by Julia London
“Thank God,” Hillary said with a laugh. “Do you know the Whitstone House?”
“Sure I do. Are you staying near there, then?”
“We’re actually at the Whitstone House.”
Stan stopped writing the invoice and looked up. “Do you mean you’ve let it?”
“Actually, my husband inherited it,” Hillary said. “Just like that, out of the blue.” She laughed at Stan’s astonishment. “He didn’t know his mother had it or was even connected to the Whitstones. Talk about a surprise.”
“I can see that it would be.” Stan looked down at his invoice once again. “Been years since anyone’s lived there.”
“Right. Why is that, do you think? Is it too far from Tadcaster?”
“Oh, perhaps. But, you know, they say it’s haunted. That might have something to do with it. People round here can be bloody superstitious.”
Hillary’s gaze locked on the shopkeeper. “Excuse me?”
He looked up. “You haven’t heard it, then? Oh, pay me no mind, miss. They say that about all the old houses round here. This one or that one died, and therefore it’s haunted.” He grinned at her. “I wouldn’t fret too much about it.”
Hillary would have laughed along with him had she not seen that face in the window. “How would I find out about the house? I mean, who lived there before?”
“Now I’ve gone and scared you. I’m sorry for that, it was not my intent. But you can ask the librarian. She keeps a room of local records. Now then—I can have the bed and the two chairs delivered by four o’clock if that suits?”
“Perfectly,” Hillary said. She didn’t believe in ghosts. She wasn’t going to let what he said rattle her in the least. What she’d seen in the window was some sort of weird shadow and light thing—it was not a ghost for heaven’s sake. And the fact that there was even a tiny niggle of doubt in her mind told her that she had watched far too much late night cable TV.
At the library, Hillary met Mrs. Browning, the librarian, who, she quickly realized, also happened to be Matthew’s estate agent. “Not a lot of buying and selling here,” she explained with an infectious laugh. “One needs an occupation outside of it.” She was a cheerful woman who wore a thick, cable-knit sweater in spite of the mild summer temperatures. She wore her gray-streaked hair in a ponytail.
“Ah, the Whitstone House. How did you find it? One of the treasures in this county, isn’t it? The original structure was built in the seventeen hundreds, although it’s been added to over the years.”
“What can you tell me about the previous owners?” Hillary asked.
“Miss Esme Whitstone was the last of them. My mother knew her quite well, actually. Here now, here is the file,” she said, placing a box between them. It was labeled Whitstone. Mrs. Browning put her glasses on her nose and opened the box. “I know there were four siblings, three girls and a boy. The boy married an American, which is how you’ve come to have it,” she explained. “Poor Esme never married and lived out her days in the very house in which she was born.” Mrs. Browning picked up a yellowed newspaper clipping. “Ah, that’s it, I recall now,” she said nodding. “This is Esme’s obituary. Her older sister Aurora married a London boy and lived there until her death.”
“What of the other sister?” Hillary asked.
“Oh dear, that would be Agnes.” Mrs. Browning put the yellowed newsprint aside and sifted through the papers, picking up another one. “This is the late Mr. Riggin’s work. He fancied himself the local historian and wrote little papers about all the old houses and esteemed families round here. Agnes is the one who died so young. Only seventeen years, can you imagine it?”
“She died?” Hillary said. “How?”
“Oh, a nasty fall,” Mrs. Browning said, wrinkling her nose. “Broke her neck. Now, depending on what story you choose to believe, she either jumped to her death when her father wouldn’t allow her to marry her beau, or she fell out a window trying to escape. Either way, a tragedy.” She clucked her tongue. “The note the poor girl left for her parents is in the box. It was in Esme’s things when she passed.”
Hillary gaped at Mrs. Browning. “Agnes died at Whitstone House?”
“Indeed she did,” Mrs. Browning said, nodding enthusiastically.
“What…what happened to the boy?”
