A House of Ghosts Page 4

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll know all about it then?’

  ‘I’ve stayed there before,’ she said, before he could go on. She didn’t want to be reminded of the house’s reputation.

  ‘I thought I recognised you, miss. Weren’t you friendly with young Master Reginald? Before the war? Our Tom used to help out with the launch back then.’

  She nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I was. It seems like a very long time ago.’

  ‘There’s no doubt of that, miss. No young fellows in the village these days, just us old men and a few youngsters to keep the boats going out and the fish coming back in.’

  ‘They’ll be home soon. The war can’t go on for ever.’

  ‘Gone on too long already for some of them, miss. Our Tom won’t be back.’

  And then she realised who his Tom must be, and why the old man had come to talk to her.

  ‘Tom Usher?’

  ‘He’d have been pleased you remembered him.’

  The old man’s eyes were damp. She reached out to take his arm, remembering him now as well.

  ‘I’m sorry. I liked Tom very much.’

  ‘He was a good lad. I did tell him he was better off going into the navy, but he wanted to see some fighting and that was all there was to it. You told him the same thing, I remember. But he wouldn’t listen.’

  He nodded to her and walked off, the rain that was now blowing in from the sea rattling against his stiff oilskin.

  ‘What did he want?’ Rolleston asked, joining her.

  ‘Nothing much. To tell me his son had died.’

  A son whose death she had seen foretold in the FitzAubrey glass.

  ‘I see.’ Rolleston was about to say something more but then another motorcar arrived, pulling to a halt beside them. A long, familiar face leant out of the rear window.

  ‘Rolleston? Is that you?’

  For a moment, Kate was confused. The resemblance to Reginald Highmount was so pronounced as to be uncanny, but this was a young woman. And Reginald was, of course, dead.

  ‘Evelyn, I thought you weren’t coming down.’ Rolleston shifted his attention back to Kate, smiling. ‘Kate, do you know Evelyn Highmount? Evelyn, this is Kate Cartwright. Sir Edward Cartwright’s daughter.’ He hesitated for a brief moment, then added, unconvincingly: ‘My fiancée.’

  Evelyn extended a hand in cold, disinterested greeting, although Kate was certain she knew exactly who she was. They had somehow never met, but it was inconceivable that she could have forgotten that her brother had been engaged to her. And as for Kate, she had heard all about Reginald’s bohemian artist sister.

  ‘No, I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.’

  Kate wondered how Evelyn knew Rolleston, and apparently so well.

  ‘Here’s the boat. Thank God, I thought we might miss it. Are you staying for the winter solstice, Miss Cartwright?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She looked at Kate more closely now, as though she might possibly be of some interest after all.

  ‘And are you one of the spiritualists, Miss Cartwright?’

  There was an edge to the question that did not go unmissed. So Evelyn Highmount did remember her, after all.

  ‘No,’ Kate said.

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it. Rolleston, if I hadn’t heard you were staying, there isn’t the slightest possibility I would have come down. The house is to be full of the strangest people, leaving aside, of course, Miss Cartwright.’

  As she spoke, the Blackwater Abbey launch was tied up to the quayside steps beneath where they stood and the master came up to them quickly, tipping his cap to Evelyn.

  ‘Miss Evelyn, if you and your guests would come on board, we’ll be crossing directly. There’s some mucky weather coming our way.’

  Kate turned to watch Donovan, cigarette in mouth, and Evelyn’s driver begin to take their luggage down to the boat. As Donovan passed, he nodded towards Evelyn and raised his eyebrows to Kate and, to her surprise, she found herself suppressing a smile.

  9. KATE

  The short journey to the island was rough. Waves, now rolling large, slammed into the boat’s hull, and foam broke white over the foredeck. To be fair to him, Falwell, the master, had told them it would be an uncomfortable crossing, and that it would have to be quickly done if it were to be done at all. Snow spattered the windows of the small deck cabin where Kate, Evelyn and Rolleston were ensconced, and Kate was reminded of another journey to the island, before the war – when young Tom Usher had been at the helm, Falwell having been about on some other business. She peered out of the snow-streaked window to where Donovan and Evelyn Highmount’s lady’s maid sat in the stern, huddled under flapping oilskin blankets crusted with snow. She would have liked for them to be inside, but when she’d suggested it, Rolleston and Evelyn had looked at her as though she might be insane and so she had let the matter rest.

