The plan seemed pretty lame now though, now that she could see that the cast iron gates of Middlecote were very firmly padlocked against visitors. A sign on one of the beech trees that flanked the gates tersely instructed people to keep out. The snarling carved wyverns on the top of the crumbling gate pillars seemed only to emphasise the lack of welcome. Alison drove further along the lane, hoping to find another entrance, but there was none, only a blank faced wall that encircled the estate.
There were, however, footpaths. She was not a keen walker. She took her exercise at the gym. Nor was she dressed for hiking. But if it was the only way to find out more about Middlecote, Alison supposed she would have to get on with it. She should have thought of this. These days she was so ill prepared for country life. It was impossible to believe that once she had been used to trudging through mud up to her knees, soaking wet and with her hair straggling from beneath a sodden bonnet. That past might as well be no more than a dream. She had become very accustomed to comfort.
Her hands shook a little as she locked the car door and zipped the keys carefully into the pocket of her black quilted jacket. She tucked her hair under a knitted beanie hat and pulled on her gloves. It was cold outside. The cutting edge of the breeze almost stole her breath. Luckily, she had boots on, but they weren’t the sort to wear to ramble across fields and her black skinny jeans were too thin for this cold.
Sharp thorns grasped at her jacket as she climbed over the stile and jumped down the other side. Fortunately, the frost had frozen the muddy furrows hard but even so she had twisted her ankle within two minutes. She gritted her teeth and marched on. This would be the moment to pause and appreciate the winter landscape, perhaps; the plume of smoke rising from a cottage across the valley like a feather in the still air, the loud calling of the birds in the bare hedgerow, the way that the frost patterned the leaves with silver. Except that her feet were freezing, her expensive boots were leaking already and she had a tear in the quilted jacket where a particularly malevolent bramble had snagged her.
Why the hell hadn’t she just rung Adam up and asked for his help? She needed to accept that she couldn’t do this all on her own. She could have spun him some convincing line about her family history research and persuaded him to tell her about Mary’s portrait and the box. She was sure she could. He had already refused to answer her questions once but she could have given it another shot. They could have met in London, in a nice warm impersonal coffee shop and that way she wouldn’t be slogging across a field, getting colder, dirtier and more annoyed with each step.
The footpath had been descending gently and now it passed through a larch wood and crossed a broader track, a bridleway that ran in a straight line as far as Alison could see before dipping away across the hill. A huge oak stood here, bare of leaf, its branches thick and twisted by age into extraordinary shapes. It reminded Alison of the trees in Savernake. This oak would have been here long before Mary Seymour came to Middlecote Hall.
Again that feeling of stepping back into the past struck her so forcibly that it felt like a step missed in the dark. Drawing her jacket more closely about her she crossed the bridleway and dipped back into the wood, finding that the path ended within a hundred yards in a cast iron gate that matched the one at the main entrance. There was a padlock on this one too but Alison was fairly certain that landowners were not supposed to block public footpaths so she climbed over the gate and found herself in the deer park. A frosty green sweep of grass dropped away downhill, dotted with tall oaks and beech. At the bottom of the slope stood a house.
The clouds were breaking a little overhead, revealing a sky of pale washed blue and a weak sun that picked out the red brick, warming it and sparkling off the leaded windows. Alison caught her breath.
She never visited historic houses, keeping well away from anything that presented what felt to her a sterile past trapped in the present. It had been the only way to survive when she had realised that she could never get back; seeing a facsimile of the past all the time was not comforting. It only made her feel more alienated from Arthur and from her own time.
Now, though, looking at Middlecote Hall, she felt an odd shift in perspective as though she really could simply run down the hill and rejoin Mary Seymour in the past. The sensation was so strong that for a moment she thought she really might have stepped back in time, so easily, so unintentionally, but then she heard the hoot of a horn on the lane behind and the sound of a car, and felt her excited spirits drop.
