The Winter Garden Mystery Read online

  The east front of Occles Hall was utterly spiffing. The black-painted timbering was laid out in chevrons, hexagons, lozenges, rosettes, scallops—surely more decorative than structural. Each of the three storeys protruded a little above the one below. In the centre, a two-storey gatehouse stood out from the façade, its ground floor an open archway topped by a massive beam, warped with age. A flat stone bridge led to it over the remains of the old moat, a placid sheet of water in which the whole edifice was spectacularly reflected.

  Daisy decided with regret that the late afternoon light was too poor for photography. In fact, a few stray drops of rain were just beginning to dimple the moat, so that the reflection wavered. However difficult Lady Valeria proved, she was jolly well going to stay on until she got some really good shots.

  Ted Roper drove over the bridge and under the archway. With what sounded very like a sigh of relief, Hotspur came to a halt in the middle of a tunnel dimly lit from either end by rapidly fading daylight.

  Peering about, Daisy saw a massive, iron-studded double door in the nearest wall. Lucy’s precious camera slung over her shoulder, she clambered down and went over to the door. She was faced by an old-fashioned bellpull and a heavy iron knocker in the form of a snarling mastiff’s head. Experience had taught her that old-fashioned bellpulls not infrequently attempted to pull one’s arm out of its socket. She dared the mastiff and beat a resounding rat-tat.

  She powdered her nose while Ted unloaded her bags into a neat pile beside her. Still no sign of life from the house. She paid him and was about to ask him to try the bell for her when at last the door opened, with a positively Gothic groan.

  The butler was a gaunt, stoop-shouldered individual with lank, thinning grey hair, who looked as if he had just put his last half-crown on a non-starter at Goodwood. “Miss Dalrymple?” he enquired in a despairing voice.

  “Yes, I’m Miss Dalrymple,” said Daisy firmly, and stepped across the threshold into a small, panelled room lit by gas.

  “I’m Moody, miss. Please to come this way.”

  Following him at a grave pace through a series of similar rooms, she hoped he had good moods as well as bad ones.

  They emerged into yet another panelled room, but this one was long, though low-ceilinged, with a row of windows all along the opposite wall. What with rain, dusk, and the tiny diamond panes, Daisy could not see out. She looked around instead. The other three walls had numerous doors and the beginnings of at least three staircases, with portraits in elaborate gilt frames hanging in between. The only furniture consisted of several ancient chairs with backs so elaborately carved they must be excruciating to sit on.

  “The Long Hall, miss,” said Moody gloomily, “and this is Mrs. Twitchell, who will show you to your room.”

  The housekeeper, a cheerful middle-aged woman in a grey dress with white collar and cuffs, was a pleasant change from the regrettable butler. She chatted as she led Daisy up one of the narrow staircases, enclosed in the ubiquitous panelling.

  “Miss Roberta’ll be that sorry not to be here to welcome you, Miss Dalrymple. She went out riding after lunch and likely went farther than she meant to. It’s getting dark, though, besides the rain. Not that rain ever stopped Miss Roberta, but she’ll be back for her tea.”

  They continued round corners, up steps and down, through galleries and endless chains of rooms small and large, some panelled, some whitewashed. The Tudor builders appeared never to have heard of corridors, and to have made their ceilings whatever height they fancied without regard to the resultant varying levels of the floor above. There was even a step up to the door of Daisy’s room when they reached it at last.

  “I’ll never find my way back!”

  “You’ll soon get the hang of it, miss. Here’s Gregg, her ladyship’s maid, to give you a hand. She’ll show you to the Yellow Parlour for tea when you’re ready.”

  Gregg, a sturdy, stolid countrywoman, had already unpacked Daisy’s portmanteau, which had been in some magical fashion spirited up to her room ahead of her. She offered to iron Daisy’s best evening gown, of rose pink charmeuse. Under the influence of Daisy’s particular magic, she even roused herself to remark that it would be a pleasure.

  “Being as her ladyship don’t care about fashion and what I mostly do for Miss Roberta is get the mud off of her riding breeches and golfing stockings,” she explained.

  Remembering Bobbie at school, Daisy was not surprised.

