Adric closed his mouth, looking a little hurt.
Cranleigh had moved to Nyssa who had decided that what was good enough for Tegan would be good enough for her. ‘Thank you. I’ll have the same.’
‘The same as me, that is,’ interjected the Doctor. ‘And I’m sure Adric would like a lemonade too.’ Neither Nyssa nor Adric was really conscious of the Doctor’s intercession, both being totally absorbed by Nyssa’s double.
As Cranleigh consulted with his mother about what rooms should be put at the disposal of his four unexpected guests Tegan’s interest was caught by a glass display cabinet on a side table which appeared to contain a bloom of some sort. She and the Doctor moved to take a closer look. The cabinet housed an enormous orchid that measured perhaps ten or twelve inches from the tip of one lateral sepal to the other. The lateral sepals and the dorsal sepal were a velvet black while the lowest past of the bloom, the lip, was of the purest gold. Tegan was moved by the sensual beauty of the flower.
‘Oh, that’s quite beautiful,’ she murmured. ‘It’s an orchid, surely?’
‘Yes,’ confirmed the Doctor.’
‘It looks alive, but it can’t be, can it?’
‘No. It’s been treated. A sort of embalming process.’
After expressing as much curiosity about Nyssa’s trouser suit as good manners permitted, Ann returned to the question of her double’s habitat.
‘Are you really from Esher?’
Nyssa turned tormented eyes to Adric but there was no help forthcoming from that quarter. Adric was busy mentally phrasing his own answer to the inevitable question about his origins.
‘I don’t even know where Esher is,’ said Nyssa glumly.
She was rescued from her persistent double by Sir Robert Muir joining them, Tom Collins cocktail in hand, to extol the Doctor’s prowess with bat and ball for the benefit of Ann who had been prevented from witnessing the unparalled performance.
Tegan turned at the approach of Lady Cranleigh.
‘I was just saying how beautiful this is,’ she said, indicating the beautiful black orchid.
‘Yes,’ agreed Lady Cranleigh.
Tegan looked again at the orchid. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it before. Where does it come from?’
‘It was found by my elder son on the banks of the Orinoco.’
‘Oh,’ responded Tegan, a little intimidated for not being sure what - or where - the Orinoco was.
‘A river in Venezuela.’ contributed the Doctor helpfully.
‘He was a botanist,’ went on Lady Cranleigh. ‘He wrote a book about his journey up the Amazon and the Negro, and crossing into Venezuela.’
‘Of course,’ said the Doctor suddenly, ‘George Beauchamp, the explorer.’
‘Yes,’ said Lady Cranleigh sadly. Her hand rested on the glass cabinet. ‘And like all explorers he had to go back.
This held such a strong fascination for him that he went back two years ago and never returned. It was as if the flower called to him. The natives hold it to be sacred.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tegan softly.
‘He had a strong sense of destiny,’ said Lady Cranleigh proudly. ‘The father of the first Marquess was with Sir Walter Raleigh on his last expedition... to the Orinoco.’
She moved back towards the centre of the room looking at one of the many portraits that hung from the walls depicting the succession of Marquesses from the turn of the sixteenth century. The last in the line was of a seated young man bearing an expected resemblance to his bother.
George Beauchamp, ninth Marquess of Cranleigh, smiled down on the assembled company with benign approval.
Lady Cranleigh smiled back.
‘Miss Talbot was engaged to be married to him. But I’m delighted to be able to say we’re still to have her in the family.’
Sir Robert looked from Ann to Nyssa and back again.
‘That’s if Charles marries the right girl. He could be forgiven for mistaking Nyssa for Ann.’
There was a polite ripple of amusement in which all within earshot joined and it prompted Ann’s persistence.
‘Nyssa what?’
‘Just Nyssa.’
‘But you can’t be.’
‘I am.’
A frustrated Ann faced Lady Cranleigh. ‘And Nyssa doesn’t even know where Esher is.’
‘Which shows very good taste,’ announced her Ladyship. ‘Never mind, Nyssa. You must forgive our vulgar curiosity. And it’s high time we all thought about changing.’
‘And some of us haven’t anything to change into,’
Cranleigh reminded himself. ‘Ann, come with me! You shall choose something for the ladies and I... the gentlemen... if everyone will excuse us.’
