Dorothy Eden (30 page)

“I expect it always was, even when your grandparents lived here. They were rich enough. But you know how New Yorkers are always pulling down buildings and putting up bigger and better ones.”

“They won’t pull this one down,” Jessy said emphatically. “I own the freehold. Mother was very definite about that.”

“Don’t decide until we get through the front door. The place may be full of unsympathetic ghosts. Not like Loburn’s gentle ones. I’ll try ringing the bell and hope someone answers it.”

They stood there at the top of the steps, a nice-looking couple, the girl with blowing dark hair, greenish eyes, rosy colour in her cheeks, the man a bit professorial, with his intelligent, rather prominent, grey eyes behind horn-rimmed spectacles, a floppy lock of fair hair sliding over his forehead, his sober English clothes.

The old woman who opened the door must have thought them people of class, for she patted her clothes, as if feeling for a white apron, and then gave an old-fashioned bob.

“Good morning,” Freddie said. “I’m Lord Hazzard, and this is my wife. The bank was to let you know we were coming.”

“They did, sir, but they didn’t give me time to have the place looking right. Not like it was in the old days, when there was plenty of servants. But come in, sir, come in, ma’am.”

“You speak as if you have known the house for a long time,” Jessy said in her pleasant warm voice. “My grandmother lived here, you know.”

“Yes, and was drowned in that terrible shipwreck,” the old lady said with suitable solemnity. “She was a fine strong-minded lady, Mrs Jervis was. She knew what she wanted, and so did Miss Clemency. You’re right, I have known this house for a long time. I was cook in them times, when the old mistress and Miss Clemency was here. I’m Mrs Crampton.”

Jessy put out a small well-bred hand.

“What fun to meet someone who knew my mother as a girl. Isn’t it, Freddie?”

Freddie also held out his hand to shake the withered and none too clean one offered him.

“It’s the greatest luck,” he said amiably. “So you were cook in those days. The last days that the house was lived in, I believe. Will you show us over?”

“Of course, sir. That’s my instructions from the bank. But don’t look too close for dust. I’m only one old woman, I can’t keep all these rooms spick and span. This one here,” she flung open doors to display an ornately carved high-ceilinged room, “was used for parties. Miss Clemency had a ball here, once. Not a big one, there wasn’t room, but the double doors into Mrs Jervis’s sitting room were opened that night. See, the windows look over the garden. But that’s gone to rack and ruin. Those great buildings next door shut out the sun. Nothing grows. Faugh! Look at these curtains, frayed and torn. It’s the ravages of time, ma’am.”

Jessy was fingering the tattered blue silk curtains.

“Isn’t it a strange coincidence, Freddie, that Mother found Loburn in much the same state as this house, badly needing repair and refurnishing. And now here we are in her house with the same thing to do.”

“We’re not staying for long, Jessy.”

“A month at least, darling. And then we’ll come over every spring. What fun.”

The old lady was giving a tight smile.

“I can see you take after Miss Clemency, ma’am. She always wanted her own way. She weren’t so polite about it, though. She were spoilt, we always said.”

“My mother?” Jessy asked in surprise.

“Oh, yes, she could pout and have her tantrums. You’ve got her eyes, ma’am, sort of sea-green like hers were, but softer. And your smile’s real nice. Must take after your daddy. He was handsome, wasn’t he? We called him the sun god in the servants’ hall. At least that was Hetty’s name for him. She was quite smitten. Poor Hetty.”

“Hetty?” said Jessy slowly.

“Yes, ma’am. She was my protégé, in a manner of speaking. Well, the mistress’s to begin with, but then I took care of her. Poor little orphan.”

“Poor little orphan? Hetty?” It was Freddie’s turn to look mystified.

The old lady’s faded blue eyes went from one to the other in puzzlement.

“You speak as if you know her. You can’t. She was lost on that ship, probably weighed down with all the luggage the mistress would expect to be saved. I wrote to Miss Clemency in England once, to ask about her.”

“Who was Hetty, Mrs Crampton?” asked Freddie, very gently.

“Never did know. Brought here one day, and left here. But she were part of the family if looks were anything to go by. She could have been Miss Clemency’s sister. Her twin sister at that. Wrong side of the blanket, I said. Her name was Harriet. I called her Hetty because she said she liked it. She was a good girl, honest and respectable. She deserved better than what she got, both in this house and in that cold drowning sea. Life’s a queer old business, isn’t it? Will you come down to my kitchen and have some coffee? I just made it. Then I can show you the upstairs.”

The old lady waddled ahead of them, talking only half audibly.

“So you’re planning to brighten up the old house. That will be nice. There’s only me and my cat below stairs.” Mrs Crampton looked backwards at Jessy, saying, pleased, “You aren’t a bit stuck-up, are you, ma’am, coming to have coffee in my kitchen?”

“I should hardly think I have any right to be stuck-up after what you have just told us,” Jessy murmured. Her eyes were twinkling, the dimples beginning to show at the corners of her mouth. “Freddie! You know Granny always knew something she wouldn’t talk about.”

Freddie nodded. “My father did, too. He had heard something, once.”

“But not Daddy?”

“No. Although I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded.”

“Why should he?” Jessy cried. “If you ask me, he was jolly lucky it wasn’t—the other one. So was I …”

Mrs Crampton, her hands on the coffee pot, turned to ask bewilderedly, “Are you talking about my Hetty? I didn’t know you knew her.”

“We believe we did,” Freddie said carefully.

“I wouldn’t know how you could, if she drowned off that ship.”

Mrs Crampton poured steaming black coffee into cups. Her mind was going off at a tangent again. “Trust that Miss Clemency to save herself. She had a gift for doing what she set out to do.”

“I don’t think Hetty came far behind,” Jessy murmured, the dimples breaking.

“You keep saying Hetty.”

“That was the name of a lady my husband and I loved very much. If I could have all her qualities, my husband would love me for ever. Wouldn’t you, darling?”

“But you have. And I will.”

Mrs Crampton pushed the coffee cups across the table. She had given up trying to understand the conversation. The young English couple were lovely, but odd. She had always heard the English were odd.

Dorothy Eden (1912–1982) was the internationally acclaimed author of more than forty bestselling gothic, romantic suspense, and historical novels. Born in New Zealand, where she attended school and worked as a legal secretary, she moved to London in 1954 and continued to write prolifically. Eden’s novels are known for their suspenseful, spellbinding plots, finely drawn characters, authentic historical detail, and often a hint of spookiness. Her novel of pioneer life in Australia,
The Vines of Yarrabee
, spent four months on the
New York Times
bestseller list. Her gothic historical novels
Ravenscroft
,
Darkwater
, and
Winterwood
are considered by critics and readers alike to be classics of the genre.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1980 by Dorothy Eden

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

978-1-4804-2937-6

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

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New York, NY 10014

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