The Silk House : A Novel (2020)

by Nunn, Kayte

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  There was a murmur of conversation and she held up her hand to silence them again. ‘Please. There’s nothing more to discuss at this stage. Finish your supper and then you’re free until lights out.’ She looked across the room and saw that the door that led to the kitchen was ajar. Standing behind it was Moira, the kitchenhand.

  After the girls had gone to their rooms, Thea went to the kitchen, finding Moira wiping down the benches.

  ‘Have you lived in the town for long, Moira?’ she asked.

  The woman stopped wiping. ‘All my life.’

  ‘So, you’d be aware of the house’s history?’

  ‘A little. It’s been many different things over the years.’

  ‘Is there anything that I should know?’

  ‘Well … ’ She hesitated.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Some people reckon it’s cursed. I don’t, of course,’ she said quickly. ‘Else I wouldn’t be working here, would I?’

  ‘What kind of a curse?’ Thea asked.

  ‘Well, no one can settle here. They say the house wants something. Or wants to be rid of something.’

  Great, first Pope and Battle, and now the house.

  ‘What on earth do you mean by that?’ she asked.

  ‘There have been fires …’

  ‘Yes, but any old house, especially one that dates back several hundred years, would likely have experienced a fire at some point in time,’ she argued.

  ‘And the ghost,’ Moira added.

  ‘Oh, I know about that, but honestly … aren’t those kinds of stories made up to attract business, not keep it away?’ Thea replied, her voice calmer than she felt.

  Moira shrugged.

  ‘Tell me, do you know anything about a maid who once worked here … I think she might have been accused of witchcraft. Not long after the house was first built.’

  ‘Never heard of that,’ Moira answered. ‘But it wouldn’t surprise me. There’s any number of women who were accused of witchery around these parts. That’s why no one goes to Grovely Wood after dark if they can help it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Thea. ‘The maid’s name was in a book about the Handsel sisters.’

  ‘P’raps you might be able to find out more?’ Moira suggested.

  ‘I’m going to try,’ said Thea. She hesitated before adding, ‘There was a symbol in the book too.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Of an arrow.’

  Moira flicked her left wrist self-consciously.

  ‘Do you know any more about that, Moira?’ Thea asked softly.

  ‘The women of the old families …’ she began. ‘The ones that can trace their ancestors in the town and hereabouts more than several centuries back …’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I suppose we all support each other, kind of like a network. We recognise each other by it. My mother has hers on a necklace …’

  ‘A network?’

  ‘Yes.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  Now

  Thea made another appointment at the records office, more curious than ever to try to get to the bottom of things. As she opened the second folder, her eyes lit on a newspaper cutting. It was folded and yellowed with age and as she spread it open, the headline blared: ‘Up in smoke: woman killed in fire at historic Oxleigh house.’ She pored over the faded print, which told of a fire that was believed to have started in the kitchen but that the cause was unknown. A man in his early thirties and two young girls had escaped the blaze, rescued by a couple of courageous neighbours, but firemen had tragically found the mother deceased when they entered the smouldering bedroom several hours later.

  She checked the date: 15 October 1969. Fifty years ago next week. Thea remembered the earlier fire she had read about in the book in the school library. Two fires. Moira had mentioned that. It wasn’t such an unusual thing in a centuries-old house, she reminded herself sternly. But two dead women as a result? Even over a span of several centuries, that was more of a concern.

  The items in the folder then skipped forward to the 1980s, with a deed of purchase showing that the house had changed hands. Again, not unexpected, but it did appear to have had a number of owners, especially in recent times. No one had stayed there for long it seemed.

  It was as though the layers of the house’s history were pressed together like a book, with some of the print – past events – leaching through the pages. It occurred to her that the top one, on which the new history was being written, was now partly her story – hers and the girls’.

  It was nearly closing by the time Thea reached the end of the folder, and she spent the final few minutes flipping through the remaining pages. What intrigued her most were the beginnings of the house. Call it a historian’s instinct, but she couldn’t shake a nagging feeling that something had happened then, something in its early years. She needed to find that book again, the one from the school library; perhaps the answers she sought would be there.