The two of them departed on their errand while Lady Cranleigh instructed a footman and a maid to show her guests to their rooms. Tegan put down her drink from which she’d taken but a sip.
‘No, my dear,’ said her Ladyship. ‘You finish that. And there’s no hurry.’ She indicated the young maidservant distributing drinks to other guests. ‘Joyce will know when you’re ready.’
Tegan picked up her glass, marvelling at the thought that here was a girl younger than she who was expected to anticipate her every whim. If these were the good old days, she thought, it was certainly all right for some. And then she remembered that exactly the same was expected of her on her aircraft. What’s changed, she had to ask herself.
Cranleigh opened the door into the attic and switched on the overhead light. Ann followed him into the long, low room circumspectly. She shivered.
‘Not cold?’ asked Cranleigh solicitously.
‘Spooky. Didn’t you hear it?’
‘What?’
‘I thought I heard something move over there.’
‘Nothing to worry about,’ said Cranleigh.
‘Rats?’
‘Not up here. Probably a squirrel. Nothing to worry about. Come on!’ He led the way further into the attic and leaned to switch on more light. Ann followed warily through the paraphernalia that bridged more than three centuries. There were many costumes, male and female, on frames and protected by dust sheets. There were wigs on blocks, weapons of all kinds, footwear that included high Jacobean boots, saddlery of every sort and innumerable chests and baskets.
‘Haven’t been up here for years,’ said Cranleigh. ‘Look at that! Isn’t it marvellous?’ He was pointing at a suit of armour that was. massive and, in some areas, incomplete.
‘It’s got some pieces missing, or we’d find a place for it downstairs.’
Ann looked at the armour with misgiving. There was something about it that chilled her. She took in the domed skull and the many perforations in the visor which seemed to her like tiny, sightless eyes that, nevertheless, watched her relentlessly. The pauldrons and the breastplate were powerful while the tasset must have protected giant thighs.
‘It’s Greenwich armour,’ said Cranleigh. ‘Made in a workshop at Greenwich founded by Henry the Eighth. It was at a time when German armour became fashionable.
That was made by a man called William Pickering in 1618
for the first Marquess.’
‘Be a bit big for you,’ giggled Ann nervously.
‘Yes,’ agreed Cranleigh. ‘And I wouldn’t want my head cut off either.’ He pointed to an effigy of an executioner that stood close to the armour. The figure stood with legs apart and with arms, that developed from wide shoulders, joined across the chest and suspended over a point where once must have stood the long handle of an axe. Its head and face were hidden completely by a black triangular mask that depended from a skull cap. Ann shivered again.
‘Charles, I don’t like it here.’
‘All right, my dear, we’re going. In this chest, if I’m not mistaken, and in that one.’
Ann lifted the lid of a chest and looked at the contents that were carefully folded and interleaved with tissue paper. Cranleigh had, in the meantime, opened a large skip to take out a long, one-piece costume resembling a French circus clown. With it went a complete head covering attached to a chalk-white mask painted to represent a face.
‘Here,’ said Cranleigh, donning the mask, ‘what about this? Pierrot. And I think I remember a Pierrette.’ He rummaged further before suddenly hit with an idea. ‘Of course! Ann! In that one.’ He pointed at a smaller basket.
‘Identical costumes. Made for Great-Aunt Arabella and her twin sister. It was for a pageant. Fireflies or beetles or something. They would do nicely for Tegan and Nyssa.’
Ann took a cardboard box from the basket and opened it. From it she lifted a midnight blue tulle dress and a fitted cap and mask from which protruded two long antennae. ‘I’ve got a much better idea,’ she said. Setting aside the dress in the box she searched deeper within the basket.
Meanwhile, Cranleigh had added a mid-seventeeth-century Commonwealth costume to that of the Pierrot.
Ann picked out an elf-like taffeta dress in laminations of different colours. ‘Tegan shall have this,’ she said happily.
‘Time to go then,’ said Cranleigh. They made their way with the costumes to the door shedding the lights on the way. Cranleigh switched off the main light and followed Ann out. The door closed behind them.
A single ray of evening sunlight, percolating a small hole in the roof, fell upon the masked head of the executioner. A shadow left the dark behind the suit of armour and a grossly deformed hand reached into the light towards the triangular mask.
