Shadow Music

by Elisabeth Rose

  “The drawing room,” she announced. This room was a comfortably furnished, modern, sitting room complete with sofas, a couple of armchairs, TV, lamps, and coffee tables. A large fireplace dominated one wall. Family photos crowded onto the mantelpiece.

  “Do they ever use that big hall for dances?” asked Martin.

  “Occasionally, I think. Wonderful for parties. They throw open the doors in summer and the guests can wander out onto the terrace and into the garden. I spent my last New Year’s Eve with George here,” said Jessica wistfully. “Although we didn’t wander outside then except to watch the fireworks, too cold. I’ll summons Mrs. Turner, shall I, and she can show us the painting?” Jessica strode across and yanked at an old-fashioned tasselled bellpull hanging by the door. “Do we want to see anything else?”

  “No,” said Nina. Indoors she felt curiously flat and disappointed. The house had an aura quite different to outside in the garden. The all-pervading air of sorrow even extended into this bright and cheerful room. “I don’t know what I expected but I thought there might be more somehow, inside.”

  “Some stronger force,” agreed Martin. “I know. It’s odd.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her quickly.

  “What do we know about the Broome’s?” asked Giles suddenly. “We know Ethan was supposed to marry Miranda but what happened to him after she died? Perhaps Mrs. Turner knows. She’s been in this area her whole life and her family before her. She’ll probably know a great deal about the whole thing. All the local gossip.”

  Mrs. Turner said nothing at first when Giles posed the question about the Miranda Templeton scandal. She indicated they should follow her from the drawing room and led them along more corridors to a back staircase. Nina lost all sense of direction by the time they’d made their way up to the broad first floor landing.

  Mrs. Turner stopped before a closed door, turned to them, gathered expectantly before her and said in her dry voice, “Some folk say the young girl was seduced by the devil. My Gran told me it was her foreign blood made her susceptible. Different beliefs.” She stared hard at Nina again but still made no comment. “Gran was only small at the time, about eight or nine but she remembered.”

  “What about Miranda’s fiancé? Ethan Broome?” asked Giles.

  Mrs. Turner folded her arms and drew a deep breath. She pursed thin lips. “Gran said he near went mad from grief. He had no idea, of course, that she was having an affair, until later but it wasn’t her betrayal that upset him so much as that she died. And in such a horrible way. He locked himself away and wouldn’t mix or speak with anyone outside of his immediate family. Shame, some people said. The dishonour of it. That’s when he painted this.”

  She opened the door and stood aside for them to enter a sitting room furnished with a couple of easy chairs grouped by the empty fireplace, a table with a lamp, a bookcase and a writing desk on the far wall beside the window, but it was the life-size portrait of a girl hung on the side wall which commanded immediate attention.

  A beautiful girl with black hair and olive-toned skin, dark almond-shaped eyes and a faintly exotic curve to the cheeks and full red lips. She carried a bonnet in her hands, dangling it by a blue ribbon in front of her and she wore a light cotton print dress of tiny blue flowers on a white background. Behind her was the rose garden they had just visited but it was in full bloom and the sunlight slanted across catching the highlights in her glossy hair and illuminating the blood- red petals of the blooms.

  The sadness in the room was suffocating, as if all the pent-up grief of the house had coalesced here.

  “Miranda,” Nina whispered. Her throat tightened as tears rushed to her eyes and her breathing faltered. “She’s beautiful.”

  “She’s the image of you,” Martin said.

  “She’s so sad,” murmured Jessica.

  They gazed in silence until Mrs. Turner said in an oddly subdued tone, “Ethan Broome painted this after she died—from his memories. The strange thing was no one knew he could paint at all. He’d never shown any artistic talent in any form. He just shut himself up and this is what he produced.”

  “He was a remarkable man,” said Giles solemnly. “He also insisted that Miranda be buried here in the grounds.”

  “Where?” Nina’s voice erupted so harshly it startled not just her but the others as well.

  “No one knows anymore.” Mrs. Turner turned her curious gaze on Nina once more. “The headstone has been lost and there’s no way of knowing where she lies.”

