The Discussion in the Library by Phineas Redux

‘The Discussion in the Library’

by Phineas Redux

—OOO—

Summary:— A young lady is called on by former members of her ancient family line to solve a modern problem.

Note:— Halfordshire is fictional.

Caution:— There is some light swearing in this story.

—O—

Dunstan sat some five miles inland, in Halfordshire, from its nearest neighbor of significance, Rotham-on-the-Wash. Dunstan Grange, a glorious old Georgian country house, sat in its own spreading estate to the west of the town, at the moment occupied only by its latest cicerone, Miss Mary Constance Heather D’Estrange; the family having been residents there for the past four hundred years at least, if not more. The House, or Grange, was of Georgian origin; at least its outer shell was, several rooms inside the bulk of the large edifice dating considerably further back than that. Mary had known the old pile all her life, she having been born therein so having a certain personal attraction to it; and now, with the recent death of her mother, being the last remaining representative of the family still available for the purpose.

Still in her late 20’s certain numerous male personages in the near locality, of eminently suitable social standing themselves, had their eyes on such an appropriate prospect. She however, though not as yet unnecessarily worried about her family’s future prospects, had recently made some changes to her lifestyle, just to be absolutely sure. These including giving up horse-riding as too dangerous a hobby, especially having heard of the tragic death of a female acquaintance while engaging in this occupation. Instead she had bought a nifty two-seater Jaguar sports car, but was rapidly falling out of love with this too, as a result of various near misses on the local narrow roads and lanes. Consequently she was now harbouring decided thoughts of giving everything up for fishing instead. After all, was her inner cogitation on the matter, what so boring, uneventful, or lackluster as sitting on a riverbank, with line in the water, awaiting a bite that she already was certain would never materialize. Yes, fishing would be an adequate stopgap until she found something more to her taste; perhaps more exciting if not actually dangerous, but definitely more interesting. What this might be still a mystery but, heigh-ho, the future held all things so what-ho as it were—she being that sort of a gal!

Right now, as this tale unfolds, we find her sitting in the Library of the great House, surrounded by bookcases and rows of volumes in standard edition leather suits most of which, in their sometimes hundreds of year old lives, had never been read by anybody; the only attention they ever receiving being the weekly run-over by a feather duster from the maid accorded that useful if dusty duty. Down the centre of the long room sat a massive teak table almost like a banqueting table, though its only residents today were the lady in question and a stuffy-looking man in a sand coloured wool suit with leather elbow covers, round eyeglasses, a thin sharp moustache, and an expression as of a Butcher who had just smelled a piece of raw liver and found it sadly wanting in aroma.

“Mister Sanderstone,” Mary sighing deeply in response to her Lawyer’s latest remark about the bundle of nasty looking documents he had dragged from his capacious Gladstone bag. “How in Hell’s name can such things be, in this year of Our Lord Nineteen an’ Twenty-nine? The Bank is going to foreclose on the Estate’s mortgage? Are you serious? Haven’t heard such nonsense since last I read a novel by Charlotte Yonge, and that, I assure you, wasn’t yesterday!”

“My dear Miss D’Estrange,” Matthew Sanderstone facing his duty like a heroic General in front of his troops prior to what he knew to be a Forlorn Hope. “Estate’s fall into mortgage quite regularly; such estates, also fairly regularly, fall into administration—thereby allowing of foreclosure. Sadly your Mother, kind and delightful as she undoubltedly was in Life, had not a businesswoman’s head; payments on the mortgage became less than regular, indeed failing entirely over the last six months of her tenure here. Result, Mister Hancock, at the Bank, tells me there is no answer but immediate foreclosure.”

Mary frowned horribly at this statement.

“Meaning what, exactly?”

Sanderstone raised and lowered his shoulders expressively.

“The Bank takes full control of the estate, House, and all its internal fittings, furniture, and decorations—including paintings, porcelain and whatnot of that type. You personally would be required to give up all connection with the estate and House and move elsewhere. The Bank, no doubt, eventually putting the place on the open market to be sold to whomever comes up with the stated price—private individual or Business as it may turn out!”

“Balderdash!” Mary coming out fighting at this ghastly possibility. “I’ll die first, an’ see I don’t go alone but take a multitude with me, dam’mit!”

“Harsh words indeed, Miss D’Estrange,” Sanderstone sighing deeply. “but the Law is quite clear, even adamant, on the matter. The mortgage has been let slide for far too long to admit of any possible saving. The Bank has no other choice, I am afraid—”

“We’ll see about that.” Mary now in full fighting mode. “I’ll go down to Halford in the morning an’ beard Mister Hancock in his den, see what excuses he comes up with. Why, dam’mit, the estate’s hundreds of years old! Been banking with the same business’s most of that vast period; what the Hell does Hancock think he’s up to? Why, even a child of ten could figure out a wholly acceptable plan to see me right over a few more months of repayments. Go back t’Halford and tell Hancock I shall descend on him tomorrow morning, like the Assyrian on the Fold, and with much the same end design in mind!”

—O—

“Mister Hancock! What the Devil do you mean by all this nonsense and tomfoolery?”

Mister Gerald Hancock, Manager of the East Shires Bank Head Office here in Halford for the last twelve years, sat behind his desk in his opulent office regarding his irate customer as if a ravening Pirate had just boarded his merchant ship with evil designs in mind.

“Miss D’Estrange, I assure you there is nothing underhanded or, perish the thought, deceitful about the whole affair. Your mother, some twenty years since put out a mortgage on the property—Dunstan Grange and estate—in a wholly appropriate and legal manner. I have gone over the papers concerned in the most detailed fashion, I assure you, and can say everything is absolutely legal across the board.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Mary not calmed at all by this mealy-mouthed excuse.

Sanderstone sighed again.

“Your mother, capable as she may well have been originally, over the course of the intervening years came up against, er, certain monetary difficulties—”

“Far as I was ever led t’believe, the family’s been stony broke from year one till the present day.” Mary coming clean about her relatives’ monetary status. “Can’t imagine where she got the money t’make regular payments.”

