The Stranger House

by Reginald Hill

  Frek said, “A fine if lengthy story. Here’s to bastards.”

  They raised their glasses and drank. He poured a refill and helped himself to some brie. She took a wedge of cheddar and began to eat it with her apple. Watching the golden cheese and the red-and-white apple go into her mouth made him feel dizzy and he took another sip at his wine.

  She said, “How is your work going, Mr. Madero?”

  “I would like it if you would call me Mig.”

  “Like the Russian aeroplane?”

  “I do not fly so fast nor am I so deadly.”

  “Surely nowadays it’s regarded as rather slow and old-fashioned?”

  “Then it fits me very well.”

  She smiled. They drank and refilled.

  “And may I call you Frek? I like Frek. It sounds Nordic somehow. Like the old goddesses. Freyja, Fulla, Frigg. Yes, it fits you well.”

  A nicely turned compliment, he thought complacently.

  She laughed and said, “I see you know your Norse myths a little.”

  “More than a little, I hope,” he said, slightly piqued.

  “But not enough to know that the nearest thing to Frek you’ll find in them is Freki, who wasn’t a goddess but one of Odin’s wolves,” she said. “Thank you all the same. It’s good to know that even in Spain there’s an interest in the Northern myths.”

  “I had a tutor who said the first duty of a good priest is to know the opposition.”

  “And he considered the Northern pantheon who haven’t been around for a thousand years as opposition? That’s a bit paranoid, isn’t it?”

  “Men have always invented the gods they need. Understand the gods and you’ll understand the men. A priest should be able to understand men, shouldn’t he?”

  “It would be nice to think he might even be able to understand women,” said Frek dryly. “I take it you don’t include Christian deities in this pragmatic category? There we get into eternal verities, right? All the rest can be demolished euhemeristically.”

  “I wasn’t trying to demolish, I was merely suggesting that an understanding of pagan belief systems is an essential sociological tool,” said Madero, wondering how the hell his clever compliment had got him here. “I’m a historian, remember, not a priest.”

  “So you say. But to adapt a modern cliché, you can take the man out of the seminary, but can you ever take the seminary out of the man?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked at her over the rim of his glass. “How about you? You come from a family willing to take great risks for the Catholic religion. I’d guess you went to a convent school. Your father clearly still adheres closely to the faith he was brought up in. Yet in you I detect at least a separation if not a distinct skepticism.”

  She said, “I bet you got full marks on your Father Confessor courses.”

  He felt himself flushing and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound…”

  “Priestly?” she concluded. “I’ll be charitable and put it down to the historical researcher in you. You’re right. If I have to pick a mythology, I find I much prefer that of the old Norsemen. That’s why I’ve been teaching it at university for the past eight years.”

  He adjusted her age upward a little. Her looks were timeless.

  “But you’re not saying that you subscribe to their faith system?” he pressed.

  “I can understand it. It was a religion for its times. Aren’t they all? I sometimes think Christianity’s time is passing. And just as Christianity cannibalized paganism, so the Next Big Thing will help itself to whatever it fancies from Christianity. It’s already started, hasn’t it? The music, the art. You can get a kick out of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion without giving a toss about the story. And watch the tourists pouring into York Minster, how many of them sit down and say a prayer?”

  “And will this Next Big Thing be another divine intervention? Or totally secular?”

  “God knows. Or maybe not.”

  They both laughed. A shared moment. Then Madero said, “At least in a place like this you’re not likely to be confronted by extreme manifestations of novelty.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” said Frek. “It’s in places like Illthwaite, which no one in high authority pays much attention to, that changes begin.”

  “I think you’ll find that Rome pays more attention than you realize to even its remotest outposts,” said Madero rather smugly.

