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evening,’ I yelled, as the wind whipped the words out of
my mouth.
    ‘Isn’t
it?’
    I
glared at my brother, but he just grinned at me so I walked away before he
could see me smiling too. Inigo is impossible to stay angry with for long. In
fact, I felt like a walk. The drive is almost my favourite part of the whole
estate, though walking up to the house on a stormy night can be a little bit
scary. That evening I rounded the corner that gives the first proper view of
the house and imagined what Charlotte would think of Magna. It is a house with
a dual personality. Once you have taken in the thrill of the medieval building,
there’s the extra bit that was added to the equation in 1625 — a vast wing
stuck onto the side of the house where Renaissance panelling replaced bare
stone and marble replaced oak. My Great-Aunt Sarah recorded in her diary that
the East Wing looked as though someone’s starry-eyed friend had arrived at
Magna with a new quill and a fresh sheet of paper and instructions to ‘lighten
the place up a bit’. I think she thought she was being funny — after all, she
was referring to Inigo Jones, my brother’s namesake. It wasn’t until I was
about fourteen that I realised how famous he had been, how important his work
was. Until then, aunts, uncles, historians, servants, tenants and trippers all
had opinions on Magna that ensured we knew the house was more important than its
inhabitants.
    That’s
one of the oddest things about living in a house of Magna’s size and reputation
— everyone feels entitled to air their views about the place. Indeed it
inspires the most awkward questions from people who should know better than to
ask. I will never forget my first-year art mistress quizzing me over the
remarkable Stubbs in the study and did I know precisely which year it had been
painted? Oh, the rearing pony with the funny fetlocks? I said brightly. That
was sold last year to pay for the roof Miss Davidson’s thin face paled and
I realised that perhaps this was the sort of information I should be keeping to
myself.
     
    Eight years later, there
was little of any worth left at Magna. The only way to pay for the damage done
by the army, who had requisitioned the house during the war for four long
years, was to sell what was left inside to pay for the outside. When
Papa died it set the clocks ticking throughout the house with an added chill —
death duties came even to the families of those who died heroes. I did not
understand this at the time, only that it seemed odd to have to give away money
just when we had lost Papa. And Mama was hopeless with money — she never
stopped finding ways to lose it.
     
    I flung open the hall door
and shivered. The Great Hall at Magna is the first thing that anyone sees when
they arrive at the house, and it takes some getting used to. I have to remember
every time someone new arrives that they are likely to take a few minutes to
get accustomed to it. Steadfastly medieval, and weighty with dark, panelled
wood and low windows, it is dominated by ten life-size wooden figures, arms
stretched up to support the ceiling. Apparently, they were carved to represent
the master masons who built Magna, a motley crew indeed. Inigo always says that
the hall is the sort of place that any self-respecting ghost would avoid like
the plague. Suits of armour stand to attention in every corner, and where there
is no room for another family portrait a set of antlers hangs proud. A huge
bearskin rug covers the floor in front of the fireplace, teeth bared, eyes wide
open and staring. The bear was a present from my great-great-grandfather to his
future wife (‘No wonder she died young,’ said Mama) and its long claws used to
scare me so much that I could never be in the room on my own for fear that it
would come back to life, just to get me. As a result of my fear, Mama made sure that when we had a telephone
installed in the hall, it was placed right next to the bear skin, so convinced
was she