He was taking deep breaths, trying to catch his breath. In the cold wind, he was suddenly shivering violently. ‘Well, I’m not going to argue the toss now. If I stand here much longer I’ll get pneumonia.’ He turned towards the house and strode away up the lawn. Joss stood still, looking after him. Her sudden hilarity had gone as swiftly as it had come. She hadn’t pushed him. She had been standing several yards away from him when he had suddenly given the surprised shout and hurtled forward into the water. He hadn’t slipped; he hadn’t jumped. He looked as if he had been pushed. But if she hadn’t done it, who had?
She shuddered, looking round. The moorhen had disappeared. The bright autumnal sun had vanished behind a cloud and the garden was suddenly very bleak and cold.
She watched as Luke disappeared round the side of the house towards the kitchen, then she turned and looked back at the dull black surface of the lake, the lake where Sammy had died and she shuddered violently. Dear sweet God, it was starting.
Lyn was in the kitchen making pastry when Joss made her way in through the back door and hung up her jacket in the hall. She glanced up at Joss over the rolling pin and raised an eyebrow. ‘Luke is pretty pissed off with you,’ she said. Beside her, Tom, his sleeves rolled up was kneeling on a kitchen chair rolling out his own small piece of dough. He was covered in flour. ‘What on earth made you do it?’
‘I didn’t do it, Lyn.’ Joss went to the stove and lifted the kettle. She reached for a mug. ‘I wasn’t anywhere near him.’
‘So he jumped in by himself?’
‘He must have slipped. Do you want some coffee?’
Lyn shook her head.
‘Daddy all wet,’ Tom observed. He stuck his thumb into his dough and made two eyes. Then he gouged out a smiling mouth.
‘I’ll take him up a hot drink.’ Joss spooned coffee into two mugs and stirred the hot water. She added milk. ‘I didn’t do it, Lyn,’ she repeated firmly. ‘Really I didn’t.’
Luke was running a bath. He was tearing off his sodden clothes as Joss came into the bathroom. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Coffee, to thaw you out. Are you all right?’ There was a long bleeding scratch on his leg.
‘Yes, I’m fine.’ He lowered himself into the hot water and reached for the mug. ‘Sorry to be so cross, but it wasn’t my idea of a joke, Joss.’
‘Nor mine.’ She sat down on the lid of the lavatory. ‘I didn’t do it, Luke. Honest. You must have slipped. I was miles away from you. I saw you just take off suddenly.’
He leaned back and closed his eyes, sipping at the hot drink. ‘If you say so.’
‘Luke, I think we should leave Belheddon.’
‘Joss.’ He opened his eyes and looked at her. ‘We’ve discussed this before. I’m sorry, but it’s impossible. Even with the money from the wine. You must see that. The terms of your mother’s will say we can’t sell it; we still need to earn a living, and our only chance is to persevere with my restoration and with your writing. Well, I suppose you can do your writing anywhere, but the cars, no. I need space for that. Space and covered accommodation, and now I need Jimbo. That lad is worth his weight in gold. He has a real feel for old cars. And here I can put the fiasco of Barry and H & G behind me. They’re never going to catch the bastard. It’s no use me thinking they will. I needed a new life, Joss. And here we have room for Lyn too. It’s perfect in every way.’ Putting down his coffee he reached for the soap and began lazily to lather his arms. ‘I know you’re nervous about the stories about this house, but they are so much crap, you must know that at heart. You mustn’t let people wind you up. People like David.’ He glanced at her again searching it for any reaction and his face relaxed into a smile. ‘I’m glad in a way you thought it funny, watching your husband hurtle into fifteen feet of ice cold water. I haven’t seen you laugh for a long time.’
‘I didn’t laugh.’
‘Well, smile, then. Joss, I know it hasn’t been easy, love. Coming here, with all the memories and stories about your family. I do understand.’
‘Do you?’ She stared at him thoughtfully.
‘Yes, I do.’ He sat up, the water coursing off his shoulders and arms and reached towards the towels. She took one and passed it to him. ‘I also understand it’s not easy seeing Lyn spending so much time with the little boys, when you have to lock yourself away in the study writing.’
