A Crowded Coffin

by Nicola Slade

  Harriet nodded while Edith stared after him as Rory turned on his heel and set off towards his room next to the narrow staircase at the end of the corridor. The two women were just about to open the door in front of them when they heard him exclaim aloud. Turning, they saw him stare, open-mouthed, at a spot on the panelled wall then, after a frozen moment, he shook his head and headed into his bedroom.

  Now, Harriet pondered this episode. It hadn’t looked like a spasm of pain, or sudden faintness, so did he see something? she wondered. It was a pretty ancient house, after all. She laughed and shrugged, picking up the slender, half-grown tabby cat who was weaving sinuously between her legs. ‘All right, Dylan, I’ll get you some breakfast instead of imagining ghosts, and you can help me sort out something to wear to the dinner tonight.’

  Rory was exploring the garden at the rear of Locksley Farm Place. Somewhere around a quarter to six that morning he had struggled, sweating and terrified, out of a nightmare that was all the more terrifying for being formless. Bodies, definitely; he knew that somewhere behind the mist lay the bodies. Unable to get back to sleep he had tried reading for a while, and then checked his emails, remembering his surprise that Locksley, which seemed to him at the back of beyond, had broadband. It was a relief. It meant he could do most of his remaining paperwork from the house and not have to struggle up and down to London more than he needed. Even the thought of it made him tired, but then, everything made him tired at the moment. And not just tired; he had never felt so close to breaking down as these last few months, with tears threatening to well up at the most unexpected and inconvenient moments. He brushed a hand across his eyes as, right on cue, his eyelids began to prick with unshed tears. Oh, for God’s sake. He shook his head and straightened up. Not here, not now or soon, please God. Not anywhere or any when.

  He avoided the marquee set up at the entrance to the great hall, and brushed moss and twigs off an old stone seat to rest for a bit. Locksley Farm Place would do very well, he thought. It was a good place to recuperate and to stay while he looked for a place of his own; and where better to keep the promise he had made, the promise he intended to keep, no matter what? For a moment a memory ran up against the brick wall of his will; no point in dwelling on the past, not just now at any rate.

  His eyes narrowed as he frowned, thinking about the old man and his assertion that someone had deliberately tried to run him down. Rory agreed with Edith that Mr Attlin was neither senile nor hysterical. The body might be ageing but the intellect was as sharp as any Rory had encountered.

  Just as Edith had done, the old man had drawn a sharp breath when he first encountered his proposed lodger, while Mrs Attlin had lost colour and looked badly shaken. There had been no time yet for anyone to explain what it was about him that affected them so badly, even at a second meeting, but from Rory’s point of view it was all to the good. The old chap clearly trusted him, and the old lady was warming to him, though she kept shooting glances at him when she thought she was unobserved, and now Edith too seemed disposed to take him on trust.

  ‘Morning,’ came a greeting. ‘You’re out and about early today.’

  ‘Hi, Edith.’ He nodded to her and brushed more moss off the seat. She sat down and gazed with satisfaction at the house. Above the ancient studded door to the mediaeval hall the angel design, inlaid in dressed flint, glittered as it was lanced by sunlight. ‘Tell me about the house, will you?’

  ‘Do you like it? It’s just an old farmhouse with a couple of quirks, really.’ She waved a hand towards the old building. From the front it looked like a solid farmhouse, possibly Georgian in style, faced in cream render.

  The view from the rear had surprised him during his earlier perambulations. It was clear that the major part of the house was actually Tudor, but that nobody had bothered to render the old red brick, and the stone mullions were left intact; only the front, the part that showed, had been modernized. At a right angle stood the ancient hall, built in mellow, greying stone with the original porch close to the far end, with what appeared to be some battlements added randomly on the top.

  It wasn’t as big as he’d thought on his preliminary visit; it was the extensions added, seemingly with no design in mind, that made the house seem to sprawl.

  ‘Here, I spotted you from my bedroom window wandering about so I brought you this little old book. I thought you might find it interesting; it tells you a bit about the house.’

  ‘Great, thanks. Highways and Byways of Hampshire by the Rev’d Sebastian Spilshaw. Let’s have a look.

