House of Echoes

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘You know Luke can’t go away. He’s got three cars to work on now.’ They were even discussing his taking on some help.

  ‘And it’s out of the question that you go away without him?’ He was still studying her face. She was too thin. Too pale.

  ‘Out of the question.’ She smiled.

  Why did he get the distinct impression that her answer had, in fact, nothing at all to do with Luke. He shook his head. ‘Then you must be firm with yourself, Joss. More rest. Real rest. More company. I know that sounds a contradiction, but you have a real treasure here in Lyn. I know she would welcome visitors and take the strain off you. You need distraction and laughter and, not to put too fine a point on it, noise.’

  She laughed properly this time. ‘Simon, if you knew how awful that sounds! I’m not lonely. I’m not suffering from the quiet and I’m sure I’m not having delusions.’

  ‘So you believe in ghosts.’

  ‘Yes.’ One word, half defiant, half apologetic.

  ‘When I hear or see something myself, then I’ll believe you.’ He stretched, groaned, then stood up. ‘Well, I’m afraid I can’t help with the sleeplessness. Gentle walks in the fresh air, cocoa or Horlicks before bed and an easy conscience, that’s the best prescription a doctor can give.’ He turned to the door and reached for the handle, then he stopped. ‘I hope you’re not afraid of the ghosts, Joss?’

  ‘No.’ She smiled reassuringly. ‘I’m not afraid.’

  The attic was full of bright sunshine. It showed up the marks of rain and dust on the window, and made the air dance with sunbeams. It would make the perfect setting for one of the scenes in her book – just like this – the hot sun, the smell of centuries, old oak, the dust, the absolute silence. Puffing slightly after the steep stairs Joss went straight to the trunk by the wall and threw back the heavy lid. She had only managed to open the padlock a few days before. Not wanting to ask Luke to cut it off for her she had sat there for an hour with a hair pin and suddenly, easily, the lock had clicked back and the hasp swung open. Elated she had lifted the heavy lid and stared inside. Books, letters, papers – and an old bunch of dried flowers. She had picked them up and stared at them. Roses. Old dried roses, colourless with time, tied with silk ribbons. Laying them gently on the floor beside her she began to look through the paper. From the depths of the chest drifted a musty smell of cedar and old brittle paper.

  In the bottom of the box she had found John Bennet’s diary – the John Bennet who had married her great grandmother in 1893 and nine years later, in 1903, had disappeared without trace.

  The last entry in the diary which seemed to cover, on and off, about five years, was dated April 29th 1903. The writing was shaky, scrawled across the page.

  So, he claims yet another victim. The boy is dead. Next it will be me. Why can’t she see what is happening? I have asked that the sacrament be celebrated here in the house and she refuses. Dear sweet Jesus save us.

  That was all.

  Joss sat on the closed trunk, the book open in her lap staring out of the dusty window. The sky beyond was a dazzling ice blue. Dear sweet Jesus save us. The words echoed through her head. What had happened to him? Had he run away, or had he, as he feared, died? She looked down at the book again, leafing through the pages. Until the last few entries the handwriting had been strong, decisive, the subject matter on the whole impersonal – to do with the farm and the village. She had found the entry for little Henry John’s birth.

  Mary had an easy delivery and the child was born at eight o’clock this morning. He has red hair and looks much like Mary’s father.

  Joss smiled, wondering if that was a touch of humour. If it was, the reason for it had long gone.

  Further back she found the entry where his marriage to Mary Sarah in the spring of 1893 was similarly laconically described:

  Today Mary and I were married in the church at Belheddon. It rained, but the party was I think a merry one. We have waited so long for this marriage I pray that it may be joyous and fruitful and that happiness will come now to Belheddon Hall.

  Joss chewed her lip. So, even then, he knew. Where had John Bennet come from? How had he and Mary met? It was all there. His father was a clergyman in Ipswich; his mother had died some time before. He himself had trained for the law, and for several years he seemed to have been a partner in a firm of solicitors in Bury. When he married he gave up the partnership, presumably to manage Belheddon which had been at that time a large and prosperous estate, with farms and cottages and hundreds of acres.

