Victoria Holt: Road to Paradise Island

"I am sure my grandmother will agree that you should do what you think best."

He tapped the wall and shook his head.

"It's a bit odd," he said. "I'll speak to Mrs. Mallory."

There was a great deal of talk about the restoration necessary after the storm. The damage had not been so very great but, as in all such cases, more work was going to be required than I had at first thought. The roof was of paramount importance and that was dealt with immediately and then William Gow and his men started on the inside of the house.

I was interested in that wall which had to be taken down because it was in that corridor which some of the servants said was haunted, and which I myself had thought to have a strangeness about it; and on the day when the men started on it I contrived to be in the house.

I went up to watch them at work and that was how I happened to be the first one to step into that room.

None of us could believe our eyes.

There was a great deal of dust and plaster; in fact it made a kind of mist, but there it was... actually a room ... looking as though someone had just left it expecting to return at any moment.

William Gow cried: "Well, I never did in all my born days."

His assistant murmured: "Holy Moses!"

I just stared and a great excitement possessed me.

I cried: "So it really was walled up. There is something extraordinary about this. There must be a reason."

I stepped in.

"Be careful," said William Gow. "This place must have been shut up for a good many years. The air will be none too good. Best wait a bit, Miss Annalice."

"What an extraordinary thing!" I cried. "It looks as though someone has just walked out and left it."

"I should keep away from all that dust, Miss Annalice. Could be nasty. Leave it for a while. Let the air get in. We'll take away the whole of this wall, Bill. It's the strangest thing I ever saw."

My impatience was so great that I had to get into that room, but I did curb my impatience for half an hour. I hung about waiting, every now and then asking if I could go in. At length William Gow said that the dust had settled and the fresh air had penetrated the place a little; and he and I went in together.

It was not a large room, which was the reason why it was possible to hide it, I supposed. It contained a bed. There were hangings on the bed of blue velvet—at least that was the colour they appeared to be, for it was hard to see under the layer of dust. The carpet on the floor was dark blue. There was a small chest of drawers, two chairs and a dressing table. Lying in a chair was a lace fichu and a pair of gloves. I stared at them in wonder. The impression was that someone had been living here right until the last moment when it was decided to shut it away and whoever had occupied the room had not had time to put her fichu away or pick up her gloves. It was a woman, that much was clear—providing of course the articles belonged to her. And it was a woman's room. I was sure of that. There was a certain femininity about it. The dressing table had a frilled flounce; and lying on it was a hand mirror ready to be picked up.

William Gow was beside me.

"There was a window there," he said.

"Of course. A window. There would have to be a window."

"Blocked in," he said. "Looks like a job that was done at top speed."

I turned to stare at him.

"What a strange discovery," I said. "Who would want to block up a room like this?"

He shrugged his shoulders. He was not a very imaginative man.

I went on: "I should have thought they would have cleared out the furniture first."

He did not answer. His eyes had caught something in the wood he had just pulled down.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's the mark."

"What mark?"

"Gow's mark."

"Where?"

He showed me. It was a tiny carving of a squirrel sitting up with a nut in its paws, its bushy tail sticking up behind.

I looked at him questioningly and he went on: "A Gow put up that panel that shut off the room. Must have been my grandfather. He always had that mark. We put it on our woodwork still. It's been passed down through the family."

"Well, I suppose that would have been the case. Your family have been doing carpentering here for generations."

"It gives you a bit of a shock like," said William Gow.

I thought that was a mild way of expressing it, but I was not interested in the carving. I was overcome by the adventure of finding the room, wondering whose room it had been, and why people had thought it necessary to shut it away. It was not easy to remove a room. There was only one way of doing it. Shut it in. Wall it in. Make it as though it had never been.

When Granny M heard what had happened she was amazed. I went up with her and William Gow to examine the room again. What struck her as so strange was that they should not have removed the furniture before walling up the room. "And why," she said to me, "did they not simply lock it up if they did not want to use it any more?

"The Mallorys could behave very extraordinarily at times," she went on, gently releasing herself from the family which she did very rarely. It was only when their actions were slightly less than exemplary that she disowned them temporarily.

"There must have been a reason," I said.

"That is something we shall never know," replied Granny M. "Now what's to be done. I think first we should examine the furniture. Did you say there was a window at one time? Well, we can put that back for a start. And this furniture ... I should imagine it has been ruined after being shut up like this. For how long? Who can say?

Certainly it has always been shut away in my time. We'll get them clearing it at once."

William Gow said: "Begging your pardon, Mrs. Mallory, but it should be left for a day or two. Let the air in. Could be unhealthy ... if you see what I mean."

"Very good. Let the air in. All right. Let everyone know that they are not to go in here until they are given my permission. I expect there'll be a lot of talk about this. Tell them it is not an exhibition."

"That's right, Mrs. Mallory," said William Gow. "And anyone coming in should take a bit of care. I don't know what the woodwork and the floor will be like after all them years."

"We'll leave it till you say, Mr. Gow."

"I'd like to have a thorough examination first, Mrs. Mallory. I'd like to make sure it's quite safe before anything much is moved."

"It shall be so."

I went down with Granny M. Philip was there. He had to see the room and that evening we talked of little else but what had just been revealed.

I lay in bed. I could not sleep. The discovery had excited me more than any of them. Why? I kept asking myself. What an extraordinary thing to do. Why go to so much trouble to wall up a room? As Granny M had said, Why not simply lock it?

I could not get it out of my mind. Every detail seemed to be imprinted on my memory. The bed with its velvet curtains... grey with the years of dust. Cobwebs draped from the ceilings, I remembered. I kept seeing the dressing table with the mirror, the chair with the fichu and the gloves on it. Had she just taken them off or was she about to put them on? The chest of drawers... I wondered what might be in those drawers.

I tossed and turned. In the morning I would go and look. What harm could that do? I would be careful. What was William Gow suggesting? That the floor might give way? That I might be poisoned by foul air?

I was suddenly obsessed by the desire to go and see for myself. Why not? I looked up at the ceiling... up the stairs... along the corridor.

My heart started to beat uncomfortably fast. A little shiver ran through me. I half believed in the servants' talk that it was haunted, and now that this was revealed it seemed even more likely.