Chapter Two
TWO
The door nearest the top of the stairs was ajar. Daisy tapped on it.
“Come in.”
The voice was high and soft, so soft that for a moment Daisy wasn’t sure she had really heard it.
If the door had been closed, she would have knocked again.
As it was open, she went in. And then she thought she must have been mistaken after all, because she couldn’t see a living person among the multicoloured images which met her startled eyes.
In the sun, slanting in through a south-facing window, spangles glittered, gilt gleamed, and coloured glass glinted.
Statuettes stood on every available surface, while from the walls painted figures gazed down with varying degrees of benevolence.
Among six-armed gods, elephant-headed gods, blue-faced gods, and meditative buddhas, Daisy picked out several madonnas, with and without child, a crucifix, and a cheap print of Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World.
From the midst of this bizarre array came the soft, gentle voice: “Mrs. Fletcher?”
Black eyes in a lined, dark-skinned face looked anxiously at Daisy from a chair by the fireplace, where a log fire glowed. The tiny woman was swathed in a multitude of bright shawls. She was working on a piece of embroidery, her needle darting in and out with a casual expertise.
“Yes, I’m Daisy Fletcher. You’re Mrs. Norville? How do you do?”
“How do you do. Won’t you sit down?” She hadn’t got an accent, exactly, but the intonation common to Indian speakers of English gave her speech an exotic flavour entirely appropriate to her exotic surroundings.
So that explained the mystery, Daisy assumed, taking the chair opposite her hostess.
The noble Earls of Westmoor would not take kindly to the introduction of a “native” into the family.
For how many decades had the poor woman been shut away at Brockdene, out of sight and out of mind?
No doubt her anxious look was the product of many a snub.
“It’s very kind of you to put me up,” Daisy said warmly. “I’m looking forward to writing about your home. It looks like a fascinating house.”
“It’s quite old. Godfrey, my son, says the rest of Brockdene, apart from this wing, has changed remarkably little over the centuries. He knows all about it,” Mrs. Norville said with obvious pride.
“Yes, Mr. Norville has already offered to give me a tour. It will be frightfully helpful to have an expert on hand. Mrs. Norville, I didn’t know when I wrote to you that Lord Westmoor had invited all of my family to stay here for Christmas. I do hope he warned you.”
“He wrote to Mrs. Pardon, and she told Dora.” She seemed to think it quite natural that she should be passed over. In response to Daisy’s enquiring look, she explained, “Dora is my daughter-in-law.”
“Mrs. Godfrey Norville? I see.” Daisy wondered how many more Norvilles were in residence.
Curiosity must wait, though. She had work to do before the rest of her own family arrived, and she wanted to go and take photographs while the weather was fine.
But a few more minutes of conversation would be only courteous.
Glancing about the room, she ventured, “What an interesting collection you have in here.”
Mrs. Norville smiled. “My older boy, Victor, is a seaman, the captain of a merchant ship. He sails all over the world. He sends me these things or brings them when he manages to get home for a few days. They remind me of my childhood, before I went to the mission school.”
“In India? You must miss it.”
“I have never grown accustomed to the English winter, though I have lived at Brockdene for nearly fifty years. But my sons are Englishmen,” she added almost fiercely.
So determined a defence must be the result of past attacks.
Daisy was dying to know more, but she really must get started on her article.
“Of course they are,” she said. “I haven’t met Captain Norville, but Mr. Norville couldn’t possibly be mistaken for anything else.
And now I’d better go and find him to take up his offer to show me about. ”
“I hope you will come back for tea.” Mrs. Norville was shy again. “Dora always brings up tea at half-past four.”
“I’ll be here,” Daisy promised, the stale cheese sandwich she had snatched for lunch at Plymouth station already a distant memory.
As she stepped out of the sitting room, a young girl came along the passage towards her. In a blue skirt and cardigan and white blouse, with her long, flaxen hair held back by an Alice band, she looked about fourteen, and large for her age. Her pudgy face was suspicious.
“What have you been saying to my Gran?” she demanded.
“‘How do you do.’”
“How do you do,” the girl said impatiently, scowling. “I’m Jemima Norville.”
“How do you do?” said Daisy with a quite different intonation. “I’m Mrs. Fletcher. I’ve just been saying ‘How do you do’ to Mrs. Norville.”
Jemima blinked at her with a bewilderment reminiscent of Godfrey Norville, who must be her father. “Why?” she asked.
