by Carola Dunn
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.
2
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 l
ittle 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 dropfront.
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.
While she took shots of the Hall Court, the Retainers’ Court, the Dutchman’s Tower, the Kitchen Court, and the rebuilt East Front—which blended with the old buildings in an unusually tasteful manner—Norville expatiated upon their history. He had every fact at his fingertips, and his keenness to impart his knowledge was rather endearing.
Jemima hovered around them. Once she interrupted: “Daddy, tell her about the ghost.”
“P
iffle!” he exclaimed, waving a hand in a striped mitten. “Ghost indeed! Sheer piffle. Mrs. Fletcher wants the facts.”
Jemima scowled.
“I’d like you to tell me about the ghost, Jemima,” Daisy assured her. “But later.”
“I might,” the girl said sulkily, turning away.
Norville frowned. To distract him, Daisy asked, “What’s that great tall tower on the hill behind the house?”
His frown remained. “The Prospect Tower. I haven’t found any reliable information about it, but it’s probably a late-eighteenth-century folly. Do you want to photograph it?”
Daisy considered. She rather doubted that her photographic skills were up to what looked like a difficult shot. “No, I think not. But what about the chapel by the river? The boatman was telling me about it.”
“The Chapel of Saints George and Thomas à Becket. It was built in the fifteenth century by the first baronet, Sir Richard Norville—before the Norvilles were ennobled—at the spot where he escaped his enemies by a clever trick. He threw his cap into the river and hid in the bushes. They saw it floating and thought him drowned.”
“That’s a good story,” said Daisy, scribbling madly. “Will you show me the chapel?”
“My dear Mrs. Fletcher, the damp! Nothing is so damp as the woods in winter. I never walk in the woods in winter, and I strongly advise you not to do so.”
Daisy laughed. “Oh, I’m as healthy as a horse, I’m afraid. I’d like to see the chapel in the woods. Is it far? Is it hard to find? If you’ll direct me, I’ll find it myself.”
“No, not far,” he admitted vaguely. “Not far at all. But you’d do better to come inside and see the Chapel in the house. I pointed out its windows, you may recall.”
“Later,” said Daisy. “Would you mind awfully taking my tripod indoors for me? I’d rather not carry it.”
