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Closed at Dusk
'All's well' at The Sanctuary, the country home of William and Dorothy Taylor. A haven of tranquillity for their family and friends, the magnificent public gardens of the estate are their pride and joy, and an enchantment to the steady stream of visitors who wander through.
Then Jo comes to work at the tea-room and the peace is suddenly destroyed by a series of chilling incidents: the macabre death of a helpless old woman, the terror-ridden dreams of a young boy, the vicious drowning of a beloved pet. Who or what is responsible?
As fear and suspicion grip the Taylors, only Jo has the power to unravel the mystery - smiling, sphinx-like Jo, whose presence in the Taylor household has become indispensable ...
Then Jo comes to work at the tea-room and the peace is suddenly destroyed by a series of chilling incidents: the macabre death of a helpless old woman, the terror-ridden dreams of a young boy, the vicious drowning of a beloved pet. Who or what is responsible?
As fear and suspicion grip the Taylors, only Jo has the power to unravel the mystery - smiling, sphinx-like Jo, whose presence in the Taylor household has become indispensable ...
233 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1990
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31 people want to read
About the author
Monica Dickens
93 books129 followersFrom the publisher: MONICA DICKENS, born in 1915, was brought up in London and was the great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens. Her mother's German origins and her Catholicism gave her the detached eye of an outsider; at St Paul's Girls' School she was under occupied and rebellious. After drama school she was a debutante before working as a cook. One Pair of Hands (1939), her first book, described life in the kitchens of Kensington. It was the first of a group of semi autobiographies of which Mariana (1940), technically a novel, was one. 'My aim is to entertain rather than instruct,' she wrote. 'I want readers to recognise life in my books.' In 1951 Monica Dickens married a US naval officer, Roy Stratton, moved to America and adopted two daughters. An extremely popular writer, she involved herself in, and wrote about, good causes such as the Samaritans. After her husband died she lived in a cottage in rural Berkshire, dying there in 1992.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 1, 2017
I couldn't put it down. My favourite so far of the novels.
June 11, 2012
I knew that Monica Dickens was a wonderful author. I knew that she had written a marvellous range of books, works of fictions and non fiction, stories for children and stories for adults. But I didn’t know that she had written crime fiction until I spotted a tatty copy of ‘Closed at Dusk’ in a charity shop bargain box.
It’s a story set in a country house, but not a conventional country house mystery.
The house which stands in these beautiful gardens, is not open to the public. It has been the home of the Cobb family since 1750, when Sir Desmond Cobb, successful farmer and agricultural advisor to King George II, replaced the sixteenth century manor house with this magnificent dwelling designed by a pupil of John Wood the Younger.
In 1870 Sir Desmond’s descendant Walter Cobb and his wife Beatrice changed the name of the house from Lynford Place to The Snactuary, in keeping with their mission to promote here the welfare and understanding of all living creatures. Most of the animal statues to be seen about the estate date from that time.
After a period of neglect during and after the Second World War, the magnificent gardens and lake have been restores and improved by Walter Cobb’s great-grandson, William Taylor, the present owner, who welcomes you to The Sanctuary.
Open 2pm : closed at dusk.”
Monica Dickens spent some time painting a picture of the family who lived in the house at the centre of that wonderful estate. William Taylor and his wife Ruth, a professional, middle-class couple in their fifties, setting out on a new adventure. Their daughter Tessa, who was in the first flush of a new relationship and found it very useful to be able to leave her young son, Rob, with his grandparents. Ruth’s grandmother, Agnes, who lived in the lodge with a companion who had once been her housekeeper. And many others; siblings, cousins, children, who all gravitated to what they thought of as the family.
People wrapped up in their own lives; people who didn’t look beyond their own world.
Monica Dickens painted their lives and their world beautifully. And I wondered when the story would begin. It took a while, but it was worth waiting for.
The first hint came when the family began to have problems with a lady who worked in the tea rooms. She had to be eased out, and they found a positive treasure to replace her.
Jo was a young widow; a woman who didn’t need to work, didn’t need the money, but wanted to occupy her time, wanted to be needed. She was so capable, so easy to get on with; she would willingly turn her hand to whatever needed doing.
Monica Dickens wrote so beautifully, so subtlely, that I was happy to believe, with the family, that Jo was that rare gem. Even though I knew the conventions of the genre.
Of course she wasn’t!
It slowly became clear that Jo was a construct. Marigold had created her, to reach out to, to punish, one member of the family who had done her a terrible wrong.
Jo was a wonder, but Marigold was criminally insane.
The mask must never slip.
Monica Dickens drew her character so beautifully, with understanding and restraint. It was easy to understand her hurt, her pain, her anger with Tessa. But she had held on to those emotions too tightly, for too long, and that had unbalanced her mind. She was a real woman, an ordinary woman you might pass in the street, not knowing her story, not knowing who she was.