“Ah-hum!” Sanderstone, clearly embarrassed but feeling Mary, as a close relative, ought to be given the facts, coughed slightly. “She, your mother, had certain personal monetary beqeathments which she drew on over the years; but finally even these ran out, leaving the mortgage to seek for its upkeep. Result, as you see it now—foreclosure. The Law is quite clear about the matter, I’m afraid.”

Mary wasn’t having this for an instant.

“The Law—as someone once said somewhere—is an Ass, and this just proves the point! How much am I in debt for, regarding this dam’ mortgage?”

Sanderstone, hardly imagining any clear path forward, at least deigned to consult a document in front of him.

“Let me see—ah, yes—three thousand, four hundred and five shillings, sevenpence and three farthings.”

Mary sat back on her hard-backed chair shocked at mention of this colossal sum, but regained her composure almost at once.

“Is that all! Why, won’t take but an instant to cover that, I’m sure. What do you intend doing to show willing yourself, in the matter?”

Sanderstone, caught off-guard and wholly in the dark as to Miss D’Estrange’s reasoning, simply sat and looked at her, bemused.

“Let me help you out, Mister Sanderstone. I have money in reserve myself. Certainly enough to make a substantial down payment on the mortgage. Get it back in the black, so to say at least; then we can go forward from there. Where do I sign?”

Sanderstone, finding his mouth was opening and closing soundlessly, snapped his jaw shut with an audible click while he considered the matter—then made a momentous decision.

“It is hardly according to Hoyle, you must understand—indeed, I find it myself a wholly inappropriate course of action—but, yes, I will accept a certain amount in down payment, if it means the mortgage is put back on an even keel, as it were. Can you make a promise in that direction, madam?”

“Yes, and don’t call me madam—makes me feel old!”

—O—

Mary lay in bed that night pondering on the course of her day, not in any positive mood.

“Three and a half thou, more or less! And I’ve thrown fifteen hundred of my own money into the cauldron! I must be mad. I’ve only got about a thou left myself now. What the Hell am I gon’na do? I don’t have what’s called a steady job; the family’s never had any reserve loot hidden away anywhere; and I’m not a genius painter or novelist or whatever; just a hack writer of cheap yellow-back thrillers barely making my way with the help of Gollancz. What the Hell am I going to do?”

On the bedside table sat a tumbler and decanter both half-filled with an amber liquid, and to the former she had recourse, not for the first time that evening, it now being just after midnight and the rest of the House quiet—she the only family member present, and the three maids sound asleep upstairs in their attic rooms.

“Mmm, hits the spot; another one an’ I’ll be half-seas over for real! Hoy! What’s that?”

Her attention had been drawn to a sound emanating from somewhere downstairs, echoing faintly up to her bedroom. Listening intently she again heard the sound repeated, thereby clarifying whether it had been illusory or not.

“Definitely someone laughing, an’ I’m sure I heard someone else join in. Sounds like there’s a party goin’ on downstairs, probably in the Library, from the sound of it. What the Hell? I mean, there ain’t no-one else in the ol’ shack but me, not counting the maids, whom I ardently hope are all fast asleep. This needs investigating; dam’ burglars!”

Slipping out of bed it took only an instant for her to cover her green silk pyjamas with a long all-encompassing dark mauve wool housecoat. Then stepping to the nearby dresser she quietly opened the top drawer to take out from its resting-place a Webley revolver, originally belonging to her late Father but still kept in tiptop condition. Checking to see it was fully loaded and the safety-catch on she held it sternly in her left hand as she left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her, making her way in the dark to the grand staircase.

On the ground floor thirty seconds more found her outside the door of the Library leaning forward slightly while she sought to hear if anything was going forward therein. As she did so she saw a curious bluish light flickering from the slight gap below the door; an instant later the door swung open inwards of its own accord allowing her a full panoramic view of the interior. Round the long table, like a group of guests at a banquet, sat an assemblage of figures—but figures only partially there, if their flickering bluish forms, faintly transparent like jellyfish, were anything to go by. As she stood astonished at the sight one of the figures, a tall man dressed, as far as was recognisable in his ghostly form, in the attire of the 18th century complete with white powdered wig, stood to extend a welcoming arm to their visitor speaking in a curious thin tinny tone as from a fair distance.

“My Lady, we have been awaiting your arrival with growing pleasure. So delightful to meet you at last; allow me to introduce myself—Sir Montague Harold Cuthbert D’Estrange, at your service. Will you join us, a chair having been long reserved for your presence. We all, round this table tonight, being family members and great admirers, and one hopes friends, of yours.”

Mary stared in awe at the motley assemblege for another few seconds before remembering she held a revolver in her hand. Hastily pocketing it with what she hoped was unnoticed skill, she turned to Sir Montague, or his shade, with the obvious question.

“You’re—you’re all ghosts!”

Sir Montague raised and lowered his shoulders beneath his resplendent silk over-jacket with a smile.

“One might well say so, no doubt; but the preferred term is deceased ancestor, in the positive mode. But come, we are all family here; may I introduce you to my fellow guests? This chair, at the head of the table, is wholly at your convenience, Milady.”

Finding herself seated, with a glass of white wine served by another ghostly apparition in 17th century garb, Mary found herself still hardly able to take in her present circumstances.

“What—what; Who—who—?”

“Let me explain,” Sir Montague coming to his guest’s aid like the gentleman he undoubtedly was. “there has been a House on this site for around seven hundred years, since the Romans in fact. All seated here are direct ancestors of yours—all the same family though spread out over the centuries. It is a fine estate and House; a fine family, in fact, and one we here tonight do not wish dissolved unnecessarily with your exit from the scene. Yes, we know about the mortgage, and its proponent difficulties to all involved.”

“Oh, well,” Mary finding herself going with the flow. “I’m taking care of that, myself.”

“We understand,” Sir Montague nodding sympathetically. “But you cannot, we also know, bear the ongoing weight of the continuing mortgage without further assistance.”

