by Susan Hill
She turned quickly, seeming anxious to be out of my presence, so that I thought it best not to try and question her further.
I poured myself a full glass of the dark sweet sherry, and drank it off at once, and took another, for my nerves were not yet steady, I had not at all recovered from the shock of finding myself alone with the dead body of Miss Monmouth.
Outside, the rain was still heavy, and the thunder prowling low about the house.
I sat in the straight-backed chair, my glass close to hand, and took up the letter.
It was written in ink, in a shaky, old-fashioned but clearly legible hand. The paper itself was headed in the same form as the envelope.
To my sole surviving relative, James Monmouth,
Kittiscar is yours. I am sorry for you. There has been no trouble for me, being a woman. You are not known to me. I had never been told.
There is no fortune, they left us nothing save the house, which came back into the family at last. It is as I found it. You must order things as you will for I am weary of it.
I have left instructions for my burial at Rook’s Crag. Not here. I could not rest here.
E. Monmouth
There is little of interest to tell about the events of the following two days. From the woman, I learned that tentative arrangements for the funeral had been made – it was to take place in the nearest market town, followed by burial there – and I confirmed them hastily, not wishing to interfere at all, or put forward any alternative plans of my own.
I returned to the Inn at Raw Mucklerby that afternoon. There seemed nothing for me to do and I felt curiously flat and dispirited. I had inherited Kittiscar, my family home. I had some dim childhood memories of visiting it, and of being in the village and the countryside around, presumably with whoever the old woman was who had looked after me. No one seemed to remember or be interested in me, I had no information at all about my parents or the rest of my family, and knew nothing of what had happened to them, and suddenly, lying listlessly on my bed at the Inn, I felt as though I had been excitedly following some path, with great difficulty, led on, led on – only to arrive at a dead end, a blank wall. Nothing.
Is this all? I asked. Apparently it was.
It seemed likely that everything that had happened to me, the odd, frightening incidents, things seen and heard, had been products either of coincidence, which had nothing to do with me, but which I had simply hit upon by purest chance, or else of an over-fevered and disturbed imagination, a heightened sensibility caused by illness and the strain and strangeness of arriving in another country, at the end of the old familiar life and the abrupt beginning of a new.
I was disappointed and yet perhaps also in some ways relieved. Things had an ordinary explanation – or none; my past was without mystery, my future set to be dull and uneventful. So be it.
Miss Monmouth’s funeral was a plain affair, in a neat, well-kept little church. A few more people than I had anticipated were gathered there, and I noticed that in the church I was avoided, and left to sit alone at the front, and at the graveside, too, I was apart, and the object of covert glances. But that was scarcely surprising – I was an interesting stranger in a close-knit, somewhat isolated community, being treated with wary courtesy and respect as the chief mourner and only living relative of the deceased.
But I exchanged some friendly words with the officiating clergyman, an old retired Canon, who had, he said, visited my relative occasionally in the past few years.
‘And now,’ I said, ‘I hope, you will visit me.’ The others had left the churchyard and we were standing alone together beside the lych gate. He frowned, as if he had not understood.
‘I am Miss Monmouth’s heir – the only member of the family left, or so I suppose. I have inherited Kittiscar.’
‘But I take it you will not be living there. You are come from abroad, and I …’
‘Yes, but my days of travelling and living in foreign countries are over. I came back to England determined to settle, long before I knew of Kittiscar or my connections with it. I had felt something, memories and recollections, were drawing me back home and, now, home is to be Kittiscar. I shall return to London to clear my belongings, and some few business matters there, but then I shall return and take over Kittiscar Hall.’
In truth, I had not known that this was indeed my plan, had made no decision, until I heard myself speak then. But I was convinced at that moment that it would be so, and was indeed what I most wanted.
The man was looking distraught, his mouth working, his eyes not meeting mine, as if he were desperately trying to nerve himself to speak, and torn between the desire to do so and the anxiety he clearly felt about the matter.
‘There is something wrong?’ I asked.
‘I … no, no. That is …’
‘Come.’
‘Then – oh, think hard, Mr Monmouth, think it over most carefully, I urge you. It is a lonely life here – and alien to you – Kittiscar is – not perhaps the place for a man in the prime of active life, on his own, knowing no one … surely London and other interests will call you, stimulate you more …’ He burbled on, his fingers plucking at the edge of his surplice, which blew about him in the wind. I shivered and turned up my coat collar.
‘No,’ I said boldly, beginning to make my way out of the gate, ‘London holds no interest at all for me. I am not a city man. I have come home, and here I shall stay.’ I proffered my hand. My own grip was firm. His was not, his hand was trembling and uncertain in mine. I looked at him and saw kindness in his old eyes, kindness and deep concern for me. And fear.
But he said nothing, only walked with me to the roadside, and watched me leave, before returning to the church.
At the corner, I glanced back. The wind was blowing bitterly cold off the moors, and rippling through the branches of the yews in the graveyard. Underneath them, and looking away from me, towards the freshly mounded earth of my relative’s grave, stood the boy, ragged, pale, thin, and quite as clear, real, visible to me as he had always been.
