The desktop is a mess of papers, pamphlets and documents, all smudged with russet stains, amid dried-up inkpots and snapped quills. I start here, taking each paper in turn, holding them up to the candle. There are letters, notes from Jasper Flynn, figures scratched in Ambrose’s unpractised hand, maps, crude drawings of sheep that must be Sam’s doing, but I cannot find the document that will determine my fate: my father’s will.
When the snow melts and we carry my father’s body down the coffin path to the churchyard, as we must, it will not take long for word to spread. Then they will come, the lawmen and the chancers, the meddlers and gossips, those with something to gain. But they cannot take Scarcross Hall away from me if they cannot prove Father’s intent. When I find the document that confirms the entail, that names his heir, I shall burn it. This new plan, though precarious, is the best I have.
The idea came to me in the night, as I lay in Ellis’s arms, bathed in the beams of a snow-bright moon.
‘What will you do now?’ he whispered, tenderly stroking my hair.
My torn heart ached. ‘I don’t know. Everything is lost.’
He was silent awhile. Then, ‘It’s not too late. Not if you marry. Not if you have a son.’
He kissed me deeply. My heart leaped, like a spring lamb. Has he changed his mind? Does he mean to agree to my proposal after all? Though he has not said so, his actions speak for him.
Breaking the kiss, I said, ‘Even so, it’s too late. I’ve missed my chance.’
‘Then we’ll find a way to buy time.’
‘How?’
He propped himself on one elbow, running his fingers down my neck and across my throat. ‘The name of your father’s heir – have you ever seen it written?’
‘No.’
‘What if . . . what if no one can prove that Scarcross Hall does not belong to you?’
‘There is an entail. A will.’
‘What if they cannot be found?’
I paused, thinking.
‘Your father kept that knowledge close. What if you say nothing? What would happen then?’
‘But that would be a lie. A deception.’
‘What does it matter, if it serves a greater purpose? Is it not God’s will that you remain?’
A tiny spark of light seemed to flare in the darkness. ‘You think I should stay silent? You think I should go on as before, as if I know nothing of the entail?’
‘Who would question you? Only Agnes knows, and she will stay silent for you.’
‘But there will be lawyers. As soon as word spreads—’
‘Then we keep the news to ourselves, for as long as we can. And if anyone does come forward, they’ll have to fight your claim. Without proof it would take many months, maybe years. And meanwhile . . .’ He ran his fingers lower and gently cradled my belly, then bent to kiss me once more.
The memory of his flesh against mine is still vivid. The touch of his skin is on my fingertips, the taste of him on my tongue. He held me as if he would never let go.
In all my years and with all the men who have gone before, I did not know it could be like that – a gentle act, a thing of melancholy and sympathy that does not take away sadness but makes it beautiful, makes it sacred. I think of the care Ellis takes in tending an injured ewe, the deft cross-hatched stitches as he mends the flesh, and imagine he will do the same with my wounded heart. He is part of me now. We cannot go back. He is in my bones; in my blood.
I search for almost an hour, turning over piles of old pamphlets and newsbooks, burrowing through boxes filled with rocks, pebbles and brittle animal bones, becoming increasingly frustrated. I look in cupboards and trunks, even beneath the rush mats, driven by Ellis’s words. I find nothing.
Even in my grief, I’m still defiant. I cannot forgive Father for the lies he told, for his weakness, for leaving me alone. I’ve given my life to this place, to this land and this flock. I cannot imagine a life elsewhere because nowhere else will have me: I simply would not fit. I’m a black sheep, an aberration, not suited to the world beyond. Leaving Scarcross Hall would be like opening me and scooping out my soul. I imagine I would shrivel and die, a thorn bush, deprived of all light. I would not be myself.
But what will it cost me to stay?
I ignore the chaos I’ve made, go to the window and look out across the white-draped garden, the low wall and the gateposts towards the coffin path. The snow is so deep I cannot make out the dip of the road, where carts and horses, sheep and men have carved their track in the land year upon year, generation upon generation. I think of that poor doomed family, trapped here so many winters ago, and wonder if they suffered as we have suffered. I’ve heard the stories, I know the tales: the three golden coins found in the mouths of those wretched frozen bodies. It cannot be coincidence.
My father is dead. The three coins, returned to us that terrible night, are hidden beneath my mattress. Their restoration can mean only one thing. But I understand why that family did not leave when they had the chance. This place is a battleground. The Devil stalks these hills. Whatever curse was placed upon this land brings death and despair and a path down to Hell. But there is also truth and life. There are glimpses of God’s work in the land, a chance of redemption in the rebirth of every spring, proof of His blessing. Just like my father before me, I see both Heaven and Hell in the wild open spaces.
Father would tell me to hold on to my faith, to think of the eternal fight, even if, at the end, he surrendered to torment and madness. He would tell me that I must not let the Devil win.
I have to believe that Providence has brought us here. Our Saviour must have His plan in bringing Ellis and me together. Jasper Flynn would call me a heretic, a sinner, but I dare to think that a meeting of such affinity, of our twinned souls, must be God-given. Could it be a divine gift, strong and pure enough to withstand whatever evil stalks this place?