Mary shrugged in her turn.

“There is the problem of where the dam’ money’s coming from, yes; but I’ll take that in my stride, don’t worry. I mean to keep control of the estate and House whatever happens.”

“A fine decision, ma’am.” Sir Montague smiling in return. “But one bearing its own difficulties. The amount of money needed to cast off the mortgage is almost astronomical—a sum, indeed, I can hardly bear to contemplate. The question being, where is it to be found?”

Mary looked along the table at the dual line of faintly pulsating bluish phantoms, wondering if she was hallucinating after too much amber nectar, before sitting upright on her chair with an expression of iron fortitude.

“I’ll find it somewhere, never fear!”

A form halfway down the left-hand side of the table now spoke up; this being, as Mary regarded it, a female clothed in attire reminiscent of the 18th century.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” The female, slightly scintillating, phantom smiling at her hostess. “Lady Clarinda Compton De Vauge Rattleton D’Estrange, at your service I’m sure. We have, here round the table, been discussing the present position for some time, years in fact, having seen it coming from centuries previous—that being one of our more useful capabilities in our present position.”

“Oh!”

“—so,” Lady Clarinda carrying-on with assurance. “while the position may seem, especially to you, one of extreme drama and difficulty, there are steps which, if taken at the flood as it were, will result in complete satisfaction to one and all.”

Even under the present strain of events Mary could still see a brick wall when presented with one before her very eyes.

“Glad you think so, madam. But where the dam’ you expect me to come up with near two thou in the twinkling of an eye, and the capacity to carry on and clear the whole mortgage, beats me.”

Lady Clarinda, apparently, was only awaiting just this query to put her descendant’s mind at rest.

“Easy, Lady Mary—Lord MountMorency’s Treasure!”

Mary felt as if another hearty dose of the amber liquid that heals all ills was sadly overdue.

“What the Hell’s that? Who’s Lord Mount-whatever? Are you goin’ t’tell me you know the whereabouts of a secret treasure map, leading to a fortune untold? Yeah, like I’ve read Treasure Island, too!”

“Madam,” Sir Montague coming once more to the fore. “no need to be despondent—at least, not to any great degree. There is indeed a treasure, buried somewhere on the estate. A treasure of, as you have already pithily noted, almost untold extent. What we need you to do is actually find it.”

“Oh, simple.” Mary having none of it. “Just let me get the Gardener’s shovel from the shed an’ I’ll be right on it! What the Hell?”

A rustle of phantoms easing their postures, and ghostly posteriors, round the table interjected here, before finally another figure, faintly present at the end of the table, took-up the cudgel of explanation.

“Greetings, Lady Mary, allow me—Sir Garronde de Monteville at your service. Having come over with the Conqueror and so having been a founder of what one might well call the modern family, I feel it my duty to clarify matters to you. Behold, if you will the late, very late in fact, Lord Kilvene Porpatrick Clevance Montmorency, a nasty piece of work if ever there was such—”

“Oh, yeah,” Mary, from her modern standpoint, beginning to lose patience with all these apparently baseless and uninteresting reminiscences from various earlier centuries. “and who the Hell was he, and why should it matter to me, thanks?”

Yet another phantom, on the right of the table, now spoke up in a dull unhappy tone of voice, like a faint breeze through a crumbling ruin on a cold day.

“Madam, would you please stop using that phrase? It tending to annoy, if not outright physically disagree, with most of the present company, thank you.”

Mary frowned over this remark for a few seconds before the penny dropped.

“Oh, well—yes, quite.”

“As I was saying,” The earlier immaterial ancestor continuing his discourse. “The Lord MontMorency, an evil figure all round—he not being present at table tonight, Thank Heaven—had, in the early 18th century, taken up with one of your family here, one Lady Henrietta Faircombe Etherington Susannah D’Estrange, with the ultimate design of making-off with her funds and estate, or as much money as he could reasonably make out of it all in a hurry. But Fate told against him in the form of Sir Malcolm Standerby, of nearby Halcombe Hall, a follower from a distance of Lady Henrietta.”

“Oh, yes?”

“—a meeting took place—an argument occurred—umbrage was took by the evil MontMorency—another, more martial, meeting was arranged with seconds present—and MontMorency met his just fate.”

The anonymous ghost pausing dramatically at this crescendo, as if to judge the effect of the tale so far, Mary as respondee, sighed inwardly before giving her opinion.

“What a load of cra—claptrack! Never heard such bosh and nonsense in my whole puff so far. Do you really expect me to take such a story at face value? Utter nonsense; if you think I’m gon’na run about the estate, digging holes everywhere in search of fool’s gold, you are mightily mistaken is all! Anyway, what about it? What’s this Mont-whatever got t’do with any treasure? You haven’t covered that minor detail at all.”

Sir Montague had the answer to this at his pale fingertips.

“He, MontMorency, was a pirate, a money-lender, a blackmailer, a pimp, and one of those double-dealers who managed to off-load their shares just before the South Sea Bubble burst, leaving him rolling in gold, doubloons, guineas, and other assorted treasure of untold wealth. He having been known by one and all to have temporarily buried the bulk somewhere here on the estate just before Standerby topped the rascal. No-one, sadly, ever having since been able to find the site.”

Mary considered this new information, but was still far from convinced.

“So, what d’ye expect me t’do about it? If two hundred years and more of searchers have found nothing what d’you think I can do, right off the cuff?”

Sir Montague was up for this request too.

“They, the previous seekers, had not the added know-how of our input. We, the here and now assembled ranks of previous members of the family, have never yet revealed ourselves; this being, as one might well say, our virginal appearance in the matter.”

Mary was instantly on guard.

“Oh, yeah,—and why?”

Sir Montague was momentarily flummoxed.

“Why? Why what?”

“Why me, and not anyone else, earlier? A moot point, you’ll agree, I hope?”

Sir Montague had the decency to blush at this question, though in his ethereal form no-one noticed.