  “I’m not talking about Rome,” she said irritably. “Catholics are completely peripheral here. In the sticks, the C of E rules, OK? Oddly enough it was the Church of England that got me interested in paganism. I used to go to Sunday School at St. Ylf’s. We were ecumenical in Illthwaite before they knew how to spell it in Rome or Canterbury. And in the summer Rev. Pete — that’s Peter Swinebank, the vicar — used to sit us all down in the churchyard around the Wolf-Head Cross. Have you seen it yet?”

  “No, but Mrs. Appledore mentioned it.”

  “You must let me show it to you if we can find time. It’s a Viking cross full of reference to Nordic myths, all adapted to the Christian message of course. Rev. Pete used to explain it all, never realizing he was proselytizing for paganism! The Christian stuff I found pretty tedious, but that other world of gods and heroes and monsters and magic really turned me on. St. Ylf himself struck me as a boring do-gooder till I discovered his name meant wolf, and in some versions of his legend he took a wolf’s shape when he appeared to lost travelers, and he only led those to safety who showed no fear, the others he drove over a cliff and ate. This stuff doesn’t half make you talk!”

  She held up her glass to be refilled. He topped up his own at the same time. The level in the bottle had sunk very low.

  “It is one of its many beneficent effects,” he said. “But you sided with your father when your parents separated; not, I presume, on religious grounds?”

  For a second he thought this was a familiarity too far, but after a sobering appraisal from those cold blue eyes, she said, “He needed me more. But enough of me. Now it’s your turn in the confessional.”

  “What can a man who has led such a sheltered life as me have to confess?”

  “You can tell me for a start why you don’t reckon Father Simeon spent much time in the priest-hole. You can tell me why you’re so interested in Simeon, not to mention Liam Molloy and Francis Tyrwhitt. In fact, you might like to give a rather fuller account of yourself than the carefully weighted and meticulously filleted version you offered in your letter and your interview.”

  Wow. While he’d been fantasizing about this young woman’s body, she’d been taking notes and doing close analysis.

  “I see,” he said, keeping it light. “You want full confession. And in return…?”

  “You get absolution, of course.”

  He sipped his sherry thoughtfully. It was tempting. There was an intimacy in the confessional which could lead to… what?

  He opened his mouth to speak, not yet knowing what he was going to say.

  He was prevented from finding out by the sound of footsteps approaching on the flagged floor outside, then the door burst open.

  “There you are, Mr. Madero,” said Gerald Woollass. “Enjoying your lunch?”

  He sounded angry, and it occurred to Madero that somehow his lustful thoughts about Frek were visible, and he felt himself flushing even as his rational mind told him this was absurd. But there was definitely something bothering the man.

  “Yes, very much,” he said.

  “Good. And your researches, how are they going?”

  “I’ve made a good start.”

  “Yes, I know that. A very good start. But you made that yesterday in Kendal, didn’t you, Mr. Madero?”

  “Father, what’s going on?” inquired Frek.

  “You may well ask. I’ve just attended a committee meeting in Kendal, Mr. Madero. It’s a Catholic educational charity aimed at helping disadvantaged youngsters and inculcating the virtues of piety, application, and a love of the truth. Worthy aims whi
ch I had assumed you would approve of, Mr. Madero. Until I got to chatting with our chairman after the meeting. His name is Joe Tenderley. Ring a bell? Tenderley, Gray, Groyne and Southwell. And you know what he told me? He said that his junior partner had turned up late for a meeting yesterday with the excuse he’d been detained by a visiting historian desperate to learn everything that could be dug up about Father Simeon Woollass. Now I knew it couldn’t be you, Mr. Madero, having been assured only a couple of hours earlier that you knew next to nothing about Father Simeon and had only the most peripheral of interests in him. But it’s a strange coincidence, isn’t it?”

  The savage sarcasm left no room for denial.

  “Mr. Woollass, I’m sorry,” said Madero, conscious of Frek’s speculative gaze. “I should have mentioned I’d spoken with Southwell, but believe me, my interest in Father Simeon is incidental rather than central to my interest in your family. Let me explain…”

  “Explain?” exploded Woollass. “You mean you have a backup story ready? What is it, I wonder? I know! You’re really a promotor iustitiae specially appointed by the Holy Father himself to investigate the case of Father Simeon!”