  She turned to the final page. Another newspaper report, this time from 2001. ‘Singular Spectres’ blared the headline from the Oxleigh Gazette. It was a story on the number of ghosts reported to have been seen in the county. It led with a report from a guest staying at Silk House – from a time when it was a hotel – who claimed her room was haunted. By a young woman sitting on the end of her bed. Wearing a hooded cloak.

  As Thea read this, she found herself barely able to breathe. She looked away, at the prosaic surroundings of the small room, and then back again to make sure she had seen what she thought she had. No mistake. A detailed description of the cloaked woman – she’d only seen in a dream, she reminded herself – sitting on the end of the bed. Thea went to the window and looked out. While she had been in the records office, the sky had turned a lowering grey, rain threatening in the thick clouds that blotted out the sun. It was as though there were a lid on the land, closing in and pressing down, stifling her.

  When it was time to leave, she pulled on a pair of woollen gloves and wrapped a scarf about her neck, wondering about the implications of what she had discovered. Was the house really haunted? Was there a connection to a maid accused of witchcraft? Did she even believe such a thing was possible? And, more importantly, if she did, what was she supposed to do about it? She shivered in the cold air and hurried to Claire’s car, blasting the heater as soon as she had turned the engine over, but it was a long while before she felt warm again.

  ‘I wonder if I might have a word?’ Thea asked, coming across Gareth Pope in the staffroom the next morning.

  The PE teacher, who was in the process of making himself a coffee, turned towards her, kettle in hand, almost spilling hot water over his shoes. He made a last-minute correction and hit the mug as he had originally intended. He filled it and then raised his eyebrows at her.

  ‘Want one?’ he asked.

  Thea shook her head. ‘I’ll get straight to the point. While I have no patience for idle gossip, I have been made aware of the fact that you and Mr Battle share a common belief that the girls are not cut out for Oxleigh College. That you have your doubts about the benefits of having girls at the school at all and have been voicing your opinions in their hearing.’

  He looked astonished. ‘Absolutely nothing of the sort. If anything I was defending them to old Battle. He’s the one who’s unhappy about the changes, not me.’

  ‘There have been a number of incidents at Silk House, of which I am sure you are aware. If I were to find out that anyone from within the school had anything to do with them …’

  He looked at her, bemused. ‘Are you threatening me, Miss Rust?’

  ‘I also understand there was a hockey practice yesterday,’ she said, changing the subject. She had made her point.

  He raised the mug to his lips, took a sip and contemplated her. ‘I wondered why you had given it a miss.’

  ‘It didn’t appear on my schedule.’ She did her best not to let her animosity show in her voice. ‘And I am at a loss to understa
nd how that could be.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be implying that I deliberately left you off the list, would you?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, did you?’

  ‘I’m offended that you even have to ask. Of course I didn’t. I’m not that petty.’

  Before Thea could decide whether or not to believe him, Claire breezed into the staffroom, almost colliding with them both. ‘Thea! I’ve got a free period later – fancy a catch-up?’

  Thea nodded, turning away from Gareth. She needed to confide in someone about what was going on at the house, if only to convince herself she was reading more into events than was sensible.

  ‘So, let me get this straight. Someone has poisoned the fish, you found mushrooms scattered on the ground, piles of dirt in your study, beetles in the tea, and you think you’ve seen a ghost?’

  Claire was incredulous.

  ‘Dreamed about a ghost,’ Thea corrected her. ‘There’s a difference.’

  ‘And several hundred years ago a maid living there was somehow involved in witchcraft? Look, I can understand that the fish thing is concerning, but the ghost?’ She held up a hand. ‘I know it was only a dream, but was she like the one I mentioned?’

  Thea nodded. ‘Kind of.’

  ‘I thought you told me you don’t believe in all that nonsense.’

