The Song of the Siren

Matt was holding it in the palm of his hand and Belle was watching it intently, her tail wagging, and every now and then she would make that strange sound which I imagined was meant to convey ecstasy. She had got what she wanted.

“I daresay it came off a shoe,” Matt said, “and the owner of the shoe wondered where on earth he had lost it. He wouldn’t have thought of looking under the floorboards. Now what about this board? I’ll put it back. You’ll have to get it done, someone could catch a foot in it and fall.”

“I’ll tell them.”

Matt put the buckle on the floor. Belle immediately seized it.

I patted her. “Don’t swallow it, Belle,” I said.

“She’s too smart for that. She’ll take care of it, won’t you, Belle?”

I watched while Matt replaced the board.

“There,” he said. “That doesn’t look too bad.”

He stood up and we surveyed it.

“But don’t forget to tell them about it,” he said.

Belle was still holding the buckle in her mouth. She stood there watching us, wagging her tail.

“You’re a spoilt girl,” said Matt. “You only have to cry for something and it is yours. Even if it means pulling up the floorboards to get it.”

We came out of the house and locked it up.

Matt said: “Come and see my mother. She loves to see you.”

So we went to Grasslands. Belle was still holding the buckle. She wouldn’t let it go.

Elizabeth greeted me warmly as she always did.

“What’s Belle got?”

As though in answer, Belle put down the buckle and sat looking at it, head on one side, with what I can only call immense satisfaction and gratification.

“What is it?” asked Elizabeth.

We explained.

“It must be filthy,” she said. She picked it up. Belle looked anxious.

“A man’s shoe buckle,” she said. “Rather a fine one.”

Belle began to whine.

“All right, all right,” she went on. “I’m not going to take it from you.”

She gave it back to the dog, who immediately seized it and moved away to the corner of the room.

We all laughed.

Then Elizabeth said: “It would be interesting to know to whom it belonged.”

It was soon after that that we began to have one of those periods of hauntings which happened now and then about Enderby Hall.

It was usually started by some silly little incident. Someone would see, or fancy they saw, a light in Enderby Hall. They would mention it and then everyone would be seeing lights.

My mother said it was the way the light of the setting sun caught one of the windows, and it could, to anyone who was looking for strange sights, appear to be a light.

However, the rumours grew.

I had mentioned the faulty floorboard and it had been repaired, but I did not say anything about the buckle because it involved Belle and I thought it would remind my parents of the unfortunate incident which had led to the dismissal of the Rooks.

I saw them now and then, and their attitude towards me was always a little truculent.

When I asked Mary if she had settled in at Grasslands she replied with relish: “Oh, yes, Mistress Damaris, me and Jacob has never been so well served. We’m in clover.”

Which was her way of telling me that it had been a change for the better and a good day for them when my father had sent them packing.

Elizabeth said they seemed over anxious to please and were really very good servants.

I noticed that the servants at Grasslands always regarded me with a special interest and I wondered what stories the Rooks told of our household.

Carlotta had always said that servants were like spies for they knew too much about the private lives of their masters and mistresses. She said: “One should never forget them; they are there watching and chattering together, seeing much and making up what they don’t see.”

I wished more than ever that I had not told them where I had found Belle.

Belle herself had become obsessed by some sort of treasure hunt since she had found the buckle. She kept it with her. Once we thought she had lost it; then we discovered she had buried it in the garden with a bone.

She had suddenly become interested in the land where she had been caught in the trap.

Up till now she had refused to go near it. Whenever we had come near the fence she would cringe away from it and keep very close to us. We knew she was remembering her experiences in the trap.

Then suddenly, when we were passing that way, we missed her. We called and called and she did not appear.

We knew that the house fascinated her because she was always trying to get into it.

And when we passed it she would sometimes sit down at the gate and look at us appealingly.

“Oh, come, Belle,” Matt would say, “there aren’t any more buckles.”

She would put her head on one side and give that little murmuring whine which was meant, I think, to plead with us.

But up to that time she had never wanted to go over the fence.

On this particular day when we lost her and called and called, Matt said: “I wonder if she has got into the house? Someone may have left something open.”

And just at that moment she was squeezing under the gate looking rather shamefaced.