  She washed the railway grime from face and hands at the china bowl on the washstand in the corner of the small room, then renewed powder and lipstick. Tidying her hair, she pushed the hairpins in more firmly. Perhaps she would get a bob, or even go straight for the new shingle-cut, she mused. Lucy was always ragging her about it, and Mother already had so many causes for complaint, one more would not hurt her.

  Her pale blue jersey jumper suit was presentable if not precisely elegant, a bit short for the latest near ankle-length hemlines. But after all, she wanted to appear professional, not glamorous. She announced herself ready to be escorted to the Yellow Parlour.

  Two gentlemen rose to their feet when Daisy entered the room. She had eyes only for one. Madge’s description of Sebastian Parslow as a beautiful young man had not prepared her for the reality.

  In his early twenties, he was tall, broad of shoulder, slim of hip, and long of leg. He had thick, wavy hair of the purest corn gold. His eyes were cobalt blue with miraculously dark lashes; his nose and mouth were chiselled perfection; his chin was square and very slightly cleft. An English Adonis!

  Daisy wished she’d changed into her amber chiffon tea-gown.

  “Miss Dalrymple? How do you do. I’m Sebastian Parslow.” His voice was a resonant baritone, and he moved with an athlete’s light grace as he crossed the room to meet her, apparently oblivious of her stunned admiration. “I’m sorry the rest of the family is not here to greet you. This is Ben Goodman.”

  “Sir Reginald’s secretary.” The voice was light and dry. “How do you do, Miss Dalrymple.”

  Daisy wrenched her gaze from Adonis to the slight, dark gentleman beyond him. She appreciated both Mr. Parslow’s delicacy in not announcing Ben Goodman’s subservient position and his own in making it plain. He looked to be in his mid-forties. His thin, pale face was the sort that in a woman might be called jolie laide, plain to the point of ugliness, yet with a curious appeal.

  “How do you do, Mr. Goodman.” She offered her hand.

  He limped as he came forward to shake it. She immediately knocked ten years off his probable age and inserted a war wound in his curriculum vitae. His warm smile confirmed his attractiveness, crinkling the corners of his eyes and deepening the lines by his mouth.

  “I expect you’re ready for your tea after that endless journey,” he said. “I told Moody to bring it as soon as you came down.”

  “I could do with a cup, though the trek wasn’t really too frightful.” Thanks to a first-class ticket and a box of chocolates. “At least I didn’t have to change at Birmingham, only at Crewe. I enjoyed the drive from the station. Ted Roper told me all about Occleswich.”

  A shadow of embarrassment crossed Mr. Parslow’s faultless features. “The Daimler should have been sent to meet you,” he said apologetically, “or at least the Morris, but … .”

  “Daisy!” Bobbie Parslow burst into the room and slung a hard hat onto the nearest chair. She was dressed in a damp hacking-jacket and breeches, and her boots left muddy tracks as she strode across the carpet. “It’s simply topping to see you.” She wrung Daisy’s hand.

  Miss Roberta Parslow was obviously Sebastian’s sister, but in her case nothing was quite right. The height and broad shoulders so impressive in a man were out of place in a woman, and her figure was robust, in contrast to his elegance. Her hair, straw to his gold, was cut in a very short bob as straight as a horse’s tail. Her square face was a blurred copy of his, as if a painter had laid a portrait wrong side down before it dried, and her eyes were pale blue, with invisible lashes.


  But she was undoubtedly delighted to see Daisy.

  “I’m frightfully sorry to be so late,” she said. “I was heading for the station, so as to ride home beside the trap, but Ranee cast a shoe. Have you met Mummy yet?”

  “Not yet,” Daisy told her, “though I saw … .” She stopped as a parlourmaid brought in the tea.

  “Oh good!” Bobbie exclaimed. “Will you pour, Ben? I’m ravenous and I always spill the beastly stuff anyway. Have a sandwich.” She offered Daisy the plate, helped herself to a handful of the tiny, crustless triangles, and dropped into a chair.

  Mr. Goodman enquired as to Daisy’s preference for milk or lemon, sugar or none, and Sebastian handed her her tea.

  “The mater went down to the village to tell Mr. Lake what was wrong with yesterday’s sermon,” he told his sister. “You know she can never pass the smithy without ticking off Stan Moss, otherwise she’d be back by now. They’ll come to blows one of these days. I’m surprised they haven’t yet.”

  “Blast! He’ll be in no mood to shoe Ranee for me tomorrow.”

  “You take your horses to the blacksmith in the village?” Daisy asked.

  “Yes. The place is a filthy mess and Moss has a filthy temper, but he’s still the best smith around, as well as a genius with machinery. I just wish Mummy hadn’t chosen this afternoon to upset him. All the same, I’m glad she’s still out,” said Bobbie frankly, between mouthfuls of pate sandwich. “I was afraid I wouldn’t get home in time to warn you, Daisy.”

  “Warn me?” Daisy asked with a sinking feeling.

  “About Mummy. I say, Ben, is that a Victoria sponge? Cut me a nice big piece, there’s a good chap. You see, Daisy, I’m afraid she wasn’t frightfully keen on your coming to stay.”

  “Oh dear, I wish you had let me know. I can’t write about Occles Hall without her permission.”

  “You needn’t worry about that,” Ben Goodman said with a reassuring smile. “Lady Valeria is delighted that the Hall will receive the public recognition it deserves.”

  “Then what … ?”

  “Bobbie made a hash of it.” Sebastian pulled a wry face. “She invited you without asking the mater’s permission, a cardinal sin.”

  “Your letter came when Mummy and Sebastian were in Antibes,” Bobbie excused herself with an absurdly guilty air. “Writing persuasive letters simply isn’t my forte, and I didn’t want to ask Ben to do it because he was feeling jolly seedy at the time. It was that beastly damp, cold spell, remember, Ben? You were coughing your lungs out.”

  Mr. Goodman flushed. “Mustard gas,” he explained to Daisy. “I wouldn’t want you to think you’ve been landed in a house with a consumptive.”

  Daisy nodded, putting as much sympathy into her glance as she could. There was nothing to be said. Since the War, England was full of young men with corroded lungs. Whether they were luckier than those buried in Flanders, like Gervaise and Michael, was a moot point.

  “The mater wouldn’t take Ben to the Riviera with us,” said Sebastian. His lips tightened as if with remembered anger, then he shrugged. “It’s useless arguing once she’s made up her mind.”

  “Utterly useless,” Bobbie agreed. “That’s why I asked Daddy about inviting Daisy rather than risk a flat-out no from Mummy. Daddy thought it was a spiffing idea. Where is he?”

  “Sir Reginald hasn’t come back from the dairy yet,” Mr. Goodman said.

  “Poor Daddy. I suppose he’s expecting another row now that Daisy’s actually arrived.”

  “I don’t want to be a bone of contention.” Thoroughly uncomfortable, Daisy wondered if she’d be able to find another house to write about at short notice. If all else failed, she could always appeal to Cousin Edgar and Geraldine. Her old home, Fairacres, was nowhere near as picturesque as Occles Hall, but any port in a storm. Abandoning professionalism, she hurriedly suggested, “Perhaps I’d better leave in the morning.”

  “No!” All three voices were equally vehement.

  “Please stay,” Bobbie begged her. “Now Mummy’s got her hopes up about seeing the Hall in Town and Country, she won’t be fit to live with if it doesn’t come off. To tell the truth, the real trouble is that she disapproves of girls having jobs—our sort of girls, that is. She thinks you’ll give me ideas. But when she sees that one can still be a lady even if one works, perhaps she’ll relent and let me do something useful. After all, you’re a dashed sight more ladylike than I ever was or will be. Pass the biscuits, Bastie.”

  Her brother obliged. “Do stay, Miss Dalrymple,” he urged. “We have too few visitors.”

  Uneasily Daisy recalled Tommy Pearson’s notion that Lady Valeria was afraid of her son’s escaping her apron-strings by marrying. Was that another, unspoken, reason why she objected to Daisy’s presence?

  Not that Sebastian showed any sign of admiring her, and not that she intended to encourage him if he did, even though he was twice as handsome as Rudolph Valentino, the new American film idol. The wife of Adonis, she suspected, would not lead an easy life, especially with his mother as an enemy.

  “Well … .”

  “I do hope you will stay,” said Mr. Goodman with his engaging smile. “I have been delving into the history of Occles Hall for your sake.”

  “A great concession,” Sebastian informed her. “Ben is a Greek scholar to whom English history is all bunkum.”

  “Hardly!” He laughed. “But I might not have gone so far had Lady Valeria not advised me that she considers enlightening you a part of my duties.”

  Daisy chuckled. “I can’t possibly be responsible for your wasting your time on bunkum for nothing. Besides, I must admit I’d be hard put to it to find another subject for my February article at this late date. I’ll stay.”

  “Good-oh,” said Bobbie. “Have another biscuit.”

  “No thanks. Mr. Goodman, will you give me a potted version of the history now, so I can begin to plan my article?”

  “By all means. I can’t say the story is precisely enthralling, alas. The Hall was built after the Wars of the Roses, so it missed that excitement. The lords of the manor were always quiet, home-loving, law-abiding squires just sufficiently careful of their tenants’ and neighbours’ interests not to arouse rural troublemakers. They were far enough from London to avoid political factionalism, far enough from the Border to avoid marauding Scots, even far enough from industrial areas to avoid Luddite rebellions.”

  “A deuced dull lot,” observed Sebastian.

  “For the most part,” Mr. Goodman agreed. “A moment of glory, if such it can be called, occurred in the Civil War. The squire was a Royalist. Cromwell had more important matters to attend to elsewhere, but a detachment of local Parliamentarians besieged the house. Since the only defences were the moat and a few muskets, one small cannon quickly put the fear of God—or at least of Roundheads—into the defenders. They wisely surrendered after half a dozen shots.”

  “A sort of Cavalier equivalent of a ‘village-Hampden,’” said Daisy.

  Sebastian laughed. “So much for my ‘mute, inglorious’ ancestors.”

  Bobbie looked blank. How had she managed to get through her school years without meeting Gray’s Elegy, that perennial favourite of English teachers?

  “Don’t laugh,” Mr. Goodman advised Sebastian. “That brief defiance was good for a baronetcy at the Restoration. If they had held out a little longer you might be heir to a barony. More tea, Bobbie?”

  “Yes, please. Do stop hogging the cake, Bastie.”

  Neither Lady Valeria nor Sir Reginald had put in an appearance by the time Bobbie’s appetite was satisfied. She heaved herself out of her chair with a sigh of repletion.

  “I suppose I’d better change. Come up to my room, Daisy, and we can have a proper confab.”

  Daisy was amused, though not surprised, to find the walls of Bobbie’s bedroom dedicated to sports. Olympic champions such as Constance Jeans, Kitty McKane, and Phyllis Johnson mingled with Bobbie on horseback and in countless team photographs
. Bobbie had been in every team at school—golf, tennis, cricket, rowing, swimming—and had captained most of them. Daisy, who had scraped in as twelfth man in the second cricket team in her last year, recalled admiring her enormously.

  Noting on the bedside table the issue of Town and Country with the Wentwater article, she hoped she had turned the tables somewhat.

  She wandered around the room, picking out well-remembered faces in the photos, while Bobbie dismissed the maid and disappeared into the bathroom next door, leaving the door open. Between whale-like splashings, her hopeful voice came to Daisy.

  “I know you’ll like Daddy. He’s a good egg. He’ll want to show you his model dairy but he won’t be offended if you say no.”

  “It sounds like an interesting addition to my article. Sir Reginald is personally involved in running it, is he?”

  “He spends half his time down there. Three quarters. It’s all done frightfully scientifically and he keeps experimenting with new methods. His Cheshire cheeses win prizes at all the shows.”

  “I must certainly put something in.” The poor fish probably used his dairy as a refuge from his wife. From what Daisy had heard, he was as much beneath the cat’s paw as his children.

  “I think it’s fearfully clever of you to write. And you actually get paid for it?” Bobbie sounded full of envy.

  “Isn’t it marvellous? I tried stenography for a while and hated it, but I positively enjoy writing. Between these articles and a few other bits and pieces, and helping Lucy in her photo studio now and then, I manage to scrape along. I have a little money left me by an aunt, which helps no end. You said you’d like to find a job?”

  “Awfully, but I’m no good at anything but horses and games. And I haven’t a penny of my own.” There came a gurgling splosh and a moment later Bobbie appeared dripping in the doorway, draped in a vast pink towel. “And if I once escaped and something went wrong, I simply couldn’t bear to crawl back begging to be taken in.”

  “I know what you mean. Mother would never let me forget it if I had to go and live with her at the Dower House.”