  “How could that have happened?” asked Jessica.

  Mrs. Turner pursed her lips again and took another of her deep, considering breaths. “They said the grave was robbed by that devil.”

  “By her lover?” asked Martin as Nina gave an incredulous gasp, half laugh, half shocked choking.

  “So the story goes. Took all trace of her.”

  Giles shook his head. “I think you’ll find there’s a much more prosaic explanation. If they used a wooden cross it has probably rotted away or been destroyed. Don’t forget also, this area had an airfield close by during the war and it came in for some bombing attacks. Defensive fortifications were erected all over the shop. They could easily have demolished a grave site by accident or built over it without even realising.”

  “That’s right. The house itself was nearly hit several times by bombs. They lost the stables and a plane crashed in the grounds once unable to make it back to the airfield,” put in Jessica.

  “Wouldn’t her family have looked after her grave?” asked Nina.

  “She was in disgrace, remember,” said Giles. “Morals were very strict in those days.”

  “And remember what her brother did to her lover?” said Jessica.

  Mrs. Turner sniffed. “I’m just telling you what the story says.”

  “What happened to Ethan in the end?” asked Martin.

  “He was killed in the war.”

  “Which war?”

  “Africa. The Boer War. He was killed there and his body shipped home.”

  “That was what? Six or seven years later?” said Giles. “1899 I think it started.”

  “He never married?” asked Nina

  “No.”

  “The poor, poor man. What a complete tragedy.” Jessica wielded her hanky.

  “And it was all her fault.” Mrs. Turner cast a disparaging look at Miranda’s picture. “Don’t know why Mr. Evans insisted on putting the thing in this room. Should have left it in the attic where he found it.”

  “He was quite taken with her, wasn’t he?” asked Giles. “I remember him dragging me up here to have a look just after he discovered it.”

  “Irresponsible little witch! Some say she cast a spell on poor Ethan. Having that other foreign blood in her veins. She was different, not like proper folk.”

  Martin gripped Nina’s arm hard as she made a sudden movement in the direction of the housekeeper but this time it wasn’t Piers who was furious, it was Nina herself.

  Jessica said diplomatically, “I suppose she was just a young girl who fell in love with the wrong man at the wrong time. If they’d met in another era they wouldn’t have had such a problem. Nowadays for example, anything goes, as far as I can see.”

  “That’s certainly true,” said Mrs. Turner.

  “Thank you very much for showing us around, Mrs. Turner,” said Giles at his most vicarly. “We won’t keep you any longer.”

  “Glad to have been of help though you haven’t seen much of the place. Perhaps Mrs. Harrow can bring you back when Mr. and Mrs. Evans are here.”

  “I think we’ve seen what we wanted,” said Martin. “Thank you.”

  “Yes, thanks,” muttered Nina. She took one last lingering look at Miranda and made a silent promise to unite her with her love.

  “I promise,” she vowed. “You will be together again. I promise on my life.”

  She turned abruptly and stepped back out into the corridor filled with a new determination.


  “Well,” said Giles from the back seat when they were in the car and heading for the village once more. “What do you think about that?”

  Nina twisted around from her place in the front next to Martin who was driving. “I think Mrs. Turner is singlehandedly responsible for every cliché about crabby housekeepers,” she said. “She hates Miranda.”

  “She seems to inspire very strong emotions, our Miranda,” commented Jessica. She tucked a wisp of hair back under her beanie.

  “Yes, she had two men desperately in love with her and a brother who killed to avenge her honour,” said Martin. “I wonder how Ethan managed to paint that portrait. It was very good, wasn’t it?”

  “Love,” said Giles. “People can do extraordinary things in the name of love be it earthly or spiritual. They can rise above themselves. The great artists often say some other force guides their hand when they are creating. They are simply conduits for a higher consciousness.”

  “Do you think,” said Nina slowly in a tight voice, “Do you think maybe Piers guided Ethan’s hand?”

  “Piers wasn’t an artist,” objected Jessica.

