Chapter 8
8
Lady Fairchild organised her promised day trip to the seaside and it was quite the party that assembled on the platform at Merriford Lode. They were headed to Haven-on-Sea, a quaint seaside town on the Norfolk coast that had been a popular Victorian holiday destination. Her Ladyship repeatedly insisted that they would all have the most marvellous time, although who she was trying to convince, Olivia wasn’t sure. To be fair, there was plenty to occupy them at the manor for the summer, with its extensive grounds, tennis courts, boating lake and immaculately manicured lawns that lent themselves to croquet. Perhaps the truth of it was that Lady Fairchild fancied a diversion, as she’d been drifting around of late, listless and lost.
Including the three members of staff, the group assembled in the station waiting room numbered ten. Clarence’s friend, Ernest, was the last of their number and proved to be quite the engaging fellow off the tennis court – all handsome features and big, beaming smiles. Yet Olivia didn’t find the charming junior shipping clerk made her heart sing like Tanner did. Wasn’t it strange, she mused, that different people found different things attractive? Some girls liked fair hair, others dark; some thought a moustache the very epitome of fashion, and others were quite put off by them. And some found sour-faced, introspective gardeners really quite the ticket.
‘Cigarette anyone?’ asked Clarence, and a small group drifted out to the platform, away from the ladies. Howard went too, but he didn’t smoke; he just wanted to be with the men.
Because Olivia was restless, it wasn’t many minutes afterwards that she followed out of curiosity. As she stepped from the doorway, Howard’s voice travelled around the corner and she was clearly the topic of conversation.
‘…stupid girl who has come to live with us because her parents died on the Titanic , and everyone feels sorry for her – even Father, who’s let her sleep in the east tower, like some entitled princess, until she’s old enough to return to her own home.’
‘Does she have some great estate to return to, then?’ Ernest enquired. ‘ Is she a little princess? A wealthy heiress waiting to be married off?’
‘Nah, her father wrote stupid storybooks so probably as poor as the proverbial church mouse.’ Howard had really taken against her and was implying she was some penniless orphan, but Olivia knew she would be comfortably off when she came of age. The very reason her father had been able to indulge his literary ambitions was because he was financially secure. ‘You’d better not let me get lumped with her, Clarrie.’ He was now addressing his oldest brother. ‘Because I refuse to spend the day with a babyish Benji and an annoying girl.’
Olivia heard Clarence chuckle. ‘You won’t find girls annoying for much longer, little brother. They’ll really start to come into their own soon.’
‘Yes, young ladies really can be the most extraordinary fun,’ Ernest agreed.
‘I’d rather eat my own eyeballs,’ Howard huffed, and she heard the others laugh as the stationmaster announced that their train was approaching.
The family climbed aboard the first-class carriage, as the footmen, accompanying the family for the day, and Ruth, undoubtedly chosen for her pragmatism, were dispatched to third. Two rows of variously excited people faced each other. Howard sat with both arms crossed and a sullen look across his freckled face, and the older lads began to chat about politics and hunting – neither of which interested Olivia.
She pressed her forehead to the cold glass of the window, as every join on the track gave a little jolt, and lost herself in the rhythmic chug-chug of the engine. The world whizzed past in a blur of green and gold: the flat Norfolk landscape and its endless fields awaiting harvest; centuries-old trees, thick with foliage; and the brown and white dots of livestock, idle in the heat.
‘I shall visit the tropical gardens first,’ Lady Fairchild said. ‘And whilst I am there, perhaps the footmen will see to the hire of deckchairs, so that the younger three can build sandcastles and eat ices. Ruth can supervise those who wish to bathe. Olivia, I have purchased a swimsuit for you, to this end.’
‘I will be going with Clarrie and Louis,’ Howard said, all but stamping his foot. ‘I have no desire to build stupid sandcastles. I’m not four, Mother.’
‘And Olivia is hardly going to want to swim in the sea considering that’s how her parents died,’ Benji pointed out, and Lady Fairchild’s hand flew to her mouth.
‘Oh, my dear, how thoughtless of me. Why didn’t you say something when I suggested the seaside?’
‘Because I’m not afraid of the sea,’ Olivia replied, aware all eyes in the carriage were on her. ‘If I refuse to sail because of what happened to them, I will never leave these shores and then what a narrow life I shall have.’ The ocean had taken enough from her; she would not let it dictate the remainder of her life.
‘I admire your pluck,’ said Ernest, looking impressed, and she was relieved that at least one person could see that the nature of her current circumstances need not define her. Her father had loved to travel, and his view of human nature and his writing were all the richer because of it.
‘Howard can’t swim,’ Benji informed her, adjusting his spectacles.
‘Shut up, four-eyes,’ Howard hissed but Benji would not be deterred.
