Chase picked Viola up in a little sporty Audi outside the front of Haverford House. She wasn’t really supposed to see guests on the premises, especially at the main entrance of the house, but Chase insisted on picking her up – he would have it no other way in fact – and after their conversation at the lake earlier that day, she didn’t think Seraphina would disapprove that much. As Chase drove his car far too fast past the dower house, spraying gravel in his wake as he turned onto the main road, she did wonder what the dowager countess would think.
‘I’ve booked us a table at a restaurant in Harrogate,’ Chase said as they left Haverford House behind. ‘I figured you might not want to eat in the village, seeing as everyone I’ve met so far seems to know you.’ He turned and grinned at her for a moment. ‘I hope that’s OK.’
‘That’s great,’ Viola replied. She was relieved that the first date she’d had in five years wouldn’t be taking place in the pub where everybody knew her and everybody would feel free to comment loudly. ‘I guess you must be staying at Cranmere’s only dining establishment?’
‘At the pub, yes!’ he replied enthusiastically. ‘It’s so charming and I’m told it’s about four hundred years old.’
Viola laughed. ‘Well I think there’s been a pub or an inn on that site for four hundred years. I’m not sure if any of the current bricks that hold it together are that old.’
‘But still,’ Chase went on, his excitement undeterred. ‘Isn’t it amazing? I must confess that I’m a bit of an Anglophile. I was at Oxford for a year on an exchange programme and that was it for me. I was in love.
‘You must be used to old buildings if you were at Oxford though,’ Viola said. If he’d stopped at every building to be amazed by how old it was he wouldn’t have had much time to study.
‘Yes, but your little village is something else. Everyone knows each other. I mean, everyone knew each other at Oxford, but this is like a proper community.’ He had the enthusiasm for the English village of somebody who has never lived in one.
‘We are only a tiny village,’ she said. ‘Things can be a bit…’ She paused, trying to find the right word.
‘Quaint?’ he asked.
‘I was going to say claustrophobic. Like you say, everyone knows me these days.’
‘Does that bother you?’
‘Not really, but I get to escape into Haverford whenever I want. I’m incredibly lucky.’ She stopped herself thinking of what might happen if she could no longer escape to Haverford; she was on a date after all. Happy thoughts only.
‘So,’ she went on. ‘You haven’t told me what has brought you to our quaint little village of Cranmere.’
‘I just needed a break and I felt like going to a part of England I’d never been before.’
‘You’ve never been to Yorkshire before?’
‘Yes, but only York and Leeds. Work has been really hard and I was thinking about taking a little time off and then I read about Haverford House in one of my mother’s magazines. It was an article about the decline of the English country house.’
Viola groaned. ‘How depressing,’ she said. ‘It’s true though. It’s becoming almost impossible to keep many of the smaller houses open. Families are selling up all the time.’
‘That’s what the article said,’ Chase replied. ‘There were various lords and ladies mentioned but Lady Seraphina’s story stood out to me somehow.’
‘Because of the disappearance of Annie Bishop, no doubt.’ Viola smiled. ‘And the American connection with Thomas Everard.’
‘Right! I really wanted to see the house as soon as I read about it.’
‘Funnily enough I felt the same the first time I read a magazine interview with Seraphina. That’s how I ended up with this job in fact.’
‘Tell me about it.’
And so she did. Or at least she told him as much of the story she was willing to tell, skipping the reason why she came to England in the first place, for now at least, and definitely passing over the image of Robin shovelling his breakfast into his mouth. Instead she concentrated on the magazine article that had sucked her in, much as a similar one had done with Chase, and stuck to the topics of the Shakespeare Festival and the disappearance of Annie Bishop.
‘Don’t read too much into it all though,’ she said as Chase parked the car around the corner from the restaurant. ‘I don’t think her ghost is really wandering the estate you know.’
‘But you do think something happened to her don’t you? Or have you made that up for the tourists too?’ Chase grinned.