And her actions are just as real, just as believable, and that makes this quiet novel so much more chilling that many more dramatic pieces of crime fiction.
It was so easy to frighten a child, and unsettle adults, when she learned the house’s ghost story. The family could be observed and their weaknesses could be played on, their secrets used against them. A beloved pet could be spirited away.
And then there was a terrible accident. An old lady left a cigarette end smouldering, a fire started, and her companion died, overcome by fumes. But of course it wasn’t an accident, it was murder.
It wasn’t enough though, and Marigold realised what she had to do to make Tessa really suffer. Suffer as she had.
The finale is dramatic and thought-provoking. There is murder, suicide, and terrible sacrifice.
Monica Dickens manipulates her readers’ sympathies so cleverly. Her villain is so clearly in pain, her victimwas the cause of that pain, and she was careless, thoughtless, selfish …
It was all so very real, so very plausible. Every character, every action, every detail was pitch perfect.
And in the end life went on, and that made the story all the more chilling.
It’s a story set in a country house, but not a conventional country house mystery.
The house which stands in these beautiful gardens, is not open to the public. It has been the home of the Cobb family since 1750, when Sir Desmond Cobb, successful farmer and agricultural advisor to King George II, replaced the sixteenth century manor house with this magnificent dwelling designed by a pupil of John Wood the Younger.
In 1870 Sir Desmond’s descendant Walter Cobb and his wife Beatrice changed the name of the house from Lynford Place to The Snactuary, in keeping with their mission to promote here the welfare and understanding of all living creatures. Most of the animal statues to be seen about the estate date from that time.
After a period of neglect during and after the Second World War, the magnificent gardens and lake have been restores and improved by Walter Cobb’s great-grandson, William Taylor, the present owner, who welcomes you to The Sanctuary.
Open 2pm : closed at dusk.”
Monica Dickens spent some time painting a picture of the family who lived in the house at the centre of that wonderful estate. William Taylor and his wife Ruth, a professional, middle-class couple in their fifties, setting out on a new adventure. Their daughter Tessa, who was in the first flush of a new relationship and found it very useful to be able to leave her young son, Rob, with his grandparents. Ruth’s grandmother, Agnes, who lived in the lodge with a companion who had once been her housekeeper. And many others; siblings, cousins, children, who all gravitated to what they thought of as the family.
People wrapped up in their own lives; people who didn’t look beyond their own world.
Monica Dickens painted their lives and their world beautifully. And I wondered when the story would begin. It took a while, but it was worth waiting for.
The first hint came when the family began to have problems with a lady who worked in the tea rooms. She had to be eased out, and they found a positive treasure to replace her.
Jo was a young widow; a woman who didn’t need to work, didn’t need the money, but wanted to occupy her time, wanted to be needed. She was so capable, so easy to get on with; she would willingly turn her hand to whatever needed doing.
Monica Dickens wrote so beautifully, so subtlely, that I was happy to believe, with the family, that Jo was that rare gem. Even though I knew the conventions of the genre.
Of course she wasn’t!
It slowly became clear that Jo was a construct. Marigold had created her, to reach out to, to punish, one member of the family who had done her a terrible wrong.
Jo was a wonder, but Marigold was criminally insane.
The mask must never slip.
Monica Dickens drew her character so beautifully, with understanding and restraint. It was easy to understand her hurt, her pain, her anger with Tessa. But she had held on to those emotions too tightly, for too long, and that had unbalanced her mind. She was a real woman, an ordinary woman you might pass in the street, not knowing her story, not knowing who she was.
And her actions are just as real, just as believable, and that makes this quiet novel so much more chilling that many more dramatic pieces of crime fiction.
It was so easy to frighten a child, and unsettle adults, when she learned the house’s ghost story. The family could be observed and their weaknesses could be played on, their secrets used against them. A beloved pet could be spirited away.
And then there was a terrible accident. An old lady left a cigarette end smouldering, a fire started, and her companion died, overcome by fumes. But of course it wasn’t an accident, it was murder.
It wasn’t enough though, and Marigold realised what she had to do to make Tessa really suffer. Suffer as she had.
The finale is dramatic and thought-provoking. There is murder, suicide, and terrible sacrifice.
Monica Dickens manipulates her readers’ sympathies so cleverly. Her villain is so clearly in pain, her victimwas the cause of that pain, and she was careless, thoughtless, selfish …
It was all so very real, so very plausible. Every character, every action, every detail was pitch perfect.
And in the end life went on, and that made the story all the more chilling.
July 11, 2020
The country house of The Sanctuary with its idyllic gardens and woodlands may seem like a paradise, nightingales and all, but it is about to be infiltrated by a serpent, and the owner's over-contented catchphrase, “All's well” is soon to be challenged.
