House of Echoes

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘Edgar –’ Dot bent closer to the bed. ‘Edgar, you haven’t failed.’

  ‘Fraid so.’ The silence in the room as his fingers fell away, cold, beneath hers, was broken by the sudden strident alarm from the monitor by the bed as his heart slowed, faltered and finally stopped.

  * * *

  As David drove slowly through the darkness away from the hospital some time later there were tears on his cheeks. The end had been so undignified, so panic-stricken, doctors and nurses pushing Dot out of the way, the electric paddles in a nurse’s hands, and then the swinging door blocking everything from his view. He had offered to drive her home, but she had shaken her head. ‘Go. Do as he asked. Go back to Belheddon. Rescue the sacrament.’ Reluctantly he had left her to wait for Edgar’s brother, and set off into the dark, consumed with misery and guilt.

  And now as he drew closer and closer to Belheddon he was growing more and more scared. He was not sure he would be able to enter the house.

  He swung the car into the village and drove slowly down the row of small houses looking for the one where Jimbo lived. It was a pink half-timbered cottage two doors up from the post office. Drawing to a halt he sat still for a moment staring out of the windscreen, hoping that Jimbo would be out. Without the key he could not get into the Hall.

  The lights were on in the cottage and he had a feeling that the strong smell of chips on the air came from behind its closed, brightly lit windows.

  Mr Cotting opened the door which led straight into the small living room, dominated by a large television. Jimbo lay sprawled on the sofa, his feet over the arm, a can of lager in his hand. His gaze switched from the screen to David with an effort.

  David gave him an unhappy grin. ‘It seems that I need the key to the Hall. Mr Gower left some things there.’

  Jimbo’s eyes widened. ‘You’re going back there? Tonight?’

  David nodded. ‘I don’t suppose I could persuade you to come with me?’

  ‘No way, mate.’ Jimbo stretched out even further on the sofa and took another swig from his can. ‘Dad, get Mr Tregarron a drink. I reckon he’s going to need one. How is the old boy?’

  David lowered himself gingerly onto a chair opposite the television. ‘I’m afraid he died.’

  ‘Died!’ Jimbo echoed him in disbelief.

  David nodded unhappily.

  ‘Oh my Lor’.’ Jimbo sat up and swung his legs to the floor.

  ‘Here.’ Fred Cotting handed David a can of lager. ‘Get that inside you. I reckon you need it.’

  ‘You can’t go back in that house.’ Jimbo’s face was pale beneath his tan. ‘You can’t!’

  ‘I’ve got to. I promised. Then I’m going on back to London.’

  ‘Pity young Jim’s sister’s not here,’ Fred Cotting observed slowly. He sat down on the edge of the table. ‘She’d go with you. She’s never been afraid of that place. I tell you what, why don’t you get the vicar to go with you? That’s his job, isn’t it? To chase out evil.’

  ‘Mr Wood doesn’t believe in that sort of thing, Da,’ Jimbo pointed out uncomfortably. ‘Anyway, I told Mr Tregarron, it can’t be done. Loads of people have tried to get rid of old Nick from the Hall. It’s never worked. Never will.’

  David put down his can unopened and stood up. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I want this after all. If you can give me the key …’

  Jimbo climbed to his feet – a giant in the small room, and went over to the sideboard. He picked up the key and tossed it to David. ‘Bung it through the letter box on your way back, mate. Good luck.’

  David grimaced. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘If I were you, I’d go and get Mr Wood anyway,’ Fred Cotting put in as he opened the door. He put his hand on David’s arm. ‘You don’t want to go up there on your own. Not now.’

  David nodded. He did not need to be reminded.

  ‘Go on. The Rectory is up there. On the left. Past the street light. You see it?’ He had stepped outside onto the path in his slippers.

  David nodded. ‘Thanks. Perhaps I will.’

  David watched as Jimbo’s father went inside and closed the door, throwing the small front garden into darkness.

  In his hand the back door key of Belheddon Hall felt very heavy. He held it out, looking down at it then he turned away from his car and began to walk swiftly up the road. They were right. It was the rector’s job.

