by Sarah Rayne
‘I know. But what I don’t want,’ said Nell, almost angrily, ‘is to think I’m seeing the ghost of him as a child in that horrible house. Apart from anything else, I’m the one who doesn’t believe in ghosts, remember?’
‘I do remember.’ He smiled at her.
‘I found some odd things in the paperwork Margery sent about the house,’ she said. ‘A really peculiar account from the original builder – a man called Samuel Burlap. It’s all capable of logical explanation, although if you saw that boy as well—’
‘I did see him.’ He enclosed her hand in both of his. ‘He looked a bit like Beth, didn’t he? A masculine version, I mean.’
‘Yes.’
‘But I don’t think it was Brad.’
‘I know that now.’ She was frowning at the table, avoiding his eyes again. ‘I didn’t know it to start with, but now I do. Michael, I think it was a boy called Esmond.’
Michael said, very deliberately, ‘So do I.’ He waited for her response, which came instantly.
‘You know about Esmond?’ She looked up at him, startled.
‘Yes. There’re a few things I haven’t had chance to tell you,’ said Michael, knowing that he would show her Emily’s letter and Brad’s composition, but not wanting to swamp her with it yet. He reached into his jacket pocket. ‘Let’s get Esmond dealt with first. I found his music,’ he said, and placed it on the table between them.
‘I found that as well. On the piano stand. It was after I heard him playing, and after I saw him. Esmond,’ said Nell softly, and traced a fingertip over the faded ink of the name on the music score. ‘Who is he, Michael? Because I found a note as well – something Brad wrote when he was a child at Stilter House; he left it in Esmond’s favourite book for Esmond to find.’
‘Brad wrote a school essay about Esmond, as well,’ said Michael. ‘Emily West found it and sent it to the shop for you to see. She left a voicemail message for you – Henry Jessel picked that up and called me. We both listened to it, and it sounded important. Actually, it sounded as if Emily thought you and Beth might be in some kind of danger. But I couldn’t reach her to find out any more and I couldn’t reach you, either. So in the end I opened her letter. Nell, it felt like the worst kind of invasion on your privacy to do that, but I needed to know if you really were in any danger – that it wasn’t just a nice, slightly scatty old lady’s fantasies.’
‘I’d have done the same,’ said Nell, at once.
‘Thank goodness.’ Michael was relieved to have got over this hurdle. ‘There are several things in the letter that made me decide to come hotfoot up here. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re both all right. I can’t lose you, Nell. I can’t lose either of you.’
‘Nine lives,’ said Nell, smiling at him. ‘You won’t lose me.’
They looked at one another, then Michael said, ‘Well, good.’
‘Let’s save the intense romantic stuff for later,’ said Nell briskly. ‘Did you bring Emily’s letter with you?’
‘Yes. I’ll let you have it before we leave.’
‘Good. I’ll let you see Samuel Burlap’s stuff, as well.’
‘It does sound,’ said Michael, hoping he was giving her the information in sufficiently small doses, ‘as if Charlotte met Esmond, too.’
‘Charlotte did? But look here,’ said Nell, frowning, ‘if Brad knew Esmond when he was here as a child, and if Charlotte also knew him—’
‘And if you and I both saw him,’ said Michael, continuing her thought, ‘it means Esmond hasn’t grown any older for at least thirty years.’
Nell considered this, then said, ‘That’s impossible. I don’t believe it.’
‘I know you don’t. But let’s just go out to the house, finish the inventory, and get the hell out of here.’
‘Leaving the ghosts to their own devices.’
‘You don’t believe in ghosts,’ pointed out Michael.
‘I don’t,’ she said again, and grinned. ‘But I don’t think I want to stay at Stilter House to prove or disprove that.’ She stood up. ‘It’ll be easier if we take my car, I think. Then I can pack up my stuff and Beth’s and sling it all in the boot while we’re there. I’ll get Beth installed with Mrs Poulson, and meet you here.’