  “We don’t know that,” said Martin. “He was a very talented man. We don’t know much about him at all.”

  “We know he didn’t live long enough to fulfil his potential. And that Miranda’s brother shot him,” said Nina. “We have to help them. Did you feel the sadness in that place?”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Giles in a surprised tone. “I felt coldness. The whole house was freezing.”

  “Nor me, although I thought Miranda looked sad. Something about her eyes,” said Jessica. She lapsed into a pensive silence.

  Nina looked at Martin sitting next to her. “You felt it, didn’t you? In the room?” she murmured so the two in the back wouldn’t hear.

  He nodded, not taking his eyes from the narrow road as it wound between waterlogged cow pastures. They reached the first of the village cottages and he slowed the Saab when the swinging Rose and Crown pub sign came into view. A few slanting rays of the sun pierced weakly through the massed clouds and drops of water glittered brightly in the sudden spotlight. The yellow crown on the green background glowed gold briefly then faded to dull mustard as the sun disappeared again.

  “Anyone for a pre-lunch pint?” Martin asked.

  “Not for me thanks. I’d better take care of a few parish duties this afternoon,” said Giles. “Wouldn’t do for the vicar to go about smelling of beer.”

  “I’m ready for a rest. You two go,” said Jessica. “Have some time alone together.”

  “We’ll walk back from the vicarage then,” said Martin. “All right, Nina?”

  “Mmm.” The crushing sense of that room of sorrow weighed heavy in her mind. What could they do to solve such an insurmountable problem? How could they, modern people, deal with a tragedy over a hundred years old, heal pain and suffering long since inflicted and constantly endured? Was it simply an echo from the past? Were they, as Martin had once surmised, picking up long gone psychic emissions?

  Nina didn’t think so. Her experiences were too terrifying and too real and very much in the present. Piers proved it.

  When they retraced their route through the village on foot, hand in hand, Nina said softly, “I’ve never felt such sorrow in my life as in that room.”

  “Me neither. It was heartbreaking.”

  “I could barely breathe. But why didn’t I hear Piers, Martin? He wasn’t there at all except in the rose garden. And he was so angry. I’ve never felt such an all-consuming rage.” Nina swallowed and clenched her free hand in her pocket at the memory.

  Martin walked on slowly, considering his reply. “Giles might be right. It’s not his place. It’s Ethan’s and Ethan was his rival. She was engaged to the man and maybe she refused to run off with Piers. It would have been a mighty brave thing to do, leave her family and the security of her future as mistress of Broome Hall. Piers could see Ethan as a permanent obstacle. His was an obsessive, possessive passion whereas Ethan was devoted to her but expressed his love in a different way.”

  “You mean it’s Ethan’s grief we’re feeling?”

  “Yes. He was shattered by her death, too, but he wasn’t such a passionate, emotional man as Piers and he was also able to live on past the immediate shock. Piers died in the midst of it all or pretty close to. His grief is unresolved. Ethan died years later.”

  “But his grief lives on in that painting he did.” Nina stopped and wiped her hand over her eyes. She sniffed. “Not just his though, Martin. I think it’s Miranda’s sorrow too. Her yearning and loss is in that room as well. Did you see her eyes, her whole expression?”

  “He captured it all in that painting, you think?”

  “Yes, I think so. Maybe Piers had a hand in it somehow. Maybe Ethan painted it before Piers died. It was Piers who dabbled in the supernatural, after all, not Miranda like Mrs. Bigot Turner said. We’ll probably never know.”

  “The others felt nothing. That’s strange isn’t it?” said Martin.

  “They aren’t as involved as we are,” said Nina. She started walking again and Martin slipped his arm over her shoulders and hugged her close to him. The wind had lost none of its chill despite the brief bursts of sunshine. “Is it going to snow?” she asked hopefully. “I’ve never seen snow.”

  “Never?”

  “It doesn’t snow in Sydney, Martin, and I’ve never been to the snowfields.”

