Deadlight Hall

by Sarah Rayne

  ‘Yes. Oh, Nell, it’s much higher than I thought it would be.’

  ‘How much higher?’

  ‘They’re saying that because the lease was created more than ten years ago, they’re now allowed to ask whatever figure they want for assigning it. There are stages in the life of the lease, apparently, and this is one of them. I thought the figure would be pretty much the same as I paid, but it isn’t …’

  ‘Godfrey, how much higher?’

  ‘Fifteen thousand pounds higher,’ said Godfrey, miserably.

  Nell sat down abruptly. ‘Oh, lord, that really is higher.’

  ‘We can negotiate a bit,’ he said, hopefully. ‘I dare say they aren’t expecting to get the exact amount they’re asking, but they’ve said this is a prime spot. Nell, I do hope I haven’t got you all fired up about this, only to find it’s impossible.’

  ‘It isn’t like that at all,’ said Nell at once. ‘But that extra fifteen thousand pounds might stretch it too far.’

  Michael had intended to spend most of Monday morning drafting notes for a lecture on eighteenth-century novels. There was the usual faculty meeting at nine, and he had a tutorial at eleven, but apart from that he was free. He thought he might try to track down Salamander House later. He would also see if Professor Rosendale had a spare half hour somewhere, to let him have the Porringer letters.

  When he got back to his rooms after the meeting, Wilberforce was nowhere to be seen, but he made his presence felt in the form of an email from the photographer doing the publicity shots for the new book. They had rescheduled the shoot, and the photographer would like to come along to Oriel on Thursday morning. They would bring their own props this time, to save any further damage to Michael’s rooms, but it would be really helpful if Wilberforce could be persuaded to cooperate – although remembering the first shoot, Rafe could not think how this might be achieved.

  Hard on the heels of this was an email from Michael’s editor, who expressed herself as thrilled (it came over as ‘thrrrilled’) to report that the editorial meeting absolutely loved the idea for a set of historical books set in Wilberforce’s world, using his ancestors as characters. They would like to make this a joint venture with their educational books department (who were very keen on the project) and they would, of course, be sending a formal offer, commissioning the series. But in the meantime, it would be great if Michael could let her have a treatment for the first couple. They ought to be sequential, of course. Perhaps Michael could start with King John and Magna Carta – the Wilberforce of the day might be a scribe, constantly losing writing materials or falling into ink pots. After that, maybe Elizabeth the First, in which a Tudor Wilberforce could be a swashbuckling court cat embarking on a life of piracy, bringing home treasure chests of doubloons. Although they must be careful not to plant the idea in the children’s minds that robbing and pillaging was good. And it was only an idea, of course. But could they say next March for delivery of Book One?

  And while writing, here was a link to the website the marketing people were building for Wilberforce. Michael should remember it was a work in progress, and everyone was sure it would be possible to change the colour of Wilberforce’s fur in the illustrations, although so far nobody had admitted to making it that peculiar tangerine shade when it was well known by them all that Wilberforce – the fictional one at any rate – was black and white.

  Michael regarded the orange splodge intended to represent Wilberforce with dismay, then typed an email to Beth, asking what her year and the year below her were currently learning in history at school. He added a line about her now being editorial consultant, which he thought would amuse and please her, and sent it off.

  By this time his student had arrived for the tutorial, and an absorbing hour followed, in which the student, who was Michael’s particularly promising first year, displayed some satisfyingly original thinking, and argued his points with polite insistence.

  After the student had left, Michael put in a couple of hours on his lecture, covering his desk with books, and enjoying himself wandering along paths in the company of such people as Jane Austen, Oliver Goldsmith, and Fanny Burney. He added Tobias Smollet and Henry Fielding to the mix to spice things up a bit.

  It was mid-afternoon before he was able to tell the professor about the Porringer letters.

  ‘I should like to see them very much,’ said Leo. ‘Are you free at the moment?’

  ‘I am,’ said Michael. ‘I’ll drop them in now, shall I?’

