Free The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting Tales by Kate Mosse

light on the distant hill, mesmerised, until suddenly it was gone.
    If she’d been a jumpy kind of girl, she might have squealed. As it was, Daphne felt oddly put out, as if someone had caught her snooping and blown the candle out. She pulled more roughly at the curtains than she’d intended to block out the encroaching autumn night. The brass rings rattled on the rails, but didn’t want to shift. She gave it up as a bad job and left them for the maid. At Dean Hall, Teddy had stressed in his letter inviting her for the weekend, there was still staff to keep things ticking over. Like in the old days, before the war, when everything was easier.
    The old days.
    If Douglas hadn’t deserted her, life would have been so different.
    As Daphne started to dress for dinner, she thought of her temporary room in the boarding house in Berwick Street, the single gas ring in the kitchen shared by four girls like her, who had not been brought up to earn a living by typing or working in a shop. She thought of the tatty WC at the end of the corridor, and nylon stockings hanging over the bath, the scarcity of hot water, and could have cried for the world she had left behind. Mrs Daphne Dumsilde, it had such a ring to it. Douglas had promised to look after her, in sickness and in health.
    But he had not looked after her. He hadn’t kept his word.
    Daphne folded her travelling clothes on the armchair and shimmied into a silk underslip, appalled at how easily she had immediately fallen back into her habitual blue state of mind. Why spoil a perfectly pleasant weekend? Invitations had been thin on the ground – a woman alone was always awkward and her circumstances made it doubly so – and she was too proud to ask for help. At Dean Hall there would be plenty of hot water, plenty of food and drink, perhaps a little dancing and amusing company to keep the dark thoughts at bay. She was glad to be here. Her cousin had seen out the war in America and had been abroad when the business with Douglas happened – but she liked Teddy and was determined not to spoil his weekend by being dull and gloomy.
    In her slip and stockings, Daphne walked to the armoire and took a cigarette from her case, trying not to notice the inscription on the inside of the lid: T O D EE D EE FROM D EE D UM , their little joke. She tapped it sharply to tighten the tobacco, picked up her Ronson and jabbed at it with her thumb until it sparked. That, too, reminded her of Douglas. How idiotic that she kept the case and lighter to remind her of happier times, when in fact the sight of them only made her feel worse.
    Daphne inhaled, feeling the calming smoke seep down into her lungs. From the Oak Hall below, she heard the sound of the gramophone and whispers of jazz. Oddly modern music for so antique a setting. Madrigals and spinets would suit the wooden panels and trophies of big game hunts mounted on mahogany surrounds rather better than the smudged chords of Louisiana and New Orleans.
    She glanced back to the window, wondering if there would be a light in the house on the hill again, but it was dark in the park. Night had fallen, stripping the shape and character from the pleasant Sussex landscape. Tomorrow morning, she promised herself, she would take a walk, perhaps sit a while and paint, aim for a likeness of the wonderful flint façade of Dean Hall. Or, rather, perhaps she would go in search of the house on the hill, and paint that instead. She felt strangely drawn to it.
    Daphne stubbed out her cigarette and finished dressing for dinner. A soft pink silk dress, which suited her pale colouring, with a dropped handkerchief waist and low V beaded neckline. Peach stockings and a light woollen blue shawl, to cover her bare arms. A ribbon tied around her forehead, a mist of scent, and she was ready. Daphne hesitated a moment, then removed her wedding ring and left it on the table beside the bed. She didn’t know if other guests would know about her situation but, whether they