‘Olivia plans to travel the whole world,’ he announced to the carriage. ‘She’s written it all down. Isn’t it thrilling that a girl wants to have the sort of adventures that even some men aren’t brave enough to have?’
It was true that she’d shown him the small journal of her intended destinations, each one with a list of landmarks and experiences that she planned to tick off as she went. She’d started it with her father, and many of the suggestions were his, but she had carried on with it because it mattered – both to her and her dead parent.
Howard was looking at her with narrowed eyes, but she would not be rattled by the lad who had made it so clear that he found her a nuisance. The loud screech of train brakes and the slowing of the scenery announced that they were imminently to reach Haven-on-Sea and she turned her head away from his glare.
* * *
The day was one that Olivia would remember for the remainder of her life. If travel only thirty miles from her home could be this much fun, she had high hopes of her planned international escapades. Upon arrival, the first thing the family did was have a photograph taken in a studio on the parade, where Ernest graciously stepped aside and Olivia was thrilled to be included. Lady Fairchild insisted it was taken before everyone was covered in sand and blobs of sticky ice cream. If only Sir Hugo had accompanied them, the older woman lamented, it would have been such a charming record of the family.
They spent the first few hours on the endless yellow sands and larking about in the sea. Howard had again pooh-poohed the idea of sandcastles but everyone, including the older lads, got involved in the building of an impressive fort, ignoring his sulking. Clarence insisted on placing the paper flag on the tallest turret when it was finished, and then standing within its defensive walls, for all to see that he was truly the king of the castle.
After their lavish picnic lunch, they split into smaller groups. Lady Fairchild returned from the tropical gardens and had her palm read at the end of the pier, although would not talk of the reading afterwards. The older three disappeared, and the younger three were given money to enjoy the amusements – Howard finally acquiescing to being banded together with Olivia and Benji when he was put in charge of their funds.
Standing outside a small souvenir shop, Olivia reached for one of the pretty postcards on the rack, thinking to send it to her parents and tell them what a splendid day she was having, before she remembered. It was funny how something so eviscerating, the death of the two people closest to her in the world, could be momentarily forgotten. She knew it to be fact and yet there were fleeting moments when her brain thought that they were alive and merely somewhere else, waiting for her return.
Rosy-cheeked and full of sugary delights, the party of ten finally walked back to the station at the end of the day. Even Lady Fairchild had a sparkle in her eyes and a giddy spring to her step as they boarded the train. Her face displayed momentary alarm when the sleepy head of her youngest son fell onto her lap, and she patted ineffectually at his small, blond head as his thumb found his mouth. Benji was simply too exhausted to contemplate the potential ribbing from his brothers.
Olivia was pleased to be homeward-bound and looked across at the slightly less stroppy Howard, but he still avoided her eye. She thought of his silly pranks and how he seemed to have taken against her and decided to confront him about the voice. It had to be him – it was the only logical explanation. His mother was giggling with Ernest, who was insisting Her Ladyship looked far too young to have grown-up sons, so Olivia leaned forward and hissed at her nemesis.
‘Have you been larking about in the east tower at night, Sprinkles?’ she asked, deliberately using the stupid nickname because he’d been a misery all day and she was fed up with his odd moods.
‘Don’t call me that,’ he huffed.
‘Just answer the question. Have you been pretending to be a ghost? Talking to me through the walls? It’s all jolly clever and terribly amusing, but I’d really rather you didn’t, unless you want to be locked in the privy again.’
He scowled. ‘I know we’re supposed to feel sorry for you, but voices through the walls? You’re cuckoo.’
‘Leave her alone,’ mumbled Benji from his horizontal position, in an unusual display of sleepy confidence.
‘Well, if it isn’t you, then it must be a ghost.’ All the talk of shrieking pits in the village and battles at the nearby castle had got her thinking. ‘Do you know much about the history of Merriford Manor? Specifically, whether there were any murders or unresolved accidental deaths of a young man since the building of the towers?’
‘The house was built three hundred years ago and there will have been numerous deaths. You’ll have to be a bit more specific,’ Howard said. ‘Every ancestral home worth its salt has a few irate ghosts rattling around.’
‘This ghost is called Seth.’
‘That’s Tanner’s Christian name,’ Benji volunteered, looking up from his mother’s lap.
‘He’s not dead, you idiot,’ Howard said dismissively, but Olivia was taken aback by this new piece of information.
Seth Tanner had been sleeping in the adjoining room when she’d ousted him back in July and he’d been none too happy about it. Now that she thought about it, the voice was similar to his in tone and timbre.
The question was whether the grumpy young undergardener was sufficiently annoyed to exact revenge by playing such an elaborate prank. And, as Olivia gazed at her own reflection in the window of the carriage, there was a small part of her that thought perhaps he was.