My hand trembles as I reach out and run my finger over the text carved on the edge of the tomb: Hic iacet Edmund Vavasour.
Edmund. The church spins sickeningly around me. ‘Edmund,’ I whisper. ‘This cannot be.’ My beloved cannot be dead. It cannot be that all that is left of him is this careworn effigy, not Edmund, whose blue eyes danced with humour, whose mouth seemed always about to curve into a smile.
Edmund, whose hands skimmed so skilfully over my body, who could make my senses sing with pleasure, make the world tilt and sigh when his lips curved against my skin.
Edmund, who lies here alone. The air aches with his absence and my vision blurs. The impossibility of him not being here hammers at me and my body curls up against the pain of it. My breath comes low and choppy, as if I am sucking in oxygen through a tangled bush of brambles.
He is gone. I will never be able to turn to him again, never rest my face against his throat, never feel his arms close warm and safe around me. I am adrift without him, flailing in darkness, not knowing which way is up. Without him nothing is safe, nothing is certain.
His tomb wavers through my tears. The knowledge that my husband is lying cold and lifeless and lonely there is lodged deep and bitter inside me like a stone. Why am I not there beside him? We should lie together, man and wife, as Edmund promised. We should be holding hands for eternity. That is what we wanted, not a lonely tomb and a forgotten grave overlooking the moor.
I press my hand over my mouth but I cannot hold back the tears that course down my cheeks as I search the church with increasing desperation for some sign that Edmund does not lie completely alone. Perhaps the body under the Visitor Centre was not Isabel’s. Perhaps she is nearby, not handfast, but close. But there is nothing: no wife, no child, no one. The closest I can find is a Ralph Vavasour who died in 1779.
‘Edmund,’ I whisper. ‘Edmund, where are you?’
‘Can I help you?’
So consumed am I by my grief and my longing for Edmund that I do not at first register that there is someone beside me, and the unexpected voice makes me gasp and stumble backwards. I find myself staring at a portly man with a dog collar and a luxuriant beard.
‘Mrs Vavasour . . . Kate, if I may . . .’ His voice is glutinously well modulated. It rolls around his mouth and comes out perfectly pitched for a sermon. ‘I am so sorry to have given you a fright.’
‘No, I’m sorry . . .’ Desperately, I try to wipe the tears from my cheeks. I feel horribly exposed, as if he has caught me with my knickers down, and I struggle to cloak myself in some composure. ‘I’m sorry, I was just . . .’
‘Thinking about your husband?’
‘Yes,’ I say, without looking at him. I concentrate on blotting a wet patch under my eye with my finger. ‘Yes, I was.’ It is the truth, but it is not what he means, I know that, and a wave of shame for the way I have let thoughts of Edmund swamp my grief for Michael crashes over me.
My cheeks burn with it, and he strokes his glossy white beard in concern. ‘There’s no shame in grieving for the ones we love.’
Perhaps not, but what would he say if I told him I wasn’t grieving for Michael but for a husband who died hundreds of years ago?
‘You look very pale, Kate. Why don’t you sit down for a moment?’ He steers me over to a choir stall, and I sit obediently, too wretched to resist while he hurries off, muttering something about finding tissues in the vestry. Numb, I tip my head back against the carved wood and try not to think about Edmund, but my eyes fill once more.
The vicar comes back with a box of tissues. I take one to mop my face. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘They may have told you that I’ve lost my memory. I’m afraid I don’t remember your name.’
‘Richard Rolland. We have met on many occasions at Askerby Hall when Lord and Lady Vavasour have been kind enough to invite me to dine,’ he says, ‘but of course I know you won’t remember.’ He caresses his beard, and I avert my eyes. There’s something creepy about the way he strokes it, as if it were a cat. ‘Lord and Lady Vavasour were very distressed by your terrible accident. I hope I was able to offer them some comfort. It has been a very difficult time for everybody.’
I can’t imagine Fiona and Jasper being distressed, but I don’t say so. ‘The church feels very familiar,’ I say after a moment, crumpling the damp tissue between my fingers. ‘Did I come to services here?’
