Unhallowed Ground

by Gillian White

  So on that first night at Furze Pen Cottage, pouring her baked beans over her toast, Georgina Jefferson shivered. She had escaped from all that eventually, but not quite soon enough. She wished she’d had Stephen’s determination.

  She decided to drag the mattress downstairs and sleep beside the fire tonight, next to Lola. She needed warmth. She needed light. But the most disconcerting thing was the silence.

  Georgina desperately needed sound.

  SIX

  PLEASE BE PATIENT. WE must proceed slowly and with caution because of Georgie’s frail state of mind.

  So, she was housebound. It was no longer a matter of strolling up the street to collect the dreaded papers, far from it. She looked upon a snowy world spangled with winter sunshine and saw the pint of milk on her step, as promised. And that slim white bottle was the one firm thing which gave her a sense of contact with this new and extraordinary world.

  Melting snow dripped off the thatchy overhangs. The tall tufts of grass in the garden turned asparagus green at the tips. Birds flashed from branch to branch between statuesque apple trees, and she prayed that the thaw would continue so she could get out tomorrow.

  Her radio was a life-saver. Plugging it in and turning it on made Sunday familiar again. She fixed some breakfast on the mean, cream cooker in the starkest kitchen imaginable and opened the stable door to let Lola out. Slowly. Slowly. To fill out the time. To adjust to this new pace of life.

  Apart from electricity the cottage’s one concession to the twentieth century was the tiny shower in the whitewashed bathroom, an outhouse stuck to the side of the kitchen. You squeezed yourself small to get inside, but merely to see it in this freezing weather raised goose pimples everywhere. The frosted window, an odd gesture to modesty here, was fortified by rusty iron bars. It looked as if it hadn’t been used for the last fifty years, and so did the stained lavatory, and Georgie gave a gasping shriek when a splosh of water fell on her head straight after she tried the chain.

  She banked up the fire, which was smouldering nicely. If Stephen’s liver had rotted away where were the empty medicine bottles? Someone had cleaned up the cottage, whoever it was had removed them, too.

  The solicitor’s letter had been brief and to the point, and the telephone call she made to the firm had not thrown much light on the subject. It seemed to be a matter of coming to see for herself, and ‘we will be here should you require assistance’. But the letter included the phrase ‘house and contents’, so presumably there were contents once worthy of the name.

  ‘How did you trace me?’ she’d asked Tom Selby.

  ‘From his birth certificate, Mrs Jefferson. That’s all the information we had.’

  ‘It was lucky my parents lived at the same address for so long.’

  ‘Yes, that was helpful. And so was the fact that the present occupants knew where you worked. We traced your present address from that.’

  ‘My mother only died four years ago and that’s when the house was sold. I met the people who bought it, I suppose I must have mentioned my work during the brief conversations we had.’

  ‘Mr Southwell was a sick man for many years.’

  For a second Georgie was thrown, believing he referred to her father. Flustered she replied, ‘We didn’t know him, Mr Selby. He cut himself off from his family years ago. Nobody knew where he went. There was no communication between us.’

  ‘Ah. An obstinate man. I believe he refused all advice in the end and refused to go to hospital. In fact, he declined any help he was offered.’

  So he had died at home. Where? Something made her ask, ‘Who found him?’

  ‘There was an inquest, of course.’ She heard Tom Selby rustling his papers to find the answer to her question. ‘A neighbour,’ he eventually replied. And then he read in his dusty old voice, and Georgie imagined his thin-rimmed spectacles, ‘A Mr Horsefield of Wooton House. It gives no more information than that. He was found soon after his death, Mrs Jefferson, you need not worry on that account, he was not left mouldering for days.’

  And did she sense a tiny barb of accusation? Or was that her guilty conscience speaking? Because her only living relative had been so needy and she hadn’t known, hadn’t bothered to find out? But any guilt Georgie felt was soon replaced by anger, anger at time, at life, at the world, but above all anger towards Stephen, who had gone and died without giving her time to get in touch, or the chance to be near him in his hour of need.

  And what was worse, she might have been able to love him.