‘Most people in the village think she made it to America and started a new life but…’ Viola paused. ‘I just think something must have happened to her before she left the estate, otherwise wouldn’t she have let somebody know she was safe?’
‘But her body has never been found.’
‘No, but the grounds are huge – if she’d had an accident that night as she went to meet Thomas Everard she could be anywhere.’
‘So she was definitely meeting Thomas Everard that night?’ Chase asked.
‘She left a note with Prunella Montagu – she was one of the ladies Annie looked after. Apparently at the time it was assumed that Thomas would ask Lady Prunella to marry him – that was the reason he and his family had been invited to Haverford for the summer. Annie left on the night of a huge party that took place at Haverford – the last party Lord Haverford held before shutting the house up. Anyway in this note Annie said that she was leaving with Thomas, that they were going to America to start a new life.’
‘But you don’t think she ever got there?’
‘No, and she never met up with Thomas either. Some people say Thomas let her down but I don’t believe that. Why would he be out in the grounds looking for her like he told the police he was if he had intended to let her down? Wouldn’t he have just stayed at the party and married Prunella?’
‘It must have been a downer for this Prunella, to find out that the man she thought she was going to marry wanted to run off with a lady’s maid.’ Chase made the statement with laughter in his voice and, although she knew what he was saying must be right, Viola felt a desperate need to defend Annie, this woman from the past whom she felt so akin to. A woman who had just wanted so much better but never seemed to get it. She took a breath, not wanting Chase to see how passionately she felt about the whole story.
‘Who knows,’ she said diplomatically.
‘So, Thomas is found in the grounds looking for her when the police arrive?’
‘None of us are too sure of the details, but from what I understand by the time Thomas returned to the house, Annie’s letter to her employer had been discovered. He had blood on his shirt apparently and Lady Prunella took one look at that and insisted the police were called.’
‘Thomas went back to America with his family eventually.’
Viola nodded. ‘Yes, once the police investigation was closed, but he died in 1944 during the war. Shot down over Dresden.’
‘And Annie has never been found.’
Viola made a non-committal noise. Suddenly she didn’t want to be talking about this anymore. What if Seraphina and David did sell to developers and they dug up the grounds and found Annie’s body? What would happen then? They couldn’t arrest Thomas Everard as he’d died during the Second World War.
Or worse. What would happen if the whole site was excavated and nothing was found? How would Viola feel then? She’d invested so many years in the story of Annie Bishop and the various theories as to what had happened to her. But why? Why did the story mean so much to her? If Viola was honest with herself it was just a story – something that happened a long time ago to people she had never known. But she remembered what it felt like to be planning an escape, a journey to another country for a fresh start that didn’t work out.
‘Perhaps she did leave the grounds,’ Chase was saying, thinking out loud. ‘Perhaps she saw a break for freedom and took it. It was 1933 and people didn’t want a life in service anymore. Maybe she just ran away. Maybe your friends are right and she did get on a boat New York.’ He paused. ‘Hey, I could be living next door to her descendants for all I know.’
‘Is that where you live?’ Viola asked as they climbed out of the car. ‘New York?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And what do you do there? What’s the job that you needed a break from?’
‘I work in finance,’ he replied dismissively. ‘Nothing as exciting as working in a haunted house.’
Viola laughed. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that it’s not haunted. Now I don’t know about you but I’m starving. Where are we eating?’
*
Viola couldn’t remember how long it had been since she was last in Harrogate. She rarely left the confines of Cranmere these days and she suddenly realised how small her life had become, how much she had shut herself away from everything. It was nice to be out for a meal with a handsome man. She couldn’t live alone and closeted in her little flat at Haverford forever could she? Much as the thought of anything else made her positively anxious, she knew she had to start getting out and about again, away from Cranmere. Especially now it looked as though she wouldn’t have a little flat for much longer.
Dinner was a tasting menu – small portions of ten different courses – and Viola hadn’t eaten so much rich food since she’d left London. Mac and cheese at the pub was about the limit of her culinary experiences these days and, even though it was delicious, she struggled to finish.