  ‘I don’t, but you weren’t the only one freaked out by whatever it was we saw as we were driving home from that party,’ she reminded her.

  ‘Okay, that was scary, but come on … We’d had a couple of drinks and it was pretty bloody misty. It could have been anything. It all seems a bit silly now.’

  ‘I’d had a few glasses of mulled wine, but over about four hours,’ Thea protested. ‘And I know it wasn’t just the mist. Besides that, I’ve heard footsteps on the stairs when I know there’s no one but me in the house, the piano playing during the day when the girls are at school … I’m having trouble staying asleep at night – I keep waking up at midnight, two, three a.m. I’m not sure I can take much more of it, to be completely honest.’

  They were walking side by side along the path that skirted the playing fields and led to Summerbourne. Claire stopped and turned to Thea. ‘Do you think – and I mean this in the kindest possible way – that the pressure might be getting to you? After all, you’ve been thrown in at the deep end, expected to step into the new housemistress’s shoes and look after fourteen teenage girls, all of whom are new to the school, as are you. A school, I might add, that has never seen girls in its classrooms until now. We’re doing our best to drag the place into the twenty-first century, but it was never going to be easy.’

  ‘Thirteen,’ Thea reminded her. ‘Thirteen girls. Anyway, I’ve been wondering if it might be sabotage. The fish thing, I mean. I know there are some people at the school who really don’t want us here – Mr Battle, for one.’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible,’ she said, pursing her lips. ‘But, really? I’ve always thought Battle’s bark was far worse than his bite, but then I guess you never really know what anyone’s capable of until they’re pushed. Are you going to bring it up with Dr Fox?’

  Thea’s shoulders drooped. ‘He’s already decided that I’m a liability after what happened with Sabrina. Adding my paranoia to that isn’t going to improve his opinion of me. Besides, I don’t have any proof of anything, and Mr Battle’s been at the school forever, when I’ve only been here five minutes. I don’t want to make things worse. But it’s not only me I’m worried about – what if the girls aren’t safe there, in the house? There’s definitely something that doesn’t want us there.’ She stopped. ‘Oh Christ, now I really do sound as though I’ve lost the plot.’

  Claire regarded her seriously. ‘We should call on a friend of mine. Fiona Spanswick. She’s not far away, actually.’ She got out her phone and tapped out a quick text.

  Her phone beeped in reply a few moments later.

  ‘Great, we can drop by now. She’s only up the road. We can be there in fifteen minutes, tops.’

  Mystified, Thea followed her friend along the path, eventually reaching Summerbourne and coming to a halt outside a small thatched cottage.

  An elegant woman dressed in a soft, oversized black sweater, well-cut trousers and velvet slippers answered the door. Her fine salt-and-pepper hair was caught up in a loose chignon and pearls glowed at her earlobes. She greeted Claire like an old friend, enveloping her in a hug, and then smiled warmly at Thea as Claire introduced her.

  ‘Sorry to call out of the blue, but we were passing and I thought … well, actually I thought you might be able to help us out,’ Claire said as they came into the kitchen.

  Was the woman some kind of counsellor? Thea flinched. She really didn’t want to talk about herself, and certainly not to a stranger.

  ‘Oh yes?’ Fiona asked, filling a kettle at the sink and getting three mugs down from a cupboard.

  ‘Sorry, Thea, I should have explained. Fiona is the curate at St Margaret’s, the church in Oxleigh,’ said Claire. ‘She and my mother have been friends for years. Fiona’s been like an auntie to me since I’ve been living here.’

  ‘Don’t you have to wear a uniform – a collar, or something?’ Thea asked.

  Fiona smiled indulgently. ‘Not always.’

  Thea was still none the wiser as to how Fiona might help.

  ‘There’s more to the job than hatching, matching and dispatching,’ she said as if she’d read Thea’s thoughts. She put the mugs on the table and indicated a jug near Thea’s elbow. ‘Not that many people would know. Help yourself to milk and sugar. I should have some bikkies here somewhere as well.’ She turned her back and began rummaging in a cupboard.

