When the paperback fell on the floor, he saw that it was the one Stacy had been reading just before they left for England. For a moment, Jace forgot that she was gone and almost called out to her. When it hit him yet again that she was dead, he clutched the book and collapsed onto a chair.
He looked at the book with its gaudy cover and smiled. He used to tease Stacy that she had “low-class taste” when it came to novels. “I read legal papers most of the time,” she’d said, “so at home I need fun reading. You should try them. They’re great.”
He got up, meaning to put the book by his bedside, but something fell onto the floor. When he picked up the envelope, his heart nearly stopped. It was postmarked “Margate,” the English village where Stacy had died.
Inside was the photo of an ugly house and on the back someone had written that he/she would meet Stacy the night before she died. “This is why she wanted to go to England,” he’d said aloud. It wasn’t that she wanted to be with him but that she was meeting another person. Who? Jace wondered. Why? Was it a man?
For days he thought of nothing but the photo. He memorized the words. “Ours again.” What did that mean? That Stacy had owned the house before? Jace spent sleepless nights going over everything Stacy had told him about her life. Her parents had divorced when she was three. Her mother had moved them to California while her father stayed in New York with his business. When Stacy was sixteen, her mother had died of cancer. One day she had a headache that wouldn’t go away, so she went to a doctor. Six weeks later she was dead. Stacy was sent to live with her father, a man she’d seen only a few times in her life. Stacy used to laugh when she said that at first they “didn’t get along.” She’d meant it as an understatement. She was a teenager and angry that her mother had been taken from her, and angrier still that she was sent to live with her father, who was always working and never had time for her. Stacy said that she managed to be so bad that after a year her father sent her back to California to live with her mother’s sister.
After Stacy graduated from Berkeley, she and her father finally became friends. But the friendship nearly died a year later when her father married a woman who was deeply jealous of Stacy.
Jace tried to remember all the places Stacy said she’d been. In the summers while she was in college, she used to go with a group of kids to Europe to “see the sights.” “My hippie days,” Stacy would say, laughing. Was that when she saw the house? Jace wondered. Is that when it was “theirs”?
He wanted to ask her father questions, but Mr. Evans had said that…Actually, Jace didn’t want to remember what Stacy’s father had said to him on the day of the funeral.
On impulse, Jace had gone to the Internet and brought up the name of the premier real estate agency in England, then typed in “Margate” for the location. The house was for sale. He recognized the photo as the one in the envelope and was sure that the picture of the house had been cut out of a sales brochure.
Jace downloaded the brochure for the house and read every word carefully. It was a very old house, part of it built on the remains of a monastery established in the early 1100s. When the Dissolution of the Monasteries was ordered in 1536, the brochure said it had been converted into a “stately manor house.”
The second Jace saw the house he knew what he had to do. He knew in his heart that the secret to why Stacy had killed herself was inside that house. She had been there before. She had met someone who was so important to her that when he/she had written just a few words, Stacy had figured out a way to go there to meet…him. Jace felt sure that she was meeting a man. Yes, he was jealous, but he was sane enough to know that there could have been reasons other than love to explain her actions.
When Jace knew he was going to buy the house, he said nothing to his family because he knew that whomever he told would come up with a sensible reason for why he shouldn’t. In the end, the only person he mentioned it to was his uncle Frank because he had the money that Jace needed to borrow to buy the big house.
When Jace got to the real estate office in London, the agent was cool and polite, but he got the feeling that the man and his office mates would be toasting with champagne if someone at last sold the odious old house. Maybe the realtor had an attack of conscience because he handed Jace a thick stack of brochures on other houses in England that were for sale. Jace had smiled politely, thanked him, then tossed them into the back of his brand-new Range Rover and left them there.
He saw the house only once before he bought it. It was a Sunday afternoon, raining hard outside, and the electricity had gone off. The darkness made the gloomy house even more dismal. But it didn’t matter as Jace hardly looked at the place. At least not at what the realtor was pointing out. Had Stacy sat on that window seat and looked out? he wondered. Had she climbed those stairs?