Over dinner, as she and Chase talked, she realised how attracted to him she was feeling. Every now and then their legs would touch under the table and she would feel that same tingle she had felt when her eyes had met his that afternoon. For a man he talked surprisingly little about himself. Instead they talked about England, about life in rural Yorkshire, about Haverford.
‘The house isn’t that old,’ she told him.
‘Really? It seems old to me.’
‘Well, not by British standards.’ She smiled. ‘Not when you consider we have castles that are nearly a thousand years old – including one in Oxford that pre-dates the Battle of Hastings.’ There was a lot she could tell him about Oxford, a lot they could talk about. But she wasn’t willing to get into that conversation with him. He would only be around for a few days, a couple of weeks at most. He need never know she had set foot in Oxford, let alone been sent down. ‘A house built in the 1760s is quite young by comparison.’
‘It’s a beautiful house,’ Chase said. ‘Has it always belonged to the Montagu family.’
‘Yes, it was the Montagu family who had the house built when the position of Earl of Haverford was first given to Lewis Montagu in 1759. David Montagu, the current earl, is a direct descendent of Lewis.’
‘That house must have seen a lot – war, illness, death, countless kings and queens.’
‘Absolutely. Kings have even visited,’ Viola went on. ‘George V came just after the First World War and there’s a rumour that Edward VIII visited too when he was still Prince of Wales but we’ve never found any evidence of that.’ She paused. ‘I told you all this on the tour.’ She smiled. ‘Weren’t you listening?’
‘Of course I was.’ He grinned back. ‘But English history is so much bigger than American. It takes a while for all the stories to sink in. Now correct me if I’m wrong but Edward VIII married the American woman and abdicated right?’
‘Wallis Simpson, yes. But all that happened after Haverford was closed up.’
‘So how come royalty visited Haverford so often?’
‘Well, we don’t know they came that often. Like I said, we don’t have any records of Edward visiting, but he was a personal friend of the fifth earl, Albert Montagu. They knew each other at Dartmouth Naval College although the earl was a lot older of course.’
‘And King George V?’
‘That visit we do have records of,’ Viola replied. ‘It was an official visit after the First World War to thank the Montagus for opening up the house as a military hospital. You remember that bit from the tour surely?’ she teased.
Chase smiled. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it actually. It must have been quite an intrusion for the family.’
‘It’s a huge house and lots of families did it. It was their way of doing their bit for the war effort. Unfortunately, they think it was one of the soldiers at the hospital who brought the Spanish flu into the house that killed Lady Arabella and her son Daniel, Lord Haverford’s heir. They died within a couple of weeks of each other about six months before King George came to visit.’
‘So was this all while Annie Bishop was working at the house?’ Chase asked and Viola shook her head. She hoped that Chase Matthews was better at whatever it was he did in finance than he was at remembering dates.
‘No.’ She laughed. ‘We’ve been through this. Annie wasn’t born until 1912 and would only have been about seven when the king came to Haverford. She started working at the house in 1928 when she was sixteen.’
‘How do you remember all this, Viola? I’m terrible with dates.’
‘It’s my job to remember,’ she replied. ‘And speaking of jobs, I think that’s enough work talk for one evening.’
‘OK,’ Chase said. ‘Then tell me about you.’
Viola took a breath then. Here goes, she thought. ‘I’m from a little town in New South Wales called Kiama,’ she began. ‘I grew up there with my mum and my twin brother Sebastian.’
‘Really? You and Sebastian are twins exactly like Twelfth Night? That’s amazing! Twins!’
‘And we spent our lives finding it excruciating.’
‘I can see that. Do you even like the play?’
‘Twelfth Night?’ Viola asked. ‘I do. I love Shakespeare and that play in particular. It was the first play our mother ever took us to see. I fell in love at first play and it changed my brother’s life.’
‘How?’ Chased asked, and then he stopped, his brow crinkling. ‘Did you say you grew up in Kiama?’
Viola tried not to sigh. ‘Yes.’