  Thea went to reach for a mug and started as she saw the design on each of them. Watercolour images of star-shaped purple flowers. Almost exactly the same as the ones on the strip of silk that she had found in the old book.

  ‘My little joke to myself,’ said Fiona who had turned back and caught Thea staring at them. ‘Belladonna. Deadly nightshade.’

  Thea flinched at the mention of the plant, but Fiona, who was busy ripping open a packet of biscuits and tipping them onto a plate, didn’t seem to have noticed.

  ‘Gingersnap?’ she offered, pushing the plate towards Thea as she took a seat opposite them. ‘Go on, they’re really good.’ She leaned forward, wrapping her hands around a mug, covering up the flowers. ‘Now, what can I do for you?’

  Haltingly, for she felt a little foolish talking about the events in the calmness of Fiona’s cottage, Thea told her what had been going on. ‘The likely explanation is that someone is trying to scare us off,’ she said. ‘Or maybe some of the boys are playing tricks. But part of me wonders if there might be a different cause.’ Thea couldn’t believe she was entertaining the idea of something paranormal. A few months ago she would have scoffed at the idea, but now, with everything that had gone on, she wasn’t so certain. ‘And there’s the soil.’

  ‘The soil?’

  ‘It keeps coming up from the floorboards in my study. Battle – the porter – said it reminded him of the earth that’s sometimes used at burials.’

  ‘I see,’ said Fiona when she had finished. She flicked a sidelong glance at Claire and then returned her attention to Thea, as if weighing her next words carefully. ‘I’d say you’ve a restless soul.’

  Thea sat back in surprise. Restless?

  ‘An evil spirit,’ said Claire dramatically, her eyes wide.

  Fiona tutted. ‘Not necessarily, Claire,’ she chided. ‘But there’s definitely something that’s disturbing the peace, by the sounds of it. Sometimes it can seem as if there is – for want of a better word – a presence in a place, particularly an old building, or one where something catastrophic might have happened.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to investigate its history,’ Thea interrupted.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, there was a fire, in the 1960s. A woman died. Then centuries before I think a maid might have been accused of witchcraft,
but I can’t find out much more. And there were reports of other people seeing a ghost, but that was ages ago. Actually, there were two fires – one several hundred years ago, and a woman died then too. You don’t think they could be connected?’ she asked.

  ‘Two catastrophic events,’ said Claire.

  There isn’t going to be a third, Thea vowed silently. Not if I can help it.

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ said Fiona. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, certain people are more sensitive to such things, they pick up on vibrations that most of us don’t.’ She blew on her tea, rippling its surface. ‘It’s as if they act as a channel to the past, or sometimes the spirit can even attach itself to them.’

  Claire whistled. ‘That’s a bit bonkers.’

  Thea shuddered. She was surprised to hear such opinions coming from a woman of religious conviction, especially one as normal-seeming as Fiona, but then maybe it actually made some kind of sense. If Fiona believed in a higher power, then surely it stood to reason that she might believe in other unseen forces too.

  ‘And you think that I might be such a person?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s certainly a possibility.’

  ‘So, what can I do? I’m worried about the effect this might start to have on the girls.’

  ‘Not to mention yourself, my dear. Now, what Claire knows, but you most probably don’t, is that I am part of a team within the diocese known as the Ministry of Deliverance.’ She smiled benignly, the outer edges of her eyes crinkling. ‘It sounds rather ominous, but I promise it isn’t.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing,’ Thea said, mystified.

  ‘We don’t exactly advertise. Think of it as a healing ministry, if that helps. There is both major and minor deliverance. I undertake the minor sort: essentially, I help cleanse a building – or a person – of the spirits that might be said to haunt it,’ Fiona said. ‘It happens more often than most people realise. Sometimes there is an energy left behind in the fabric of a building, in the bricks and mortar, that needs clearing.’

  ‘You mean like a poltergeist?’ Thea asked.