“Benedict … he could not go.”

“Then we could go without Benedict.”

“I could not, Rebecca.”

“It might be good.”

“No. He needs me … here. I have to be at the dinner parties. It is the duty of the Member’s wife.”

“There is too much emphasis on duties and not enough on … on …” She waited and I added lamely: “On … er … home life. You should go away. Then perhaps he would miss you and realize how much you do for him.”

She was silent. Then suddenly she turned to me and I knew by the heaving of her shoulders that she was weeping.

“What am I to do?” she asked. “He does not love me.”

“He must do. He married you.”

“He married me because he wanted a wife. All Members of Parliament should have wives. If they want big office they need a wife … the right wife. But, alas, Rebecca, I am not the right one for him. Your mother was.”

“You must forget that. You are good. You are wonderful at parties. You always look so elegant. They all admire you.”

“And when he look at me … he think of another.”

I was silent.

“Was she very beautiful?” she asked.

“I don’t know. She was my mother. I never thought whether she was beautiful or not. To me she was perfect because she was my mother.”

“And to him … she was perfect and there could never be another to take her place. Do you believe that when people are so deeply needed they can be lured from the tomb and come back to those who cannot live without them?”

“No,” I said.

“Your mother … she must have been a wonderful person.”

“She was to me.”

“And to him.”

“Yes, to him. But they both married someone else in the first place.”

“I know he married the girl in Australia. She brought him the goldmine.”

“My mother married my father first. He was very handsome and charming … like Hercules or Apollo … only better because he was so good. He gave his life for his friend.”

“I know. I have heard.”

“And my mother loved him … dearly,” I said fiercely. “But it is all over, Celeste. That is in the past. It’s now that matters.”

“He doesn’t care for me, Rebecca.”

“He must. He married you.”

“Did he care for the first one, I wonder?”

“This is different.”

“How is it different?”

“I am sure of it.”

“I love him so much. When I first saw him I thought he was the most wonderful man I had ever seen. When he asked me to marry him I could not believe it. I think I am dreaming. But we marry … and now he does not want me. All he wants is her. He dream of her. I have heard him say her name in his sleep. He has drawn her back from the grave because he cannot live without her. She is here. She is in this house. And now she is tired of being in that locked room. She has come out to join those other ghosts in the garden.”

“Oh, Celeste. You must not think like that. He needs time … time to recover.”

“It is years since she died. It was when Belinda was born.”

“She would not wish you to suffer like this. She was the kindest person in the world. If she came back it would be to help you … not to harm you.”

I wished that I knew how to comfort her. I hated him then. He was responsible for her unhappiness. He was selfish and cruel. He had married her because he needed a wife to enhance his career, just as he had married Lizzie Morley because he needed her money for the same reason. My mother he had truly loved; there was no doubt of that, and God … or Fate … was repaying him. He had lost the one he loved and would not try to make a happy life for the woman he had taken up to serve his own ends.

He was a monster, I thought, and whipped up my hatred and contempt of him.

I said: “It will come all right one day, Celeste.”

She shook her head. “But I pray that he will turn to me,” she said. “I lie here sometimes waiting … waiting … You cannot understand, Rebecca.”

“I think I do,” I replied. “And you must rest now. Do you think you could sleep?”

“I am very tired,” she said.

“Shall I get Mrs. Emery to send up a little supper on a tray? I could have mine with you if you liked. Then you could rest. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

“I’ve never fainted before,” she told me. “It’s strange to feel the Earth slipping away.”

“People often faint for various reasons. There are no after effects. Perhaps you were not feeling well and the change of air…”

“But I saw …”

“It really could have been the mist in the air.”

“It wasn’t mist. I saw her clearly.”

“How did you know who it was?”

“I knew.”

“People see a sort of mirage sometimes. There are shadows and they don’t recognize them as such and the brain starts to work out what it is … and imagination comes in. It’s all this talk about ghosts. Just suppose it was a ghost. It might have been Lady Flamstead or Miss Martha.”

“I know who it was. Instinct told me.”

“Will you have something to eat?”

“I couldn’t manage it … not tonight.”

“Do you think you could sleep?”

“Perhaps.”

I stood up and kissed her.

“I am so glad you are here, Rebecca,” she said. “I wondered a lot … how would you like me … the one who took your mother’s place.”

“I never felt like that for a moment. It is so long since she died.” I smiled at her. “If you want me … later on … if you can’t sleep and would like to talk … ring the bell and tell one of the servants. I’ll come along and talk.”

“Thank you. You would comfort me much … if I could be comforted.”

“You will be, and I am going to see that you are.”

She smiled faintly. She looked a little better and very young with the traces of tears on her eyelashes and a faint flush in her cheeks.

I was glad to be alone. I wanted to think. She had shaken me. Although I had told her that I did not accept the theory that she had seen a ghost, I was impressed by her description of the clothes. Being so interested in the subject she would see them more clearly than most people and she had been so emphatic in her description of them.

I kept seeing my mother walking across the garden with her hair escaping from under that becoming hat and mingling with the white fur on the edge of it.

Celeste had described it accurately.