“Because I’ve come to stay at Brockdene, and she is my hostess. One always says ‘How do you do’ to one’s hostess as soon as one is presentable after the journey. And now I’m going to look for Mr. Norville, who is going to show me over the old house.”
“Daddy’ll like that,” the girl said, with grudging approval. “He’s crazy about the house. I think he’s in the Drawing Room.”
“Will you show me the way?”
“It’s in the Tower. Oh, all right.”
“Just let me fetch my camera.”
Jemima led her back to the weapon-hung Hall, where Daisy left her camera and tripod.
They went on through a door at the far end and up a steep oak staircase, polished to a slippery shine.
A second flight of stairs, beneath ornate granite arches, led to a door carved with roses.
This opened onto a sort of interior porch built of linen-fold panels, which in turn opened to a pleasant room with windows on three sides, its walls covered with tapestries.
“Daddy, here’s Mrs. Fletcher.”
“Just a minute. I’ll be with you in a minute.” Godfrey Norville was measuring an ornate writing cabinet. He made a couple of notations on a block of paper on the open drop front.
Daisy went over to look at the desk. It was carved in high relief with cupids and human figures, all unclothed. She stepped back, willing herself not to blush in the horrid Victorian way she despised.
“Mummy says I’m not to look at it,” said Jemima.
“Splendid, isn’t it?” Norville enthused.
“Italian, about 1600. I have had an enquiry about it from a professor in Italy. I carry on a voluminous correspondence, you know, with historians and antiquarians all over the world. I flatter myself that in a modest way my detailed descriptions further the pursuit of knowledge.”
“I’m sure they must be most helpful,” Daisy murmured.
“Take this piece, for instance. Anyone can see it’s both antique and handsome, but I am able to particularize its hidden attributes.
Now would you have guessed, my dear Mrs. Fletcher, that it contains a multitude—yes, I think I may say a veritable multitude—of secret compartments?
I doubt that even I know them all, but I shall be happy to demonstrate one or two. ”
“Tell her about the treasure chest, Daddy,” Jemima urged.
“I’d love to hear about the treasure chest,” said Daisy, “and to see some of the secret drawers; but if you don’t mind, just now I want to take some photographs of the exterior while it’s fine. I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind coming out, Mr. Norville, to tell me what I’m photographing.”
“While it’s fine?” Mr. Norville cast a doubtful glance at the window. Reassured by the flood of sunshine, he went on, “Certainly, certainly. Jemima, run and fetch my galoshes and overcoat to the Hall, and my hat and gloves, there’s a good girl.”
Jemima pouted but obeyed.
As they followed her, Norville told Daisy about the treasure chest. It had supposedly been hidden or buried somewhere about the house or grounds by a Dutch merchant who had fled the Spanish Inquisition in the sixteenth century and been given shelter at Brockdene.
“A mysterious figure,” Norville admitted, “about whom I have discovered little. He may have been responsible for building the Tower, which was completed in 1627.”
“And no one ever found his treasure?”
“Generations have searched in vain.”
“He didn’t leave a map? Too careless!”
“No, nor have I ever come across a map of the secret passage which, legend has it, was used for centuries by smugglers.”
They reached the Hall, and Daisy took out her notebook to scribble down the story in her idiosyncratic version of Pitman’s Shorthand. Then she was ready to go, but Norville could not be budged without his coat and galoshes.
“Damp climate,” he muttered, “wet feet, absolutely fatal.”
So while they waited for Jemima, Daisy asked him about the “vambrace” he had mentioned earlier.
It turned out to be a piece of armour to protect the forearm.
This particular example was special because it had been designed for a man who had lost his hand.
The fingers and thumb could be locked into place to grip reins or even a sword.
“This is simply spiffing,” said Daisy, as he hung the gleaming vambrace carefully in its place on the wall. “Just the sort of tidbits to interest my readers.” And Derek would be fascinated, she thought. The lost treasure alone should be enough to keep him and Belinda occupied for hours.
Along with her father’s galoshes and overcoat, Jemima brought mittens and a woollen hat with a pompon which matched the scarf he already had on.
Fussily he put everything on, though he didn’t seem concerned when his daughter accompanied them outside without coat or hat or galoshes.
Since it was quite warm, and dry underfoot as long as they stayed off the grass, Daisy didn’t worry either.