by Rachel Hore
Perhaps she ought to stay. Despite assurance from Chantal, she felt squeamish about letting the Wickhams have her for a third week. They must be pretty fed up with their guest by now, though they were kind enough not to show it. And staying with Claire was not, at the moment, a comfortable proposition, and not just because of the lumpy mattress.
She turned on her laptop to see if she had any messages. It seemed not, until she noticed that an e-mail from Cecelia dated the day before was sitting in her spam box. It must have gone there because the title was in capital letters with half a dozen exclamation marks. YOU MUST READ THIS!!!!!! She clicked on it quickly, and the message she read made her forget all her thoughts about leaving.
Hey, Jude,
I went to the British Library after we spoke, and just for fun I fed “Josiah Bellingham” into the catalog search engine. And what came up—ta da!—but his unpublished diary. I ordered it up straightaway and—well, you won’t believe what I found. I’ve copied out the relevant bits for you and here they are!
Jude quickly downloaded the attachment and began to read.
From the unpublished diary of Josiah Bellingham, maker of optickal instruments and supplier to the Astronomer Royal.
31 December 1778
I left my sister Fawcett’s this morning after breakfast and rode for two hours, reaching Starbrough Hall at eleven. There I found my journey to be wasted, Wickham being several days dead, God rest his soul, the girl vanished, and Wickham’s harpy of a sister, one Mrs Adolphus Pilkington, in situ with her husband and their son, a thin bookish spawn by the name of Augustus. None recalled seeing the letter dispatched two days before announcing my impending arrival. I stated my business: to learn more about a strange comet or nebula the woman Esther had seen in the sky. I had written to the gentlemen of the Astronomical Society on the matter, I told the Pilkingtons, and they had bid me explore it further. Mr Pilkington, a genial enough gentleman, though he limped badly from gout, bade me dine with them, which we did well on mince pie and rabbits smothered in onion. On questioning them both I learned a sorry tale. Wickham, being a childless bachelor and a person of solitary habits, had come, in the manner of a foolish old man, to dote on a poor foundling girl he’d rescued from the roadside and she had used her wiles to tame him like a lamb on a string. He had lately named her his adopted daughter. Since his terrible accident in the tower, of which I was already acquainted and which left him helpless, she had made him her puppet and refused to entertain his beloved sister and the bookish nephew, being the rightful heir. Here Madam Pilkington muttered in aside that the girl had been in some way involved in the accident, but her good husband assured me later in private that there was no evidence for this. I enquired after the whereabouts of the girl. ‘Gone,’ was all they’d say. It appears that soon after the Pilkingtons arrived, she’d fled the scene they knew not where or what goods or money she might have taken with her. ‘She was a wicked girl,’ Madam Pilkington asserted, ‘and Starbrough Hall is well rid of her.’ I do not think I like Madam Pilkington.
At this outburst the maid waiting on us at table dropped her burden of plates with a crash and fled the room weeping. ‘You’ll see how distressing even the mention of Esther is to them,’ intoned the wretched dame as she rose from the table. Only I saw the look of pure hatred the butler darted her as he hurried to repair the mess.
My instincts screamed at me to leave, but my intellectual curiosity was not yet satisfied. Were there notebooks, I asked, which I might consult regarding my mission? Madam Pilkington didn’t know and by her tone didn’t care, but she gave me leave to enter Anthony Wickham’s library. I was struck at once by the beauty of the room, its unusual oval shape and the range of scholarship displayed on its shelves. Luxuriant as a cow in clover I grazed the shelves, lifting out one delight after another, then examined the collection of spyglasses, marvelling how he had constructed such wonderful instruments from the lenses I’d ground for him. That I’d not met with him again before his death seemed suddenly tragic, and the girl’s mysterious disappearance a damned nuisance and a puzzle, for I discerned that this pair, the Pilkingtons, were hiding information from me. Still, what could I, a mere acquaintance of the dead man, do about any of this? I discovered several journals stacked on one shelf. Two more lay on the desk. I perused all these and noted their contents, but the most recent entry was from over a year ago and there was no mention of the strange celestial object of which the girl had written to me. Any more recent volume, I discerned, must be missing, and a further search proved fruitless.
