The Book Ghost

by Lorna Gray

  It was with a slightly humbled air that I turned to Mr Murray when he spoke. The old man had the wonderfully indistinct intonation of the South Cotswolds as he told me, ‘I was very small when we came here, just a baby, really. My mother had died of the yellow fever, and so did my father, very nearly. But he recovered.’

  I said on a soft note of realisation, ‘Was your father working closely with Graham Hanley Ashbrook in Kenya? I mean, was he involved in the old man’s research?’

  Mr Murray nodded.

  I added more precisely, ‘They were friends?’

  He told me, ‘My parents assisted old Mr Graham in everything. Mr Graham was devastated when my mother died and my father was ill. He always gave my father the credit for inspiring him to push on with his research. And when we came here and Mr Graham grew too old, the friendship and the work passed down the generations to Walter. That’s what the memorial is for. It’s for all us.’

  The fire cackled beside me while he added hoarsely, ‘No one will remember our names – not my father’s, nor Uncle Walter’s, nor even Graham Hanley Ashbrook, because they were all far too quiet in their work – but what does that matter? Science has its own memory. And for me, my wife, the life of this farm and all of Walter’s children – we remember that Old Graham Ashbrook brought us all together, and that Uncle Walter’s unswerving purpose kept us close.’

  After a moment’s peaceable contemplation of this room’s growing heat, Mrs Murray drew breath as though she were drawing order to a conversation that had become temporarily waylaid.

  She asked me, ‘So this Mrs Dunn is writing a book about my Great-Uncle Graham? For people to read? Can she do that? She ought to have asked me first.’

  I shook my head helplessly. ‘She didn’t know you were here. She asked at the village about Mr Murray but didn’t understand the details of where he lived. She certainly didn’t grasp that Miss Clare Ashbrook was Mrs Murray. I don’t know that anyone even mentioned it.’

  ‘My dear girl, who would remember a detail like that?’ Mr Murray’s reply was spoken through a grimace of internal discomfort. ‘You’re speaking as if the marriage between the adopted daughter of the local gentry and the black farmer from Bramblemead should rank as a fresh novelty, but most of our nearest neighbours weren’t even born over sixty-five years ago. And it barely caused a ripple back then. If our grandson were home, things might be different. He’s the one they talk about, but he isn’t a Murray or an Ashbrook. He has his father’s name. I told you the Ashbrook people were private.’

  ‘Your Mrs Dunn doesn’t want to write half-baked nonsense gleaned from old photographs,’ remarked Mrs Murray. She was suddenly looking a little pink in the new light of the fire. ‘She can’t make up stories about what Great-Uncle Graham did with that house, or what his son achieved afterwards. She can’t publish the book. That’s all there is to it. This Mrs Dunn will have to see me first.’

  She was suddenly brimming with determination. Which was wonderful, except for the minor complication that my mind was filling with the waste of my uncle’s stock of paper and the realisation that Mr Murray had really been making a powerful point when he had been telling me that no one would remember Graham Hanley Ashbrook’s name.

  I had probably just been informed that the giraffe book would soon be withdrawn completely.

  Robert’s voice drew my head to the doorway. I found that he had crossed the room and he was lingering there. ‘Lucy? Could I speak to you?’

  I rose and went to him. As we passed out into the hallway I could hear Mrs Murray whispering across the room to her husband about what they each had said.

  Robert led me into the kitchen and turned there behind the screen of the doorway so that we might speak without being overheard. I could feel the energy flowing in him; constrained as always beneath his usual sense of purpose, but still running steadily towards that old urge to roam. We were lit by the distant light of the oil lamp in the hall.

  ‘They can’t stay here,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I agreed. It was good to feel close to him. He was the one consistent note within all the strangeness of being here.

  My hand had gone instinctively to his arm where he had lightly rolled his sleeves back to examine Mr Murray. With my mind upon the heat that lay beneath my fingers, I asked gently, ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘As far as I can tell, it isn’t as bad as it might be. Mr Murray may be teetering on the brink of pneumonia, but might just escape it if we can get him fed and warm. He’s probably fractured some of the bones in his foot. But I haven’t got enough equipment to tell for sure, and I’m not his doctor.’

  I asked, ‘And what about you? How is your head?’

  ‘Sore, but I’ll live.’

  It was then that I saw that Robert had brought his coat through into this icy kitchen with him. I watched him set it down to one side upon the sideboard. He straightened his sleeves, and then he was free to turn back to me. After a momentary consideration, he moved to draw me to him. It felt very natural, even though I could feel the very faint current of that energy passing from him to me.

  He said, ‘We’re both feeling the strain of finding these people, aren’t we?’

  I confessed, ‘I can’t help thinking that if I was right; that if the pressure that drove me really did relate to the history of the Ashbrook house; and if I truly did feel the moment its focus moved from me to you … that old title of yours – doctor – is why.’

