A House of Ghosts Page 3

  She wondered what Rolleston’s plans had been for Christmas because, even when they were engaged, they had not involved her – nor had she been told anything about them. Not that she had much cared – she’d made it clear she would be spending it in Cambridge, once her parents returned from the island. Rolleston’s arrangements must have been intended to commence earlier. She considered questioning him, but the urge soon passed. There was an inevitability to men such as Rolleston, after all. She doubted he had been very original.

  ‘You were fortunate to find a replacement at such short notice.’

  Rolleston looked momentarily unsettled.

  ‘For Smith,’ she said, patiently. ‘Not for me.’

  The only outward sign of embarrassment was a nervous smile, but she had the sense she’d scored a hit, which gave her some satisfaction.

  ‘Smith found him. He’s from an agency – some demobbed soldier. God knows what he’s like but Smith said he was all right, so we can only hope. He’s meeting us at Castle Cary.’

  Which was the next stop. She wondered about the manservant – and what C was up to.

  Outside, the steam from the engine streamed past the carriage window, almost obscuring the pale countryside through which they passed. Above them, low-hanging, bruised clouds signified still more snow to come and the wind howled along the side of the train.

  ‘The weather doesn’t look very promising,’ she said, but it was more to herself than to Rolleston and he did not reply.

  They passed under the shadow of a stone bridge and then the train started to slow. They must be approaching the station. She leant forward, pressing her cheek against the cold glass of the window, scanning the platform. At first, she was surprised when she saw Donovan, and then it made perfect sense.

  ‘I believe that’s your man.’

  Rolleston turned to look. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Beside the war bonds poster. Looks like a pirate undertaker.’

  The officer from the waiting room looked somewhat awkward in the bowler hat and black suit of a servant, and the eyepatch did indeed give him a slightly rascally air. His uncovered eye caught hers and she thought it might have narrowed slightly in disapproval. But she couldn’t be certain.

  ‘It can’t be,’ Rolleston said, his voice barely a whisper.

  ‘Are you all right, Rolleston?’

  ‘Yes, quite all right,’ he said, although he looked anything but.

  When Donovan entered their compartment, he was to the point.

  ‘Captain Miller-White, my name is Donovan.’

  Somehow he managed to make the introduction sound like a threat. It took Rolleston a moment or two to rally his composure.

  ‘Donovan, you say?’

  The only response he received was a flat smile, then Donovan passed him an envelope.

  ‘Your orders.’ Donovan allowed his gaze to shift to acknowledge Kate. ‘Miss Cartwright.’

  Kate glanced over at Rolleston, who was reading the single sheet of paper the envelope had contained. She could see that the orders consisted of, at most, four typed lines.

  ‘Do I have orders as well?’ she said.

  Donovan returned her gaze but said nothing, which she found peculiarly annoying. Meanwhile Rolleston stood, looking considerably less languid than he had a few minutes previously.

  ‘I am to follow your instructions, sir.’

  ‘Donovan.’

  ‘Yes, Donovan. Of course.’

  ‘Would you stand for your valet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then sit down.’

  Rolleston sat.

  ‘Have you committed your orders to memory?’

  ‘They are quite short.’

  ‘Good, in which case you may return them to me. I will meet you again on the platform at Taunton, where a car will be waiting. Just to be clear, you know nothing about me, other than that I have been invalided out of the army. I have lost the use of an eye and have restricted use of my right hand.’ He held up the stiff leather brace that covered it. ‘Too damaged to fight; not too damaged to look after your needs.’

  ‘Very good.’

  Donovan stood for a moment, examining first Rolleston and then Kate.

  ‘Until Taunton then.’

  Donovan touched a hand to his forehead, and with that he was gone, leaving Rolleston with his forehead creased by a frown.

  ‘And what are your orders, Rolleston?’

  ‘To observe and tell Donovan everything that I see. On request. Other than that, to do nothing whatsoever. Unless requested, of course – in which case everything that may be possible.’

