“It’s not everybody who is looking for fancy French taste,” my father reminded her.
“Maybe not but people are impressed by a tastefully furnished house.”
“We’ll wait and see.”
And now the waiting was over, and we were all assembled in my father’s study for the reading of the will.
It was what might have been expected. Jeanne was amply provided for. She would have enough money to set up in a house of her own or return to France when the time was ripe. Aunt Sophie wrote most touchingly of their devotion to each other. There were small legacies to the servants and to us but the house itself was to go to Tamarisk “so that she would always have a home.”
The will must have been made before Tamarisk’s disappearance.
When the guests had all gone my father expressed his dissatisfaction about the will. “We shall have to find that girl now. I’m wondering what can be done about the house. I wonder what she will think to discover herself the owner of Enderby.”
“She wouldn’t realize what it is all about,” said my mother. “She is only six years old.”
“She’s rather knowing,” I said.
“But to own a house. What could Sophie have been thinking of!”
“Sophie did not think very clearly on the best of occasions,” added my father. “We’ll have to make an effort to find the child. The best thing would be to sell the house and bank the money for her till she comes of age. I’ll see the solicitor and get his advice.”
“I wonder who will buy it?” I murmured.
“Wait and see,” said my father. “In any case I shall be glad to be shut of the place.”
“Do you feel it is haunted and brings a curse on those who live in it?” I asked.
“I think it’s a damned draughty inconvenient house, that’s what I think of it. And nothing will please me more than to be rid of it… ghosts and all.”
“Some people like that sort of thing,” I said.
Claudine met my eyes and looked away. She felt very strongly about the house, almost as though she herself had had some uncanny experience there. So Enderby was going to pass out of the family.
I wondered who would come there next.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1984 by Philippa Carr
cover design by Jason Gabbert
978-1-4804-0409-0
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
THE DAUGHTERS OF ENGLAND
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.
Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign up now at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
Voices in a Haunted Room Page 53