  ‘Yes, do. I’ll get someone to bring coffee.’

  Michael, seeing the rooms for the first time – seeing the charm of their clutter and feeling the gentle atmosphere of books and scholarship – understood why they were a small legend of their own within Oriel. Seeing the professor bestow his smile on the bearer of the coffee, he also understood why the tray had been carried up three flights of stairs without demur.

  Rosendale read the letters with deep interest.

  ‘I don’t know if they’ll provide any answers for you,’ said Michael, when Leo laid them down, ‘but it’s all useful material. It might be worth delving into Salamander House, as well – oh, and you note the suggestion that there was some kind of private arrangement between Breadspear and Porringer – something off the record, as it were.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Leo thought for a moment, then said, ‘Dr Flint …’

  ‘Michael.’

  ‘Michael, I think I told you I lived near to Deadlight Hall as a child. I was one of a group of children who were smuggled out of Poland in 1942, and I was sent to live with a brother and sister. Simeon and Mildred Hurst, at Willow Bank Farm.’

  ‘Maria Porringer mentions that place,’ said Michael eagerly, reaching for the printouts. ‘And the name Hurst, as well. Yes, here it is. John Hurst, of Willow Bank Farm.’

  ‘Yes. And I rather think,’ said Leo, ‘that John Hurst might be the man Simeon and Mildred referred to as their shameful ancestor. “Wild and godless” they called him, usually with the Biblical line about the sins of the fathers, as well.’

  This was the most Michael had ever heard the professor say about his background – he thought it was probably the most anyone at Oriel College had ever heard him say. Not wanting to intrude, but interested, he said, ‘Were they good to you, that farmer and his sister?’

  Leo smiled. ‘They were strict and rather severe, but they were kind in their own way. But when Mildred Hurst died, she left the contents of the farmhouse to me. Furniture and china and so on. I sold most of the furniture – it was nearly all Victorian and rather florid, but one of the things I did keep was that old blanket box.’ He indicated an oak box beneath a latticed window. ‘It stood outside my bedroom at Willow Bank, so it felt like a bit of my childhood. The Hursts used it to store odd papers and photographs. None of them were relevant to me, but it seemed wrong to destroy them.’

  ‘Are they still there?’ said Michael, hardly daring to hope.

  ‘Oh, yes. I’ve never really looked at them, but I always felt they were a fragment of a particular era of history, so I kept them.’

  ‘Professor, when you say papers …?’

  ‘Mostly old letters and photos and the odd newspaper cutting, I think. It’s a bit of a jumble.’ He was already crossing the room to the carved box. Sunlight filtered through the window, laying chequered patterns on its surface.

  ‘It’s been under this window … well, ever since I’ve been here,’ said the professor. ‘I’ve used it as an extra shelf.’

  ‘So I see.’ The grain of the lid showed dark oblongs where books had lain for years, and where the sun had gradually faded the rest of the surface around them. Michael knelt down and lifted the lid. It tipped back smoothly and with only the faintest creak of old hinges. He waited for the scents of age to engulf him – old paper and forgotten memories – but there was nothing. Was that because there was nothing of the past in here? No, he thought. It’s because the darkness is too dense. This is dead light in every sense.

&
nbsp; He became aware of the professor explaining that the papers might go quite far back.

  ‘Even as far back as Maria Porringer and John Hurst,’ he said. ‘So take as long as you like to look through them. But if you wouldn’t mind, I’ll leave you to do it on your own.’ He stared into the trunk for a moment. ‘I don’t know what there might be in there,’ he said. ‘And I’m not sure if I want to find it. I don’t mean there’ll be anything criminal or damning or scandalous – at least, I shouldn’t think so – but whatever is there is a link to some very mixed memories for me. I think, you know, that’s why I decided to sell the silver golem.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Michael.

  ‘So I’ll walk along to the Radcliffe for a couple of hours. That coffee’s still hot, so help yourself to a refill.’