But if I tell the necessary lie, is the battle already lost? There is more at stake than the fate of Scarcross Hall: the true battle is for the eternal fate of my soul.
The door opens and I think it’s Ellis come to find me but it’s Sam. He’s still very weak and wasted, freckles bright like a rash against pallid skin.
‘Sam, what are you doing out of bed?’
He shivers. ‘Agnes didn’t bring my breakfast.’
Agnes has not left Father’s side since we laid him out the night before. She keeps the vigil that I did not. I chose lust over prayer – yet another sin to add to my account.
‘Come by the fire and get warm,’ I say. As I lift the blanket from Father’s chair the scent of him overwhelms me, my heart plummets, and I have to grip the chair-back a moment before I can move on.
Sam crosses the room, frowning at the littered floor, and takes the seat, wraps himself in the blanket and stretches his bare feet out towards the flames. I kneel and take his small foot in my hands, rubbing some warmth back into it. He watches me at work, his serious little face intent. ‘Is Master Booth dead?’
The words are like knives in my gut. ‘Yes, Sam.’
‘Why did you not come to tell me?’
‘You were sleeping. You need to rest.’ The truth is, I did not have the strength.
Sam hangs his head and we sit in silence awhile. I expect him to weep but he does not. I take up his other foot to warm it.
‘Is it my fault?’ he says.
‘Of course not. Why should you think so?’
His eyes dart about the room. He’s afraid.
‘What is it, Sam? Have you something to tell me?’
He leans forward, whispering, ‘I thought it was Will.’
I drop his foot and take both his hands in mine. They are shaking. ‘What do you mean?’
Again, he looks around the room, as if worried that someone will overhear. His gaze lingers at the window. ‘There’s someone here,’ he says.
‘No – there’s someone else. I thought it was Will, but it’s not.’
I think of Sam’s strange behaviour these last months, the way he’s been distracted and withdrawn, the time I found him playing games with that cursed fire screen in the old bedchamber. I think of the childlike footsteps in my room and the times I’ve wondered the same thing about his brother.
‘Sam, you must tell me what you’ve seen.’ He looks uncertain. ‘I promise I’ll not be angry if you tell me the truth. Have you seen Will?’
He shakes his head. ‘No. But I could hear him. And I could tell when he was near. I thought . . . I thought he’d come back.’ He’s trying so hard not to cry that my heart tugs in sympathy. I know how badly he must have wanted his brother back, how he must have yearned for the impossible.
‘You must tell me, Sam. When did this begin?’
‘When it was cold. Just before this year’s lambs came.’
February then – when I first sensed that sinister presence, and when Ellis arrived.
‘And what happened?’
‘We’d play together on the moor, like we used to. It was good, at first . . .’
‘And then?’
He struggles to speak. ‘He said . . . he said it was my fault.’
‘What was your fault, Sam?’
‘It’s true,’ he says, eyes flooding with horror. ‘It was my fault.’
Shards of broken memory seem to reassemble. ‘Are you talking of Will’s accident?’
He nods.
‘What happened that day, Sam?’
Again he pauses. Then, quietly, ‘I pushed him.’
I am silent, taking this in.
‘I pushed him off the Slaying Stone, at the Ladies. It was a game. I never meant to hurt him . . .’
I hold his hands tight, feeling him tremble.
‘I thought he’d come back,’ he says again. ‘And then he told me it was my fault he was dead. He was angry with me. He said I had to make amends. He made me do things.’
‘What things?’
He’s silent. Button-lipped.
I think of the missing coins, the stolen inkwell, the dead lambs, the child-sized handprints – all the strange and inexplicable events of these past months. Could Sam have been the culprit all along?
‘Sam, please. What did he make you do?’
Again, the fearful glance. ‘He made me promise not to tell.’
‘You can tell me, Sam. I’ll not tell another soul.’
‘I can’t. He said if I tell anyone he’ll hurt baby Grace. He’ll take her away too.’ A single tear escapes from the corner of his eye. ‘I thought it was Will, but it can’t be, can it? Will wouldn’t hurt his sister, would he? Will wouldn’t hurt anyone. Will wouldn’t let Master Booth die . . .’
Then he breaks down and I hold him tight as he sobs and shakes and cries for his mother.
After a while he calms. He says he’s sorry over and over but will not say what he’s sorry for. I soothe him by making promises I don’t know if I can keep. ‘As soon as the snow clears, your ma will be here. Your pa and Grace too. And you can all live here with me. Would you like that? Would you like us all to be together?’
He nods.
‘Good. Now, stay by the fire and keep warm – I’ve work to do.’
He watches, sniffing and wiping his eyes on the blanket, as I return to the desk and resume my search. An idea is forming, a way to banish whatever spirit stalks this place, a way to make a new future for us all. If I’m to have any hope of it, I must first destroy that will.
When a few minutes have passed and I’ve rechecked and discarded the papers on the desk, cursing with irritation, Sam asks, ‘What are you looking for?’
‘Something important.’
