“They wouldn’t need to go to hospital. Candace nursed him at home for the last two years. The two old men, Grandfather Theodore and Uncle Peregrine, were in the same nursing home outside Bournemouth but were such a trial to the nursing staff that the management said one of them would have to go. Peregrine demanded to be taken in by Candace and there he stayed to the last, looked after by a doddery local GP. I never saw him during those last two years. He refused all visitors. It could have worked.”
She said, “Not really. Tell me about the other people at the Manor, apart from your cousins. The main ones, anyway. Whom shall I meet?”
“Well, there’s the great George himself, naturally. Then there’s the queen bee of the nursing services, Sister Flavia Holland—very sexy if uniforms turn you on. I won’t worry you with the other nursing staff. Most of them come in by car from Wareham, Bournemouth or Poole. The anaesthetist was an NHS consultant who took as much as he could stomach from the Health Service and retired to an agreeable little cottage on the Purbeck coast. A part-time job at the Manor suits him very well. And then, more interestingly, there’s Helena Haverland, née Cressett. She’s called the general administrator, which covers practically everything from housekeeping to keeping an eye on the books. She came to the Manor after her divorce six years ago. The intriguing thing about Helena is her name. Her father, Sir Nicholas Cressett, sold the Manor to George after the Lloyd’s debacle. He was in a wrong syndicate and lost everything. When George advertised the job of general administrator Helena Cressett applied and got it. Anyone more sensitive than George wouldn’t have taken her on. But she knew the house intimately and, I gather, she’s made herself indispensable, which is clever of her. She disapproves of me.”
“How unreasonable of her.”
“Yes, isn’t it? But then I think she disapproves of practically everyone. There’s a certain amount of family hauteur there. After all, her family owned the Manor for nearly four hundred years. Oh, and I should mention the two cooks, Dean and Kim Bostock. George must have filched them from somewhere rather good—I’m told the food is excellent, but I’ve never been invited to taste it. Then there’s Mrs. Frensham, Helena’s old governess, who’s in charge of the office. She’s the widow of a C-of-E priest and looks the part, so it’s rather like having an uncomfortable public conscience on two legs stalking the place to remind one of one’s sins. And there’s a strange girl they’ve picked up from somewhere, Sharon Bateman, who’s a kind of runner, doing unspecified jobs in the kitchen and for Miss Cressett. She mooches around carrying trays. That’s about all as far as you’ll be concerned.”
“How do you know all this, Robin?”
“By keeping eyes and ears open when I’m drinking with the locals in the village pub, the Cressett Arms. I’m the only one who does. Not that they’re given to gossiping with strangers. Contrary to common belief, villagers don’t. But I pick up a few unconsidered trifles. The Cressett family in the late seventeenth century had a fiendish row with the local parson and no longer went to church. The village sided with the parson and the feud continued down the centuries, as they often do. George Chandler-Powell has done nothing to heal it. Actually it suits him. The patients go there for privacy, and he doesn’t want a lot of chat about them in the village. A couple of village women come in as part of the house-cleaning team, but most of the staff come from further afield. And then there’s old Mog—Mr. Mogworthy. He worked as gardener-handyman for the Cressetts and George has kept him on. He’s a mine of information if you know how to get it out of him.”