  His frown had been replaced with a more quizzical expression, as though he couldn’t quite believe the situation he found himself in.

  ‘You know him, however.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Rolleston said. ‘I know Mr Donovan very well. Not, however, as Mr Donovan.’

  Rolleston sat back in the chair and closed his eyes.

  6. KATE

  The car that awaited them was fast. Or, at least, it was in the hands of Donovan, who swung it around blind corners and down steep hills with abandon, despite the snow that covered the road, all the while smoking a chain of foul-smelling cigarettes. In the back, Rolleston and Kate clung to the door handles and listened to the bags in the boot slide from side to side. On the straighter stretches of road, Kate contemplated the back of Donovan’s head and wondered if she might end up joining the legion of ghostly spirits through which she walked each day. It seemed likely if he didn’t slow down.

  She did not like him, that much was certain. She didn’t think she had ever met a man so self-contained and so, well, obdurate. There was something dark about him, a kind of remorseless momentum. He had experienced the horror of war and perhaps created some of it, too. That, as she knew, changed a man. But it really was no excuse. He made no effort, it seemed to her. He was solely focused on his objective, whatever that might be.

  She considered herself from Donovan’s point of view. She was privileged, it was true – in a different way to Rolleston, members of whose family owned large parts of Lincolnshire, although he often complained that his father had squandered their portion of the family loot. Still, to Donovan’s eyes, she must seem to come from the same background. She probably seemed amateurish to him – a dilettante, perhaps. Which was a charge that could certainly be levelled at Rolleston. Donovan, on the other hand, gave off a sense of brutal professionalism. He would, she decided, discover that she was a competent person. Whatever tasks she was asked to undertake, she would excel in, despite any reservations she might have.

  A thought occurred to her, which sent a cold chill down her spine. If Rolleston knew Donovan, it must be from the army. She couldn’t envisage the two of them coming into contact in any other way. Rolleston had briefly served in the same regiment as Arthur in France. Was that where Donovan knew him from? And if so, might he also have known Arthur? It was possible. It made her wonder, if it were the case, what C’s intentions were. And why he had brought them together.

  ‘We’ll be there soon.’

  Her concentration was momentarily broken. Ahead, at the end of a long, white valley down which they were driving, she could see the grey sea and, about a mile off the coast, Blackwater Island.

  ‘I can’t say I’m pleased to see the place again,’ Rolleston said. He had known Reginald and Algernon Highmount at Cambridge before the war and been, along with Arthur, a regular visitor to the island. Although not, fortunately, during the weekend in which the incident with the spirits had occurred.

  ‘It looks more appealing in the summer,’ he continued. ‘From the far side.’

  He had a point. The island was edged on this side by snow-covered black cliffs, along which wind-bent trees were etched against the darkening sky. On the other side of the island was the small harbour, a sandy beach, and the lighthouse.

  And Blackwater Abbey, of course.

  7. LORD HIGHMOUNT

  Lord Francis Highmount stood a
t the window in his study. Outside the gardens were soft with snow – the clean, tended edges of the ornamental shrubbery blurred by the weight of it and by the wind, which seemed to be increasing in velocity. He looked beyond at the waves’ white crests breaking on the turbulent, grey expanse out past the harbour and was glad he had made the trip from the mainland the day before. Evelyn and the others would have a rough crossing of it. And a cold one.

  He did not like the cold, and never had. He had been cold often as a child – it seemed to him that was all he remembered of those days now. There must have been summers, he supposed, and there were other, less pleasant things he could recall, of course – though he generally chose not to. The cold was enough. Memories, he had concluded some years previously, were often of great happiness and great unhappiness. Unfortunately, there had not been much happiness in his youth. He didn’t regret that – a man needed an incentive to better himself. In some ways his entire life had been a journey away from that starting point – away from the cold, the damp, the misery. So perhaps he should be grateful. And at least he was warm now.