She started to walk down the path to the hall, beneath the bare, spreading branches of the oaks, where the frozen leaves of autumn crunched underfoot. As she got closer to the house, she could see the neglect. Weeds grew through the gravel of the drive, walls were crumbling and ivy shuttered some of the windows. The neat lines of flowerbeds and parterre were blurred and overgrown.
There was no sign of inhabitation and the impression of warmth and welcome that Alison had felt when she first saw the house had faded now. The blank windows seemed shuttered and secretive. There was something inimical about it.
Her mood tumbled into misery again. She realised that she had come to Middlecote because she wanted to establish some sort of physical connection to Mary, however tenuous, and through that feel comforted that she was closer to Arthur. Instead, she just felt more distant from them, locked out, left behind.
The front door was padlocked just as the gates had been. Alison peered in at one of the downstairs windows and could see absolutely nothing in the gloom inside. Adam had said that he had found Mary’s portrait as part of a restoration project but there seemed to be precious little restoration work going on here. A horrid doubt seized Alison that Richard Demoranville had given her erroneous information and sent her off to completely the wrong place.
She sat down on the front steps. The whole thing was too Gothic to be true. Any moment now Mary’s ghost would waft across the drive and beckon her inside. Her new boots were ruined, her coat was ripped and she was frozen. She started to laugh.
Looking up, she saw she wasn’t alone. A black Labrador—rotund and with a greying muzzle—was sitting a few feet away watching her with his bright brown eyes. His wagging tail stirred the loose gravel chippings.
There was the sound of footsteps on the drive.
‘Monty!’ It was Adam’s voice, with a shade of irritation. ‘Where—’
‘Your guard dog’s here,’ Alison said, as Monty started to sniff enthusiastically at her boots. ‘Hello, Adam.’
*
Not even an optimist could consider Adam’s response welcoming. He rubbed his chin, his expression closed as he looked at her. Alison felt at an immediate disadvantage and scrambled to her feet, suddenly acutely aware of the mud-spattered boots, the rip in her jacket and her general air of dishevelment.
‘How the hell did you know—’ Adam said. He stopped, but it was too late. In that moment, Alison knew with total certainty that the newspaper cutting had been correct. She was in the right place. This was where Adam had found Mary’s portrait. She felt a rush of elation mingled with terror.
And so it begins… Time starts to run backwards, the quest is set in motion.
Adam had changed tack. ‘How did you know where to find me?’ he said.
Alison dragged off her beanie hat and shook out her hair. ‘I wasn’t looking for you, Adam,’ she said, over her shoulder. ‘I didn’t even know you would be here. It was the house I came to see.’
Adam didn’t reply and when she looked up she could see a hint of a smile creeping into his eyes. She liked that he wasn’t too arrogant to believe her despite his celebrity. People must fawn over him all the time these days. She was glad it hadn’t spoiled him. Not that it should matter to her one way or another.
‘That makes sense, I suppose,’ he said. ‘You came because of the connection to Mary Seymour?’
‘I traced her to here,’ Alison said cautiously. She didn’t want to give Richard away. She still didn’t understand why he had given her th
e newspaper cutting but she was hugely grateful to him.
Adam nodded. His mouth turned down at the corners. ‘I had no idea there was a link between Middlecote and Mary,’ he said, almost to himself, ‘but last night I found a reference—’ He broke off. ‘Why are you smiling?’
Alison could not help herself. ‘So you took my claims seriously enough to check them out,’ she said.
Adam scowled at her. He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Is that your car parked up the road?’
Alison was slightly thrown by the change of subject. ‘The red Focus? Yes.’
‘The farmer’s towed it away, I’m afraid,’ Adam said. He didn’t sound particularly sorry. ‘He gets angry when people block field gates.’
‘The cardinal sin of the countryside, I suppose,’ Alison said. ‘Where is it?’
‘In the yard.’ Adam jerked his head towards the back of the house. ‘You should have let me know you were coming,’ he added. ‘I would have opened the gates and then you wouldn’t have needed to climb through hedges to get here.’ His gaze travelled over her again, measured, cool, and Alison felt herself blush. No doubt she had twigs in her hair and mud smeared on her face. She raised her chin.