  ‘“The property known as Locksley Farm Place has been indiscriminately altered by succeeding owners so that now very little remains of the original apart from the small but interesting Great Hall with its handsome cruck-built timber roof. One aspect of interest to the antiquarian is that it is said to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited residences in England. The Attlin family claims descent from the original Roman who built a villa, long since vanished, although a curiously shaped stone, said to resemble an angel, remains in what is whimsically referred to as the Burial Field.” Hmm, when was he writing this? Oh, I see, 1873.’

  Rory flicked through the gilt-edged pages then referred back to the section on Locksley Farm Place. ‘What else does he say about the house?

  ‘“The family claim that in Saxon times a house was built on the current site is unlikely to have any foundation in reality, as no evidence of this building is available. What is not open to question is that an application was made to the king, Edward I, in the late thirteenth century, requesting a licence to ‘crenellate’ a building on this spot. Such a licence was duly granted but the fortifications were on a modest scale and were never needed under siege.”

  ‘I think it’s amazing,’ Rory announced, looking up at the house, before going back to the book. ‘He’s a bit dismissive of the rest of the house, isn’t he? “The mediaeval Great Hall (so called, although it is, in fact, of merely domestic proportions) now lies to the rear of a Tudor residence, originally of brick and stone, built in 1506. However, this modest edifice was criminally altered, in 1804. At that time Simon Attlin Esq. knocked down internal walls and enlarged the rooms, thus destroying all traces of the antique panelling. He also had the exterior of the Tudor building rendered and the windows replaced so that, in appearance, it now resembles any other undistinguished late Georgian farmhouse and is of no interest at all to the antiquarian.”

  ‘Patronizing, isn’t he? I rather like that weird little tower stuck on the corner, but the Reverend Sebastian is appalled: “Unfortunately, the present owner’s father made an extended visit to the Scottish Highlands some twenty years ago and succumbed to Balmoral fever, in the erroneous belief that the addition of a would-be antique turret might enhance his house’s appearance.”’

  Rory flicked through the pages and looked up with a grin. ‘He’s got a real downer on the family, hasn’t he? Listen to this: “Despite early pretensions to nobility – witness the application to crenellate (which, in hindsight, must be deemed over-ambitious) – the Attlin family soon sank into yeoman obscurity, where they remain to this day, although, as previously mentioned, they have not been above claiming descent, on occasion, from a Roman soldier who dwelt in the area during the latter years of the occupation of Britain. The notion that the said soldier received a blessing on his land and house by the good offices of an angel is laughable.” What did the Attlins ever do to upset him? And what’s all this about an angel’s blessing?’

  ‘Oh, one of the daughters turned down his proposal,’ Edith said. ‘Mind you, old Simon Attlin does seem to have been a bit of a vandal, getting rid of the panelling and so forth.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Time to get a move on,’ she announced. ‘It’s gone half eight so we’d better go and get some breakfast. I’ll tell you the angel story later. The Rotarians and Inner Wheel people will be here by ten or eleven but I think we’ve done all we can. Elveece,’ she grinned at his snort of laughter, ‘oh, all right, but I agree with Harriet.
I love the way he says it. Elvis then, he said he’ll finish polishing the floor in the Great Hall but then he’s off to Romsey on another job.’

  As they crossed the yard, Rory surveyed the outbuildings, which included a barn as well as the stables, none of them used for anything but storing junk.

  ‘Seems a pity not to put this lot to use,’ he ventured. ‘Do you have any plans?’

  ‘That’s my job for the foreseeable future,’ she shrugged. ‘We need to make the place earn its keep; the house and the outbuildings too, not just the farm. When I was little there were animals in here but when my father died Grandpa lost heart and got a very good manager in. The whole character of the place altered when the fields at the back were turned over completely to arable and the livestock moved over to the new man’s house down the hill.’ She led the way back to the house, with a rueful smile over her shoulder. ‘That’s where the real working farm is and I won’t be involved in that day to day; what’s here is just an old house that needs to earn its keep. Any suggestions as to how that can be achieved will be extremely welcome.’

