Fortune's Lead by Barbara Perkins Page B

and took me off placidly to show me my room—feeling faintly comforted, though still fluttering a little inside. The house, imposing outside, bore signs of such care, with everything shiningly polished, that I felt I might scratch something just by looking at it—but Mrs. Mott looked amiable as well as capable, and didn’t seem in any way to resent my arrival.
    A wide staircase of beautiful proportions curved up out of the hall, which was the height of both floors with the upper corridor forming a balustraded gallery. We came up into the centre of the gallery, and walked along one side, with Mrs. Mott pointing out doors-as we passed them: Mr. Thurlanger’s room; the study; the sitting-room. At the end of the gallery a much narrower staircase took us up to the top floor (with another staircase at the foot of it going down: the back stairs, I was told) and Mrs. Mott opened the first door we came to.
    ‘This’ll be your room, then. I hope you’ll be comfortable.’
    ‘I—I’m sure I will.’
    It was a bright, chintzy room, friendly and not nearly as imposing as the other parts of the house. Mrs. Mott was saying that Ganner would be up in a moment with my cases, and I murmured thanks as I crossed to the window to look out. The view was from the back of the house: a formal garden lay below, to the right a walled area made a kitchen garden, and beyond both there was rough grass and then woodland. It was a pretty view, so I exclaimed that it was, and then felt foolish: somehow Thurlanger House couldn’t possibly look out on anything but beautiful views.
    ‘That’s right,’ Mrs. Mott said placidly. ‘There’s Tyzet village down beyond the trees there, around a mile away, but you can’t see it with the woods in between. Just as well, I’d say, with the way they build some of the houses nowadays. Ah, here’s Ganner with your things, then. You’ll be wanting to unpack.’
    Ganner must have knocked on the door with his elbow: he had one of my cases in each hand, and he gave me a nod as he put them down carefully, and wiped his hand before shaking mine when Mrs. Mott introduced him to me. He was gone again before I had gained more than the impression that he was a small, brown-faced man with a bow-legged walk—yet another person to make me feel tall, as Mrs. Mott only came up to my shoulder, her lack of inches making her look even rounder than she was. My mind went fleetingly to the one person who had looked down at me instead of up—Kevin, Henry’s nephew—and it was almost as if she had picked up my thought when Mrs. Mott began talking again.
    ‘There’s the bathroom and lavatory along the end of the passage, past Mr. Kevin’s room,’ she said. ‘You won’t want to be going all the way down to Miss Essie’s bathroom when there’s one up there, Mr. Thurlanger said, and Mr. Kevin could learn to be tidier.’ She gave me a comfortable smile. ‘Mr. Kevin’s in and out at all hours, but you won’t be minding that. He’s quiet enough. Oh, when you’ve things wanting washing out, I’ll hang them on the outside fine for you, if you’ll let me have them. I’ll be showing you where the bathroom is, and then I expect you’d like to rest a bit, if you’ve come all the way from London today.’
    ‘All the way from London’ sounded a long way as Mrs. Mott put it: I had also come all the way from Hertfordshire via London, but I didn’t say so in case that drove Mrs. Mott to feel I ought to be totally exhausted. Besides, I was taking in the fact that I had been put in the bedroom next to the supercilious Mr. Kevin Thurlanger, was apparently to share a bathroom he considered exclusively his. From the way Mrs. Mott had spoken, it sounded ominously as if he had objected that I would be sure to hang underwear all round it to dry. I thought grimly that I was likely to be receiving sardonic glances every time I ran into Mr. Kevin in the passage outside our rooms, and the idea didn’t cheer me—but it was no use