  The diary fell in her lap and she leaned back against the wall, staring at the shadows on the far side of the attic. The hot sunshine, the heavy carved mullions, the arched roof beams: the combination sent a network of dark shadow over the wall paper, shadow that looked – almost – like the figure of a man. She frowned, trying to focus, conscious suddenly that her heart was beating faster than normal. Her palms had grown moist. She pressed them hard on the lid of the trunk on which she was sitting, taking comfort from its solidity and glanced at the doorway. It seemed a hundred miles away. The attics were unnaturally quiet. The usual creaks and groans of the timbers, the soft soughing of the April wind, all had faded to silence.

  ‘Who are you?’ Her whisper seemed crude and violent in the emptiness. ‘Who are you?’

  There was no answer. The shadows had rearranged themselves, back into a criss-cross of architectural shapes.

  Swallowing nervously she pushed herself up until she was standing upright. The diary fell unnoticed to the floor, and lay, face down, the pages splayed at her feet.

  ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, go!’ Her voice tremulous, she found her hand tracing the age old pattern from head to heart, from shoulder to shoulder, the protecting, blessing cross. Slowly, step by step she sidled towards the doorway, her eyes fixed on the wall where she had seen – thought she had seen – the shape of a man. Her back to the wall she edged out of the attic, then she ran. She ran through the attics, down the steep stairs, down the main staircase, through the great hall and into the kitchen. There, panting, she threw herself into a chair and buried her head in her arms on the table.

  Slowly her panic subsided and her breathing calmed. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Then reflexively she cradled her arms around her stomach. She was still sitting there when Lyn came in with Tom in his buggy.

  ‘Joss?’ Lyn abandoned the pushchair and ran to the table. ‘Joss, what is it? What’s happened? Are you all right?’ She put her arms around Joss’s shoulders. ‘Is it the baby? Are you in pain?’

  Joss smiled weakly and shook her head. ‘No, no. I’m fine. I just had a bit of headache, that’s all. I thought I’d make a cup of tea, and I felt a bit dizzy.’

  ‘I’ll call Simon.’

  ‘No.’ Joss shouted the word in a panic. Then more gently she repeated it, ‘No. Don’t fuss, Lyn. I’m OK. Honestly. I was sitting down and I stood up too suddenly, that’s all.’ She dragged herself to her feet and went over to Tom, releasing his harness and humping him to his feet. ‘There, Tom Tom. Did you have a nice walk?’

  The things she had heard, children’s voices, the voices of her own brothers, they had nothing to do with whatever had scared generation after generation of grown men and women in the house. Georgie and Sammy had been born long after their grandparents and great grandparents had died. John Bennet, Lydia Manners – they could not have heard the laughter of Georgie and Sammy in the attics. Controlling herself with an effort she picked up the kettle and carried it to the tap. No one else had heard anything. No one else seemed worried. Perhaps Simon was right. She had got herself into a silly neurotic state as a direct result of her pregnancy. Perhaps all the pregnant women in her family had the same wild fancies. The idea struck her suddenly as ludicrous and she found as she turned with the filled kettle to put it on the hot plate that she was smiling.

  Lyn noticed and smiled back. ‘Before I went out David rang,’ she said abruptly. ‘I said we wanted him to come
down. I said I thought it would cheer you up. He was a bit iffy about it but he said he would. Next weekend. Is that all right?’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘I told Luke.’

  ‘Good.’ Joss glanced at Lyn. ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘OK. I told him it wasn’t just you who liked David. And not all of us are married.’ Lyn’s face had coloured slightly, and Joss found herself studying her sister with sudden perception. The normally colourless complexion, the slightly surly demeanour had been replaced by a sparkle which Joss had never seen there before. She sighed. Poor Lyn. Sophisticated, intellectual and well-read, David would never fancy her in a million years.

  At first the weekend went well. David arrived loaded with wine for Luke, (‘Now that so much of yours has been taken away I reckoned a donation to help top up the cellars would be appreciated – when is the auction, by the way?’) books for Joss, a pretty porcelain vase for Lyn and a massive black teddy bear dressed in a crocheted lace jumper for Tom. He insisted on helping Lyn cook lunch, admired the latest car in the coach house, met Luke’s new part-time assistant, Jimbo, a twenty-year-old apprentice mechanic from the village and, Joss felt, avoided her as much as possible.

