Page 24 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
‘It could do with the chop – get it:chop!’ Joey says, grinning with glee at his own joke. ‘Ah, never mind,’ he says when we don’t laugh. ‘This is what we usually chop the fallen trees up with.’ He lifts a chainsaw from the back of the quad bike’s trailer. ‘Arthur should have given you this.’
Tom smiles ruefully at the petrol-powered chainsaw in Joey’s arms. ‘Yeah, I bet he should.’
‘Sorry,’ I tell him. ‘I did say you’d have to work hard to impress Arthur, didn’t I? I guess this was just his idea of a little joke.’
‘If you believe that, Amelia,’ Tom says, turning to me now, ‘then you really won’t have any trouble believing in a few ghosts.’
‘And just who is this?’ I ask as Charlie bounds across the castle courtyard later with a small hairy dog at his side.
‘This is Chester; he’s the castle’s dog,’ Charlie explains, bending down to fuss the hound.
‘He belonged to the last Earl,’ Arthur explains. ‘Dorothy and I have been looking after him at our cottage since the Earl died. He’s been a forlorn little fella for the last few months, which is to be expected, I suppose, but he cheered up no end this morning when he met your Charlie.’
Arthur really has taken Charlie under his wing today. After I’d checked on Tom, I’d spent the rest of the morning in the office with Tiffany learning how the castle runs on a day-to-day basis. There’s a lot more to it than I’d imagined, but surprisingly, Tiffany proved to be a very thorough and knowledgeable teacher. I’d learned about the staff and how over the years they’d been reduced bit by bit, until all that was left was the skeleton crew that lived at the castle today. When required there was a small team of temporary helpers that they called upon from the village – mainly retired residents who had worked at the castle in the past.
I’d learned about how costly it is to run the place. Even though a lot of the rooms aren’t in use any more, the electricity costs alone are staggering, and the maintenance that has to be undertaken simply to keep the castle walls from crumbling around us is so complex that in the last year alone seven different tradesmen had been brought in just to prevent the castle from becoming a ruin of the future.
If I’d been daunted before about simply coming to live here, all this new information is only adding to my already burdened shoulders.
But I try to shake some of that burden away as I bend down to fuss over Charlie’s new friend. ‘I always knew there would be a dog involved in all this,’ I murmur, stroking him under the chin. Chester eagerly licks my hand in return.
‘Oh, who’s that?’ I ask as I stand up again and notice a strange couple wandering across the courtyard.
‘Just visitors,’ Arthur says. ‘We’re open to the public again today, aren’t we?’
‘Of course we are; I completely forgot.’
I watch the couple for a moment as they wander aimlessly around.
‘You’ll get used to it,’ Arthur says. ‘We don’t get too many visitors at this time of the year – at any time of the year, really.’
‘I’ll be right back,’ I say to Arthur and Charlie, and I sprint across the gravel towards the couple.
‘Hello!’ I call cheerily as I approach them. ‘How are you today?’
The woman looks at me suspiciously from under the hood of her raincoat, and the man nods politely.
‘I’m Amelia Ha . . . Chesterford,’ I correct myself. ‘Welcome to Chesterford Castle, how are you finding your trip today?’
‘Fine, thank you,’ the man says at the same time as the woman replies: ‘It’s okay, I suppose.’
‘Is there anything we could improve on?’
‘You could make it a bit cheaper, for one thing,’ the woman says grimly. ‘There’s not much to see when you get through them gates is there, Brian?’
Brian shakes his head.
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,’ I apologise. ‘What would you like to see more of?’
‘It’s not the amount of things as such,’ Brian says, almost apologetically, ‘more the quality of things on show. Many are in quite a shabby condition, if you don’t mind me saying. And we’ve noticed quite a lot of dust, haven’t we, Marjory?’
‘Yes, dust,’ Marjory repeats. ‘Antiques ageing I can excuse, but a quick flick with a feather duster once in a while would get rid of a little bit of dust; there’s no excuse for shoddy housekeeping, even in somewhere as big as this.’
‘Of course.’ I nod, glad Dorothy can’t hear this. ‘I’m actually quite new here, so I haven’t had time to address these small, butnecessarythings,’ I add when Marjory glares at me. ‘But believe me, I will. In the meantime, may I offer you free return passes to the castle in six months by means of an apology, by which time I intend to have everything running ship shape, or is that castle shape!’ I smile, hoping to lighten their mood.
But Marjory looks unimpressed. ‘We won’t be on holiday in six months, will we? What good are free passes then?’
‘It’s very kind of you,’ Brian says, attempting to guide Marjory away. ‘Perhaps wewillcome back and see you again, then? Good luck with your endeavours. From what I’ve seen this morning, you’re going to need it.’
