Cavalier Case by Antonia Fraser

manservants Jemima had previously encountered in the homes of the rich, he proceeded to address her: "I wish to communicate to you something concerning the Decimus Ghost, understanding your interest in the same, madam."
    Jemima smiled warmly. "I hear you know all the family history."
    "I did believe so, madam." Haygarth was increasingly lugubrious. "I certainly did believe so. But now I have formed a very different impression about recent events at Lackland Court. I believe there to be danger here and in particular the death of his late Lordship has convinced me—" Haygarth stopped. "The ghost is still walking," he added in a very low hurried voice.
    Jemima realised they were no longer alone. Zena Meredith had returned. She scarcely looked at the butler, and therefore it was impossible to tell whether she had overheard his last incomplete remark. Jemima, her curiosity aroused, decided that where the butler was concerned, discretion was probably essential if she was to receive confidential information. So she contented herself with saying rather vaguely: "Thank you so much, Mr. Haygarth, for filling me in on those historical details. I hope we may talk again in the course of researching the programme."
    The butler said nothing but merely bowed his head gravely. Nor for the rest of the day, in the course of which he performed a number of services for Jemima, such as serving her food, pouring her drink, and finally helping her back into Dan Lackland's car (he was dashing up to London and back "for a business meeting"), did he make any allusion to their brief snatched conversation.
    Dan did make an allusion to it however.
    "Zena told me that old Haygarth did get going on all the family stuff. As I warned you, he can be a fearful old bore, can't he?"
    "Oh he didn't bore me for long, just a few dates, and some information about the garden."
    The mention of the garden temporarily distracted Dan. "As you can see, there we have real problems," he said gloomily. "Beautiful, isn't it? Cousin Beatrice was a terrific gardener - terrific with the aid of five other gardeners and a boy. Now what do we do? Gawain would love to lay his hands on it, but we can't have that - look what he did to Taynford Grange - and the real gardener is of course Zena, but she wants to restore it to the original seventeenth-century design, which would cost a fortune - " Dan heaved an exasperated sigh. "But you had a good view of it from the Long Gallery. Next time I'll take you up on the battlements, if you've got a head for heights. There's a little spiral staircase just off the Long Gallery; a later addition - one of the few - since the days of Decimus, but convenient."
    "Convenient for what?" Jemima was still brooding over Dan Lackland's evident, indeed marked, disinclination to let her interview Haygarth. Jemima Shore was certainly not to be circumvented quite so easily. She had every intention of having a private talk with the butler on her next visit to Lackland Court. Preferably with the agreement of the present Lord Lackland but definitely not in his presence. She felt that she owed it to the shade of the poet, or as Handsome Dan himself would have put it, the Decimus Ghost.

IV 
    Cavalier Masquerade
    He was descending the staircase quite slowly; in the dim light the pointed white lace of his broad collar contrasting with the blackness of the armour, and the length of his figure exaggerated by the long boots he wore; there was a cloak on one shoulder and he held his plumed hat in his left hand . . . For a moment the whole image had the quality of a dream for Jemima—one of those recurring dreams she had been having lately about Decimus which both plagued and excited her. One of them had been startlingly erotic: and she had half-awoken in the darkness to find Cass's urgent body seeking hers. In that drowsy instant, she remembered to her shame, she had experienced a strange yearning disappointment that it was familiar Cass, not the