In the front parlour, Hannelore Ensley was playing the grand piano. Priscilla sat in the front sofa, while her lady’s maid stood next to her talking about something. Priscilla was not at all indulgent. She said it as she had been forced.
As I appeared, she stopped, ‘It appears as if you’ve come from a long way.’ She said without glancing at me, probably spying over me from her tea saucer.
‘N-No, Ma’am; it is just the garden lawn,’
‘The garden lawn seems to have outgrown from the tiger grass. Plenty of weeds there too, has not Ishmael cleaned it yet?’
Ishmael was our gardener.
‘But My Lady, Ishmael has left.’ Speaks Miss Faber, the Lady’s Maid.
‘What?’ She puts the tea down in a hurry, staring at her.
‘Y-Yes, he left just after signing his resignation to Mr Cooper. Mr Cooper, umm, insisted.’
She stops looking at her. She doesn’t look anywhere at all. Hannelore stops. He has white beard grown all over his face that match the texture of his shirt, vest and the tiny bow he wears.
He eyes her.
‘Go and change your clothes Ascendant.’ She orders, glint in her eye.
I depart just the moment, afraid of any inconvenience.
My room is in the west-wing of the house. The north looks through the garden, the east one faces the Street, the south one is at the west farm, and the west looks at the cemetery. The Northern towers look through the front. But no lawn could prevent my view to it, and certainly no person. I could easily see it from my balcony. If any moments, I could detect them easily.
Instead of going to my room back, I cross to the banquet and on to the second floor where I stand, overlooking the parlour, aware that Priscilla could easily look at me.
‘This is absolutely outrageous!’ She shouts. I look at the piano, Hannelore has left.
‘Seven members of the back house have been resigned or sent off. This is not something he could well do! He is not the head of the house -’
‘But Lady, the Lord is just absent from his accounts at present.’
‘Of course, but it doesn’t sound convincing having his doctor as the subordinate.’
‘It wouldn’t be long till they return.’
It will belong. It will be forever. From what I know – which I suspect is the truth – is that he will never return. He is dead. Just as Ignatius, just as Bailey, he is dead as much as he could be.
Although no one from the back house knows that. It is a fact, understood rather unspoken. But we know – as does Cooper – that he is dead.
I could then hear a rumble. A voice like thunder, coming through the gothic gate. Of a horse carriage. The nighing, as much as I could hear, is something I am familiar with. A few people dare to enter after Cooper came, and not too many of the letters had been written. Currently, there were just two people whom we knew, are trusted by him.
So who is it?