“Well, it is not so much your personal involvemrnt, as the mortgage. The mortgage has set us all at odds, sixes and sevens even, over the matter, I assure you. It putting, as it were, a veritable time-stamp on the continuance of the family as proprietors of the estate and House. As ancestors immutable from Time Immemorial, as we assuredly are as you can see for yourself, well, we all feel we have a sincere and definitive stake in the matter. So, here we are.”

Mary shook her head, still in the dark over the details.

“But what can you do? I’m not a dam’ Amazon explorer; there’s only me, an’ the three maids, where d’we start digging? If you know tell me, dam’mit!”

“Ah, there’s the rub!” Lady Clarinda making her presence felt once again. “If only we could we would; but we don’t know, so we can’t, if you see what I mean?”

Mary gazed from Clarinda to Montague and back, fairly confounded by this admission.

“Then what dam’ good are you all, then? Appear out’ta nowhere, tell me there’s a great treasure, then tell me you have no idea where the dam’ it is? What good’s that t’anyone?”

“It’s because of our present circumstances,” Lady Clarinda taking the tone of a harassed school-teacher to a wayward young pupil. “We are, er, necessarily less involved in the abolute physical realm—what you would call Real Life—than yourself, for obvious reasons. The result being although we are aware of certain things, we cannot actually engage physically enough to be able to be of any effective use in that area. But we can help in the intellectual sense, to a certain degree, all the same.”

Feeling as if she were dealing with a group of unruly and deliberately dense school-children herself Mary frowned darkly at the assembled ranks of her dear departed ancestors, none of whom she had till now known or cared existed.

“Intellectual? That’ll be something t’see, judging from what’s gone already, I bet! OK, what’ve you got, spill it quick an’ clear, me having places t’go an’ things t’do of import hereafter.”

“Hereafter?” Sir Montague sounding concerned, for whatever reason.

“Later, at a future date, appointments still to come in my busy schedule.”

“Oh-ah!”

“Anyway, what’ve you got for me?” Mary trying to bring the conversation back on track. “There is, so you say, a treasure—is this itself absolutely certain? Not just a myth? If I have to use my digging arm to any good effect I don’t want it wasted over empty cow-patted pastures or overgrown rose gardens.”

“Oh, you can be assured over this.” Sir Montague nodding as one who knew the facts. “The treasure is a certainty, wholly corroborated by contemporary persons at the time. MontMorency was known to have collected his valuables, including coin; he having himself been scared by the Bubble bursting thereby pulling the basis of trust in any actual Bank or money-lender from under his boots. He wanted his loot easily to hand, where he could see and feel it, smell it too, to be sure. Pithily hidden somewhere either in the House itself or the estate.”

A thought had occurred to Mary in the meantime.

“The estate, you keep referring to—what about if the estate as you knew it, or parts thereof, has changed hands in the interim. Have some outlying farms or fields been let go over the years, the centuries?”

Lady Clarinda could see the moving parts of Mary’s brain re this question.

“You think as no-one has yet found the treasure it may lie in some abandoned land no longer part of the official estate?”

“Just so. Well, is that the case?”

A pause ensued whilst the guests round the table considered the possibility, finally they all shaking their unsettlingly translucent heads at each other in a curious and highly spooky manner.

“The consensus seems to be that nothing of the kind has happened, of any worth over the years, no.” Sir Montague, even in his own immaterial form, sounding less than convinced.

Mary pursed her lips in some disdain.

“For ghosts who’re, one supposes, veterans of the Other Sphere of Existence you all don’t seem to have your fingers very acutely on the button! Are you sure the treasure isn’t lying in some mud puddle just outside the bounds of the estate as we speak? Because if it is, and someone outside the family hits paydirt instead of and ahead of me, I shall be more than a little pissed off, just sayin’.”

“Put your mind at rest on that score, dear lady.” Sir Montague responding in his best romantic cavalier manner. “The treasure is certainly still in loco quodam on the estate, that is a certainty. All that is needed to find it is to seek for the same—which is your part of the contract, not ours. We only serving as messengers in the matter, as it were.”

Mary sighed again, beginning to run out of patience.

“You’re not exactly helping, much as you obviously think differently. So there is a treasure somewhere; I have to find it, then I’ll be as rich as Croesus? Well-well, if only dreams regularly came true!”

Lady Clarinda shook her head.

“For you, madam, it is a reality, have no doubt in the matter. All you need is faith to reach the goal. The Golden Hesperides await you, if only you search the ground with sharp eyes as you walk, madam! Which is all we ask of you, after all.”

Mary stared up and down both sides of the long table, for the first time understanding just how long a period of time her family had existed. One form, towards the end of the left side catching her attention more prominently than the others.

“Sir, is that a toga you wear? Are you by any chance—?”

“Roman, yes, madam.” The male form nodding in return. “Drusus Aquinas Fronto at your service; an extremely distant direct ancestor, in the male line,”

“Shouldn’t you be speaking Latin, or some dialect of Ancient Britain?” Mary on top of this detail of the vernacular.

“I am, but in the Supernatural realm such things are considered and appropriately attended to, so that you understand me. As indeed the others gathered here tonight. Many speaking in the dialects of their various times and centuries which, if come across in some other circumstance, would be wholly incomprehensible to you. A mere matter of form, madam.”

Giving up on this Mary turned to more relevant matters.

“What about clues? You must be able to tell me something, even if only of the slightest apparent relevance, that’ll point me in the right direction, surely?”

Sir Montague scratched his chin, in a wholly disconcerting otherworldly manner, before replying.

“What we can say is that, having gained such information over the preceding centuries from a variety of sources, the ground is in this Library where we now sit. The ground in question being the site of the treasure. Its position lies somewhere within this Library.”

Mary frowned over this conundrum.

“Are you saying the treasure’s buried here, right under our feet? Under the floorboards, or in the cellars beneath?”

“No-no!” Lady Clarinda anxious to clarify this misconception. “But directions as to where it lies outside are.”

“Oh, you mean in one of these dam’ books?” Mary catching on at last. “Some paragraph of directions, or a map, or something like?”