  “It might snow.” He studied the heavy grey clouds being blasted across the sky like giant boulders. “I wish it was summer again. I’ve had enough of the cold and damp.”

  “Do you want to come back to Sydney?” What would she do if he preferred to remain in London? She squinted up at him as they walked. She hadn’t thought much past the moment they were in since she’d left home. The post-Shadow Music future seemed too far away to contemplate but somehow she hadn’t doubted Martin would be in that future with her. But they hadn’t ever discussed it.

  “I want to be where you are.”

  The rush of relief saturated her whole body. “Good.”

  “Did you think I’d let you go back to Sydney alone?” he asked. “I think we belong together and it’s the only good thing about this whole mess.”

  “Piers brought us together,” said Nina. “He wanted us to be together.”

  “But only to help him,” said Martin. “I’ll always be grateful to him for that if nothing else. The bastard.”

  They reached the pub and Martin pushed open the door. Inside, wood panelling and a low ceiling gave the room a warmth and cosiness exaggerated by the gruesome weather outdoors. A roaring log fire at one end of the room gave off a blast of heat. They were the only customers and the man behind the bar bade them a cheery welcome as he polished glasses and lined them up on the counter.

  Martin gave their order while Nina moved across and stretched her hands toward the fire. A mantelpiece over the fireplace held an array of sporting cups and trophies and one or two photographs of cricket and football teams. Various paintings of hunting dogs and horses decorated the walls. Nina gave them all a cursory glance then stared into the leaping flames. Warmth began to creep back into her extremities and she peeled off her thick coat and slung it over the back of the nearest chair. Martin placed two brimming half pints of beer on the table.

  “We can have lunch here if you like,” he said.

  “Fine.” Nina sat down. Martin took a deep draught of his beer.

  “What can we do?” she asked. “I don’t want to go through that again, what happened yesterday. And today.”

  “I know but I don’t know how to stop it happening.” He was as bewildered as she beneath the relatively calm face he showed her.

  But he wasn’t cracking under the strain. If he collapsed the way she sometimes felt like doing there was no telling what would happen to her. Martin was her touchstone of sanity, had been from the moment she’d set eyes on him. She loved him, she realised with a sudden burst of clear thinking
. Martin was her partner, her lover, her friend, that elusive being everyone searched for but few found in their short allotted time on earth.

  Piers and Miranda had found each other. Briefly. Piers knew the importance of the find, Piers knew how rare it was but Piers could not be allowed to usurp her soul to replace what he had lost, that love that shone and glowed white hot then was brutally ripped from his grasp by fate. It wasn’t his to take from her and Martin the way he had torn happiness from Ethan.

  “I’m trying to fight him now,” she admitted. She raised her eyes to his face. “I didn’t at first. He’s so strong and so…I couldn’t resist him, Martin. He told me what he wanted and I tried to do it for him.” Her voice trailed off.

  “I know. I was as just as hooked as you by the music, remember.”

  “But you didn’t fall in love with him,” she cried and then quickly dropped her voice as the publican shot her a startled look. “I did.”

  “You or Miranda?” Martin asked softly.

  “I don’t know but after that last time I can’t do it anymore. I have to resist him. Why has he picked me?”

  Martin gazed at her. “She is amazingly similar,” he murmured. “I wonder. Could you really be related? Remember we wondered before but we hadn’t seen her? You have the same name in your family. What do you know about your Chinese grandparent’s families?”

  “Hardly anything. The Sung family came to Australia in the gold rush—the 1850’s. I have no idea about any other relatives, or who might have married who and travelled abroad.”

  “So there is a possibility that Miranda’s mother’s family is connected with yours way back in China or even since they moved to Australia. Miranda’s father did travel and brought his wife back from overseas, we know that much. He could have gone to Australia.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “I thought so, remember? It would explain why Piers chose you,” said Martin. “He’s had to wait a long time for the circumstances to be right and now he’s not going to give up.”

  “But he thinks he’s resurrecting her,” she objected. “He’s confusing her with me. I’m confusing her with me.” A small strangled laugh emerged which nearly turned to a sob.