Garth of Tregillis (4 page)

‘But that’s ridiculous,’ Paul said flatly.

‘Not so ridiculous, when you hear that the child was up wandering about the corridors at all hours of the night, dressed in a sheet and wailing like a lost soul. She’d young Hilda frightened out of her wits, I can tell you—’

But already Paul was easing himself away, muttering something placatory to the outraged Mrs. Kinnefer.

Her cheeks were flushed angrily when she turned to me, but I could see she had no intention of pursuing the matter: according to her code it would be bad taste to discuss family affairs with someone as newly arrived at Tregillis as I was. ‘I’ll show you up to your room right away, Miss Westall, for you’ll be tired no doubt after your journey and would like to freshen up.’

When I agreed she led the way across the hall and when, for something to say, I spoke enthusiastically of the scenery and mentioned Smugglers’ Cove she looked at me doubtfully as though one given to such flights was hardly a suitable person for the serious business of tutoring. ‘Well, they do say,’ she conceded,

‘that in olden times the local people would lure ships on to the rocks and that even the parson was not above sharing the cargo with them when the ship came aground. It’s a dangerous part of the coast, there’s no doubt about that, and none knew it better than poor Mr. Giles. But there, nothing could stop his sailing no matter the weather!’ Then, as though remembering that I could hardly know who the mysterious Mr. Giles was, she said quickly, ‘That was the former Mr. Seaton, Mr. Garth’s uncle. Garth didn’t come to live here until after Mr. Giles’ wife—’ She paused and said diplomatically, ‘When Mr. Giles was alone he was company for him.’ I saw tears fill her eyes and I wondered if she would think it strange that I did not question her further, but I felt that my manner might be artificial and reveal that I already knew a good deal concerning the Seaton family—much more than a stranger should! In spite of her air of being extremely practical and unimaginative I had no doubt she was a shrewd woman.

She led the way up the most extraordinary staircase I had ever seen. None of the treads were exactly similar: they either sloped at different angles or were of completely different widths. She negotiated them with practised ease, but I stumbled awkwardly several times.

‘You’ll get used to them in no time,’ she smiled when I remarked on their extraordinary design. ‘Why, I believe I could run down them in the pitch dark without putting a foot wrong. But then I came to Tregillis when I was a young girl, so it’s no wonder I should know my way about. They were purposely made like that so that a stranger, not knowing their ways, would stumble and alert the household.’

I could see that she was proud of their ingenuity. ‘They certainly look old enough,’ I remarked.

‘They are that. Mr. Giles used often tell me that they were made from wood taken from the wreck of a Spanish galleon just like the hall was. Though, according to him, the house itself is much older and dates away back to long before that. As a young lad Mr. Giles was always looking for a secret passage and such things, but I doubt if he found it.’ Following her upstairs, I passed the entrance to a minstrel’s gallery. It was easy to believe that the house was very old, for the slated hall and battered pewter looked primitive enough.

She led the way along a dim corridor whose boards creaked and groaned as we passed. At one end a window filtered in the sunlight, but it was diffused and touched the half-panelled stone walls like a glaze of amber syrup.

‘This is your room,’ Mrs. Kinnefer announced, flinging open a heavy oak door.

I gazed, enchanted. The ceiling was comparatively low, but the walls were completely panelled from the floor upwards in wood so dark with age that it looked like burnished ebony. A great four-poster bed stood in the centre of the room facing the three long, leaded windows. A broad granite window-seat that narrowed towards the alcove was piled with velvet tasselled cushions of sombre crimson and sapphire. Immediately my eye was caught by an ornate chest that stood against the wall.

Mrs. Kinnefer looked pleased as she followed my glance.

‘That’s a Portuguese bridal chest which was taken off a Spanish man-o’-war in olden times.’

So even the high-and-mighty Seatons were not averse, like the parsons of the day, to a spot of looting, I thought.

‘Mrs. Seaton—that’s Mr. Giles’s wife—used to keep her furs in it. She said it was the safest place in the world for them, because no moths could possibly get in.’

So this was Mrs. Seaton’s room—Diana’s mother! I gazed around with renewed interest, but somehow I got no inkling, as one so often does when entering a strange room, of the personality of its former occupant.

Mrs. Kinnefer hesitated, then said, ‘Things weren’t the same here when she left.’ Again there was a slight hesitation and I could see her eyeing me shrewdly before, lowering her voice, she said,

‘Mrs. Seaton left and took Miss Diana with her and, like I said, nothing was the same again—not for me nor the master—nor for anyone, for that matter. For in her day there was always coming and going and the house full of guests and gaiety. It made more work for the staff, of course, but we didn’t mind because it brightened things up and there’s not much one can do here for entertainment. When she went away with Miss Diana it was as though the world had come to an end, and it was then I saw a great change in the master. It was as though he had got old all of a sudden, though truth to tell the mistress and himself never got on well together. That was the reason why she left, them being so different. But he missed Miss Diana so much.’ She paused. ‘Many a time I’ve seen him sitting there in the library by himself, staring into the fire. It would bring tears to your eyes to see him.’

Then she said hurriedly, as though regretting her show of sentiment and to forestall any questions on my part, ‘But there, I mustn’t stay here gossiping and running on, for goodness knows there’s plenty to be done in a place this size and the girls dodge their work unless I hustle them.’

Before she bustled away she said, ‘I’ll send Hilda up with a tray.

There’s no point in your dining alone downstairs when the master isn’t here,’ she added a little apologetically.

I nodded. ‘Yes, I’d prefer that.’ So in future I was to dine with Garth Seaton! I was not, like some Victorian menial, to be relegated to my own quarters and expected to spend mealtimes alone.

