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Our former footman-turned-maintenance person, Benjamin “Benny” Hudson, was waiting for me on the platform ready to drive me to the house. He was a short, heavy-set, spectacled man in his sixties with a very friendly wrinkled face. It was almost midnight when I saw the dark silhouette of our family nest with only two lit windows on the second floor – the guest room I was going to stay in.

Maple Grove House was a red brick Georgian style stately country house that had three floors. It was of simple rectangular form, with harmonious symmetry, sash windows and a central doorway. There were some smaller buildings behind the house – former stables, a carriage room, and a few cottages where the servants used to live. The house was set in grounds of almost five hundred acres, which also included a stream and a closed pig farm, but most of which was covered by the park with old fields of maples and oaks. There was a big old maple tree in a round clearing, right in front of the house that Charlie and I used to call The Giant. Its girth was more than two meters, and it was a great spot for hiding. When I was about five, my grandmother Anna told me that there was a large talking cat living in the tree that could tell fairy tales. I tried to find it on numerous occasions, hiding in various locations in order not to spook him. Later I learned that it had been a hoax created by Anna to make sure I’d spend more time in the fresh air.

Harry appeared at the main door as soon as our car pulled up.

“I expect your trip was pleasant, sir,” he said stepping out from the darkness of the hall.

“It was good, Harry,” I said, trying to sound cheery. “How have you been? Still in shape, I see.”

“Life has been kind to me, sir. Thank you. No luggage?”

I only had the bag with Charlie’s shirt with me. “It was a spur of the moment kind of thing.”

Before we stepped into the house, Benny turned on some lights in the hall and I couldn’t help but notice the bareness of the once opulent entryway. The slightly lighter squares on the brick walls and wooden panels indicated where the pictures were when the house was full of life.