Victoria Holt - The Shivering Sands

“You will soon find out.”

We were on the gravel path, bounded on both sides by the moss-covered wall, which led directly to the gate house. It was an impressive moment as we passed under the arch and I saw the door of the gatekeeper’s lodge with the peephole through which visitors to the mansion must have been scrutinized. I wondered whether anyone was watching there now.

Mrs. Lincroft brought the trap to a standstill in a cobbled courtyard. “There are two courtyards,” she told me, “the lower and the upper.” She waved a hand at the four high walls which enclosed it. “These are mostly the servants’ quarters,” she went on. She nodded toward an archway through which I caught a glimpse of stone steps going up. “The nurseries are over that gateway; and in the upper courtyard are the family’s rooms.”

“It’s vast,” I said.

She laughed. “You will discover how vast. The stables are here. So if you will alight I will call one of the grooms and then take you into the house and introduce you. Your bags will be here shortly…by the time I have given you tea, I imagine. I’ll take you to the schoolroom and there you can meet the girls.”

She drove the trap into the stables, leaving me standing there in the courtyard. There was a hushed silence and now that I was alone I felt I had stepped right back into the past. I calculated the age of those walls which closed me in. Four hundred…five hundred? I looked up; two hideous gargoyles projected from the walls, seeming to scowl at me. The Gothic tracery on the leadwork of the water spouts was exquisitely delicate in odd contrast to those grotesque figures. The doors—four of them were of oak, studded with massive nails. I looked at the windows with their leaden panes and I wondered about the people who lived behind them.

As I stood there, though completely fascinated, I was again conscious of that feeling of revulsion. I could not understand it, but I felt I wanted to run away, to go back to London, to write to my music master in Paris and beg for another chance. Perhaps it was the evil expression on the faces of those stone images jutting out from the walls. Perhaps it was the silence; that overwhelming atmosphere of the past which made me fancy that I was being lured from this present century into an earlier age. I had a vivid picture of Roma coming through that gate into this courtyard, demanding to see Sir William, asking him if he thought his park and trees were more important than history. Poor Roma. If he had refused his permission, would she be alive today?

It seemed that the house was alive, that those grotesques were not merely stone figures. Was that a shadow at the window over the second gateway? The nurseries, Mrs. Lincroft had said. Perhaps. But what more natural than that my pupils should be interested enough in their new music teacher to take a preview of her, when they believed her to be unaware of them?

I had never been inside a house of such antiquity before, I reminded myself. It was the circumstances of my coming which made me feel as I did. “Roma,” I whispered to myself. “Where are you, Roma?”

I could imagine that the gargoyles behind my back were laughing at me. I felt as though something was telling me that I should not stay here, that if I did I should be hurt in some mysterious way. And with this feeling came the certainty that the riddle of Roma’s disappearance was hidden somewhere in this house.

This is absurdly whimsical, I admonished myself in a voice which was just like Roma’s. How she would have laughed at such an idea. The romantic, Pietro would have commented, forever in me, peeping out from behind the poise, the air of worldliness.

Mrs. Lincroft appeared and she looked so comforting that the illusion vanished.

In fact, I continued to tell myself, I had not come here so much to solve the mystery of Roma’s disappearance as to earn an adequate living, to make sure of a roof over my head. Once I admitted that this was an end of my grand ambitions and looked at this venture as a practical and most sensible move, the more reasonably I should view my situation.

Mrs. Lincroft led the way under the second gateway over which were the schoolroom windows. I paused to read the inscription.

“You can scarcely make it out,” she said. “It’s in medieval English. ‘Fear God and honor the King.’”

“A noble sentiment,” I remarked.

She smiled and said: “Be careful of the steps. They’re steep and worn in places.”

There were twelve of them leading to the upper courtyard; this was larger and bounded by tall gray walls. I noticed the similar windows with their leaded panes, the gargoyles and the intricate designs on the head of the water spouts.

“This way,” said Mrs. Lincroft and pushed open a heavy door.

We were in an enormous hall about sixty feet long with a vaulted ceiling and four window embrasures. Although the windows were large the panes were small and leaded which meant that there were dark shadows although it was only afternoon. At one end was a dais on which stood a grand piano, at the other a minstrels’ gallery. There was a staircase close to the gallery and two arched openings through which I caught sight of a dark passage. On the limewashed walls were weapons, and a suit of armor stood at the foot of the staircase.

“The hall is rarely used nowadays,” said Mrs. Lincroft. “Once balls were held there…and there were musical occasions. But since Lady Stacy’s death and since er…Well, since then, Sir William has done little entertaining. An occasional dinner party…but of course we shall be using the hall now there is a young mistress of the house. I daresay we shall have some musical entertainments too.”

“Shall I be expected to—?”

“I daresay.”

I tried to imagine myself seated at the grand piano on the dais. I could hear Pietro’s laugh. “A concert pianist at last. Through the back door, one might say…No, through the castle gates.”

As Mrs. Lincroft led the way to the staircase, I laid my hand on the carved banister and saw the dragons and the fierce-looking creatures engraved there.

“I’m sure,” I said, “that no animals ever looked quite like these.” Mrs. Lincroft again smiled her quiet smile, and I went on: “I wonder why they always wanted to frighten people away. People who want to frighten others are very often frightened themselves. That’s the answer. They must have been really afraid…hence these fierce-looking creatures.”

“Calculated, as they say, to strike terror into the hearts of the invaders.”

“They would do it most successfully, I’m sure. It’s the long shadows…just as much as those carvings, which are really too fantastic to be true, that give this feeling of…menace.”

“You are sensitive to atmosphere, Mrs. Verlaine. You will be hoping that there are no ghosts in the house. Are you superstitious?”

“That’s something we all deny until we are put to the test. Then most of us prove we are.”

“You mustn’t be here, you know. In a place like this where people have lived for centuries within the same walls stories circulate. A servant sees her own shadow and swears it is a ghost in gray. Easily done, Mrs. Verlaine, in a house like this.”

“I don’t think I am going to be afraid of my own shadow.”

“I know how I felt when I first came here. I remember arriving in this hall and standing here terrified.” She shivered at the recollection.

“And all turned out well, I suppose.”

“I found…a place in this house…in time.” She shook herself slightly as though shaking off past memories. “Now, I think first to the schoolroom. I will have tea sent up there. I am sure you’re ready for it.”

We had reached a gallery in which hung several portraits and I noticed some fine tapestries which I intended to examine later, for their subjects seemed most intriguing.