  35

  From her window Mary Sutton had seen the doctor’s car and then the ambulance. For a long time after they had gone she stood staring across the green towards the Hall then slowly she turned to her telephone and picked up the receiver. It rang for a long time unanswered and in the end she put it down. She walked through to her kitchen and there she pulled open the drawer in the table. Sorting through the kitchen knives and spoons, the ladles, the old flat grater, the used corks, the skewers and the peelers she found what she was looking for at last. A key. A large old-fashioned key. The key to the front door of Belheddon Hall. It was leaden in her hand and ice cold. She held it for several minutes, deep in thought, then at last with a sigh she put it in the pocket of her skirt and went out into the hall. Reaching down her winter coat and her scarf from the pegs she pulled them on and let herself out of her front door.

  The lock had rusted and the key was hard to turn, but at last she managed it, using both hands to force it round, and summoning every ounce of strength she had to push back the great oak door.

  The atmosphere in the house was strange. She stood still, scenting the air like a dog. It was sulphurous; blood-stained, heavy with evil.

  ‘Georgie, Sam?’ Her voice quavered as she called. ‘Robert? Children, are you there?’

  The answering silence was suddenly attentive, full of tension.

  ‘Boys? It’s Mary. Protect me, boys.’ Squaring her shoulders she walked firmly towards the door into the great hall, a small determined figure in her ankle-length skirt and thick stockings. In the doorway she reached up and clicked on the light, looking round.

  So, they had tried another exorcism. Was that the priest they had taken away in the ambulance to die? She had no doubt he was dead. She could smell death, like a miasma over the room.

  Walking across to the table she stared at the cross, the candlesticks, the splashes of blue wax and slowly she shook her head. The power was there in the holy things, if only they knew how to summon it; their God was all-mighty, it was his servants who were weak.

  Once she might have taken the things herself – the bread and wine – and used them, not for evil exactly, never for evil, but to weave her own quiet spells, but not now. She had done with all that.

  Glancing round she listened carefully. The house was silent. They were watching to see what she would do next.

  There was very little Holy Water left in the flask. Picking it up she dribbled it in a circle around the table and then stepped inside the circle – protective, powerful, as safe as a stone wall. Picking up the discarded briefcase she quickly packed the cross, the candlesticks, the empty pots. The wafers and salt she put inside her clean handkerchief and tucked inside her pocket. The wine in one of the flasks she put under her coat, and the briefcase she slid under a coffer. Then she stood upright again.

  ‘So, madam, you shall not have these to play with! You’ve done enough damage today, I think.’ Her voice was steady, ringing strongly through the room. ‘Leave the Grants alone. They know nothing of the past!’

  Safe in her circle she looked round, listening.

  There was no reply. Shaking her head she stepped out of it, leaving it where it was to dry upon the flags and she walked slowly to the door.

  Reaching for the light switch she turned and glanced back into the room. Nothing had changed; there was no sound.

  Locking the front door behind her she switched on her small torch and began to walk swiftly across the gravel. Turning into the path which led to the church she stopped once and glanced over her shoulder, listening, then she hurried on.

  The key to the ch
urch was where it always had been, hidden near the porch. Inserting it into the lock she pushed open the door and paused. It was ice cold inside and very black. She hesitated then, reaching for the bundle in her handkerchief and the small flask she stepped in and strode quickly up the aisle, her torch beam faintly lighting her footsteps.

  On the rug between the choir stalls she paused. Perspiration had begun to stand out on her forehead. The handkerchief crumpled in her hand felt very hot.

  With a last effort of will she almost ran the last few steps to the altar rails and stooped looking for the latch to open the little gate, her fingers scrabbling amongst the intricate wooden carvings to reach the hidden bolt. She found it at last and tore it back; pushing the gate she stepped up to the altar and put down the bread and wine in front of the cross. ‘There!’ She was panting. ‘Safe! You can’t touch it there, my lady!’

  Turning she flashed her fading torch down the aisle in triumph.

  At the far end she could see something moving between her and the door. She narrowed her eyes, peering through her thick glasses and her throat constricted in fear.