Since it was Sunday, he hadn’t met the housekeeper or the gardener. The realtor said that Jace was, of course, free to hire his own employees, but both of them had worked at the house for many years and—“Yes, I’ll keep them,” Jace had said. He didn’t plan to stay long enough to go to the bother of hiring new employees.
So now he was ready to take possession of the house and the contents. For an extra hundred grand, the realtor had persuaded the previous owner to leave behind a great deal of furniture and housewares. Few antiques, no valuable ornaments, but some couches, chairs, beds, and china were left. During the price negotiation, the owner had taken more time discussing the furniture than he had the house. Frustrated, Jace said, “Tell him that the ghost might have attached herself to the furniture and might leave with it.” He’d meant it as a joke and the realtor presented the statement as humorous, but the owner didn’t laugh. Immediately, he stopped haggling and gave in to Jace’s requests.
Now Jace got into his new car, turned on the engine, and continued to drive. When the house came into view, he sighed. Yes, it was as hideous as he remembered. From the outside, it looked to be an enormous square fortress, three stories high, with thick brick turrets pasted on top of each corner. The truth was that the house was hollow—or at least that’s how he thought of it. Although it looked to be solid, when you drove through a gap between the buildings, you were inside a large, graveled courtyard. If the house were seen from the air, it would look like a rectangle with an empty interior.
Inside, it was almost as though there were two houses, one for the owners and one for the staff that it took to run such a large place. Two sides of the box formed a normal house, with large rooms, several of which had beautiful ceilings. The other two sides had smaller rooms that contained the service areas, including the laundry and a big kitchen. There were also two apartments for the live-in staff.
Above the owners’ part of the house, there were two floors of bedrooms and baths. The master bedroom was huge, thirty by eighteen, and it had been connected to two smaller bedrooms that the previous owners used as giant closets. The third floor was a kids’ paradise, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a walk-in closet under the eaves that could be used for a “hideout.”
Jace let the car roll through the wide opening between the buildings and into the courtyard. So far, he’d seen no one, not a gardener, nor the housekeeper, not even a kid on a lawn mower. He hadn’t even seen any animals. Were there animals on the grounds? Dogs? Sheep? Cows, maybe? For a moment he sat in the car and reminded himself that he was now the owner of the estate and should know whether or not there was livestock on his land.
When there was a knock on his car window, he jumped so high his head hit the ceiling. Turning, he saw a little old woman standing outside. She was short and plump, with rosy cheeks and an apron full of green beans. He pushed the button to lower the window.
“Well, come on,” she said in a thick accent that seemed to leave out half of each word. He had to wait a second before he understood her. “Are you gonna sit there all day or come inside and have some lunch? I’m servin’ Jamie today.”
With that, she bustled through a brick archway that was to
pped with a pointed roof. Jace hesitated for a second, then leaped out of the car and followed her. Life! he thought. She was the first sign of life he’d seen about the place. Besides, what with there being a north wing and a south wing and a main house, he feared she’d disappear and he’d never see her again. On the other hand, was she the ghost? She didn’t look like a swashbuckling lady highwayman, but…
Inside the house, there was no sign of a human. It was dead silent. The thick brick and stone walls kept out all sound. He was in the main reception hall and in front of him was a beautifully polished oak staircase. Halfway up was a tall, leaded glass window with a little round insert of a couple of lions. Where could she have gone? he wondered as his stomach gave a growl. He hadn’t eaten since early that morning and it was now after three.
He couldn’t remember the floor plan from when the realtor showed him the house. He took a right and went down a hallway, peeping into rooms as he went. He saw a big living room with oak paneling three-quarters of the way up the walls. Next to it was a kitchen. Eureka! he thought, but there was no one there. The cabinets were beautiful, the floor slate, the windows stone-cased. He opened the refrigerator. It was empty. Maybe the woman cooked outside. On a grill, maybe.
Vaguely, Jace remembered the realtor telling him that there were two kitchens, one for the family and one for Mrs. Browne. The man never called her “the housekeeper” but always referred to her by name, as though she was someone of significance.
