Free The Doll’s House by Evelyn Anthony Page A

bags, will you?’
    He walked purposefully up the flight of stone steps into the reception hall. It was high and cool, with the faint mustiness of its age.
    A pleasant girl sat behind a counter and looked up, smiling at him. Fresh flowers were banked in the hall. She got up and said, ‘Good afternoon, sir. Can I help you?’
    â€˜I’m Mr Oakham. The manager’s expecting me. Tell him I’m here and I’d like to see him in about fifteen minutes.’
    She blushed. ‘Oh, yes, I’m so sorry. I’m new here. He did mention you were coming. You’re in the Stuart suite, Mr Oakham. It’s up the stairs and the first on your right. There is a lift if you’d rather.’
    She was still pink in the face. He was the new owners’ representative. Why hadn’t the manager told her what he looked like …?
    â€˜No thanks, I’ll walk,’ Oakham said.
    â€˜Dave,’ she turned to the boy. He’d stacked Oakham’s luggage in the hall. ‘Take the gentleman up, will you? I’ll ring through at once and say you’re here, sir.’
    â€˜Thank you,’ Harry gave her a smile that made her feel better. He hadn’t seen a girl blush for a long time. He liked it.
    Harry Oakham walked up the broad staircase. He remembered it well from his childhood visits. He ran his hand over the smooth banister, the wood polished by centuries.
    The boy was humping his luggage ahead of him.
    It was there, on the top landing, walled in by glass. The doll’s house. Built into the wall at the head of the stairs. He paused to look at it.
    Large enough for a child to play in, to look out of the windows at whoever came up the stairs. It had been there for four hundred years, and nobody had thought to move it. It was quite a tourist attraction. He wondered what they said about it in the guidebook at reception. Protected by its glass from the pollution of the modern way of life, it would last as long as the house stood.
    He hadn’t been afraid of it, though the children he played with used to scamper past. He was not afraid of the doll’s house, any more than he retreated from the menacing swans when they sailed up aggressively to challenge him on the river bank. He paused, his eyes a little narrowed, and touched the glass front with a finger. It was screwed tightly into the wall. His finger moved lightly, tracing the head of the screws sunk deep into the glass and down into the brick beyond it. The outside wall was invisible from the grounds; it was buried behind chimney breasts and pitched roofs. If the doll’s house was more than a façade, it must go back some feet. A very thick wall must have been built to accommodate it. Tomorrow, he decided, I shall go up on the roof and take a look. Just to satisfy my curiosity. After all, they trained me not to take anything at its face value. For nearly thirty years I’ve lived with things that weren’t what they seemed.
    There was a plaque by the side of the glass front. He read it and smiled. It hadn’t been there when he was a boy and he lingered on that landing taunting the others with cowardice.
    This doll’s house was built for the Lisle children in 1598. It is a unique example and reputedly made by a carpenter on the estate.
    He quickened his step, seeing the young porter waiting for him at the top of the stairs.
    â€˜This way, sir, through the door here.’
    It was held open for him, and Oakham passed into a wide corridor. All the rooms had been given names with an historical association. The Stuart suite was the most expensive; the bedroom was reputed to have been slept in by James I when he visited the house in 1610. Not much of a recommendation, he thought, remembering his history master’s neat description of the first Stuart king: an unsavoury sovereign. It had made all the boys laugh.
    He tipped the boy and closed the door on him. He looked round. There were flowers on the table,