  Behind her was the God she had rejected in her youth. Was it too late to ask His help now? In front of her the twisting spiral of light was growing larger. With a gasp of terror she plunged blindly down the chancel steps and ran into the side aisle, dodging behind the pillars, trying desperately to reach the door.

  ‘Let me just get this straight.’ James Wood looked at David with a troubled frown between his eyes. ‘You and Edgar Gower went to the Hall with a view to performing an exorcism of the ghosts there?’

  David nodded. He felt a small surge of irritation. ‘All I want is for you to come up with me and take charge of Edgar’s kit. His Holy Water and stuff. He was worried that –’ he hesitated. ‘That it might fall into the wrong hands.’

  ‘The hands of the ghosts, presumably.’ Wood tightened his lips. ‘Of course I’ll come with you. Poor Edgar. I’m so very sorry.’ He glanced at David. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself, David. It wasn’t your fault, you know.’

  ‘No? I brought him here. If it wasn’t for me – ’

  ‘Accidents happen. They are no one’s fault. Edgar was always obsessed with that house; no one could have kept him away. And if he had heart trouble anyway – ’

  ‘They don’t know that.’ David sighed.

  ‘They are doing a post mortem, you say? I suppose they have to.’ Shaking his head sadly James Wood reached up to the coat rack in his hall for a thick jacket and dragged it on then he opened the drawer of a table by the front door and took out a serviceable looking torch. ‘I will drive across to see poor Dot. It must have been such a shock for her. Well, come on. We’ll go over there now. I’ll be back in twenty minutes, dear,’ he bellowed over his shoulder towards the kitchen from where David’s nose had been picking up the wonderful smells of frying garlic and onions. Banging the door behind them he set off on foot up the road.

  ‘I’ve a car by the post office –’ David protested.

  ‘No need. It’s only ten minutes’ walk.’ Wood was striding out in front of him, the beam of the torch playing across the frosty tarmac. ‘It will give us a chance to calm ourselves down.’

  David raised an eyebrow. There was no sign that James Wood was anything but calm. ‘You don’t believe in ghosts, I think you said,’ he commented as they walked shoulder to shoulder across the green.

  Wood gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Not when it comes to Belheddon Hall. I don’t think I’ve ever come across such a case of mass hysteria. It’s the house. Old, beautiful, full of history, probably a lack of modern bright lighting which floodlights the whole place at the flick of a switch and a tendency to be especially cold. I’m always being told about cold spots. People forget they are used to modern houses with central heating and double glazing. The slightest draught and they put it down to a malign spirit wafting across the room.’ He laughed quietly. ‘What has happened to Edgar is a dreadful, sad accident, David. You must not be taken in by all this ghost business. I know Edgar was much involved with it when the Duncans lived here. He encouraged them. Poor things, they had a very unhappy life, but in my view he was very very wrong to take all this talk of ghosts seriously.’

  ‘I thought the church did take it seriously,’ David put in thoughtfully. ‘Edgar told me there was a special department within each diocese to deal with exorcism.’

  There was a moment’s silence. ‘There are some very out dated aspects in the Church of England still. Not in my view healthy ones.’

  ‘I see.’ David raised an eyebrow. In front of them the entrance to the drive loomed out of the hedgerow and they turned into it. The shrubs were very black in the darkness, and the frost had set the gravel hard, cutting out the usual welcome crunching from beneath their feet as they made their way silently up to the front door.

  ‘I’ve the key to the back,’ David whispered as they stood looking up at the house front. In the starlight they could see clearly the angles of the gables and the tall chimneys and the dark uncurtained windows. He shivered, remembering the blazing lights which had shone from every floor when he had driven away only twenty-four hours earlier.

  Leading the way round the corner he walked through the archway into the stableyard and paused, looking round. The doors of the coach houses were all locked fast. The courtyard was very silent. Groping in his pocket for the key he walked slowly towards the back door.

  The kitchen was still warm as they made their way in and turned on the lights. David glanced round, relieved to see that nothing appeared to have been moved. He gave James Wood a determined grin as the latter switched off his torch and rammed it into his jacket pocket. ‘This way. In the great hall.’

