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  “Still definitely in favour of the entry on this side. Admittedly it will cost something to open up, but much less in the long term than letting coaches rip up the long front drive.”

  Lady Arminel gave an almost involuntary nod of approval, which was not lost on Maurice Corden. He opened his folder and placed it carefully on the top of the box hedge.

  “There’s a more subtle aspect of salesmanship involved, too,” he continued. “We need to preserve the mystique of the Stately, you know. People who come to see a place like this simply wallow in it. Such a mistake to let them come lurching up the front drive wedged in their coaches, half-suffocated by diesel fumes and lack of fresh air, and getting used to that dramatic — that utterly gorgeous Elizabethan facade as they approach. Bad psychology. Let them in on this side, be just a trifle daunted at first by Palladian austerity, and then walk round to the forecourt to find that their image of a real live Stately was right after all. It’s always an Elizabethan image in the popular mind, you know.”

  There was a silence in which his hearers mentally registered agreement with his thesis and dislike of its flamboyant presentation.

  “That side road’s narrow,” Lord Seton remarked, with apparent inconsequence. “Carries quite a bit of traffic across the downs, too. I don’t know what the police reaction would be.”

  Maurice Corden raised a tentative eyebrow. “Dare I even suggest one or two passing places notched out of the ancestral acres?”

  Ignoring him, Lord Seton turned to his sister. “What’s your reaction? We should have to go into the question of retention of legal rights, of course.”

  “Provided the ground could be recovered at any future date it seems a practical solution.”

  “Retention of legal rights,” murmured Maurice Corden, his face bent over his folder as he made a note. He straightened up again and surveyed the park. “The car park here, then? I suggest the ticket office about here, and the route round to the forecourt marked by movable guard rails. Outside the hedge, of course, to spare Mr. and Mrs. Giles…”

  Presently they moved round to the north side of the house, to consider the conversion of an adjacent barn into a tea room. To Lord Seton’s relief his sister raised no difficulties. He decided that it was inexpedient to raise the question of the shop which he hoped to persuade her to run for visitors. She was decidedly high horse this morning.

  Quite suddenly Lady Arminel cut into a discussion of the siting of the essential lavatory block.

  “I want the shop immediately opposite the north gate,” she said. “It will catch people’s eye as they come through.”

  Momentarily caught off balance at achieving his aim so effortlessly, Lord Seton quickly recovered himself. “Shop?” he queried diplomatically.

  “Of course we shall have to have a shop. All the successful places do. I’ve written round. Properly run, and selling garden produce as well as the usual run of things, it pays.”

  Maurice Corden looked at her with unwilling admiration. “My dear lady, you’ve beaten me at the post. The Brent Shop was to be my final suggestion. You must let me design you a little boutique. Nothing olde worlde or twee, of course. Just simple and functional, don’t you think?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Corden, but I’ve already got out my own design.”

  “Well,” said Lord Seton, “if we’re all in agreement about the siting of these various buildings, I think we can call it a day. You’ll let me have your detailed report as soon as you can get it out, I take it? We mustn’t be late for lunch. You must be anxious to get off.”

  Once set in motion, preparations for the opening of the house gathered momentum at a surprising rate. During the next twelve months the family became increasingly involved in their various assignments. Maurice Corden paid a second visit to discuss advance publicity, and a third, as Felicity had foreseen would be necessary, when Giles became completely bogged down over the guide book. There were a series of crises of different kinds, all of which were eventually weathered, and the venture was triumphantly launched on Easter Monday.

  It was a success from the start.

  “How come the show biz has caught on so well without gimmicks?” Robert Tirle asked his mother, as he contemplated the crowd of visitors one afternoon in his summer vacation.

  “Geography partly,” she answered. “We’re in a holiday area, and easy to get to. And there’s a lot for the culture-seekers, too. They come and revel, and go away quite starry-eyed. And don’t forget all the preliminary work we’ve put in, my lad.”