When she had gone I unpacked my cases and began to stow away my possessions. I unlocked the doors of the massive wardrobe, marvelling at its intricate carving, the silver mounts around the keyhole: the very key itself with its fretted shaft was as beautiful as a small ornament. When I opened the door I smelt the vague, unmistakable sophisticated scent of French perfume. It came from a rack of gowns deep in the dark recesses of the wardrobe.

I took one down and touched the thin silk with my fingers, examining it with curiosity. These dresses were perfect in every detail and hideously expensive, I realized; the kind of clothes I had read about but had never had the remotest hope of possessing. Why had Mrs. Seaton left them behind? I wondered. Was it because she was so rich that possessions meant little to her or was it that she had wanted to jettison everything connected with her life here; to begin again without any possessions to remind her of Tregillis and Giles?

I hung my clothes up and closed the door, then surveyed myself in the long mirror. Now that I had taken off my hat, my unruly red-gold curls had escaped. I looked extremely unlike the conventional conception of a governess with smoothed-back hair and demure expression. I brushed my hair, trying it in several different styles, then decided to tie it back in a queue at the nape of my neck.

I had just finished when there was a knock at the bedroom door.

‘Come in,’ I called, and a young, shy country girl in cap and apron came in bearing a laden tray.

‘Mrs. Kinnefer said I was to bring you this up,’ she said, placing it on a small marble table. In spite of her shyness she was darting curious glances in my direction. I was to be a new addition to the household and I guessed I was being summed up. ‘Mrs. Kinnefer says if you wish it I’m to put a light to the kindling as the evenings get chilly at this time of the year.’

‘Yes, that would be nice,’ I smiled.

She put a light to the piled wood and, when it had begun to crackle up the chimney, took her departure.

When she had gone I pulled my chair to the warm comfortable blaze. Salty driftwood sent blue flames sparking up the chimney.

The food looked delicious and it struck me in passing that, as I had grown to suspect, Garth Seaton was an extremely particular and meretricious person. A hard person to please, I guessed. It occurred to me that we were unlikely to get on: he would be demanding, I felt sure, and I was not at all the type of person to satisfy a perfectionist. I wondered how long it would be before he discovered that after all I was not quite as suitable as he had assumed. When I had finished the meal I leaned back in the comfortable chair gazing sleepily at the fire.

The journey had tired me and afterwards I was not sure whether I had closed my eyes and dozed off for a moment or two, but suddenly I was awake with a start. I had heard nothing, I was sure of that, at least nothing more than the whisper of sound that you might hear in such an old house, or then again, it might have been the red skeletons of wood sinking into grey ash, but whatever it was I was suddenly acutely aware that I was not alone in the room.

It was as though some sensitive antennae had detected something alien in the atmosphere : another being shared it with me and I felt my blood turn to ice: who was it who stood silently behind my chair, motionless? Yet the door was shut: no one had entered: I was completely certain of that.

This old pile must, during its long and turbulent history, have amassed uneasy spirits, I realized. Could my friend Diana, who loved her old home so passionately, be one of them? I heard the ring on my right hand reverberate as it trembled on the arm of the chair. I was terrified, filled with a superstitious dread I had so often scoffed at in others. I daren’t turn round. Something or somebody was watching me silently.

‘You’re frightened,’ a light, childish voice said contemptuously.

‘You’re a coward, just as I thought you’d be!’

I gave a long, shuddering sigh and slowly turned in my chair.

A young girl stood against the panelled wall contemplating me scornfully.

Slowly I regained my wits and stopped trembling as I saw that behind the small, slight figure was a blank, gaping square in the panelling. Instinctively I guessed who my visitor was. ‘You’re Melinda, aren’t you?’

She nodded. ‘I’m Melinda Markham. How did you guess?’

So I had met the ‘odious child’ of Diana’s diary!

‘Of course you’re not so clever,’ she added with contempt.

‘Mrs. Kinnefer must have told you about me. It’s my hair! How could you miss it?’ There was something half proud, half defiant about the declaration.

I forbore to tell her that Mrs. Kinnefer had not described her appearance, but that she had conveyed graphically enough the girl’s peculiarities. But it was true that even the child’s hair alone would ensure that she would not be overlooked. It was the most extraordinary colour I had ever seen. It had the tones of bleached stubble and was as straight and fine as embroidery silk. But it wasn’t really beautiful. It was on the contrary disconcerting.

Against the white, colourless face and transparent, glassy blue of her eyes it was somehow sinister and disturbing.

She advanced towards me. ‘I was watching you for ages, but you didn’t know it, did you?’ she sounded gleeful.

‘You had no right to do that,’ I said weakly.

She shrugged. ‘Why not? It’s fun spying on people— especially when they don’t know it.’

‘But does Mrs. Kinnefer know you creep around like that?’

She shook her head, her pale eyes sly. ‘Of course not. Do you think I ran off and blurted to that stupid old woman that I’d found the secret passage? She’d nag at Uncle Garth to block it up or something and spoil all my fun.’

‘Then what makes you tell me? Why do you think I won’t tell your Uncle Garth?’

‘Because I know,’ she said with conviction. ‘I’ve been watching you, as I said. I can tell about people. You see, I’ve the second sight.’ She said this with an air of childish self-importance that belied her almost uncanny air of maturity.

‘How did you discover the passage?’ I asked curiously.

She was pleased at my interest, I could see, her translucent eyes bright. ‘Mrs. Kinnefer told me that Uncle Giles was always searching for a passage in the picture gallery when he was a little boy. The house is terribly old, you know. So I kept searching too and I found it,’ she said triumphantly, ‘but no one but yourself knows. You must promise not to tell,’ she said severely.

‘And why should I make such a promise? And anyway, if you haven’t told anyone so far, why have you told me? You’ve no guarantee that I won’t tell your secret.’ Somehow it seemed perfectly normal to speak to this extraordinary child like an adult.