3
Standing by the huge fourposter bed that dominated the oak-panelled room the Doctor dangled the Pierrot costume from its neck, testing it for size. Lord Cranleigh looked on approvingly. The costume was of cream-coloured flannel extending in one piece from neck to feet. There was a deep scalloped collar and the arms, in slashed green and red check, ended in white mittens.
‘It could have been made for me,’ said the Doctor. He dropped the costume onto the bed and picked up the head covering which was all of a piece. The pale green cap that covered the head was fronted by a white face mask. This provided holes for the eyes and nostrils, and two blood-red triangles accentuated the cheeks. The Doctor put the head piece on and his identity promptly disappeared.
‘I must flatter myself and call that an admirable choice,’
said his Lordship. The Doctor’s reply was muffled and so he removed the head piece and spoke again.
‘It certainly is. What are you going to wear?’
‘Nothing nearly as exotic. I shall do my best to impersonate Beau Brummell.’
‘The eighteenth-century dandy?’
‘Yes. The one who behaved abominably in Bath. But my impersonations will stop short at the clothes. There have been enough black sheep in the family without my adding to them.’ He picked up the Roundhead costume from the foot of the bed. ‘Now I must see to the young man. What was his name?’
‘Adric.’
‘Scandinavian?’
‘Not quite. He’s Alzarian.’
The Doctor felt quite safe in declaring Adric’s origins.
He knew the young nobleman would not offend good manners by pursuing the matter. Such lack of breeding was left to policemen, politicians and people from the press.
Cranleigh was true to type.
‘Never could remember all those funny Baltic bits,’ he reflected. ‘Geography was never my strong point. My brother stole all the thunder there. A positive Odin.’ He moved to the door which he opened. ‘Until later,’ he said and withdrew.
The Doctor put the head piece with the rest of the Pierrot costume on the bed and took off his tail coat and v-necked sweater. As he did so he looked about him with satisfaction. His great age made him a natural antiquary and he warmed towards the solidity of Jacobean architecture and the mellow comfort of the furnishings. He went into the adjoining room to run his bath and saw, with amusement, the primitive unclad bath tub which was a concession to the early part of the twentieth century in traditional England. In high spirits after the vigorous and successful afternoon’s sport he began to hum happily to himself.
‘I think it could be a teeny-weeny bit tighter,’ said Ann Talbot thoughtfully. She looked beyond the reflection of herself in the cheval-glass and at the figure of the maidservant behind her who was adjusting the head-dress of her costume.
‘Yes, miss,’ agreed the maid. ‘I’ll just give it a tuck with a needle and thread.’ She turned to riffle through the contents of a work basket on the table near the foot of the bed, leaving Ann to continue to primp and pat at the cleverly fashioned tulle dress that fell frothily from slender shoulder straps to a bunched hem just below her knees.
Both young women were too engrossed to hear a faint click at the wall beside the bed. The door in the panelling opened an inch or two in a sinister vertical black line; an elongated evil eye that watched unblinkingly as Ann’s head-dress was fitted tighter.
Tegan hummed happily to herself, sinking deep into the armchair in another of the bedrooms in the guest wing.
‘You sound happy,’ said Nyssa, wrapping herself in the long housecoat that had been provided for her.
‘I
am
happy,’ agreed Tegan. ‘A great game of cricket and a dance to look forward to. What more do you want?’
‘You like it here, don’t you?’
‘Yes. Don’t you?’
‘No,’ said Nyssa categorically. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. There’s something about the place... a feeling. A feeling that I’m being watched.’
‘Well, of course you’re being watched,’ exclaimed Tegan. ‘It’s only natural, isn’t it? You and Ann looking like twins.’
‘No, it’s not that. It’s more than that. Something creepy.’
‘Creepy?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s the house,’ said Tegan with authority. ‘All old houses are the same and this one’s bound to be haunted.’
‘Haunted?’
‘Ghosts,’ explained Tegan cheerfully. ‘Mary, Queen of Scots, I shouldn’t be surprised... with her head tucked underneath her arm.’
‘Oh, don’t!’
‘Oh, come on, Nyssa! Cheer up! We’re going to a dance... a ball. You concentrate on that!’ And Tegan began to whistle a jaunty, jerky tune which compelled her to rise and jig to it, knocking her knees together and kicking up her heels alternately.
‘What
are
you doing?’ asked Nyssa incredulously.
‘It’s called the Charleston.’