‘Something lost?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Something secret?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
He slides from the chair and pads across the floor. He runs his fingers beneath the lip of the desk. I hear a click as he presses a small indentation. The front panel seems to shift. He takes up a blunt knife – the one Father used to break seals – and slides it into the new gap, levering the panel forward. The whole piece comes away, revealing a small compartment. In amazement, I peer inside. I find a roll of papers, tied with a black cord. I pull them out.
‘How did you know?’ I ask.
‘The master showed me. You said it was secret. This is where secrets are kept.’
With trembling fingers I untie the bow and let the roll of papers unfurl. I clear a space on the desk and spread them out: three or four old documents, ink faded to brown but still clear, penned in a neat notary’s hand.
My heart is racing, thoughts clamouring like a hundred church bells. And it’s here, his last will and testament, a small piece of parchment, signed by my father and marked with his insignia, the double B.
My head swims. I struggle to read. I run my finger along the lines, past the long legal words I do not understand, past a list of property and belongings that I do not recognise, to Father’s declaration. All he owns, everything that is his, he leaves to his rightful heir: his only son, Matthew Booth.
Chapter 42
Agnes is sitting by Father’s bed, swathes of mismatched cloth spilling over her knees. She has cleaned him and laid him out beneath the coverlet, head resting on the pillow as if he’s sleeping. He does not look like himself but like a badly done portrait or effigy. His face is without colour except purplish clefts beneath his eyes and lips black as ink.
As I enter, closing the door behind me, Agnes does not stir, or turn her attention from her needle. The air is icy, no fire in the grate. Frost on the windows gives the light a weird underwater taint. I’m trembling. My breath steams.
I walk to the bedside and look at Father. I want to shake him awake, demand the secrets that he kept from me, but it’s too late. There’s nothing left of the man I knew.
‘How strange it is,’ Agnes says sadly, still fixed upon her work, ‘that your father made the wool that made the cloth that made other men rich, yet he must make do with a winding sheet of scraps.’
I turn to her. It seems that overnight she’s become shrunken and small, half the woman she was, lungs wheezing, eyes rheumy. I’ve not noticed how, over these last months, she’s become desiccated and frail, suddenly old. I’ve been so absorbed in my troubles I’ve not seen the changes in her. I see it now, as I’m beginning to see so much, but I don’t care.
I hold the document out. ‘What do you know about this?’
She rests her needlework in her lap and takes the parchment. ‘What is it?’
‘Father’s will.’
She eyes it a moment, then shakes her head, handing it back to me. Sometimes I forget she does not have her letters. She picks up her sewing.
‘Who is Matthew Booth?’
The needle stops mid-stitch.
‘See here.’ I point at the words on the page. ‘It says that Father has a son, a son called Matthew Booth. I don’t know anyone who goes by that name.’
Her hands drop to her lap.
‘Is it true?’ I ask.
She looks up at me, eyes deep wells of sorrow. ‘Oh, Mercy . . .’
So, it is true.
The floor seems to tilt beneath me and I find myself on my knees at Agnes’s feet. She puts out a hand to reach my shoulder but I move away. My whole body feels aflame. I cannot bear to be touched. ‘Tell me.’
‘Mercy, I—’
‘You will tell me what you know.’
She exhales unsteadily, looking to the body on the bed. ‘I told him many times you’ve a right to know the truth. But he’d never listen.’
I
put my head into my hands – if I don’t, my mind might split apart. I’m still clutching the will, afraid to let it go.
‘I made a promise to your father and would not break it while he lived,’ Agnes says. ‘But now . . .’
I take a deep breath, trying to still my spinning thoughts. ‘I have a brother?’
She’s barely able to look at me. ‘You did once. Long ago.’
‘But . . . how? When?’
‘He was a year your elder, a fine strong boy with dark eyes and dark hair. He was three years old when we lost him.’
‘He died?’
She shakes her head, eyes downcast. ‘No, we lost him.’
‘What do you mean?’
She looks at Father again and her eyes spring tears. ‘Forgive me, Bartram. She deserves to know.’
My heart is in my throat, my mouth dry as ashes.
‘Mercy, your mother was a good woman. It was a terrible thing when she died. It was thirty years ago, last May just gone.’
‘But that’s nearly two years after I was born. I thought—’
‘I know – you were told she died in childbed, but that was not what happened. Your mother bore you with no trouble. She cared for you and loved you.’
Again the room tilts, as if the floorboards are shifting.
‘Mercy, my dear child, your mother was murdered.’
Pinpoints of white light seem to crowd at the corners of my vision and there’s a sudden bright pain behind my eyes. I press a hand to my temple. ‘I don’t understand.’
Agnes puts aside the winding sheet. She’s shaking. Her voice comes out strange and cracked. ‘I haven’t spoken of it in so long. I hate to think of it.’
‘Tell me.’
‘We were in the marketplace, when they came,’ she says. ‘God knows, I tried to save him. I tried to save them both.’
‘Who? Who came?’
‘The King’s men. They gave no warning, no time to run or hide. We were in the marketplace. It was just an ordinary day.’ She takes a deep, fractured breath. ‘Oh, Mercy, I still dream about the horror of it. They slaughtered innocents, not just the townsmen who dared try to fight but women and children too.’
The Coffin Path_'The perfect ghost story' Page 31