  Pushing open the door into the passage he paused, listening. The house was very quiet. Resisting the urge to tiptoe he strode down the passage to the great hall, gratefully aware that Wood was very close behind him. Groping for the switch on the wall he turned on the lights and looked round. The room looked normal. Stepping out onto the flagstones he walked across to the oak refectory table and stared down. A pool of solid blue wax showed where the candles had stood and then been knocked over. Otherwise the table was bare. He turned round slowly. Edgar’s briefcase had sat on a chair by the hearth; the bottles of wine and oil and water had been on the table. One small pot with a silver top, containing the salt for the exorcism had been on the table, near the cross.

  ‘I don’t understand.’ He walked across to the hearth and poked around in the ash with his foot. ‘It’s all gone.’

  ‘What’s gone?’ Hands in pockets, James Wood was staring up at the portrait over the fireplace.

  ‘Edgar’s stuff. The cross. The candles. The sacrament.’ He ran his fingers over the cold wax on the table. ‘Here. See? This is where he was working. His case was here, on the chair.’ He turned round slowly, probing the shadows.

  Wood frowned. ‘I’m sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation. Young Jimbo Cotting for instance. Do you think he cleared up after you had left for the hospital?’

  David shook his head. ‘It was me who locked the door. He wouldn’t come through here; he won’t come into the house beyond the kitchen. I turned out the lights and locked up while they were loading poor Edgar into the ambulance, then I gave Jimbo the key and followed them in my car. He wouldn’t have come back in, I’m sure of it. He’s terrified of the place.’

  Wood pursed his lips. ‘It is possible you tidied up yourself? In the stress of the accident and everything maybe you forgot you’d done it.’

  ‘No. Believe me, I’d have remembered.’ David could feel a small knot of anger and fear forming somewhere in the base of his stomach. ‘Perhaps we should search the place.’ He walked across to the hallway at the foot of the stairs. He had locked the cellar door, he remembered that clearly, and thrown the keys onto the desk in the study. Pushing open the door he went in and stared down at the desk. The bunch of keys still lay there where he had tossed them on the blotter, n
ext to the neat pile of Joss’s manuscript. Aware that Wood was watching him from the doorway he turned round slowly, scanning the room for the battered black leather briefcase but there was no sign of it.

  ‘Shall we go upstairs?’ He bit his lip.

  Wood nodded. ‘We’d better have a good look round now we’re here and make sure there have been no intruders. It’s been known, you know. People follow ambulances and when the family rush off after them to hospital, often not locking up properly in their panic, they nip into the house and clean it out.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a very sad, cynical world.’

  David scowled. ‘But in this case I did lock up.’

  ‘Of course.’ James Wood turned off the light and closed the door. He turned his attention to the cellar. ‘Should we check in there?’

  ‘I suppose we should check everywhere.’ David picked up the keys. Poor Edgar. Pushing open the door and clicking on the lights he hesitated for a moment, then he led the way down the uneven steps and stood at the bottom looking round. ‘No sign of anything unusual down here.’

  They both listened for a moment in silence. ‘I wonder why he came down here?’ James Wood was frowning as he stepped through into the further cellar. ‘It does seem a rather odd thing to do.’ His voice echoed slightly as he moved out of sight.

  David shrugged.

  ‘Of course, one of the children died in here, didn’t he.’ The disembodied voice drew further away. ‘These cellars go on for miles. I’d no idea they were so big.’

  David frowned. ‘They’re not that big! Mr Wood? James?’ In a sudden panic he sprinted towards the archway and peered through.

  James was standing by the wine bins, peering into the darkened corner. ‘Someone has left some toys down here. What a shame, they’ll get ruined in the damp. Look.’ He had picked up an old woven rush basket. In the harsh light of the electric bulb they could clearly see the green mould growing on the handle. Inside were a half dozen or so of the same little wooden cars which David had seen earlier, and a rusty toy gun and beneath them a penknife and a red painted yo-yo.