“Ah, there you are, Harrison.” Harry’s father came into the room, his unlit pipe in his hand. “I am pleased to see you on time. I should not have liked the dinner to be spoiled. Not when your mother and Polly have toiled in the kitchen all day.” He replaced his pipe in the pipe rack and sat in his wing chair near the fire.
“Neither would I, Father.”
“Has another new family come to live in the village?” Harry asked as he threw up his tails and sat on an overly firm chintz-covered chair. His mother had redecorated the room in the latest style with heavy velvet drapes, potted ferns, china ornaments, and crocheted antimacassars covering every suitable surface to protect the furniture from the Macassar oil his father used on his hair.
“No, I don’t believe so,” Father said. “Mother? Mrs. Dunstable?”
They both shook their heads.
“Why do you ask, Harrison?” Mother sat upright with an eye on the door.
“On my way here, I spoke to a young lady in the park I’ve never met before.”
“What was she like?” Cecily asked.
“She wore a white veil, and with the mist swirling around us, I can’t be sure what she…”
“Mist? What mist?” Mr. Johnson rose and went to the window. “No fog tonight. It’s unusually clear. I was just remarking on it to your mother.”
“It must have blown away,” Harrison said, annoyed that his parent should think he made it up.
“Tell me more.” Cecily gazed at Harry, making him wish there was more to tell.
“The lady seemed unworldly. Rather ghostly.” He hadn’t admitted that to himself until now. But it was true. She moved over the ground as if she glided.
“Ghostly?” his mother cried. “Really, Harrison, shame on you. You shall make us all lie scared in our beds tonight.”
“I apologize, Mother.” He shifted in his chair. “Such fantastical thoughts are most unlike me.” He directed his apology to Cecily, not wishing her to think badly of him, and noticed her eyes alight with curiosity and amusement.
“Please tell us more, sir,” she said. “I love ghost stories if this is one.”
“I’m afraid it might disappoint you.” Harry fiddled with a waistcoat button and glanced at his father, who frowned. “I have nothing to add, for she left before I could ask her more. The woman merely appeared to be lost. She pointed to the castle, but surely she doesn’t live there.”
“Indeed not,” his father said. He turned to Mrs. Dunstable. “You might wish to visit our ruined castle sometime.”
“What is its history, Mr. Johnson?” Miss Dunstable asked.
“It’s quite fascinating. When Lord Seymour’s son, Edward Seymour II, inherited Berry Pomeroy, he began to build a stately mansion within the castle walls. An ambitious undertaking, he replaced the old house’s north range with a new north wing three stories high, with a grand staircase.”
“What happened after that, Father?” Harry asked, caught up in the mystery.
“It’s thought that he ran out of money. Or perhaps he had an eye on the baronetcy he purchased later. He became Sir Edward Seymour, first baronet of Berry Pomeroy, but died not long afterward.”
“Then the house was never finished?” Harry turned to see Cecily listening intently.
His father shook his head. “No, never completed.”
“How very sad,” Cecily said. “I should like to know if this mysterious lady in white found her way safely home.”
Her mother frowned at her. “Cecily reads gothic novels.”
“Dinner is served,” Polly announced at the door.
His mother tutted. “Now, let us enjoy a splendid Christmas dinner if we aren’t too unnerved to enjoy it.”
The company brightened as they drank mulled wine and tucked into roast goose served with tasty gravy and a vast array of vegetables. Harry found a silver shilling in his serving of Christmas pudding. Then, after dinner, when Cecily pulled a Christmas cracker with him, he angled it, allowing her to win. It appeared he hadn’t fooled her, for with a questioning glance, she offered the crimson paper hat she’d won to him. “You must wear this because it will muss my hair.”
Harry arranged it on his head.
