by Toby Litt
I said thank you and left, perhaps too obviously in a hurry.
Chapter 13.
When I got back home, I stowed the food in the larder then took a blanket out into the garden and lay down with Mary on a shady part of the lawn. It was very quiet. Robert Mew was nowhere to be seen or heard. I guessed he was working in some far-off part of the grounds, doing battle with the ivy. The sound of hoovering started up, inside the house. I wished Mrs. Forster would just give it a rest. No house needed that much cleaning – not even one where dirt and stones mysteriously appeared and disappeared.
Sitting outside in the fresh air, it was impossible to believe those things had really happened. They certainly didn’t seem dangerous or threatening. Looking back, I’m surprised I was able to dismiss them so easily. Perhaps I am more adaptable than I give myself credit for. I’m certainly not any braver than the average person.
I smiled at Mary, and she smiled right back. Three months is a lovely age. Babies start to come out of themselves. Until they give you some response, it can be a hard grind. You feel like you’re a slave to something that does nothing more than cry, sleep, and make a mess. But those first few smiles are a whole new world of possibility. ‘I like being here,’ they seem to say. ‘I could be happy here.’ And that’s what you want for your children, isn’t it? For them not to blame you for bringing them into the world – a world which, for the first years, you create and dominate. Even at three and a half, Jack had started to give us flashforwards to his teen years. Three and a half was the first time he said, ‘Oh, whatever,’ when I asked him what he wanted for tea.
The hoovering stopped, and I looked up at the house. Would Jack and Mary be happy here? Wasn’t I already starting to feel trapped myself? I hated the way I was thinking about Mrs. Forster. She was a person too, with feelings that were obviously quite hurt. If I’d been a servant, I knew I’d have tried to listen in to conversations. You needed to know what your employer was thinking. It was her manner that really annoyed me, though – both subservient and superior. Like she didn’t think we had the right to live there. Like she wanted us to know that’s what she thought.
Mrs. Forster was in the doorway.
It took me a moment to realize that this was actually her and not just my thoughts of her.
She walked out of the house, looked around, saw where I was and started coming towards me.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Jonson,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have been listening.’
I stayed where I was, sitting on the blanket. But I felt awkward, with her so far above me.
‘I do want to tell you everything I can about the house. I’m not trying to be unnecessarily mysterious.’
‘Is it haunted?’
‘Not exactly. You won’t see ghosts floating around. Not traditional ones.’
I motioned for her to join me. Awkwardly, she sat sideways on the bench – as if she were a member of the Royal Family trying to look relaxed in an official photograph.
‘What will we see?’
‘Strange things. Like the falling stones.’
‘We already know about that,’ I said. ‘You haven’t told us anything we don’t know.’
‘The house isn’t exactly alive,’ she said, ‘but it does react. It has moods. Sometimes it’s angry, but mostly it’s a happy house.’
I had a sudden feeling of distance – like I was myself from a week ago, listening to the same words. They were nonsense, weren’t they? Some lines from an old song came into my head, ‘This is a happy house, we’re happy here in the happy house.’ I smiled, and I could see Mrs. Forster’s dismay. She thought I didn’t believe her. But already I’d seen and felt enough to know that something far beyond the ordinary was going on. I straightened my face. Siouxsie and the Banshees, that was it. And then the words went, ‘We’re all quite sane.’
‘Was the house angry with Jack?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps. Maybe it was just saying hello.’
‘It’s a funny way to do it.’
‘Boys are often quite rough with one another,’ she said.
‘Well, the house hasn’t greeted me yet,’ I said.
‘Hasn’t it?’ asked Mrs. Forster.
And then I realized that of course it had.
‘We are safe here, though?’
‘Perfectly safe,’ said Mrs. Forster. ‘Safer than anywhere else in the world.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. Although I was sure she could tell me more than she had. Better to leave it until after we’d made up properly. This little scene was just about keeping the lines of communication open.
Mrs. Forster looked at Mary. ‘She’s such a lovely baby,’ she said. ‘And so quiet.’
