The Ghost Writer

by John Harwood

  "I didn't want you to know;"

  "To know what?" she cried.

  But his reply was cut off by the sound of footsteps padding towards the room. It was Beatrice, a green dressing-gown thrown over her nightdress.

  "What's the matter?" she asked.

  "Nothing," replied Cordelia. "Harry-thought he heard a burglar, that's all. I'm sorry we woke you."

  "Yes," said Harry. 'Er-false alarm. Sorry. Anyway, good-night both." He kissed her hastily, and made for the stairs.

  Cordelia lay awake until dawn, then overslept, and came down very late with a headache. A contrite Harry immediate proposed a walk in Hurst Wood-something he had not done for weeks-and they set off towards the riverbank. He hadn't exactly been lying about the sleep-walking, he explained as they walked along; he had fallen asleep in the armchair in his room, and dreamed that he was looking at "The Drowned Man", and in the dream he had seen, at last, what the face had been trying to tell him. Then he woke, still with the sensation of understanding, but the substance had gone. And so he had taken his key and gone upstairs, hoping to recapture it.

  "And did you?" she asked, longing to believe him, but not quite convinced.

  "No… I thought… but no. I lose myself in it, and then-then it goes, like that dream, when something calls me back."

  "When I knocked over the frame, you looked as if you hated me." Her voice quivered as she spoke.

  "I am so sorry… I was not myself"

  "Then who were you?"

  He glanced at her uneasily. "I meant, I didn't know what I was doing."

  She stopped in the middle of the path, put her hands on his shoulders, and turned him towards her.

  "Harry, look at me. There's no burden, nothing I wouldn't happily bear for your sake. But I can't marry you if you won't trust me,"

  He threw his arms around her and launched into a stream of apologies. He had learned his lesson; they would lock "The Drowned Man" away in a stout box and she could keep the only key of it, if she liked, but in any case he would never, never look at it again; he loved her, adored her, could never live without her… all very gratifying, but at the end of it she was no closer to understanding the cause of his strange compulsion. And when they reached the riverbank, she found herself drawing back from his kisses, and searching his face for the absolute assurance his words had somehow failed to provide, while her headache grew worse and worse until she was compelled to return to the house. Neither aspirin nor rest would subdue the pounding in her head, and by the time she came down again he was gone, leaving only a note to say that he had not wanted to disturb her.

  The following afternoon, Cordelia went up to the storeroom and carried "The Drowned Man" and its lectern back to its former place in the studio. If he could not resist it openly… she did not know what would follow, only that she could not bear the idea of his creeping back to it in the night; and besides, her uncle held the only other key to the studio.

  The day was cool and bright; a light breeze came through the open window, causing one of the pictures hanging on the opposite wall to sway and tap very lightly against the panelling. She finished sweeping the floor, then turned the easel so that it faced the light, sat down on the bed, and tried to lose herself in the portrait. Glowing, vibrant, perfectly composed, Imogen de Vere regarded her with intimate understanding. It struck Cordelia, not for the first time, that an observer might easily assume that the portrait was to her what "The Drowned Man" was to Harry. She had spent another restless night, and much of the day, brooding upon the possible causes of its power over him. Was it related, somehow, to his unflagging determination to locate and befriend Henry St Clair? Harry had yet to uncover a single scrap of evidence beyond what was stored in these two rooms, but his conviction that St Clair was alive and, as it were, waiting for Harry to knock on his door, remained unshaken.

  It would have been better if they had left everything alone; this had all sprung from her idea of restoring the studio. She had felt so certain that the evil had been banished… but then she did not-did she?-truly believe in the power of curses. Not on a sunny afternoon like this, and besides, it made no sense. De Vere had not painted "The Drowned Man"; St Clair had. And even if you believed in-the sort of thing that came to you, lying awake in the dark, recalling, all too vividly, the story of de Vere's last days-there was nothing else in the room that could possibly…

  Except the polished wooden cube in the corner at the foot of the bed.

  It was much heavier than she remembered-of course, Harry had helped her lift it-and though there was no discernible rustling this time, she thought that something moved or shifted very slightly inside it as she set it down on the bed. You could not tell which way up it was supposed to go, if there was a right way: the six side panels looked exactly the same. Each had been overlaid with a plain strip of polished wood-cedar or mahogany, she thought-around the outside, so that the actual panel was recessed, with an elaborately carved rosette, about the size of a florin, in the centre. As she turned the box from side to side, she found herself coming back to one particular rosette, until it occurred to her to count the carved petals. All of the others had twelve petals; this one had thirteen. Gingerly, she tried pressing, and then twisting the rosette, and felt it turn very slightly. What might it be? Surely nothing could still be alive in there? A vision of huge, veinous eggs had her leaping away from the bed, almost knocking over the easel. Should she call her uncle? He would tell her, quite rightly, to leave it alone. Yes: put it back in the corner, or better still, lock it away in the room next door. But already those eggs had begun to hatch in her imagination. What if it sprang open, like a jack-in-the-box, as soon as she picked it up? Far better to leave it for Harry to move next Saturday; but that would mean five days of picturing monstrous spiders swarming about the studio, for the lid might fly up as soon as she locked the door…

  An altercation of blackbirds in a nearby oak subdued these fearful visions sufficiently for her to seize the broom. Without giving herself time to think, she twisted the rosette with, her other hand as far as it would go and sprang away again.

  A dark line had appeared along the edge of the panel. She waited, straining to listen over the thudding of her heart, but nothing more happened. Holding the broom at arms length, she tried to work the bristles into the crack, but her hand trembled so violently that she dislodged the panel completely, and it slid down onto the bed.

  Nothing came out. Edging closer, she saw that the top of the box was tightly packed with crumpled-up sheets of newspaper. She began to dislodge these with the broom, which compelled her to move closer to the box as she worked down through the layers of packing until she began to uncover something green-a hard, rounded object about the size of… a turkeys egg… wrapped in a fine emerald green velvet cloth… no, an emerald green gown, she could see from the stitching… and the thing inside couldn't be an egg, because it had a dome-like protuberance at one end, with some sort of spike, perhaps, beyond that, and when she tapped it very lightly with the broom handle she could hear a muffled ringing sound. Gently, she prised up the bundle so that it lay on top of the packing. Whatever was inside could not weigh very much. She tapped with her fingers; too hard to be an egg. It felt like glass.

  She lifted out the bundle, set it down on the bed, and began, very cautiously, to unwrap it. The object had been placed inside the waist of the gown, with the rest of the fabric folded around it. Not liking to reach inside, and trying not to stand too close, Cordelia began to lift the gown away. But her hands were seized by a sudden tremor; the thing slid out very suddenly, and before she could stop it, rolled off the edge of the bed and smashed to fragments. All she retained was the impression of something like a distended electric light bulb, with long thin tubes or spikes of glass at both ends. There was one of the broken-off glass spikes, with a needle-like wire emerging from the end of it… and part of another; and a small square of thin dark metal, curved like a curling leaf,… and a third fragment of glass tubing, connected by
wire to another metal square, the same size, but flat, and silvered like the back of a mirror.

  Her curiosity was blotted out by the realisation of what she had done. They could lose the income, and the house; and Harry, for all his loyalty, was the last person she could tell. She must wrap up the fragments, put everything back in the box, and pray that nobody ever opened it again. As she moved to drape the gown over the bed, she saw that it was, undoubtedly, the gown that Imogen de Vere was wearing in the portrait.

  And now she would have to sweep up all of the broken glass, and bundle it up in the gown… which she found she was holding so as to measure it against herself; it looked exactly her size. Though terribly crumpled, it was only a little musty. And the jagged edges would tear the velvet… no; she could not. The packing had been so flat, when the lid came off; it had surely never been disturbed. She draped the gown across the bed and unfolded one of the pieces of paper. The Times. Friday, 3rd December, 1896. Which would have been, from her recollection of her uncles narrative, either just before, or shortly after Henry St Clair's things had been seized by the bailiffs.