  Left to himself, Michael carefully lifted out the top layer of the contents. And now, finally, the stored-away aura of the past did reach out to him. These were not letters and documents efficiently and neatly stored on computer hard drives or microfiche screens; this was the faded fabric of the long-ago – the curl-edged photographs, the ink-splodged missives, the cobwebbed, candlelit writings that were dim with age and that might even be illegible …

  And there’s something here, thought Michael. I know there is. By the pricking of my thumbs … With the thought came another image – a half-memory of something he had seen very recently, something to do with cobwebs and a dim old place where there had been a shelf holding old books or documents … He waited, but the memory remained annoyingly elusive, and he left it alone and focused on what lay in front of him.

  There were two or three shoe boxes filled with black and white photographs – even some that were sepia. Michael glanced at these briefly, seeing self-consciously posed gentlemen wearing wing collars and Sunday-best suits, and ladies with flowered frocks and shady hats. Nell would seize on these with delight, of course; he would ask the professor if she could see them. But for the moment he put them to one side, and reached for two large packages, virtually parcels, both wrapped in the old-fashioned way, with brown paper and string.

  The knots in the string parted easily after so many years and, his heart starting to beat faster, Michael unfolded the contents.

  At first look there did not seem to be anything of particular interest, and nothing looked likely to relate to Deadlight Hall. On the top was a handwritten note, addressed to ‘Dearest Mildred’. That’s Miss Hurst, thought Michael, remembering what Professor Rosendale had told him. Mildred and Simeon Hurst. He smoothed out the letter, trying not to split the paper where it had been folded for so long.

  It was undated, and there was no address. Michael had the impression of a quickly written note, either delivered by hand, or thrust into a parcel.

  Dearest Mildred,

  It is very kind of you and Simeon to agree to store my things at Willow Bank Farm until I can send for them. I dare say the bits of furniture can go in your attic, and in these packages are a few old family papers – nothing valuable or even particularly important, but mostly old photographs and a few letters from my great-uncle’s time, which my mother always kept. I expect you’ll be surprised to find me being so careful – and even sentimental – but I’d like to think they were in safe-keeping. With the future so uncertain and everything being blown to smithereens around us, it seems somehow important to preserve the past – even though parts of this particular past are not very creditable!

  I will write soon.

  Fondest love to you and Simeon,

  Rosa.

  Rosa. By her own admission, there was nothing especially interesting in the papers she had left for her good friends Mildred and Simeon Hurst to store. It was slightly odd that if the papers had meant so much to her, she had never reclaimed them, but there could be any number of reasons for that. There was no date on the letter, but it sounded as if it had been written at the height of WWII, when there were all kinds of upheavals and tragedy in people’s lives. Curious to know what Rosa had wanted to keep for posterity, Michael turned over the next layer.

  Two names leapt out at him at once. The first was that of Augustus Breadspear, the vaguely Dickensian-sounding name familiar from the documents found at the Archives Office a couple of days ago.

  The second was Deadlight Hall.

  Moving with extreme care, almost expecting the thin brittle pages to crumble into dust beneath his hands, Michael lifted out the little stack of papers, and carried them to the deep wing chair in the corner of the room.

  He placed them carefully on the small side desk where the gentle sunlight filtered through the window, sat down in the deep wing chair nearby, and began to read.

  FIFTEEN

  Deadlight Hall

  October 1882

  My dear Mr Breadspear

  Tomorrow I am sending you Douglas Wilger, who should be sufficiently strong for the work, being twelve years old, but could pass for fourteen. He may need discipline, for he has turned out to be a wilful and ungrateful child, one as needs a firm hand. Already he has had the impudence to say that to work at Salamander House is what he calls ‘beneath him’. He also makes objection to the hours, which he says are very long, and adds that it is a dangerous place.

  I do not know what the world is coming to when a child born in shame is so ungrateful, although I will allow that his father – whoever that may be – pays our accounts very prompt.

