House of Echoes

by Barbara Erskine

  The two small cats hurtled out of the darkness, tails at right angles to their bodies, intent on a fast and furious game of chase culminating in a huge leap which took both animals high in the air before they disappeared into the wintry rose beds on the far side of the lawn.

  The tension was broken. Without a word Joss followed Janet back into the courtyard and watched as she fastened the gate behind them. Seconds later they were in the house.

  Janet flung herself down at the table and put her head in her hands. ‘If you offered me a black coffee I’d probably say yes.’

  Without a word, Joss went to put the kettle on.

  Janet rubbed her face with her hands. ‘What was that all about, Joss?’

  ‘I told you.’

  Janet looked at her searchingly for a moment then she stood up and went to the phone. ‘I’ll call the farm. Maybe Luke is there. He knows where I hide the key.’

  She let it ring for a couple of minutes before hanging up. ‘Of course, he may not have gone in when he found we weren’t there.’

  ‘He isn’t there, Janet.’ Joss stared down at her hands, aware that they were shaking. ‘He’s out there, somewhere.’

  Like John Bennet. Like her father.

  ‘Get the children’s things, Joss.’ Janet stood behind her, giving her shoulders a quick massage, a firm reassuring pressure.

  Nodding, Joss stood up, ignoring her strange reluctance to leave the house which clung to her like a sticky, entrapping net. ‘Lyn must have taken the boys upstairs. I’ll pack a case. Do you want to wait here?’

  Janet shook her head. ‘Perhaps I’ll come too. Give you a hand.’

  The kitchen, always so warm and welcoming, seemed very safe as they opened the door into the hall. The draught, sweeping under the front door was icy.

  The two women hurried across the great hall towards the staircase and, not giving herself time to think Joss led the way up. Lyn was in Ned’s room, changing his nappy. Tom, in his own room across the narrow passage had tipped his playbox on the floor and was happily stirring the resulting mess.

  ‘Lyn, I’m taking the children over to Janet’s for a couple of days.’ Joss bent to pick up a small jumper from the floor. It was there again; the reluctance to leave; the certainty that it would be easier to stay.

  ‘You’re welcome to come too, Lyn,’ Janet smiled at her as Lyn looked up from the baby, a tin of talcum in her hand.

  ‘It would be nice if you would come,’ Joss went on without enthusiasm. ‘Or if you want to take a couple of days’ break so you can go and see Mum and Dad, I know they’d love that.’

  Lyn went back to her task, deftly folding and taping before replacing Ned’s jumpsuit and sitting him up. ‘Is Luke back then?’ She swung the baby onto her shoulder.

  Joss shook her head. ‘There’s no sign of him.’ She bit her lip. ‘Lyn, exactly what time did he go out?’

  ‘About an hour after you.’

  ‘And you haven’t heard anything from him since at all?’

  Lyn shook her head. ‘He probably got thoroughly pissed off looking and went down to the Swan.’

  Joss gave a faint smile. ‘I wish I believed that.’ She glanced at Janet. ‘I can’t go till I know he’s safe. I’m going after him. Watch the children, Lyn. Don’t let them out of your sight.’ She reached over and planted a kiss on Ned’s head then she turned and ran out of the door.

  ‘Joss!’ Janet called after her. ‘Wait. I’ll come with you!’

  ‘No. Stay and watch with Lyn. Don’t leave the boys.’ The words floated over her shoulder as she took the stairs two at a time and disappeared.

  Lyn looked at Janet and pursed her lips. ‘She needs a rest badly.’

  Janet nodded. ‘It will be good for her to have a bit of a break. This house is getting to her.’ She glanced round with a shudder. ‘Do you think there really is something here?’ Her voice had dropped to a whisper.

  Lyn smiled. ‘Of course not. Simon says it’s a touch of post-natal depression. He seems to think she’s doing too much. He obviously doesn’t realise who does all the work round here. If anyone needs a rest it’s me.’ Her voice was tart. She laid Ned in his cot and tucked the blanket over him.

  ‘You’re going to leave him up here on his own?’ Janet stood back out of the way as Lyn whisked round the room, tidying powder and nappies into neat piles.

