I took a deep breath. “Then I think I may go and stay with my grandfather if the London house isn’t available to me.”

Spoons clattered. Someone choked.

“Your grandfather?” Lady Wormwood said in the same tones Lady Bracknell used regarding a handbag in the Oscar Wilde play. “I thought your grandfather had been dead for years.”

“Her mother’s father,” Fig said coldly.

“Oh, her mother’s father. I don’t believe I ever met him.”

“You wouldn’t have met him,” Fig said. “He’s not . . . you know.” Then she lowered her voice and muttered, “N.O.C.D.” (which is upper-class shorthand, in case you don’t know, for “not our class, dear”).

Binky was looking rather red around the gills. “I say, Georgie. Your grandfather’s a decent old stick and all that, but it’s simply not on. We’ve been into this before. You can’t stay in a cottage in Essex. Think of the embarrassment to Their Majesties if the press found out about it.”

“Anyone would think it was the Casbah or a den of ill repute,” I said hotly. “Anyway, how are they going to find out? It’s not as if the society reporters follow me around the way they do my mother. I’m nobody. Nobody cares if I stay in Belgrave Square or in Essex.”

Suddenly I felt tears welling at the back of my eyes, but I was not going to allow myself to cry in public. “I’m over twenty-one so you can’t stop me from doing what I want to,” I said. “And if Their Majesties are embarrassed by my behavior, they can give me an allowance so I don’t have to live as a penniless hanger-on all the time.”

With that I got up and walked out of the dining hall.

“Well, really, such hysterics,” I heard Lady Wormwood say. “Takes after her mother, obviously. Bad blood there.”

* * *

I HAD JUST reached the top of the first flight of stairs when the lights went out. This was a normal occurrence at Castle Rannoch, where electricity was a recent addition to a centuries-old building and the wires were always coming down in gales. Thus we had candles and matches all over the place. I felt my way up the last two steps, then along the wall until I came to the first window ledge. There, sure enough, was a candle and matches. I lit the candle and continued on my way. Outside, the wind was howling like a banshee. Windows rattled as I passed them. A tapestry billowed out to touch me, making me flinch involuntarily. I had grown up in this environment with stories of family ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night and usually I took them all in my stride. But tonight even I was on edge.

The hall went on forever with darkness looming before and behind me. My candle flickered and threatened to go out every few yards. There was no sign of another living soul although the house was full of servants. I realized that they must all be at their supper down in the depths of the servants’ hall. At last I reached my door. As I stepped into my room a great gust of wind blew out my candle. I felt my way to my bed, knowing there were more matches on the bedside table. As I reached out for the bed my hand touched cold, flabby flesh. I stifled a cry as a white shape rose up at me, looming larger and larger until it seemed to fill the room.