Jace turned right and went past another little sitting room, then into a second drawing room. Huge, floor-to-ceiling windows ran along one side, while the other wall had nothing on it. “I’d put bookcases there,” he said aloud. “If I were staying here, that is.” The ceiling was rounded and covered with delicate designs done in plaster. There was no door except the one he’d entered through.
Turning, he backtracked until he got to the entrance hall. This time he took the old oak door to the left. This led into a narrow passage that took a sharp left turn. He went past a laundry big enough to take care of the crew of a submarine, an office, a little room that contained another staircase, a walk-in closet, a powder room, and a door to the outside. He had his hand on the knob to the exterior door when his nose made him turn left. He walked into a big kitchen that looked like something out of a history magazine. It was as unlike the other kitchen he’d seen as it could be. For one thing, there wasn’t one built-in cabinet. The walls were lined with a mixture of tall wardrobes and a Welsh dresser that displayed an amazing array of old dishes, none of which seemed to match. There was an old sink along one wall, one of the constantly on, beloved-by-the-English, multidoored Aga ranges on another wall, and a huge oak table in the middle of the room. The legs on the table were about a foot in diameter and turned into huge rounds.
Mrs. Browne was at the sink, her back to him. “Had trouble findin’ the place, did you?” she asked.
“Totally lost,” Jace said.
She turned around to look at him. “You’re a big one, aren’t you?” In her hand was a plate with a long sandwich on it. “And near as handsome as our Prince William. But not as handsome as my Jamie. Now sit down there and eat. You look starved. I imagine you been livin’ on sausages and burgers in the States. Now, sit and have a good meal.”
Like a child, Jace did as she told him to, pulling out an old oak chair and sitting down. The sandwich she put before him was divine: roast beef, cooked onions, and cheese on what he was willing to bet was homemade bread.
“Good,” he said, his mouth full. “Excellent.”
“It’s from me Jamie.”
“He your son?” Jace asked when he’d swallowed.
“Oh, heavens no! Wish he were, but then we all wish Jamie was our son.” She nodded toward a framed photo on the wall. Since it was half-buried under hanging pots, dish towels, and strings of garlic, he could barely see it. The photo was of a handsome young man, blond, blue-eyed, and he looked vaguely familiar. “He’s Jamie Oliver,” she said and seemed to expect Jace to know who that was. When he didn’t, she gave a look of disgust, her eyes wrinkling at the corners. Jace thought that whatever her age, it didn’t match her little-old-lady looks. He thought she was either a lot older than she appeared, or a lot younger.
“Jamie Oliver!” she said louder, as though Jace was deaf as well as ignorant.
When he still looked blank, she grabbed a thick book off the countertop and put it on the table beside him. It was a cookbook and on the cover was the young man in the photo on the wall. “Ah,” he said, “a cook.”
“Julia Child was a cook,” Mrs. Browne said, going to the cabinet beside the sink and opening a door. Inside was a refrigerator of a size that Americans would use to hold their drinks on the family boat. She withdrew a bottle of something dark and brown, poured a big glassful, and set it on the table in front of him.
She was looking at him as though he was supposed to say something.
“If this sandwich is an example of what Jamie Oliver can cook, then I say he’s an artist.”
She looked at Jace for a moment as though trying to figure out if he was lying, then she smiled, showing that her top left canine was missing. She seemed to be pleased and went back to the range to stir a pan.
Jace smiled, feeling that he’d passed Test Number One, and took a deep drink of what he assumed was beer. He didn’t usually drink beer in the afternoon, but he didn’t want to offend Mrs. Browne—again. The brown liquid was beer, but it was so strongly flavored and so strongly alcoholic that he thought he might choke. Mrs. Browne had her back to him, stirring her pot while she told him all about Jamie Oliver and what a magnificent chef he was and how she followed his advice to the letter. Behind her, Jace was quietly trying to rebound from the swig of beer. His eyes were watering and his head swimming. He thought he might have to lie down on the stone floor to recover.
