“Teaching.”
“What of your old pupils? Won’t they be missing you?”
“There were not many of them.”
“Well, there are only three of us. This is not a very lucky place for people.”
“What do you mean?”
Allegra looked conspiratorially at the others. “There were some people who came to dig up our park. They were…”
“Archaeologists,” supplied Alice.
“That’s right. People said it was wrong to disturb the dead. They’re gone and they’re in peace and they don’t want other people digging up their graves and their homes. They say they leave a curse that if someone disturbs them they will have their revenge. Do you believe that, Mrs. Verlaine?”
“No, it’s a superstition. If the Romans built beautiful houses I believe they would want us to know how clever they had been, how advanced.”
“Did you know,” said Alice quickly, “that they kept their houses warm by means of pipes full of hot water? The young lady who died told us. She was pleased if we asked questions about the remains.”
“Alice always tries to please everyone,” said Allegra. “It’s because she’s the housekeeper’s daughter and feels she has to.”
I raised my eyebrows at this rudeness and looked at Alice in a manner which I hoped conveyed to her that I meant to make no distinctions.
“So to please this…archaeologist, you pretended to be interested?” I suggested.
“But we were interested,” said Alice, “and Miss Brandon told us a great deal about the Romans who used to live here. But when she heard about the curse she was frightened and—then it overtook her.”
“Did she tell you she was frightened?”
“I think that’s what she meant. She said: ‘We are after all meddling with the dead. So it’s not surprising there is this curse.’”
“She meant that it was not surprising there was a rumor about the curse.”
“Perhaps she believed it,” suggested Allegra. “It’s like having faith. People in the Bible were cured because they had faith. So perhaps it works the other way and Miss Brandon disappeared because she had faith.”
“So you think that if she hadn’t believed in the curse she would not have disappeared?” I asked.
There was silence in the schoolroom. Then Alice said: “Perhaps I thought afterwards that she was frightened. It’s easy to imagine things like that when something’s happened.”
Alice was evidently a wise young girl in spite of her humility—or perhaps because of it. I could well imagine how Allegra treated her when they were alone. I expected that hers was a life of countless humiliations—the poor relation who is given a roof over her head and outwardly similar privileges in return for doing light but menial tasks and accepting slights from those who believed themselves to be her superiors. I warmed toward Alice and imagined she did toward me.
“Alice is full of imagination,” scoffed Allegra. “Parson Rendall says so every time she writes an essay.”
Alice blushed and I said: “That’s very creditable.” I smiled at the young girl. “I am really looking forward to teaching you the piano.”
The footman came to announce that my bags had arrived and were in the yellow room which had been made ready for me.
I thanked him and Alice said at once: “Would you like me to take you there now, Mrs. Verlaine?”
I admitted that would be pleasant.
She rose and the others watched her and I decided that showing people to their rooms was a task for the higher servants, the class to which Alice belonged.
She said politely: “Allow me to lead the way, Mrs. Verlaine”; and began to mount the staircase.
“This place has been your home for a long time,” I said conversationally.
“I have never really known another home. Mother came back here when I was about two.”
“It’s certainly impressive.”
Alice laid her hand on the banister and looked down at the carved figures there. “It’s a lovely old house, isn’t it, Mrs. Verlaine? I should never want to go away from it.”
“Perhaps you will change your mind when you get older. Perhaps you will marry someone and that will be more important to you than staying here.”
She turned to look down at me in a startled way. “I expect I shall stay here and be a sort of companion to Edith.”
She sighed and turning proceeded up the stairs. There was an air of resignation about her and I pictured her first as a young woman, then as a middle-aged one and an old one—not of the family and not belonging to the servants’ hall, called upon in moments of crisis in the family. Little Alice at everyone’s beck and call, of no account except when some unpleasant task had to be performed.
She turned suddenly and smiled at me. “It is after all what I want.” She lifted her shoulders. “I love this house. There are so many interesting things in it.”
“I’m sure there are.”
“Yes,” she said almost breathlessly. “There is a room where a King is supposed to have lodged. I think it was Charles I during the Civil War. I suppose he was afraid to go to Dover Castle, so he came here. It’s the bridal suite now. It’s supposed to be haunted, but Mr. Napier doesn’t care about that. Most people would. Edith does. Edith’s terrified…but then she’s often terrified. But Napier believes that it’s all for her own good to face up to what she’s frightened of. She has to learn to be brave.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, hoping to hear more of Napier and his bride, but she merely went on to describe the room.
“It’s one of the largest in the house. They would give the largest to the King, wouldn’t they? There’s a brick fireplace which the vicar says has a chambered arch and jambs. The vicar is very keen on anything that’s old…old houses, old furniture…old anything.”
We had walked along a gallery similar to the one below and here Alice paused to open a door.
“This is the room my mother selected for you. It’s called the yellow room because of the yellow curtains and the rugs. The counterpane is yellow too. Look.”
She threw open the door. I saw my bags standing on the parquet floor and was immediately aware of the yellow curtains at the big window and the rugs and the counterpane on the four-poster bed. The ceiling was high and a chandelier hung from it, but there were dark shadows in the room for like most windows in the house, this one had leaded panes which shut out a good deal of the light. It was very grand, I thought, for someone who had merely come to teach music; and I wondered what the room was like which was occupied by Napier—the one which had once sheltered a King.
“There’s a powder closet—only a little one. But it will be your dressing room. Would you like me to help you unpack?”
I thanked her and said that I could manage by myself.
“Your view is lovely,” she said. She went to the window. I crossed the room and stood beside her. I looked over the lawns to a copse of fir trees and beyond that the sea was breaking about the white cliffs.
“There!” She stood back watching me. “Do you like it, Mrs. Verlaine?”
“I think it is enchanting.”
“It is beautiful—all of it. But they do say hereabouts that this is an unlucky house.”
“Why? Because a young woman mysteriously disappeared when…?”
“You mean the woman at the excavations. She wasn’t really anything to do with the house.”
“But you knew her and she had been working on the estate close to this house.”
“I wasn’t thinking of her.”
“Then there is something else?”
Alice nodded. “When Sir William’s eldest son died everyone said it was…unlucky.”
“But there is Napier.”
“Napier was his brother. This was Beaumont. They called him Beau. It suited him, you see, because he was so beautiful. Then he died…and Napier was sent away and he stayed away until he came back to marry Edith. Sir William never got over it nor did Lady Stacy.”