‘Second child,’ I said.
‘That’s what they say,’ Mrs. Forster said, ‘isn’t it?’
‘Sometimes,’ I said, ‘you wish they could stay like this.’
Mrs. Forster didn’t say anything. But she looked at me in an extremely intense way.
After Mrs. Forster had gone, I sat for a while longer on the lawn – until it began to get a little chilly. Mary had a feed, then we went inside. I thought I’d have a look around the library, to see what I could find out about the house, and perhaps about Elizabeth.
There were so many books, several thousand at least, that it was difficult to know where to start. Many of them had leather spines with gold lettering. A few of them were very tall and were an ivory colour. I looked in one of these, and found that it was written in what I guessed was old Latin.
Hunting around, I discovered some cabinets where all the more modern hardbacks were kept. Michael Francis was obviously a systematic kind of man. The books had been arranged into categories. A couple of shelves were architectural. On one of these was a black guide to the architecture of West Sussex by Nikolaus Pevsner. I’d seen one of these guides before. My grandfather had the one covering Lancashire, where he grew up.
I was almost certain that Nikolaus Pevsner would have written something about our house. It was so old and big that it must be important.
After pulling the book from the shelf, I sat down in one of the leather club chairs. It wasn’t hard to find the entry – someone, probably Michael Francis, had ringed the page number in the index. Dark black ink, not faded.
This is what the entry said:
‘THE NEW HOUSE. 1 ¼ m. NW. Which fails to live up to its name, yet still is one of the best preserved surviving examples of Elizabethan domestic architecture. Originally a larger dwelling, the house was destroyed circa 1580 and rebuilt over the ensuing years, though on a diminished scale. The timber-framed frontage, with four gables upon either side of a neat porch, is not the most impressive part of the building. That honour is reserved for the magnificent entry hall, about which a whole volume might be written. This is a masterpiece of carved wooden panelling. Notable features include the family crest of the Jonsons, certain symbols that many interpret as Masonic in origin and some wonderfully vivid animals. Particularly exquisite is a serpent to upper l. of the door by which one enters.’
I couldn’t resist going to have a look. It was hard to see how I’d missed the serpent before. The carpenter had made it crawl from one panel to the next, in three very lifelike dimensions. The only thing wrong with it was that it had teeth, like one of Jack’s dinosaurs.
How bizarre it was – to read something in black and white and then look up to see it right in front of you! I’d only ever done that on holiday in France, when the wonderful B&B turned out to have closed for refurbishment or the great restaurant was full of people with the same guidebook.
I went back to my cosy seat and continued reading. Perhaps, I thought, there might be something in here about the four doors in the cellar.
‘The large room to the rear of the building, downstairs, boasts an ornate fireplace c. 1582. The preservation of this, and all the period features of this house, is quite remarkable. A very fine double-sided staircase leads from the hall to a long gallery that serves to communi
cate between the rooms of the upper floor. It is rumoured that one of the bedrooms contains a priest’s hole, although I was unable to discover it. As the Jonsons were recusants, such a feature would be in keeping.
‘One reason for the exquisite preservation of the house is that, following the death of her father in 1587, Elizabeth Jonson refused to allow any alterations whatsoever to the house. She died without heir, in mysterious circumstances, but, by then, an almost religious veneration towards the original condition of the property was established, which has thankfully been maintained ever since. (Apart from the execrable addition of some French windows to the back of the house, some time in the 1930s.)
‘The New House is not open for public viewing.’
I wondered why Mr. Pevsner hadn’t been shown the priest’s hole. A sudden image of Mrs. Forster, leading him primly from room to room, came into my mind. I checked the date of the book, which was 1965. She would certainly have been here, back then.
I turned the page, and saw that another nearby house was being described. Mr. Pevsner had also failed to see the underground chapel, or perhaps he had been allowed to see it on condition that he didn’t mention it. Even after all those years, it was possible that Michael Francis wanted to keep the secrets of his ancestors. He might even have expected the return of religious persecution, one day.