Left to himself, Michael wandered around The Pheasant’s ground-floor rooms, which had the pleasing, early morning scents of fresh coffee. In the oak-panelled hall he found a potted history of The Pheasant. Apparently D. H. Lawrence had occasionally called here while he was living in Derbyshire and writing some of his short stories, and Michael instantly wondered if he could set up a holiday study tour for postgraduate students who would probably like the idea of a pub crawl tracing the paths of writers and poets. He sat down in a window seat to write this down in the notebook without which he never travelled and whose pages were somewhat imperfectly contained by a thick rubber band. He put Esmond’s music on the seat beside him so it would not become mixed up with the pages, and wrote down a few preliminary ideas for the holiday tour, adding some details of The Pheasant’s background which might come in useful. In addition to D.H. Lawrence’s habit of nipping in for a couple of drinks, the pub’s genealogy appeared to include hosting a local murder trial, the giving of shelter to a highwayman fleeing the Bow Street Runners, and the existence of a first-floor room occasionally rented by a lady known as Threepenny Meg who had been prodigious with her favours to the gentlemen of the 95th Derbyshire regiment when they returned from the Crimean War.
He was just closing the notebook when Nell returned to report that Beth was safely ensconced with Mrs Poulson, and would probably end up covered in flour and jam from head to foot and it was anybody’s guess what the resultant Bakewell tart would taste like.
‘Oh, and Sergeant Howe rang to say it’d be easier if he went out to check on Stilter House after lunch because somebody set fire to a hayrick somewhere and he has to lock the culprit up. I said after lunch would be fine, because you were here and we were going out to the house together,’ said Nell. ‘What have you been up to?’
Michael explained his idea for a literary pub-crawl for postgrads.
‘That’s a good idea.’
‘Yes, except that faculty budgets being what they are, I’d probably start out aiming for Lake Geneva with Byron and Shelley, or Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett in Florence—’
‘Making use of all those lyric wine shops and tavernas, of course.’
‘Yes, but then I’d find there’d be only enough funds to get as far as Arnold Bennett in Stoke-on-Trent.’
‘Nothing wrong with Stoke-on-Trent,’ said Nell, practically. ‘All that gorgeous porcelain and china. Wedgwood and Royal Doulton and Minton.’
‘True. And we could certainly do a lot worse than this place for starters,’ said Michael, glancing about him. ‘I’ve been reading about its history.’ He indicated the printed details on the wall. ‘I love the sound of Threepenny Meg, don’t you?’
‘She probably gave half the 95th regiment a severe dose of clap,’ said Nell, reading the framed history and grinning.
‘You’re such a romantic.’
‘One of us has to be. Is that Esmond’s music? I’ll put it in my briefcase so you don’t lose it, shall I?’ As she picked up the music score, the title page fluttered open slightly, and Nell gave a small gasp.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Well, nothing much, except . . . There’s another name written inside the music. There, on the first of the inner pages.’
‘Isobel Acton,’ said Michael, leaning over her shoulder to read it. ‘Do we know who Isobel Acton was?’
‘A lady who poisoned her husband and watched him die while she played Chopin,’ said Nell, rather brusquely. ‘I found an account of it at the house. It’s a bit macabre. She was tried here in The Pheasant, actually, in fact that’s probably the murder trial referred to in that text.’
‘I wonder if this is the music she played while she watched him die,’ said Michael, picking up the
Chopin score to examine it in more detail.
‘You’re making romantic connections again.’ Nell put the music into her briefcase, and closed it with a determined snap. ‘Not to mention stretching the coincidences.’
‘Well, whatever it is, it looks as if Esmond appropriated the music,’ said Michael. ‘And he put his name on it. Or somebody did. Did Brad ever play Chopin?’
‘I can’t remember,’ said Nell. ‘Don’t forget your notebook.’
During the short drive, Michael was annoyed to realize he was feeling apprehensive about going inside Stilter House again. But Nell did not appear particularly worried or, if she was, she was not showing it. She said she would let Michael see the material she had found about Isobel Acton, ‘Mostly written by its builder,’ she said. ‘It sounded as if he’d had a bit of a strict upbringing, and I think Isobel was the local vamp and she intrigued him. He thought her house – the original house on the site – was beautiful and hoped he could emulate it.’