My work here was done.
‘Should the girl Esther reappear, I should be glad to correspond with her,’ I told the Pilkington harpy. ‘Or if you discover the final journal book, send for me. It may be that your brother’s work yields discoveries germane to our knowledge of the skies, and if so I should be glad to represent it to the authorities on his behalf. Your servant, sir, madam,’ and so I departed with mixed feelings—of relief at leaving these people, but also of deep unease.
I passed the night at the market town of Attleborough. At one o’clock I was woken by a huge storm of hail and snow and a wind so great I felt with a great terror my bedstead rock under me. It was another day and a night before the weather turned clement enough for me to set forth for London once more and home.
So Bellingham did come, Jude told herself, closing the file. But what on earth happened to Esther? She missed showing him the planet that she and her father had found; that was awful. She e-mailed Cecelia, asking, “What you’ve found is both wonderful and terrible. Is that all? Were there no further relevant diary entries?”
There was no immediate reply. She rang Cecelia’s mobile, but only got a message to say she should try again later. She prowled up and down the library, thinking and thinking what she should do next. In particular, had Esther written any more, and if so had it survived?
She stared at the cupboard. She’d found the wedge of pages fallen down a gap at the back. What if she hadn’t got them all out? She opened the doors, took out all the charts and pushed her hand through the gap at the back, trying to feel about. The arc her fingers traced met with nothing but brick and mortar dust. She retreated, nursing scraped knuckles, and considered the possibilities. Of course, if need be, she could ask Robert about removing the back of the cupboard, but that seemed an act of vandalism and she ought to try to see if it was justified. Surely, she thought, anything that had dropped through the gap couldn’t have fallen very far. If only she could see …
She went to find Alexia and asked to borrow a flashlight and a hand mirror. Alexia, whom she found on her hands and knees clearing up the playroom, came immediately to help. At first Jude, angling the mirror and shining the flashlight about, could see nothing much at all, but then … there was some paper lying just out of reach. Eventually, using a wire coat hanger and some double-sided sticky tape Alexia brought her, she netted a dozen more pages in the familiar handwriting.
“But that really seems to be it,” she told Alexia.
“Thank goodness,” Alexia said. “I don’t like loose ends.” And she went back to sorting toys.
Jude eagerly began to read.
I can hardly bear to write of those last days. As the season of Advent prepares us for news of a joyful birth at Christmas, in Starbrough we prepared ourselves for my father’s passing. He was too weak to be taken outside that autumn, nay he had lost the will to sweep the skies and he ordered the great telescope to be returned to the tower, though I kept the precious specula in their box in the library for polishing. I tended him carefully those days, as though he were an infant, helping him eat what little he would, and washing him, with Betsy’s help to turn him, though he was light now and so pitifully wasted you could see the blood move in his veins.
He slept much of the day and near Christmas Dr Brundall visited and told me it was only a matter of time. I should send for his sister, and though it riled me, so I did. None could say I shirked my duty there.
Th
ey did not come immediately, the Pilkingtons. They dallied. Only later did I find out why. And so it came to pass that their carriage drew up outside just after the post-horse left Starbrough Hall bearing letters announcing its master’s death. With them was Mr Atticus, an attorney from Norwich. Not Father’s ancient Mr Wellbourne, but a young man with a plausible manner and a mercurial brain. They all crowded into my father’s bedroom and contemplated his poor meagre body with a horrifying disinterest. Only Augustus showed distress, turning as pale and inert as the corpse. I drew him from the room and tried to comfort him with what few broken words I could find.
