A Strange Affair Read Online Free PDF Page B

clean but shabby narrow corridor to the room the head maid had directed me to
    I knocked on the door and David’s voice called for me to enter, both he and his wife seemed startled to see me.
    ‘Why mistress!’ said Mrs Burnet in a shocked manner, ‘Whatever ails you? Do come and sit down, you look as white as a sheet,’ she said, urging me to sit on a small red chair.
    ‘I’m sorry to intrude, Mrs Burnet,’ I apologised, watching David as he sat on a chair by the small dining table lighting his pipe, this fascinated me and I must have watched him too intently for the housekeeper walked over to him and took the pipe from his mouth saying, ‘Don’t smoke in front of the young mistress, David. Now go and make her a nice cup of tea,’ she instructed her husband. David left the room through a doorway into what must have led to a scullery for I could hear the kettle being filled with water.
    Now while my David is gone, you tell me what’s amiss,’ she said sitting opposite me and taking one of my hands in hers.
    ‘The door in my room,’ I began, ‘it’s unlocked once more.’ At my words, Mrs Burnet looked at me with sympathy in her eyes.
    ‘I’m sorry, mistress Barbara, truly I am,’ she said squeezing my hand, ‘but the master ordered me to unlock it.’
    ‘Well, I’m asking you now to lock it again,’ I instructed her. ‘Please lock it and give me the key, that’s the best idea,’ I said suddenly feeling much better at this wonderful notion of mine, for if I had the key no-one could unlock it again.
    ‘Well, you’re the mistress without a doubt,’ agreed Mrs Burnet releasing my hand and going over to her bunch of keys which I could see hung on a large hook by the fireplace. She brought them over to me and after a struggle released the said key and handed it to me just as David brought in a tray of tea and biscuits which he deposited on a small table by his wife’s chair.
    ‘There you are, Pegs,’ he said, ‘while you’re taking tea with the mistress, I’ll go and clear some snow before darkness falls.’
    Left on our own, Mrs Burnet poured some tea.
    ‘It’s not really my place to say, mistress, but I can see you’re unhappy about something, and that grieves me to see that you are in this large castle with hardly a friend to your name,’ she said kindly.
    ‘I’m used to being alone, for hours at a time on occasions, Mrs Burnet,’ I told her.
    ‘I know it’s not the done thing, but when we are on our own I’d be so pleased if you’d call me Peggy, the last mistress did.’ Here she stopped and I interrupted her train of thought.
    ‘What exactly happened to Annabel?’ I asked her, snatching the chance. ‘Megan said you’d tell me.’
    ‘It was a rare accident that befell the master’s first wife,’ began Peggy Burnet. I smiled at her encouragingly as she continued, ‘The poor girl slipped and fell at the waterfall into the water below, her body has never been found.’
    ‘So how do you know what happened?’ I queried.
    ‘Because the master was there. He did all he could to save her by all accounts, but it was in vain. Right sorry I was as she was a lovely young woman, a bit like you, she even looked like you in some ways, but now she’s gone.’ And the housekeeper looked ahead of her with her own private thoughts.
    ‘And was she happy? Annabel I mean.’ For I needed to know the answer to this important question.
    ‘She was very happy, lit up the whole place with her smile, and yet there was something not quite right, now and then she would have a faraway look on her face.’
    ‘And did they marry here at the castle?’ Was my next question.
    ‘Bless me no, mistress. The master brought her back one day, just like he did you, but with a couple of hours warning.’ Here she stopped and I wondered if I could press her farther.
    ‘And how long were they together before this unfortunate accident?’ I asked.
    ‘About two months would be my reckoning,’ Mrs Burnet told