“Do you mean the muniments room?”she said.
He felt a throb of excitement.“Dear George described it to me so vividly, you see,” he said.“And you did say you wanted me to feel quite at home.”
Chapter three
Ormdale
Unadidnotknowwhat to make of Mr Anderson.His dark round glasses made his gaze opaque.And his expression had a disconcerting habit of sliding about, as if he didn’t want to be pinned down on anything.Worst of all, his teeth unsettled her.
She had been given to believe that Americans had very wide jaws full of very white teeth, because they did not drink tea—not since the stupidest of the King Georges had tried to make them pay extra for it.Their offence at this had run so deep that they had never got on again.
Una knew it was not necessary to apologise for this, since by all accounts they were doing quite well on their own.So well, in fact, that it was now expedient to put on a very good show for them.
Una reprimanded herself for her doubts as she took him round the glasshouse.This Anderson might have teeth just like anybody else in Yorkshire, but he did indeed have an accent (of some kind—Una had never heard an American before), and he looked about him very keenly, as if committing everything to memory.
It was probably to write up a report for the Smithsonian, which would be significant for them, according to George, who knew far more about such things than Una did.Her cousin George was somewhat impractical and unworldly, but unquestionably a brilliant naturalist.At only twenty, he had already formed links with the foremost living naturalists.
So, despite her reservations, Una led his friend out of the public glasshouse and into her home, past the placards that insisted these areas werePRIVATE, keeping up a cheerful commentary the whole way to silence her own doubts.
Yet the further she took him up the stairs of the dark and quiet abbey, his stick tapping behind her, the less easy she felt.She thought of the bright and busy crowd outside, and found herself wishing herself amongst them.
“Do watch your step,” she said as she let them out onto the roof.What a relief to be in the sunlight again!The octagonal tower could only be accessed from the roof, and they now crossed the walkway to it.
“Here we are,” she said as she unlocked the arched door and ushered him into the upper room of the octagonal tower.
There were old herbs drying among the rafters and tools for grooming, clipping, or restraining, training, and riding dragons lined up or hanging on pegs, organised by size.They weren’t the things in everyday use in the menagerie, but the historical tools of her family’s duties as dragon-keepers.
Una felt embarrassed by the light film of dust that coated the room.“I find it much more convenient to use a room with running water to prepare my herbal tinctures and ointments for common dragon ailments, so this room is not in general use.And of course the production of antivenin is in the hands of professional laboratory technicians these days, as you know.”
She noticed that Mr Anderson was glancing about him, just as if he were looking for something.
“Was there something…you were hoping to see?”she prodded.
“I suppose…antiquities.Artefacts.Everything is so old in England.And your family is part of that.”
“Historical artefacts?”she repeated, biting her lip.
There was something very old and precious in this room.But as far as Una knew, it hadn’t ever been shown to anyone except the other Dragon Keeper families.
“But I forgot that the estate was in trouble for years,” he said with a sigh.“You must have sold everything of value.I don’t suppose your family couldn’t afford to be sentimental.”
Una did not like this picture of her family as a desperate relic of a fading aristocracy.She did not like it because, for much of her life, it had been accurate.She thought of her father and her brother, both of whom had lost their lives going after a rumoured lost treasure.If they hadn’t been so desperate to remedy their decaying fortunes, they would never have risked going into the caves as they had.
Una bent down and pulled out a locked strongbox from under the marble table at the centre of the room.She used a key from her belt to open it, and lifted out a wrapped object, which she placed carefully on the table.
In her father’s day, it had been hidden and only brought out when a younger member of the family was inducted into the family’s oath of secrecy.She did not like to remember the terror of the list of curses she had been forced to call down on herself were she ever to break it.
Her heart beat faster.Was it memory, guilt, or worry that prompted it?She glanced at Mr Anderson.Surely there could be no harm in showing him.It was just too old to hand about every day.That was all.
“Perhaps this will interest you,” Una said.
The man leaned his cane against the table and took the book-sized reliquary in both his hands, so reverently that Una thought he must be a Roman Catholic.
Not for the first time, Una felt uncomfortable about living in a deconsecrated abbey stolen from monks.Cousin Edith would say that all happened in the fifteen hundreds, and they might as well feel guilty about the Norman Conquest, but Una was sure shewouldfeel horribly guilty about the Norman Conquest if an Anglo-Saxon came to tea.
“Is this—?”His voice trailed off.
“Of course, we’ve no way ofreallyknowing… But yes.We think it is.See?”