Alicia’s voice flew about the house with orders that beds be made up and furniture rearranged, that the parson be summoned to discuss the funeral. It was her obvious lack of grief that incensed me most. She offered no consolation for Susan’s tears nor Mrs Godstone’s faded weariness, but instead complained about overcooked herring and undercooked puddings and ordered Father’s favourite old greyhound be shot, for the sight of its mange offended her. I told her, as calmly as I could, though I was fair stirred up, that I’d like to speak to Parson Orbison myself about the burial, for Father had once told me he wished to be buried by the folly and this I would like to arrange if he would allow it. At this she stormed about the room, shouting about respectable Wickhams being buried in the churchyard and I said, ‘It’s no good losing your temper, ma’am, I’m merely repeating his wishes,’ but that did not make her see reason.
Finally she calmed down a bit and said we’d see what the parson said when he came, then she called Mr Trotwood and entrusted him with a letter to be taken directly to Mr Wellbourne in his chambers. ‘He must visit us tomorrow to read the will, should it suit him,’ she told us, but if the tone of her letter were as sinister as her words, he would know that it must suit him very well.
Mr Orbison visited as darkness fell and stayed to dinner. Since the ground in the churchyard was hard as stone, he said, he could only imagine it would be worse on the hill where frost had lain thick these past weeks. And he would not, he added, holding aloft his wine glass like the Holy Chalice, have anything more to do with a place that was so obviously a pagan graveyard. Alicia’s eyes gleamed with triumph and her smile was like the flicker of a snake’s tongue. I dared say nothing more on the subject.
The following morning when Betsy opened the door to Father’s lawyer, Mr Wellbourne, an icy draught blew through the house. We all sat in the dining room, he and Mr Atticus at opposite ends of the table, Alicia and Adolphus to one side, myself and Mr Trotwood on the other. The rest of the household stood around the room and Mr Corbett fed the fire. Early in the proceedings Augustus was found listening at the door and his mother snapped at him to come in and hold his tongue.
Mr Wellbourne read the will in his cracked, whistling voice. It seemed to continue for pages and pages, but eventually he came to the meat. Alicia was granted the sum of £3000, some items of furniture and the portrait of their mother hanging in my father’s chamber. Several hundred pounds were to be shared amongst the staff. A donation was made to the Royal Astronomical Society. The rest: house, lands, chattels, money, were bequeathed to Esther Wickham, ‘my adopted daughter’. There was a collective sigh from the servants as Mr Wellbourne laid down the papers and removed his spectacles. Susan caught my eye and smiled. Mr Corbett winked, I swear it. I looked at Alicia. Her face was as tranquil as a summer’s day before a storm, but seeing the threatening wisp of cloud in her eye, I knew a deep fear.
At the other end of the table, Mr Atticus harrumphed and began. ‘Mistress Pilkington, Mr Pilkington, Mr Wellbourne, if I may. I must declare this will null and void forthwith.’ The room fell still as the frozen park outside. ‘You say, sir, that it was drawn up and signed last April, but this was after Mr Wickham fell and sustained the blow that eventually killed him and I am of the opinion that he was not of sound mind. I have written evidence from the doctor who tended him.’
‘Dr Brundall?’ cried Mr Wellbourne. ‘But he is one of the witnesses to the document.’
‘You will see here this letter dated the thirtieth of April last.’ Mr Atticus held up a single sheet. ‘It is in response to one Mrs Pilkington wrote Dr Brundall concerning her brother’s condition. I quoth: “I advise you to put off visiting your brother, for he is still weak, easily tired and occasionally muddled of mind.”’
‘I tell you,’ repeated Mr Wellbourne. ‘He witnessed the will. Why would he have done that if he judged his patient to be of unsound mind? We must interview him to clarify the matter.’
And so the argument went round and round. Mr Atticus demanded to see the original will which Mr Wellbourne said was drawn up before my arrival, but Mr Wellbourne had left it in Norwich. Alicia put in that she would honour all bequests made to servants in the new will, which lightened the atmosphere in some quarters of the room but not mine. The matter was adjourned until the old will be found and Dr Brundall made an affadavit. The carpenter arrived with the coffin and so the meeting dispersed.