‘I wouldn’t call Stilter beautiful, precisely,’ said Michael, as they went down Gorsty Lane, and the house came into frowning view. ‘At least, not from what I saw of it last night, although I’d have to admit it wouldn’t look its best in that rain. But I should think it’s a good example of Edwardian design. What happened to Isobel’s house?’
‘No idea. It looked as if there were remnants of it in the grounds, though,’ said Nell, and Michael was just wondering whether to tell her what had happened in the outbuildings which presumably were the remnants, when they reached the house and the moment passed.
And after all there was nothing so very sinister. This was merely an old house, with parts of its facade slightly crumbling and one chimney a bit lopsided. Even the gardens no longer looked as if ghosts might prowl their grey-green depths: they were simply a tanglewood mass of rose bay willow and thrusting weeds, and if anything lurked there it would be rabbits and grass snakes rather than wraiths abandoning their ivy-mantled tower for a night’s revelry among the humans.
The ivy-mantled tower was still there, of course, but in the morning sunlight it was only a ramshackle straggle of dilapidated outbuildings, each one looking as if it was propping its neighbour up. Still, he could make out the gaping hole where he had smashed the door from its hinges to get out, which proved he had not imagined the entire episode. He would mention the unhinged door to Nell at some suitable moment, in case they needed to arrange a repair.
Nell stood for a moment in the hall, and Michael waited, unable to gauge her feelings. But she only said, ‘I’ll head upstairs to see how accessible the attics are. I didn’t really explore them yesterday and I’d better check them properly.’
‘I’ll have a look round while you do that,’ said Michael. ‘Everywhere’s perfectly ordinary by daylight, isn’t it? How remarkable.’
Nell went up the stairs, armed with a torch, and Michael went towards the music room. A film of dust covered the piano and there were one or two framed photographs on the high, narrow mantelpiece – posed, black-and-white shots, the hairstyles and clothes mostly from the 1930s and 1940s.
He was just wondering whether to replace Esmond’s music on the stand or to leave it on the shelf by the fireplace, when he saw that the tapestry seat of the piano stool was hinged. To store music? If so, the Chopin score, brittle and fragile as it was, would be better in there. He put it on the piano’s surface, and lifted the lid of the stool. It had the stiffness of long disuse, but it came up fairly easily, displacing quantities of dust, but revealing a thick stack of more music scores. They looked quite old, and Michael, momentarily interested, lifted out the top pieces.
They all seemed to be piano scores, dog-eared and brittle, and he was about to replace them when he realized that interleaved with them was a letter in a familiar hand. Emily, he thought, with a kind of affectionate exasperation, and took the letter over to the window seat to read.
It was dated five years earlier, and Michael thought the address was the Aberdeen one that had been on the letter sent to Nell’s shop.
Dear Charlotte,
Here, as promised, is the musical score, which you always call Esmond’s music. It was good of you to let me borrow it – I know you treasure everything linked to him. I’m sending it back by registered post as you’ll see, because it’s quite fragile and whatever we all believe or don’t believe about Esmond, the music is still a little piece of family history.
I’ve had it examined by a very helpful young man who knows about these things – he has a most charming shop in the village and is thought quite an expert, in fact he sold me some delightful glassware at Christmas, and he was as upset as I was when it turned out not to be actual Limoges. But it looks very nice in the glass cabinet, and of course he was unable to refund the money on account of my having bought it in the previous financial year, or something like that.
He says the score isn’t worth so very much, although if the signature of Isobel Acton is genuine – and can be proved – there might be some curiosity value to be got from that, what with the murder trial. If she had been convicted and hanged, the signature might be worth considerably more, he says, what with people today being just as ghoulish as the crowds that stood outside Newgate to see a hanging, or the French harridans who took their knitting to guillotining sessions.
But – and here’s the real reason I’m writing – tucked inside the music, right at the back, were some papers written by Ralph West – Great-uncle Ralph that would be, I think, or perhaps one more great, or maybe even not an actual uncle, but still . . .
I don’t know if you ever saw these, but they make interesting reading, and all I can say is I hope none of our parents ever read them, because they raise a very worrying possibility. Still, they say there are one or two skeletons in all families’ closets.