  In the kitchen they found Karen looking grey-faced. ‘Sick,’ she said, through gritted teeth. ‘Got a migraine coming on.’

  ‘Go back to bed this minute,’ insisted Edith. ‘Here, have you taken anything for it? Don’t worry about us, I’ll do the grandparents’ breakfast and see to things here. Go!’ She shooed the hesitating Karen out of the kitchen and turned to see Rory filling the kettle.

  ‘I can cook,’ he said. ‘Heart attack on a plate do you?’

  She laughed and nodded and arranged a tray of toast and tea for her grandparents. When she came back Rory was flipping a slice of fried bread onto a plate. ‘I worked in a lorry drivers’ café one summer,’ he told her. ‘It was a real greasy spoon. Here you are, tuck in.’

  As they ate in companionable silence Edith glanced across at Rory’s plate.

  ‘Have we run out of bacon?’ she asked. ‘Have some of mine.’

  ‘No.’ He sounded slightly annoyed as he waved her away. ‘I’ve temporarily gone off bacon, that’s all.’

  His tone was forbidding so she shrugged and subsided. While they ate they were watched by the assorted animals. The dog, Lulu, was cramped uncomfortably into a cat bed, fondly gazing at the fierce black kitten, Percy, who was lording it in the dog’s own bed. After eating, three other cats had disappeared, with an air of purposeful activity about them as they operated the cat flap, each tail an erect question mark as they embarked on a day’s hunting. The shy marmalade cat had plucked up the courage to sit under the table beside Rory’s feet and the old lady of the menagerie, Milly, was curled up on the sunny windowsill languidly washing her tail and pretending to be above such mundane matters as breakfast.

  ‘It’s a good thing you like cats,’ commented Edith as she watched Rory seduce the ginger cat with a morsel of fried bread while the kitten pranced over to see what was on offer. ‘You’ll fit right in. Percy seems an awful brat, but Lulu adores him; I’ve seen her washing him. Gran had only just acquired him when I was home for Christmas and Lulu spent the whole time running round after him, protecting him from the other cats.’

  ‘We always had cats at home,’ Rory said shortly, then looked away from her and changed the subject by holding out a hand to the kitten, who promptly bit his finger.

  ‘When I was home last,’ she said, looking curiously at his closed expression; so many subjects were clearly taboo, ‘Gran had a visitor, a Mrs Something, I forget what. I came down to make some tea and when I got back there was total chaos. Mrs Something was on her feet and dripping blood from her hand, with her chair knocked over behind her and Gran was standing by the table. She looked white with fury and she was clutching Percy tightly. It was funny afterwards but at the time Gran was in a state. She turned to me and said, “Edith, please take Mrs Whatsit to the bathroom. I don’t think she cares for cats and Percy certainly doesn’t seem to care for her.”

  ‘I got the poor woman out of the room and cleaned her up, but she was incoherent with rage. Apparently she hated cats but thought she ought to be polite as Gran seemed so keen, so she held out her hand to him. Of course, he’s half vampire and half piranha so he just gave her an evil grin and took a chunk out of her finger. She left, insisting she was going straight to the doctor’s to have a tetanus jab. Gran’s never forgiven her for that so she certainly won’t be at the party tonight.’

  ‘How formal is this thing tonight?’ Rory asked. ‘I don’t think anyone’s said. I mean, is it black tie or what? And shouldn’t there be another marquee for dancing or something? The Great Hall isn’t anywhere near big enough.’

  ‘Oops.’ She clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Good job you asked. Yes, it’s a real posh-frock do, dinner jacket, the works. I’d better borrow something of Gran’s. She’s a hoarder and never gets rid of clothes, so there’s a big stash of vintage dresses dating back to the late forties. And no,’ she added, ‘it’s not a dance, just a dinner because the hall isn’t big enough to squeeze in a dance floor as well as dining tables. What about you tonight? I expect we could borrow something if you like.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ he assured her. ‘Mr Attlin says I can have the barn out the back as a temporary studio and storeroom and I’ve got a trunk there. I’ll get my dinner jacket and take it up to my room to hang up. Do you need me for anything particular this morning?’