  ‘I’ll put on the baby alarm. He’ll be all right. If he cries we’ll hear him, and Tom Tom can come downstairs for his tea now. She’ll probably be hours, then she’ll be even more worn out when she gets back.’ Lyn gave a deep sigh. ‘It’s not easy to work for your own sister, Janet –’ she paused. ‘Adopted sister, I should say. We are not allowed to forget our station.’ She banged a drawer shut.

  Janet frowned. ‘You know, I think you do her an injustice if I may say so. She loves you like a sister.’ She gave a sudden snort. ‘I should know. I’ve got three and we all fight like cat and dog half the time. But that doesn’t mean we don’t love each other dearly. All for one and one for all if anyone comes between us. Don’t underestimate the strain all this has been on her, Lyn. Finding her family and this house have been an enormous emotional shock. You and your parents are probably doubly precious to her. You are there for her, and always have been. Her real mother is something out of a dream which has, I suspect some pretty nightmarish qualities.’

  Besides, there is something frightening about this house. She stopped herself saying it out loud in time. ‘Come on. Let’s feed this young man, then when Joss comes back we can pop them all in the car and I’ll take them back to the farm for a few days.’

  She glanced back through the door into Ned’s bedroom. He was lying in his cot gurgling happily. She could see his arms waving in the air. Air which had grown suddenly strangely cold.

  The beam of torch light was very thin as Joss ran across the lawn towards the gate. To her right the black water of the lake reflected the frosty starlight, glittering between the darker patches which was where the water lilies, soggy and submerged with the heavy autumn rains barely broke the still surface. As she walked silently through the frosted grass a squawk and sudden rush of wings and water showed where she had disturbed a roosting duck.

  The gate was swollen and hard to open. Pushing it with all her strength she let herself out into the lane and stopped, flashing the torch in front of her. The hedges, newly slashed by a hedge trimmer, showed raw torn spikes of white wood. In the distance an owl gave a series of sharp quick cries as it floated on silent wings over the field.

  She swallowed, gripping the torch more tightly. Luke would have assumed that she would go down the lane as far as the footpath towards the cliffs and then follow it across the short rabbit cropped turf to where the land dropped sharply towards the beach. It was one of her favourite walks, easy to manage, even with the buggy, and led round in a wide circle either back to the house or if one took another path across the newly planted winter wheat to the back of the farm. The whole walk was, she supposed, about three miles. She shivered. It was bitterly cold and the night seemed very quiet. Gritting her teeth she began to walk briskly forward, shining the torch to right and to left into the hedges and down into the deep ditches which lined the lane.

  ‘Luke!’ Her voice was thin and lacked strength in the immensity of the silence. ‘Luke, are you there?’ He could have fallen, twisted his ankle – or worse. He could be anywhere along the route. She stopped, shining the torch down into the ditch where it widened between the angle of two fields. Drainage pipes deep beneath the black newly ploughed soil were pouring water beneath the mat of nettles and bramble making the ditch sound like a fiercely running river. As she walked slowly on, the torch light picking out the coral pink berries of a spindle bush at the corner of the lane, she heard the indignant metallic shout of a disturbed moorhen on its roost.

  ‘Luke!’

  Her boots were uncomfortable on the frosted ridges of the lane. ‘Luke, where are you?’

  She swung round sudden
ly, flashing the torch behind her. Her heart had started thumping wildly. But there was nothing there.

  How far from the house would he – it – travel? She swallowed, standing still for a moment, listening carefully.

  ‘Luke?’ It came out as a whisper now.

  Suddenly she was running, the torch light flailing in front of her as she slid and stumbled, turning onto the footpath across the grass.

  She was panting violently when she reached the edge of the cliff. Standing still she stood staring down at the sea. The tide was high. In the patchy moonlight she could see the water, a slate-coloured heaving mass, silently shifting immediately below her. There was no beach to be seen. The tide was as high as she had ever seen it. Raising her eyes she looked out towards the horizon. She could see the lights, a long way off, of a huge North Sea ferry moving purposefully and at surprising speed towards Harwich. For a moment she was comforted at the thought of the huge vessel, with its crowds of passengers and steadily beating engine, then she became aware once more of the immense expanse of the sea around it and she found herself shivering violently again.

