Lightning Strikes (Hudson 2)

I followed Great-aunt Leonora up the stairs. She paused at the double doors of her and her husband's bedroom.

"I know what you're thinking," she said suddenly, hesitating to open the doors. I raised my eyebrows. She knew what I was thinking? I hoped not. "You're thinking our rooms are so small compared to my sister's house. Americans always do things in a bigger way than anyone else," she continued, once again referring to Americans as foreigners even though she was one. "These older houses weren't built that way. Here, we had to think about heating them and the cost of that, among other things. However, this is a house with history. Do you know it was built nearly a hundred years before the house Frances lives in was built?" she asked. I shook my head. "This is a country with a past, where laws and art and literature began. But," she said with a small wag of her head, "you probably know all this, being a good student. Voila!" she cried and threw open her bedroom doors with a dramatic flair.

She immediately explained that her bed was a Georgian-style painted fourposter. On the side of the room where she had her vanity table hung an Indian ivory-and-ebony oval mirror she claimed Richard had bought at an auction, outbidding someone named Lord Flanders by five thousand pounds. There was a satinwood table where she wrote her notes and letters, long velvet drapes over the windows, lamps she claimed had been imported from Egypt as well as some original Tiffany designs. According to her all of her furnishings had historical meaning and all were refurbished antiques. On the wall to the right of the entryway was a large portrait of a man who she immediately told me was Sir Godfrey Rogers.

"It's actually a self-portrait. He dabbled in art. He never developed any sort of reputation, but...it's good," she said, nodding. She looked at me anticipating some sort of reaction.

"I'm afraid I don't know who he was," I said. She laughed that thin jingle of a laugh again.

"Oh, of course, I forgot. He was the original owner of Endfield Place. And I want to tell you right away," she added with a serious face, "the stories about the spirit of his dead mistress wandering the hallways of this house are purely imaginative. Don't let Leo or Mary Margaret or Mrs. Chester or anyone else tell you otherwise."

"Dead mistress?"

"There is a ridiculous tale that he housed his mistress in some secret room because she had become pregnant with his child and rather than have his reputation soiled, he brought her here to give birth without society knowing about it. Legend, and I stress it's legend, has it that his wife poisoned her and she wandered and haunted the house forever and ever afterward until his wife committed suicide."

"How horrible," I said.

"All poppycock," she declared with a wave of her hand, "but the stuff that makes for good teatime chat. Very well now. Let's get you settled in."

I gazed around the bedroom again and then followed her out. Something was gnawing at me as we descended the stairs. It was the sort of feeling you have when you know you have something to say, something to ask, but what it is exactly is just a little beyond your thinking because you've been so distracted or you're so tired. It's like a feather tickling at the back of your brain.

I glanced again in the rooms we had seen as we joined Mary Margaret and Leo who waited in anticipation. Boggs was still in the entryway, his hands behind his back, rocking up and down on his heels impatiently.

"Do show Rain her quarters now, Mary Margaret, and as I said, take her immediately afterward to meet Mrs. Chester," Great-aunt Leonora commanded. I noticed whenever she spoke to the servants, she tilted her head back so that the tip of her chin pointed at them.

Boggs cleared his throat rather emphatically.

"Oh," Great-aunt Leonora said, "but, of course, before you do that, bring her back here and let Boggs describe her duties." She turned to me. "Welcome again, my dear, and good luck with your studies."

She started back toward the stairway. My eyes followed and then drifted off to look at Boggs, who had turned to glare at me. There was still no sign of welcome in his face. I followed Mary Margaret down the hallway and as we turned to enter what they called the servants' quarters, I realized what it was that had been nudging at my thoughts.

In none of the rooms, not even their bedroom, did I see a picture of their dead child.

If Grandmother Hudson had not told me of her, I would never have known she had even existed. How odd, I thought. Was it something English to hide the members of the immediate family who were dead?

I've got a lot to learn about this place and the people, and quickly too, I thought.

My bedroom was only slightly longer and wider than Grandmother Hudson's walk-in closet. I had a creaky, groaning iron bed with a mattress so thin, it made my bed back at Grandmother Hudson's house seem like a cloud. There was a small window with a faded yellow shade over it, and the floor was uncovered hardwood so damp and dark and grainy that it looked like it might be the original floor of the house. Leo set my suitcases down with relief and immediately left us, hobbling away. Against the wall on my right was a mahogany wardrobe which served as the only closet. Beside it on the floor was a little wooden chest with shallow drawers. The room smelled like mothballs.

"Can we open that window?" I asked Mary Margaret.

She stared at it and shook her head.

"I dunno," she said with big eyes. "Never did."

I went to it and struggled with the rusted lock until I had it unlatched. Then I pushed up with the heels of my palms. It didn't move.

"I won't have any air in here." I complained gazing around.

"I'll go fetch Boggs," she said and left before I could tell her I'd rather struggle with it myself. I tried again, but it didn't even squeak. It's probably been shut tight for a hundred years, I thought.

I put my suitcases on the bed and opened them to take out my clothes and get some of them hung in the wardrobe. Moments later Boggs appeared. He paused for a moment to look at me and then went directly to the window. With a closed fist, he hammered around the frame. Then he put the heels of his palm against it and pushed up. The window groaned and lifted.

"I'll get some oil on this later," he muttered with annoyance. "Hurry along now," he said before he left.

I looked at Mary Margaret.

"This wasn't the room Sir Godfrey Rogers's mistress died in, was it?" I asked, half kidding.