  Robert, a shrewdly amused eighteen, laughed. “Uncle Roger’s sanitary block?”

  “Certainly. A dear old soul told me the other day that our loos were the best she’d ever come across on an outing. You needn’t be so superior. Your father nearly killed himself getting the state rooms sorted out, and restoring the Tudor kitchen. All for your benefit in the long run, may I point out?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  By the third summer the routine of an open day was functioning automatically. On a certain Tuesday in the first half of July it began to tick over as usual with the arrival of the cleaning women from the village of Brenting close by. They walked up to the house in a group, volubly discussing medical topics. In the staff cloakroom they donned overalls, and then vanished to their assignments.

  Lady Arminel had already been at work for some time. Having interviewed the head gardener at eight sharp, she was now rapidly snipping off dead blooms in the rose garden.

  “Mornin’, m’lady.”

  She glanced up to see old Sam Webber. He was engaged on his morning round of clearing the litter baskets, and brandished an empty beer bottle for her inspection.

  “Found ’e plonked down slap in the middle o’ the maze, I did,” he told her.

  “Somebody must have been celebrating having got there,” she suggested. “Had many calls for help lately, Sam?”

  He gave a fat chuckle. “Proper confloption some of ’em gets into, thinkin’ the coach’ll go without ’em.”

  “You wicked old man,” she said appreciatively.

  He chuckled again, touched his forelock, and went off happily.

  In the office the telephone rang shrilly. Peggy Blackmore, Lord Seton’s secretary picked up the receiver.

  “Blennerhasset’s, Mrs. Blackmore,” said a familiar masculine voice. “Joe Hill here. The usual’s booked right up for this afternoon, and we’d like to send you a later trip, arriving 4:45. All right?”

  “Will they have had tea, Joe?”

  “Sure. Panoramic coastal drive and tea at the Wreckers, ending up with you.”

  “That’s fine, then. We’ll lay on guides. Thanks for letting us know.”

  “Pleasure, Mrs. Blackmore. Any time. Goodbye for now, then.”

  Peggy Blackmore dialled the tea room on the house telephone. As she waited she watched a gardener pushing a handcart heaped with delphiniums across the courtyard. Everything going smoothly, she thought contentedly.

  “Blennerhasset’s are sending a full coach this afternoon, Mrs. Treddle,” she said, in response to a quack in her ear. “And a later one after tea, at about a quarter to five. They’ll want ice-creams, I expect. Sorry it’s a bit near closing time.”

  “Thanks a lot, Mrs. Blackmore,” came the sharpish voice of the manageress. “No trouble at all, as long as people do their work properly. That Rosalie Emmett’s not here yet, if you please, and she’s only got to step outside the gate. Young people just couldn’t care less these days, and what the world’s going to —”

  Peggy Blackmore was briefly soothing, and disengaged herself, her unoccupied ear having detected Lord Seton’s arrival in his private office beyond the communicating door. Her heart beat a shade faster. A few moments later he came in wearing city clothes, and smoking an after-breakfast cigarette.

  “How are the tickets going for ‘Brent by Candlelight’?” he asked, after some casual conversation.

  “Like hot cakes,” she replied. “It’s going over in a big way.
Mulled wine in the Tudor kitchen was an absolute inspiration of yours, Lord Seton. I suppose it’s too late to fix a repeat later in the season?”

  “I wonder,” he said thoughtfully. “Let’s have a look at the fixture list.”

  Gathering up the morning’s mail, she followed him into his office, and they became immersed in their usual routine.

  After carrying out her daily inspection of the public rooms Lady Seton devoted herself to flower arrangement, for which she had talent. Working with confidence she happily built up a spectacular display of delphiniums in the huge fireplace of the hall. At intervals she remembered that she was on call for guide duty on Tuesdays, and devoutly hoped that she would not be needed.