  “Of course not. What I’m trying to do…”

  “Save your breath. I opened my family’s records to you, Madero. I had doubts from the start, and I was right. Please collect your things from the study and leave. My daughter will accompany you to make sure you remove only what you arrived with.”

  “Father!” protested Frek.

  “Just do it,” commanded Woollass.

  He turned on his heel and strode out of the kitchen.

  Madero looked at the woman and waited for her to speak.

  She said, “I suppose technically you ought to take the trifle.”

  “I can explain…”

  “I’m sure you can. But never complain, never explain is a wise saying. Come.”

  She rose and made for the door. Together they went up the stairs and into the study. Here he carefully sorted out his notes, laying them to one side of the desk with the journals and household records. On the other side he set his laptop and briefcase.

  “Perhaps you would like to check,” he said.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said.

  “I doubt if your father would think it silly,” he said. “Besides, if I may, I should like to use your bathroom before I go.”

  “Of course. Corridor on the left, the second door on the right.”

  He went out. Would she check that he wasn’t taking anything he shouldn’t? Her decision, and at least he had given her the chance.

  The left turn took him into a short corridor with two doors on either side.

  Just as he made the turn he froze in mid-stride as the second door on the right opened and a figure draped in cardinal red came out. He recognized Dunstan Woollass’s dressing gown but it wasn’t the old man wearing it.

  It was Mrs. Collipepper.

  She turned down the corridor without glancing in his direction. He watched her move away, registering the oil-pump shift of her heavy buttocks beneath the scarlet silk.

  His mind was trying to sort out unvenereal reasons why she should be wearing the garment as she pushed open a door at the end of the corridor and slipped out of sight.

  The door clicked shut and he resumed his advance to the bathroom. But he’d only taken a couple of steps when he saw the tail of red silk caught in the bedroom door. The dressing gown, made for a much taller figure than the woman’s, had become trapped. Even as he looked, the door opened again, releasing a blast of warm air. Mrs. Collipepper, stark naked now, stooped to pull the rest of the gown inside. Over her shoulders, Madero glimpsed a four-poster bed with a venerable white-haired head resting on the pillow. The source of the heat was a deep fireplace in which a dome of coals and logs glowed red.

  As the housekeeper straightened up, her gaze rose to meet his own. Her face showed no reaction. He lowered his eyes in confusion. She had breasts to match her buttocks with dark nipple-aureoles the size of saucers. He raised his eyes again and mouthed, “Sorry.” Gently she closed the door.

  In the bathroom he found his penis slightly engorged and had to wait a moment before he could pee.

  As he stood there, a line flashed into his mind from Shakespeare whose works his mother had insisted he should read to balance Cervantes and Calderón.

  Who’d have thought the old man to have so much blood in him?

  Frek was waiting on the landing. Silently she handed him his briefcase. As they went downstairs, he wondered if she knew about her grandfather and the housekeeper. Of course she must know! Indeed, probably the whole village knew. It was well said that in the countryside a secret is something everyone knows but no one talks about.

  Was it an active relationship? he wondered. Or was Mrs. Collipepper merely an Abishag to old King David?

  Mig put the prurient speculation out of his mind as Frek opened the front door.

  He stood there a moment, taking in the view. The sky was cloudless, the sun warm, the air so clear that he could pick out detail of rock and stream on the hills rising on the far side of the valley. The range of color was tremendous — vegetation all shades of green shot with patches of umber verging on orange where some plant was dying off; rocks black, gray and ochrous; water white falling, dark blue standing; and the land itself, pieced and plotted in the valley, rising to the horizon in pleats and folds like some rich material painted by one of the Old Masters.