  She glanced across the small cabin at her travelling companions, who were talking about a mutual acquaintance. It sometimes seemed to her that all that the people of Rolleston’s class did was gossip about each other. Each luncheon, dinner and gathering, another opportunity to acquire information of almost no real consequence outside of their rather narrow circles. Evelyn’s eyes were sparkling now as she told Rolleston how some man called Withers had lost every penny he owned playing baccarat. Kate couldn’t help feeling that they seemed … she searched for a word – yes, ‘intimate’. As she watched, she saw how Evelyn’s hand rested for an instant on Rolleston’s arm and how Rolleston, still smiling, glanced quickly in Kate’s direction, almost involuntarily. Yes, indeed. Intimate was exactly the word.

  ‘I was just telling Rolleston some of the history of the island,’ Evelyn said, raising her voice over the engine and the wind that threw hard rain against the cabin’s windows.

  She wondered if Evelyn thought she were deaf; it was most certainly not what Evelyn had been telling him, but Kate nodded politely and gritted her teeth.

  ‘The Blackwater family were given the island by King Henry, during the Reformation. It’s reputed to be full of ghosts, although I’ve never seen any.’ She lowered her voice in mock fear. ‘Mother believes it has always been some kind of island of the dead, even before the monastery.’

  Rolleston laughed, but Kate did not.

  ‘Anyway,’ Evelyn continued, ‘it’s why Mother is having this strange house party. She’s always been interested in spiritualism but now it’s become something of an obsession. I suspect even Father may have been drawn in. It’s all nonsense.’

  Kate looked at the young woman in bemusement. After all, if her parents were interested in spiritualism, it was because they had lost two sons to the war – Evelyn’s own brothers.

  ‘Are there really ghosts?’ Rolleston asked, and Kate remembered that he was more than a little susceptible to superstition. She had sometimes wondered if he knew, from Reginald or perhaps Algernon, of her ability. Although he had never mentioned anything.

  ‘I wouldn’t know. Mother says if you don’t bother them, they don’t bother you – and I have made a point of never bothering them. Unlike some.’

  She looked directly at Kate now, and Kate felt a slight warmth colouring her cheeks.

  ‘In which case, I shall also leave them to their own devices,’ Rolleston said, adding in a voice that was slightly off-key, ‘Anyway, as you say, it’s all nonsense, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Kate said, hoping to end the conversation.

  At that moment, the launch rounded the point and the island’s small harbour came into view. Behind it, halfway up the small valley that led down to it, was Blackwater Abbey. It hadn’t changed – a substantial Tudor manor house constructed from yellow sandstone, under a weatherworn red-tiled roof. To the left of it, as they faced it, was a small church, now unused, which had formed part of the original monastery and in which, before the war, Reginald had shown his films and had his darkroom. To the right, the small stable block. The lights in the lower windows of the hous
e itself were lit and cast a glow on to the long lawn that led down towards the sea.

  Kate thought she saw a lone figure standing at the end of the jetty, watching the launch approach, but when the harbour was obscured by yet another wave breaking over them, she lost sight of it, and when she looked again, it had gone.

  She felt cold all of a sudden, remembering her last visit to the island, and hoping she was wrong. But, unless she had been mistaken, the figure had looked awfully like Tom Usher.

  10. DONOVAN

  The large kitchen seemed warm and welcoming after the crossing and Donovan, cold to the marrow, was glad to stand in front of the large cast-iron stove, relishing the wave of heat that already was causing his wet clothes to steam.

  ‘Look at the pair of you, like drowned rats. Amy, you’ll have to get changed. You can’t wander around like that, and Miss Evelyn will be wanting you as soon as they’ve finished tea.’