  In the course of the morning tradesmen’s vans arrived, disgorged supplies and departed again. The fragrant smell of home baked scones came from the kitchen at the rear of the tea room. The rattle of Peggy Blackmore’s typewriter floated out of the office window, punctuating the croodling of fantail pigeons. Soon after eleven Lord Seton emerged, and drove off at speed to catch the London train at Crockmouth for a board meeting of one of his companies. Lady Arminel opened up the shop. She replenished the postcard stands and stacks of guide books, and set out a tempting display of soft fruit, plants and honey.

  Activity further increased from one o’clock onwards. Sam Webber returned from his dinner metamorphosed into a car park attendant. The ticket office, which controlled the entry of visitors was manned by a Mrs. Moore from the village. Felicity Tirle, who organised the work of the guides, came down to their room at the north gate, and discussed the afternoon’s bookings with Molly Danvers and Jane Willis, two retired schoolmistresses who were on duty with her.

  As the courtyard clock struck two, Sam Webber ceremoniously opened the gate of the car park and admitted a coach from Huddersfield, four private cars, the occupants of which eyed the coach party with unconcealed dismay, and two earnest hikers armed with maps and guide books.

  These early arrivals were followed by a steady stream of later ones all through the afternoon. Voices, bursts of laughter, footsteps in the forecourt and the distant sound of cars coming and going formed a background against which Lady Seton sat writing letters in the seclusion of the private wing. From time to time she glanced out of the window, her hopes rising as the afternoon wore on and no summons came.

  At four o’clock her daughters’ former nanny brought in her tea on a trolley. She was an active little woman with bright eyes, known to the family as Ping.

  “If it’s crowded like this already, m’lady, whatever will it be like in August?” she demanded, looking down on the forecourt.

  “More crowded still, I hope, Ping,” said Bridget Seton loyally, getting up from her bureau. “We’re doing very well, you know. His lordship’s pleased. I wish August wasn’t the children’s holidays, though. It’s rather hard on them.”

  Ping, a devotee of Bridget’s, remarked drily that it was hard on other people, too, and she hoped her ladyship wasn’t going to be called on in all this heat.

  Left alone, Bridget relaxed over her tea, letting her eyes wander happily round her beautiful drawing room. Her love for Brent was combined with an intuitive appreciation which she was incapable of expressing, and which would have astonished the rest of the family, who teased her about her inability to remember dates and distinguish schools of painting and architectural periods.

  If only I’d had a son, she thought, part of me would have gone on here as long as Setons keep the house… If only I’d heard them say “you’ve got such a lovely little boy, Lady Seton,” when I came out of the anaesthetic…

  She started as the house telephone rang.

  “Awfully sorry, Biddy,” came Felicity’s voice, “but we’re going to be swamped for the last hour. A wretched man has just rung up who wants to bring a scout camp over at half-past four, and a late Blennerhasset’s coming at a quarter to five. I think Molly Danvers and I had better take on the scouts, if you and Jane could split the coach party, and tack on any oddments who turn up. Can you bear it?”

  “Of course I can,” Bridget assured her, stifling her disappointment and apprehension. “Tell Jane I’ll be in the forecourt at twenty to five.”

  “Splendid. They’ll only be Blennerhasset run-of-the-mill, I’m sure. Don’t bother about dates and so on. Just concentrate on human interest: they’ll lap it up.”

  As Lady Seton arrived, a party emerged from the house in the wake of Jane Willis. The latter, experienced in handling humanity in the mass, quickly disengaged herself and came forward, a welcoming smile on her agreeable, if unremarkable face.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Seton,” she said. “I’m so sorry you’ve had to be brought in. It’s been simply non-stop, but this lot will be the last, anyway. We shall have the usual job over splitting them up, I expect. They’ll all want to go round with you, of course.”

  “With me?” echoed Bridget Seton, in genuine astonishment.

  “Why, yes.” Jane Willis looked at her, momentarily at a loss. “It’s your home, you see,” she added rather lamely, feeling that it would be familiar to comment on the beauty and elegance which she admired so much. “Heavens, here they come already.”

  They walked forward to greet the vanguard of the party as it came round the east side of the house.

