Chapter One #2
“So ’tis. Now these here docks are silting up, since they put in the railway to Calstock.
Few years more and you’ll only be able to come in at high tide ’less they do dredge.
Times surely do change. Thank ’ee kindly, miss,” he added as she tipped him.
“There, let me put your bags ashore, then Oi’ll hold her steady for you. ”
Daisy watched rather anxiously as he slung her baggage onto the quay, including her camera and tripod, early Christmas presents from Alec, and her portable typewriter. Then she disembarked and the boat put-putted away down river.
No one was about. Glancing around, she saw a small public house, a few cottages, a warehouse, more of the rather sinister smoke-belching lime kilns, and a lodge guarding a very steep drive. Brockdene itself, the fortified manor house, was invisible, presumably at the top of the hill.
Daisy looked at the hill, looked at her baggage, and groaned. Lord Westmoor had said he would notify the household of her coming, and she herself had written to Mrs. Norville to say when she would arrive. She hoped she was not as unwelcome as present appearances—or rather non-appearances—suggested.
At that moment a door slammed as a stringy youth in a jerkin, breeches, and gaiters came out of the pub and looked over to the quay. Seeing Daisy, he trudged towards her, trundling a handcart across the cobbles.
“Hello,” said Daisy. “I hope you’ve come from the house to take my baggage up?”
“Aye.” The youth, a gardener probably, touched his cap and silently loaded his barrow. Without another word, he set off.
Daisy scurried to catch up. In her usual friendly way she attempted to chat, but not only was he taciturn, when he did speak his Cornish accent was nearly impenetrable.
She had the greatest difficulty understanding a single word and soon gave up hope of advance information about the household she was about to encounter.
In any case, before they reached the top of the hill she had no breath to spare for talking.
Reluctant to arrive panting, she paused at the top.
The gardener plodded on regardless, between a row of huge sycamores and a long, low building of lichened granite.
It looked pretty ancient, though in excellent repair.
A barn, perhaps, or stables? A faint odour of farm animals hung in the air.
Daisy wondered whether there was a horse-drawn vehicle, if not a motor, to bring her mother up from the quay.
The Dowager Lady Dalrymple would not appreciate being forced to walk.
Looking ahead again, Daisy saw the house. The three-story crenellated gatehouse with its tiny windows and narrow entrance arch looked fit to withstand a seige. It begged for a photograph.
“Stop!” cried Daisy. “Wait, please.”
The gardener turned and gaped at her.
She hurried to the handcart and abstracted her camera and tripod. “I want to take a photo while the light’s good,” she explained. “It may rain tomorrow.”
The youth looked vacantly up at the blue sky, from which even the slight haze had cleared. “Aye,” he said, and went on with the cart through the open, iron-studded door under the archway.
Daisy moved back and took several shots. She was getting better at it. Her editor no longer made ominous rumblings about sending a professional photographer with her. Not that the money mattered now she was married, but she had her pride.
Folding camera and tripod, she followed the gardener under the arch.
The tunnel-like passage was cobbled, narrow enough to be easily defended, with two doors in the right-hand wall.
Daisy wondered whether to knock at one—or both?
There was nothing to distinguish one from the other, though, so she went on and emerged into daylight in a courtyard, with more archways and doors to choose from. Boy, barrow, and baggage had vanished.
It was not a frightfully auspicious beginning to her visit.
She took the path of least resistance, straight ahead, and banged with the iron knocker on the great double doors. After a few moments, one door was opened by a tall, lean man, slightly stooped, who blinked at her puzzledly through wire-rimmed glasses.
He wore a shabby tweed jacket over a green knitted waistcoat, a grey-and-pale-blue woollen muffler around his neck, and navy-blue trousers. Not the butler, then.
“Hello,” said Daisy, “I’m Mrs. Fletcher. I believe I’m expected?”
His look of puzzlement deepened. “Mrs. Fletcher? I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“No, not from Adam. Lord Westmoor…”
“Oh, you’re Lord Westmoor’s guest, of course,” he said, his face clearing. “The front door is round the other side of the house, actually, but do come in.”
Daisy stepped over the threshold into a baronial hall some forty feet long by twenty wide.
The whitewashed walls were hung with banners and arms, from pikes and swords to muskets and horse pistols.
A long table, black with age, ran down the centre of the room, and chairs with the uncomfortably carved backs of a more stoic age stood along the walls.
Stained glass in the leaded windows depicted heraldic emblems and fleurs-de-lis.
The roof, its timbers set in decorative patterns, rose high above the stone floor.
A suit of armour beside the vast fireplace appeared to be warming its gauntleted hands at the stingy fire, and in fact indoors was colder than out, explaining the gentleman’s woolly scarf.
Returning her attention to him, Daisy said with a smile, “Not exactly Lord Westmoor’s guest, at least not yet. The earl is letting me write an article about Brockdene for Town and Country magazine.”
To her surprise, his sallow face brightened.
“A wonderful subject,” he said enthusiastically.
“I’ve lived here all my life and I fancy I’m something of an expert on the house and its contents.