  The speaker was a rotund, friendly woman, with round cheeks and cheery brown eyes. She was carrying a wooden spoon with which she pointed out the droplets of water they were leaving on her slabbed kitchen floor.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Perkins,’ Amy, Evelyn’s maid, said with a small sneeze. ‘This is Donovan, Captain Miller-White’s man.’

  Mrs Perkins, whose frilly white apron and bonnet marked her out as the cook, looked him up and down. She took in his eyepatch and the leather brace he wore over his perfectly good right hand.

  ‘Well, Mr Donovan. Have you been working for the captain long?’

  ‘Not long, Mrs Perkins. The agency sent me.’

  ‘I see,’ she said, unimpressed it seemed to him. Which he wasn’t entirely surprised by. One of C’s experts had given him a crash course in his duties, but he doubted he came across as a particularly impressive specimen as far as gentleman’s servants went.

  ‘Have you a spare suit, Mr Donovan?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, you’d best get into it, and we’ll see what we can do for this. William?’ she called over her shoulder.

  A slight boy with brilliantined hair and an eager smile came into the room.

  ‘Take Mr Donovan up to the men’s quarters. He’s in the room at the end of the corridor – it’s been aired. Mr Donovan, you’ll have to hurry along – your gentleman’s bags will need unpacking and we’re rushed off our feet as it is. But if you give William here your wet clothes, we’ll put them on the drying rack and turn them round for you as quick as we can.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Perkins.’

  She looked at his leather brace once again. ‘In the military, were you, Mr Donovan?’

  ‘Invalided out, Mrs Perkins. But quite capable of the work, I assure you.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, Mr Donovan. And we are all very thankful for your sacrifices, I’m sure.’

  At the back of the kitchen there was a door that led to a narrow staircase. Donovan followed the boy up it, carrying his small valise and listening to the wind and rain beat against the small latticed windows that marked each flight of steps. It was nearly dark outside now and the candle William carried threw strange shadows against the bare plaster of the stairwell.

  ‘We’re in for a storm, Mr Donovan.’

  ‘So everyone says.’

  There was no carpet on the steps and each one creaked as it carried their weight.

  ‘Where did you serve, Mr Donovan, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘France. A little bit in Belgium. The trenches, anyway. You can call me Frank, if you’d like. Between ourselves, anyway. I don’t know how things are done here.’

  William’s teeth shone in the gloom.

  ‘Between ourselves would be grand, Frank – but Mr Vickers, the butler, is a stickler. He says if we don’t respect each other, the gentry won’t respect us neither.’

  ‘He sounds like a man of opinions.’

  ‘He is. If you need an opinion, ask Mr Vickers – he’s no shortage of them. Don’t get him started on Russia, if you’ve any sense.’

  ‘What are his opinions on Russia?’ Donovan asked, deciding it was a question that could be safely ventured.

  ‘A committed socialist is our Mr Vickers – won’t hear a word said against them. He reads us the news from St Petersburg over breakfast, approves heartily of Mr Lenin, as you might expect. Drives Mrs Perkins to distraction.’

  Donovan found his eyebrows had risen in surprise – the idea of a Bolshevik butler to an industrialist who had made his pile from armaments was a strange one.

  ‘Were you in the infantry, Frank?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘I’m sixteen next June. Mr Vickers says I’ll still be too young to go, but I’m desperate to do my bit.’

  ‘Don’t be in too much of a rush, William. I can’t see an end to the war just yet. Anyway, they won’t take you until you’re eighteen, unless the law’s changed.’

  ‘That’s what Mr Vickers says, but he’s a pacifist as well as everything else. He served in South Africa but is against it now. Anyway, one of these days I’m going to go to Tiverton and see what they say. I hear they don’t ask too many questions.’

  Which, Donovan suspected, was probably true.

  They had reached the final landing and William held open the door for Donovan. A thin brown carpet ran the short corridor’s length and it was clear from the angle of the ceiling that they were in the attic. The walls had been whitewashed and a portrait of the king was the only decoration. At least, he thought it was the king – it was hard to see in the candlelight.

  ‘So, who’s staying in the house? I’ve only met my gentleman this afternoon.’

