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as though she would enjoy a toasted tea cake.”
“Giselle has enjoyed lots of toasted tea cakes in her
short sojourn upon this earth.” Aunt Honoria looked
pointedly down at my portly form. “But I have brought
her here to feed her mind, thank you all the same,
Mrs. ... ?”
“Perkins.” She led us through a round-topped oak
door into a wainscoted hall that was bigger than the
one where I suffered through ballet class, and into a
room with narrow leaded windows and a great many
portraits in heavy frames on the walls. A while-haired
old man wearing an apron and pair of grimy leather
gloves stood at a refectory table polishing away at a
brass candlestick. This he set down next to its
still-tarnished fellow when Mrs. Perkins ushered Aunt
Honoria and me toward him.
“Ned, honey,” she said brightly, “these folks would
like the guided tour, and I need to stay in the shop in
case we should get lucky and have a busload of people
arrive all wanting tea and crumpets.”
“Very good, Mrs. Perkins.” The old man put down
his
polishing
cloth,
straightened
his
stooped
shoulders, and turned to Aunt Honoria and me. “If you
will kindly follow me, madam and little miss, we will
get started.”
“Don’t let us rush you,” my relation responded
austerely. “By all means take the time to remove your
apron.”
“It doesn’t make much sense to do that. I’d only
have to put it back on again when I’m done with you.”
Ned waved a glove at the army of candlesticks, kettles,
and warming pans. “The copper and brass won’t
decide to clean themselves.”
Aunt Honoria muttered the word “Uppity!” and,
while I was hoping I was the only one who had heard
her, Mrs. Perkins retreated from the room. Fixing me
with a piercing blue gaze, Ned said, “Little miss, this
24
isn’t
one
of
the
really
grand
houses
such
as
Chatsworth or the like, and for the admission price of
a pound, you don’t get a tour guide with military
posture wearing gold braid and silver buttons.”
“I’d much rather have you,” I said truthfully,
because something in me warmed to his gloomy voice
and wrinkled visage—visage was one of the words I
had looked up in the dictionary while reading Jane
Eyre. Stepping up to him I reached for his hand, but
he tapped me ever so lightly on the shoulder and led
us
toward
the
fireplace
with
its
beaten-copper
surround and ornately carved mantelpiece displaying a
row of silver hunt cups.
“I gather we are about to be shown the priest hole,”
Aunt Honoria said, as if announcing we were to have
cucumber sandwiches for tea, but I noticed a sparkle
in her eyes and realized she had not brought me here
for the improvement of my mind alone. Old houses, I
decided, were her passion. Without making any
comment, let alone saying abracadabra, Ned touched a
carved rose and a section of wainscoting slid sideways
to reveal a dark aperture.
“Gosh!” I whispered, feeling the stirrings of an
enthusiasm that might one day transcend treacle
pudding.
“It was never used to hide priests or other followers
of the popish faith,” Ned told us in a voice that creaked
with age, as did the floorboards. Drawing a torch from
his apron pocket, he shone its yellow beam into the
narrow rectangle that was no bigger than my toy
cupboard. “The Thornton family turned Protestant
without need of the thumbscrews at the Reformation.
From that time forward they were rabid opponents of
the Roman church. This hideaway was used for the
concealment of royalist sympathizers during the rule
of the Lord Protector.”
“Oliver Cromwell,” Aunt Honoria informed me as if
I were four years old. “I imagine we are looking at a
box of tricks with a secret staircase that offered the
fugitive some hope of escape should the Roundheads
show any intelligence.”
Ned smiled and showed us a cunningly concealed
trapdoor in the flagstone floor. Our tour of Thornton
Hall began in earnest with a visit to the wine cellars,
which
continued
the
merry
little
game
of
hide-and-seek
by
providing
hidden
access
to
a
25
lichen-covered tunnel which exited, so our guide told
us, at the far edge of the apple orchard.
“It’s all so romantic!” I gave an ecstatic sigh as we
trooped back up the stone steps.
“I don’t suppose the royalists thought so when they
were captured and sent to the Tower of London.
Having one’s head chopped off, Giselle, has never been
my idea of a good time.” Aunt Honoria tapped out an
impatient tattoo with her stick, but I could tell she was
enjoying herself behind her grim lips.
Ned closed off the panel to what I still thought of as
the
priest
hole
and
preceded
us
at
a
stooped-shouldered but vigorous pace back to the
main hall with its massive stone fireplace. The
blackened oak staircase rose up forever until it was
lost in a ceiling painted with an azure blue sky, banks
of clouds, and golden-winged cherubs whose rosy
plumpness suggested that they shared my fondness
for treacle pudding and other earthly delights.
“This ceiling was painted in the eighteenth century
by Wynward Holstein, who is thought in some quarters
to have influenced the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds.”
Ned paused for me to say “Gosh!” in what I hoped was
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