It's a nice enough, well told tale. Not a ghost story and not a who-dunnit, really it's more of a will-she-get-away-with-it – as we know who the criminal is and why she does what she does. In fact we are there listening to her plan her every devious move. Marigold, the weak, devoted wife who is deserted by her husband when she is two months pregnant – and later loses the child in a miscarriage – artfully disguises herself as the ever-resourceful and hard working Jo, in order to infiltrate the family of the woman who stole her husband and gain a bloody revenge. Sometimes I felt the story was calling for Miss Marple to investigate. The venerable sleuth would have heard rumours, received whispered confidences and stripped aside Marigold's dyed hair, the padded bra, and the ever so humble facade of poor-but-happy servitude in a masterful sweep of intellect before the family at The Sanctuary could have been duped with such ease.
It is difficult to feel sorry for Marigold, no matter what injustice she suffered in the past. Occasionally her new alter ego, Jo, seems to be winning through with a kinder, more sympathetic personality, but ultimately Marigold is the evil twin. The ending is a little melodramatic, I'm tempted to say Dickensian. However, justice prevails - in a lopsided way: Marigold does gets her comeuppance but Tessa, the husband-stealer, seems to go on to live happily thereafter. It is apparent that some crimes attract little penalty in the paradise of The Sanctuary; there may have been more than one serpent in there to begin with.
It's a nice enough, well told tale. Not a ghost story and not a who-dunnit, really it's more of a will-she-get-away-with-it – as we know who the criminal is and why she does what she does. In fact we are there listening to her plan her every devious move. Marigold, the weak, devoted wife who is deserted by her husband when she is two months pregnant – and later loses the child in a miscarriage – artfully disguises herself as the ever-resourceful and hard working Jo, in order to infiltrate the family of the woman who stole her husband and gain a bloody revenge. Sometimes I felt the story was calling for Miss Marple to investigate. The venerable sleuth would have heard rumours, received whispered confidences and stripped aside Marigold's dyed hair, the padded bra, and the ever so humble facade of poor-but-happy servitude in a masterful sweep of intellect before the family at The Sanctuary could have been duped with such ease.
It is difficult to feel sorry for Marigold, no matter what injustice she suffered in the past. Occasionally her new alter ego, Jo, seems to be winning through with a kinder, more sympathetic personality, but ultimately Marigold is the evil twin. The ending is a little melodramatic, I'm tempted to say Dickensian. However, justice prevails - in a lopsided way: Marigold does gets her comeuppance but Tessa, the husband-stealer, seems to go on to live happily thereafter. It is apparent that some crimes attract little penalty in the paradise of The Sanctuary; there may have been more than one serpent in there to begin with.
July 14, 2020
The setting for this intriguing story is a country house called The Sanctuary, the grounds of which are open to the public (until dusk). The house is owned by William who inherited it from his mother, and he and his wife Dorothy are the nucleus of the rather sprawling family who inhabit or visit it from time to time. Most notable of these are their flamboyant daughter Tessa and her young son Rob, and their nephew Keith. In the main, they are a happy band who are content with their lives and work hard for the house along with various paid staff in the coffee shop and gounds.
And yet, there is more going on around them than they realise. One of the visitors to the grounds knows there are nightingales nesting there, but he keeps this to himself. In addition, there are rumours of tragedy in the past and sometimes the mention of ghosts, and these scare Rob who is a sensitive child. The family do not perceive the real threat to their lives, however that comes in the shape of Jo, an apparently cheery wonder-worker who gradually insinuates her way into their lives, and makes herself indispensible in the process. Jo has an axe to grind...
Dickens is clever in the understated way she documents Jo's infiltration. A remark here and there, a strange phone call, a broken ornament, none of these sinister in itself, cause fear, mistrust and resentment to spread throughout this unsuspecting, happy community. Even the bird-watcher is affected. I won't say any more, but this is an exciting read with a satisfying ending.
And yet, there is more going on around them than they realise. One of the visitors to the grounds knows there are nightingales nesting there, but he keeps this to himself. In addition, there are rumours of tragedy in the past and sometimes the mention of ghosts, and these scare Rob who is a sensitive child. The family do not perceive the real threat to their lives, however that comes in the shape of Jo, an apparently cheery wonder-worker who gradually insinuates her way into their lives, and makes herself indispensible in the process. Jo has an axe to grind...
Dickens is clever in the understated way she documents Jo's infiltration. A remark here and there, a strange phone call, a broken ornament, none of these sinister in itself, cause fear, mistrust and resentment to spread throughout this unsuspecting, happy community. Even the bird-watcher is affected. I won't say any more, but this is an exciting read with a satisfying ending.
July 9, 2018
Nothing wrong here, I quite liked this story.
September 10, 2020
It was awful i ripped it apart after finishing
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews