The Secret of Crickley Hall Read Free

see only a thick blackness beyond. 'You didn't say what's through there.'
    For some reason—for safety probably, because there was a steep descending staircase just inside—this door opened into the hall, unlike the other doors, and Gabe strode over to it and firmly pushed it shut. 'Leads to the cellar,' he said over his shoulder. 'Cally, you keep away from this door, okay?'
    Their daughter stopped swirling round for a moment, her eyes fixed on the chandelier. 'Okay, Daddy,' she said distractedly.
    'I mean it. You don't go down there without one of us with you, y'hear?'
    'Yes, Daddy.' She swirled on, trying to make herself dizzy, and Eve wondered why Gabe's instruction was so stern.
    She ventured further into the hall, Loren following, leaving Cally behind by the open entrance door, now swaying unsteadily. To the right a broad wooden staircase led up to the gallery landing, its lower section turning at right angles towards the hall's centre. From the turn that formed a small square lower landing, there towered an almost ceiling-high drapeless window through which poor daylight entered. Dull though the light was, it nevertheless brightened much of the hall's oak-panelled walls and flagstone floor. Eve allowed her gaze to wander.
    A few uninteresting and time-grimed landscape paintings were hung round the room and two carved oak chairs with burgundy upholstery stood on either side of the double doors to the drawing room. Apart from these, though, there was precious little other furniture in evidence—a narrow console table against the wall between the doors to the cellar and the sitting room, a dark-wood sideboard beneath the stairs, a circular torchère with an empty vase on top in the corner of the carpetless lower landing, and that appeared to be it. Oh, and an umbrella stand by the front door.
    There was, however, a wide and deep open fireplace, its iron grate filled with dry logs, set into the wall beside the staircase and Eve hoped it would bring some much needed cheer—not to mention warmth—to the huge room when lit. She gave an involuntary shiver and folded her arms across her midriff, hands hugging in her elbows.
    Because of the building's unambiguously plain exterior, the hall seemed almost incongruous. It was as if Crickley Hall had had two architects, one for exterior, the other for interior: the architectural dichotomy was puzzling.
    Gabe joined her at the centre of the hall. 'I don't want to disappoint you, but it's like I said: the rest isn't so fancy. The drawing room's pretty bleak—it takes up the whole rear part of the ground floor—and it's empty, no furniture at all. The kitchen's no more'n functional, and everything else is just okay. Oh, the sitting room's not too bad.'
    'Good. I was worried I'd be overwhelmed by it all. So long as the other rooms are comfortable.' She peered up at the galleried landing. 'You mentioned the bedrooms…'
    'We can take our pick. I figure the one directly opposite the stairway will suit us—it's a fair size and there's a big four-poster bed that goes with it. No canopy, but it's kinda quaint—you'll love it. The room next door'll be fine for the girls. Close to us and with their own beds from home. But there's other rooms to choose from.' He indicated more doors that were visible through the balustrade on the left-hand side of the landing. 'We can jostle beds around, see what suits.' He raised his eyebrows at her. 'So what d'you think? It'll do?'
    She settled his apprehension with a smile; Gabe was trying too hard these days. 'I'm sure it's going to be okay for a short while, Gabe. Thank you for finding the place.'
    He took her in his arms and brushed her cheek with his lips. 'It'll give us a chance, Eve. Y'know?'
    A chance to forget? No, nothing will ever do that. She remained silent and held on to him. Then she shivered again and pulled away.
    He looked at her questioningly. 'You all right?'
    It wasn't the chill in the air, she told herself. It was the pressure of