Free A Mansion and its Murder by Robert Barnard Page A

was hoped it would soon be over.
    She was remembering her sister, I knew. Mary was not loved, but a death in childbirth strikes chill in the hearts of all women.
    But the labour was not soon over. The afternoon wore on, evening came, the sun sank low in the sky. I tried to imagine ‘great pain and suffering’ lasting as long as this, and failed utterly. I had not had a happy childhood, but my physical pains had been few and short.
    ‘How can it go on so long?’ I asked Miss Roxby, feeling almost sorry for Mary.
    ‘It often does. It’s women’s lot.’
    ‘It won’t be mine.’
    At last I sensed, by the house’s noises, that it was over. It was as if the whole mountainous structure relaxed. I had no sense of tragedy, of the house having been struck by an unusual disaster. I wondered what would happen to me. Would I just go to bed in the usual way? Surelysomeone would understand what a child feels about a new baby in the house?
    Miraculously someone did. Almost two hours after I had sensed that the house was relaxing, almost rejoicing, Robert, our favourite footman, knocked on the schoolroom door.
    ‘Miss Sarah is to go and see the new baby.’
    I didn’t quite like the way he put it, but there was no question of my refusing to go. I got up and led the way, Miss Roxby behind me, and Robert a short but respectful distance behind her. We went down one flight, then through endless, progressively grander corridors till we came to the immense and gloomy bedroom where I knew the lying-in had taken place. Robert knocked on the door, and Mr McKay, looking as grand as grand (grander than any Home Secretary could have looked) let us in.
    Mary, on the bed, was white, drowsy, but triumphant. Uncle Frank was not by her but beside the cradle, and he looked – how can I analyse it? – pleased with himself, for once not dissatisfied or ashamed over the shoddy bargain he had been forced into, and above all proud of the little bundle in white lying quiet in the ridiculously grand cradle in the centre of the room.
    ‘Can I hold him?’
    I knew it must be a him. The medical man, immensely portly and pompous, looked dubious, but Uncle Frank said, ‘Of course,’ and took up the little bundle tenderly. I held my breath, feeling it would break like a china doll if he dropped it. Then I put out my arms and he put the bundle into them. I looked down into the quiet, sleeping little face and I felt a love so overpowering, so all-embracing for the helpless little thing that I realised I had never felt love before – that my affection for Uncle Frank was the natural feeling I would have for one of the few attractive people in my life, but that this was the real thing – the passion that took hold of you, took over your life, filled every part of your body and mind.
    The eyes in my little bundle opened, the face screwed up, and he began to whimper.

C HAPTER S EVEN
Son and Heir
    Physically the baby thrived. I was delighted, but a little surprised. Blakemere did not seem to be the sort of place where babies would flourish. A grand nursery, for example, seemed a contradiction in terms, yet since the baby had to have a nursery in the body of the house, close to its mother, a grand nursery was what he had. And a nursery, of course, was what Grandpapa thought appropriate. A large, authoritative woman from Wentwood, Mrs Nealson, was the nurse in charge, and it was Mrs Nealson whom I had to propitiate if I wanted to hold my little cousin, tickle him to make him gurgle, dangle things before his eyes, or put things in his chubbylittle hands. She was, I think, a good woman at bottom, but she was a very fearsome one at top, and for her I was the model little girl which I was for no one else.
    It was Mrs Nealson who noticed first. Cousin Richard (as he was to be christened) was Mary’s first child, so though he got what was called his infant succor from her, it was natural she wouldn’t remark it. To me a baby was as foreign as a kangaroo would be if