I averted my head before he could turn and look at me, and quickened my step away from the place.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I supposed that the mourners at the funeral had simply dispersed back to their own homes. If there was any gathering, to eat and drink and reminisce, I had not been invited to it.
I returned to the Inn, ate some cold meat and bread for lunch, among the local men, read a paper, wrote a few letters, including one describing everything in detail and relieving myself of many of my pent-up feelings, to the Quincebridges. Indeed, I thought altogether longingly of Pyre and their company and my time there, and even of my rooms at Number Seven, Prickett’s Green. Here, I felt lonely and strange and, if I regretted what I had said to the parson about taking over my inheritance at Kittiscar Hall, it was not because his palpable anxiety had influenced me, and certainly not because of the reappearance of the boy, but simply because of the depressed sense of anti-climax that continued with me now.
In the end, shortly after three that afternoon, I decided to go up again to Kittiscar, to look over the Hall, and begin to familiarise myself with it, make plans and see if I could even begin to feel at home there.
The wind was blowing in my face, making the climb over the moor a hard one, but the views from the summit were glorious in the afternoon sun, and I felt so exhilarated by the great openness of this northern countryside that I had begun to love, that my spirits lifted as I went, hearing the plaintive bleating of the sheep and the birds’ cries all around me.
I had a list of questions forming in my head as I walked. Principally, I wondered whether any land went along with the Hall, or if I might possibly buy some to call my own, to have some sheep and rough cover for shooting, and a stream in which to fish. I saw the house transformed gradually into a comfortable gentleman’s home, not grand (and, in any case, I had no money for grandeur) but welcoming, with my books and a good dog, and the garden brought back to itself, a place to which
I could welcome visitors. Perhaps somewhere at the back of my mind was even the thought that one day Kittiscar would be a home to which I might bring a wife, so that it would be truly alive with family happiness and the sound of children.
Such warm sentiments did not seem to me in the least foolish, so inspired and invigorated was I by my walk over the moor and the thought of my inheritance.
The village street was as silent and deserted as before, almost as if it had been abandoned and left to crumble, for all the smoke rising thinly here and there from cottage chimneys. But I refused to let the eerie quietness and emptiness dampen my spirits now, and I intended to walk up a few paths and knock on some doors, in the weeks to come.
Making my way slowly through the silent, neglected gardens at the Hall, I realised that I was already beginning to feel quite differently towards the place, felt mounting excitement, saw possibilities in every corner, and longed for it to be restored to life again. Standing in front of the lead statue of the boy, which seemed so friendly and familiar to me, I pledged rather fervently that I would work, give my whole life, to make Kittiscar a place of happiness and prosperity once again, no matter what the cost. There was no fortune, my relative said in her letter. But somehow, I determined, money should be found, I would work, things would be done. Above all, I needed to enthuse those around me, bring people up here, enlist their help in making Kittiscar the centre of a thriving village again.
I had wondered if the house might be empty, but the woman let me in almost as soon as my hand touched the bell, though she stared at me blankly and, for a few seconds, did not step back to let me into the hall. I said, ‘I am sorry it is a little late, but I have come again simply to go around the Hall, not to change or disturb anything just now, of course,’ I added, seeing her guarded, faintly hostile expression, ‘out of respect for my relative.’
‘You will not find anything of interest. It is an old neglected place, and Miss Monmouth had been very ill for some time. She confined herself to one part of the house.’
‘Yes. Nevertheless, I should like to see and begin to form plans.’
‘As you wish. Of course, it is yours to take away what you choose.’
‘Oh, I do not imagine I shall take anything away, not for a good while at least. I shall leave all the furnishings and so forth as they are until I have a feel of the place, and I have little of my own to bring. As I think you know, I came from years spent abroad, and had no home. My possessions are very few.’
She continued to stare at me but now a look of almost horror crossed her features when she spoke, her voice a whisper.
‘You surely are not planning to live here at Kittiscar?’
‘Why certainly I am! I have no other home. I am the heir to the house, am I not?’
‘But you cannot – surely you will not.’
‘Why do you say so?’
‘Because … because you are a Monmouth and a man.’
A sentence from my relative’s letter came to my mind. ‘I am sorry for you. There has been no trouble for me, being a woman.’ I felt a clutching sensation in the pit of my stomach. Whatever was wrong, whatever I had been warned about in the past and again now, had to do with Kittiscar Hall and the Monmouth family in reference to its male line. For a moment, I wanted to have it out with her there and then, to hear the full truth. But I did not ask. I dismissed it. It was some story, an old tale such as often attached itself to an old house. Some nonsense.
I went into every room at Kittiscar Hall that day. The sun was shining into those at the back of the house and, when I opened the shutters and pulled all the heavy, dingy curtains to one side, light flooded in. The furniture was dark and in many cases ugly carved oak, but although it was dusty and the whole place wore the same threadbare, neglected air, I felt heartened that the decay was not by any means far gone and sure that I could live in the place more or less as it was, once it had been given an airing. I pushed hard on the windows, but only one or two would open. Still, it let in some measure of fresh air and late sunshine here and there.