  He said, ‘Mine were the skills it recognised?’

  I didn’t say it, but there was the strangeness of wondering if it would permit him to leave now.

  Very determinedly, I said, ‘Someone needs to make them a strong cup of tea, and someone needs to go for help. It would be quickest if you went to Jacqueline.’

  He noted my directness. Briefly, there was a whisper of gratitude there. He knew I was aware of how much he needed the room to move, to walk, to shake this off.

  Then the change in his attention built an ache in me. He focussed on me and me alone. He asked, ‘Do you trust me to leave you here while I go for the real doctor?’

  Now it was my turn to reveal my restlessness. His sudden tenderness sent a shiver straight through me. Intensely. Because his question passed through the mess of our care for these people and my fears for him, and ran straight to the bruise that dwelled in my mind.

  ‘Oh, Robert,’ I said helplessly, ‘of course I do.’ Because I didn’t want to think like this any more. I wanted to remember how much I was growing to know him.

  And I suppose I might have tried to turn away from him and the pressure to answer his question more honestly except that he still had his hands at my waist and they steadied me, quite firmly.

  I’d been a fool to try to turn away. The confidence that had been built between us this morning over my advent calendar was rippling back and forth between us like a wave. He knew me too. The thought was followed after a moment by the gentlest of pressures under my chin to bring my mouth up to his.

  Then, in the seconds afterwards, he told me, ‘I love you.’

  I couldn’t help softening then. I think he was beginning to smile when he let me go. I didn’t see. He was turning his head aside to look for his coat and I was letting out my breath in one extraordinary release of tension while I stepped aside to seek the support of the sideboard. Standing before me now, he worked his way into his dirtied raincoat.

  As he straightened his collar, he said altogether more briskly, ‘Do you think Jacqueline is going to cope with all this? She’s about to have her evening filled with the trouble of taking me to the various houses of people who can be summoned to help, before descending upon this place with food and blankets, and plans for the evacuation.’

  The features of his face caught the light from the distant oil lamp as he turned his head to catch some sound from the other room. They were fine, just talking.

  Suddenly, I was experiencing a powerful sense of the value of this man who could treat every detail with such
care.

  All the same, I managed to say with an incredulous laugh, ‘You’re asking whether Jacqueline will cope? Truly? She’ll be delighted, of course. You’ve just found her the first of her guests, and she’s about to discover that Walter’s role in that house was even more splendid than that of her darling Graham Hanley Ashbrook.’

  His attention dropped to me. ‘And what about you? Will you cope on your own for a few hours? What about those animals? Can you manage to get hay to them?’

  ‘Robert,’ I told him quite flatly. ‘You’ve already guessed that I keep up the pretence about the animals for the sake of my aunt and uncle and for my parents, so I don’t see why we should have to sustain the lie between us too. I’m not afraid of those poor beasts.’

  I was speaking defiantly but I couldn’t help the way doubt crept in with the silence that fell briefly between us. To my right was the beckoning shape of the kitchen door.

  His head briefly turned to follow the stray in my attention. He knew at that moment that I was waging a battle between good sense and a violent urge to beg him to come back to me.

  His promise was given freely anyway in the form of a reply so quiet that even the ghosts might not hear.

  ‘Here you are,’ he told me softly. ‘And I don’t like leaving you.’

  It was some time later, after he had gone – without anything moving out of the dark to stop him, and after I had done what I could for the pathetic beasts in the cattle shed – that I turned my thoughts at last to the other silence that was waiting in the corners of this house.

  I wasn’t even alone. I was kneeling by the hearth and waiting for a simple pan of soup to cook through. But I wasn’t reaching for Walter or this idea I had that some part of me had been sensitive to the force of the man’s life.

  This was something that dwelled deeper, enduring beyond the immediate plight of an old couple. It resided in the part of me that had been harnessed by my grief. And it lay in the knowledge that I had to consider the larger question here, which was framed around the puzzle of why it had been my search, and not Jacqueline’s, that had discovered this last relic of the Ashbrook family.

  Perhaps their desperate need for help had already reached out to Jacqueline, but found the connection between them too vague to sustain on its own.

  On an impulse, in the full light of the fire in the hearth, I turned my head as if listening, and found something very peaceful. I spoke for the first and only time clearly into the void.

  I said, ‘I always did say that you were focussed on the bigger things. If it was you who taught them how to reach me, Archie – thank you.’

  Marjoram

  Arrowroot

  Rosemary

  Rhubarb

  Yarrow

  Mistletoe

  Elderflower

  A note on the text

  The unscripted misspellings of Ashbrook within this book were entirely accidental and, out of respect for the ghost, were allowed to remain.

  THE END

  If you enjoyed reading about Mrs P, you can find more books by Lorna Gray here.