  Determined not to show how hurt she felt she declined the offer of a walk with the others after lunch and climbed instead to the bedroom where she flung herself down on the bed. Exhausted she was asleep in seconds.

  In her dream she seemed to be looking down upon herself as she slept. The figure standing near the bed was more defined now. It was tall, broad shouldered, clearly a man, or all that was left of the spirit of what had once been a man. It moved closer, looking down at her, stooping slightly to rest a hand as transparent and light as gossamer on her shoulder under the cover. Gently, imperceptibly, the hand moved down to rest on the hump of her stomach, almost caressing the baby which nestled there in the safe darkness of her womb. The room was unnaturally cold, the atmosphere electric. Joss groaned slightly, and moved in her sleep to ease the discomfort in her back. The figure did not move. It bent closer. The icy fingers brushed lightly across her hair, her face, tracing the line of her cheekbone. With a cry of fear Joss awoke and lay staring up at the tester of the bed. She was perspiring slightly and yet she felt desperately cold. Shivering she pulled the covers round her more closely. The shadow had gone.

  It was early evening before she had a chance to speak to David alone. Luke had gone over to see the Goodyears and it was Lyn’s turn to put Tom to bed. Sitting opposite Joss in the study, his legs stretched out to the fire, a glass of whisky in his hand, David scrutinised her appreciatively for a moment, then he grinned. ‘So, how is authorship?’

  ‘Fine. Good fun. Hard work.’

  He took a sip from his glass. ‘I had lunch with Gerald Andrews last week. I don’t know if he told you but he’s about to go in for a hip operation, poor man. He’s very frustrated. He won’t be able to help us with our research after all. We talked about you quite a bit.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And –’ he paused in mid-breath as though changing his mind about what he was going to say. ‘Joss, have you ever thought about selling Belheddon?’

  ‘No.’ She said it uncompromisingly, without even a moment taken for thought. For a moment neither of them said anything, then she looked him in the eye. ‘Why?’

  Uncomfortably he put down his whisky glass. Rising he went over to the French doors and stared out across the moonlit lawn. It was very bright out there, and cold. There were still traces of the previous night’s frost lying in the shade of the hedge.

  ‘We felt that maybe the stories about the house might be depressing you a bit,’ he said after a moment.

  ‘Did you mention this to Luke?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well please don’t. I’m not in the slightest bit depressed. Why should I be? It is in the nature of history that most of the players are dead.’

  His face cracked into a smile almost against his wishes. ‘I couldn’t have put that better myself.’

  ‘David. What about you and Luke? Is it all right?’ She looked away from him, a little embarrassed.

  ‘It’s fine. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’ He did not turn round. There was a long silence and at last she stood up. Coming over to stand next to him at the window she decided to change the subject.

  ‘Something Gerald said stuck in my mind. He noticed that Belheddon nearly always passed down through the female line. That is why everyone has different surnames even though they are related. Matrilineal descent, he called it. I checked up on it afterwards on the family tree I’ve been drawing up. It’s true. No son has ever lived to inherit Belheddon Hall. Not once. Ever.’

  She did not look at him as she spoke. Her eyes seemed to be focused on a distant point on the water of the lake, where the moon glittered on the grey surface, turning it into a diamanté cloak.

  ‘We hoped you wouldn’t notice.’

  ‘No exhortations to ignore it; to believe it is just coincidence?’

  ‘What else could it be?’ His voice was bleak.

  ‘What else indeed.’ Her voice was flat. She went back to her chair and threw herself into it.

  ‘Have you told Luke about this, Joss?’ David followed her to the fire. He stood with his back to it, looking down on her.

  She shook her head. ‘I tried telling him about the diaries, the letters. He didn’t want to know. It was you who told me not to ram my inheritance down his throat. How can I tell him that this house is cursed?’

  ‘It isn’t. I’m sure it isn’t.’ In spite of himself he shivered.

