by Sarah Rayne
Michael sat down next to Nell again, and reached for the closing pages of Iskander’s notes.
It’s one o’clock. The smallest of the small hours. I have searched the house for Leonora, and once I was sure Niemeyer’s men had left, I searched the grounds as well – difficult to do at this hour of the night, but not impossible, and I certainly could not leave it until daybreak. I wrapped Stephen’s army greatcoat around him – he is lying against an old tree, and tomorrow I shall do something about making a grave for him.
But I had to find Leonora – I still have to find her. I walked along several of the lanes – the unknown church was chiming midnight as I did so. But I can find no trace of her, and no clue to where she might be, and so I returned here. The few belongings we managed to bring with us are all still in a bedroom cupboard, so clearly when she left this house she had no time to take anything with her. Did she flee for safety when Edreich and the soldiers arrived? Is she cowering in some dark, lonely hideaway, frightened to return? That thought is almost more than I can bear.
For the first time in my life I don’t know what to do. Sleep is unthinkable …
… but after all it seems I must have succumbed to sleep, for I see that the time has ticked around to three o’clock. The fire has burned lower, and the room is colder.
I have the strongest feeling that something woke me. Something insistent, demanding, pulled me out of that dreary, exhausted sleep. I have no idea what it was though, for the room looks exactly the same.
It is half past three, and I know what woke me. A few minutes ago I heard sounds, unmistakable and insistent. Somewhere inside Fosse House, something is tapping on a wall.
It might be a bird, or a trapped animal. It might be an open window, or a door caught in a current of wind. It might even be Niemeyer’s men, returning for me. If so, they shall have a good run for their money. But I don’t think it is the soldiers.
I have lit a second candle and armed myself with a heavy brass paperweight and a silver-handled letter opener – absurd, makeshift weapons, but better than none at all. I am about to embark on another search of the house to trace the source of the tapping.
Four o’clock. I’ve been all over the house again, and I can find no explanation for the sounds. Everywhere is locked and secure, windows are fastened, doors are closed. But I can still hear the sounds – they are a little fainter now, as if whatever is making them is growing weaker. I think they are loudest in the main hall, but there is nowhere in the hall for anything to be trapped—
Or is there? Old English houses have panelling, and Fosse House has some very fine panelling in its hall. Supposing there’s a concealed cupboard? If I take Fosse House apart, I have to find out what the sounds are. Because Leonora must be somewhere.
Later
Dawn is breaking through the windows, and I am writing this from out of the most astonishing mixture of emotions I ever expected to feel. But it is second nature for me to record everything, and this, too, is part of Stephen’s story, so I am setting it down.
As the clock chimed the half hour after four, a faint dawn was filtering into the house. Even so, I fitted a fresh candle into the holder and set off to examine the panelled walls of the hall. It was still shrouded in darkness, and the light from my candle flickered wildly as if invisible creatures were trying to snuff it. At first I thought the sounds had stopped, but when I began to tap the panelling – hoping to find a cupboard – they started again.
My unknown reader may imagine my feelings. Somewhere in this brooding old house, with young Gilmore’s body still lying in its grotesque huddle outside, someone was trapped. That someone might be my beloved Leonora. As I moved round the hall, my mind was tumbling with one particular thread that weaves its grim tale through the macabre literature of so many cultures. The doomed young girl, the virgin bride, accidentally walled up or entombed, mistakenly buried alive in a cell or a cupboard during a game … Not to be found until years later, as a poor, dried corpse … How much truth had there ever been in that story? Was it about to become a truth tonight? If she was here, trapped, would I find her in time?
Halfway round the hall’s panelling, there was a different sound – a faint hollowness. My heart leapt, and holding the candle closer I saw the outline of a small door. There was a tiny keyhole, but when I pushed the door it moved, and when I applied more pressure, it swung inwards. Holding the candle aloft, I went down a flight of stone steps.
Halfway down I called out, ‘Leonora? Are you here?’
My voice echoed in the enclosed darkness, then died away, and there was only the thick silence, pressing in on me. My skin was crawling with fear and with the horror of what I might be about to find, but, stepping carefully, I went all the way down the steps.
The tapping had ceased, and there was only the sound of my own slightly too-fast breathing, driven by the thudding of my heart.
