With a double-height ceiling, bookshelves towering along three of the four walls and everything lit by a huge chandelier, the depressing feeling of the rest of the downstairs was gone. Everywhere she looked, the rich hue of polished mahogany shelves was balanced out by a riot of different colours from the thousands of book spines. A massive bow window, boasting a set of the largest French doors she’d ever seen, would provide plenty of light during the daytime. Jess thought it looked as though there were steps outside, but wherever they led was lost in the darkness.
Digby had remained surprisingly tight to her leg as she looked around. Perhaps the dog was worried about getting left behind or being shut in one of these rooms and forgotten about. Or perhaps he was feeling penitent after tripping her up. Jess stifled a laugh. More likely the dog was hungry.
Jess gave up on her recce, retracing her steps and heading back to the kitchen. In the scullery, which held a huge ceramic Belfast sink and the prehistoric dishwasher, she reached for a scoop of dog food.
When Digby didn’t touch it, instead beginning to whine, Jess realised what he wanted.
‘Do you need to go out?’ she said. ‘Is it time for a pee?’
A small bounce on his front legs seemed to confirm Jess’s suspicions. She unlocked the scullery door and was about to reach for the dog’s lead, when he nosed his way past her, swinging the door far enough to be able to slip through and disappear into the gloom.
‘Damn it.’ Grabbing his lead and her coat, Jess headed after him, but he was already lost in the foggy darkness. Jess switched on her phone’s torch app but rather than increasing her ability to see, it only brought to life the swirling white of the dense fog. So instead she called for Digby as she inched forwards.
Doing her best to quell the desire to fire off a series of varied and colourful swear words at the dog, a volley of barking grabbed her attention. Some were of Digby-Dog origin – she could tell his ‘I might sound wheezy but I’m also deadly’ woofs a mile off – but there were other barks, too.
Absolutely typical of Digby to manage to find himself some mischief to be part of – the little dog was fearless. Jess crossed her fingers as she sent a quick prayer skywards for the dog’s safety. ‘Please, not on my watch,’ she breathed, white crystals of foggy air twisting in front of her.
Keeping the beam from her torch app pointed at or near ground level so at least she could see where she was treading, Jess hurried in the direction of the barking.
Sebastian edged his plate onto a side table, brushing the remnants of a very decent scone from his black trousers. He would wait until the others had finished their tea, then load up a tray and take it through to the kitchen. His mother would probably harrumph at him helping the help, as it were, but it was time to face facts.
His father had done a very good job of hiding the extent of the financial problems, but Sebastian had been called to a meeting with the estate’s accountant before he’d travelled to the Highlands for the funeral, and it had become starkly obvious that he had inherited an estate snagged on some very sharp rocks, its hull irreparably damaged.
Olivia might have thought employing Jess would help to maintain the status quo, but things were going to have to radically change, starting with the family learning to pick up their own socks and cook their own food.
‘I thought Declan did well with the reading,’ his mother said, her teacup pinched between tight fingers. Sebastian could see how firmly she was holding the handle, the skin white around her perfectly painted fingernails. The desire to retain the veneer of civility remained strong, even though she was fooling nobody in this room. They all knew what had led to Sebastian’s father’s untimely death.
Not that any of them would say a word.
‘He did an excellent job. I thought the whole service went very smoothly.’ Sebastian opted to play his mother’s game, keeping the talk small and staying away from the multiple elephants even this large room was struggling to hold.
Another log went onto the fire, and he set about poking at its fire-blackened predecessors, sparks flying as they disintegrated and set free more of the heat hidden in their cores.
Setting the poker down, he turned to the others. Three sets of eyes were watching him, had been watching him for most of the day. He had stepped into shoes he didn’t want, didn’t have the first clue how to fill. But they were shoes which, for now, he would have to pretend he could cope with.
‘It’s been quite a day. I think I need a proper drink,’ he said, crossing the room and pulling open the drinks cabinet. ‘Anyone want to join me?’
Sebastian wiggled a bottle of gin at them. His sister, Olivia, nodded, her shoulders relaxing a fraction as Candida smiled and dumped her teacup and saucer onto a tray.
‘Yes, please. I’ll get rid of the tea things,’ Candida said, crockery chinking as she piled everything up.
‘Do you stack?’ Olivia said, her expression cracking into a smile as Candida shrugged and grinned at the old joke. An ancient Barclay-Brown relative had once commented that she’d stayed somewhere which was lacking sufficient staff, because the plates and dishes had to be stacked at the end of each course before they were removed from the room. It was ever afterwards seen as a joke, of sorts. The days of the Downton Abbey levels of staffing, where every plate could be placed or lifted at the same time and carted in and out by dozens of maids and menservants, were long, long gone. But although today the joke was laced with an even greater irony than the rest of the people in this room realised, it did make a dent in the gloomy atmosphere, and Sebastian found himself stifling a laugh.
With a sudden inhalation, his mother unfolded herself from her chair, a frown burrowing its way across her forehead.
‘I think I need to lie down,’ she said, stalking from the room before anyone could say a word.
Sebastian met his sister’s gaze, and they raised their eyebrows almost in unison. Sebastian wondered for how much longer their mother planned to pretend. How much longer they were all going to have to pretend.
Chapter 3
The paving soon gave way to grass, and Jess slipped her way across a sloping area of muddy lawn still slick from the earlier rain. Eventually the grass gave way to a muddy pathway between some shrubby bushes.
The sound of continued barking gave Jess confidence she was heading in the correct direction; she could make out the indistinct shape of a long hedge, and beyond that, lights glowing from a low building, eerie through the fog.
By the time she’d worked her way along the hedge, discovered a picket gate standing wide and called several more times to Digby, who was still ignoring her, she could hear another voice. A strong male voice, low and gruff and heavily laced with a Scottish accent, calling firmly for the dogs to hush their noise.
‘Hello?’ Jess called into the ether and was rewarded with the beam of a torch directly in her face.