  There was a knock on the door. Highmount walked to his desk and sat, picking up the pen that lay beside the papers he was meant to be working on.

  ‘Come in,’ he said. It was only Vickers. He felt himself relax. Vickers was not someone who made him feel anxious – and there was much to be anxious about at present. There was something reassuring about the butler, even if he was fairly certain the man despised him and everything he stood for. He didn’t mind. He liked to know where he stood with people, and he knew where he stood with Vickers.

  ‘Ted Falwell to see you, Your Lordship.’

  ‘Very good, send him in.’

  Falwell entered, a broad-shouldered man with tightly curled white hair that crowded in around his wide pink forehead. He was the tenant of the small farm on the island and the master of the launch that was the only connection to the mainland. His family, which included Mrs Perkins, the cook, who was his sister, had been tied to the Abbey since the monks, or so they said. Highmount had inherited them, and Vickers, with the house, but the arrangement worked well.

  Falwell held his blue sailor’s cap in his large hands and nodded in greeting.

  ‘Well, Falwell?’

  ‘I thought you’d want to know, Your Lordship, the weather is turning worse.’

  Highmount frowned. ‘It seems to have died off a bit, no?’

  ‘There’s more to come, you can be certain of it.’

  Highmount took his watch from his waistcoat to check the time. ‘My daughter and some other guests will be in Blackwater at three.’

  ‘I’ll fetch them, Your Lordship, and willingly, but after that …’

  It was one of the disadvantages of being on an island. The weather, like so much else, was unpredictable. But then there was always the telephone for urgent business.

  ‘How long will it last?’

  The old sailor looked past him and out at the dark clouds. ‘I couldn’t say, Your Lordship. It could blow through tomorrow, or it could be in for a week.’

  ‘I see. Nothing to be done about it, I suppose. Before you go over, check with Mrs Perkins in case the kitchen has need of anything from the village, bearing the storm in mind. And can you send Vickers in again? Thank you, Falwell. I’m very grateful.’

  Falwell nodded once more before turning to leave.

  Highmount stood, walking to the window and gazing down towards the small harbour. Beyond it, the sea was breaking over the rocky point. He wasn’t sure how he felt about being trapped on the island. On the one hand it was a good thing – some of his concerns related to matters on the mainland, and he could distance himself from them here, for a while at least. The telephone could always just not be answered. But then being here, without the possibility of escape, meant that there was another matter that would likely have to be addressed.

  ‘Your Lordship?’

  ‘Vickers. Has the Garden Room been prepared?’

  ‘Exactly as Count Orlov and the lady requested. They have even had me take up the carpets, Your Lordship.’

  ‘And Madame Feda is happy?’

  ‘As I mentioned, Your Lordship, everything has been arranged to her satisfaction. I only hope it will be warm enough in there. They have asked that the fire not be lit.’

  Highmount couldn’t help the shiver that ran down his spine.

  ‘And Private Simms?’

  ‘Doctor Reid has asked that we leave him to sleep for the afternoon. He said the gentleman remains very tired after the journey.’

  There was a slight emphasis on the word ‘gentleman’. Private Albert Simms was not, in Vickers’ opinion, quite that – and Highmount suspected Simms would be the first to agree. On his sole meeting with him, when he’d arrived the previous day, the soldier had struck him as being an exceptionally humble man. Still, he was also here for a purpose.

  ‘Simms is the one who concerns me most. I wish I knew more about him. What is your impression of the man?’

  Vickers hesitated. Highmount opened the silver box on the desk and extracted a cigarette. He lit it.

  ‘Come on, Vickers. You have an opinion, I’m sure of it. I would like to hear it. One military man about another.’

  It amused Highmount to tease his butler about his military past, given that Vickers had subsequently become a Quaker and a pacifist.

  ‘Your Lordship, my service was in South Africa and some time ago, and I’m not certain we had many cases like Mr Simms, not that I can recall, at least. He is clearly not a well man.’

