I shivered. "Let's go and see the rest," I suggested.

"I agree with you. It's horrible. I suggested having the dungeons walled up, but they won't hear of it. Egmont goes purple in the face at the mere mention of it or any alteration to the castle."

"I can understand it in a way. But as for this place ... I should think what happened here is best forgotten."

We mounted the stairs with the aid of a rope banister and were in a stone hall.

"This," explained Jessamy, "is just below the main hall. You ascend that stone staircase and you are in a little passage, and there facing you would be the door to the main hall. This is a sort of crypt. When people die the coffin is kept here for a while."

"It reeks of death," I said.

She nodded. "Look how it is groined with blocks of hard chalk. And just feel these massive pillars."

"Impressive," I said. "This is the very ancient part of the castle, I am sure."

"Yes, it's part of the first structure."

"How grim it must have been to have lived in those days."

I could not get the dungeons out of my mind. I was sure I should think of them even when I went upstairs to my luxurious room.

We went back to the hall where Jessamy pointed out the fine carved stonework and truly magnificent timbers in the vaulted roof. She showed me the exquisite linenfold which had been put in when Queen Elizabeth visited the castle and the intricate carvings at the foot of the minstrels' gallery which depicted scenes from the Bible. Then we went to the long gallery where I studied pictures of ancient and modern Matelands. It was interesting to see Grandfather Egmont there and to have some indication of the man I was to meet. He was remarkably like David. He had the same thick brows and penetrating eyes. There was a picture of Joel and one of David.

"The little boy has not yet been painted," I said.

"No. They are not painted until they are twenty-one."

"How exciting to be able to look back to your ancestors all those years. Oh, Jessamy, perhaps your descendants will inherit all this one day."

"It's hardly likely," she said. "First of all I'd have to have the child ... and then of course there's Esmond. His children will inherit. David's the elder."

"Suppose Esmond died ... or didn't marry ... and therefore had no legitimate heirs."

"Oh, don't talk of Esmond's dying! He's the loveliest little boy."

She seemed eager to get out of the picture gallery.

We explored the rest of the house. There was the drawing room, the dining room in which we had eaten last night, the library, the armory, the gun room—I had never seen such a selection of guns—the Elizabeth room, the Adelaide room—both queens had honored the castle with their presence—and there were all the bedrooms. In fact I wondered how anyone ever learned to find his way about the castle.

Finally we came to the nursery and there I made the acquaintance of Esmond. He was, as Jessamy had said, a beautiful little boy. He was sitting in a window seat with Elizabeth Lark-ham and she was reading, pointing to the words with her finger as she did so.

He stood up as we entered. He came towards us and Jessamy said: "This is Esmond. Esmond, this is Miss Campion."

He took my hand and kissed it. It was a charming gesture, and I thought how pretty he was with his dark hair and his fine dark eyes ... undoubtedly a Mateland.

"You're Jessamy's cousin," he stated.

I told him I was and that I was looking at the castle.

"I know," he told me.

Elizabeth laid a hand on his shoulder. "Esmond has been asking about you," she said.

"It's nice of you to be interested," I said to the boy.

"Can you read?" he asked. "This story is about three bears."

"I believe I know it," I said. " "Who's been sitting in my chair?' 'Who's been eating my stew?""

"It wasn't stew. It was porridge," he corrected me solemnly.

"I dare say it changes with the years," I replied. "Stew or porridge, what does it matter?"

"It does matter," he insisted. "Stew's not like porridge."

"Esmond is a stickler for detail," said Elizabeth.

"Am I a stickler?" asked Esmond. "What is a stickler?"

Elizabeth said: "I'll tell you another time. I was just going to take him out," she told us. "It's time for his midmorning walk."

"Not yet," said Esmond.

She held him firmly by the hand.

"You'll have more time to talk to Miss Campion," she said.

"Well, we'll continue with our tour," Jessamy replied.

"It's a fantastic place, isn't it?" Elizabeth looked straight at me, and again I felt that she was summing me up.

I agreed that it was.

"We'll go out to the battlements," Jessamy announced. "I want to show you the stone walk."

"I shall see you later then," I said to Esmond, who nodded and said rather sadly: "It wasn't stew."

Jessamy and I climbed the stone stairs—another of those tricky spiral ones—and were on the battlements.

"Esmond is a very serious little boy," she said. "He should be more with boys of his own age. It's only when Garth and Malcolm are here that he sees other boys. And they are both older than he is."

"I've heard of Garth," I said. "Who is Malcolm?"

"He's a cousin of some sort. His grandfather was Egmont's younger brother. You can work it out. I gather there was some feud between Egmont and his brother. They quarreled or something. Egmont has relented and Malcolm pays periodic visits. I think Egmont likes to regard him as an unlikely but possible heir to the castle. You see, if Esmond were to die and Joel and I had no children, I imagine Malcolm would be the next in line. Malcolm's about Garth's age ... sometimes we have them both here together. It's good for Esmond. Elizabeth is of course devoted to him. I think she's a bit jealous if he takes notice of anyone else."

"She needn't be jealous of me. I'm just one of those ships that pass in the night."

"Don't say that, Anabel. I want you to come here often. You don't know how your coming cheers me up."