“Well now, that’s the worst part of it. When he found that Agnes was gone, he took his own life. Very Romeo and Juliet, isn’t it?”
“Very,” Hillary agreed.
“It’s all in here. You are welcome to check out the file if you’d like for a small surety,” Mrs. Browning offered.
“Thank you. I believe I will,” Hillary said.
***
The bed and chairs were delivered at four o’clock as promised, and with the linens and the small area rug Hillary had purchased, the room at the end of the hall was suddenly very cozy. Hillary’s vision of what the house could be was improving. She could imagine a pair of chairs by the hearth, a nice wardrobe as well. She was beginning to see the potential in the resale value of the house. She was beginning to believe that Matthew was right—that with a couple of weeks of hard work, it would be an outstanding property.
She said as much to Matthew over dinner.
He looked at her with surprise. “Wow. That’s a sudden change of heart.”
“Maybe,” she said with a sheepish shrug. “But I’ve had a few days since we left New York to decompress and…and I guess I am starting to see what you see.”
“Really?” he said, grinning now. “I think we can do it. I’ve lined up all the labor we need. If you and I tackle the cleaning and painting, I think in a couple of weeks, we might have a gold mine on our hands. So you’re in?” he asked, lifting his wine glass.
“I’m in,” she agreed, and clinked her glass to his. “Hey, I stopped in at the library today and got some history on the house.” She told him about the Whitstones, as well as some other things she had read in the file about the construction of the house. She showed him some grainy pictures, too, of people standing next to Model-T cars in early twentieth century dress. In those pictures, the house looked really very grand. They looked at an old bill of sale for tallow. And they found the note from Agnes Whitstone. Hillary told him what Mrs. Browning had told her about Agnes’ death.
Matthew read the note again. He shifted uncomfortable.
“What is it?” Hillary asked.
“I don’t know. I just had this strange feeling,” he said, shaking his head, and looked at Hillary. “I know what that feels like, that desperation to be with someone.”
Hillary gazed back at him. She felt a something flow between them—something she had felt in years.
“Look at that,” Matthew said, breaking the spell and pointing at the picture. “They had a butler.”
“I want a butler,” Hillary said dreamily.
“You have one,” Matthew said, and kissed the top of her head as he stood to clear the kitchen table of paper plates and the empty pizza box.
That evening, they worked on the kitchen. Matthew took measurements for some new cabinetry while Hillary scrubbed the tiled surfaces of the workspaces. Hillary was, oddly, almost hyper-aware of her husband’s physical presence. Without looking at him, she could feel him moving around the kitchen. She kept looking at him, at his hands, and hips. The breadth of his back. She wanted him. She wanted him to take her right here, in the kitchen. And she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so…randy.
“It’s cooling off,” Matthew said. “I am going to get some wood.” He picked up a flashlight. “Back in a bit.”
Hillary finished up in the kitchen and walked down the hall to the foyer. She was digging around for some trash bags in the several bags of purchases, and heard Matthew come in the kitchen, clomping about doing God knew what. “Hey,” she called out to him, “will you bring the rest of the wine?”
Matthew didn’t answer. Hillary stood up and looked in the direction of the kitchen. A strange sensation was
hed over her, making her feel slightly off balance, and the hair stood up on the back of her neck. She started for the kitchen, but the front door suddenly opened. Startled, she whirled around with a shriek as Matthew walked in with his arms full of wood.
“What?” he said.
“What are you doing?”
“Wood, remember?” he said, nodding at his arms.
“No—I heard you in the kitchen,” she said, pointing away from them. Matthew looked at her curiously. Hillary’s heart began to pound. “Someone is in the kitchen, Matthew.” As if to prove it, there was the sound again, of someone walking around.
Matthew frowned. He put the wood on the chair and strode for the kitchen with Hillary at his back.
Matthew paused at the threshold and flipped on the light. They both saw the cat jump off the counter and disappear behind the stove. Matthew dove after it, leaning up over the stove, peering behind it. “A huge hole,” he said. He turned around and smiled at Hillary. “That’s what you heard, baby. Just a cat.”