The contents are quite as wonderful as the house itself, if not more so.
I am engaged in creating a detailed descriptive and historical catalogue …
But I’m forgetting my manners. Allow me to introduce myself.
I’m Godfrey Norville.” As if unused to the gesture, he stuck out his hand, his bony wrist protruding from his sleeve.
“Daisy Fletcher.” It was rather like shaking hands with a filleted plaice. “How do you do.”
“Yes, yes, happy to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Fletcher. I’ve devoted my life to studying Brockdene, you know.
I shall give you a tour, and then you must ask me any questions you like.
Any questions at all! This is an excellent place to start.
The Hall was erected in the late fifteenth century by… ”
“I should love a tour a little later,” Daisy interrupted hastily. “But just now, if you don’t mind, I ought to wash my hands and present my credentials to Mrs. Norville.”
“Credentials to Mother?” He gave her a bewildered look. “Oh, I see! Yes, yes, I dare say that will be in order. I wonder where Mrs. Pardon would be at this hour?”
“Mrs. Pardon?”
“The housekeeper. Lord Westmoor keeps a good staff here to preserve the house and its contents. Some of the contents are very valuable, very valuable indeed, both in monetary terms and to the scholar. The vambrace, for instance.” He started to wander off.
Though curious, Daisy did not permit the mysterious vambrace to distract her. “Mrs. Pardon?” she repeated.
“Oh, yes. I will ring the bell, but I rather doubt that it will bring anyone. They are not employed to wait on us, you see, just to take care of the house and grounds.”
What an odd arrangement, Daisy thought, wondering exactly what his relationship was to the earl. Her mother might know, but in general the dowager was more interested in her own grievances than in the details of distant family connections, at least those who had nothing to offer her.
Godfrey Norville seemed to see nothing out of the way. He tugged on a bell-pull by the fireplace, then turned to frown at the suit of armour.
Through an archway beyond the fireplace came a woman in a dark grey dress with white collar and cuffs. Norville turned at the sound of her footsteps.
“Mrs. Pardon, the armour needs polishing! See here, the left pouldron is beginning to tarnish.”
“I believe the armour is on my list for next week, Mr. Norville,” the housekeeper told him, at once soothing and dismissive.
“I shall check. Mrs. Fletcher? The boy has taken your luggage up, madam. Your room is in the East Wing, as there is no modern plumbing in the rest of the house. If you would come this way, please?” She led the way through one of the doors at the end of the hall opposite where she had entered.
Daisy gathered—gratefully—that Lord Westmoor’s staff was prepared to wait on his lordship’s guests.
The situation was not only odd but awkward.
She couldn’t help regarding the unknown Mrs. Norville as in some sense her hostess, whether the earl had consulted her or simply presented her with a fait accompli.
“Do you have many visitors?” she asked, following Mrs. Pardon through a dining room and along a corridor.
“Not many at all, madam. Now and then his lordship lets a historian or some such come down to take a look at the house. It’s not like the old days when we’d have a house-party in the summer and all the family for Christmas.
His lordship’s not been the same since the War, I’m afraid.
” She sighed, as she opened a glass-panelled door into a spacious entrance hall.
“I hope my … our visit isn’t going to cause a lot of trouble,” Daisy said, glancing around.
This hall was furnished in a more modern style: a rather battered pedestal table with a looking-glass hanging above it; a hat-tree sprouting tweed caps and woolly hats; an umbrella stand; several lyre-back chairs; and, oddly, a faded chaise-longue.
“Oh no, madam, we can manage. At least, Lady Dalrymple won’t mind eating with Mrs. Norville and the family, will she? It’d make my life easier, and that’s a fact.”
“No, why should she?” Curiouser and curiouser, thought Daisy. She hoped for an answer to her question, but Mrs. Pardon treated it as rhetorical.
“Would you like to leave your coat in the coat cupboard?” she asked, gesturing towards a door in the wall to the left of the front door.
“Thanks, I think I’ll take it with me.”
“Very well, madam. Up here now. You’ll notice the stairs have been built right across one of the old windows.
This part of the house was altered in 1862 for the dowager countess of the time.
My grandmother was housekeeper here then.
” Mrs. Pardon sighed again. “She’d never have guessed what the family would come to.
Here’s your room, madam, and the bathroom and lavatory just back there.
Ring if there’s anything you need. My girls aren’t used to waiting on ladies, but they’ll do their best.”
“Thank you, I expect they’ll manage very well. Where can I find Mrs. Norville?”
“I’m sure it’s not my place to know where she is, madam, but her sitting room’s just at the top of the stairs, over the front door.”
Daisy’s room was small, crammed with heavy, dark, rather shabby Victorian furniture, but it had a wash-hand basin with running hot and cold.
The window looked out over gardens and woods, with a glimpse beyond of the river, a small town which must surely be Calstock, and a railway viaduct.
Daisy didn’t linger over the view. Having washed her hands and face, tidied her hair, and powdered her nose, she set out to find her hostess, the putative mistress of this anything but ordinary household.