The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery by Catherine Bailey Read Free Book Online Page A

pulled out the ones for August through to December. Mostly, they were letters that Violet had written to John, her son, who was with his regiment. Her handwriting was chaotic, her style breathless. The pages were punctuated with exclamation marks and words that had been heavily underscored. They captured the excitement and confusion of the first heady days of the war. ‘John darling, No news of sea battles but news of 7 regiments of Germans having crossed Meuse, caught by Belgian Cavalry – practically annihilated,’ she wrote from Stanton Woodhouse, the family’s estate in Derbyshire, the week after war was declared: ‘We stay here as long as you remain at Belper. I want to be buying comforts for you – what about waterproof boots and coats , for it rains here every day? Wire to me if you are going to be under cover – in tents or barracks , or factories and for pity’s sake tell me if anything to buy . I may go to London 1 day soon – think of anything you want. Bless you my dear darling, Yr mother.’
    John, Marquis of Granby, was Violet’s only surviving son and the heir to the dukedom. On 4 August he had been fishing on the banks of the Wye when the river keeper came running to tell him that war had been declared. Immediately, he left for Leicester to join his regiment at its headquarters in Magazine Square.
    Aged twenty-eight, John was a lieutenant in the 4th Leicesters, one of two of the regiment’s territorial battalions. His family’s association with the Tigers – as the Leicestershires were known – stretched back to the eighteenth century. John’s namesake – John Manners, Marquis of Granby – celebrated for his courage in the Seven Years War, had commanded the Leicester Blues at the Highland Revolt; a long line of dukes, including John’s father, the 8th Duke, had been honorary colonels of the regiment. The Leicestershires’ depots were dotted across the Belvoir estate; historically, the regiment had recruited locally.
    On 12 August, the 4th Leicesters marched the forty-four miles from their headquarters to a training camp at Belper. There, they were to await news of their next destination.
    News, as Violet’s letters revealed, was at a premium in those first weeks of the war. As soon as the British Expeditionary Force sailed for France, the War Office imposed a news blackout, with the result that the newspapers carried practically no news at all. Wild rumourscirculated: ‘There is still this “Russian Army through England” going on as a “fact”. “I saw someone who saw them” was Mrs Abrahams story from Crewe!’ Violet reported to her son on 1 September. The Russians, apparently, had landed in Scotland; they were on their way to rescue the beleaguered British Expeditionary Force and had commandeered trains to transport them rapidly south. That afternoon, Violet had instructed her chauffeur to drive her to the local railway station so that she could investigate the rumours herself: ‘I went to see the Station Master at Almbergate, but no – tho’ he had been warned of troops passing it was countermanded! Such a day! How happy we could have been here if it hadn’t been for that tiresome old catspaw Austrian emperor!’
    In the absence of any real news, Violet filled her letters with news from home. In the last weeks of August, there had been a flood of volunteers from among the servants at Belvoir Castle; they had all wanted to join John’s battalion: ‘All the footmen with us – Arthur, William, Charles – and Lamb, the groom, Chambers, the telegraph rider, and the motor cleaner, are going for soldiers. In the 4th Leicesters!! The two last have gone – to Grantham and on!’ Attached to her letter was one from her brother, Charlie. ‘Lil dear,’ he wrote, ‘I have a feeling that if John goes abroad, the more Belvoir people near him the better (if he is hit or if he is ill) to help him as they are all devoted to him.’
    The two letters conjured an image from another age: