House of Echoes. Barbara Erskine
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to see if he was buried here. Do you think he had an accident?’
‘Perhaps he was murdered.’ Luke chuckled. ‘Not every name in this book can have died a gentle natural death …’
‘Luke –’ Joss’s protest was interrupted by a sudden indignant wail from the baby alarm.
‘I’ll go.’ Luke was already on his feet. ‘You two put away that Bible and start to think about supper.’
Joss stood up and closed the heavy book, frowning at the echoing crescendo of sobs. ‘I should go –’
‘Luke can deal with it.’ David put his hand on her arm. He left it there just a moment too long and moved it hastily. ‘Joss. Don’t push Luke out with all this, will you. The family. The history. The house. It’s a lot for him to take on board.’
‘It’s a lot for me to take on board!’ She thumped the heavy book down on the dresser as over the intercom they heard the sound of a door opening, and then Luke’s voice, sharp with fear. ‘Tom! What have you done?’
Joss glanced at David, then she turned and ran for the door. When she arrived in the nursery, with David close on her heels, Tom was in Luke’s arms. The cot was over by the window.
‘It’s OK. He’s all right.’ He surrendered the screaming child. ‘He must have rocked the cot across the floor. It is a bit sloping up here. Then he woke up in a different place and had a bit of a fright, didn’t you old son?’
He ruffled the little boy’s hair.
Joss clutched Tom close, feeling the small body trembling violently against her own. ‘Silly sausage. What happened? Did you rock the cot so much it moved?’
Tom snuffled. Already his eyes were closing. ‘It might have been a dream,’ Luke whispered. ‘For all that noise, he’s barely awake, you know.’
Joss nodded. She waited while he pushed the cot back into the corner and turned back the coverings. ‘Tom Tom go back to bed now,’ she murmured gently. The little boy said nothing, the long honey blond eyelashes already heavy against his cheeks.
‘Clever invention, that alarm,’ David commented when they were once more back in the kitchen. ‘Does he often do that?’
Joss shook her head. ‘Not very. Moving has unsettled him a bit, that’s all. And he’s excited about Christmas. Alice and Joe and Lyn will soon be back. Lyn has agreed to come and help me look after him as a part-time nanny. And on top of all that Luke has promised him we will do the tree tomorrow.’ She was laying the table, her careless movements quick and imprecise. David leaned across and neatened the knives and forks, meticulously uncrossing two knife blades with a shake of his head. ‘The devil apart, do you think this house is haunted?’ he asked suddenly, squaring the cutlery with neat precision.
‘Why?’ Luke turned from the stove, wooden spoon in hand and stared at him. ‘Have you seen something?’
‘Seen, no.’ David sat down slowly.
‘Heard then?’ Joss met his eye. The voices. The little boys’ voices. Had he too heard them?
David shrugged. ‘No. Nothing precise. Just a feeling.’
The feeling had been in Tom’s bedroom, but he was not going to say so. It was strange. A coldness which was not physical cold – the Dimplex had seen to that. More a cold of – he caught himself with something like a suppressed laugh. He was going to describe it to himself as a cold of the soul.
‘Presents, food, blankets, hot-water bottles. I’m like a Red Cross relief van!’ Lyn had driven into the courtyard next morning, her old blue Mini groaning under the weight of luggage and parcels. ‘Mum and Dad are coming back on Wednesday, but I thought I’d give you a hand.’ She smiled shyly at David. ‘I’m going to be Tom’s nanny so Joss can write world-shaking best sellers!’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’ David grinned. He had only met Joss’s younger sister on a couple of occasions, and had thought her hard and, he had to admit, a little boring. For sisters the two had had little in common. Now, of course, he knew why. They weren’t sisters at all.
It was eleven before he managed to cajole Joss away from the house on the pretext of hunting up some of the names from the Bible in the church. They started in front of Sarah Percival. ‘I noticed her because the memorial was so ornate. There must be older ones,’ she whispered. She wandered away from him down the aisle. ‘Here we are, Mary Sarah Bennet died in 1920. It just says of Belheddon Hall. No mention of her disappearing husband.’
‘Perhaps she didn’t want him buried with her.’ David was staring absently up into the shadows near the north door. ‘There’s a lovely little brass here. To the memory of Katherine –’ he screwed up his eyes, ‘it’s been polished so often I can’t make out the second name. We need more light.’ He stepped closer, reaching up the wall to trace the letters with his finger. ‘She died in 14- something.’
Katherine
In the silence of the old church Joss flinched as though she had been hit. She was standing on the chancel steps, staring at a small plaque on the wall behind the lectern. At David’s words she turned, to see him stroking his fingers lightly over the small, highly polished brass. ‘Don’t touch it, David – ‘she cried out before she had time to think.
He stepped back guiltily. ‘Why on earth not? It’s not like walking on them –’
‘Did you hear?’ She pressed her fingers against her temples.
‘Hear what?’ He stepped away from the pulpit and came to stand next to her. ‘Joss? What is it?’
‘Katherine,’ she whispered.
He had been riding – riding through the summer heat, trying to reach her …
‘That was me, Joss. I read out her name. Look. Up there on the wall. A little brass. There are some dead flowers on the shelf in front of it.’
Riding – riding – the messenger had taken two days to reach him – already it might be too late –
In the cut glass bowl the water was green and slimy. Joss stared down at it. ‘We must renew the flowers. Poor things, they’ve been dead so long. Nobody cares –’
Foam flew from his horse’s mouth, flecking his mantle with white …
‘There aren’t any flowers at this time of year unless you go to a shop,’ David commented. He wandered away towards the choir stalls once more. ‘Did you bring a notebook? Let’s copy some of these names down.’
Joss had picked up the vase. She stared at it vacantly. ‘There are always flowers in the country, if you know where to look,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll bring some over later.’
He glanced at her over his shoulder. She seemed strangely preoccupied. ‘Shouldn’t you leave it to the flower ladies?’ he said after a moment.
She shrugged. ‘They don’t seem to have bothered. No one has noticed. The vase was hidden there, in the shadows. Poor Katherine –’
Katherine!
Furiously he bent lower over the animal’s neck, urging it even faster, conscious of the thud of hooves on the sunbaked ground, knowing in some reasoning part of himself that his best mount would be lamed for life if he kept up the pace any longer.
‘David!’
The pounding in Joss’s skull was like the thud of a horse’s hooves, on and on and on, one two three, one two three, over the hard,