Mrs. Browne turned around and looked at him, her eyes narrowed to slits. “That beer’s too strong for your American stomach, isn’t it? I told Hatch it wouldn’t suit you. ‘That’s English beer,’ I told him. ‘Yanks drink things that say “light” on the bottle. They don’t drink that homemade concoction of yours.’ Here, I’ll take it.”
As she reached for the glass, Jace felt that he was representing all of American maledom and he held onto the glass. “No,” he said, then cleared his throat since his voice had come out in a squeak. “No, it’s fine. I love it. See?” he said, then picked up the glass and drained it.
When he finished, he thought he might pass out, but by strength of will, he stayed in his seat and looked at her. He hoped his eyes weren’t going round and round as they felt like they were.
Mrs. Browne gave a little smile as though she knew exactly what was going on, then she turned back to her bubbling pot. “Well, maybe I was wrong about you Yanks. You go tell Hatch that you like his beer and he’ll give you more.”
“That’ll be a treat,” Jace said under his breath, then tried to pick up his sandwich, but missed. His hands went one way and the sandwich another. “Who is Hatch?”
She turned on him, hands on hips. “Didn’t that uppity estate agency tell you anything? Hatch is the gardener. Of course he hasn’t been here as long as I have, and I have no idea what his parents did before he came here, but he’s been here a while. He’ll be wantin’ instructions from you as soon as you’re finished here.”
Jace again tried to get his hands onto his sandwich but again missed.
Frowning, Mrs. Browne moved the plate under his hands. When Jace got hold of the sandwich, he smiled at her in accomplishment.
“Instructions about what?” Jace asked, his mouth trying to hit the sandwich. He bit his hand twice, but it was numb so he felt nothing.
Mrs. Browne was watching him and shaking her head. “The gardens. Hatch will want to know what you want done to the gardens.”
“I have no idea,” Jace said as he sank his teeth into the sandwich. That the little finger on his left hand was in the bite didn’t bother him.
“I know nothing about gardens.”
“Then why did you buy this great bloomin’ place?”
“To see the ghost,” Jace said, chewing and wondering how much of his little finger was left.
Mrs. Browne smiled warmly. “And she’ll be glad for the company. The last two families were scared to death of her. Poor thing.”
“Then you’ve seen her?”
“No,” she said, turning back to her pot. “Never seen her or heard her. I’m not a ‘sensitive,’ as they’re called. Some people can see her and some can’t. She talked to a few of ’em, but they all got scared and run away. You gonna be calm when she comes clankin’ down the stairs in the wee hours?”
“Maybe I’ll give her some of Mr. Hatch’s beer. That should loosen her chains.”
Mrs. Browne laughed. It was a rusty sound, as though she didn’t laugh often. “You go on now and have a look-see. Unless you need to lie down a bit on a count a the English beer.”
Jace heaved himself up by his arms because he was dead from the waist down. “Tell me, Mrs. Browne, am I bleeding anywhere?”
Again came that rusty little sound. “You go on now. I’m spendin’ the afternoon with me Jamie so you can have a good dinner. Hatch makes wine as well as beer.”
“Lord save me,” Jace muttered as Mrs. Browne put her strong hands on his lower back and gave him a push. When he opened his eyes he was standing outside and the door was being closed behind him. The sunlight threatened to crack his brain open.
“So you came to see me, did you, Mr. Montgomery?” said a soft voice behind him, a woman’s voice.
Jace turned as fast as he could, but considering the state of his body, that wasn’t very fast. No one was there, but he thought he smelled something. Flowers and wood smoke, he thought. It lasted only a second, then it was gone.
He turned back, put his hand over his eyes, and looked out across the gardens. Green trees, green grass, flowers. He saw it all, but there was no person in sight. Had he just been spoken to by a ghost? He smiled. Maybe he should have been frightened, but he had an odd thought. He could say anything to a woman who was already dead and he wouldn’t have to worry about the consequences. “You can’t hurt someone who’s already dead,” he said aloud.