  To my mind the work at Salamander House is easy and the hours reasonable. My goodness, I should like to see how these young people would fare if they had to stand behind a counter in a busy apothecary’s establishment all day, as I did in Mr Porringer’s establishment.

  The Wilger boy will come to Salamander House tomorrow morning at 7.00 sharp.

  Respectfully yours,

  Maria Porringer (Mrs)

  Following this letter was what appeared to be an official report from the same year.

  DEADLIGHT HALL TRUST

  ENQUIRY HELD INTO INJURY AT SALAMANDER HOUSE.

  Governing Chairman of Enquiry Board and author of report: Sir George Buckle.

  Statement made by Mr Augustus Breadspear, owner, managing director, and Chairman, of Salamander House Glass Manufactory.

  I attest that the boy, Douglas Wilger, was employed by me for work in the furnace room of my manufactory at Salamander House commencing on the 10th day of October, in the year 1882. His hours were from seven o’clock in the morning to seven o’clock each evening. (Saturdays are seven o’clock until four o’clock, and Sundays, of course, are a day of rest, although I make sure all my apprentices attend Church service.)

  My workers are looked after properly and considerately. They are allowed half an hour for breakfast at half-past eight, and another half an hour for dinner at midday. I provide breakfasts and dinners for them all – which is more than I can say for a great many other factory owners – and good substantial food it is at Salamander House, none of your rubbishy bread and dripping or onion broth. There is a delivery each day from Hurst’s Farm, of fresh eggs and milk, as can be seen from my account books, which are all kept in proper order and can be inspected by anyone who wants to see them.

  Douglas Wilger’s duties were to carry the blown glass objects from the manufactory benches to the furnaces for firing and finishing, to lever open the furnaces and to ensure the doors remained open while the products were placed inside. He had also to assist the glass blowers to arrange such products on the inner shelves of the furnaces.

  So Salamander House was a glass manufactory, thought Michael, coming up out of the nineteenth century for a moment. Of course it was. The clue’s in the name.

  He returned to Augustus Breadspear’s statement.

  I am unable to give precise details of the tragedy, since I was not in the kiln room at the time it happened. I can say, though, that the Wilger boy was unsatisfactory. He was resentful of the tasks assigned to him, and during his first week was reprimanded for carelessness three times.

  I am very s
orry about what happened to him, but no blame or responsibility can be assigned to Salamander House or to my overseers. Douglas should have looked where he was going. An entire tray of expensive work was ruined by his clumsiness – work that had taken considerable time and skill to produce, and my customers will now be kept waiting.

  I believe Douglas may have to come on to the Parish for his upkeep, which is a further burden on funds that are already sparse, although I should like it known that I subscribe generously and regularly to the Parish funds. For the moment the boy is still living at Deadlight Hall, in the good care of Mrs Maria Porringer.

  It should be borne strongly in mind that any statement made by Mr John Hurst about this incident is likely to be biased and even spiteful, Hurst being a troublemaker. Since I discovered certain disreputable facts about his private life he is keen to discredit me in any way he can. A mannerly reticence as well as a gentlemanly respect for the lady in question (perhaps that should be ‘ladies’) forbids me to disclose those facts, even if this were the place to do so, which it is not.

  The next statement was considerably longer, and Michael saw that it was indeed made by John Hurst of Willow Bank Farm.

  Statement made by Mr John Hurst of Willow Bank Farm, in this County.

  I attest that on the morning of 22nd day of October, in the year of 1882, I was making a delivery of provisions to Salamander House. As a result, I saw exactly what happened in the firing rooms, and you can take this statement as completely true, never mind the moonshine flummery that Augustus Breadspear will have spun you.

  A regular order for eggs, milk and butter is placed with my farm by Mr Augustus Breadspear, who would like everyone to believe the food is for his workers. This is not true. The delivery is taken to Breadspear’s private house, which is next to the glass manufactory, although separated from it by a high wall, as you know – and if you do not know it, George Buckle, then you should, and you a Justice of the Peace.