‘Oh no, thanks, I’m here for the night.’
‘Right you are. Here’s my card anyways, you never know.’
I climbed out and looked up. It made the Disney castle look poky. There were turrets and gargoyles grimacing out on various corners. It was the sort of place from which a treasonous medieval baron would have plotted his march on London. I tugged on a metal pulley by the front door. Nothing. I pulled it again. Nothing. I peered through the glass of the front door into the hall and spied a large fireplace. There was no sign of human activity – just a large stuffed bear standing beside a grand piano.
Feeling awkward, I tiptoed across the lawn at the front of the house to find another door, like a visiting peasant who had come to pay my rent. Then, through a large stone arch to the left-hand side of the castle, I saw a door suddenly swing open and a male figure, clad entirely in tweed, marched out of it, followed by a black Labrador. Tweed hat, tweed coat, tweed trousers. The only thing which wasn’t tweed was the man’s face: the face was red.
He turned and shouted back behind him, ‘I TOLD EVERYONE WE NEEDED TO BE READY AT ELEVEN AND AS USUAL IN THIS FAMILY, YOU’RE ALL LATE. I don’t know why we can’t ever do anything on time, it’s a bloody shambles—’
The tweed-covered man spotted me.
‘AND WHO ARE YOU?’ he bellowed.
‘Um, hello… I’m, um… I’ve come from Posh! magazine. I’m here to see Jasper, it’s for an interview?’
He frowned. ‘Oh, the journalist,’ he roared, in much the same manner in which someone would say ‘paedophile’.
‘I’m here today… and then staying tonight… and then writing a piece…’ I stuttered.
‘Nothing to do with me, you want my son Jasper. He’s probably up in his room. You’ll have to excuse me for a moment, I’m trying to get ready for this damn shoot.’ The Duke of Montgomery turned to roar through the open door, ‘BUT EVERYONE’S BLOODY LATE THIS MORNING!’
He looked back at me. ‘Go through there and find Ian, he’ll point you in the right direction. And if you could get any of my family to hurry up that would be marvellous. Where’s my bloody dog? Ah, there you are, Inca. Come on, good boy.’ He stalked past me under the stone arch, the dog at his heels, leaving the back door open.
Inside was a room that smelled of mud and damp towels and was stuffed with coats, boots, hats, fishing rods and dog beds. No actual humans. So I walked anxiously through the room, feeling like an intruder, worried that an alarm would go off any second, and into a corridor so long I couldn’t see the end of it. Huge portraits peered down at me from the walls. I squinted at the closest one, which depicted a plain-looking woman in a green silk dress, white hair piled on her head.
‘The Duchess of Montgomery, 1745,’ read a plaque beneath it. There were more Montgomerys lining the corridor. Male Montgomerys, female Montgomerys, fat Montgomerys, thin, bearded Montgomerys, baby Montgomerys. A waft of cigarette smoke drifted towards me as I started to walk down the corridor.
‘Who’s that?’ came a shriek from a room on the left. ‘Ian, is that you? I can’t find my trousers.’
‘Er, no, it’s not Ian,’ I said, sticking my head into a large kitchen to see a woman sitting at the table, cigarette in hand, smoke snaking its way towards the ceiling. She was wearing a dark green polo neck and a pair of white knickers. No trousers.
‘Who are you?’ she said.
‘I’m Polly. I’m sorry to, um, interrupt. It’s only that I was told to come and find someone called Ian because I’m here to talk to Jasper. I’m from Posh!.’ I was gabbling. ‘The magazine?’
The woman drew lengthily on her cigarette. ‘Yes, I’m trying to find Ian, too. I need my trousers. We’re all late this morning and in terrible trouble with my husband. As usual.’
‘Oh,’ I said, in a manner which I hoped suggested I was sympathetic and yet relaxed about being granted an audience with the Duchess in her knickers. Who and where was Ian?
A dog that looked like Bertie was curled up and sleeping on the back of a sofa underneath the kitchen window. ‘Oh, sweet,’ I said, nodding towards it, trying to make conversation so I could stop thinking about the Duchess’s knickers. ‘Do you have a terrier?’
The Duchess looked over her shoulder. ‘He was a terrier, yes. A Yorkie called Toto. But he’s dead.’
‘Oh.’
‘He’s dead too,’ she said, pointing at an orange guinea pig on a bookshelf beside the Aga.
‘Oh, right.’
‘I can’t bear to bury the pets, you see. So I have them stuffed by a taxidermist in town.’ She took another drag of her cigarette. ‘I might do the same to my husband one day.’
Thankfully, I heard the sound of footsteps approaching.
‘Ian, there you are,’ the Duchess exclaimed. ‘I can’t find my trousers. Have you seen them?’
I turned around. Ian was apparently a sort of giant butler, well over six foot, in a uniform, with his hair neatly brushed to the side. A pair of tweed trousers lay across his arm.
‘Are these the ones, madam?’
‘Yes. You are a poppet.’ The Duchess stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. She was tall, with pale, thin legs. I stared resolutely at the floor.
‘This is Holly by the way, she’s come to interview Jasper. How long are you here for?’
‘Well, today and tonight he said, I think, if that’s all right. I mean, I don’t have to stay, I just need to—’
‘No, do stay,’ said the Duchess, taking the tweed trousers from Ian. ‘Lovely to have some fresh blood,’ she added. It sounded like a threat.
‘Are you walking out with us today?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I replied, confused. ‘What does… um, what does that mean?’
‘What?’
‘What you just said. Walking out?’
‘Oh,’ she said, surprised. Then, quite slowly, as if she was talking to a small child, ‘As in, are you coming shooting with us?’
‘With a gun?’
She smiled at me. ‘Darling, no, we wouldn’t give you a gun. You don’t look like a trained killer. Walking out means coming along and watching. Jolly cold, frightfully boring. But you can stand with Jasper.’
I was relieved. ‘Oh, right. Then yes, I think so. If that’s all right.’
‘Have you got any clothes?’ she asked, standing up to put her own trousers on. One leg in, then the other. She maintained eye contact with me throughout. It was like some kind of weird, reverse striptease.
‘Uhhh, yes. In here.’ I jiggled my overnight bag.
‘Good, well, we’re already all terribly late. Ian, has someone made a room up?’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘Marvellous, in that case can you show Holly to her room and she can quickly get changed. I can’t tell you the row there’ll be if we’re not at the stables in the next ten minutes. And take her to Jasper’s room afterwards, will you?’ She stalked out, in the direction of the boot room.
‘It’s Polly, actually,’ I said to Ian, apologetically.
‘Welcome, madam,’ he replied, holding a giant hand out for my bag.
I followed Ian as he walked slowly out of the kitchen and back into the corridor, past more dead Montgomerys, up a twisting staircase, along another corridor, down some carpeted