We fell silent as Mr. Bellamy emerged from the kitchen and beckoned us to follow him down the service corridor. It wasn’t until he closed the kitchen door that I noticed how cold the corridor was. As I tottered toward the butler, I tucked my hands into the wide sleeves of my kimono and wished I’d donned my spare wool socks instead of the feathery slippers.
I’d seldom taken part in a more curious procession. Bald Mr.
Bellamy, in his immaculate black suit, led the way, as erect and solemn as an undertaker. Kit came next, with his arms folded across his chest and his broad shoulders hunched forward, looking as though he’d rather be cleaning Mount Everest with a toothbrush than walking through a strange house clad in someone else’s dressing gown. I took up the rear, enjoying the touch of smooth silk against my skin and peering avidly at my surroundings.
My fi rst impression was, appropriately, one of gloom. The service corridor was lit by just two light fixtures, and they were fitted with low-wattage bulbs and spaced widely apart. Every door we passed was shut, and the only sounds that disturbed the heavy silence were the shuffling of Kit’s sheepskin slippers, the faint squeaking of Mr. Bellamy’s leather shoes, and the tapping of my ridiculous heels on the plank fl ooring.
When Mr. Bellamy led us up a wooden staircase and through a baize-covered door, I expected to be temporarily blinded by the light in the upper room, but it was no brighter there than it had been in the service corridor. The dim glow of a single wall sconce guided us across a parquet floor to the foot of a gold-streaked white marble staircase that was the centerpiece of what appeared to be an entrance hall.
I’d visited quite a few stately homes since I’d move to England, and I’d seen my share of entrance halls. The grand foyers tended to be elaborately dressed to give visitors a good first impression. Most held family portraits, gilt-framed mirrors, console tables, spindly chairs, potted ferns, and perhaps an oak settle or two. Many featured Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter
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a fireplace around which guests could gather after divesting themselves of their coats.
Aldercot’s entrance hall bore little resemblance to any entrance hall I’d ever seen. Granted, it had a fi replace, but there was no fi re burning in it, nor was there so much as a smudge of ash to suggest that a fire had ever burned in it. The buff-colored walls were devoid of both paintings and mirrors, and the furnishings consisted of exactly three shabby items clustered forlornly near the front door: a chipped blue-willow-patterned umbrella stand, a frayed coir mat, and a freestanding metal coatrack that would not have looked out of place in a dentist’s offi ce.
The murky light emphasized the room’s cavernous emptiness.
Blackout drapes hid the tall windows on either side of the front door as well as the round window above it. The lightbulbs had been removed from the hall’s fabulous crystal chandelier and from all but one of the gold-leafed wall sconces. As my gaze traveled down the blank walls to the uninterrupted expanse of parquet floor, I felt as if I were looking at the bones of a room that had been stripped of its decorative fl esh.
The starkness reinforced the air of abandonment I’d sensed when I’d fi rst seen Aldercot Hall. The neglected garden, the missing lightbulbs, the chill in the air, and the reduced staff suggested to me that Miss Charlotte might not be as wealthy as she’d once been.
I thought of Mr. DuCaral’s long illness and Mrs. DuCaral’s debilitating stroke and wondered if Miss Charlotte had fallen on hard times after her parents’ deaths. Perhaps, I thought, she’d been forced to sell her possessions and reduce her living expenses drastically in order to maintain ownership of Aldercot Hall, the repository of the dark secrets she’d sworn to keep.
“If you’ll come this way, please, Ms. Shepherd?” said Mr. Bellamy, his voice echoing hollowly in the gloom.
I realized with a start that I’d wandered away from the foot of the stairs and come to a standstill beneath the unlit chandelier.
134 Nancy Atherton
“Sorry, Mr. Bellamy,” I muttered, and hastened to follow him and Kit up the marble staircase and along a second-fl oor corridor.