  The path was so easy to see on the cliff top that she switched off the torch, walking quickly on the short grass. She could see a long way and there was no sign of another human being. Or anything else. She was conscious of a sudden soreness on her lips and she realised she had been biting them in the cold wind. She could taste the sharp salt of blood on her tongue. ‘Luke!’ The call was fruitless. Stupid. A waste of her voice, but the sound of it comforted her as she trudged on.

  She switched the torch on again when she came to the mid field path, following the frozen mud track over the newly sprouted winter wheat, on up the hedgerow and towards the old orchard at the back of the farm. She was miles from Belheddon Hall here. Surely there could be no danger. No danger other than the normal hazards of the track. The torch wasn’t so bright now. She flashed it ahead into the grey tangle of old apple boughs.

  ‘Luke!’ Hoarse with exhaustion she felt hot tears well up suddenly in her eyes and splash down onto her cheeks. ‘Luke? Are you here?’

  There was no reply. Behind her, on the field a flock of pewits called to each other, gossiping in the starlight which was suddenly as bright as day as the clouds rolled back.

  29

  With Tom settled in his chair with a plate of Marmite sand wiches, Lyn sat down at the kitchen table opposite Janet.

  ‘Lyn, don’t underestimate Joss’s worries about the children.’ Janet hesitated. ‘Not all her concerns are imaginary, you know.’

  ‘The ghosts, you mean.’

  Janet nodded. ‘This house has a reputation for strange happenings – a reputation which goes back hundreds of years. I don’t think they should be completely written off.’ She smiled, half apologetically. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth and all that.’

  Lyn raised an eyebrow. ‘I think it’s all rubbish. I don’t believe in ghosts and I never have. What you see is what you get in this world. And this world is it. Nothing else afterwards.’ She got up and going to the tap drew herself a glass of cold water.

  ‘And you can see no possibility that you might be wrong?’ Janet spoke mildly, hoping her rising antagonism didn’t show.

  Lyn shrugged. ‘I may not be as well educated as Joss, but I know enough to realise that religion is no more than glorified crowd control. It’s brainwashing on a vast scale. Wishful thinking. Man is so arrogant he can’t believe he can just stop being.’ She sat down and put her glass down in front of her. ‘You will have gathered that I’m a bit of a cynic.’

  Janet gave a wry smile. ‘Just a bit.’

  ‘Joss, besides being over educated in my view, is also a bit hysterical.’ Lyn sighed. ‘Something which is obviously hereditary judging by all this stuff her family have put in their letters and diaries. And of course the village believed them. Everyone loves a good ghost story. So do I, as long as one remembers that that is all it is. A story.’

  ‘So, you’re not worried about Luke.’

  Lyn shrugged. ‘I’m a little worried I suppose in that he has been gone a hell of a long time. But I don’t think he’s been attacked by ghosts and demons. And I don’t think Joss will be either. I would hardly have let her go off on her own if I thought there would be any danger out there.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you would.’ Janet’s voice was a little bleak. ‘Obviously a few days’ change of scene will benefit Joss and the boys, though, don’t you agree?’

  Lyn shrugged. ‘I suppose so. Anyway, I’d be glad of a break, to be honest. It all gets a bit incestuous round here – the atmosphere is dreadful sometimes.’

  ‘The atmosphere between Luke and Joss?’

  Lyn shook her head. ‘Not exactly. Just Joss and her theories, I suppose. She believes it all so passionately I sometimes think she could make it happen by sheer will power.’ She glanced up suddenly, her head to one side. ‘Is that someone at the door?’

  Janet felt a small shiver of apprehension. She glanced over her shoulder. An icy draught swept through the kitchen and then stopped as suddenly as it had come as the outer door was banged shut.

  ‘Lyn, has she appeared yet?’ Luke stood in the doorway, still in his jacket. His gaze took in Janet and then Tom, earnestly stuffing bread and Marmite into his mouth and his expression softened. ‘I see she has. Was she with you, Janet?’

  Janet nodded. ‘I’m sorry. It all seems to have been a misunderstanding.’

  ‘And where is she now.’ He stripped off his jacket.

