Page 74 of Mysteries, Menace, and Mates

Roadkill did as instructed and then drove into a space. He switched off the engine, and they got out. “Where now? I don’t see anything.”

Eve led them back onto the lane, then pointed ahead of them. “This takes you straight to the Hall, but I want your first view to be the best, so follow me.”

They walked with her along the tree-covered drive, and then she took a path to the right. “This brings us out at the far end of the lawn. Now, don’t look to the left until I tell you, okay?”

Roadkill chuckled. “This is like a mystery tour.”

Hashtag was dying to take a peek, but he knew this was important to Eve. At last they came to a halt.

“Okay, boys.Nowyou can turn to the left.”

He turned—and gasped.

“It was impressive online, but now I see it in real life….”

Hashtag was officially blown away.

Gawthorpe Hall was a square stone-built edifice with a four-sided tower rising from its center. It was three stories high, topped with an intricately carved rampart. The main door sat in a portico, with four steps leading up to it and stone pillars on either side. A curved, gravel-covered driveway cut into the lawn, and Hashtag could imagine carriages driving up to the front of the house and footmen opening doors and helping richly-dressed ladies out of them.

“How old did you say this place was?” Roadkill sounded awed, not that Hashtag could blame him for that.

“It’s Elizabethan,” Eve reminded them. “On the other side, there’s a beautiful garden laid out in a semicircle, overlooking the River Calder.”

“Eve, it’s… it’s awesome.” Hashtag climbed the flight of stone steps that led up to the vast front lawn. “Okay, I was crap at history in high school, but Elizabethan… as in Elizabeth the first? Early sixteen hundreds?”

She nodded. “It was originally a tower, but it was developed into an Elizabethan mansion round about then, yes. Then in the eighteen fifties, itwas redesigned.” She cocked her head. “Have either of you seen that TV show,Downton Abbey?”

Hashtag beamed. “I loved it.”

“Well, the architect who designed Highclere Castle, where it was set, was also the one who worked on Gawthorpe. He did the Houses of Parliament too.” She widened her eyes. “And I told you that too. Is this going to be a thing, you two not listening to a word I say?”

“Weheardyou,” Hashtag remonstrated. “But hearing is one thing—finding yourself confronted with a piece of history is something else.”

“What he said.” Roadkill shook his head. “This blows my mind.”

She grinned. “Wait until you see the inside.”

Walking through the wide wooden front door, set into beige-colored stone, through an archway hung with richly tapestried curtains, gave Hashtag a thrill.

“You get the full tour,” Eve told them before taking them through a long gallery with varnished floorboards and a molded ceiling. Paintings hung every few feet, covering wallpaper decorated with a rich brocade, and on either side were chairs, tables, chests, all of them made from a dark glossy wood that spoke of centuries of use.

Every room was a revelation, from the dining room with its huge stone fireplace and chandeliers over the table, its upper minstrels gallery on which was mounted a stag’s head, the winding staircase at the corner of the Hall, its worn stone steps recording the passage of time, ending in a balcony from which Hashtag stared down at the linen-fold wood panels and the tiled floor with its intricate design.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said at last.

“Do you like it?”

He laughed. “Are you kidding? It’s amazing.”

“How many bedrooms does this place have?” Roadkill asked.

“I don’t know. I never counted them.” Eve cocked her head. “Would you like to see the master bedroom?”

“Lead the way.”

Eve took them along the hallway, Hashtag and Roadkill following, their steps slower.

“Do you believe this?” Roadkill muttered. “I feel like freakin’ royalty just walking up those stairs.”

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