Malverton was a large rambling house. There was too much of it to take in all at once. I had a confused impression of grey-stone walls rising to a medley of pointed gables, wide and graceful leaded windows, and tall twisted chimneys.
‘But it’s beautiful!’ I exclaimed in astonishment, not able to believe my eyes. ‘From what the lawyer said, I thought... Well gee, where’s the chemical works?’
Max slapped his knee and roared with laughter. ‘Is that what old Boyce called it? Chemical works? I don’t wonder you’re surprised, Dulcie.’
‘But ... but surely you said so too? I certainly got the idea from you that the works were in the same building as the house.’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t put it quite like that. The house has been converted, and that half on the left is the laboratory. But there’s nothing to show from outside. At the back there’s an extension built on, but the same style has been carefully followed, so it blends in very well.’
It was all so different from my expectations. My legs felt a little unsteady as I got out of the car and walked up the steps, so that I was glad of the light support of Max’s arm. When he pressed the bell, the door was opened at once.
The wide entrance reduced the small figure that stood there to near the proportions of a child. So this was Mrs. Cass. The housekeeper was probably in her sixties. Her body was wiry, her face thin with a sharp nose hemmed in close by watchful pale blue eyes. Her hair had perhaps been her crowning glory once, but now it was an uninteresting grey, and pulled back tight in a straggly bun. She was dressed in drab brown cotton. A cameo brooch at her throat was the only attempt at decoration.
When Max introduced us, Mrs. Cass nodded to me without smiling.
‘Good afternoon.’ Her reedy voice was more cultivated than I would have expected.
She stood back with overdone respect to let us into the house. I was put out, almost angry, at my reception. Without knowing me at all, the woman made it quite clear that she disapproved of me.
‘Tea is ready for you in the drawing-room,’ she said. ‘But I expect you’ll want to wash first Miss ... Royle.’ She had hesitated to use my name. To be fair, I realized that she would think of me as my father’s daughter, and therefore as Miss Drysdale.
When I had freshened up in a downstairs cloakroom, Mrs. Cass showed me into the drawing-room and disappeared. Max was standing with his back to a magnificent white marble fireplace.
‘Well, what do you think of your inheritance, Dulcie?’
‘It’s very grand. I hadn’t expected anything like this.’
‘Your dad’s people were very well off, you know. I believe your grandfather did a pretty good job making a dent in the family fortune, and what was left went on paying for the years of research and all the lab equipment. Fortunately your father had simple tastes. For your sake I hope you have too.’
I looked around me, taking in the room. Its former brilliance had gone, but like an elderly duchess with good bone structure, it had worn well. In spite of sun-faded fabrics and frayed drapes, it still retained an unmistakable elegance. The wallpaper, above a painted dado, was gold silk flock in a formalized design. A huge sofa was placed to one side of the fireplace, and several armchairs were arranged around, all covered in brocade of a pattern much like the wallpaper.
There was a great deal of period furniture to delight my American eye—graceful mahogany-backed chairs, a secretaire with an elaborate porcelain lamp on it, a table that was surely genuine Sheraton. Some past member of the family must have been keen on the sea, for a number of nautical paintings in heavy gilt frames hung above us. But what struck me more than anything else was the huge display of books. They lined the alcoves of the chimney, and half the opposite wall.
I realized I was keeping Max on his feet. Hastily I sat down on the sofa.
‘You sure were right about my father being fond of reading,’ I said.
‘Actually this room was the library in the old days. The original drawing-room is now part of the laboratory on the other side of the hall.’
Full of nervous curiosity, I couldn’t remain sitting for long and I wandered over to the double doors which opened out on to a tessellated verandah. A luxuriant wisteria grew up one of the supports and spread out along the glass roof, its pale mauve tassels hanging in great clusters. Outside a stately cedar of Lebanon shadowed the lawn. The mown area of grass ended in a mass of tall laurels, blocking any further view.
Max came out to join me, and pointed to the modern extension of the laboratory. ‘You see what I mean? It doesn’t detract at all from the house.’
We both turned at a noise in the room behind us. Mrs. Cass was setting down a silver teapot and water jug on the trolley, plus a selection of sandwiches and cakes. ‘You’ll ring if you want more hot water,’ she instructed me stiffly. ‘And what would you like for your dinner, Miss Royle? It’s too late to order anything special from the shops now, but I have some lamb chops in the refrigerator. Or there’s ham and salad....’
‘Whichever is most convenient, Mrs. Cass.’
Hands clasped in front, shoulders drawn up, lips pursed, her disapproval rebuked me. ‘It’s for you to decide, Miss Royle. It’s your house.’
‘The ham then, thank you.’
Without another word she nodded and quickly left the room.
I was too bemused to be hungry, but I made myself eat something. I had a feeling that if no impression were made upon the elaborate array of food, Mrs. Cass would find further cause to resent me. I was glad to see that Max ate quite heartily.
When we had finished tea he suggested we went to look over the laboratory. ‘It’ll be empty now—they all knock off at five-thirty. I think I heard the minibus go off a few minutes ago.’
I found we didn’t need to leave the house. Max led me across the hall to a door in an otherwise blank wall. Looking more closely, I saw now that this whole wall was newer than the rest, though an attempt had obviously been made to match the decorations with the original. Max opened the door, and we passed from the cool, soft light of the house into a dazzling white world of gleaming paintwork. A number of doors led off from the corridor we were standing in.
‘This communicating door is left unlocked during the day,’ said Max. ‘Your father was in and out all the time.’
He took me into a very large room with huge windows along one side. It contained a lot of laboratory equipment. Big glass retorts and shining metal cylinders stood on long benches. Against one wall was what looked like a range of ovens.
Max was vague. ‘This is called the Drying room,’ he said. ‘But I don’t understand just what goes on here. All I know is that it’s a tricky business, and if you don’t mumble the right magic words a whole batch is done in.’
I nodded. ‘I guess it’ll remain just about as big a mystery to me.’
Another room was piled high with cardboard cartons. ‘Storage room and dispatch department.’ said Max laconically. ‘This part is the new extension, by the way.’
‘What’s upstairs?’ I asked him.
‘Nothing over this wing. But in the old part it’s the research lab and offices. Come on, I’ll show you.’
He took the steps three at a time and stood grinning down at me while I climbed up more sedately. He was just showing me into the offices when we both heard a faint whirring sound from a door on the left.
Max looked surprised. ‘I thought everyone would have left by now.’
He went forward and flung the door wide open. I caught a glimpse of a tall man in a white coat, who had spun round with angry consternation on his face.
‘Oh!’ said Max. ‘It’s you, Hamilton.’
‘Shut the door quickly, the draught will ruin everything.’ The tone was peremptory, and very cold. He was a Scot. I knew that from those few sharp words.
Lean and dark, he stood facing us, hands stuck deep into the pockets of his coat, hostile and surly.
‘Sorry,’ Max grunted. He made haste to shut the door, I noticed. ‘I didn’t expect you’d be here still. What are you doing?’
‘An experiment. And not an obliging one. It didn’t decide to come to a neat conclusion just because it was knocking-off time.’
The words were hurled across the room with heavy sarcasm. The deep-set dark eyes gleamed—the man positively seemed to enjoy being unpleasant.
Still not introduced, I stood watching him. His face was curiously arresting, with craggy features and thick dark hair tumbling in an unruly mop across his brow.
At last Max got around to the courtesies. ‘This,’ he told me, ‘is Dr. Hamilton—the boffin of the outfit now.’ If there was a sneer behind the words it was barely detectable. ‘He was your father’s assistant.’
‘I’m glad to meet you, Dr. Hamilton.’ I stretched out my hand, doing my best to ignore the antagonism that hung heavy on the air.
