* With lots of thanks to my dear editor Dawnj!
The story is rather long, and the naughty bits are only from page 7 onwards... Those who do not like that sort of thing, be forewarned! :) *
I. Skeleton in the Closet
It was a rather hazy day in mid November. It was too mild for the time of year, but most trees were leafless, and the few that were not sported their full autumn colours. It was good to be outside, even here in the old, small churchyard beside the newly-dug grave. The neighbours had been fantastic; they'd taken a lot of things off her mind as had the undertaker. Now, though, everything was over. Florence felt empty - her mother, Carrie Kingscote-Johnson, had passed away a fortnight ago, and she'd been buried it felt as if she suddenly had more time on her hands than she could fill. The parson had taken his leave with a few comforting words - if he only knew - and Florence had said goodbye to one or two old friends of her mother's and her few remaining relatives, all three of them in their late seventies or older. Her younger aunt had asked her about a rumour, but as Florence obviously didn't know, she'd waved it away as unimportant. Two people from her work had found the time to attend the ceremony as well, and she was talking to them for a moment. Joan worked at the front desk of the office, and young Fred was one of the trainee lawyers. Florence knew them only superficially, but they were really quite nice to her, and she enjoyed their conversation.
Florence Kingscote was five foot six with chestnut hair and a nice face. Unfriendly voices would call her well-preserved, but they were usually feminine ones; the average male would think of her as rather pretty, notwithstanding her forty-seven years. She was an only child. Her father had died when she was only seven, so she grew up with just her mother, in an old, rambling house in a small Suffolk village that had been extensively renovated; it had all mod cons. She had a couple of boyfriends; they were invariably sent packing by her mother, who never found any of them good enough for her daughter. They were not handsome enough, not good enough, they didn't have the right job - and when she'd grown old enough to disregard her mother's opinion openly, her mother had begun to get more and more poorly. Florence, who certainly had some grave reservations about her mother's complaints, had been called upon to care for her, and the more her mother gave in to her ills the more often that strident voice called out to Florrie - a name she hated with a vengeance - to bring her a drink, and then to take it away again and get her something else, as she knew, didn't she, that it didn't agree with her, and how could she be so callous to forget? And while she was at it, could she please prop her up against the cushions a little higher? Then, when she'd just returned to the kitchen her mother would call on her to draw the shutters, or open them a little, as the light was too harsh, or too dim... Whatever she did, it was never okay and never enough.
It had been too hot in the house, and positively stifling in her mother's rooms. It had been a positively stifling life for her, for all that - she couldn't bring herself to mourn her mother's passing. The money that was left proved not enough to live on for the two of them; her mother had spent the better part of it by the time Florence had finished her education, and so her work had been a necessary but very welcome break in the monotony of her life at home. Without it she'd certainly gone out of her mind; it had taken a lot out of her anyway.
When Joan and Fred had said goodbye and gone their various ways Florence stayed behind for a little time. She went into the church and sat down in one of the pews, and stared at the rood screen, a medieval wooden structure with beautiful, slightly crudely executed paintings of a couple of saints, and statues of St Peter, Mary and the crucifix on top. She wasn't particularly religious, but she loved their little church with its timeless atmosphere of peace and quiet. It had been a true refuge for her when her mother had been in one of her more demanding moods; her church duties had always been accepted as useful and necessary.
She would be meeting their family lawyer, who had sent someone over to value the contents of the house the week before, at nine thirty the next morning. Her mother had not made a will, so her estate would devolve to her - for what it was worth. She knew there were a handful of valuable paintings, the beginning of her father's intended art collection. She'd want to keep a few, but she didn't like the others. There was no money to speak of; Florence had always taken care of their financial well-being. She hoped that there would be enough money to meet the inheritance tax once the paintings were sold... The old house was lovely, with a nice garden - not too large, just manageable, really. Oh well, she could always take a mortgage if the worst came to the worst. She hoped it would not come to that, though.
When she felt herself get cold, she got up and left the church. She looked for a moment at the spot in the churchyard where her mother was buried. She shook her head and then she walked home. The house in its mellow red brick and still fairly new thatch looked wonderful in the low sun of late afternoon. And re-decorating the place to her own taste was a great prospect indeed. She was looking forward to clearing out her mother's rooms. She had suffered in those rooms long enough, and now her mother had been buried it was time to go and see to it. It had seemed not done to start on it earlier.
She went inside and had a light meal first; then she went upstairs into her mother's sitting room. Papers were less confronting than clothes, she hoped. She looked around the room, that seemed stuffy, cluttered with too heavy furniture and with a few very ugly paintings on the walls. Almost hidden away behind a few bunches of artificial flowers was a pipe clay figure of St Anthony. Someone must have spoken to her about it, for she seemed to recollect it was 15th century; it was a bit grimy but it looked friendly and pleasant. Something to keep, obviously. Then there were two vases that she didn't dislike too much, and she picked them up and carried them into the kitchen, to be washed in the morning; they were grey with dust. There were no other objects she would like to keep.
Back in the room she looked around to decide where to start. The contents of the bookcase? She needed boxes for those books. The knickknacks and gewgaws? She could either get a bin liner and chuck them in or invite one of the local charities over to come and see if they wanted any of them, which seemed the better idea...
She sat down at her mother's desk and methodically went through its contents. It was a little strange to be sitting there, going through her papers. They had always been strictly private. Her mother had kept the key to her desk in her purse, which felt like a clear sign of utter distrust to her. She might just be a little too cynical, but she didn't think so. The top half contained letters, all of them obviously boring and unimportant; Florence dropped every single one of them into the wastepaper basket after having read the first few lines. Fortunately there weren't too many of them. There was the address book that she had used to send word of her mother's passing to the people that might want to know. She put it on the side to keep it for further reference. The little drawers were filled with paper clips, staples, thumb tacks and the like. Most of them were quite rusty, and she threw them immediately. There was a box of elastic bands in one of the pigeon holes. The rest of the top half contained small, brightly coloured china figurines and pretty-pretty artefacts - rather nauseating, Florence thought. She collected the lot in a shoebox.
Then she went through the three big drawers. The top one contained her mother's knitting, and sewing material; the electric sewing machine had been abandoned over a decade ago and taken to the loft. Florence hated that kind of work; she wondered if a charity would be happy with it. She could always ask. The middle drawer was empty but for a couple of magazines. They were quite old, and Florence consigned them to the pile that was to be recycled. The bottom drawer held a mixed assortment of rulers, scales, a sponge that had been used for wetting lots of stamps in a dim past, an old fountain pen, an ink bottle that was almost empty... She decided to throw the lot; there was nothing in there she could use. Then she stopped short and opened the middle drawer again. It appeared to be a lot larger than the bottom one. She opened the bottom one again; it really seemed not as deep. She got up and knelt down. Then she pulled the drawer completely out of the desk. There was a second compartment at the back which contained a small pile of neatly folded underwear and a book with a lock.
Florence briefly looked at the under-things. They were quite sexy, and so old that the elastic had gone brittle; when she pulled, she could hear it break. They must have belonged to a different time of life. She had done all the washing for as long as she could remember, and her mother's under-things had always been quite conservative. More stuff to be thrown.