‘I’m terrified the story won’t be any good when it’s finished.’
‘It will. After all they’ve seen a chunk of it, and they know what’s going to happen. It will be fine.’
‘Do you think so?’ She hugged her arms around herself.
‘I know so.’ He stood up and wrapping himself in the towel, put his arm round her and she found herself enveloped in a warm steamy hug that smelled of soap and Radox. ‘Forget the ghosts, love. They don’t exist. Not in real life. Wonderful for novelists and historians and old biddies in the village, and even retired vicars looking for jobs as exorcists, but not for real. No way. OK?’
She gave a tight smile. ‘OK.’
‘So, let me get dressed and we’ll go down and drink to Belheddon enterprises, and confusion to the ghosts of yesteryear. Agreed?’
‘Agreed.’
Tom’s first scream brought Joss to her knees on the bed as she was dragged violently out of her dreams. She was out of bed in a flash. Behind her Lyn appeared in the doorway dragging on her dressing gown.
Tom was standing in the middle of the floor. Joss reached him first and picked him up.
The child clung to her sobbing. ‘Tom Tom fall. Tom Tom fall on the floor.’ He buried his head in her neck, nestling into her curtain of hair.
Lyn let down the side of the cot. ‘For goodness sake, Joss. Look. You didn’t fasten the side properly. The poor child could have been badly hurt.’ Crossly she began to remake the tangled bed.
‘Of course I fastened the side properly. I always check.’ Joss glared at her over Tom’s head.
Lyn sniffed. ‘If you say so.’ She smoothed the sheets efficiently down and turned back the blankets. ‘Come on Tom Tom, let’s see if you need changing before I put you down.’ She reached for him and Joss felt the child relinquish his tight grip on her neck and transfer it to Lyn’s. She clutched at him. ‘Tom Tom, stay with Mummy,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ll do it. You go to bed, Lyn.’
Lyn stared at her. ‘Why? I’m offering.’
‘I know you’re offering and I’m grateful, but I want to do it myself.’
Lyn relaxed her hold on Tom and stood back. ‘OK, please yourself. Shall I check on Ned?’
Joss shook her head. ‘No. I’ll go to him when I’ve done this. He’ll be ready for his night feed soon. Go to bed, Lyn.’
She sat the little boy down on his changing mat and began to unbutton his pyjamas. He was still sniffling miserably as she laid him back and eased off his trousers, conscious that Lyn was hovering in the doorway. Half hidden by the plastic toddler’s nappy a huge black bruise was developing on Tom’s leg. Undoing the plastic tabs she took off the nappy and gasped. The bruise covered his whole hip.
Lyn had seen it too. ‘Dear God, how did he do that?’ She came and peered at the little boy.
Joss stared at it, horrified. ‘Tom Tom, sweetheart! Oh you poor little lamb!’ She ran her fingers gently over the bruise. ‘How did you do it? Let Mummy see. I’ll put some arnica cream on it. He must have done it falling out of the cot.’ She rolled up the wet nappy and putting it into the bucket under the table she reached for the talcum powder and a dry nappy from the packet.
‘He didn’t fall.’ Lyn suddenly bent closer. ‘Look. Those bruises on his leg. The marks of fingers.’ She stood back suddenly and stared at Joss. ‘You must have done it. You!’
Joss, having smoothed on some soothing cream was easing the little boy’s hips onto the fresh pad folding it over, sealing the sticky strips. She looked up at Lyn furiously. ‘How could you say such a thing!’
‘Luke. Look.’ Lyn swung round to Luke who was standing by the wall wat
ching. ‘For Christ’s sake, Luke, say something. She’s hurt him. Her own child.’
‘Lyn!’ Joss repeated angrily. ‘Luke, don’t listen to her!’
‘You know that’s not possible, Lyn,’ Luke said quietly. ‘You’re being silly. Joss would never hurt Tom. Never.’
‘No, I wouldn’t! How dare you!’ Joss took a deep breath. ‘Go to bed, Lyn,’ she repeated. ‘You’re obviously tired. Let me get on with settling Tom down.’ She was keeping her temper with difficulty. ‘I would never hurt him in a million years, and you know it. The poor little boy has had a horrid fall out of his cot, and he’s bruised, but that’s all. He’s fine now, aren’t you, Tom Tom?’ She pulled on his pyjama bottoms and buttoned them back to the tops. Then she sat him up. ‘OK, soldier, let’s pop you back to bed.’