My relative had had precious few personal belongings; her clothes and linen were in the bedroom in which I had seen her body, together with a few trinkets and books. Otherwise she had left no trace of herself; it was almost as though she had lived as a caretaker of the place and made no impress of herself upon it.
I went everywhere, from attics to damp, unlit cellar, and down every passage and into every nook and cranny, and I felt nothing in the slightest degree fearful or dreadful there; I saw no ghosts, heard no strange sounds. It was merely dismal and gloomy, dark and curiously lifeless. My sense of familiarity with it had been dimmed. I had no further, clearer memories and could only suppose that my childhood visits had been fleeting and very early. Certainly, I was sure now that I had never lived here. But my sense of the terrible woman in her room at the end of the passage was vivid still, and when I passed there I shrank back involuntarily, and felt the strong presence of someone beside me whose hand I clutched and in whose skirts I had hidden.
At last, I returned to the attic, wanting to look over to the open moor again, and wondering if I might make these my own quarters, at least for the beginning of my life here. I could furnish these empty rooms with a few of my own simple things, and there was a brightness and airiness up here that was absent from the rest of the Hall.
It was as I gazed through the grimy casement at the rooks swirling about in the tree tops and the rising purple line of the moor ahead, that, glancing to my left, I saw the grey stone walls of the building I had glimpsed down the path between trees on my first visit here, and now I saw that the roof went to a point, at the top of which was an old bell, and realised that I was looking onto the chapel belonging to the Hall, to which the men at the Inn had referred.
The woman was nowhere to be seen, and the house was quite silent, as I ran down through it and out at a side door I had discovered earlier led to a small inner courtyard, and thence through a wooden gate in the wall, directly to the overgrown grassy paths and shrubs at the back of the Hall. From here, I found my way, at times up to my knees in undergrowth and briars, to the path under the trees, and followed it, with a mingled feeling of curiosity and apprehension.
The sun had just set and the sky was darkening. To the east, I saw heavy clouds banking up.
Once, I looked back. I could see the side of the Hall and its boundary wall, and one chimney, but there were no windows and I could not have been seen.
From somewhere, a blackbird pinked a sudden, angry warning, before fluttering low through the undergrowth. The rooks were cawing around the tops of the elms as they circled, settling down to roost. But the wind had dropped, and the air was quite still and even close along this narrow, overgrown path, through the overhanging trees.
Then, I came out into a small clearing, and the chapel was immediately in front of me, dark, still, and silent, grim in the last of the light. An iron grille stood in front of the low door, which I half expected to find padlocked, but as I touched it, it gave way at once, swinging open with a grating sound on its rusty hinges.
I hesitated before the wooden door, feeling suddenly cold and as though a shadow had fallen over me, and someone unseen but hostile was standing just a few feet away on my left side.
But I steeled myself, summoning up every ounce of resolution I possessed, for I knew that I was surely only responding to some melancholy mood of the time of day and the fading light, and the loneliness of my situation in this weird spot. At last, taking a deep breath and muttering an impulsive prayer for protection, I put my hand to the iron ring that served as a handle to the chapel door. It turned easily. I hesitated, before boldly pushing open the wooden door.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was the smell that struck me first, a sour, penetrating smell of cold damp stone and earth; there might have been no air let into the building for a hundred years.
Two shallow steps led down into the body of the chapel, which was small and rectangular, wi
th high, narrow windows in plain glass, and a bare stone altar at the far end.
I stepped down warily, and almost fell, as the flagstones shifted and tipped unevenly. The floor was cracked and sinking, and here and there great cracks ran, and bare earth showed through. The walls were stained with damp and mould, the pews unsteady so that as I reached out to the nearest one it rocked slightly. A small pile of prayer books and hymnals was mildewed over and, in front of the altar, the remains of a cloth had almost rotted away. But, on the wall, a lion and unicorn board stood out, the painted colours darkened but the form and gilding still clear.
It was a drear little place, stifling and airless, speaking only of ruin and decay. I walked slowly down the aisle, noticing that the floorboards beneath the pew benches were rotten and blackened, the stone ledges crumbling away, and that there was a rubble of old twigs and grasses on part of the floor, where a bird’s nest had fallen through a hole in the roof.
At the far end, I noticed a low archway in the stone and went cautiously over to it, before I realised that steps led down into darkness, and recoiled, for the stench rising from below was foul, of decay and death as well as of the cold and neglect of years.
Then, I saw that the stones at my feet at this end of the chapel were engraved.
Here lies Joshua Monmouth
Born 1583 Died 1613
Here lyeth Digby Monmouth and his sons
Here lies … Here lies … Here lies …
I traced out every name. My ancestors were at my feet, how many of them I could not tell, for many of the stones were too broken and worn away to decipher.
Then I came to a last stone, close to the steps, and bending down, for it was growing darker now, traced with my finger the outline of the words.