  She gazed around while she ate her breakfast, sitting erect at the gateleg table with a pile of damp magazines piled haphazardly before her. All the magazines—she’d taken a look last night—had a passed-on look and the name Horsefield was scribbled on the corner of each: Horse and Hound, The Devonian, The Country Landowner, an impersonal mixture of taste that managed to give nothing away. So Stephen had died somewhere in here, maybe in this very room, not three months since. She could only assume that Mr Horsefield of Wooton House must live in the most imposing of the four Wooton-Coney dwellings, the house with the newly pointed walls and the fresh thatch she had noticed last night opposite the farm.

  Could it be this Mr Horsefield who removed most of Stephen’s belongings? Could he have been a friend of Stephen’s, a fellow boozer, a regular caller? There was some sense of community, then, here in this peculiar valley, in spite of her frosty reception at the farm last night. Silly, but she had half expected a visit from someone because, hell, apart from the smoke from the chimney, her car parked outside on the road, all sorts of pointers would make it clear the cottage was occupied again.

  And how could anyone live in this tiny insular hamlet and not be aware that a stranger had arrived?

  The morning slowly meandered by, and she, who had grown to loathe the phone, wished there was one in this house. She smiled wryly when she realized she was already talking to herself; it was more of a little hum she supposed, just to relieve the silence. She took Lola for a short walk, but turned back, puffing and out of breath, unable to cope with the slippery hills. She must be well out of condition. She’d done far too much sitting around and moping miserably of late. There was no point in drying the dog, there were no carpets to be ruined, no piece of furniture she could jump on and make damper than it already was. So, blowing hard on cold fingers, Georgie shut Lola inside and firmly resolved, despite some qualms, she set off down the road to call on Stephen’s friend, on the man who had found his body, on the man who could be the last person on earth to have seen her brother alive.

  The sunlight glittered on crests of snow as she tramped determinedly up the path. A miniature bridge had been built over this section of the stream that dissected the house from the road, so much more sensible in light of the struggle she’d faced on arrival at Stephen’s cottage.

  She pressed the bell, half expecting to hear nothing, suspecting she would be forced to raise the fox-head knocker, when she heard an encouraging soft burr echoing through the house. She composed her face and waited.

  The door was opened softly by a long, straggling, powerful man with the face of an undertaker, gaunt and pallid. Well over six foot six, he stared at her morosely, and his eyes, sunk deep in his head, were almost obscured by his low-hanging eyebrows. The original Mr Munster. His thick tweed jacket was stained and his voice was deep and sepulchral.

  ‘Yes?’

  But before Georgie could answer, the tall, burdened man was pushed aside by a quick-moving, spinning creature aged around sixty and dressed in trainers and a tracksuit which bagged badly at the knee. There was a fiery light in her eyes. ‘We thought it was being sold on. We thought you would sell it, didn’t we, Horace?’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Horsefield?’ asked Georgie nervously, not knowing which to address.

  ‘We kept an eye on him, you see. He knew he could count on us, did Stephen. Didn’t he, Horace?’

  Horace looked down on his coiled-up wife fondly. While she talked she plucked at herself and no part of
her very rouged face was still. Was this St Vitus’s dance? She seemed to be wearing a hairnet, her grey hair was so flat to her head, but that was the way she wore it, so cropped, so short it seemed it was netted. But her features were free and made the most of it, wrinkling, twisting and contorting as she went on.

  ‘Yes, yes, we used to pop in. I made you call on him, didn’t I, Horace? Well, it wouldn’t have been fitting for me to go, what with the way he was and that, and nearing the end it was three times a day. Sometimes four or five. Oh yes, and I sent little treats, even when he sent them back saying he didn’t want them. Not a friendly man, your brother, Miss, no, a troubled soul, I would say…’

  The inside of this house wreaked of Glade air freshener. It reminded Georgie of her childhood home after Daddy died. Those mornings Mummy spent cleaning the silver, brightening the medals and trophies, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. If she rubbed hard enough, sprayed hard enough, they might go away.

  ‘I am his sister.’