I lifted the candle. A stone room – a cellar of some kind – with a few discarded items of household junk, and—
And a massive carved chest crouching in the corner. Carved and domed-lidded, and bound with thick chains and a padlock. In the candlelight it took on a dreadful sinister significance. The oaken chest, half eaten by the worm, where the ill-starred heroine found a grave … The living tomb …
As I stood there, a faint scratching came from within the chest. It was so faint it might have been made by goblin nails against a frost-rimed window-pane. It was so fragile it might be the last fading signal of a dying girl …
I set down the candle and knelt before the chest, dragging uselessly at the chains, cursing in Russian, calling her name, and pleading with any gods that might be listening to help me – I probably called on a few denizens of the darker side of heaven, as well. I did not care. If Leonora was in there, I would trade my immortal soul to rescue her and have her alive and living.
I could see no key to the padlock, and such a tiny key could have been anywhere. It might take hours of fruitless search. I could probably find an axe somewhere, and break open the chest – but to do that might wound or even kill what was inside. If, indeed, it was not already dead.
But I had not effected discreet entry into all those houses without understanding how to open a lock without the key. With the aid of a small thin implement without which I have never travelled, I had the padlock free in five minutes. I dragged the chain away and reached for the lid. Light years sped by, worlds died, universes crumbled to dust in those moments that I struggled with the heavy lid. If Leonora was lost to me, there would be nothing in the world for me anywhere ever again, no hope, no light, no joy …
The lid came up with a wail of old oak and disused hinges. She was there. Her hair was tumbled, and there was a smudge of dirt across one cheekbone. But she was pale and her eyes were closed—
Then she opened her eyes, saw me, and in a hoarse, dry voice, said, ‘I thought you’d never find me—’
‘I’ll always find you,’ I said, and I lifted her out and held her against me. She was crying, and so was I.
She cried again when I told her about Stephen, and it wasn’t until later in the morning that she was able to tell me what had happened, and even then it came out in fragments. My poor Leonora – she blamed herself.
It seems that while I was prowling the lanes, she and Stephen saw Niemeyer’s men skulking in the gardens. Leonora was all for running out of the house – perhaps making for the church and asking for sanctuary. But Stephen would not leave. He insisted that this was the only place where he could be safe. They would barricade themselves in, he said. And to be entirely safe, Leonora must hide.
‘In the oak chest,’ I said.
‘Yes. Alex, I argued against him, but he was adamant. And there wasn’t much time anyway, so I gave in. He said even if the soldiers found the stone room – which was very unlikely – they wouldn’t bother with an ancient chest. He said to make sure, he would lock it.’
I am not sure about the next part, because I think Leonora was frigh
tened and confused, and I don’t think her recollection is entirely to be relied on. Nor, I should say, does she.
But she thinks Stephen came running down to the cellar and called to her that the soldiers had gone, and that they were safe. Then he tried to get her out. It’s somehow typical of Stephen – poor, well-meaning Stephen – that he had not used a key for the padlock, he had simply snapped an open padlock into place around the chain with no thought of unlocking it afterwards. And so he was unable to open it again.
Leonora thinks he shouted to her that he would get her out somehow – she thinks he tore at the chains and the lid, trying to force it open. She could hear his hands beating uselessly at the wood, tearing at the chains for a very long time.
Then, quite suddenly, he stopped. She thinks he said in a low voice that the soldiers were coming back, and he would hide in the grounds. But he would come back for her, he said. She must trust him in that. He would come back. Then she heard, very faintly, his steps going away, and the door in the panelling closing. And then there was nothing, only the silent darkness within the chest.
Michael said, ‘I think we have the explanation. Stephen ran into the gardens to hide, saw a figure and thought it was Leonora and that she had managed to get out by herself. Or perhaps he thought Iskander had come back and got her out.’
He looked down at Nell, who was leaning against his shoulder, her eyes on the pages. She said, ‘It’s all right, I’m not going into high drama all over again. I’ll cope with having been a ghost in a garden.’ She thought for a moment, then said, ‘That all seems to fit. And it would explain why Stephen was trying to get back into the house, wouldn’t it? He must have realized right at the end that it couldn’t have been Leonora he saw, and—’
‘And he died believing he had to get back into the house to get her out of the oak chest. Everyone who encountered him,’ said Michael thoughtfully, ‘assumed he was running to the house to get away from Hugbert and the others, but he wasn’t.’
‘He was running to get to Leonora.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did we resolve it for him?’ asked Nell. ‘When we opened the chest? Did we – what’s the expression? – send him to rest?’
‘We’ll probably never know for sure. But I’m going to think so.’
