Chapter Three
THREE
Outside, the short winter day had ended by the time they finished tea. Inside, too, it was pretty dark, in spite of oil lamps and candles.
Daisy’s candle flame flickered in the draughts as she found her way back to the Hall.
Shadows danced about her, and she recalled Jemima’s mention of a ghost. She wished she had brought an electric torch.
These days the arrival of electricity tended to banish ghosts, but here the shadowy centuries pressed close.
Her footsteps echoed from the stone walls.
She caught herself glancing nervously over her shoulder.
She had intended to take a look at the other chapel, the one in the house, but that struck her as altogether too spooky for comfort. By the feeble light of her candle, she wouldn’t be able to see much anyway, in any of the rooms. She needed a torch or a good lantern.
Eyeing the bell-pull, she wondered whether anyone would come if she rang. It was worth a try.
As she raised her hand to the cord, light footsteps sounded behind her. She swung round with a gasp.
“It’s only me.” Felicity’s smile had a touch of mockery. She set on the table her candle and the unlit lantern she was carrying. “I thought you might need this. Sorry, did I make you jump?”
“Yes,” Daisy confessed. “I’d just remembered that your sister mentioned a ghost. Do you know the story?”
“Do you want it for your article? I can tell you, but it’s not frightfully interesting. No one bricked up in a wall to die or discovered with a lover and thrown from the Tower. It’s not even very ancient.”
“What happened?”
“Actually, it was rather like Mansfield Park. In the late eighteenth century, a poor young cousin was brought to Brockdene to be companion to a dowager countess. She got used to living comparatively well; and when the old lady died, she didn’t want to go home.
I don’t think she actually killed herself, but she didn’t live long after being sent away.
She came back to haunt the place where she was happy, you see. ”
“Spiffing!” said Daisy, scribbling madly. “At least, I’m sorry for her of course, but it’ll add a bit of spice to my article. Presumably she doesn’t go around rattling chains?”
“No, she’s just a young girl, about my age, I suppose, dressed in white, wandering from room to room. Not that I’ve ever seen her,” Felicity disclaimed hurriedly. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Nor do I,” Daisy said, with the more vehemence because a few minutes ago she almost had believed. “Thanks for bringing the lantern, Miss Norville. I was just going to ring for one.”
“I dare say someone might have answered the bell, knowing you’re staying. But please, call me Felicity, won’t you?”
“And I’m Daisy. I also wanted to ask Mrs. Pardon whether there’s a vehicle available for my mother when she arrives on Sunday. My sister, too—she’s expecting an addition to the family and it’s quite a hill up from Brockdene Quay.”
“There are farm carts.” Felicity’s lips quirked at Daisy’s dismay. “Or the pony-trap. It’s not used much in winter because of the state of the roads, but I expect they’d bring the pony in from pasture for a dowager viscountess. That’s what your mother is, isn’t she?”
Daisy laughed. “Yes, and my sister Violet is Lady John.”
“Let me tell the Pardon,” Felicity begged. “It would be too frightfully amusing to give her an order she couldn’t refuse.”
“Oh, right-oh.”
“You must think we’re all mad. You see, we’re poor relations, like the girl in white, only here on suffrance. Except Gran, that is. The sixth earl’s will gives her the right to live at Brockdene all her life. When she dies, the rest of us get booted out.”
“What a beastly position to be in.”
“Oh well,” Felicity said with indifference, real or assumed, Daisy wasn’t sure, “I expect I’ll be married by then, and Miles will be qualified.
Gran may be tiny but she’s healthy as a horse, good for years yet.
My parents take very good care of her, I can tell you, though otherwise they bury their heads in the sand.
Miles is really the only sane one among us. ”
“Miles?”
“My brother. He’ll be home to dinner. He’s an articled clerk in my grandfather’s office in Calstock.
Grandpapa is a solicitor. I suppose he and Miles will have to support the parents and Jemima sooner or later.
He put Miles through school, and we couldn’t get by without the dress allowance he gives Mother.
The annuity the sixth earl left Gran doesn’t go far these days.
Not much of the so-called ‘dress’ allowance gets spent on clothes, I can tell you. ”
“What beautiful work your grandmother does, though,” Daisy said diplomatically.
Felicity looked down at her dress. “Yes, too clever, isn’t it? Her knitting, too. She tried to teach me, but I haven’t the patience for it. Which doesn’t get me out of my share of the mending. Jemima’s not bad at knitting, for a kid. At least, Daddy will wear what she produces.”
