Eleanor forced an upturn to her appealing mouth and gently touched her brow.
‘I know, I was only jesting,’ she said.
CHAPTER 2
The Manor House
THEODORE STUBB DREW a final mouthful of smoke from his cigar and ground the remainder of it into an ashtray, his attention focused on a specimen in the ether bottle before him. He watched with fixed interest: the butterfly flickered and flashed in a dance of death, owning a grain of time before succumbing to the fumes. Clucking with delight, the collector picked up tweezers from amongst the paraphernalia of entomology scattered in a devious order on his workbench. He carefully extracted the insect from the bottle. Still the delicate thing waved its beautiful wings mimicking flight until a fine mounting pin, pushed through the creature’s frail flesh, finally extinguished its last scrap of life. Who is to know whether or not that steel pin, thudding through its abdomen, produced a paroxysm of agony; a scream, instantaneous and fleeting, yet filled with so much terror as to raise the hairs on the back of one’s neck? Theodore placed the impaled butterfly onto wet sand in the relaxing jar. His head bobbed in satisfaction. There, displayed on the bench in colourful extinction, was another new member to his extensive collection.
Not much sun intruded into the large and lofty attic of the manor house, though a block of light stood by the casement window at the far end, overlooking the garden. Theodore walked past the angled beams on a side of the attic to penetrate this brightness. He looked down through the window to the main lawn. Below, Brood the dour gardener was strolling across the turf from flowerbed to flowerbed, armed with a trowel and an insect spray. He was heading, past a distinctive statue, towards a lawnmower that stood by a gap in a flint stone wall. There may have been wrought iron gates there once; or a lichgate, now long gone, rotted to nothing.
The ancient wall divided the lawn from a small church hemmed with lopsided gravestones, those strangled by weeds. The Stubb family church, with a chapel and crypts within, had been abandoned many years before: the spire missing most of its terracotta tiles, stonework cracked and moss-covered, some of the arched windows boarded up, the oak door hanging open – held by a single iron hinge – graves untended. Eleanor appeared from the church entrance, carrying a hessian sack. Theodore set his attention, studying her form as intently as if she were one of his insects – his dark eyes made darker as his pupils dilated. The entomologist tore his sight away then, forcing his gaze to wander over the box hedges to the orchard and the vegetable allotments, then further still to the stiff stakes of a fence holding back the heath beyond. A spiky hedgerow striped it, where a cluster of beech trees stood as if a group of chatting people discussing the distant boulder-peaked hills wreathed in a morning mist.
The village of Muchmarsh snuggled in a valley. Orchards, fields, and tides of wheat lapped its perimeter. Untidy patches of forest and bush climbed the foothills around, an entourage hoping to reach the adjacent towns of Grinding or Smudge. Farmer Solomon’s soil lay over to the left. On one of those fields beside a length of the disused canal, jump posts and marquees were being erected in preparation for the village’s annual event. The early afternoon would see sorrel and skewbald mares, cattle and pet judging, races and shows, stalls and milling people, congregated there to celebrate Thimriddy Fair. Theodore cursed it as a waste of time and turned away from the attic window.
Presentation cases, as well as brass-handled drawer cabinets bought from a museum, stood in two regimental lines within the attic. They contained his private exhibition of thousands of insects, pinned and glued. Subtly tinted moths, arrays of butterfly varieties, armoured beetles the length of a finger to the size of small beads. Wasps, aphids, spiders and centipedes, flying creatures and crawling things all frozen in time – showing sapphire or mottled wings, mother-of-pearl shades, oranges, reds or yellows on their thoraxes and shells, speckled heads and iridescent eyes. Stored underneath the cases and on sturdy planks screwed onto the walls were flasks, bottles and flagons, filled with preserving fluids, animal specimens and other unknown organic forms floating within them. Theodore advanced along the sawdust-strewn aisle, touching the glass of the presentation cases. He liked to test with his finger for any dust on those protective panes.