“Right.” But Hillary was shivering. The kitchen was ice cold and she couldn’t believe a cat could make the sounds she’d heard. Someone had been in here.
“Come on, let’s go light a fire,” Matthew said, and took her hand in his.
Hillary debated saying anything. Was she crazy? Or was something going on in this house?
After he’d built a fire in their room, Matthew sat cross-legged on their new bed and went through the file box. Hillary crawled into bed beside him and nestled closely to him. Matthew put his arm around her, but he did not put the file down. He kept reading Agnes’s note to her parents.
Somewhere in the night, Matthew put his arm across her and pulled her to him. It was as close as they had been in weeks.
***
For the next two days, nothing happened at the Whitstone House, and Hillary decided her imagination had gotten the best of her. The strange incidents of the first couple of days were all but forgotten, and she focused on renewing a relationship with her husband. She felt remarkably free without her Blackberry constantly chirping at her, and she felt remarkably attracted to her husband. The man was hot. Had she forgotten that? It was strange; it was as if she’d only just met him and was drawn to him, craving his attention.
She wondered if Matthew felt the same way. She caught him looking at her, his expression different than what she’d grown used to in these last few months. He looked at her with interest, with desire. But he did not act on it. It felt almost as if he was intentionally holding himself back.
The next day, a crew arrived to repair any plumbing or electrical issues they found. Another crew arrived to buff and shine the wood floors. And yet another pair of elderly gentleman began work on the yard. Hillary realized she hadn’t thought of her work in over a week. Honestly, she didn’t even know where her Blackberry was.
One afternoon, Mrs. Browning came to the house to have a look at the progress. She and Hillary walked through the rooms together, Mrs. Browning exclaiming at the moldings and the crystal doorknobs, the original wood floors and the carved mantles. “It’s a beautiful old house. It will be brilliant when you’ve finished, won’t it?”
“I hope so,” Hillary said. They were standing in the room at the end of the hall where Matthew and Hillary had been sleeping. Hillary walked to the window on the east wall. “Come see this huge old tree,” she said. “How old do you suppose that is?”
Mrs. Browning joined her at the window and looked out. The oak tree had long, twisting limbs, but it looked as if it had been harshly pruned away from the house. “I’d wager it is three hundred years old,” Mrs. Browning said sagely.
“Really?”
“Certainly!” she said with much authority. “Such a wonderful setting for this old house!” She turned away from the window and moved toward the door. “Oh,” she said, stopping abruptly.
Hillary glanced at her. “Is something wrong?”
Mrs. Browning looked up and around the ceiling. “There’s a draft, isn’t there? It’s very cold just here.” Hillary walked to where Mrs. Browning stood. She felt it, too. They looked around the room, but could find no vents, no open windows. As they looked, they were surprised by a thud, and both turned toward the mantle. The file box had fallen, its contents scattered across the floor.
“These old houses,” Mrs. Browning said with a laugh as she bent to help Hillary pick it up. “So full of drafts and what not.”
But Hillary thought that was an odd thing to have happened. When she mentioned the cold and the falling box to Matthew later, he explained to her that he’d had chimney sweeps out, and they’d felt the air from the hearth. “Probably knocked the box off, too.”
Perhaps. Hillary supposed that made sense. Sort of.
Over dinner that night, Hillary and Matthew talked together like they hadn’t done in months. They discussed plans for selling the house. The chatted about the origins of the house and the Whitstone family. “Isn’t it tragic,” Hillary said one night as they drank wine by the fire, “that the girl lost her life?”
Something came over Matthew’s face. He looked at Hillary strangely. “She died because she loved completely,” he said.
Hillary laughed. “What a strange thing to say, Mr. Sparks.”
“She died because she loved completely,” he said again.
Hillary’s smile faded. “Okay…are you all right?”
Matthew blinked. “Who, me?” He grinned and stood up, gathering the plates. “I’m great.”