  ‘We guessed as much, didn’t we, Horace, when we saw your car and you called at the farm. But Selby, the solicitor, said he thought the place would be sold. Nobody much interested in keeping it, he said. We never expected anyone to come looking, we never expected anything like this, did we, Horace?’

  These were not farming folks, or locals, that much was clear. Nor were they the kind of people you’d expect to find in a Dartmoor valley. For all his staggering size—his slippered foot would do justice to a carthorse—Horace Horsefield was a mild sort of man, his wife had only to push him aside and he moved without a trace of annoyance. He merely suggested, ‘We ought to invite the young lady in, Nancy,’ which caused his wife to pause, straighten up on a sharp intake of breath and mutter, ‘Of course, of course, what am I about? Oh dear, you can see how unused we are to having visitors living down here. Come down in the world, and you’d never know now that we always lived such an active and sociable life,’ and she rushed off, soon out of sight. It was left to Horace to stand aside, Georgie followed him in and he closed the door behind her.

  Nancy Horsefield knelt by the fire, a pair of bellows in her hand. She twitched now and then like a wounded sea bird, glancing over her shoulder lest she miss the slightest movement. ‘No, no, Horace, not there, move those magazines, she must sit in the chair by the fire. It’ll blaze in a minute. It’s this wood, it’s too wet, not nicely seasoned as I like it.’ And then Nancy Horsefield stood up. Extra daubs of vivid colour had been applied to her powdered face, a clumsy smear of lipstick, some of it stuck to the sand-coloured cardigan over her navy tracksuit. She brushed her knees, wiped her hands on her trousers and Horace said, ‘Would she like a cup of tea, perhaps?’

  ‘Would you, dear? Would you like a cup of tea?’ Her eyes glittered brightly in her tiny head. Already bent and ready for the off, ready for the race to the kitchen, her overlarge trainers, that made her feet look huge, were tied with bright-red laces.

  At once Georgie agreed to the tea because Nancy was so keen to make it.

  Horace eyed the departing back with sad, half-closed eyes. He lowered himself into a sofa-sized leather chair opposite Georgie’s. She felt lost in hers. Her hand looked very small on the arm. He made his excuses. ‘She likes to keep herself busy. She always has, keeps the place like a new pin. My wife has so much nervous energy.’ But his tone was a pained one. And with Nancy gone from the room the atmosphere became peaceful, as if a machine had been turned off.

  Every single thing in the house was neat, tidy, pleasant, but not the kind of furniture one might expect in a rambling old house. An Indian carpet covered the floor and an Indian tablecloth overhung the small upright piano. Apart from this the room had the modern bungalow touch, or that of a house on a new estate. As if he could read Georgie’s thoughts, Horace said, ‘Nancy can’t abide old things. She likes everything new. She does her buying from catalogues, you see, she’ll spend hours over a catalogue.’

  Georgie had expected an old country family, retired, perhaps, children gone, country folks who decided to spend their retirement tucked away in glorious seclusion, or city people retired down here, walkers, bird watchers, shooters and fishers. Apart from that contradiction, the couple did not fit together at all, for while he could be a retired bank manager, or even a vicar, or a doctor, then Nancy would be his housekeeper.

  Or was that the effect of the drifting cardigan, hung behind her like a broken wing? Or maybe the missing hairnet?

  But at least this reception was more welcoming than the one she’d been given at the farm last night.

  ‘You were lucky to make it at all,’ said Horace darkly, ‘given the conditions yesterday.’

  ‘It wasn’t easy.’ And Georgie added, ‘But I was determined. And by the time I met the snow it was too late to turn back.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course.’ Horace, regarding her gravely, appeared to understand.

  ‘I was surprised to find the cottage so empty apart from a few basic essentials.’

  ‘Stephen never was a man to attach great importance to personal possessions. He never ate properly, either. Always thin as a rake.’

  ‘I realize that, but even so, there is an aerial beside the chimney but no TV set, and I could have done with a television last night.’

  The Horsefields’ own TV was enormous, one of those you see in shops, almost the size of a cine screen. It stood on an imposing stand with a video recorder beneath it, obviously state of the art.