Satisfied that all was as it should be, he returned to his oak bench. There he rubbed his palms together in readiness to prepare another insect despite his mind constantly preoccupied with thoughts concerning Eleanor. He must not allow his concentration to suffer by some unexplained obsession with his daughter-in-law, he considered. Even within his dreams he could never escape, her simple beauty magnified, her allure demanding. His lip twitched as it was prone to and upon touching his grey-flecked moustache, he reprimanded himself. It must be time to refuse the insects Eleanor brought him from out of the church; he must avoid her as much as possible, resist the temptation to spy on the bathroom from the door frame of the box room like some besotted schoolboy. The strong attraction to his son’s wife must be halted somehow. Yet the more he dwelled on the problem, the more he lapsed into fictional romantic episodes. ‘Get on with it,’ he muttered irritably, then after raising the wick of a lamp, gently tipped a dead insect specimen onto blotting paper.
‘Brood, have you another real spade? I seem to have misplaced the other one. My maid seems unavailable. I am also in need of more oil lamps. And do order extra boxes of candles from the candlemaker.’
After she spoke, Eleanor’s pert chin rose by half an inch, and despite her face, overalls and overskirt smeared with grime and dust, she tipped her scarfed head to the side in an elegant fashion. She held a hessian sack and she placed it against the flint wall.
Brood was standing with his back to miniature rambling roses winding their thorny way over a potting shed. ‘Don’t know anything about your maids, miss,’ the gardener replied, snuffling like a badger. ‘Know for certain Mr. Theodore’s maid won’t be finding no spade or lamps neither. Why you’re not stopped from spending allowances on so many candles, I don’t have any clue. Boxes of ‘em every week. No church needs that many, falling to bits or not.’
‘You are, no doubt, playing games with me.’ Eleanor held the knot of her scarf.
‘I’ll play any game you want.’ Brood rubbed his stubbled cheek and with a tongue coated in spittle licking the sides of his coarse lips, his grip tightened on the handle of the trowel.
Eleanor quickly drew in breath, her mouth dropping open. ‘How dare you be so … that’s no way to talk with a queen; I must go now.’
Brood snorted. ‘Wha’d you do in there every day? What’s the point? Clearing some God house no one’s bothered about. Last used by Mr. Theodore’s grandfather and he won’t be coming back in a hurry.’ Eleanor was already walking over the bright lawn towards the back of the manor house. She must not explain to any smoke-spirited servant concerning her preparation for dear Alastair’s return. ‘Need help with your wash, you?’ Brood called over.
Eleanor’s steps had taken her to the carved base of the statue, a winged angelic messenger released from its block of white marble, standing with authority on the perimeter of the lawn and casting a sharp shadow. The renegade spirit which had been within Theodore’s father had prompted Sir Bertrand Stubb to reposition the sculpted form – or rather have four workers move it inch by inch on metal rollers – from out of the church graveyard to where it now stood. Eleanor looked up to the androgynous, benign face of the angel, itself gazing at an orb ringed with laurel leaves in its ivory hands. And she whispered to it the promise to her son, ‘For my dear Alastair, touching gentle flame to candle wicks, to light your way through the comforting shadows. You need not be afraid, I am waiting.’ It could be harmful to talk more; only beetles and spiders, carefully swept from the crypt corridors, knew her secrets. Those others that had ceased to move – which had passed on the mission to their living brethren – could be preserved for ever in the manor house attic.
Eleanor gave a cursory glance to the back of the dark-bricked manor house,
its many leaded windows decorated with carved granite, and unusual wooden relief panels lining the eaves. A slab of shadow cast from the house had fallen onto the blue slate tiles of the patio. Two ornate planters stood either side, containing a dazzle of flowered shrubs. And as she moved between them, into the shadow, over to a rose bush tethered to the trellis next to the kitchen back door, one of her phantoms walked out. To solidify the imagination, she need only name it. ‘Florence; yes, Florence you are.’
‘That’s my name, madam.’ The sketch of the maid became three-dimensional, even with a glint of the sun in her eyes as she left the shadowed area behind and moved onto the lawn. ‘Can I help you?’
Of course you can, of course you must, was the thought snapping into Eleanor’s mind. ‘Run me a bath. I need to redecorate myself.’
