but it might very well be that we both sense something dormant there; something asleep. Don’t wake it up.”
Nan had figured that the best place to begin in her hunt for information was with the groundskeeper, but to her surprise he neither knew nor cared about something that was not only useless, but a nuisance, since occasionally things got dropped down it that he had to fetch back up again.
Not by accident, of course. No, it was generally deliberate, at least as far as Nan could make out from the man’s grumbling. He didn’t like the well. No one liked the well. But Master wouldn’t brick it over because there was something historical about it.
Excited now, Nan tried to pursue the question further but the old man refused to talk about it anymore.
Frustrated, she began canvassing the rest of the servants, but most of them had no idea what she was talking about, except that few of them cared to go near the well. Most of them simply said that the well was ugly and there was no reason to spend any time around it. Three of them, however, said that the well made them uneasy and wouldn’t even discuss it.
Dejected, she flopped into a chair at dinner between Sarah and Tommy and spent most of the meal interjecting heavy sighs between their excited comments. Sarah began looking at her curiously, and finally even Tommy noticed that she was being glum.
“No luck with your project, then?” he said, sympathetically. “Come on, Nan, tell us what it is, and maybe we can help.”
“Even if we can’t help, we can try and make you feel better,” Sarah offered.
With another heavy sigh, Nan explained her idea, and that she had come up dry. Sarah shook her head—she was doing the history of a Cavalierera portrait, and having no difficulty, for the artist was quite a famous one, and there were lots of books even in the manor library that talked about it. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything in the library about the well,” she said doubtfully.
But Tommy looked thoughtful.
“Maybe Gaffer Geordie can help,” he said.
Nan blinked at him. “Who’s that?” she asked
“He lives down in the pensioners’ cottages,” Tommy explained.
“He used to work in the stable, oh, a long time ago! Before the last of the old family died and the cousins inherited.”
Well, that sounded promising. But if he was that old—
“He ain’t dotty, is ‘e?” Nan asked dubiously.
Tommy shook his head vigorously. “Not a bit! Whenever there’s something wrong with a horse or a dog, they go to Gaffer before they call in the farrier or the horse doctor. Most times, he sets it right. And when they do call the horse doctor, he won’t do a thing unless Gaffer is right there.”
That sounded even more promising. But it didn’t answer the question of why Tommy thought this Gaffer could help. Before she could say anything though, Tommy answered that question.
“Gaffer Geordie knows everything that’s ever happened here right back to his grandfather’s day,” he explained. “So if there’s anything about the well going back that far, he’ll know.”
The next day, armed with the information that Gaffer lived in the cottage “with all the dogs,” Nan and Neville trudged down to the row of cottages that had been built to house Highleigh servants too old to work who had been pensioned off. And very shortly, Nan realized that the seemingly vague directions were not vague at all, for it was obvious which cottage was the Gaffer’s.
Dogs—all of them old, maimed, or both—lay in the sun along the wall of the cottage on either side of the door, sat quietly watching the street, or attended to doggish business around the grounds. There were probably thirty of them; most were foxhounds, though there was a three-legged wolfhound, and a cluster of pretty little spaniels with various imperfections. The Gaffer himself, like a king enthroned among his subjects, sat on a stool beside his doorway, smoking a pipe, and watching the world pass by.
He was an astonishing sight in Nan’s eyes; she had no idea just how old he was, but his hair and beard were snow-white, and two bushy white eyebrows overshadowed a face that was a mass of wrinkles, in which his eyes appeared like two shiny black currants. He certainly looked a lot older than her gran ever did, and gran had been the oldest person Nan had ever known. He wore a linen smock and buff trousers, a pair of old, worn boots, and a floppy hat.
He gave Nan a friendly nod as she approached, and grinned at Neville. She half expected to hear some sort of country dialect she’d only half understand when he opened his mouth, but instead, out came, “So, raven lass, come to see old Gaffer Geordie, have you?”
Nan nodded, distracted by the dogs, which came up to sniff and inspect her. Neville eyed them with disdain, even contempt. It was pretty clear that Gaffer Geordie saved the dogs no one else wanted. Even the spaniels at his feet, while pretty and charming, were not perfect specimens.
“So what can old Geordie do for you?” the old man continued, eyeing her with curiosity. “I don’t know much but dogs and horses, lass. If there’s aught wrong with your bird, I probably can’t help you.”
Neville quorked, and shook himself. “Neville’s right as rain, sir,” Nan said, as politely as possible. “I heard you knew a lot about Highleigh Park, an’ I wanted to ask you ‘bout something. That dry well by the kitchen garden —”
“Oh, now, that’s an uncanny spot that is,” Gaffer Geordie said instantly, and shook his head. “Had a bad reputation. Some said it was a cursed place, and some said it was a curse on the master of Highleigh. Very uncanny, and no surprise, seeing them bones as was pulled out of it.”
There could not have been anything more likely to spark Nan’s interest than that sentence. “Bones?” she repeated, as Neville bobbed his head.
“Oh, aye, bones. A full skellington, it was, and chains, leg chains and arm chains.” Geordie nodded wisely. “Summun dropped that feller down and clamped the lid on the top, leavin’ him to die. Master of Highleigh that
“Moaning?” Nan asked, shivering.
But the old man shook his head. “Curses.”
That was all he could tell her, but it was more than she had until that point. The next person to approach seemed to be the local vicar who was, in any case, coming to take tea with Mem’sab. Unfortunately, he could not shed light on the matter either. “That was long before my time, dear child,” he said, shaking his head. And that seemed to be that.
Until, however, someone unexpectedly approached Nan the next day, rather than the other way around.
Called out of the nursery by one of the ayahs, she found the estate manager waiting in the hallway with an enormous ledger under his arm. She knew he was the estate manager only because she had seen him consulting with Mem’sab over some matter and had been told who the lean, slightly stooped, middle-aged man was. He was smiling slightly and pushed his glasses farther up his nose with one finger.
“You would be Miss Nan, investigating the mystery of the dry well?” he asked, making it sound far more intriguing than it had been up until that moment.
She nodded, and he handed the large and heavy book to her, bound in brown calfskin. “The Lord of Highleigh of those days was an amateur antiquarian and archaeologist, although they would not have put it that way back then. In his own writing, he referred to himself as a Student of Natural Sciences. He took notes on everything he found and did in and around the estate, so if there is any record of anything to do with the well, it will surely be in this book.”
Flabbergasted, as well as astonished, Nan took it from him. “Thankee!” she exclaimed. “Thankee kindly!”
He waved her thanks off, peering at her benignly from behind his spectacles. “On the whole, having you children here has been no great work or inconvenience and has been quite amusing. This project of your schoolmistress’ is teaching you all valuable lessons in conducting research, and I am happy to be able to assist.”
With that, he went on his way, leaving her clutching the oversized volume to her chest.
After luncheon, she, Sarah, and Tommy—who, having completed his own history of the suit of armor in the
