A few months ago, I posted about the Chalet School children’s book series. EBD (as I’ll be referring to the author, for brevity’s sake) quickly made her place amongst my most favorite authors. She reminds me of another of my favorite authors, Frances Hodgson-Burnett, in that she has a way of creating fairytales without any use of magic or fantasy. She is best known for her Chalet School series which boasts an impressive 58 volumes, but she also wrote several spin-off books, one of which being The Lost Staircase.
This book is very loosely connected to the Chalet School universe, but can be read as a standalone.
Synopsis
The Lost Staircase is at its heart a family mystery. The Gellibrands are a wealthy family shrouded in mystery, and they have been residing at the huge and beautiful Dragon House in Wales since the Middle Ages. The story takes place in the 1940s, and the last living male heir to the Dragon House is one Sir Ambrose. He is elderly himself and, his own son having died in the First World War, knows he must soon find an heir. So he invites his cousin, 14-year-old Jesanne Gellibrand to come live at the Dragon House and learn the customs and responsibilities for when she will become Heiress. Jesanne is a hot-tempered modern girl (well, modern for 1946, I suppose) and is often at odds with Cousin Ambrose and his old-fashioned ways, but comes to love the Dragon House and all its quirks and traditions. The main plot point, as alluded to by the title, is Jesanne’s search for an ancient staircase hidden somewhere in the house.
Like EBD’s other books, the plot meanders a bit in this one, but the imagery and atmosphere are top-notch. I absolutely loved reading about the Dragon House, its valuable artwork, its hidden rooms and passages, and of course all the history surrounding it.
The Festive Bits
From the synopsis above, you may be thinking that this book doesn’t sound particularly festive. And, well, it’s true the plot doesn’t really have anything to do with Christmas. Yet there are several chapters devoted to the Christmas festivities and rituals particular to the Gellibrand family, and these are incredibly lovely in their own right.
There is a beautiful scene of Christmas Eve caroling and wassailing. Afterwards, Jesanne and Ambrose invite the carolers into the house and pass around “great slices of the famous Dragon House Christmas cake, which was made from a recipe three hundred years old, and smoking mince-pies”. I’ve no idea what is in that Christmas cake, and I’ve never even tried a mince-pie, but that description just makes my mouth water. Then on Christmas-day Jesanne receives maybe the most lavish present I have ever read of — a whole house to herself. Ambrose has an old lodge on the grounds renovated for her, fitted with a working kitchen and a sewing-machine and fresh wallpaper. It’s all very over-the-top, but that’s EBD for you.
My favorite scene is of the secret Dragon House Ritual which is performed every Christmas Eve. I won’t even describe the ritual as I think it is so much more magical if you read it yourself, but I will say that it involves some very old robes, which you can see Jesanne wearing on the book’s cover.
Christmas at the Dragon House
My edition, which I purchased from Girls Gone By, comes with a bonus short-story: “Christmas at the Dragon House” by Katherine Bruce. The story takes place two years after The Lost Staircase, and describes Jesanne’s first Christmas at the Dragon House after Sir Ambrose has died. It’s actually quite a melancholy read, but a very realistic follow-up to the original story.
I just absolutely love this magical little book and can see myself returning to it for many Christmases to come. Definitely a must-read if you enjoy EBD’s works, but I would recommend picking this one up even if you have never read her other books.