For a moment I thought he wasn’t even going to respond, his reluctance was so marked. When he did, the contact was fleeting. It was as if he couldn’t bear to touch me.
‘I do hope we haven’t spoiled your experiment,’ I went on, in an attempt at appeasement.
‘I shan’t know until it’s finished, but I’m not very hopeful. People usually knock before they come in here.’
The man was impossible. I was surprised that Max took this last rudeness.
‘Miss Royle has just arrived, and I’ve been showing her round,’ he said mildly.
Dr. Hamilton twitched his head. ‘I’m sure she is very interested to see what it is she has inherited so fortuitously.’ He turned his back on us and busied himself adjusting the flame of a bunsen burner. I felt sure the action was unnecessary, and that he was deliberately insulting us.
‘Well,’ said Max. ‘I think you’ve seen all there is to see here, Dulcie.’ He put a hand on my shoulder, urging me away. ‘Have you any objection to us opening the door to go out?’ he asked, sarcastic in his turn.
‘Be quick about it, please.’
As soon as we were outside Max exclaimed, ‘Damned boor!’
I shuddered. ‘What gives with folks around here? They’re all so darned unwelcoming.’
Max laughed a trifle unsteadily, his poise not yet fully recovered. ‘Including present company?’ he asked.
‘Sorry. Of course not you.’
Suddenly we were both light-hearted as we clattered down the stairs, forgetting I hadn’t seen the offices. We were glad to be out of the strained atmosphere.
‘Still,’ I said, laughing, ‘even you are trying to get rid of me.’
He looked surprised. ‘What do you mean—get rid of you?’
‘You offered to buy me out, remember?’
‘I’m not sure I won’t take back that offer now I’ve got to know you. But seriously, Dulcie, I think you’d find it horribly dull around here.’
I was coming to the conclusion he was right, though I doubted that dull was quite the word. The disapproving Mrs. Cass, the truculent Dr. Hamilton No, staying at Malverton was not an attractive proposition.
Still, I couldn’t make any decision in a hurry. There was so much I didn’t understand, so much I had to find out. Would I ever learn why it was that I had been allowed to remain in ignorance about my father all those years?
When we reached the house again, through the dividing door, Max said he would have to go.
‘I’ve got a dinner engagement,’ he explained apologetically. ‘I’ll see you in the morning. I’m here most days.’
I stood hesitating in the big hall, alone for the first time since the lawyer had given me details of my inheritance. I didn’t quite know what to do next. Although the house was mine, somehow I felt diffident about wandering around on my own. Almost like an intruder.
Fortunately Mrs. Cass appeared out of nowhere at that moment.
‘I expect you’d like to see your room, Miss Royle. I’ve got the main front bedroom ready, but of course it’s up to you to decide if you want to change it.’
I could understand that she had been upset, even saddened, by my father’s death. She had been with him many years, and she might also be uncertain about her own future now. But that was no justification for treating me with such open resentment before she had ever got to know me.
The upper landing was like the hall—a new partition-wall cut across it, though there was no door up here. I thought of the sullen Dr. Hamilton, a few feet away on the other side of that wall, but no sound penetrated. Perhaps he had gone home by now, his experiment ruined.
Like the room downstairs, my future bedroom was full of antiques. Delicate pieces in mahogany and rosewood conspired together to produce a sensation of lightness and space, even if a closer look picked out the slightly threadbare Brussels carpet, the worn damask window curtains.
I could be happy in a room like this, if only....
‘I hope you will find everything you need, Miss Royle.’ The wintry voice brought me sharply to the present.
‘Thank you. I’m sure I shall.’
On a sudden impulse I stopped her as she turned to go. If I couldn’t enlist her sympathetic cooperation, at least I could clear the air a bit.
‘Mrs. Cass, I’m not sure if you will know this already, but until yesterday I had no idea that my father had been alive until so recently. It was a great shock to learn about it.’