“Just so, madam.” Sir Montague clearly relieved that his guest was at last becoming au fait with the problem. “Somewhere amongst this gathered mass of literature lie details which, if taken at the flood, will clearly point to the treasure. Do you read, madam?”

“I can read, yes.” Mary taking into account Sir Montague’s likely comprehension of such things in his day. “In fact, I write as well; novels, stories about people in today’s society. So what you’re saying is I may have to read my way through every dam’ book in this room, of which there are possibly three thousand if not more, before coming across some arcane detail that’ll point me in the right direction? Do you realise how long that’ll take?”

A form in a dusty-looking rust-coloured surcoat midway down the table leaned forward at this point, phantom elbows resting comfortably on the table.

“Madam, Master Thomas Conway, distant cousin, at your service. My era, around the mid Seventeen-eighties, may come into play in this matter. I had the honor in my time on Earth to haunt, if that is not a term out of order in present circumstances, this Library in all its dusty corners. I read many of the books still here today as I see before me now; perhaps, indeed, I may still be the sole reader of many present volumes. What I am getting around to, madam, is that you may well find it relevant to attend to the few volumes on the shelves here which discuss the late unmissed and unloved Lord MontMorency. Therein you may well find facts of some use in your search, if I may be allowed the possibility.”

Mary shuffled on her chair, directing her gaze to the Eighteenth century litterateur.

“Well, that’s something, at least. What books, in fact? Can you be specific?”

Thomas, it turned out, could indeed accomplish this easy task.

“Stevens’ Cornucopia, Gould’s History of the Family Tree, 1700-1780, and Lourbourne’s A Margarite of Destinie, in twenty-seven plates. These will be of the most import, I believe.”

Before Mary could reply to this list a change came over the group of phantom forms seated round the table; at first a faint shimmer seemed to affect Mary’s eyesight before she realised it was her companions themselves who seemed to be dissolving before her eyes. In a few seconds the already faint figures had completely faded out of view, without time for any to give any formal adieu. Then Mary found herself seated at an empty table; the Library being, seemingly, uninhabited but for herself; only the pale moonlight shining through the French Windows providing a pale glow in the shadowy room.

“Gone, and never said farewell!” Mary feeling somewhat light-headed. “Wonder if the whole thing was down t’that dam’ whisky? Better go on the wagon for a while, I fancy. Well, back t’bed, I suppose. God, what a dam’ night!”

—O—

The following days were busy, if reading through a variety of ancient mouldy, dust-covered boring books could be so described. Firstly, Mary had decided after due contemplation over her morning bacon and eggs to actively pursue the search, she being of the mind that if she forebore this duty she would inevitably be once more visited by the combined ranks of her ancient ancestors: a situation she wanted to avoid at all costs.

So taking the Library as her second home from home as it were she set up a schedule of reading which, first off, proved more difficult than she had imagined.

“God’dam junk ain’t catalogued!” She discovering this difficulty on a preliminary run over the shelves early on the first morning. “Not one in due order! Those books the man, what was his name, listed? Conway, that’s it! Anyway, can’t find the dam’ books he itemized straight-off, have t’go through the whole dam’ pile t’find ‘em; always supposing they’re still dam’ here!”

It took three days, working two hours in the morning and another two in the afternoon or evening, before she came across the first of the volumes needed.

“Jeez! At dam’ last—Gould’s History of the Family Tree-Seventeen Hundred to Seventeen-Eighty. Placed on a shelf between Edgar Wallace’s Sanders of the River, and Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy—boy, can’t I tell folks all about dam’ anarchy or not, dam’mit!”

Skipping to the end of the large heavy duo-decimo book, which was of a couple of hundred pages in length, with hope in her heart she gave an unrestrained cry of triumph when opening the last few pages.

“It’s got a dam’ index—Hurrah! Now then, let’s see, Mountacre, no; MountJohnson, no; MountFolliot, no; MountCharles, no; Mont LeFavre, no, but gettin’ close; MontYongers, dam’ no; ah-ha-MontMorency—yippee!”

Flicking through the thick pages till she found the requisite one she bowed excitedly over the text, searching for the one word of significance in the matter—treasure!

“Lord Kilvene Porpatrick Clevance Diogenes MontMorency, of ill-fame and less repute—ha-ha!—held sway over the estate, and the reigning cicerone Lady Henrietta as her adjudged cavalier servente for a space of just under three years, during which he was able to use her personal fortune to affect various changes in the outlook and design of the estate. Hmm, didn’t waste any time! Firstly he re-designed the rear gardens in the Italian manner, with many rose beds. Then he went on to the further pastures of the estate allowing that a small inclination half a mile from the House proper would benefit by having a faux Greek Temple, a tholos in the circular style of that of Vesta, Tivoli. Mmm, used t’have picnics around it when I was a kid; been inside too, just an empty room with a domed roof. He also engaged to enlarge the main House by the addition of an orangerie placed on the end of the West Wing; yeah, got potted plants an’ a couple of wood benches in it now, French Windows allow egress to the rear garden terrace—jolly place in the Summer, especially at party-time. Well, does that mean I’ll have t’dig up the floor of the orangerie, from end t’end? Need a team of garderners t’do that, I bet? Wonder how long it’d take, and whether it’s worth the bother? How can I be sure the treasure may be buried there, or not? More reading, I suppose.”

She read on, taking in all the text had to say about the irreligious, dissolute, and immoral Lord for a few pages more before closing the book with a dull thud of its heavy pages.

“Uurph! Dust everywhere! Well, that’s the evil Lord, as ever was; and no whit nearer the dam’ treasure than before. What was the next book? Ah, Steven’s Cornucopia. Wonder what that looks like, an’ where it may be hiding in this mish-mash of literary junk?”

When finally discovered, two days further along, it turned out to be a giant of its kind.

