A Stranger at Castonbury(18)
And just ahead was Castonbury, gleaming white in the sunshine, its staircase twining around to sweep up to the pillared portico built to impress every guest who approached.
As the carriage slowed along the curve of the drive, with the grand portico just before them hung with fresh beribboned garlands, Jamie looked up at the windows glowing like diamonds in the light. One of them was open, pale curtains fluttering in the breeze, and he suddenly pictured all the eyes that could be peering out through that old glass. Eyes that would watch him lurch from the carriage and limp up the steps of his home.
He lowered the carriage window and called out, ‘Around to the back, I think.’
The hired coachman shrugged and turned the horses around the lane to follow the side of the house. In the distance he could see a paddock with new horses.
The carriage finally drew to a halt outside the servants’ entrance. Jamie pushed the door open and lowered himself to the gravelled drive, leaning on his walking stick. For an instant, the sun was in his eyes and he peered up at the shadow of the house as the warm breeze swept up from the kitchen gardens. It even smelled the same, of fresh, green grass, herbs from the garden, the scent of baking bread that rolled out from the kitchens all the time.
Jamie closed his eyes and thought of how many times he had stolen sweets from the kitchens with his brothers and sisters and gone running out of those doors and down the path to the lake. How they had shouted to one another and laughed and teased, as if there was no other time but that moment, no one in the world but themselves. Giles, Harry, Edward, Kate and Phaedra.
Edward. A spasm of raw pain went over him as he thought of how he would never see Edward again. His brother was gone, lost at Waterloo, and Jamie hadn’t been at Castonbury with the others to mourn him.
‘I am here now,’ he said. Even though Castonbury felt like a dream, like something completely unreal, he was there. And he had work to do.
The door to the kitchen was half open, and Jamie pushed his way through it into the corridor. The hallway was deserted, but he could hear the echo of voices and the clatter of china from the warren of rooms beyond. He followed the sound, the tap of his boots and stick hollow on the flagstone floor.
‘No, not there!’ he heard the housekeeper, Mrs Stratton, say sternly. ‘Those must be put on ice immediately, and the flowers should be put there to be arranged. This wedding must be perfect, we have waited for it so long.’
A wedding—of course. That would explain the garlands out front and the hectic air here in the servants’ hall, the haze of excitement that seemed to hang over everything. Jamie remembered Harry saying their brother Giles was set to marry Lily Seagrove after a long engagement, but he hadn’t said when it was to be. If Jamie had known when it was, he might have stayed away until it was all over.
Weddings were not his favourite things. Not since that quiet little chapel in Spain.
He glanced back at the open door and the ray of sunlight that seemed to beckon him to freedom, but it was too late. A maidservant suddenly came scurrying out of the servants’ corridor, her arms full of roses and lilies bound up in paper. Jamie stepped back, but she collided with him anyway and the flowers fell in a scatter of pink and white over the floor.
‘Oh, laws, but you scared me!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t half expect anyone to be there.’
‘I am so very sorry,’ Jamie said ruefully. What a beginning he was making of his homecoming! ‘Here, let me help you.’
He started to kneel down to gather the flowers, but the girl let out another shriek. ‘Are you a ghost?’ she said, and Jamie looked up to see that she had covered her face with her hands.
‘I—no,’ Jamie said, completely bemused. ‘Sometimes I feel rather like one, but I am told I’m still alive.’
‘You look like the one in that painting that’s all draped in black and such,’ the girl sobbed. She peeked between her hands and shook her head. ‘I swear that’s you!’
His portrait was hung in black? Before Jamie could ask the girl about it, or tell her to pinch him to show her he was alive, he heard Mrs Stratton call, ‘Mary! What are you doing making so much noise out there?’
Jamie heard the rustle of fabric and looked up to find the housekeeper standing in the doorway. She looked so much as she had on those long-ago days of childhood wildness, her blonde hair mixed with silver, her blue eyes kind. She stared at him with her mouth open, a rare instance of discomposure from the woman who had run Castonbury with such efficiency for so long.