  Horace sighed and turned his long sad face to the fire. ‘That’ll be Cramer, then. If anything’s missing, that’ll be Cramer.’

  ‘Cramer?’

  Horace inclined his head and grimaced up the road. ‘Further along, lives with his girlfriend, Donna. Not much better than a pigsty. That’s where you’ll find Cramer.’

  ‘And you think this person, Cramer, came and removed Stephen’s things?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t actually see him, you understand. But then Cramer doesn’t make a fuss, he’d have gone early in the morning. If it was him,’ he added dourly, and Horace Horsefield’s eyes sank even further into his head.

  Now Georgie was totally confused. From the kitchen across the hall they could hear cups rattling, plates being stacked and dropped. And was that an egg being beaten? ‘Did Stephen, did my brother tell this man, Cramer, that he could take his things?’

  Horace rasped his large hands uneasily. ‘We all thought it would be sold on. That’s what everyone thought. Even old Tom Selby. So Cramer must have believed he could get away with it. If you want them back you’ll have to tell him.’

  ‘I certainly will.’ One small problem solved. But Georgie wanted more from Horace Horsefield, she wanted to know more of Stephen. She was keen to explain the reason for her presence. ‘I wasn’t sure whether to come to Wooton-Coney or not. I made the decision on the spur of the moment. I never knew my brother you see, Mr Horsefield. He cut himself off from his family many years ago, and when I was growing up I wasn’t even aware of his existence.’

  ‘Well, that’s what we all thought. We didn’t think there was any family.’

  ‘Did you know Stephen well?’ She had the feeling she needed to hurry. She wanted to dispense with any sensible questions before the excited Nancy came back. ‘You see, part of my reason for coming here was to find out more about him.’

  ‘He was a very sick man at the end. Very sick. But he wouldn’t let anyone help him.’

  ‘But you went in. You gave him your old magazines.’

  ‘He never wanted to see me. And even the magazines, they were Nancy’s idea. Stephen would have been happier left to himself. He never encouraged people. He preferred animals and children.’

  ‘He was an artist, I understand?’

  ‘Cramer must have the paintings,’ said Horace, crossing his long legs dispiritedly. ‘You ought to ask for those back. He was a good painter, no-one can take that away from him.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I intend to ask for them back,’ said Georgie, straightening up. And then, out of
politeness, she was a stranger here after all and might be boring him with her problems. ‘This is a lovely house. How long have you and Mrs Horsefield lived here?’

  Horace stroked his long grey chin. His eyebrows wound their way over his eyes. ‘We’ve been here twenty years, since Nancy had her breakdown. We didn’t mean to stay to start with, but the place grew on us and now she’s terrified to go out. She won’t go back. I wouldn’t want to go back now, not even if she wanted to.’

  Something about him seemed so lonely. She knew she’d be beside herself stuck with just the few oddballs in the hamlet and Nancy to care for all day. ‘I’ve only met Mrs Buckpit briefly, and you’ve said enough about Cramer, Stephen didn’t seem the sociable type, so don’t you find you miss company in such a small community?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ mused Horace with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘We don’t have visitors. We have no other family, you see, none that we’re in touch with now. But Nancy does tend to get so excitable round people and that’s not good for her condition, so all in all it’s better that we don’t see many.’

  Oh, the poor man. Given up so much for his wife. In her social-worker role Georgie had visited several carers, and had always worried that she, unlike them, would never be able to deny herself, endure such hardship, day after day, night after night, with no respite and little complaint, had she ever loved anyone enough to do that? She hoped she would never be tested.

  ‘Where did you come from?’ She wore her official social-worker face and smile, immediately assuming they were needy. The fire glowed neatly beside her feet, the wood was arranged in neat little piles and the flames licked them obediently. Everything in this house was obedient and neat save for the wallpaper-sample book out on the floor, where someone had been choosing some appropriate pattern. So poor Horace Horsefield had buried himself away twenty years ago to look after his sick wife. Looking round, meeting Nancy, it was obvious she was still sick. Is this what had given him, over the years, this stooped and miserable air?