‘Tin man gone?’ Tom refused to lie down. He stood in the bed, holding onto the bars, staring past her into the corner of the nursery.
Joss bit her lip. She could feel a small worm of panic beginning in her stomach. ‘No tin man, Tom. That’s your bad dream. He’s gone. Silly tin man. He didn’t want to frighten you. He’s gone away now.’ She saw Luke and Lyn exchange glances over her head. ‘Come on. Let’s tuck you up.’
The night feed was the only one she was still giving Ned from the breast. It had seemed to make sense to wean him slowly onto the bottle so Lyn could take over more of the feeds herself, but this last one, in the quiet depths of the night she had been reluctant to relinquish, even though it added to her exhaustion. As she sat with the baby cradled in her arms she knew she would hang on to this precious moment each night as long as she could, when Ned was hers and hers alone.
It had been a long time before she could persuade Luke and Lyn to go to bed and leave her to settle Tom. When at last they had gone she had sat down beside his cot and read him a story and soon, very soon, his eyes had closed. Kissing him she had self consciously made the sign of the cross over him before tucking in his blankets and tiptoeing out of the room.
As she sat, with the baby cradled in her arms she found her thoughts going back to Lyn. It was as though her sister didn’t trust her. Or was it just that she was jealous, without babies of her own? She frowned, picturing the bruises on Tom. It was not the first time the little boy had fallen and been bruised, and she was sure that Lyn must have seen those bruises too. Bruises from falls. They must be. After all, he was growing more adventurous now, banging his head on the corner of the kitchen table, nearly tipping over his high chair. Bruises were normal in a toddler. But what about nightmares? His nightmares about the tin man.
She sighed. They were not nightmares. She had seen him, sensed him, too, in the corner of the room, Tom’s room, her own bedroom and the great hall, watching from the shadows, no more than a shadow himself, yet always there, waiting. Waiting for what? Even the kittens had sensed him, she was sure of it. Neither of them liked the great hall, avoiding it where possible, or if intent on finding her in the study scampering through with huge eyes and flattened ears. She shivered, her arms tightening round the baby and Ned stopped sucking. He gave a resentful whimper and opened his eyes to look up into her face. She smiled at him and dropped a kiss on the dark hair. ‘Sorry, little one.’
Her thoughts went back to David’s letter. After she had picked the envelope up off the breakfast table she had put it on her desk in the study unopened. David’s letters were no longer seized and torn open with eager anticipation. Now she dreaded them, although she didn’t have the will-power to ask him to stop writing. She had sat down at the desk and drawn her mug of coffee to her, cupping her hands around it, staring sightlessly out of the window. In front of her the pile of manuscript was very little higher than it had been a month before. Her long sessions in the study were more and more unproductive. Sitting at the desk, her ears straining for sounds from the depths of the house – a whimper from Ned, a cry from Tom – she could not concentrate on the story unfolding before her. And always there was the fear that she would hear the others – the lost boys.
Reaching for the computer switch she had watched the screen as her program came up, sipping at the steaming coffee. Then her eye had fallen again on the envelope. With a sigh she reached for it and slipped her finger under the flap.
No photocopies this time, just several pages of David’s closely typed script. She pictured his old battered portable – sometimes to be seen on the staff room table, more often lying tossed and abandoned in the back of his car, the case covered in torn travel labels. He typed with two fingers, often crossed as he explained to anyone who came face to face with his efforts – but there was no sign here of the rows of xs which so often littered his work. Where he had hit wrong keys he had left the results uncorrected.
Dear Joss
Hope my godson flourishes. Give him a kiss from me.