Florence smoothed her white apron. ‘Redecorate your … I’m sorry madam but duties don’t include running baths. I’ll tidy your room if you want. Bring you a beverage; the cook’s iced lemonade? Tea?’
‘A lemonade. Then you must run the bath, not too hot, not too cool either. I will check, you know.’ Eleanor began to remove her headscarf.
Florence sighed. ‘I’ll do it this once, then no more.’
‘What is it with you strange servants and baths? Even my butler won’t turn a couple of taps. Most discourteous and improper. I should report this to William.’
Florence ignored the idle threat, knowing it was Theodore’s house and Pump the butler was employed by Theodore, not Eleanor’s husband. ‘As you wish, madam,’ the maid replied. ‘And as for Pump,’ she continued, adding, ‘Theodore’s butler’ with a firm voice, ‘that’s not his duty either. Anyway, he’s afraid of water.’
‘I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous,’ Eleanor replied. ‘How does he wash? What’s the matter with the little ghost?’
‘A phobia, Dr. Snippet calls it. Had it ever since his father drowned. Water has to be in a shallow, coloured bowl, and he mustn’t look. I really shouldn’t have told you, madam. Me and my big mouth. I’m saying no more. I’ll get your iced lemonade now.’
Eleanor lowered her voice. ‘And if you find more clues to Alastair’s whereabouts, bring them to me, straight away.’
The maid, unable to stop a thought from being spoken, knowing of Eleanor’s refusal to accept her loss, blurted, ‘You hurt inside, don’t you?’ She inclined her bonneted head, her mind turning to her own estranged child, sadness sweeping through her like a cold wind.
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ was Eleanor’s abrupt answer.
Florence hurried away to avoid speaking further.
On impulse, Eleanor went over to the dried snail shells noticed the day before, hidden behind a row of plant troughs. Snail trails had made random patterns of silver swirls and zigzags on the patio slabs. Eleanor could see an important message, the dried slime glistening, appearing to be four traced letters of the alphabet. She spoke the word loudly with hope in her voice, confirmation in her heart: ‘Soon.’
CHAPTER 3
The Pocket Watch
THEODORE LOOKED BRIEFLY to the mass of books lining a loft wall (jammed onto shelves made from rough and burled hunks of timber) and to the untidy piles of newspapers, sacking and specialist journals on the sawdusted floorboards. Half an hour had fled since he had looked through the gabled window – he decided to finish for today. The fact that it was time for Eleanor to enjoy her bath after poking around in the church ruin was neither here nor there, he insisted to himself. Upon leaving the insect-crammed space, he trod down the spiral staircase. On the walls of the descent hung more insects mounted in glass-fronted boxes, showing beetles, grizzled skippers and painted ladies, grasshoppers and wasps.
Pump the butler stood swaying gently with glazed eyes on the first floor landing, a foot idly shuffling back and forth over the burgundy carpet. The small man was dressed in a dusty black suit with a crooked starched shirt collar poking from it about his scrawny neck. He clasped a silver tray and upon that stood a cut glass decanter wrapped in a sheet of newspaper and a tumbler. Theodore groaned in annoyance. It was obvious that the fellow had spent his morning drinking again in the cellar. It had almost become accepted that the butler lived there amongst the cobwebbed wine collection, although on the strict provision that no bottles were touched.
‘Your port, sir,’ Pump announced in a slurred and quivering voice.
His master pushed him aside and retorted sourly that the fool should get about his business.
Theodore reached the top of the stairs, his lip twitching involuntarily. He paused to listen to the humming of a melody mingling with the sounds of splashing water, coming from the bathroom further along the wide corridor, and then afforded a smile to himself only. But catching sight of the butler staggering behind, whose thin top lip had also twitched as though in emulation, he growled and began the descent of the main staircase. The butler shadowed him like some faithful mongrel. The employee was oblivious to demands that he should go. Theodore drew a sharp breath for a final vocal attack whereupon the butler departed of his own accord, muttering and stopping to regain his balance by clutching the banister rail, all the while the hand gripping the silver tray bouncing as if it had a mind of its own. He reached ground level and disappeared down the cellar steps found via the panelled door under the stairs.
