A snatch of a maudlin song warbled years ago by a greataunt infiltrated my head, something along the lyrics of: In the gloaming… oh my darling… when the lights are dim and low…” And lo, all these years later, I stood in the gloaming ignoring my own darling in the process. My eyes found the staircase. It stood a quarter of a mile down to my left, and despite the poor visibility there was no mistaking its baronial splendor. Straight ahead in the distance was a fireplace vast enough to roast more than one proverbial ox… or equally possibly a couple of recalcitrant peasants to be removed when necessary from the correspondingly large log bin to the left of the hearth. On my more immediate right was the outline of a carved screen that might well have been pinched from a cathedral. A trestle table that could have seated an army stood loaded with murky miscellany, and adding to the confusion were numerous squares and rectangles that could feasibly be packing chests brought in on moving day several centuries distant.
One thing was clear. Either I had mistaken the exterior of the building as eighteenth century or this hall dated back to an earlier part of a revamped structure. Tudor? No, I thought, undoubtedly doing some wishful thinking… Lancastrian or even further back to Plantagenet times. The name Geoffrey of Anjou filtered back to me from childhood history lessons, but I chose to indulge myself with the image of Henry II sporting a sprig of yellow broom tucked into his crown. By the time Mrs. Malloy pointed out that I was standing there gawking, the number of living persons in hall had dwindled by one.
“I expect you hurt his feelings by not listening to a word he said.” She stood majestically, smoothing down the front of the emerald green taffeta jacket to which were pinned enough sparkling brooches to ransom half the nobility of Europe. Clearly she wasn’t speaking about Ben, who was pacing on the spot, but in recognition of my stupid look she clarified for me. “Him as let us in, and I’d have thought you’d have thrilled to every syllable, Mrs. H!”
“Who is he and what did I miss?”
“Mr. Plunket.”
“That’s his name?” Call me persnickety, but as a sobriquet for a member of the landed gentry this one left something to be desired.
“So he said, and I don’t see why he’d say so if it weren’t true. Not one of your more romantic names, is it? ’Course, maybe it was pronounced French at one time. ‘Ploonkay’ has a certain air to it…”
“Possibly if he wanted to be a fashion designer, but maybe he’s happy as he is.”
“Happy is what he didn’t look, Mrs. H, when he took an eyeful of you.”
“Me?”
“Could we continue this rather banal conversation outside?” Ben paced further into the gloaming, allowing Mrs. Malloy to ignore him without seeming to be downright rude.
“Never mind that, Mrs. H, before you get all upset, Mr. Plunket is not the owner of this lovely big house.”
“No? Then what is he? A policeman directing traffic?”
“The butler.” Mrs. Malloy shook her head at my dimwittedness, then, perhaps feeling she had been unnecessarily crushing, added: “Not that he looked the part. More like he’d dressed out of the ragbag.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“What difference does it make what he was wearing?” Ben made an irritable turn and collided with a suit of armor, which made a metallic protest but mercifully did not draw its sword.
“And a face like a gourd,” continued Mrs. M remorselessly. “Still, as I remember thinking on being introduced to my second… no, third husband, ugly is as ugly does. Like my American friend says, Abraham Lincoln never won any beauty pageants.”
“And where is Mr. Plunket now?” I asked.
“Gone for a word with his nibs, is how he put it.” Mrs. Malloy pointed at a door which I estimated could be reached without getting winded by anyone in reasonably good shape.
“About giving us directions? Why couldn’t he have done that on his own?”
“Some people can’t point the way to the end of their own noses. But never mind that, Mrs. H.” Her eyes flashed like a cat’s in the dark, and it was finally borne in on me that she was sizzling with excitement. “Get this! Them two people he mentioned as getting here ahead of us-the ones from the van, that is-they’re part of a television crew, cameramen, audio, and such. Seems they’ve come to film a documentary! The director’s French, if you can believe it!”
“God! What a ghastly stroke of luck!” Ben paced back into view, his footfall echoing up from the flagstones like the march of thousands. “We can’t intrude at such a time! What if we get caught on camera explaining we couldn’t find our way from point A to point B because of a little mist that wouldn’t have stalled a kid on a tricycle. Ellie”-there was a note of pleading in his voice that would have undoubtedly touched my very core had I not been considering the likelihood of the director’s name being François and whether he would wear a beret and sit in a canvas chair with his name on the back.
It shames me to report that I turned away from Ben to ask Mrs. Malloy a vital question. “Did Mr. Plunket say what sort of documentary?”
“So now you’re interested.” She struck a pose indicative of pondering her best side if presented to the camera. “He didn’t get round to that. He ran off, it seemed to me”-she paused to give me the gimlet eyes from under penciled brows-“when he took a good look at you, Mrs. H!”
“Keep rubbing it in. I’m sorry I missed his reeling back in horror.”
“You don’t say. Anyway, from the look on his face it was like he’d seen a ghost.”
“What rubbish!” If my laugh sounded hollow, it was due to the acoustics produced by the mile-high ceiling that vanished to a glimpse of the dependent light fixture and a railing girding what was presumably a gallery. I preferred the thought of lepers to minstrels. Was that a grotesquely dehumanized face peering down at us? Ridiculous! My overactive imagination had conjured a bedraggling of hoary locks out of a trick of light. And yet, in my defense, a place like this, reeking with antiquity and seemingly serious neglect, might cause even the normally unsusceptible to overreact.
“It was right after eyeballing you that Mr. Plunket said he’d ask his nibs about the directions. Scuttled off he did like the hounds of hell was at his heels.” Mrs. Malloy stood savoring the memory, while Ben took a detour around the trestle table before fumbling his way toward the fireplace. I inhaled a thought.
“Maybe that’s the reason for crew and the documentary.”
“What you mean, Mrs. H?”
“Ghosts. I wonder if this place is to be part of a series on haunted houses. I can’t imagine it having been chosen for the glimpse it provides into the golden glory of aristocratic living.”
“I’ll bet you’ve hit the nail on the noggin.” My trusty cohort is not one to hand out praise on a shovel and she did not now beam approval, but her nod conveyed agreement of sufficient fervor that her hat shifted a couple of degrees.
“What can be keeping the butler fellow this long?” Ben again passed the suit of armor without so much as a nod of acknowledgment. Did the sensation of being preyed upon by unseen eyes and ears emanate from that chunk of metal? Or was there some other hovering presence counting the seconds until Ben dragged Mrs. Malloy and me out the door that would thud heavily and inexorably against us as we went fleeing back into the night? Aware that this was a chapter I had read more often than was good for me, I banished the chills and thrills and concentrated on the logical.
“Very likely Mr. Plunket has interrupted a session between his nibs and the director of the television show and is having difficulty stirring up interest in our trivial situation.” I felt regretfully compelled to add: “Under the circumstances, I think you’re right, darling, we are making nuisances of ourselves, and from what Mrs. Malloy said of Mr. Plunket’s reaction to me, I don’t suppose he’ll mind one bit returning to find us gone.”