‘Not that I am aware of,’ he says, ‘but you don’t have to be a believer to find comfort here, my dear. All are welcome in the house of God.’
For a moment I am tempted to tell him how certain I am that the man lying in the tomb was my beloved husband, to confess that I am torn between two lives and grieving for two men. He is a priest. If Isabel is a spirit, he should know what to do.
But I don’t feel as if I am possessed. I feel as if I am myself. I don’t want to be prayed over or sprinkled with holy water or whatever it is he would do to exorcize her from my mind. I don’t want to lose my memories of Edmund.
Besides, I’m not sure I trust the Reverend Rolland. Everything that comes out of his mouth sounds horribly rehearsed, as if he has been mentally flipping through a file of appropriate responses for priests. I don’t like the eagerness in his voice when he talks about the Vavasours either. I can imagine him hurrying up to the Hall and talking to Jasper and Fiona, confiding his concern that I’m having some kind of a breakdown, offering to help with counselling.
He is watching me anxiously. ‘You seem very sad.’
‘I’m all right, really,’ I say, looking around for something to do with the tissue, before putting it in the pocket of my jeans. ‘It was just coming in here . . . it brought it all back to me.’
‘Would you like to talk about it?’ he offers solemnly. ‘Even if you don’t feel comfortable with prayer, it can help.’
‘No.’ My refusal comes out too brusque. ‘I mean, thank you, but no.’ Fumbling for my stick, I get back to my feet. I feel a fraud pretending to be grieving for Michael. I did grieve for him. I cried for him at his grave, but I didn’t suffer the wrenching loss and loneliness that overwhelmed me at Edmund’s tomb. I can’t stand here and let Richard Rolland comfort me about Michael when I feel this way about Edmund. It is wrong.
I cast around for a way to change the subject, but everything comes back to Edmund. Limping to the tomb, I rest my hand on it as if it will connect me with him somehow. ‘Do you know anything about Edmund Vavasour?’ I ask Richard Rolland, and if my voice cracks as I say Edmund’s name, I know he will put it down to my grief for Michael.
The vicar looks a little surprised by my question, but he follows gamely enough. ‘Very little. He was a great benefactor of the church, I understand, but about the man himself?’ He purses his lips, shakes his head. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘He looks lonely here on his own,’ I say. My fingers drift to the effigy’s shoulder, as if I can will the stone to warm into life. ‘Why wouldn’t his wife be buried with him?’ But even as I ask, the image of the excavator with its bucket lowered jangles in my mind, and I see the pitiful pile of bones in the mud.
‘She may have remarried after his death, and be buried elsewhere.’ Clearly the vicar is puzzled by my interest in the tomb, and just as clearly he is humouring me. ‘Or she may have been buried under the floor here,’ he suggests. ‘The church interior was remodelled by a later Vavasour at the end of the eighteenth century, and these two tombs are the only survivals from an earlier period.’
He brightens as a thought occurs to him. ‘But I believe an antiquarian did record the inscriptions on the grave slabs on the floor before it was replaced, and it’s possible there may be some record of other family burials.’
‘Really?’ Absently, I wipe the last traces of tears from my face with the back of my wrist. ‘Have you still got his notes in the church?’
‘I’m afraid not. I only heard about them from my predecessor, who was very interested in the history of the Vavasours. He even wrote a pamphlet about them, bu
t it was very dated and I’m not sure we have a copy of that either. I suspect all those kind of papers are at the Hall, but it must be many years since anyone has tackled them, so I’ve no idea if you’ll be able to find anything useful.’
‘I’ll have a look.’
Richard Rolland insists on accompanying me back down the aisle to the porch.
‘Can I ask you something, vicar?’ I say, sliding a sideways look at his avuncular profile.
He beams. ‘Please, call me Richard.’
‘Richard,’ I repeat obediently, ‘do you know anything about the bones that were found when they began work on the new Visitor Centre?’
‘Last year? Well, yes.’ He glances at me in surprise. ‘Do you remember that?’
‘Sort of,’ I say. ‘I think I remember seeing them, anyway. Do you know what happened to them?’