‘So am I. There’s another couple of paragraphs,’ said Nell, turning the last page. ‘Let’s read them.’
The final entry was quite short.
Later today, I shall bring Stephen’s body into the house, and we will seal it up in the oak chest. Leonora wants to do this – she wants Stephen to be in the house, where he felt safe, rather than to be in the garden where he was executed. So I shall do what she wants, and then I shall put these pages with his body. Leonora will put her gold crucifix in as well. Then we’ll lock up the house and leave. I have no idea yet where we will go, but wherever it is, it will be good. I will make it so.
One last thing …
I can’t forget that shadowy figure who darted across the darkness just before Stephen was killed. I know this is absurd, but I wish there was some way of letting her know that I saw her and that whoever she is or was – or will be – that brief memory will stay with me.
In the meantime, here, for anyone who finds it, is Stephen Gilmore’s story.
Alexei Iskander.
Fosse House. 1917.
Twenty-Five
Memo from:Director of Music, Oriel College, Oxford
To: Dr Michael Flint, English Literature/Language Faculty
November 201—
Michael,
Thank you again for all you did over that rather unfortunate Fosse House business. I really am immensely grateful.
I feel our opus on Music and the Great War Poets is shaping up very well. Dr Bracegirdle has provided some excellent material and has even managed to inject a thread of humour into his gleanings. Considering the focus of our book, this is a remarkable feat, even for him.
I believe you and Nell West will be attending Luisa Gilmore’s funeral – which will also be the funeral of the poor man whose remains you found in the house. I will be present as well, of course. After the extraordinary bequest to the music faculty I certainly wish to pay the respects of myself and of College, so I hope to see you there.
In view of the absence of any family I don’t suppose there will be any kind of funeral bak’d meats, so perhaps you and Nell would care to have lunch with me after the service? I recall you spoke well of the Bell, where you stayed.
Kind regards,
J.B.
The little church was filled with music – beautiful, intricate music sung by a small choir. It ebbed and flowed and wove its enchantment, as its creator, Giovanni Palestrina, had intended.
‘Specially requested,’ murmured Michael to Nell.
‘By you?’
‘By J.B.’ Michael hesitated then said quietly, ‘But the next reading is my request.’
It was taken from the Edward Melbourne poem, Before Action.
‘I, that on my familiar hill,
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of thy sunsets spill,
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword,
Must say goodbye to all of this.
By the delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.’
There was a brief, but very deep silence when the vicar’s voice ceased. Then the congregation rose for the final hymn and blessing, and under cover of the small flurry, Nell said huskily, ‘That was almost unbearably right for Stephen. I can’t think of anything better.’
‘I thought he would have liked it,’ said Michael. ‘Call me a romantic old fool, if you want.’
‘You’re a romantic old fool. And I love you,’ she said.
As the small congregation walked away from the graveside, Michael and Nell fell into step with a lady who appeared to be on her own. She looked as if she was in her mid thirties, and she had dark hair and eyes, and slanting cheekbones.
‘Are you one of the family?’ asked Michael, conventionally.
‘Very distantly.’ She had a slight accent, which might have been French. ‘It’s three, or even four generations back,’ she said. ‘My great-grandfather – maybe one more “great” – married a Gilmore. He was Russian – a bit of a disreputable old boy if any of the legends can be believed, but I always rather liked the sound of him. And his disreputable ways, whatever they were, seem to have paid off, because he’s supposed to have ended up quite rich.’
Michael felt Nell’s reaction, but she only said, ‘Do you live locally?’
‘Not at all. I’ve been working in France – I’m half French – but I’ve always wanted to come to this part of England where my family lived. I’m director of a small music academy just outside Paris. We’ve been thinking of having a base in England for some time, and we hope Fosse House might be that base.’
‘Really?’ said Michael, hardly daring to believe this.
‘It’s exactly the right size, and between the academy’s funds and an Arts Council grant, as well as the dosh my great-great-grandfather left, it’s looking as if it can be done. Our idea is to have residential weekends and conventions for researchers and youth orchestras. Also summer schools, perhaps.’
‘I think Miss Gilmore would have liked that very much,’ said Michael warmly. He pushed open the lychgate, and the stranger and Nell went through. As they walked across to the parked cars, he said, ‘By the way, I’m Michael Flint, and this is Nell West.’
‘I’m Léonie,’ she said. ‘And I’m so pleased to be coming to Fosse House.’
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