She walked a few steps ahead. She knew that it would be wise to wait until she reached the privacy of her room, but restraint was impossible. Controlling her excitement and curiosity she slipped her finger under the flap. It was loosely gummed and came apart easily. She guessed the communication would be short and it was. Inside, on a small sheet of the same paper was a neatly drawn skull and crossbones and typed underneath just two lines which she instinctively knew rather than recognized were from the play.
Call upon our dame aloud,
And bid her quickly don her shroud!
She put the message back into the envelope and slipped it quickly into her jacket pocket, then lingered until Mrs Munter had caught up with her.
Cordelia saw that the main rooms opened on to the terrace with a wide view of the Channel, but that the entrance to the castle was on the sheltered eastern side away from the sea. They passed through a stone archway which led to a formal walled garden, then turned down a wide path between lawns and finally through a high arched porch and into the great hall. Pausing at the doorway, Cordelia could picture those first nineteenth-century guests, the crinolined ladies with their furled parasols, followed by their maids, the leather, round-topped trunks, the hatboxes and gun-cases, the distant beat of the welcoming band as that heavy Germanic prince carried his imposing paunch before him under Mr Gorringe's privileged portals. But then the great hall would have been ostentatiously over-furnished, a lush repository of sofas, chairs and occasional tables, rich carpets and huge pots of palms. Here the house party would congregate at the end of the day before slowly processing in strict hierarchical order through the double doors to the dining-room. Now the hall was furnished only with a long refectory table and two chairs, one on each side of the stone fireplace. On the opposite wall was a six-foot tapestry which she thought was almost certainly by William Morris; Flora, rose-crowned with her maidens, her feet shining among the lilies and the hollyhocks. A wide staircase, branching to left and right, led to a gallery which ran round three sides of the hall. The eastern wall was almost entirely taken up by a stained-glass window showing the travels of Ulysses. Motes of coloured light danced in the air, giving the great hall something of the quiet solemnity of a church. She followed Mrs Munter up the staircase.
The main bedrooms opened out of the gallery. The room into which Cordelia was shown was charming with a lightness and delicacy which she hadn't expected. The two windows, high and curved, had curtains of a lily-patterned chintz which was used also for the bed-cover and the fitted cushion of the mahogany cane-backed bedside chair. The simple stone fireplace had a panelled frieze of six-inch tiles, their patterns of flowers and foliage echoed in the larger tiles, which surrounded the grate. Above the bed was a row of delicate watercolours, iris, wild strawberry, tulip and lily. This, she thought, must be the De Morgan room of which Miss Maudsley had spoken. She glanced round with pleasure and Mrs Munter, noting her interest, assumed the role of guide. But she recited the information without enthusiasm, as if she had learned the facts by rote.
'The furniture here is not as old as the castle, Miss. The bed and chair were designed by A. H. Mackmurdo in 1882. The tiles here and in the bathroom are by William De Morgan. Most of the tiles in the castle are by him. The original Mr Herbert Gorringe, who rebuilt the castle in the eighteen sixties, saw a house that he'd done in Kensington and had all the original tiles here ripped out and replaced by De Morgan. That mahogany and pine cabinet was painted by William Morris and the paintings are by John Ruskin. What time would you like your early tea, Miss?'
'At half-past seven, please.'
After she had left, Cordelia went through to the bathroom. Both rooms faced west and any broad view of the island was blocked by the tower which rose immediately to her right, a phallic symbol in patterned brick, soaring to pierce the blue of the sky. Gazing up at its smooth roundness she felt her head swim and the tower itself reeled dizzily in the sun. To her left she could just glimpse the end of the southern terrace and, beyond it, a wide sweep of sea. Beneath the bathroom window a wrought-iron fire escape led down to the rocks, from which, presumably, it was possible to reach the terrace. Even so, the escape route seemed to her precarious. In a high storm one would surely feel trapped between fire and sea.
Cordelia had started to unpack when the communicating door between her room and the adjoining one opened and Clarissa Lisle appeared.
'Oh, here you are. Come next door, will you? Tolly will see to your unpacking for you.'
'Thank you, but I'd rather do my own.'
Apart from the fact that the few clothes she had brought could be hung up in minutes and she preferred to do these things for herself, Cordelia had no intention of letting other eyes see the scene-of-crime kit. She had already noticed with relief that the bottom drawer of the cabinet had a key.
She followed Clarissa into her bedroom. It was twice as large as her own and very different in style; here opulence and extravagance replaced lightness and simplicity. The room was dominated by the bed, a mahogany half-tester with canopy, cover and side curtains of crimson damask. The head and footboard were elaborately carved with cherubs and swags of flowers, the whole surmounted by a countess's coronet. Cordelia wondered whether the original owner, thrusting his way upwards through the Victorian social hierarchy, had commissioned it to honour a particularly important guest. On either side of the bed was a small, bow-fronted chest and across its foot a carved and buttoned chaise longue. The dressing-table was set between the two tall windows from which, between the looped curtains, Cordelia saw only an expanse of blue, untroubled sea. Two ponderous wardrobes covered the opposite wall. There were low chairs and a screen of Berlin woolwork before the marble fireplace in which a small pile of sticks had already been laid. Ambrose Gorringe's chief guest was to have the luxury of a real fire. She wondered whether some housemaid would creep in in the early hours to light it, as had her Victorian counterpart when the long-dead countess stirred in her magnificent bed.
The room was very untidy. Clothes, wraps, tissue paper and plastic bags were flung across the chaise longue and the bed, and the top of the dressing-table was a jumble of bottles and jars. A woman was walking about, calmly and uncensoriously gathering up the clothes over her arm. Clarissa Lisle said:
'This is my dresser, Miss Tolgarth. Tolly, meet Miss Cordelia Gray. She's come to help with my correspondence. Just an experiment. She won't be in anyone's way. If she wants anything done, look after her, will you?'
It wasn't, thought Cordelia, an auspicious introduction. The woman neither smiled nor spoke, but Cordelia didn't feel that the steady gaze which met her own held any resentment. It didn't even hold curiosity. She was a heavily busted, rather sturdy woman with a face that looked older than her body, and with remarkably elegant legs. Their shape was enhanced by very fine stockings and high-heeled court shoes, an incongruous touch of vanity which emphasized the plainness of the high-necked black dress, its only ornament a gold cross on a chain. Her dark hair, parted in the middle and drawn back into a bun at the nape of the neck, was already streaked with grey and there were lines deep as clefts across the forehead and at the ends of the long mouth. It was a strong, secretive face not, Cordelia thought, the face of a woman willingly subservient. When she had disappeared into the bathroom, Clarissa said:
'I suppose we'll have to talk, but it can't be now. Munter has set lunch in the dining-room. It's ridiculous on a day like this. We ought to be in the sun. I've told him that we shall eat on the terrace, but that means he'll see that we don't get it until one thirty so we may as well make a quick tour of the castle. Is your room comfortable?'