‘Like I said, I didn’t know you were here.’ She glanced around at the weed-strewn drive and the blank windows. ‘Do you own the place now?’
‘Of course not,’ Adam said. ‘A historian’s pay can’t buy this piece of history.’ He sighed. ‘Well, as you’re here, I suppose you’d better come in.’
‘There’s no need to sound so eager,’ Alison said, following him. ‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘if you don’t own Middlecote yourself, should you be inviting me in?’
Adam gave her a look. ‘I have a key because I’m still working on a few bits and pieces of research and as you’ve gone to such a lot of trouble to get here—’ once again his cool gaze considered her mud-splashed boots and trousers ‘—I assumed you wanted to see the place.’
‘Fair enough,’ Alison said. ‘Thank you,’ she added.
Monty walked next to her, his stubby black tail wagging. She leaned over to stroke his ears and the dog paused, closing his eyes and putting his head back in a pose of bliss.
‘At least Monty seems to like me,’ Alison said.
She saw Adam’s lips twitch into a smile. ‘I didn’t know you were a dog person.’
‘I don’t think the topic ever came up.’ Alison said.
‘I suppose not.’ Adam had stopped at a battered wooden door with peeling blue paint. He took a key out of his pocket.
‘It was all a very long time ago,’ Alison said.
Adam did not bother to reply.
Alison looked around whilst he wrestled with the padlock on the door. To their right, through an archway, was a coach yard. Alison could see her diminutive red car sitting next to a mud-splashed four-by-four. Adam’s, she presumed.
Adam stepped aside to allow her to precede him into the house. She heard him follow her and the door close with an unnervingly final thud. It was so dark in the interior that it took her eyes a moment to adapt.
Black and white marble floor, a huge gallery with a stained glass window that looked more Victorian than Elizabethan, a cobwebbed chandelier… It was the sort of house that looked as though it had been added to piecemeal over the centuries and had ended up as some sort of Gothic horror show. Alison was not sure what she had been expecting but it wasn’t this. She felt an obscure sense of disappointment.
It was also dark, cold and quelling. She instinctively wrapped her arms about her to repress a shiver. Monty didn’t seem to mind the atmosphere though. He lay down on the marble floor with a heartfelt sigh.
‘I thought you said you found the portrait when you were working on a restoration project,’ Alison said, looking round. ‘It doesn’t look as though you’ve got far with the work.’
Adam snapped on a light switch and the dusty chandelier glowed into faint life. It made everything look much worse, to Alison’s eyes; dust an inch thick, elongated shadows and battered panelling all complemented by the smell of damp and decay.
‘It wasn’t a restoration project,’ Adam said. ‘I was only cataloguing the contents of the house. It was Richard who first put me on to it because the family brought a couple of paintings into his shop to be valued.’
‘Are they intending to sell the place?’ Alison asked.
Adam shook his head. ‘They’re not interested in either selling or restoring the property but they did agree to remove all the historic contents that were worth preservation.’
‘Before they rotted away,’ Alison said.
‘Something like that,’ Adam agreed. ‘Though there wasn’t much left anyway. It had been sold off down the centuries.’
His voice was cold; she had the impression he disapproved of people who let their heritage disintegrate around them.
‘Would you like a tour?’ Adam said. ‘I assume that was why you came?’ He tilted his head to one side, watching her. ‘What were you expecting—open house and afternoon cream teas?’
‘You never know,’ Alison said lightly.
‘Well, sorry to disappoint,’ Adam said. ‘A kettle and some instant coffee is the best I can do. There’s no milk, I’m afraid.’
‘Wow,’ Alison said. ‘I won’t, thanks.’
‘This way then.’ Adam gestured towards a rather unnervingly dark passage. His attitude reminded Alison of someone who was going to the dentist. Get it over with. She wondered why he had invited her inside at all.
She followed him down the shadowed corridor. Monty gave a huff and hauled himself to his feet to patter after them.