“Jeez! An Eighteenth century coffee-table book! Pages must be a foot square at least, an’ it weighs a dam’ ton. An’ why in Hell was it lyin’ flat on the bottom shelf of that corner case, with five careworn volumes of Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia piled higgledy-piggledy on top? Nearly missed the dam’ thing. So, what’s it got t’offer? Les’see-OK, pages of etchings of garden designs, complete with additions, folly’s, and lake bridges. Anyone who took every suggestion t’heart would need t’be a dam’ millionaire, even then. Oh, the Round Temple, it’s here too; yeah, that’s it; looking slightly different from what’s actually built, but there ya go. Well, lot’ta good that does. Anything else of the least use here? No—oh, well, back t’the dam’ drawing-board. What’s left? Lourbourne’s A Margarite of Destiny, whatever that means in literary terms. Now, where the Hell’ll that be hiding?”

Having other things to do in Life other than treasure-hunting, important as this presently was,—completing her latest cheap yellow-back Gollancz thriller for a ravening publisher being the case in point—Mary had to abandon her search for almost two weeks while she got on with normal life; but finally, towards the end of September, she found herself back in Dunstan Grange in its Library once again staring miserably at its ranked rows of uncatalogued literary fare.

“Jee-sus! I tell ya, from now on, when this’s over, I’ll be dam’med if I ever open another dam’ book for any reason whatsoever!”

The time was 9.30am, the weather sunny, the air cool and balmy, her attitude that of one of the survivors on The Raft of the Medusa after the wreck. Firstly she examined, in minute detail, the cases lining the interior wall facing the two French Windows these latter offering ever more intriguing safe exits to the golden sun-kissed lawns outside. Most bookcases seemingly filled with Standard Editions of the famous authors of the day; that day being anywhere between 1650 and 1850 and later.

“God! Some of these so-called authors seem t’have stained their parchment during every single second of every day of their dam’ lives. Editions here running to thirty or forty volumes! What the Hell did they all write about? William Alabaster-His Workes, in twenty-seven Divine volumes! Phooey! Barnabe Barnes—His Dramatic Workes! And he can keep ‘em all, far’s I’m concerned. Jeez, the pages on every one of the five volumes aren’t even cut—no-one here’s ever read them, ever! What else? Theophilus Brabourne-His Religious Writings. My God! Fifteen volumes of useless trash! Must write a memo to see to clearing all the worthless dross out’ta this hellhole when I’m finished here. What’re these? Whitelocke Bulstrode-His Compendiums and Discourses, seven volumes, each two inches thick. Not even gon’na touch ‘em, don’t care! Next dam’ case—Penelope Aubin-Collected Novels, in thirty dam’ volumes! They can dam’ well stay where they are. Who’s this? Robert Bage—Annotated Novels, in twelve volumes; couldn’t care less! Next—Maria Edgeworth-Collected Works, forty-five volumes-Good God! Take up three shelves! Didn’t realise some authors were so popular, back in the day! Wish my readers were so appreciative! Next case—Arthur St John Adcock—Essays, Novels, and Poems, thirty-six volumes; no thanks! Charlotte Anley—Religious Tracts and Novels, twenty volumes; pass, thanks! Nobody—but nobody can possibly have any slightest tittle of interest in any of these dust attracters! Think I’ll get Morgan the gardener t’use most of ‘em to fuel the boiler when Winter draws on; best use for ‘em, certainly, and the cases, too. Maybe turn this hole into a nice bright Drawing-room, or something! What’s this? LaBousterie’s Dictionary of—hey, wait a mo! What’s that lying under it? God’dam! Lourbourne’s A Margarite of Destiny, by all that’s Holy! At dam’ last.”

This volume, on Mary spending a full five minutes lifting it from its sarcophagus on the lower shelf of the bookcase and dragging it to the long Library table for examination, proved a behemoth of its kind.

“Jee-sus! Must weigh half a dam’ ton! Pages about fourteen inches square, the whole thing three inches thick, bound in dark leather, and weighs about the same as London Bridge! What the Hell is it?”

Examination of the contents soon proved the case for this—it’s first half of thick-paper pages seemed to be a rambling discourse on Garden Design, with the primary focus on Follies and Buildings necessary to an Appreciation of Proper Design in Landscape; the numerous, indeed massively over-used, textual capitals apparently being part of the book’s overall attraction. The second half of the volume was made up of a series of etchings, some double-paged, showing the effect of various Follies built in differing positions on various imaginary and some real estate grounds. What finally gained Mary’s undivided attention, however, was the two-page spread of a particular etching towards the end of the series.

“Why, this’s Dunstan Estate! And that’s the Round Temple, more or less as it still stands today! Well, would ya believe it. Wonder why it took up so much attention from all those who were around then t’appreciate it? What does the text say about it, I wonder. Where’s the dam’ index—OK, pages One-Two-Eight and pages Two-Three-Six following? OK.”

Laying the dusty old tome flat on the table, its spine groaning with the unused effort, she quickly flicked over the pages till she reached the place in question.

“It is my pleasure, the author says, to give a fine account of the Tivoli Temple placed on an excellently chosen viewpoint within the borders of the Dunstan Estate by the landowner, Lord Kilvene MontMorency. Ha, little did the author know the truth! Anyway,—the great Landscape architect Master Gregory Hamilton was engaged to do the groundwork, taking just under six months to complete the project. The Temple is of the tholos design, much loved by all harbouring Good Taste in these matters. Hmm! The small eminence on which it stands was cut down and dug into primarily to allow of the deep undercroft, several low windows of which can be seen in the accompanying etching, page Three-Two-One, on either side of the small set of stone stairs leading to the main door in front. That’s interesting, t’day there’s only the steps t’the entrance visible, the earth’s been later raised up all round the base of the Temple by the looks of things—no sign of windows to any lower room now! And I’ve never heard anyone talk about such a place in the Temple, either! Interesting! What does the text further on say about it? Here we are—The idea for the Temple, we are told, occurred to Lord Kilvene at the start of his re-arrangement of the exterior designs for the estate as a whole; but, on the horrendous Bubble bursting, sending so many into liquidation if not the Debtor’s Prison, He took to working on the edifice night and day, with Master Hamilton constantly at his side. The building thereby being finished in record time, well ahead of its original schedule. A pity that, only three months later, Lord MontMorency met an accidental death when accosted by a gang of poachers on the estate, struck through the chest by a long knife so dying instantly. Dear me, a rather confused take on the reality of the thing! Let’s look at the etching again; a cellar room no-one has lately known existed, and that MontMorency took extra effort and care over, just after he got out of the South Sea Bubble by the skin of his teeth, and his collected swag! Well-well! Needs thinking about, for sure!”