  But he would never have treated the gown with such contempt, assuming Imogen had left it at the studio. This was de Vere's work… all the more reason not to do his bidding. That green dress she had not worn for ages would do perfectly well to wrap the fragments. Meanwhile, it struck her that the safest place for the gown would be in the closet in Grandmama's room, which she had not entered since the day Papa had caught her wearing the veil; nor, so far as she knew, had anyone else. But if Uncle Theodore happened to go up to his room, two doors along from Grandmama's… she decided to hide the gown in her own closet for the time being, and wait until the coast was clear.

  When she had swept up the glass and got the lid back on the box, she came downstairs and established that her uncle was dozing in his study. Then, without quite knowing why, she went back up to the first floor and let herself quietly into her grandmother's room.

  Dust swirled as she crossed the floor and drew open the curtains. The stale, musty air was still warm from the previous day's heat. The furniture seemed to have shrunk; the swing mirror no longer towered over her. A faint odour of camphor greeted her as she opened the closet door, along with a vivid memory of playing at ghosts with Beatrice. Several dresses hung from the rail, all in sombre colours, and all "sensible", like the stout shoes on the floor. Imogen, she reminded herself, had arrived here in the clothes she stood up in. What had happened to the magnificent wardrobe she must have had at Belgrave Square? Her jewels? Books, letters, keepsakes? De Vere must have sold or destroyed everything else.

  As she wandered about the room, Cordelia was struck by the realisation that her habit of thinking of Imogen de Vere and Grandmama as two separate people was in no way fanciful. Whether or not he had caused the illness-"his spittle burned like acid", she recalled Uncle Theodore saying-Imogen de Vere had died to the world, and perhaps even to herself that night, and woken as Grandmama, condemned always to wear a veil… which Papa must have returned to the bottom drawer of the press, for there it was, laid out exactly as she had seen it last.

  Breathing again the scents of camphor and some sort of salve or balm, mixed with the faintest hint of another fragrance, Cordelia felt a sudden powerful urge to put it on, and for the second time in her life, she drew the black veil over her head and turned towards the mirror.

  The verse about seeing in a glass darkly came to her. No wonder she had given herself-and Papa-such a fright. Her dress looked strangely incongruous below the veil, as though her own head and shoulders had been replaced with those of another person whose outlines could be glimpsed, in the stronger light from the window, floating in a black mist of gauze.

  A floorboard creaked in the corridor outside. She drew off the veil and held her breath, listening, but there was no further sound beyond the faint thudding of her heart, and when she opened the door cautiously and looked out, the corridor was empty. Feeling that it would be safer in her own room, she folded the veil and carried it upstairs, where she hid it away in her closet, beside the emerald green gown.

  ***

  THE MANTEL CLOCK CHIMED THE HALF-HOUR. THE clouds had sunk even lower, merging into a uniform, leaden grey like the underside of a fog-bank which hung, seemingly motionless, just above the treetops across the lane. If he had arrived on the six o'clock train, he would surely be here by now; there would be at least another hour to wait.

  Why could he never be on time? She would have run all the way from Bloomsbury to Victoria rather than sacrifice an hour in his company. Suddenly angry, she slid down off the window-ledge and made for the stairs. She would walk as far as the village, just in case, and then circle back to the stream, where she could at least bathe her feet in cool water.

  The light beneath the trees was very dim; there was still not a breath of wind. She had gone about a hundred yards when she heard the sound of voices, and stopped beneath the deeper shadow of an oak.

  Harry and Beatrice appeared at the next turning, some thirty yards away. They were walking slowly, close together and deep in conversation. Should she wave, or call out? As they approached, still without seeing her, though she was dressed in white-the same creamy-white sleeveless dress she had worn that first afternoon-Cordelia began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. They had come within a few paces when she stepped out into the middle of the lane.

  [Here the typescript broke off at the foot of a page.]