She didn’t relent one little bit. ‘Yes, Miss Royle, that’s what I thought. Something the doctor said years ago. It seems an odd way of going on for a father and daughter not to know each other. Still...’ and she drew her shoulders up in that already familiar gesture. ‘... it’s not really my place to say so.’
‘It is odd,’ I agreed, trying hard to be patient. ‘Very odd indeed! I’m anxious to discover why I was never told I had a father. I’m hoping you can help me, Mrs. Cass. You were close to my father.’
‘Only as a housekeeper!’ She spoke sharply, her narrow eyes glaring, as if I’d suggested there had been something more to the relationship. ‘The doctor never confided in me. There’s nothing I can tell you.’
With that she backed quickly out of the room, shutting me firmly in.
I unpacked the few things I had brought with me, glad now that I had at least come prepared to stay the night. I changed into my one dress—a green silk I’d brought along with a hotel dining-room in mind, and went to the mirror to tidy my hair. My reflection looked back at me and I studied it. What could there be about my appearance to cause instant disapproval? In my work I was invariably cast as a friendly young American woman, normally attractive to men.
‘Oh, to hell with it,’ I thought. ‘It must be them, not me. If they don’t like me, they’ll have to lump me.’
The house was utterly silent as I went downstairs again. On a hatstand in an alcove a shabby gabardine raincoat and soft tweed trilby caught my eye. I went over to look. There was a nobbly walking-stick propped up beside them. My father seemed to have made little impact upon this house apart from his books, but here was something personal of his, an outward manifestation of the sort of man he was. I fingered the grubby coat, feeling cheated of my birthright, and more than a little sad.
A curious sensation of being watched made me turn. Mrs. Cass was standing half hidden by the staircase.
‘I suppose you’ve been looking round, Miss Royle,’ she said, coming forward.
‘Well no. I guessed you’d rather show me the rest of the house yourself.’
I thought I detected the slightest glint of approval in her impassive eyes.
My impressions were confused and I found it difficult to visualize the layout of the house. There was a small formal dining-room first, and then we went through to the domestic quarters—a breakfast room which was obviously now Mrs. Cass’s sitting-room, and a kitchen with a scullery beyond. Apart from a fridge there were absolutely no modern amenities, but the whole place shone with cleanliness.
Finding nothing else to say in its favour, I complimented Mrs. Cass on its spick-and-spanness.
This time I really did pierce the barrier and manage to please her. ‘My niece comes in to give me a hand three times a week. I couldn’t do it otherwise—not a big place like this.”
A faint scuffling came from under the table. I looked down and saw a greying black spaniel emerge, blinking, his head held stiffly.
‘No Jenner, it isn’t the master.’ Mrs. Cass bent down to give the dog a token pat. The action seemed to have a slightly humanizing effect on her. ‘He was devoted to the master, Miss Royle—followed him everywhere. He wouldn’t leave him, even when....’ Her lips trembled, and I waited for her to go on. ‘Dogs are such loyal creatures, aren’t they? He must have been up there for hours, by the body. The poor old thing didn’t understand, of course…’
I bent down too and fondled a silky ear. ‘Poor old boy!’ The spaniel sniffed at my hand and started to lick it.
‘He seems to like you, Miss Royle. He’s not usually so friendly with strangers.’
We all three went into the only other room on the ground floor I hadn’t seen so far.
‘This was the doctor’s study,’ said Mrs. Cass. ‘He spent most of his time here. Everything is just as he left it. I haven’t touched a thing—except for the cleaning, of course.’
Except for the cleaning, of course! But the housekeeper’s meticulous scouring had not removed the personality from this room. My father’s presence hung in the air, tantalizingly close. I felt nearer to him than I had ever managed to get before, yet still I couldn’t quite reach him.
This small room had been his home for many years. I took in his desk; his armchair, pipe rack beside it; and books, ever more books.
We went upstairs again after that, but nothing we saw there overlaid the impression the study had made on me. My father’s bedroom was anonymous—an austere masculine place.