  In a surprisingly short space of time Jane had jollied everyone into two groups of roughly equal size. As she moved off with one, she casually informed the members of the other that they were being taken round by Lady Seton herself. Bridget, with a feeling of being abandoned to her fate, became aware of a sea of curious faces. They appeared to belong mainly to well-upholstered elderly women with permanently waved and blued hair. There was a minority of men in holiday garb, hung around with cameras and other photographic equipment. Far too diffident to interpret their stares as a compliment, she braced herself for the ordeal.

  “I’m delighted to welcome you all to Brent,” she told them untruthfully, but with a charming smile. “Perhaps you would like to begin by looking at the outside of the house?”

  No one spoke, but all faced about with a good deal of shuffling.

  “This is the oldest part of the house,” she told them. “It was mostly built in the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth, when it was the fashion to build your house in the shape of an E. But if you look carefully you’ll see that the middle part of the E is different from the rest. It’s much older. The stone is a different colour, and the windows are not the same.”

  Her audience made gratified murmurs at being able to detect the difference, and cameras clicked.

  “Would this middle section go back to Henry VIII’s time?” enquired a thin man with a prominent Adam’s apple.

  Bridget Seton seized thankfully on this universally recognized landmark in English history. “Even before his time,” she replied confidently. “The old house which the Elizabethan builders included in the new one was quite a simple affair. If we go inside now, I can show you what it was like.”

  By this time Jane Willis’s party had moved on into the hall, which housed the family portraits, and Bridget led hers into the huge fifteenth-century kitchen to the left of the screens passage, which had been rescued from its damp and derelict condition by Giles, replastered and whitewashed, and provided with as much period equipment as he had been able to collect. To her relief there were no searching questions about the purpose of some of the odder-looking items, and her carefully memorised description of a Tudor banquet went down well. A look through the door showed her that the party ahead had moved on again, and she rallied her own and conducted it into the hall.

  Unlike Felicity, who was both informative and diverting about the portraits, Bridget invariably found herself tongue-tied at this point. Her sense of kinship with Brent’s past inhabitants made it intolerable to her to discuss them with a crowd of unconcerned strangers. It was here that the nightmare feeling of a party disintegrating and getting out of control always descended upon her, and today was no excep
tion. People lingered obstinately to admire the delphiniums, and she suddenly caught sight of the thin man with the Adam’s apple in the act of stepping over the red cord which barred the newel staircase leading up to the gallery.

  “I’m afraid that staircase isn’t open to the public,” she called to him. “The treads are too worn and slippery.”

  The offender desisted rather ungraciously under the stares of the rest of the party, and a distinct constraint developed.

  “Shall we start on the portraits now?” she suggested desperately. “This is Sir Matthew Tirle, who lived in the reign of Elizabeth I.” She indicated a burly beruffed figure with a piratical air. “He was a great friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, who first brought tobacco to England, didn’t he, and — er — potatoes?”

  The faces turned to her ranged from the politely unmoved to the frankly bored. In despair she hurried over the portraits, and tried to arouse interest by describing the part played by the hall in the life of a fifteenth-century household. Apart from a few clicks of the tongue from some of the women, even this fell flat. Finally she led the way towards the library, leaving too small a gap between Jane Willis’s party and her own. As a result the two groups began to reunite, and became hopelessly mixed up. A traffic block developed on the stairs, where Felicity Tirle and perspiring scouts were trying to make their way down against the tide. Bridget, always very conscious of her sister-in-law’s competence, felt miserably humiliated by the confusion for which she was largely responsible. She tried to catch Felicity’s eye apologetically, but failed.

  At the top of the staircase Jane Willis took the situation firmly in hand.

  “Now, it’s a case of follow-your-leader if we’re all going to see the rest of the house comfortably,” she proclaimed. “My lot this way to see the miniatures and the priest’s hiding hole first, please, while Lady Seton’s go with her to the old chapel and the Tudor bedrooms. Then we’ll change over.”