Of course, the main thing that excited me was the mention of Elizabeth’s death in ‘mysterious circumstances’. That might explain the question marks in her dates, 1585-15??.
What I needed was something specifically about the family. Perhaps a biography, or a local history book.
I had just put the Pevsner guide back on the shelf, after saying thank you to it, when Mary started to whimper. I thought I might be able to feed her and then return to my search, but while I was sitting in the dining room, gazing over Mary’s head at the now even more fascinating Elizabeth, I heard Peter and Jack come through the front door.
‘We got it,’ said Jack.
‘What did you get?’ I asked.
‘Everything,’ he said. ‘And I got this.’
He showed me a new game for his Nintendo. It was called Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy and seemed to feature ghosts quite heavily.
Peter stood in the doorway. I gave him a questioning look. He nodded in response. Trust me, he was saying.
‘Can I play it?’ Jack asked.
‘Not that you haven’t been playing it in the car,’ I said.
Jack looked at his father.
‘I didn’t get a word out of him, the whole way back.’
‘But you said I could,’ said Jack. ‘There’s this ghost called Clockwork and he says – ’
‘You can play until dinner time,’ I said. ‘But not afterwards.’
‘Thanks,’ said Jack, and went off to the living room.
I told Peter about my afternoon – the village shop, the talk with Mrs. Forster. However, I didn’t mention my researches into Elizabeth. I thought I’d wait until I had something more impressive to reveal. A mysterious death was all very well, but a mysterious death with a brilliant new solution was much better.
‘Well, we ordered a fridge-freezer,’ Peter said. ‘They’re going to deliver it tomorrow morning. I brought the rest of the stuff back with me, including the new television. I’d like to see if I can get that and the computer going as soon as I can.’
The way I was feeling, I couldn’t imagine myself just sitting down to watch the gogglebox. I was having too much fun with my historical investigations. The library seemed much more exciting than another weepy talent show.
Jack wasn’t able to kill ghosts for too long. I made pasta with peas, ham and cream for dinner. We were just sitting down to eat when Mrs. Forster came in and said she was finished for the day, unless there was anything else we wanted her for.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
‘See you tomorrow,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said. Although I could tell that she wanted some more reassurance than that.
Mrs. Forster stowed her cleaning clothes and left.
‘She knows all the secrets,’ said Jack.
‘What do you mean?’ Peter asked.
‘She knew about the pee-hole.’ This was what he had decided to call the priest’s hole. ‘I’m sure she knows loads of other things.’
‘I’m sure she does,’ said Peter, and gave me a look.
‘Some people just take a bit of getting used to,’ I said. ‘I’m sure that’s how she feels about us.’
‘But we’re normal,’ said Jack. ‘And she’s a freak.’
‘Jack, that’s really rude. Mrs. Forster is not a freak.’ I said it, but I didn’t believe it. I thought of old Mrs. Willows in the village shop, Mrs. Forster’s schoolmate, and I knew I was lying.
I glanced at Peter. He knew it, too.
As Jack and Mary hadn’t had more than a flannel wash for several days, we made this bath night. It was time for us to get into some proper routines, and that didn’t just mean having cocoa at bedtime.
The water was steaming hot – too hot for Jack to get into, not until I’d run some more cold. That was one thing about this house, even though it was old, everything seemed to work efficiently – the water, the electricity, the heating.
Because he was worried that the stones would start falling again, and also because he’d become whizzy playing so much Nintendo, it took Jack a long while to calm down and go to sleep. When he’s nervous like this, he asks even more questions than normal. Tonight, he wanted to know all about Father Trovato. Where he was from? What did he do all day? What did he believe? ‘Like, does he believe in ghosts?’
‘I don’t know, Jack. Probably not.’
‘Catholics believe in the Holy Ghost,’ said Peter.
‘Don’t confuse him,’ I said. ‘That’s different.’
‘What does the Holy Ghost look like?’ asked Jack. ‘Is he white?’
