A Game of Fear: A Novel (Inspector Ian Rutledge #24)(7)
She looked him up and down. “Do you believe her?” she demanded, standing in the doorway like Horatius at the bridge, holding it against the entire Etruscan Army.
He didn’t smile. “Until I have spoken to Lady Benton, I can’t tell you whether I believe her or not.”
That appeared to be a satisfactory response. The door was swung wider, and the woman said, “Wait here, and I’ll see if she’s receiving visitors.”
He stepped into a large hall, almost two stories high and boasting a hearth that would easily roast an ox or two. But instead of the usual array of weapons and armor that were typical decor, this hall had a single ornament, standing where a high window let light fall across it: a large painted wooden statue of a woman, her head to one side and her face half hidden by her veil. The weeping Madonna.
He was struck by her features, what he could see of them. Delicate and yet strong, her sorrow expressed in the dark, haunted eyes, and the sad mouth. He was reminded of a marble statue he’d seen in Belgium, of a young Madonna with the child who would become Saint John. But he pushed that memory away almost as soon as it had formed. The statue here, he thought, must have come from a church Lady Chapel. Perhaps from the Abbey church? She appeared to be very old, fine lines in her robes indicating the drying of Time as the wood aged.
Looking around him again, he realized that the hall must once have been just such a chapel—the high ceiling with its bosses, which marked the points where the ribbing connected, the traceried windows no longer filled with stained glass. The hearth had been added, to make the hall habitable in cold weather. There was a distinct chill here, even on a sunny morning.
He was still admiring his surroundings when a voice behind him said, “She’s all that was left of the monks’ chapel. And that was because they had hidden her when the King’s men broke down the doors. I’ve been told that the Abbey church was built of Epping Forest oak. But she’s French.”
Turning, he saw a tall, slim woman in a gray dress, a pale lavender scarf at the throat. He might have put her age at forty-two or three. Her hair was still a pale gold, and her eyes were blue.
“Good afternoon, Inspector. I’m Felicia Benton.” Her voice was patrician, and cool.
“Ian Rutledge, Lady Benton. I’ve come to hear your side of the story.”
She smiled at that.
“My sitting room is through there.” She turned and he followed her through several large public rooms, beautifully decorated and kept, into a smaller room that had a comfortable, lived-in air. She gestured for him to sit down.
“We don’t have visitors on Mondays and Tuesdays. Keeping the house pristine for viewing takes a great deal of time and energy. It’s open the rest of the week.”
“How large a staff do you have, Lady Benton?”
“Seventeen. They keep the house clean, and they sit in each of the public rooms when there are visitors. To answer questions and make certain nothing is touched. I also have a cook and a housekeeper, because I don’t have time to run the house and take care of myself. The staff takes turns serving in the small café in the only remaining part of the house that belonged to the monks, the crypt.”
She was calm and quite self-possessed, hardly the sort of woman he’d have expected to report a killing involving a ghost.
“The death duties have been dreadful,” she went on. “My husband, and then my son. We struggle to keep the estate going, and it requires a great deal of money. It’s the statue of the Virgin that most people come to see. According to the house archives, she was carved in France in the tenth century, and given to the monks here when they opened the house in the eleventh century—apparently because the abbot here was a relative of the abbot at the mother house. The rest of the Abbey is Elizabethan, with very few changes in some of the rooms. And the portraits of course are rather well known. We have a lovely Charles I by Van Dyck, a small portrait of Anne Boleyn as a child, a Queen Elizabeth in armor at Tilbury, speaking to the troops. Among others. We’re bombarded by requests to sell them or donate them or lend them, but I want to keep them here as long as I can do.”
“Quite a responsibility,” he replied.
“Sometimes I wish I could simply let it all go. But I can’t. It was my husband’s and my son’s duty to keep it in good order and pass it on. I can do no less.”
She was simply explaining, not asking for his sympathy. “No one lives in but me,” she added. “I’m the only witness to whatever it was that happened.”
“How many rooms are there in the house?”
“Seventy-five, not including the garrets where the servants used to sleep. By today’s standards they hardly count as rooms. Some fifty are closed. They aren’t on display or aren’t needed, like most of the bedrooms and the nursery, and so it’s easier on the staff to keep them shut off. We do look in once a month to be sure all is well.”
“And you don’t mind living here alone?”
“Why should I? It’s my home. There are memories here of my husband and my son that I treasure.” She looked around, her eyes sad. “Eric loved the house. When he was little, he’d explore, then come and ask one of us to tell him about a clock in the Blue Bedroom, or the birds on the wallpaper in the small cabinet room. He led some of the tours after his father died, and the visitors adored him. And he could answer all their questions without referring to the book we keep in each room, identifying all the treasures on display.”