  ‘Isn’t it? Do you know how many accidents have happened here over the years? Over the centuries? And never to a woman. Never. Only to men. My brothers, my father, my grandfather – only my great grandfather escaped, and you know why? Because he saw it coming. He wrote in his diary that it – it – was going to get him next.’ Her voice had risen. She slumped back in the chair suddenly. ‘Perhaps it did get him. All we know is that he disappeared. We will never know whether he ran away, or did something awful happen to him? Perhaps he was cornered in the woods or the lanes, or in the garden and his body was never found.’

  ‘Joss, stop it.’ David sat down on the arm of her chair and reached for her hand. ‘This is ridiculous. It is coincidence. It has to be coincidence.’

  ‘Then why did you want me to sell up?’

  He smiled ruefully. ‘Because in each of us, however down to earth and boring, there is a tiny treacherous bit of superstition.’

  ‘And that bit believes the devil lives at Belheddon.’ Her voice was very small.

  David laughed. ‘Oh no, I didn’t say that. No not the devil. I don’t believe in the devil.’

  ‘That, if you don’t mind me saying so, hardly proves that he doesn’t exist.’

  ‘True. But I’m happy with the theory. No, whatever happened here, it is a mixture of things. Tragic accidents, like your brothers and your father – all things that could happen in any family, Joss, and probably have. In the past, maybe there was some other factor at work. Maybe the water was contaminated and the germs affected boys more than girls; maybe there was a sex-linked gene in the family which made the male children weaker – susceptible to something.’

  ‘A sex-linked gene making the male children more susceptible to falling into the pond?’ Joss forced a smile. ‘Not very convincing, David.’

  ‘No, but as likely as any other theory.’

  Behind them the door opened, and Luke looked in. His eyes immediately went to the arm of the chair where David’s hand rested on Joss’s. ‘I see I’m interrupting.’ His voice was cold.

  ‘No, Luke. No.’ Joss levered herself from the chair as David moved away. ‘Listen. There is something I must tell you. Please – listen.’

  Coming in, he closed the door behind him. His face was white. ‘I’m not sure I want to hear this.’

  ‘Well, I want you to listen. There is something you must know. I’ve tried to tell yo
u, but –’ she shook her head and looked helplessly at David. ‘It’s to do with the house. We – I – think there is a curse on it.’

  ‘Oh please.’ Luke pushed her away. ‘Not that again. I have never heard such crap. A curse! That’s all we need. In case you’ve forgotten, we have to live here. You can’t sell. That was a condition of your mother’s will. If you want to leave, we lose the house. We have no money, no job. Here I can work. You can write your stories. Lyn and your parents can come if they want. There is room even for your friends.’ He glared at David. ‘I must say, David, I’m surprised you’ve been encouraging her in all this. I thought you had more sense.’

  ‘I do think there is something in what she says, Luke, old boy.’ David looked distinctly uncomfortable. ‘You should listen to her. I don’t think the house is cursed. Maybe it is just an accumulation of old stories and circumstances, I agree, but it does seem strange – too strange to be entirely coincidence – that so many things have happened here over the centuries.’

  ‘And you think the devil lives here? Satan himself, complete with pitch fork and furnace in the cellar?’

  ‘No. Not that. Of course, not that.’

  ‘I should bloody well think not. Have more sense, David. Joss is pregnant. The last thing she needs is someone winding her up and encouraging her in all this stupidity. Simon Fraser had a word with me. He says she’s got herself in a state. She’s supposed to keep calm. And I find you holding her hand, discussing with her the possibility that our son will die.’

  There was a sudden total silence. Joss went white. ‘I never said that,’ she whispered. ‘I never mentioned Tom.’

  ‘Well, that’s what this is all about isn’t it? The sons of the house dying. The voices in the dark. Little boys in the cellar.’ Luke rammed his hands deep into the pockets of his old cords. ‘I’m sorry, Joss. I just want you to realise how preposterous this sounds. Your family are dead. They are all dead. Like all families some of them died young and some in old age. Obviously the further back you go the more likely they are to have died unexplained and unsatisfactory deaths – that is the nature of those days. They had no medicine, no surgery. Children died all the time, that is why Victorians had so many children – to try and up the ante a bit. Luckily we are living in a more enlightened and scientific age. End of problem. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ll go and finish up in the coach house. Then I suggest we all have supper and forget this whole sorry rigmarole.’