Mrs. Cass showed me her own bedroom, scarcely less austere than his. I peeped in from the doorway, not wanting to intrude by entering too far, yet showing the interest that was obviously expected of me as the new owner. On a chest of drawers I saw a photograph of a good-looking army officer.
‘Your son?’
‘My husband,’ she told me. ‘He was killed in the war.’
My mumbled apology seemed to satisfy her. More would, I’m sure, have been resented.
The second guest-room was smaller than mine but quite as adequately furnished. I asked Mrs. Cass if my father had had many visitors to stay.
She shook her head. ‘Only the one in these last many years.’
I swung round intrigued. ‘Who was it?’
‘Young Dr. Hamilton stayed the night when he came to see the doctor about coming to work here.’
‘Oh!’ It was a disappointment.
In an expansive moment Mrs. Cass went on, ‘I had hoped Dr. Hamilton might be going to lodge here. It would have been company for the doctor. But I expect it was for the best the way it worked out. Dr. Hamilton took rooms at the Rectory over at Lechford, though he often spent an evening here.’
‘You like Dr. Hamilton?’ I asked before I could stop myself.
‘Oh yes, he’s very nice. He and your father got on well together, except just for…’
‘Yes?’ I prompted.
She looked straight back at me. ‘They got on very well together.’
When Mrs. Cass said she must start getting the dinner and I asked what I could do to help, she turned on me, affronted. The slight easing of tension between us was instantly gone.
‘I can manage thank you, Miss Royle. That’s what I’m here for.’ Again the hands were clasped before her, the shoulders drawn up. Then quite out of the blue she announced, ‘I’d like to be giving in my notice, please.’
‘Oh, Mrs. Cass!’ I said appalled.
I didn’t like the woman one bit. I found her grouchy, and the silent way she would appear was almost sinister. But I didn’t want her to leave. Malverton was a big problem until I decided what to do with it. I wanted to hold on to her efficient management of the house.
‘But why?’ I asked her. ‘Do you really have to go?’
‘It suited me very well,’ she conceded. ‘But things have changed now. It isn’t the same....’
‘But you can carry on just as you have always done. I shan’t interfere, you know. Please stay, at least for the time being.’
She pursed up her lips, considering. Then she nodded. ‘Very well, Miss Royle. I’ll stay—for the present anyway.’ With that she slid away.
I would have liked to go out and explore the grounds, but I saw it had started to rain. Unsettled, I wandered about the downstairs rooms again, Jenner close by me. He seemed to have decided not to let me get away for the moment. The study drew me more than any other room, and in a few minutes I was hovering over my father’s roll-top desk, looking through the drawers in a random fashion. Later on, I should have to go through all his things meticulously, sorting out what could be destroyed and what needed to be kept—it was a job I didn’t look forward to. Mostly the drawers were stuffed full of papers covered in appalling writing, a true doctor’s hand.
It all appeared to be scientific jargon, quite meaningless to me. I flicked through the pigeonholes at the back, but found only the usual collection of old envelopes, paper clips and rubber bands. I felt let down that there was nothing of a more personal nature, though I didn’t know what I was hoping to find. Perhaps some letters that would give me a clue, enabling me to reach a sense of identity with the stranger who had been my father.
Suddenly I was pulled up with a start. In one of the tiny side drawers I found a scrap of newsprint. Turning it over idly, I saw a photograph of myself. I looked more closely. I remembered it appearing in the Radio Times not so long ago. I had been in a play called Midnight Festival with Raymond Grant in the lead. The picture was for his benefit—I just happened to be in that scene. But Raymond had been carefully cut away, leaving just me.
So my father had been interested enough in his daughter to keep her photograph. He had known at least what I looked like. And he had known that I was in England, yet he had done nothing about contacting me.
A slight cough made me jump. Once again Mrs. Cass had appeared without a sound, as if from nowhere. It was absurd, but the atmosphere of the house, the background of mystery, was beginning to get unnerving.