Richard does more beard stroking while he thinks. ‘As far as I know they’re still in some laboratory. I think it was established that they were from a female but of considerable age, so there was no criminal investigation or anything. In fact, it’s remarkable they survived at all. Presumably they’re still doing various tests.’
‘Why wouldn’t she have been buried in a church?’
‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever know that.’
‘Could she have been murdered and her body hidden?’
‘Well, it’s possible,’ Richard says. ‘Or she might have committed suicide. Attitudes to suicides were very harsh in previous times,’ he goes on, oblivious to the way every cell in my body is straining to shout: No, no, no! ‘Certainly in the medieval and early modern period poor people who took their own lives were considered to be in league with the Devil and denied burial in consecrated ground.’ He shakes his head. ‘Tragic.’
He is keen to drive me back to the Hall – and no doubt to be invited in to lunch – but I am adamant that I will walk. ‘I need to exercise my leg,’ I tell him, even though it is aching already. I am desperate to be alone. I need to think.
I walk slowly back up the long avenue. The trees reach out for each other from either side, and the sunlight filters greenly through the leaves above my head. Last night’s rain has left a sheen on the tarmac, and the grass is still beaded with silvery raindrops. It is a lush, tranquil scene. The horse chestnuts are heavy with candles and the great oaks stretch proudly above the grazing line. I wonder absently how old they are. That massive tree might have been an acorn, a tiny seedling perhaps, when Isabel and Edmund rode here. I look around me, eyes narrowed as I try to impose one scene over the other. There were more trees then, and the park was scrubbier, less manicured.
The house, though, that looks much the same, crouching behind the gatehouse wall, its towers poking up watchfully. As the avenue follows a graceful curve to end at the gatehouse, I find my eyes resting on the side of the tower. I can see the narrow window above the opening where filth from the garderobe emptied into the ditch below.
I wrinkle my nose at the memory of its stench. Still, it kept the smell away from the most important chambers. But the time I was stuck in there was very unpleasant.
I falter as the memory rolls into my head without warning.
It was a hot day, I remember that. The flies rose in a crowd from the hole when I opened the door, and I breathed through my mouth to avoid the worst of the smell. The garderobe was cramped, and although I could appreciate the convenience of it, I didn’t care for the feeling of being shut in. It was not a place to linger, in any case. I had finished my business and straightened my skirts, but when I turned to open the door, it was jammed shut.
I rattled the latch, but it wouldn’t lift. I tried it again and again, trying to close my mind to the stench and the flies and how small the garderobe was. There was barely room to turn around, and the heat was suffocating. I wanted to get out. I couldn’t bear being closed in a small place. I beat on the door. ‘Help!’ I cried, feeling foolish, but better for the servants to snigger than to spend another moment in this tiny, foetid place. ‘Help me!’
But no one could hear me. The garderobe was in the tower, quiet and out of the way. The servants were busy about their business. I had told no one I was going there – why would I? I was quite alone, and I was trapped.
Chapter Twenty-two
The flies zoomed at me, their buzzing deafening, and the smell of the latrine wrapped itself around my face. I couldn’t breathe, and a shameful panic began to build in me.
Frantically, I rattled at the lock again, and I began to scream, banging my fists against the door in such desperation that I did not hear Judith come running. ‘Isabel! What is it?’ she asked, the words tumbling breathlessly out of her as she pulled open the door so that I almost fell through it.
I slumped on the stone steps, gasping for air.
‘Is it the babe?’
I shook my head and drew a shuddering breath. ‘I couldn’t open the door,’ I said when I could speak. My heart was stuttering with relief at being out of the garderobe. ‘The latch must be broken.’
Judith had closed the door on the smell, but now she lifted the latch experimentally. It clicked easily into place. ‘It seems to work now.’
‘I tell you, I couldn’t open it!’
She frowned at my distress. ‘It must have jammed. Perhaps the wood was swollen,’ she suggested, although I could tell that she didn’t believe it. No more did I. Wood does not swell and then shrink in a matter of moments.
