Page 93 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
‘I suppose that is a bit odd, Shrimp – and if he’s Phillip, then you’d expect him to be part of the group by the house, with the rest of his family, wouldn’t you?’
‘It’s very curious,’ I said, but if there was a puzzle there, a message to be understood, I had no idea what it could be.
Mr Browne being away the following day, I asked Ralph about the secret cavity in the muniment room and he said that indeed there was one, just big enough to hold an ancient Spanish chest, in which were stored many old papers relating to the family.
He told me, as Honoria had said, that the secret was handed down to each heir, but then added quite casually that since it would be a pity if the way of opening it should be lost if some mischance befall him, he would show it to me.
It was very ingenious but not terribly exciting, being a space just large enough to hold the old chest containing the papers. But then he took me to see another in the Great Hall, the trick of which was common knowledge, and this one was quite large enough to hide a man.
Ralph says there are supposed to be more, to which the secret has been lost, for one of the foremost makers of these ingenious hiding places was known to have worked at Mossby.
As you might imagine, this gave me very much to think about – and to wonder if Lady Anne might have concealed some secret or item of value in one of them, and this was the message she was trying to convey in her window?
32
Fired
Carey had been to a couple of Halfhidden regeneration committee meetings and was now firmly committed to Mossby being on the ghost trail. Suddenly we realized how little time there was to get ready, because Easter was in early April that year.
Things had not improved with Ella, so Carey was reluctantly forced to have yet another word with Clem, pointing out that if she continued to avoid all contact, he would not only cease allowing her free access to the Elizabethan wing, but also assume she wasn’t interested in the seasonal position of tour guide when he opened it to the public.
This seemed to have been passed on with some effect, because Ella suddenly agreed to meet us to discuss things, which took place in one of the rooms at the back of the Great Hall.
Her manner remained wooden while Carey explained his plans and she neither displayed any enthusiasm, nor even made eye contact, which wasn’t encouraging.
But then when he added that the room we were then sitting in would be used as a kind of office, to keep the cashbox, float, account book and supplies in, rather than in the main house, she suddenly perked up.
It appeared that when she worked at a National Trust property, they counted the stock of items for sale every morning and evening, right down to the last pencil, and compared it with the takings. This seemed a bit excessive, but since the thought of doing it that way at Mossby appeared to buck her up no end, Carey told her she could organize it along the same lines if she wanted to.
‘One of us will come over at closing time to help cash up and so on,’ he added. ‘We won’t want to leave anything more than the next day’s float in the till, or cash drawer, or whatever it is we have.’
This too must have been in line with how it was done at the National Trust property, for she didn’t make any objection.
‘If that’s it, then, I’ll be off,’ she said, getting up abruptly and striding off, and when we heard the slam of the heavy front door, we looked at each other.
‘Well, that went better than I expected,’ I said. ‘Though it was a bit disconcerting, the way she didn’t make eye contact and talked without moving her lips.’
‘The visitors aren’t exactly going to find her a vision of cheery welcome if she’s like that with them,’ he agreed. ‘We’ll just have to see how it goes, and of course I’ll be on hand for the first few days after we open to the public, making sure everything’s OK. If she has some kind of meltdown, or doesn’t show up, I can take over.’
‘I don’t mind doing the tour guide thing occasionally, too,’ I offered. ‘It’s only going to be afternoons anyway, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, two till four, Fridays to Mondays inclusive, to start with. Then we’ll see. I’ll think about allowing coach parties too, possibly on a separate afternoon, but our facilities are a bit basic: we’ve no toilet or refreshments on site.’
‘I expect the visitors won’t mind. After all, it won’t take them long to go round the house and buy a few postcards and souvenirs. If they’ve walked down from the farm, Lulu said they were serving refreshments in season, sowedon’t need to.’
Carey had ordered more of the little brass stands and ropes to cordon off access into some of the rooms, a postcard rack and a trestle table for the souvenirs and guidebooks … which we hadn’t yet had printed. Cam, who apparently is an ace photographer and took the pictures for all the postcards that are on sale up and down the ghost trail, had offered to do our postcard photos and then we could use some of them in the glossy brochure. Carey was working on that. There was already a free leaflet, but it wasn’t very illuminating.
Cam’s mum, who had the village shop in Halfhidden, sent us thedetails of the firm who supplied the small souvenirs she sold, since she did a good trade in those. We decided on the usual range of rulers, bookmarks, pencils, pens, keyrings, etc., all with ‘The Haunted Elizabethan Wing, Mossby’ printed on them.
Carey and Clem had started erecting wooden posts on either side of any path or part of the drive that we didn’t want the visitors to go down, so they could be quickly roped off on open days, and several sign boards had been ordered.
‘Though there’ll always be some visitors who ignore the “Private – No Entry” signs entirely and wander off,’ he said pessimistically.
‘Well, if they wander off into the lake, or off the edge of the top terrace, you’d better make sure your insurance covers it, like Molly said,’ I pointed out practically. ‘Fire, theft, accident and imbecility.’
We both took one morning off and drove up to Halfhidden together, because Carey wanted to see how his gates were coming along and Izzy had rung me to say my new jacket was ready.
We found Foxy in the Sweetwell courtyard, painting the iron hoops on an old half-barrel, and she told us she’d had a great time working on Carey’s gates. They were now finished, bar a second coat on one of the back ones and a little gilding.