Mary therefore did just that, sitting back on her uncomfortable chair to cogitate on the matter. The outcome of which being, half an hour later, she could be found, clad in a thick overcoat, wool scarf, heavy gloves and wool cap, long-handled spade in hand, trekking over the damp grass of the wide pastures towards the distant Temple Folly, chin determindely in the air, purpose apparent in every stride.

—O—

The Temple sat on a low rise in the surrounding landscape; too low and curving to be called an outright hill, but certainly raising the area some twenty feet above the general level of the surrounding wide pastures and lawns allowing the building to stand out against the skyline and be seen from a distance, especially from the rear façade of the Grange itself.

“MontMorency obviously thought, meb’be, he’d keep a close eye on his hidden wealth from the comfort of his living-room!” Mary pondering the details as she walked along. “OK, what’ve we got here? Big Temple, round with a curved roof, series of roof-high granite pillars all round the exterior; apparently based on the design of some ancient Roman effort somewhere in Italy. Set of six stone stairs leading to a double-door, no sign of any cellar, just a stone course running round the base. Inside, as I know, only a single circular room with curved roof, no sign of any door or stairs leading to anywhere underneath the main room. Main room entirely unfurnished, walls white-painted, no decorations of any kind anywhere. What does that leave an expectant treasure-hunter to do?”

Two minutes later she stood outside the main door up against the baseline of stone leading all round the building, spade ready to hand.

“OK, here goes!”

Stabbing the steel blade into the soft ground, grass low cut and yielding easily curtesy of the estate’s en-suite flock of more or less tame sheep, it was only the matter of a few minutes before Mary had uncovered an area some eighteen inches wide by a foot deep—revealing for the first time possibly in centuries the stone frame of a thin window embrasure about six inches in depth but as yet unknown width. There seemed to be an internal wooden shutter blocking-off any view inside, though this appeared much corroded and aged, green moss covering most of its visible surface.

“Just where the etching placed it!” Mary pausing for breath. “Well-well! What now? Have t’go inside an’ look for a door or steps leading down there, I suppose. Never seen such in years gone by, nor anybody else’s ever said anything about such t’my knowledge. Oh, well, better take a preliminary gander, at least.”

Inside Mary experienced the usual close musty atmosphere of a room not commonly opened to fresh air or visitors. Getting over this she lay her spade against the curving wall, letting the haft stand against the door frame to stop it sliding along the curved wall to fall on the floor. This floor itself was made of foot-square granite flagstones, the walls of blocks of the same material, cupola ceiling of curved wood in thin planks originally painted white but now of a dirty splotched peeling grey tone.

“When was the last time anyone was in here?” Mary dredging her memory for the information. “Must’a been that Party just after the close of the Great War. God, a long time ago!”

Coursing round the circular room, like a basset hound on the trail of Reynard, Mary examined the floor and the interior wall in minute detail, looking for anything in the line of a door, trapdoor, or beginning of a flight of steps.

“Nothing visible, at least. So, do I hoick up the entire floor, or what?”

An idea occuring to her she grabbed the spade and again went round the room, this time using the steel head to tap mightily on each flagstone in turn until, immediately opposite the door, she paused over one particular stone.

“This one sounds different! Like there’s a hollow under it! Well-well, what now? Will this spade—?”

Spending another ten minutes in increased effort, sweat finally breaking out on her brow, she eventually managed to raise the stone far enough to get the body of the spade’s blade under it and, with much exertion, raise it totally sliding it sideways onto the surrounding flagstones so revealing a dark void, a series of stone steps leading down into the Stygian unexplored depths.

“Ha! So, what’s t’be done now? Hope the place ain’t filled with gas or bad air or anything like. Would be dam’ silly if I went down only t’be gassed for my trouble. Better leave it open for half an hour, let the air clear. Give me time to go back t’the House an’ get a torch an’ a camera, maybe a bag to bring a few of whatever there is to be found down there back, if anything, of course. Be a dam’ disappointment if the place’s only a bare empty cellar after all!”

Forty minutes later, fortified by two cups of hastily made tea, and now sporting a heavy torch, a shovel, and a capacious jute bag, Mary was ready again for whatever would confront her down below.

Testing the first stair she found it solid so carefully stepped down the others till reaching another flagstone floor. Here her torch came into its own, the strong beam illuminating the whole chamber; lined by wide granite blocks with the same material forming the floor, it following the design of the apartment above being perfectly circular in shape, its diameter something around twenty-five feet while from floor to flat ceiling it reached some eight feet. Most of the floor space, however, was taken up with now rotted wooden cases, strong-boxes, and piles of what had formerly been loose bags of some now almost fully decayed cottony material. Sitting around on the floor were also simply piles of what at first sight seemed to be dull grey metal utensils. These, however, on closer inspection by Mary, turned out to be silver bowls, vases, and decanters; while over in a far corner a pile of coins had spilled from a mouldy bag, the gold pieces glinting cleanly in the torchlight as if only just placed there after new minting.

“Oh, My God!” Mary hardly able to believe her eyes. “It’s here! It’s actually here! The treasure’s real! God-dam’mit!”

—O—

The next day was filled with all sorts of official business; her lawyer, Mister Matthew Sanderstone, still clad in his suit of sandy-looking wool, sat at the Library table, staring at the small selection of silver utensils and handful of gold coins Mary had taken from the Temple cellar to show-off.

“Miss Mary, I hardly know what to say. This is truly miraculous!”

“Bit of Good Luck, certainly.” Mary trying not to boast overly.