‘No one really knows,’ said Peter. ‘Sometimes he’s shown in paintings as a dove flying over people’s heads.’
‘But he’s really a ghost,’ said Jack.
‘He’s really completely made-up,’ I said.
‘Don’t let Father Trovato hear you say that,’ said Peter, ‘or we’ll be evicted.’ I could tell he was uneasy about me dismissing the Holy Ghost just like that.
‘What’s a vict?’ Jack asked.
‘Close your eyes,’ I said. ‘Question Time is over.’
‘Am I a vict?’ Jack asked.
Eventually, after about five lullabies, and lots of reassurances that the stones weren’t coming back, Jack began to nod.
Luckily, Mary went off around the same time. I laid her down in the middle of the four-poster bed.
‘Come on,’ said Peter. He meant, Let’s explore the cellar.
I was reluctant to go down again. Not that I was scared of it, although I didn’t like the idea of meeting a rat. What really put me off was fear of what we might find behind the other doors. I didn’t want to find some nasty presence in the house – something that would affect how I felt about the whole thing.
Peter gathered together all the keys he had collected – the ones from Father Trovato, those from Michael Francis’s office, and Mrs. Forster’s, too.
We descended the cellar staircase quite breezily, as if going underground was no different than going into any other room.
‘What do you think we’ll find?’ Peter asked, his words sounding echoey off the walls. He led the way down.
‘A secret passage,’ I said.
‘It wouldn’t be very secret if it was just behind a door,’ he said. I could tell he was incredibly excited – trembling with it.
The bottom of the staircase was against the right-hand wall. A little further along was the first of the unopened doors. Let’s call that the East door. The next door round, anticlockwise, was the North door, then the West and South. Each stood in the middle of a long, featureless wall of grey plaster. The one with the t
ree roots and earth behind it was the South door. Peter now began with the East door. It took him five minutes to try all the keys. None of them fit.
We moved on to the North door. Our breathing went quiet as we calmed down. I was listening out very hard, in case I heard Mary crying. And so it was that I heard what I thought was something behind the North door. At first it sounded like static on the radio. But there couldn’t be anything electronic in there, could there? Some receiver from the 1940s, still working. That would be too weird. I really hoped that Peter would find a key for this door. I didn’t like the idea of going to bed not knowing what was making that noise. I’d keep thinking I was hearing it.
One of the keys on Father Trovato’s chain went snugly into the lock, and Peter turned it once, twice. A loud and satisfying click rang out.
‘I’ll just check they’re okay,’ I said, about to head for the staircase.
‘They’re fine,’ said Peter. ‘This won’t take long.’
I closed my eyes and took a deep, deep breath. I knew what we were about to discover might change everything.
‘Okay,’ I said.
Peter turned the handle and pulled open the door.
PART TWO
Chapter 14.
At first, I thought something had gone funny with my eyesight. The room looked distorted, wobbly. Then I realized that I was seeing it through a sheet of falling water.
Peter put his hand out and touched it before I had time to say, ‘Careful!’
I don’t know what I was thinking. That it might be very hot, or be something that wasn’t water – acid, perhaps.
Below where Peter put his hand in, a ragged strip of air appeared in the glassy drop of the water. He opened his fingers, and the single strip divided into five. Then he drew his hand back, leaving the water to heal itself back to a smooth vertical sheet.
‘Wow,’ he said.
The water didn’t splash at the bottom because, as we could clearly see, the floor level in this new room was a couple of feet lower than that of the room we were in. It looked very pale – almost white. And when Peter put both his hands into the water, to create a bigger gap to peer through, we saw that the whole room, floor, walls and ceiling, was covered in large white tiles. This was not the most noticeable thing, however. That was a large jet of water shooting horizontally out of the wall on the left side. It was coming from a white pipe that glistened as though it was made of china. The whole of the floor seemed to be moving in a circle. After a moment, we realized that this was where the water was escaping – through a hole in the floor, in a huge clockwise whirlpool.