“It’s just that you are usually not that sentimental. Or flowery.”
Matthew’s gaze riveted on her. “I’m not?”
She was surprised by his reaction. She smiled nervously. “No…I mean, you don’t think you are, do you?”
He looked puzzled. He put down the plates and put his hands on his hips. “I think I’m a lot of things that you don’t understand. That I don’t understand.”
Hillary sat back. “What does that mean?”
He shrugged.
“You know…we’ve been having a great week, Matthew,” she said, sensing a strange change in him. “I don’t want to mess that up. I want to keep it up, and try and get back to what we were because I…I really miss you.”
“I miss you, too, Hill. I…I miss you so much.” His voice quivered with emotion.
Hillary’s heart went out to him. He sounded lost, as if he had lost her irrevocably. She felt that way, too. She stood up and wrapped her arms around him. Sometimes she felt that way, too. “How do we get back to what we were?” she asked softly.
Matthew shook his head, as if the question confused him. “I am trying.” He kissed her tenderly. And then he left her.
Hillary watched him walk out of the kitchen with questions and desire raging through her. What kept them from each other? Why couldn’t they just reach for each other and fall into bed as they used to be able to do? What had happened to them?
***
The rain started the next morning. It was slow and steady, drenching the world around them, forming a curtain between Whitstone House and the world.
Hillary felt as if she were getting a cold—she was lightheaded, off balance. She worked in the kitchen, painting the old cabinetry while Matthew replaced some light fixtures throughout the house. She stood up to stretch and happened to look out the window. A man stood in the front drive, seemingly oblivious to the rain. He was dressed oddly, his coat to his knees. Thinking he must be one of the workers Matthew had hired, Hillary walked to the front door to let him in. But when she opened the door, no one was there.
“What’s up?” Matthew asked, walking into the hall behind her.
“There was a man standing on the drive,” she said. “I saw him out the window. And now he’s gone.”
“What guy?”
“I don’t know. Some guy in a coat,” she said absently.
Matt looked at her. “To his knees?”
“Yes! Who is that?”
Matt grimaced. “I don�
�t know, but I’ve seen him a couple of times now. He’s always walking around, looking. And then he just disappears.”
“Is he looking for work?”
“I don’t think so,” Matthew said. He looked down at Hillary. “This will sound crazy, but have you seen a woman wandering around?”
Hillary’s eyes widened. “I…I saw a face,” she admitted reluctantly. “In the window, looking in. But it was upstairs. I…I didn’t tell you because it sounded crazy.”
Matthew didn’t look surprised. “I’ve seen her, too,” he said grimly. “Outside, around that old oak tree.”
“When?”
“A couple of times when I’ve been out working. She stands there looking out to the orchard.”
“Matthew…” Hillary grabbed his hand. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”
“Ghosts?” He chuckled. “No, baby,” he said, and put his arms around her. “I believe it’s more likely that some locals wanting us gone for whatever reason. They are trying to scare us.”
“Scare us? But why?”
“Who knows. Anti-American, maybe.”
Hillary wanted to believe that, too. But as the day progressed, she felt as if someone were breathing down her neck. Matthew seemed oddly out of sorts, too, and more than once, Hillary saw him staring at he as if he wanted to devour her.
That night, the rain worsened. It was coming down in great sheets, filling the drive and the yard with great pools of water. Hillary and Matthew had hardly spoken since that afternoon. Hillary felt exhausted, unable to even carry on a conversation. She made sandwiches for them, and as they sat down at the table to eat, something brushed against her leg.
“That cat again,” she said.
“What?”
“That cat. I felt it against my—” Something or someone grabbed Hillary’s leg and she cried out, jumping up from the table.
“Hillary, what is it?” Matthew demanded, but her reply was lost in the flickering of the lights. Outside, a blinding flash of lightning hit the old oak tree. Even as it was happening, Hillary knew there was something terribly wrong—the lights had flickered before the lightning struck.