Page 16 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
‘Indeed not. Be careful with that, Charlie, you mustn’t touch it,’ I call to Charlie who is still inspecting the suit of armour.
‘But can’t I try it on, Mum? We do own it now.’
I feel my cheeks flush. ‘No, andwedon’t own it – the castle does.’
I glance apologetically at Arthur, but he simply nods his approval at my choice of words.
‘I’m sure I can find an old shield or something similar for you to play with, young sir, if you’d like?’ he offers.
‘Ooh, yes please,’ Charlie says, stepping away from the armour and coming over to Arthur and me. ‘That would be awesome. Do you think you might find me a sword too?’
‘No, no swords!’ I insist. ‘And please call my son Charlie.’
Arthur nods at me and winks at Charlie. ‘Maybe just a blunt one. Now your mum wants to see paintings of some ladies, so if you’d both follow me.’
Arthur leads us across the hall to some wood panelling with roses carved on it. He reaches up and presses on one of the flowers and suddenly one of the panels slides magically across, revealing another room beyond.
‘A secret room!’ Charlie exclaims. ‘Cool.’
‘This room was known as the Ladies’ Chamber,’ Arthur says, gesturing for us to go inside. ‘When feasts where held in the Great Hall, afterwards the men would retire to the Billiards Room down the hall, and the ladies would retire here.’
The Ladies’ Chamber is furnished entirely in shades of turquoise and gold. Embossed turquoise wallpaper adorns the walls, and turquoise and gold upholstered furniture sits amongst walnut tables and bookcases. The walls are covered in more portraits – this time, I’m pleased to see, they are of females.
I go over to look while Charlie is captivated by a tiny piano in the corner of the room.
‘That is Clara, fifteenth Countess of Chesterford,’ Arthur tells me as I gaze at a portrait of a pretty, but proud-looking woman wearing what looks to me like an Edwardian outfit. ‘She was supposed to be quite the socialite – apparently, she hosted many luxurious house parties here; the future King Edward VII was her guest on more than one occasion, I believe.’
‘Really?’ I look hard at the woman in the painting. She reminds me a little of my grandmother. ‘What happened to her?’
‘She almost brought the castle to bankruptcy. Racked up huge gambling debts and couldn’t pay them back. Her husband, the fifteenth Earl, died young, so she had to sell off some precious family heirlooms to repay her creditors. The rest of the family were none too happy with her; she was somewhat regarded as the black sheep of the family, I believe.’
I look again at the serene face gazing down at me, and I sympathise with my ancestor. Debt is never much fun, whatever form it takes.
Arthur then proceeds to tell me as much as he can about all the other paintings in the room. It seems there were some pretty formidable females in the Chesterford family. And suddenly I find myself feeling proud that I’m becoming one of them.
‘Would you like me to show you around some more of the castle?’ Arthur asks.
‘I’ve actually seen most of what the visitors see before,’ I tell him, ‘when I came to visit myself. What I’d really like to see is the behind-the-scenes stuff; you know, the well-oiled cogs that make everything run smoothly.’
Arthur pulls a face. ‘I’d hardly call it well oiled, but we get by. Come this way, then, and I’ll show you the castle offices.’
Arthur leads us out into the Great Hall, and then we follow him down a long corridor, up some stone stairs that are roped off to the public, and finally through a heavy wood door marked ‘PRIVATE. NO ENTRY’.
On the other side is another narrow corridor, and at the end of that Arthur opens yet another door. This time we find ourselves in a small modern office with several filing cabinets and two wooden desks. Tiffany sits at one of them in front of a computer screen.
‘Hello again, Tiffany,’ I say, smiling at her.
‘Ooh, ma’am, er miss, er . . . ’ she says, scrambling to her feet.
‘Amelia,’ I remind her.
‘Miss Amelia.’
Why is everyone incapable of speaking to me without using a title?
‘Really, it’s just Amelia. Please carry on with what you’re doing, Tiffany; Arthur is just giving us a bit of a tour around the castle.’
‘Er . . . yes . . . er . . . ’