Chase said her brother’s stage name in a sort of awed whisper. ‘He’s your brother?’ he said.
‘Is that so unbelievable?’ Viola replied, trying to smile.
‘Sorry,’ Chase said. ‘You must hear that all the time. I saw that he was performing at the Shakespeare Festival – I did wonder how you got such a big star.’
‘To be honest that was a surprise to me too. I’d been asking him for years and I never thought he’d say yes. I can’t believe he did.’
‘I bet the tickets sold out really quickly.’
‘Lightning fast.’ Viola smiled. ‘But I’m sure I could get you a ticket if you wanted one.’
‘That would be amazing, Viola, but…’ Chase hesitated. ‘I hope you don’t think that was the reason I asked you for dinner tonight.’
‘I’m used to people picking my brains about my brother.’
‘Because it’s not the reason,’ he went on, holding her gaze until she felt herself blush and ducked her head. ‘Although I am interested to know what it’s like to have a famous brother like that.’
‘It’s strange,’ she replied. ‘Because to me he’s just Sebastian, you know? The brother who was born a few minutes before me and embarrassed me at school but always had my back. But to everyone else he’s Seb McKay. For me it’s really hard to see the movie star.’
‘Hmmm,’ Chase replied. ‘I guess I can understand that. I don’t have any siblings so it’s always interesting for me to hear other people talk about their brothers and sisters.’
‘I’ve always thought it must be lonely for people who don’t have siblings,’ Viola mused before realising what she’d said. ‘Oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean…’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Chase said. ‘Now shall we have dessert?’
He smiled at her but there was a sadness there and Viola wondered if he was lonely and if that was the reason he had asked her here tonight.
*
By the time they got back to Haverford, Viola was so full of food that she thought she may never eat again. Dessert had been some sort of Pudding Club where guests tried several desserts and voted for the best one, which was then crowned Pudding of the Night. She wondered if they should do something similar with the cakes in the tearoom at Haverford.
If there would even be a tearoom at Haverford in a few months.
‘That was a lot of food.’
‘You sure do love your sponge puddings in England don’t you?’
‘Are they too much for you?’ she teased.
‘Treacle sponge, sticky toffee pudding and the unbelievably named spotted dick may just have been a bit too much,’ Chase patted his flat abdomen.
‘I had a lovely evening,’ she replied. ‘Despite the sponge overindulgence.’
‘Lovely enough to want to do it again while I’m here?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she replied bravely. ‘Lovely enough for that.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Sebastian is coming tomorrow,’ she said. She looked at him and noticed his eyebrows shoot up. ‘And no, I’m not introducing you to a movie star, not just yet anyway.’
‘I wasn’t even going to suggest it!’
‘I’m not sure exactly when he arrives but why don’t I meet you here tomorrow afternoon about four? I can show you some of the grounds of Haverford that you don’t see on the garden tour.’
‘It’s a date.’ Chase grinned, his teeth very white in the evening gloom.
She got out of the car and walked around the house to the side door, a door that would, years ago, have been the servants’ entrance and was now the way in for staff, including herself. As she turned the corner she smelt cigarette smoke and stopped for a moment as she saw a shadowy figure hovering near the door.
‘Who’s there?’ she called, wondering what she would do if it was an intruder lurking about. She wished that Chase was still here.
‘Hello, Viola Hendricks,’ a familiar voice said. ‘It’s been a long time.’
It had been three years since she’d last seen him, the brother she’d shared a womb with, since she’d spent two days with him in London after the premiere of his last movie. She missed him every day.
Seb McKay. A name known all over the world these days. He’d chosen to use their mother’s maiden name as his stage name. There’d been another Seb Hendricks on the Australian acting scene when he’d first been picked to play a starring role in the soap opera Sunset Bay.
And then unable to help herself any longer, she threw herself into the arms of the only person who she felt really knew her, the only family she had in the whole world. He picked her up and spun her around, just as he’d always done since the day he’d shot up to be so much taller than her.
‘Christ it’s good to see you, Vi,’ he said.