“The green waistcoat,” Daisy guessed.
“Most of its sins are hidden by his jacket,” Felicity said with a grin.
“I’m so glad you came to stay, Daisy. Most of the people Westmoor drops into our midst are musty old historians.
Sometimes I think I’d do absolutely anything to get away from this place!
Just having someone to talk to … I’m actually looking forward to Christmas! ”
“So am I,” said Daisy, with partial truth. Derek and Bel and Derek’s little brother would be fun; her mother and Alec’s would just have to be borne. “But I’ve got to get some work done before the others arrive. Are there spills to light the lantern?”
Felicity found spills by the fireplace. The lantern improved visibility no end, and Felicity had learnt enough from her father to give Daisy quite as much information as she needed.
They went around the Hall examining crossbows and wheel-lock pistols, breastplates and lobster-tail helmets, Indian sabres and a Zulu shield, a whale’s jawbones and the head of an albatross.
“And there’s the squint,” said Felicity, holding the lantern high when they reached the west wall.
“Squint?”
“Never tell me Daddy didn’t show you his pride and joy!” She pointed at a hole in the wall above their heads.
“I did rather rush him around. What is it?”
“A peephole. It’s in a niche behind the arras in the South Room, which used to be part of the solar—the mediaeval family’s living quarters.
The lord of the manor could look down on his retainers and make sure they were behaving themselves.
There’s another one giving onto the Chapel, so that the lady of the manor could attend services without having to mix with the men. ”
“Positively mediaeval!” said Daisy, and they both laughed. “That’s interesting. I’ll have a look from up there tomorrow. I think I’d better go and type out my notes now. What with the rotten light and all, I probably shan’t be able to read them tomorrow. Thanks for your help.”
She found the fire made up in her bedroom, and an oil lamp already lit. By its light, she managed to do her typing, but she was glad she didn’t have to hunt and peck. Her secretarial training certainly came in handy, however much she had hated her brief stint as a stenographer.
Felicity Norville ought to be preparing to earn her own living, Daisy thought.
It was all very well hoping to be married before her grandmother died, but with so many young men killed in the War …
Although perhaps in Felicity’s case it wasn’t just wishful thinking.
Perhaps she was already engaged. Odd that she hadn’t mentioned it, though, if she was.
Most engaged girls could talk of nothing else.
Daisy washed—at least the plumbing was Victorian rather than mediaeval—and changed for dinner. When she went down to the library, she found a slender young man in a dinner jacket leaning against the mantelpiece, staring into the fire.
“Hello,” she said, advancing. “You must be Miles Norville.”
He turned his head towards her. He looked older than she had expected, several years older than Felicity. Then he turned completely, and she saw the empty sleeve pinned across his chest. Old enough to have gone to war.
“Hello.” He had a charming smile. “Yes, I’m Miles. You’re Mrs. Fletcher, of course. How do you do? May I get you a drink?” He gestured at the little door between the bookshelves which had intrigued Daisy. “The cellar doesn’t run to much, I’m afraid, but there’s some quite decent sherry.”
He coped admirably with the bottle and glass. Daisy restrained herself from helping. When she was working in that hospital office the last years of the War, she had learnt the importance of letting injured men do things for themselves.
“Is that a wine cellar?” she asked.
“We keep our few bottles there. No one seems to know what it used to be used for, not even my father. It’s just a small, windowless room with a small but very solid door.”
“A dungeon?”
“Right next door to the library?” Miles queried. “My ancestors may not have been great readers, but still…!”
“No, perhaps not.” Glass in hand, Daisy scanned the shelves. “These all seem to be fairly light reading. You must keep your books elsewhere—I hear you’re going into the law? My husband’s in another branch. He’s a policeman.”
“Mr. Fletcher? But I thought your mother was … Oh, I beg your pardon!”
“Yes, my mother’s the Dowager Lady Dalrymple,” Daisy said ruefully, “but I married a Scotland Yard detective. Lord Westmoor didn’t mention it? If the others don’t know, please don’t tell them. Alec much prefers to be incognito when he’s on holiday.”
“Of course. He’s at Scotland Yard, is he? There’s not much criminal law in our practice.”
They talked about different aspects of the law until Godfrey and Dora Norville and Jemima came in. Old Mrs. Norville and Felicity soon followed, and they all went along to the dining room.