcome to my 2025 Blogging From A To Z April Challenge! This year, I’ve written you a complete murder mystery novelette. The setting is rural England, a few years after WWI. The extra challenge that I set myself for this story is that the first murder will not take place until the letter “M”–halfway through! And the second murder will happen at “S.” There may be murders after “S,” of course, but they are less structural or foundational or something.

And now, without further ado…

Dinner

The long table was impressive but the room was gloomily lit. The portraits lining the walls seemed to loom up out of the darkness and peer over the shoulders of the people at the table. The portraits, Penny considered, looked hungry. So was she. So far, they’d had cocktails (that had been in a different gloomy room). Then a stammering young man had blushingly seized her arm, led her into this room, and put her in this seat. Then they’d had soup. That was it, so far. It wasn’t enough. Penny’s head swam gently from the cocktail. Desperate for something to put in her mouth, she took a sip of her wine. A mistake. A headache began to blossom between her eyes. But she’d better talk soon, or she’d end up staying quiet for the whole meal, which would be boring. She turned to the stammering young man.

“Who are you?” she asked, smiling.

“Stephen Grimsby. I’m your cousin. Your first cousin,” he said, with odd emphasis. And then he dried up. Silence. “I…live here,” he said eventually.

“Do you like it?” she asked, too loudly.

“It’s all right. Lots to do.”

“Like what?”

But this, it seemed, was a stumper. “Oh…you know,” he said.

“I don’t know,” said Penny. “I have no idea what the—what’s it called?—landed gentry get up to. How would I know?” She realized she was sounding annoyed and took a breath. “What did you do yesterday, for instance?”

“Oh, yesterday! That was jolly busy. We fretted about your visit. I mean—”

The young man to Penny’s left took over. “My brother means to say, of course, that we prepared for your visit. I am Nigel Grimsby—also your first cousin.” Though he spoke with automatic politeness, Penny felt a spark of malice somewhere behind the words.

“Nice to meet you, Nigel. Didn’t the servants do most of the preparations? I thought—”

“We prepared emotionally,” said Nigel, with undisturbed gravity. “Great joy, you know, is so taxing when one encounters it unprepared.”

“Yes. You all seem tickled pink to see us,” said Penny.

“Tickled pink expresses it exactly,” Nigel said, in a tone that made Penny bristle.

 “If no-one wanted us here,” she said, “it would have been easy to make up some excuse. You know—house burned down, bubonic plague, violent insanity—we’re pretty good at taking hints.”

Nigel’s smile grew into an unbeautiful smirk. “Did I say we didn’t want you here?” he asked, his voice suddenly just enough louder to cause a localized lull in conversation.

“I told you we’re pretty good at taking hints,” said Penny.

Jack, on the other side of the table, looked ready to explode with offended paternal feeling. But then the craggy man seated across from Nigel spoke. “Nigel,” he said, looking at Penny with friendly eyes, “is very rude. I’ve always thought it was because he doesn’t believe in anything. Makes him nasty, but in a rather unfocused way. Nihilism, now. You’d make a lovely Nihilist. Really—as your doctor—I recommend it. It would improve your nervous system no end.”

To Penny’s surprise, Nigel took this well. It seemed, if anything, to please him. “I’m afraid Nihilism wouldn’t do,” he said. “You see, it strikes me as rather silly. If you have any other suggestions, however, I’m quite prepared to entertain them.”

“I, of course, think that everyone would be better off Catholic,” said a thin and lanky priest, smiling apologetically. “That’s the problem, of course, with believing that something is true, and with thinking—or at least worrying—that anyone who doesn’t believe as I do is—or may be—going to Hell. It does give one a sense of urgency, you know, about conversions and things. I just mention it. Of course, there are awkwardnesses about my position—”

“I should say so, Frederic! At the dinner table! In a C of E household!” bellowed the woman who sat between the priest and the doctor, whom Penny believed (correctly, as it happens) to be the priest’s sister. “We’ll never be asked again!”

“Yes, Constance, I know. But it wasn’t quite that kind of awkwardness I meant.” And the priest looked deadly earnest. “It’s this nagging doubt I have. What if the only ones who are damned for not being Catholic are the failed conversions? You know, people who have received the light and turned away from it? If that is the case, all my earnest failures have resulted in more damned souls than would have existed had I not acted.”

Nigel grinned savagely. “Doctor—I think I’ve found my calling! I think I’ll—join the clergy! I’d make a terrible priest, of course. But I’d be sustained in my efforts by the thought of all of those souls I was hurling into Hell.” And he chuckled horribly.

For a moment, a shocked silence descended upon the dinner guests. But then Lottie, from her position at the head of the table, said, “I must say—it is awfully nice having the whole family together like this. Except of course for Emily. She doesn’t appear to be here.”

This remark, Penny was interested to note, seemed to puzzle most of the people at the table. And next to her father, an elderly lady (whom Penny understood to be her Aunt Gertrude) turned to Lottie with an expression almost like fear on her face.

“My dear,” said Gertrude, reaching across Jack to take her sister’s hand, “do try to remember—Emily isn’t real.”

Lottie looked vaguely at Gertrude, her eyes questioning and troubled. Then she nodded. “Of course, Gertie—I’m sure you must be right. My memory—I know it’s bad, people keep telling me it’s bad, and indeed I am aware of it myself—and I know you’re awfully sharp and clever—but still—it would be nice if Emily could join us sometimes. Or—no, that couldn’t be right—if she’s not real—why, then—of course—she can’t. So that’s why she doesn’t come. People who don’t exist can’t.” And she smiled a beautiful smile at Gertrude. “I’m so grateful to you, my dear–or is it you who is grateful to me?”

Sir Franklyn rose from the table. “My wife,” he said, with great gentleness, “is overtired. The excitement of your visit—” and he smiled at Jack “—I think you know we’re pleased to see you—but…” and he waved an apologetic hand.

“Oh, sure,” said Jack. He turned to Lottie and patted her hand. “Goodnight, old girl. It’s been swell, seeing you again. We’ll have another nice chat tomorrow.”

Lottie smiled brightly at him as she allowed Frank to help her out of her chair. “Jack,” she said. “You look so funny in those whiskers. Is it for charades?” And then she looked down at his hand on hers. “Oh—that’s right—we’re old now.” The idea didn’t seem to upset her—rather, it seemed to please her, as if she had solved a puzzle that had been vexing her. “And Emily—”

“Bedtime, me duck,” said a very old woman who had materialized from nowhere on Lottie’s other side.

“Why, it’s Hettie!” cried Jack. “I thought you’d be—ah—”

“Dead by now, Mr. Jack?” said Hettie, and cackled.

Frank shot a warm look at the ancient crone. “Hettie’s a treasure,” he said. And, terribly slowly, the old man and the older woman led Lottie out of the room.

And then they had the fish course.