  PART TWO

  HATHERLEY. Descendant anxious to trace family history. Would anyone with any information about the early life and antecedents of Phyllis May Hatherley, granddaughter of Viola Hatherley, born Marylebone, London, 13 April 1929, married Graham John Freeman (1917-1982) in Mawson, South Australia, on 4 May 1963, died 29 May 1999, please contact her son, Gerard Freeman…

  ***

  c/o Lansdown and Grierstone

  Commissioners for Oaths

  14A Bedford Row

  London WC1N 5AB

  12 June 1999

  Dear Mr Freeman,

  I am writing in reply to your advertisement in this mornings Times. I am afraid I am not equipped to reply by fax or email as you suggest, and hope that you will be able to decipher my arthritic handwriting! I hope, too, that you will accept a strangers condolences on the recent death of your mother.

  To come straight to the point: in 1944 I was moved, due to the upheavals of the war, to St Margaret's School in Devon to complete my education. My new form mistress (who believed in order above all things) did not allow personal preference to determine the seating arrangements in her classroom. Desks were assigned alphabetically by surname, and so I was placed next to a girl called Anne Hatherley, who soon became my closest friend.

  Anne Hatherley and her younger sister Phyllis (whom I never met, though we once spoke on the telephone) were brought up in London by their grandmother, Viola Hatherley, and their aunt Iris, Violas unmarried daughter. I felt certain, therefore, as soon as I saw your advertisement, that your late mother and my dear friend's sister must be one and the same person. To make doubly sure, I re-read some of Anne's letters this morning, and established that Phyllis's birthday was the 13th of April. Anne was born on the 6th of March, 1928, and since Phyllis was just a year younger than her sister, the dates match perfectly.

  Viola Hatherley died just after VE Day, and Anne was of course obliged to leave school immediately and return to London. I remained at home in Plymouth, but Anne and I wrote constantly for the next four years, and saw each other whenever we could. Her Aunt Iris died in the autumn of 1949, and soon after that Anne's letters abruptly ceased. I never heard from her again.

  I shall, of course, be only too pleased to help you in any way I can. Do please write to me by sealed enclosure, c/o my solicitor, Mr Giles Grierstone, who handles all of my affairs, including my correspondence. I wonder-and I do hope you won't be offended by this-whether you would mind providing him with formal proof of your own, and your late mother's identity, incl
uding, if possible, photographs. Anything you send him will be treated in the strictest confidence.

  Though you do not mention Anne in your advertisement, I do hope you will be able to tell me what became of her; I have never ceased to wonder.

  Yours sincerely

  (Miss) Abigail Hamish

  c/o Lansdown and Grierstone

  Commissioners for Oaths

  14A Bedford Row

  London WC1N 5AB

  27 June 1999

  Dear Mr Freeman,

  Thank you very much for your kind and most informative letter. I do appreciate all the trouble you have gone to in providing Mr Grierstone with so much documentation, and so promptly. The photograph of your mother in the full bloom of youth, nursing your infant self, is most touching-I can certainly see a resemblance to Anne as I remember her. An aversion to being photographed must have run in the family, for Anne steadfastly refused to give me even a single snapshot of herself.

  It was indeed a shock to learn that your mother always spoke of herself as an only child. Yet I was not wholly surprised, for reasons I could not divulge until we had established beyond doubt that your mother was Anne's younger sister. I fear that what follows will prove distressing, but you have urged me to be frank, and I shall do my best.

  There is very little I can tell you about your mother's childhood. Like your mother (perhaps it will be easier if I call her Phyllis), Anne almost never spoke of the loss of her parents; she herself was only two years old when the accident happened. They were brought up by their grandmother and their aunt Iris, in very comfortable surroundings; they had a nurse, and a cook, and a maid, and later a governess, and had never known any other life. By the time I met her, Anne had come to believe that her childhood would not have been nearly as happy had her parents lived. Whether Phyllis felt the same, I simply don't know. The war of course brought great upheaval: the girls, like so many children, were sent away from London when the bombing began in earnest. Iris and two of her spiritualist friends-she was a devout believer in'séances and ouija boards and so on, despite Viola's scorn for such activities (odd that Viola, who wrote ghost stories, should have been the sceptic)-but I see I am getting into one of those parenthetical muddles that Miss Tremayne (the form mistress who believed in order above all things) was always warning me against.