“How did you come to find it all?” Sanderstone wholly amazed at the ground-breaking discovery. “I mean, Miss, how did you know?”

Mary, if nothing else, knew how to prevaricate when such was needed.

“Oh, just one of those things; broken flagstone in the Temple, dug it up to repair it, found the steps, then the treasure, and there we go, as it were!”

Sanderstone shook his head in astonishment.

“Well, you’ll agree, at least, couldn’t have occurred at a better time! This changes everything.”

“The mortgage? The foreclosure?” Mary cocking an expectant eye at her business associate.

“Oh, both can be wholly forgotten about entirely, Madam.” Sanderstone waxing lyrical in his joy. “—er, that is to say, they can easily be paid off with only a minor fraction of what you have found, Miss. Leaves you entirely free of debt; entirely, Madam! You are as a result the clear possessor of the whole estate and House without lea or debt, I am happy to say.”

“Yippee!” Mary glad to hear this good news. “Let’s me lead a quiet life from now on, happily.”

Sanderstone here equivocated somewhat, with a small frown.

“You are perhaps forgetting the Publicity involved, Madam?”

“Publicity? What Publicity?” Mary hardly understanding her lawyer’s meaning. “I ain’t harbouring any plans t’turn the estate into a Pleasure Park, or anything like. Nor to put the stuff on show, like the Crown Jewels, for two shillings the go! What’s the problem?”

“This is a great find, an architectural as well as social discovery; it will make national, perhaps even international, news. People of some authority and professional merit will be all over the estate researching into the minutest details of the late Lord MontMorency’s life, and your’s too, of course. You may look for every reputable newspaper, and most of the lesser rags, to send reporters to camp on your doorstep for the forseeable future, seeking every last detail of your private life and relations. I hope you are suitably prepared?”

Mary’s eyes opened wide at this horrendous possibility, she being entirely unprepared for such a gruesome eventuality.

“I could bar them from entering the estate?”

“Words are one thing, actions are entirely another.” Sanderstone speaking from experience. “Such a course would only lead to disaster, no-one would take a blind bit of notice of such a prohibition, perhaps even lead to increased attempts to invade your every step and action during the day, and even the night, if you understand my meaning.”

“Jee-sus!”

“Quite!”

Mary sat at bay for an appreciable time, wondering what to do, then gazed appealingly at her lawyer for whatever assistance he might be able to provide in an emergency.

“I would suggest placing everything in the appropriate Banks, warehouses, and accredited auction houses, all under the strictest of security; then high-tailing it for foreign parts for an extended vacation—I might, if allowed, suggest Egypt! A place where you could easily lose yourself until, as the more melodramatic movies say, the heat is off?”

Mary considered this advice, mulling the pros and cons over for another couple of minutes, before finally nodding weakly at her saviour.

“Egypt it is, then!”

—O—

The night before she was scheduled to become a passenger on the SS Demetrius, final port of call Alexandria, Mary lay in bed, clad in her green silk pyjamas, tossing and turning in acute restlessness worrying over the whole concept of her newly gained wealth and its consequences. Somewhere around half past twelve, the night being dark as an unlit coal-mine, she suddenly sat quiet, listening to something that had echoed up from the ground floor. As usual she was the only member of the family in residence; her servants, the original three maids, all safely abed in their attic rooms. Sliding into her soft slippers and housecoat, taking her trusty Webley revolver from the bedside drawer, she made her way downstairs with determined mien. Outside the Library door the same faint bluish light as earlier gleamed fitfully from below the bottom of the frame. Opening the door and stepping inside Mary was once more confronted by the sight, this time, of a single pale shimmering ethereal form at the table obviously awaiting her presence.

“Ah, Lady Clarinda, I believe!”

“Greetings, Lady Mary.”

“I ain’t a Lady!” Mary anxious to make this social point clear. “That is, I am a lady, but not a Lady, if you see—er!”

“I quite understand.” Lady Clarinda, in a voice shimmering as if from distant climes, allowing of this minor point of social class if not etiquette itself. “So you have come into your inheritance? I am gloriously happy—for you and for the family as a whole. You have made my, er, companions extremely happy. I expect now you will be examining, if yet somewhat tentatively, the prospect of a good marriage in the not too distant future? For the ongoing good of the family, you understand!”

Such a subject never yet having annoyed her waking hours Mary could only stare at the ghostly apparition in silence, Finally, not without looking round the shadowy room for possible unseen listening intruders, she leaned forward to almost whisper in reply.

“Lady Clarinda, how can I explain this—I veer more to the Sapphic, where Romance is concerned. The idea of marrying a man is one which I wholly renounce; sorry to upset your, the family’s in fact, plans thataway, but there it is.”

It was the turn of the ghostly representative of said family to sit in silence for a while; then Lady Clarinda faced modern social mores with a heroic set of her brow.

“There are, in course, such things as adopted children! Not a perfect solution for the family; but when the Gods’ call, as they say!”

Mary raised her eyebrows at this, but refrained from the original answer she was tempted to give, falling back on mere politeness.

“I got an early start tomorrow, what about I just go back to bed and we call this whole thing, the treasure I mean, a great solution to all our worries?”

Lady Clarinda, frowned over this, her expression hardly discernible via her immaterial form, then nodded.

“Yes—seems fair enough. I, and my companions, offer you our best wishes for your future, and for the future of the family through your—ahem, whatever methods you use to afford that end result. Have a happy voyage.”

“Thank you—goodnight!”

A moment later, with the extinction of the faintly shimmering form, Mary found herself once again the only inmate of the vast Library. Looking around at the rows of bookcases outlined faintly in the moonlight she made a momentuous decision.

“Before I start in the morning I’ll leave a note for Morgan the gardener to use the entire contents of this dam’ Library as fodder for the boiler. Make sure he knows when I return I want to find this chamber empty of every single book and bookcase here. Yes, a fine long Drawing-room instead, with chintz-covered sofas, easy chairs, an’ bright wall-paper; buck the whole place up no end!”

The End.