It was not possible. If my mother returned, it would not be to show herself to poor little Celeste, but to me … or to him … and she would not do it in a frightening way.

I recalled that occasion when I had thought she was in my bedroom. I had not seen her. I had not heard her voice. It was just a conviction that she was close. I had been overwrought at the time, worried about Lucie and what would become of her.

At such times one could have hallucinations. But I had never seen her and Celeste would have it that she had seen her so closely that she could describe the clothes she was wearing.

She did not send for me that night but before I retired I went to her room to see how she was and found her sleeping peacefully.

I tossed and turned all night and it must have been about five in the morning when I found myself wide awake.

I sat up in bed and said in a whisper: “I don’t believe it.” The clothes were real though. My mother did possess them at some time. Was it possible that someone could have found those clothes and worn them and come to the spot to play the ghost?

I could not get the idea out of my mind.

I was up early. I had thought a great deal about what I could do. I would enlist the help of Mrs. Emery. I could take her into my confidence and I knew that she would respect it.

The first thing I did was to go along to Celeste.

She looked exhausted and drawn and I was relieved when she suggested staying in bed, for the morning at least.

She was very tired, she said.

I told her I would have a light breakfast sent up to her room and after she had partaken of it she should try to sleep. I would look in later to see how she felt.

Mrs. Emery was a woman of routine. She was a great believer in the beneficial effects of a good cup of tea and she took it at eleven in the morning as well as in the afternoon.

It was safe to go along to her room at eleven o’clock.

She was always pleased to see me. Celeste was, of course, the mistress of the house, but now that I was no longer a child, Mrs. Emery regarded me as such. She could not give foreigners the same respect she applied to her own countryfolk, therefore, I was as important—perhaps more so—in her eyes than Celeste.

“I do want to talk to you, Mrs. Emery,” I said.

She preened herself. “Well, it is always a pleasure, Miss Rebecca.”

“Thank you.”

“And you’re just in time for a cup of tea. I’ll have it ready in a jiffy.”

“Oh thank you. That would be nice.”

I did not speak until the ritual of teamaking was completed. I watched her. I had heard her tell the servants many times. Warm the pot with very hot water, dry thoroughly before putting in the tea … one teaspoonful for each person and one for the pot. Infuse, stir, and allow to stand for five minutes … not a second more … not a second less.

The tea was poured into the cups which she kept specially for honored visitors. I was flattered that I was one.

“Mrs. Emery,” I began, “I am concerned about what happened yesterday.”

“Oh … Mrs. Lansdon, yes … she was really shook up.”

“Do you know what caused it?”

“I didn’t. I just wondered. Well, it seems hardly possible. I wondered if she was expecting.”

“Oh no … nothing like that, I think. She thought she saw … something … under the oak tree.”

“Mercy on us, Miss Rebecca. Not the ghost!”

“Mrs. Lansdon believed she saw one … on the haunted seat.”

“My goodness gracious me! What next?”

“She described the clothes. I recognized them as my mother’s.”

Mrs. Emery stared at me open-mouthed.

“Yes,” I said. “She thinks it was the ghost of my mother.”

“But …”

“You see …”

“Yes, I see all right. You can’t help knowing how things are. Oh, how different it was when you dear mother was here. Then we were a happy household.”

“We should try to make it happy now, Mrs. Emery.”

“Well … what with him and that locked room … and her … well, it’s not easy, is it?”

“She must have imagined something. She is not very well.”

Mrs. Emery nodded. “She’s a sad lady. There are times when I feel sorry for her.”

“Yes, but I don’t think she imagined this. I think she really did see something under the trees and whoever it was was wearing my mother’s clothes.”

“Lord a’ mercy!”

“I may be wrong but the fact that she described the clothes so accurately makes me believe that someone in this house was playing a trick.”

Mrs. Emery nodded thoughtfully.

“You go to that room regularly and everyone knows you do that. I think someone got into your room, found the key and took the clothes from my mother’s wardrobe.”

“The door is always locked and I have the key.”

“You always keep it in the same place?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Possibly someone discovered where you kept it.”

“I can’t see how.”

“I can. The door of your room … this room … is never locked, is it?”

She shook her head.

“Someone could come in when you are busy and there was no chance of being disturbed. Whoever it was could have taken the key, gone to the locked room, taken the clothes, locked the door and returned the key back to this room. That’s possible.”

“No one would dare.”

“There are some daring people around, Mrs. Emery.”

“But what for? What’s the good of it?”

“Mischief. That is very attractive to some.”

“You mean someone did it to frighten the wits out of that poor lady?”

“It’s possible, and I intend to find out. You have the key here now?”

She rose and went to a drawer. She opened it and triumphantly held up the key.

“I want you to take me up to that room now, Mrs. Emery,” I said. “I want to see if those clothes are there. If they are, and I think they should be because my mother was wearing them right to the time she left here, then we shall know that whatever Mrs. Lansdon saw under the oak tree was not a figment of her imagination. But because this happened only yesterday, whoever took the clothes might not have had time yet to return them.”

“Well, the key was there, and if anyone took it they’d have had to return it pretty prompt like. They wouldn’t know when I was going to pop in … and it would be dangerous to bring it back when I might come in and catch them at it.”