  In the mood for even more bewitching historical fiction?

  You will adore Mrs Boots by Deborah Carr, an empowering novel that sheds light on the untold story of the woman behind one of the most enduring business empires in British history.

  Similarly enthralling, The Orphan Thief by Glynis Peters weaves the beautiful story of a young woman and a street urchin orphaned during the London Blitz.

  You will also love All We Left Behind by Danielle R. Graham, a spellbinding saga of love and sacrifice set around the Japanese-Canadian community of WWII Mayne Island.

  And why not try The Last Letter From Juliet by Melanie Hudson, a moving and powerful novel about a daring WWII pilot who dreams of a lost love on the eve of her 100th birthday in cosy Cornwall.

  Or The Secret Messenger by Mandy Robotham, a sweeping tale of the courage of everyday women in German-occupied 1940s Venice.

  Happy reading!

  Acknowledgements

  I have been helped and supported by so many people in the course of writing this book. I am particularly grateful to Stuart Samuel for allowing me to borrow his invaluable expertise as I researched bus travel in the area. Many thanks also to Alan Brookes for helping me to uncover the terminology and technology of a 1940s printworks.

  My family and friends have been as ever an invaluable support, and my eternal gratitude and affection goes to my husband Jeremy for being endlessly by my side.

  Finally, I’d like to thank the team at One More Chapter, but particularly my editor Charlotte Ledger, whose clear and insightful advice has proved so inspiring. Thank you.

  Author’s Note

  Thank you so much for reading The Book Ghost. I hope you’ve loved Lucy’s determined account of her effort to begin her life again within the quiet rooms of the Kershaw and Kathay Book Press. I certainly loved helping her to discover love and friendship there.

  This is a book about the echoes of the past. It is a ghost story without white shrouded spectres, or wailing ghouls. The fading notes of those who have passed are simply a steady part of Lucy’s struggle to discover the healing freedom of her newfound life in the Cotswolds.

  This is also a book about belonging. Lucy is feeling a bit unsure of her place now that she has come home. She doesn’t know it, but Robert is facing a similar struggle. He is a man who has endlessly had to stand firm for what he truly wants instead of resuming his high-flying career in medicine, particularly when every part of the past is touched by so many memories of his life as a POW. For me there is something wonderful in the way he assembles plants and oddments for Lucy’s advent calendar. The final collection forms an anagram for his proposal, but his first message, the anagram of MERRY XMAS, is almost more important.

  He decides to extend a little gesture of friendship to Lucy after their first brief meeting on the stairs in her aunt’s house. He isn’t asking anything of her, but he wants to find a harmless means of showing her how important she is. And he does it long before she has learned how to talk to him about her past, or learned that he and her aunt and uncle conspired to bring her home – or even told him how much she values the simple kindness of his presence in the office.

  Friendship touches every part of their lives in that old building. Books are a vital theme too. They almost rank as a character in their own right. The books in Lucy’s life certainly have a personality. They link the past to the present, and forge connections between people too. Lucy herself describes books as a wonderful monument to unity. And they are – not least because they play such a crucial role in the search for the old couple.

  Personally, I find it incredible to comprehend how many people have been involved in the creation of this book. The book within your hands, whether digital or print, is formed of the words that have grown in my mind, but, beyond that, so many people have played their part.

  My editor at One More Chapter made vital suggestions about the text. Then other people in the team took the finished work and formatted it, and made it ready to meet the world. Someone cared to design the cover. Someone engineered the e-reader app, or operated the machine that printed the book too. And someone, often many people, were involved in getting the book to the person who will read it. There is something truly uplifting in that.

  Lucy’s story unfolds in 1946. When I research a book, I am usually drawing on oral history from the time, so in a way my characters borrow from real voices. Perhaps it is my background in archaeology, but I am the sort of person for whom the traces of the past are ever present in the world I see around me. In this book, Lucy takes an intensely personal journey into the heartfelt connection she feels between herself and those who have gone before her. I find it quite strange to consider that, by now, at the present year of writing this, Lucy’s first discovery of trust and healing with Robert in that old creaking office would in itself count as history.

  I can’t help wondering where life has taken them sinc
e then. I know they will have been happy.

  With love,

  Lorna

  About the Author

  Lorna Gray was born in 1980 in Bedfordshire. Her relationship with the glorious countryside of the Cotswolds began many years ago when she first moved to Cirencester. She has been exploring the area through her love of history, adventure and romance ever since.

  This is Lorna’s fourth post-WWII mystery. Her three previous novels are In the Shadow of Winter (2015), The War Widow (2018) and The Antique Dealer’s Daughter (2018). She lives in the Cotswolds with her husband.

  @MsLornaGray

  @MsLornaGray

  /MsLornaGray

  mslornagray.co.uk

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