That night I sat for an hour with Father in his room. He was dressed in his best suit and arranged in the open coffin in such a manner that he appeared merely asleep. I wept for him and kissed him farewell, for tomorrow the hearse would come and the coffin be closed and we’d follow him to the churchyard where he, the star-keeper, who had swept the heavens and explored the highest reaches of the human mind, would be buried in a dark hole to be gouged in the frozen ground. At eleven o’clock I retired to my room and, worn out by the sorrow and anxiety of the day, slept deeply without dreaming.
The writing here was less firm, and blurred in places as though by tears, and Jude stopped reading and sat staring into the distance, trying to imagine what it had been like for Esther, to lose her beloved father and feel she was losing everything. Awful. Should she read on or stop and transcribe the bit she’d just read? Read on, she decided, but at this point there came a knock on the door and Euan came in.
“I won’t disturb you,” he said. “I’ve come to see Robert. Just wanted to confirm with you that tonight’s on. Fiona and her husband are coming for supper and I’ve told Claire she’ll have a tent mate.”
“Was Claire all right about it?” Jude asked.
“I think so. Why shouldn’t she be?” Euan asked, sounding surprised.
“Oh, no reason.” She changed the subject. “Euan, I’ve found some more pages of Esther’s journal. It’s awfully sad. I must tell you—”
“And I’d love to hear about it. But Robert seemed a bit impatient. I’d better go. See you this evening. I said seven o’clock to Claire.”
Do you really not know why Claire would mind, you marvelous man? Jude thought, as he went off to Robert’s study. She slumped in her seat, all energy suddenly gone. Perhaps he was completely unaware of her sister’s interest in him. Or of hers. She sighed. Well, she’d have to go to the sleepover now. Heck, when had she last slept in a tent?
She was turning back to Esther’s memoir when the door opened once more. It was Alexia again.
“How are you getting on?” she asked Jude.
“With Esther? Oh, fascinating. I—”
“Good, I am pleased. I’ve just bumped into your friend Euan rushing down the corridor, and he tells me you’re camping this evening. So I thought I’d come and ask you if you needed anything. I’ve got a couple of sleeping bags if you want to borrow one. Would you like to come and choose?”
“Oh, thank you,” Jude said, standing up. She’d have to finish reading Esther later.
“I kept mine from Guides,” Alexia told her as they went upstairs, “though you might prefer Robert’s. It’s warmer.”
“I imagine you would have been a jolly good Girl Guide,” Jude said, laughing. “Always prepared.”
Alexia smiled and performed a mock salute. “I think we’ve got an air mattress somewhere, too. Anyway, let’s get you kitted out.”
“Alexia, you’re amazing,” Jude told her as they reached a spare bedroom full of fitted cupboards, from
which the mistress of the house started dragging items out. “You put up with an extra guest for two weeks, and pull sleeping bags out of hats, all without seeming to mind a bit. But I must be a real nuisance.”
“Honestly, you’re not,” Alexia said, giving her a hug. “I’ve always loved looking after people. It’s the one thing that really makes me happy. And I meant to tell you, if you want to stay next week as well, please do. We’d love to have you!”
“Are you sure? You must have read my mind.”
“I’ve already talked to Robert about it. Of course we’re sure. Now, there’s that one and this one, and I might even have a blow-up pillow somewhere.”
* * *
Jude packed herself an overnight bag and was ready by six. At last, she told herself. She simply must read the rest of Esther’s memoir; she had to know what happened. She slipped along to the library, settled herself at the desk and began to read. She read and she read it again, and only when her phone rang and it was Euan to ask where she was, did she push the pages away reluctantly and leave the house. So deep in the eighteenth-century past was she, it was as though Esther walked beside her all the way.
CHAPTER 29
It was difficult to drag herself out of her thoughts, but if anyone could do it, it was Claire, flirting with Euan.
“Will you put the tent up for us, Euan?” Claire wheedled, as bossy as her daughter.
“I think I can manage that.”
“And can we possibly borrow your shower in the morning?”
“Yes, I can allow that, too.”
“And—how about breakfast in bed?”
Euan threw back his head and laughed.