  ‘A couple of rum ones, I can tell you.’ William stopped and turned, his face flashing orange in the candlelight and his eyes dark. When he spoke next it was in a whisper. ‘Do you believe in the spirit world, Frank?’

  It wasn’t the first time Donovan had been asked this question in the last week – which meant he’d had time to consider his response, inconclusive as it was.

  ‘I’m not saying I do and I’m not saying I don’t.’

  William smiled. ‘Live in this house long enough and you’ll believe anything. It’s the winter solstice in two days’ time and His Lordship has asked two mediums down from London. His sons went missing in the big offensive last summer and Mr Vickers says they’re going to try and contact them. Ouija boards and the like, I should think. Madame Feda is quite famous – you might have heard of her. And then there’s a Russian gentleman, Count Orlov, or so he says he is, anyway. Mrs Perkins isn’t convinced. But it’s not them you have to watch out for, though – it’s Private Simms. Shell-shocked, he is. Had a fit yesterday and nearly brained Mr Vickers. And he talks to ghosts as well.’

  Donovan had read Orlov and Madame Feda’s files, so knew something about them. He was more interested in Simms, the shell-shocked soldier, whom he had no information on.

  ‘This is your room,’ William said. ‘I’ll wait outside for your clothes.’

  The room was lit by the glow of a coal fire, which sputtered in the small cast-iron grate. He looked around for a candle and found one in a brass holder on the tiny bedside table. He lit it. The only furniture was a wooden chair and a narrow iron bedstead. He pressed his hand on to the mattress – he’d slept on worse. It was a small, bare room, a contrast to the opulence of the rest of the house. But that was the way of the world – the rich didn’t get rich by extending luxury to their servants. Nor electricity, either.

  He unpacked quickly – the spare suit would do. He took his damp clothing out to William in the corridor.

  ‘Thanks, William. Now if you can point me towards my gentleman’s room, I’ll sort out his unpacking.’

  11. KATE

  They were shown into the library, where the Highmounts and their guests were gathering for afternoon tea. It was a large room, situated to the left of the entrance hall, its name justified by four ornate bookcases, one placed against each panelled wall, although the rest of the room was filled with leather armc
hairs, comfortable sofas and low tables. The bookcases certainly contained books but it was hardly, in Kate’s opinion, a library – it was more a room in which books happened to be present.

  It was, nonetheless, splendid. The high oak-planked ceiling rose to a peak, from which an enormous dome-shaped chandelier hung on a long, gilded chain, the pierced and polished hoop that held the construction together glittering with ormolu dragons and snakes that twisted and squirmed around it.

  ‘It is quite magnificent, don’t you agree?’

  Kate turned to find a tall man with unusual green eyes peering down at her. She hadn’t heard him approach and yet here he was – his small mouth, with its plump, red lips, smiling at her from underneath a flowing moustache, and long black hair oiled and pushed back from a high forehead. He wore a dark velvet jacket, crimson tie and long collared shirt, reflecting a style of dress that had not been in mode for several decades and making her wonder, for an instant, if he might belong to the ghosts who stood in the corners, watching the living.

  ‘My name is Orlov. I am also a guest of Lord Highmount.’

  He spoke with a Russian accent, and as if aware of her close observation and the conclusions she was forming, nodded slightly, which made her rather like him. She held out her hand.

  ‘Kate Cartwright,’ she said. ‘Sir Edward is my father.’

  They smiled at one another. She presumed he must be one of Highmount’s spiritualists.

  ‘Have you read the inscription?’ he asked. ‘On the chandelier?’

  She circled it, reading aloud. ‘In a House of Ghosts, the Living Await, Their Certain Fate.’ She turned to Orlov. ‘What is our certain fate, I wonder?’

  ‘Death, I suspect.’ He nodded. ‘It is the one thing that cannot be avoided. Lady Highmount commissioned it as a memento mori. For this house in particular.’

  He was quite obviously expecting a reaction of some sort, and Kate was careful not to give him one.

  ‘It’s rather prominent. Wouldn’t something smaller have sufficed?’

  ‘I suppose, if you have enormous wealth, the reminder must be more obvious.’