  ‘She’s gone to look for you.’ Lyn stood up, automatically reaching for the kettle. ‘She thinks the ghost has got you.’

  ‘Oh my God, not that again.’ Sitting down he gave a deep sigh.

  ‘Luke,’ Janet leaned forward on her elbows. ‘Listen, please don’t dismiss everything Joss is saying out of hand – ’

  ‘The trouble is, you encourage her!’ Luke shook his head. ‘The last thing she needs if you don’t mind me saying so, is local gossip egging her on in these wild fantasies of hers. There is nothing wrong in this house. There is no danger to the children and there never has been. It’s all in her head. A story. Make believe. A romantic fiction she’s concocted, with herself as the lead heroine. Don’t you see, Janet? It’s all part of her background. Adopted. A dreamer, bless her. Suddenly fact seems to be even better than any fiction she ever dared invent for herself and it’s all got out of hand. Just leave her alone and she’ll get over it.’

  ‘She was thinking of taking the children over to Janet’s for a few days, Luke,’ Lyn put in quietly. ‘To get away from the atmosphere here.’

  ‘No!’ Luke banged his fist on the table. ‘No, Janet, it’s kind of you, but absolutely not. I’d be grateful if you’d just leave her alone.’

  ‘It’s for her to decide, Luke, surely.’ Janet spoke as calmly as she could.

  ‘No. It isn’t. Not in this case. This is a matter between her and me.’

  ‘But – ’

  ‘Janet,’ he stood up abruptly. ‘Please, don’t think me rude, but I’d be grateful if you could leave us now. It’s time for Tom to go to bed. Please allow Joss and me to work this out for ourselves.’

  Janet stared at him open mouthed. Slowly she pushed back her chair. She took a deep breath. ‘Very well. If that’s the way you want it. Poor Joss.’ She glanced at Lyn who had gone very pink. ‘Take care of them all. Tell Joss I’m there if she needs me.’

  No one spoke until she had gone. ‘That was very rude, Luke,’ Lyn said mildly. ‘She’s a nice woman.’

  ‘She is sometimes an interfering busybody.’ He stood up. ‘I’m going out to check the garages are all locked up for the night.’

  Lyn sat for several minutes after he had gone, then with a sigh she stood up and turned to Tom. ‘Ready for your drink, young man?’

  Pulling the carriage house door open Luke stood staring at the bonnet of the Lagonda. In the light of the fluorescent strip which ran down the ceiling of the garage the pale
blue paintwork gleamed softly. Folding his arms across his chest, he sank into deep thought, listening as the sound of Janet’s Audi died away in the distance.

  ‘Luke?’ Joss’s voice was hesitant. ‘Luke, is that you?’ She had appeared at the gate of the courtyard.

  He sighed. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘And you’re all right?’ Her chilled hands fumbling with the latch she pushed the gate open and came towards him. ‘Oh, thank God! Luke, I thought something awful had happened to you!’

  ‘Which is exactly what I thought about you earlier.’ He put his arms round her and held her close. She was shivering violently. ‘Why on earth didn’t you say you were going out for the entire afternoon?’

  ‘I did. I’m sure I did.’

  He smiled ruefully. ‘Well, never mind. You’re all back and safe now.’ He pushed her away gently. ‘Come on, let’s go back indoors. Lyn will be getting the supper on.’

  ‘Where’s Janet’s car?’ Wearily Joss looked round.

  ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘Gone? But I was going over there. I was taking the boys – ’

  ‘I told her it was a bad time, Joss. I need you here.’ He took her hand.

  ‘Luke!’ She pulled away from him. ‘You don’t understand. I have to get them away from here. I have to.’ The net was closing; she could feel the lethargy, the reluctance, the pull of the house like a huge magnet, holding her close.

  ‘No, darling. You don’t. I think it’s time we got this quite straight, don’t you. An awful lot of what has been going on has been totally in your imagination. You have to admit it. Lyn and I are here to help you. There is no threat – none at all – to the boys. This ghost business is just so much hysterical rubbish on the part of people like David and, let’s face it, Janet herself. Come on. Let’s go indoors. We’ll talk about it after supper.’

  ‘Luke – ’

  ‘Later, Joss. Come on. It’s bloody cold out here. Let’s go in.’