"Cheers you up! Surely you don't need cheering up?"

"What I mean is that you add that much more."

But she had alerted my senses. Things were not quite what they seemed at the castle. Jessamy was not completely happy. I was sure this had something to do with Joel.

I had been three days at the castle. I had made the acquaintance of Egmont, a rather ferocious-looking old man with the Mateland bushy brows, gray in his case. He was affable to me. "He has taken a fancy to you," said Jessamy.

She told me he had a reputation for being fond of women and in his youth he had had mistresses all over the countryside. There were numerous Matelands all over the district.

"I don't think he ever attempted to deny paternity," she said. "He was proud of his virility. He always looked after them, too."

"What of his wife? How did she react to these bastards all over the countryside?"

"She endured and she accepted. There was nothing else she could do. Of course, in those days that sort of thing was taken as a matter of course, more than it is today. The Queen sets such a good example."

"She sets the fashion for virtue," I commented, "but that sometimes means drawing a veil over immorality rather than suppressing it."

She frowned slightly, and I wondered what she was thinking. I was becoming very sensitive to her moods. For the first time in her life Jessamy was hiding something from me. I was certain that everything was not what it seemed on the surface. But try as I might I could not get her to tell me her innermost thoughts, and the longer I was at the castle the surer I was becoming that there were secrets there.

I saw Joel frequently, but never alone. Sometimes I thought that we both contrived that this should be so. But there did come a day when we were thrown together.

I had done a little riding at the castle. Jessamy rode a good deal. She always had at Seton and Aunt Amy Jane had grudgingly allowed me to share her lessons. I had loved riding and some of the happiest days of my childhood had been spent galloping and cantering over the fields and walking the lanes in Jessamy's made-over riding clothes. There had been nothing quite as exciting in those days as galloping along, a horse beneath me and the wind buffeting me.

So it was pleasant to ride at Mateland, where there was, of course, a large stable and several horses to spare. The right mount was found for me and Jessamy and I rode every day.

Once when Jessamy and I were riding we met David. He had been going round the Mateland estate, which he spent his days looking after, and when he saw us he rode with us.

He chatted amicably, wanted to know what I thought of the Mateland stables and the particular mount which had been found for me, how much riding I had done and so on.

There came a moment when Jessamy slowed down to talk to a woman at the door of one of the cottages. I managed to catch a strange smile about David's lips. He quickened pace a little, and I kept up with him. He turned up a lane, and then I realized that he was trying to get ahead of Jessamy.

I said: "Does she know we're going this way?"

"She'll find out," he answered.

"But.. "

"Oh, come on, Anabel. I never get a chance to talk to you."

There was something in the tone of his voice which warned me to take care.

"We shall lose her," I protested.

"That could be the object of the enterprise."

"Not mine," I reminded him.

"Anabel, you are a very attractive young lady. You know it. And you are not as prim as you would have me believe. You have bewitched us all."

"My father, myself and my newly wedded brother."

"I am flattered to have made such an impression on your family."

"Anabel, you would make an impression wherever you went. You have something more than beauty. Did you know that?"

"No, but I am interested to hear a catalogue of my virtues."

"There is vitality in you ... a response... ."

"A response to what?"

"To that which you arouse in men."

"I am learning a great deal, but I think I must say here endeth the first lesson and the first lesson shall be the last."

"You amuse me."

"Another talent? Really, you will make me very conceited.*

"I tell you nothing you do not know. Since you have come to the castle you have been constantly in my thoughts. Have you thought of me?"

"Naturally I think of people when I am in their company. Now I think we should join Jessamy."

"Let me show you round the estate. There is a great deal you would be interested in, Anabel... ."

I turned and called out to Jessamy, who was looking for us. I rode back to her.

"I didn't see that you had gone up the lane," she said.

I felt very shaken. I thought that clearly I could not stay on at the castle. It seemed to me that there was something a little sinister about this man. I wanted to get away from him.

I thought a great deal about what David had said. The men in the family were all impressed by me. That was what he had stated. I knew that he was. What was he looking for? A brief flirtation, a passing affair? He was married to an invalid and for a man such as he was that must be trying. I had no doubt that he attempted to seduce every woman with whom he came into contact, so perhaps I should not attach too much importance to this approach of his. I only had to show him that I was not the type to indulge in brief love affairs with married men ... and even if I were he did not attract me.

I liked to sit beside Grandfather Egmont and talk to him. He was complimentary too and made it very clear that he considered me an attractive woman. I hadn't thought much about that before and it was as though I had changed when I set foot in Mateland Castle. A spell had been laid upon me. "Every man who sees you shall desire you!" That was the sort of thing. Grandfather Egmont had a wicked twinkle in his eye and was implying that if he were thirty years younger he would be ready to woo me. This amused me and I responded in a lighthearted flirtatious kind of way which delighted him. I did notice that his attitude towards Jessamy, Emerald and Elizabeth was quite different. So it really did seem as though there was something in me which aroused this spark in the Matelands.

That Joel was conscious of my presence I knew, but he seemed to avoid me. But I did meet him one day as I was riding out of the stables. Jessamy had had some duty to perform and she had asked me if I would mind riding alone that day.