‘He’s Richard’s dog,’ Adam said, ‘though I borrow him when I’m down.’
‘He’s lovely,’ Alison said, as Monty gave her a soulful look.
‘This is the Great Hall,’ Adam said, standing aside so that she could see past him into the interior. ‘It was remodelled in the late sixteenth century but you may recognise the detail in the window since you’re such a Seymour scholar.’ There was a slightly sarcastic tone in his voice.
‘One is the Tudor rose,’ Alison said, following his gaze to the four roundels in the stained glass window. ‘Then there are the arms of King Henry VIII and those of Jane Seymour and their initials.’
‘They were supposed to have courted secretly at Middlecote after meeting at Wolf Hall,’ Adam said.
‘I suppose it’s possible,’ Alison said. She thought back over what she had gleaned in her time at Wolf Hall. She had never heard mention of Middlecote, which was why she had not thought of it when she was trying to trace Mary. She wondered if some enterprising owner down the years had made up the story of Jane and Henry’s courtship to give the place more importance.
‘But you don’t think it’s likely,’ Adam said, and she realised how doubtful she had sounded. She gave herself a mental shake.
‘The Seymours and the Fenners were related by marriage,’ she said, ‘so there was a family connection. And we aren’t far from Savernake, as the crow flies. So it is possible.’ She realised how closely Adam was watching her. His expression was quizzical, not, she thought, because he believed she was making it up but because she sounded so knowledgeable, so convincing. She would need to be careful. It would be easy to give away more than she intended if she lowered her guard.
Deliberately, she broke the contact between them and looked up at the window again with its brilliantly coloured roundels glowing even in the gloom.
‘You mentioned that the window is of a later date than Tudor, though,’ she said.
‘Installed by Sir John Hopton, who was inordinately proud of his connection to royal history,’ Adam said. ‘Hopton inherited the place from Wild Will Fenner in the 1580s.’
Wild Will Fenner.
Something stirred in the ashes of the grate, a curl of old smoke released to rise lazily up the chimney. Alison felt the cold inside her seep deeper.
‘Have you come across him in your family tree research?’ Ad
am’s tone was neutral this time. He was still testing her.
‘I’ve never heard of Will Fenner,’ Alison said honestly, ‘but…’ She stopped, shrugged. ‘Sorry, no. The name just seemed familiar for a moment.’ It did, like an echo down through time or a whisper in her mind.
‘He was supposed to have been something of a bad lot,’ Adam said. ‘Drink, women, gambling, debt…’
‘The usual sixteenth-century gentlemen’s pastimes,’ Alison said.
‘Plus highway robbery and murder,’ Adam added.
‘Not so commonplace,’ Alison conceded. She felt apprehension stir. Mary had come here, to a murderer’s household? Alison shivered, wondering how she had fared. How could little Mary Seymour, unprotected, honest, inexperienced, guard herself in a place like this?
‘What happened to Will Fenner?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know much about him,’ Adam said, ‘except that there were endless disputes over his inheritance when he was young. He was always engaged in litigation with his neighbours and family. He died in about 1580, which was when the house went to Hopton. I think he had a fall from his horse, up on the path at the top of the hill, the Thieves’ Way. They call the place the Phantom Tree.’
Alison’s sensation of cold was intensifying now, eating into her bones, rising up her body. It felt terrifying, uncontrollable. With a huge effort of will she fought to break free of the strange sensation.
‘This part of the house looks later than Tudor,’ she said, focusing on the discoloured plasterwork, concentrating on the detail of the panelling to stop herself running from the building.
‘It was remodelled in the seventeenth century,’ Adam said. ‘Hopton kept the medieval core of the manor but built onto it. What remains of the Tudor mansion is through here.’ He ducked his head beneath a lintel and led her through another long stone passageway with mullioned windows, which looked out onto a square of overgrown grass. Alison felt disorientated; this sprawling house was like nothing she had experienced. Generations subsequent to her own had altered and added until the familiar lines of a Tudor manor were blurred to her.
The Phantom Tree Page 12