  ‘He appears healthy enough – a fine physical specimen.’

  Vickers nodded his wary agreement. ‘He was a tunneller, Your Lordship – under no man’s land. His physical strength is not in doubt. Particularly after yesterday’s incident. Should such a thing happen again and Doctor Reid not be nearby, I’m not certain how we should restrain him.’

  ‘But Doctor Reid is staying close, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, Your Lordship. So far, at least.’ Vickers paused, glancing over his shoulder at the door. ‘The thing is, Your Lordship, I don’t believe it would be wise for Mr Simms to be involved in the séance.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I defer to Doctor Reid’s wisdom, of course, but Mr Simms is very uncomfortable if he cannot see a window with a view of the outside. That was, I believe, the cause of the earlier incident. Once Doctor Reid opened the bedroom curtain, he calmed down straight away.’

  Highmount leant back on his chair and brought his fingers together on his chest. ‘Reid told me he was trapped underground, without light, for eighteen days. That would have an effect on anyone.’

  ‘It would, sir – and that would be the reason I would not recommend him being present in a pitch-black room, with sealed windows and two persons attempting to contact the dead.’

  ‘I don’t disagree with you. So, let us avoid that eventuality coming to pass. It is essential that Private Simms is kept comfortable and well – I want you to see to that in particular. He is the priority this weekend.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Vickers couldn’t hide his surprise.

  ‘You see, Vickers, Private Simms appears to be in communication with the men who died in the tunnel he was trapped in. And the trench from where it ran. It seems they have followed him from France.’

  Vickers looked unconvinced. It did not matter, but he would explain Simms’ significance in any event.

  ‘The last sighting of my son, Algernon,’ Highmount added, ‘was in that very same trench.’

  The question was, of course, whether Simms was a genuine conduit to the spirit world, or yet another charlatan.

  8. KATE

  The car pulled up alongside the quay in Blackwater village and Donovan stepped out smartly to open the door for Kate. She was amused to see that another cigarette was in his hand already, although this one not yet lit.

  ‘I hope the journey wasn’t too tiring, miss.’

  She ch
ecked to see if he was being ironic but there was no sign of it.

  ‘Quite the contrary, Donovan. I could only describe it as energising.’

  The only reaction was a quick flash of his dark eyes.

  ‘Lord Highmount’s ferry should be here in a few minutes.’

  She looked around her. Small fishing boats lined the quay, their decks heavy with snow, creaking as the wind pushed them against the harbour wall, their ropes and gathered sails clicking and fluttering in the stiff breeze. There were few living fishermen to be seen but a roar of laughter from the Bell Tavern suggested they were not far away.

  The dead, however, thronged the quay – as they did in every fishing port she’d ever been to. Drowned men.

  ‘Here she comes.’

  Rolleston pointed out to sea where a large motor launch, its bow scattering white waves, was making its way in past the breakwater. The wind was picking up now and she found herself obliged to put a hand on top of her hat in case it blew away.

  ‘It looks rather rough,’ she said.

  ‘The glass has been falling all morning, miss. Another hour and not even Ted Falwell would risk taking you over.’

  She turned to find a man in black oilskins standing behind her, a long white beard emerging from the jacket’s dark hood. She wondered if he were real – but then the dead never spoke to her. They seldom even acknowledged her.

  ‘And who is Mr Falwell?’

  ‘The master of the Abbey Ferry, miss. What’s coming in.’

  She peered at him a little more closely and the man, perhaps conscious of her inability to see him properly in the faltering light, pushed back his hood to reveal bushy eyebrows, bright blue eyes and a red weather-beaten face.

  ‘The conditions will deteriorate, you think?’

  ‘Aye, miss. A storm is coming through, you can be certain of that. The only question is how long it will last. Still, you’ll be well looked after out on the island. Staying at the Abbey, are you?’