Charade In Winter. Anne Mather
goodness!’ Alix’s relief was evident, and the man cast a derisive look at the heels of her boots.
‘Them’s riding boots, I suppose,’ he taunted, and when Alix looked confused, he added, ‘Well, they surely don’t look like walking boots!’ and laughed at his own joke.
Alix didn’t find it particularly amusing, but at least his humour helped to relieve the situation, and she managed to ignore the implications behind locked gates and guard dogs and a drive almost a mile in length.
She could see now that a Landrover was parked to one side of the lodge. The lodge itself was a single-storied dwelling, built of local stone, with lead-paned windows and a sloping roof with hanging eaves. It might have been quite picturesque, but in the drifting spirals of mist that crept around it from the forest behind, it, too, had a slightly menacing air.
The Landrover was reassuringly ordinary, and judging from its appearance had spent part of the day ploughing through acres of mud. The man flung her cases into the back with a distinct disregard for their well-being, and Alix felt an almost irresistible urge to rescue them before they, too, became encrusted with mud. But a kind of masochistic desire to go on with this affair kept her still and silent, and she consoled herself with the thought of what an opening to her feature this would make.
The dogs were apparently left loose in the grounds, and when the Landrover’s engine was started they slunk away into the shadows surrounding the lodge. The vehicle’s headlights made little headway in the mist, but at least they revealed how thickly wooded the area was, and how impossible it must be to see the house from the road. Probably a deliberate choice of landscaping made many years ago when the original inhabitants of the Hall were in residence. Alix had looked up the history of the Darkwaters, thinking that possibly there might be some family connection between old Lord Darkwater and the Morgans: but she could find none. Oliver Morgan’s reasons for buying Darkwater Hall and coming to live here were as obscure as ever.
The drive was winding among the trees, and realising she was wasting valuable time, she asked quickly: ‘Do you and your wife live at the Lodge, Mr…er…’
‘Giles, ma’am. And I’m not married. Never have been. I manage quite well for myself, and I have the dogs. They’re company enough for me.’
‘I’m sure they are,’ murmured Alix dryly, aware of another pang of discomfort. Were there any other women at Darkwater Hall? And if not, to use a cliché, might she not have bitten off more than she could chew? What did she know of the family that was reassuring? They always made news, but that was more for their notoriety than their popularity, and Joanne Morgan’s death in unusual, not to say mysterious, circumstances could not be dismissed. Until now, she had barely stopped to ask herself why Oliver Morgan should require the Darkwater library to be catalogued when he had taken such pains to put himself beyond the reach of would-be sympathisers and press alike. Surely a man in his position would avoid unnecessary visitors in his home—and cataloguing a library, however extensive, could not be an urgent task. But when Willie had first shown her the advertisement, the opportunity it presented had been the most important consideration, and she had not even considered that Lady Morgan could be interviewing some entirely unsuspecting girl on her son-in-law’s behalf.
Then she chided herself impatiently. There had been men at the interviews, as well as girls. Oliver Morgan could not have foreseen that the qualifications required might not have been found in a man. He could not have guessed that all but two of the applicants would be deterred by the remote location of Darkwater Hall, or that Alix’s magazine would dispose of her final competition by offering the other girl a more lucrative position elsewhere. Besides, this was no time to be getting cold feet. Nothing she had read about Oliver Morgan had led her to believe he was a patient man—as witness his physical ejection of one of her colleagues from an exhibition he had been holding in Kensington, when it had been suggested that without his wife’s patronage he might well have found his work harder to sell—and whether or not the exercise was worthwhile she was committed to attempting the job she had been brought here to do. If, in the process, she could discover a little more of the truth behind Joanne Morgan’s death and why her husband should now choose to shut himself away in the wilds of Northumbria, so much the better. This was one story no one else should deprive her of, ungrammatical though that might be.
Her only real regret was that she had had to use her mother’s name, without her knowledge, to get the references she needed, but when she read the feature her daughter intended to produce, surely she would understand. And if there was no story… Alix lifted her slim shoulders in a gesture of dismissal. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get herself fired, should it? Although even she had had no idea of the circumstances of her employment, and she doubted anyone could get away—she hesitated over the word escape—from Darkwater Hall without its master’s permission.
As Giles seemed disinclined to indulge in casual conversation, the remainder of the journey was accomplished in silence, a silence unbroken by the calls of birds or the sounds of darting insects. The ominous deepening of the mist increased their isolation and aroused in Alix a tension she had never before experienced. With it came thoughts hitherto suppressed—what if Oliver Morgan had had her investigated? What if he had already discovered she was not who she claimed to be? Would he have allowed her to come here in those circumstances? Surely not. Surely if he had even suspected she was a member of the profession he clearly abominated, he would have refused her admission at the gates. Unless he had his own methods for dealing with recalcitrant journalists…
But what? She sighed. This was ridiculous! She had always had a vivid imagination and now she was allowing it free rein. And in what direction? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen pictures of Oliver Morgan, she had. She knew what he looked like. Tall and dark, with those hard, intelligent features that older women seemed to go for. Of course, he was quite old—forty-one or two, but in no way did he resemble the devil, with horns and a tail. And besides, what could he do to her? Her editor knew where she was. The bus driver, and he had certainly paid her enough attention, would surely remember dropping her at the gates of the Hall. And now there was Giles…
Alix cast a sideways look at him. Of course, he could be discounted. No doubt he was loyal to his master, and might be prepared to overlook her disappearance. And after all, Joanne Morgan had died in curious circumstances…
‘Here we are, ma’am.’
Alix started violently. ‘What? Oh—yes.’ She licked her lips. ‘That—didn’t take long.’
‘No, ma’am?’ Giles looked surprised. ‘I got the impression you were getting bored.’
‘Bored?’ Alix almost laughed out loud. ‘Oh, no, I wasn’t bored.’
Giles contented himself with a wry grimace, and thrusting open his door, descended from the vehicle. For a moment Alix remained where she was, peering through the mud-spattered windows at the house. Wreathed in mist, like the lodge, there wasn’t a lot to see, but its stone walls were creeper-clad and solid, the bays on either side of the iron-studded door tall and narrow-paned. Curtains had already been drawn against the darkening day, but the light beyond was heartening.
Giles appeared at her side of the Landrover, and swung open the door. ‘Will you come with me?’ he requested, and gathering herself with more haste than enthusiasm, Alix obeyed.
She shivered as they mounted the steps to the door, but before Giles could reach the iron bell-rope, the door was opened, and a stream of light dispersed the gloom. An elderly man stood within its illumination, grey-haired and slightly stooped, yet with a not unkindly face.
‘Come in, come in, Mrs Thornton,’ he urged, when Alix hesitated, waiting for Giles to introduce them then added as she stepped over the threshold: ‘I heard the engine coming along the drive, and I guessed you’d be feeling the cold here after London.’
‘Thank you.’
Alix stood aside as Giles deposited her cases on the polished floor of the entrance hall, briefly savouring the warmth within, and then felt another wave of anxiety engulf her as, after a tacit farewell, the heavy door was closed, trapping her