Re: the tin man. I think I know who/what he is!!!! Maybe!!! I’ve been following up on Katherine de Vere and her witchy mother. There are some wonderful records of court proceedings extant. They didn’t entirely get away with it, you know. Margaret was actually arrested in 1482. She was taken from Belheddon to London but before she could be brought before the court she demanded to see the king – Edward IV. He interviewed her in the Tower. It is not recorded what she said but the charges were immediately dropped and she left London laden with gifts. It’s my guess that she had something on him, as they say, and that that something was to do with her daughter Katherine. King Edward had visited Belheddon four times the previous year and on each occasion he stayed several days – once for ten days which was comparatively unheard of. What was the attraction? The place was hardly a political centre in any sense and taking time off from the war/ruling the country was not a particularly expedient action at that time. One contemporary source says Margaret bewitched him to fall in love with her daughter. The idea was that Elizabeth Woodville would die and he would then marry Katherine de Vere.
The Belheddon de Veres were close kin of the Earls of Oxford, and the political implications were enormous if they could net the king and ally themselves by marriage to the white rose …
Joss put the letter down and rubbed her eyes wearily. The white rose. It seemed almost corny, but did King Edward present white roses to his girl-friends? Is that where they came from? Or did Margaret de Vere use them in her magic spells to conjure the love of a king for the daughter of a minor noble who lived at the easternmost edges of his kingdom. She shuddered. Leaning forward she pulled open a small drawer. She had put one of the roses in there, at the beginning, before they had begun to fill her with such dread.
She poked around amongst the pencils and stamps and sticks of sealing wax, but there was no sign of it now. Not even the crumbs of brittle petal in the bottom. The drawer, when she pulled it right out and held it up to her nose smelled of camphor and dust, nothing more. She took a deep breath, sliding the drawer back into place, and picked up the letter again.
Of course, we will never know how much of all this was malicious gossip and rumour, and how much if any was based on fact.
Fact: Elizabeth Woodville outlived her husband.
Fact: Katherine de Vere married a man who died in mysterious circumstances only six months later.
Fact: Katherine herself died a month after that, probably in childbirth.
The king died seven months after that in 1483 at the age of forty. He died suddenly and unexpectedly at Westminster. The death was considered suspicious by many and at that point all the accusations of witchcraft resurfaced and various people were accused of procuring his death. Amongst them was Margaret de Vere who was rearrested. Apparently she counter claimed against the king, blaming him for Katherine’s death. Why? My suspicion is that King Edward was the father of the child that killed her. I’m leaping to conclusions here, Joss, as you will immediately point out, and being shockingly unscientific and even romantic in my deductions, but perhaps some of this makes sense? What do you think? Could our ghost be King Edward – a tin man in armour?
; Must go. Have got to teach lower fifth ladies about Disraeli and Gladstone, God help me. If I could talk about Dizzie’s racy novels and Glad’s girls they’d pay attention. To the Irish question – not a hope! See you all soon. Regards to Luke and Lyn.
D.
Slowly Joss refolded the sheets of paper and reinserted them into the envelope which she stuck into one of the pigeon holes of the desk. Then she had sat for a long time staring out of the window, lost in thought.
25
The barometer in the dining room was falling steadily.
As the winds increased the following day, rattling the windows and howling around the chimneys, the family congregated in the kitchen. By four o’clock Luke had sent Jimbo home and he too was sitting at the kitchen table, a dismantled carburettor spread out before him on a newspaper. He glanced up at Joss, unable to contain his curiosity any longer. ‘Was that a letter from David yesterday morning?’
Joss was cutting up pieces of fruit for Tom’s tea. She glanced up at him, knife raised. ‘It was. He sends you both his regards.’
‘And has he found out any more history about the house?’ He held the housing from one of the twin carbs of the SS up to his mouth and breathing on it heavily he rubbed the gleaming aluminium with a duster.
‘A bit. Apparently King Edward IV visited here on several occasions. David thinks he fancied one of the daughters of the house.’ She scooped pieces of chopped apple and banana onto a saucer and put it in front of Tom. There was no way they could see that she was holding her breath, straining her ears towards the hall, wondering if someone was there, listening, someone who might resent her light, almost flippant tone.
Lyn was studying a recipe book with a frown, pencil in hand as she noted down ingredients on her shopping list. ‘Of course, it would be a king,’ she observed quietly. ‘No lesser mortal would dare to chat up a Belheddonist.’
House of Echoes Page 27