style="font-size:15px;"> The situation was rather worse than Morag had described. Hoots had taken not just a bottle of Armagnac but all the decent liquor and locked it up in his room along with the keys to the silver, the wine cellar and the pantry. The cook was indeed down with piles, but the rest of the staff had succumbed to a rather virulent cold that left them wheezing and hacking in various corners of the house. A few had taken to their beds but the rest dragged about, sniffling moistly into unspeakably sodden handkerchiefs. Father had given Aquinas carte blanche to manage the house until Hoots came around. No one had yet wrested the keys from Hoots, so dinner the first night consisted of bottles of beer from the village pub and bread toasted over the drawing room fire. Portia took hers to the nursery to eat with Jane the Younger while the rest of us made an impromptu party around the fireplace in the vast great hall.
Impromptu and awkward. Father, sunk in a sort of black gloom, said scarcely a dozen words, and Aunt Hermia—Father’s younger sister and the nearest thing we children had to a mother—struggled to fill the silences. I noticed none of the usual decorations had been hung, and I wondered if Father’s grim mood was a result of the fact that so few of us would be present for Christmas. No matter, I decided. He would come round as soon as everyone gathered for Twelfth Night.
I smiled at the footman who came to poke up the fire. A local lad, he had been with the family a number of years and, like all the footmen at Bellmont, was called William regardless of his real name. This one was William IV.
“Hello, William.” He gave me a courteous bow but did not smile.
“Is everything well with you and your family?”
“Yes, my lady. Thank you for asking.”
He withdrew at once and I turned to Aunt Hermia. “What ails William? He has always been such a pleasant, chatty fellow.”
She shrugged. “Heaven help me if I know.”
“He isn’t holding a grudge about what happened the last time is he?” I ventured. “I mean, we did apologise about him being poisoned.” 3
“He might still have died,” Father countered, levelling an accusatory gaze at Brisbane. “I seem to remember someone having to force the poor boy to regurgi—”
“That is quite enough, Hector. And you’ve got it very wrong,” Aunt Hermia cut in sharply before Father could continue. “The other victims required Brisbane’s interventions. William slept it off. He woke with nothing more significant than a towering headache.” She turned back to me. “He has been out of sorts for days now, as have most of the staff. So many are out with illness, the rest have worked doubly hard to carry on. We cannot seem to find replacements in Blessingstoke.” She broke off suddenly, darting a quick glance to my father.
Brisbane noted it. He turned to Aunt Hermia. “You are having troubles with the locals? But you have always hired in from the village.”
“Never again,” Father thundered. “I will not have a pack of cowardly, pudding-hearted—”
Aunt Hermia raised a hand. “That will do, Hector.” She spoke to Brisbane. “But he is not wrong. In the last few days, it has become impossible to entice them to work at the Abbey.”
“What reason do they give?” Brisbane enquired. I smiled to myself. He regularly worked on behalf of her Majesty’s government in essential and secretive ways, and yet he could take a healthy interest in domestic dramas.
“They say the place is haunted!” Father’s expression was disgusted.
“It has always been haunted,” I protested. “Everyone knows that.”
“That is precisely the point,” he returned. “We have always had our share of ghosts and they’ve always worked here in spite of it.”
“What has changed?” Brisbane asked, his black gaze thoughtful as it rested on the contents of his glass.
“There has been a fresh sighting inside the Abbey,” Aunt Hermia replied. “When the staff fell ill, I brought in a few new maids from the village. One of them saw a ghost on the servants’ stair and ran screaming home in the middle of the night. She has the busiest tongue in the village. They cannot help they are superstitious, Hector,” she added. “They haven’t the benefit of our education.”
He snorted by way of reply. Brisbane said nothing, and I knew we were both thinking of our previous investigation at the Abbey. A ghost had figured prominently in that adventure.
Father turned abruptly to Brisbane. “I suppose you are still capering about in the private enquiry business?”
Before Brisbane could reply, Aunt Hermia jumped up and took a crystal dish from the mantel. “Brisbane, you must try these sweetmeats. The stillroom maid and I concocted them, and I would know if I had too heavy a hand with the rosewater.”
Brisbane, ever courteous where ladies were concerned, took one while I breathed out a small sigh that the moment had been got past. Father and Brisbane had quarrelled dreadfully during our last investigation, largely over my safety, and hard words had been spoken. I had hoped they had been forgot, but Father apparently still nursed a grudge, as evidenced by his pointed remarks towards my husband. I could not entirely blame him. I had suffered considerable injuries at the conclusion of the case—through my own rash actions, to be sure—and Father and Brisbane had almost taken each other apart in their worry and despair. I smiled brightly from one to the other, but Father had lapsed into his chair, glowering, while Brisbane merely sat, graceful and lethal as a panther as he regarded Father with his inscrutable, witch-black eyes. I sighed. It was going to be a very long holiday indeed.
“I think I should do something to cheer Father up,” I told Brisbane later that evening as we prepared for bed.
Brisbane said nothing, but I heard the thud as a boot hit the floor.
“Aunt Hermia believes he is feeling a trifle downcast that so many of the family shan’t be here. Most of the children are keeping Christmas at home and only coming for the revels. It will be Plum and Portia and us for Christmas,” I said. “Benedick will come up from the Home Farm with his family, but that still makes only half of us.” The other boot hit the floor and I went on. “I thought of asking a special guest, someone Father would really enjoy seeing.”
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