I’ve made copies of Ralph’s papers in case the originals are lost or damaged, but do take care of them, won’t you? It’s dangerously easy to throw out old papers thinking they’re worthless, and before you know it a whole section of local history has vanished beyond recall. Imagine if the Paston family had never sent all those letters, we’d have lost such a valuable bit of the past. Our book club read the Paston Letters as a project last year. I found some of them a bit boring (I didn’t tell anyone in the book club that), but I did enjoy the way the Pastons used to sandwich enquiries as to each other’s health and grumbles about who was entitled to inherit lands, in between comments on the progress of the Wars of the Roses. And think of Pepys’ diaries telling about his work at the Admiralty and Charles II’s court, but also how he chased his wife round the bedroom, and how they buried the cheeses and saucepans in the garden during the Fire of London and he took Mr Holliards’ pills for his constipation. So I keep all old papers and letters, just in case.
Thank you for your enquiry about my indigestion. It’s a little better. I’m taking a preparation of peppermint and rhubarb. Charles Darwin apparently underwent hydrotherapy for the same thing, but I shouldn’t think one would be able to find a practitioner of hydrotherapy these days, should you? Apparently in New Zealand there’s something called Manuka Honey which is supposed to be very good for dyspepsia, but I haven’t been able to track any down, and New Zealand is such a very long way to travel for honey, although a beautiful country, I believe, and the people most interesting.
Look after yourself, my dear, and let me know when you feel able to travel up to bonnie Scotland to stay with me. I would make you very welcome.
Fondest love,
Emily.
Oh, Emily, thought Michael, I simply must meet you one of these days.
He considered the letter’s main contents. If the unknown Ralph’s papers were not in the music stool, he would feel like tearing down the whole of Stilter House to find them. Failing that, he would wait for Emily to emerge from her health farm and try to get a sight of the photocopies. First, though, he went up to the bedroom floor and found a flight of narrow stairs which clearly led to the attics.
‘Nell? How are you getting on? Is there enough light?’
‘Yes, but I don’t think there’s much here.’
‘No undiscovered Turners?’
‘Not even a first-folio Shakespeare manuscript.’
‘Shall I come up to give you a hand?’
‘No, the roof pitch is so steep there isn’t much room for one, let alone two. I won’t be long, then you could help put the notes together. Oh, and I’ve got to throw my stuff and Beth’s into the cases. It won’t take long – we only brought the basics.’
‘All right. Shall I make some coffee and bring you some?’
‘The stove’s a bit Heath Robinson,’ said Nell. ‘It took me ages to fathom it. Wait till I come down.’
Michael assented, and went back to the music room to search for Ralph.
To begin with he thought he was not going to find anything. He went carefully through all the music in the tapestry stool, then without much optimism checked the shelves. The books were a dry, dusty collection, and the music mostly duplications of what was stored in the stool.
But he did find it. Sandwiched between a book of sermons written by a local vicar in 1935, and a dry-looking history of the Great War, was a sheaf of handwritten pages, all fairly good-quality notepaper which bore the printed heading, Ralph West, Importers of Fine China and Porcelain, and a Derby address. Most of the sheets were curling at the corners, but the writing was perfectly readable.
There was no heading, although 1900 was written in the top right-hand corner. But clearly these were the papers Emily had written about.
Michael took the pages to the window seat, sat down and began to read.
FOURTEEN
1900
Being of a methodical nature it seems sensible to keep an account of the details relating to the building of my new house. So I shall record all developments and preserve all documents relating to its construction – from the initial architect’s plans to the estimates and invoices from builders and workmen. I shall also include the documentation from the Gas and Coke Company, which is becoming extensive since the gas supply is, to put it kindly, erratic. I have had to remonstrate with the company several times and have insisted on their workmen returning to address several problems. To be plunged into sudden darkness without warning midway through an evening because the gas supply has developed what they are pleased to call a hiccough, is not what I am accustomed to, nor prepared to tolerate. If I could electrify Stilter House I would, but I am told it would mean electrifying the whole of Caudle Moor and several adjoining villages, thus making the cost prohibitive.