‘Come, let us go and walk in the garden,’ she said. ‘I know if I suggest that you sit still you will snap my head off, so we must do something to soothe your spirits, and I fear you are in no condition to go for a gallop on the moor, as I know you would wish.’
She was trying to humour me, I realized with a little shock. When had I turned so querulous? The babe was well advanced, but the need to be careful, to sit and walk carefully and to rein in my passions was hard indeed to bear. I was forbidden all immoderate exercise. I could not run or ride. Always I must be quiet and sedate. The moment I flung out a hand or raised my voice, Judith would lift her brows and look significantly at my belly. I did not want to lose another babe, she would remind me endlessly.
And it was true, I did not. I had vowed that this time I would not risk my child, so I submitted and muttered and was very bad-tempered. Judith made a syrup of tansy boiled up with sugar and insisted that I took a spoonful every day. Roasted apples with sugar would keep my body loose, she claimed, so I ate them dutifully every morning until I was sick of the taste of them.
I put a hand to my mouth, startled by how vividly I can remember it. It is as if the appley, sour-sweet taste is still tingling on my palate.
I am remembering how I let Judith draw me outside to the garden, how I gulped at the sweetly scented air. Bees blundered through the lavender and the thyme, and the gravel crunched beneath our feet.
It was very peaceful but I couldn’t stop thinking about the door to the garderobe, and how hard I had tried to open it. How had Judith been able to lift the latch so easily?
I felt a fool, but I had not been mistaken. The door would not open for me. I was sure of it. ‘I don’t understand how I could have been shut in,’ I fretted, unable to concentrate on Judith’s efforts to make conversation.
‘Do not think of it,’ she said, but the soothing note in her voice rasped on my nerves.
‘How can I not think of it? I tell you, the door was locked!’
‘Isabel,’ she said wearily, ‘there is no lock on that door.’
I put a hand to my head. I knew there was no lock, of course I did, but I was getting confused. ‘It felt as if it was locked,’ I amended. ‘What if someone jammed the latch?’
‘Who would do such a thing?’
‘A prank, perhaps. They might not have realized that I was in there. They might have thought it was another servant.’
Even I could hear the desperation in my voice. Judith did not need to point out to me that the servants did not use the garderobe. They had a latrine
in the yard beyond the kitchen. Judith hesitated. She walked beside me, small and neat, her eyes lowered, her hands folded at her waist. ‘Isabel—’ she began, and then stopped.
‘What is it?’
‘It is just . . . I fear for you sometimes,’ she said in a burst of honesty. ‘You are so violent in your passions, and you do not stop to think before you speak. I know that when you talk of pranks, they are just strange fancies common to a woman with child, but to anyone else you might seem . . .’
‘Mad?’
She sighed. ‘I just think you should be more careful about what you say, Isabel. Come,’ she said, tucking a hand into the crook of my arm and putting on a smile. ‘I am sure there is no need for concern, but let us say nothing to Edmund. We do not want to worry him, do we?’
The memories are rolling in like waves. They break in my head with shocking clarity, a relentless tide that surges up the blank beach of my memory only to be sucked back and return again and again, stronger and more detailed each time. Overwhelmed, I make it to my room and lean against the door, letting them wash over me. I lose my grip on the present and let them carry me back. I am lying on my bed in my room, but in my head I am still in the knot garden, the gravel knobbly beneath the thin soles of my slippers, Judith’s hand reassuring in the crook of my arm. I can smell the herbs, hear the satisfied drone of the bees.
How could I have forgotten how fretful and uneasy I was then? I was happy to be pregnant again, but I found the enforced tranquillity very trying. I could not stride out the way I was used to any more, but lumbered along, burdened by the child growing inside me. I remember the dull ache in my back, and the way I had to cup my hands under my swollen belly for fear the weight of it would pull me over. The babe kicked and squirmed to be free.
‘He is as restless as you,’ Edmund said when he lay with his hand on my stomach and smiled to feel his son inside me.
And then, unbidden, another memory ripples below that one, and rises to the surface: Michael, his ear pressed to my belly. ‘He’s got hiccoughs!’
House of Shadows Page 21