Theodore stood before the large carved stag beetle that acted as the wooden finial to the staircase newel post. It was a remarkably detailed piece of sculpture, created by his son William in a rare creative fugue while an apprentice at Terps Joinery. It was as if Theodore wished for some signal from it, an indication of his next course of action but with the tip of the left antler pointing towards the top of the stairs with the right tip opposing this, there was no decided choice presented. He tore his head away and walked past the grandfather clock and the drawing room doors, before turning into the reception room. There he gave a hasty glance to the mantelpiece clock before entering his study.
The study was a place of retreat – a book-insulated cocoon – to muse, or smoke and read. Two small circular windows high in one wall let in ungenerous light. A brass lamp lit by Florence an hour before stood on a mahogany side table; Theodore turned a milled wheel on it to make its flame higher. Then he took a briar from a rack hung above the bureau but promptly returned it to its notch: he rarely pipe smoked, and had changed his mind. And after taking hold of the creases of his flannel trousers, he sank into a leather armchair. Brass studs along its edge were cold on the backs of his legs.
The Theory and Practice of Medical Hypnosis lay on a side table. Although his sight had rested upon a brass container in the shape of a housefly beside the heavy volume, Theodore’s vision clouded. Thoughts of Eleanor had unexpectedly taken hold again. Despite knowing that these particular ruminations bubbling to the surface of his consciousness – seemingly of their own accord – were irreverent and breezy, he encouraged their birth, making an effort to visualize them, to give them mental form. As from a seed bindweed germinates and grows, so his provocative thoughts over the last few months had been evolving into convoluted, shameful strands of lust.
Saliva thickened on his palate and his throat burned spontaneously with a flush. The reflections of a mature man should not develop into contemplations of adultery or sexual immoralities and yet incubated fancies, deep within, had grown to encompass such ideas. Was he not owed some recompense from his lodgers? Had he not fed and kept William and Eleanor for two months without mention of payment or consideration; given them pocket money and the run of the house? He believed that he was a fair man. Actions he wished to be fulfilled, he instructed himself, were legitimate and just. Eleanor would come round to welcoming his views, his advances, his gentle touch.
In the drawer of the side table was a mirror that Theodore used when trimming his moustache. He brought it out to inspect his reflection upon its uniform surface. There: he was still attractive, if not handsome; the impairment of a scar on his jaw, and a little o
verweight perhaps, but then Florence had never commented on these trivial matters – not that she would be aware enough to do so. The power of the mind, he thought, the power of the body…
The wings of the brass housefly were hinged. Inside lay a pocket watch covered with a silk handkerchief. The unusual object was his most prized possession; it was no less than an extension of himself, amplifying his powerful control and guidance of those weaker minds as he saw them, a potent reminder of his strength of mind and keen intelligence. If there was a choice required to be made between the pocket watch and his considerable collection of insects, the handmade marvel would be the one he would choose.
He opened the brass container and upon placing the handkerchief on his right knee, picked up the watch by its gold chain to inspect its front cover carefully, as if seeing the object for the first time. The intricate engraving on the cover was extraordinarily detailed, an apparent random and anonymous pattern containing swirls, leaf-shapes and meandering lines. But the closer it was held in front of the eyes, more details showed themselves within its minute chisellings and artistic scratches. Like ancient faces seen in rocks and tree trunks and leaf masses, so images came and went, forming and reforming, the longer it was gazed upon. Theodore held it a matter of inches from his brow, studying the masterpiece. And every time this happened, his mind would become faceted, with the incredible ability to think and analyse more than one subject at a time lit within his skull. Not only the concentrated analysis of the pocket watch cover, as well as a replay of past conversations with the beguiling Eleanor, but always the vivid memory of when he had purchased the watch twenty years before, in an antique shop in Grinding, all played in a different part of his grey matter. It was there in the cluttered shop, amongst the desirable items and pieces, he had been instructed by the fusty shop owner as to how he must inspect the skeleton watch face hidden beneath the fascinating cover. Had Theodore not prescribed to the procedure, he would have been refused the opportunity to buy the watch.
The Unusual Possession of Alastair Stubb Page 2