  “‘The world lay all before them, where to choose their dwelling place, and Providence their guide,’” he said.

  His mother’s poetic patriotism had even overcome her religious prejudices.

  “That’s more or less what the Norsemen thought when they set out. Many of them chose Cumbria,” said Frek. “Where will Providence guide you now, Mr. Madero?”

  “Only as far as the Stranger House initially,” he said.

  He stepped across the threshold and turned to face her. His left leg took this opportunity to remind him it wasn’t yet ready for complex maneuvers. He staggered a little and winced as he forced himself to put his full weight on it.

  She didn’t seem to notice, but miraculously she said, “Tell you what, I have to go to the village and I promised to show you the Wolf-Head Cross. Let me give you a lift.”

  “I doubt if your father would approve.”

  “I got over my Elektra complex several years ago,” she said. “Come on.”

  She closed the door behind her and went to the parked Range Rover.

  Madero headed round to the passenger door. His knee felt fine. He sent it heartfelt thanks for having done its job of getting him the lift.

  “What are you smiling at?” she asked.

  “At the thought that it’s not so bad being ejected from Paradise so long as Eve goes with you.”

  It was by his standards boldly flirtatious, but it didn’t fare much better than his previous attempt.

  She said to him rather sadly, “I fear you really are going to find that you and I inhabit different myth systems.”

  And then they were speeding down the hill toward Illthwaite.

  7

  The tale of Noddy

  “THIS USED TO BE THE POLICE HOUSE,” said Noddy Melton. “I came here back in 1949 I think it was. It was pretty primitive then, but it was my own. I loved it, ghost and all.”

  The old man was sitting upright in a tall-backed armchair which dwarfed him. Sam sat in a matching chair on the other side of the fireplace. We must look like a couple of kids who’ve strayed into a giant’s house, she thought.

  “You’ve got a ghost of your own?” said Sam.

  “Hasn’t everyone? Specially in Illthwaite,” said Melton. “They took great delight in telling me the tale down at the Stranger when I first came. Long time ago the cottage was occupied by a widow who made a living out of making candles, hence the name. Seems one winter night when it was blowing a blizzard she opened the door to an old woman begging for shelter. She brought the
visitor in, set her by the fire, and shared her supper with her. As she did so she got more and more worried by various things such as the size of the old woman’s feet, her gruff voice, the hair on the back of her hands.

  “But her worry became terror when, after they’d eaten, lulled by the warmth of the fire, the old woman dozed off with her head tipped back, revealing an unmistakable Adam’s Apple. It was a man! Worse still, with the blizzard piling snow up against the windows, the candle maker was trapped, her and her young child sleeping in the corner.”

  “So what did she do?” said Sam, eager to short-circuit the story.

  “She was desperate at the thought of what he might have in mind for her and her child when he woke. In the hearth there, by the fire, stood the tub of tallow into which she dipped the wicks to form the candles. The man opened his mouth wide to let out a tremendous snore. And without any more ado, the widow picked up the tub and poured the bubbling tallow down his open maw.”

  “Jesus,” said Sam, shocked despite herself. “I guess that killed him.”

  “Oh yes. Worse, it was three days before a thaw allowed her to get out of the house and call help. Child in arms, she ran across to the church and got the vicar. It was probably a Swinebank. He came with a couple of other men, and one of these recognized the poor devil sitting here with his belly full of candle wax.

  “Seems he was a harmless idiot out of Dunnerdale who, since the death of his mother, had taken to traveling around from church to church, dressed in his mother’s shawl and gown, and begging alms.”

  “The poor bastard!” exclaimed Sam. “So what did they do when they realized what had happened?”

  “That’s what I asked when I first heard the story in the bar of the Stranger. There was a long pause, then Joe Appledore, the landlord, said, ‘The way I heard it was, they took him into St. Ylf’s, someone put a wick in his mouth, they lit it, and he burned lovely for the best part of a year.’ Then they all fell about laughing.”