  ‘Um, not really.’ She shook her head, then glanced up at him. ‘Tell you what, when Elvis has finished polishing the floor and the Rotary people are doing their stuff, why don’t I show you the picture gallery? You’ll understand then why it is that everyone gasps when they see you. Meet you at 11.30 on the first floor landing?’

  ‘Wow!’ Rory stood, almost speechless, in the doorway to the small gallery on the top floor of the house. ‘Oh. My. God!’ he finally managed. ‘I assumed it would just be attics up here, full of junk. Interesting junk perhaps, but still junk. This is incredible – why have I never heard of it? It’s pure Tudor and so are some of those paintings.’

  Edith had forgotten he was an artist and his enthusiasm disarmed her. ‘Are you an art historian too?’ she asked with interest. ‘What kind of painting do you do, anyway? I don’t think I’ve heard.’

  ‘I’m getting something out of my system at the moment,’ he said and the jagged echoes of some bitter hurt pierced her, though his face was composed and determinedly uncommunicative. He pulled himself together. ‘I’ll be teaching a bit of art history,’ he explained. ‘Along with the practical stuff. And I mostly work in acrylics and mixed media, oils now and then, but like I said, I’m having a stab at something different just now.’

  The picture gallery was at the top of the Tudor house, with light coming in from the back of the building via small mullioned windows. Edith had always been led to believe that the collection ranged in quality from the frankly mediocre to some pleasantly undistinguished family portraits, some going back to early Victorian times, though a couple were known to be older. She was surprised, therefore, to see that Rory was almost purring with pleasure as he loped round the rectangular, oak-panelled room.

  ‘They’re supposed to have used the gallery for exercise, but I’m not sure it’s true. That sounds far too grand, this was never that kind of house – it’s too small. Still, you can come up here whenever you like, but we don’t really have a lot of time at the moment,’ she warned, relieved to see that interest in the gallery had relaxed that extreme control over his emotions. What could possibly have hurt him so badly? Edith had known grief as a child, with her father’s long-drawn-out suffering and eventual death, but that was an old sorrow. Whatever was eating Rory was raw and immediate and he withdrew politely but firmly from any comforting overtures.

  ‘Look.’ She drew him away from a dull, dark painting in a corner, that he was examining closely. ‘This is Dame Margery, the one who was a nun.’ She led him to a small portrait painted on a wooden panel and was about to speak when he gave a shocked gasp.<
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  ‘But I saw her,’ he said slowly. ‘I swear to God I saw this woman last night, on the landing upstairs, when I was going to bed.’

  ‘You – you couldn’t have,’ she exclaimed. ‘She’s….’ Edith stared at him in astonishment. ‘Was that what it was? When you kind-of squawked and looked gobstruck? Harriet and I both saw you jump out of your skin.’

  Rory was staring at the head-and-shoulders portrait of a sixteenth-century woman. Not a young woman, he suspected; she wore a dark-green gown with a neat white ruff at the neck and her fair hair was just visible beneath a Tudor headdress with a jewel, perhaps some kind of reliquary, on a chain round her neck and an emerald ring visible on her slender hand. Her grey eyes held a thoughtful look as she stared out of the portrait towards them, while the firm lips quirked in just the suspicion of a smile.

  Edith was surprised at the intensity of his gaze, then, as he let out a pent-up breath, he looked down at her – and jumped. ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What’s the matter?’

  He shook his head, looking bemused. ‘I just don’t know,’ he told her. ‘I could have sworn that this woman walked along the landing towards me last night and when I looked again, she’d disappeared. I thought I was going mad and I certainly don’t believe in ghosts. But now? You look a lot like her, did you know that? Maybe I just got mixed up. God knows I was tired enough and I’m still taking some heavy-duty medication; they warned me it could have some weird side effects.’

  Medication? He certainly looked exhausted, Edith thought, taking note of the dark circles under his eyes, and there was that excessive thinness too. She bit back the questions on the tip of her tongue – his expression was forbidding so she smiled and shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t be quite so adamant about ghosts not existing,’ she said mildly. ‘Not when you’ve lived in this house a while longer. But never mind that, come over here and see this portrait by the window.