House of Echoes

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘Let him go, Joss,’ Natalie murmured. ‘Release him.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Joss was watching him, mesmerised.

  He was holding out his hands to her, the heavy ruby ring on his forefinger catching the light dully.

  ‘Give him your blessing and your love – ’

  ‘My love!’ Joss recoiled.

  ‘It will help him to leave. Send him away in love and peace.’

  ‘What about the people he killed?’ In spite of herself she raised her eyes to his. The anger in his gaze had gone but the pain was still there.

  ‘They will be released as well. Love is the healer, Joss. Love and forgiveness. You are the spokeswoman, the one who has to do it for all the women – your mother, and your grandmother, and her mother and all the women through the generations who have lived in this house.’

  ‘And what about the men? What about the children who have died?’

  He was shaking his head slowly back and forth.

  Katherine

  ‘You cannot speak for them. They must speak for themselves. If we fill the house with love we can help them do it.’

  Katherine

  Joss shook her head. She could feel it like an intense pressure inside her ear drums: the name of the woman he had loved: Katherine.

  ‘What is it?’ Suddenly she was talking to him again. ‘What are you telling me?’

  The room was growing darker; the rattle of rain on the window was louder and for a moment she felt her attention shift. There was an almost imperceptible movement of tension in the room and he had gone.

  For a moment she stood gazing at the place where he had been standing then she spun round. Natalie was only a few feet from her now and for a moment they stared at each other.

  ‘What happened?’ Joss sat down on the bed. She was shaking violently.

  Natalie shook her head. ‘Something happened out there in the world he inhabits. The energy discharged itself in some way.’ She hauled herself up onto the bed beside Joss and sat with her head in her hands. ‘We so nearly did it. We had reached him – or at least, you had. He was listening.’

  ‘He was trying to tell us something –’ Joss broke off. From upstairs came the sound of children laughing.

  ‘No. Oh no, I can’t bear it.’

  Natalie took her hand. ‘At least they’re happy, Joss.’

  Joss shook her head. Sliding off the bed she ran to the door. ‘Georgie? Sammy? Where are you?’ With the last vestiges of strength she possessed she ran up the stairs and threw open the door of the first empty attic. ‘Where are you?’ There were tears pouring down her cheeks.

  The room was very cold. In the silence she could hear the rain on the windows. ‘Georgie? Sammy?’

  Behind her Natalie stopped in the doorway.

  A gust of wind buffeted the end gable of the roof and in the distance they both heard suddenly the sound of a child singing far away in the distance.

  tum tum te tum te tum tum tum

  Joss rubbed her nose on her sleeve, staring round helplessly – the sound was so distant, lost in the wind.

  tum tum te tum te tum tum tum

  She took a step into the room. It was empty – bare, dusty boards, the old shabby wall paper, a damp place on the ceiling where the water had begun to seep in.

  tum tum te tum te Kath-er-ine

  She could hear it more clearly now, from beyond the door. With hands stiff with cold she fought the latch to pull it open. The sounds were louder now. More clear.

  It was my Lad-y Kath-er-ine

  The chant echoed across the next attic above the howling of the wind.

  It was my Lad-y Kath-er-ine

  It was my Lady Katherine

  Joss moved slowly towards the sound. It was coming from the end attic.

  The melancholy little refrain echoed in her ears as she fumbled for the key and pushed open the door. As it creaked back the words were cut off abruptly.

  She stared round.

  ‘Where are you?’ she cried. She could hardly see for her tears.

  ‘Joss.’ Natalie had come up behind her softly. ‘Let’s go back downstairs.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head violently. ‘No, I have to see them! Where are they?’

  ‘They’re not here, Joss – ’

  ‘They are. They’re singing about Katherine. Can’t you hear them?’

  ‘Yes, I can hear them.’ Natalie put her arm round Joss’s shoulders. ‘Come on down. If they want to tell us something they will.’

  Joss let out a sob. She had not stopped trembling. ‘I can’t cope with this.’

  ‘Yes, you can. You’re doing fine. Come on down, out of the cold and we’ll talk about it.’ Firmly she turned Joss round and half led, half pushed her down the passage towards the stairs.

  It was my Lady Katherine

  The little song, masked by the wind and rain, echoed in the distance as they reached the stairs.

  Natalie squeezed Joss’s arm. ‘Don’t take any notice. They’ll come if they want to.’ Leading her back into the bedroom she went over to the bedside table and turned on the lamp. In the sudden light she could see Joss’s face puffy with grief and tears.

  Joss wrapped her arms around herself. ‘You said I was carrying his child,’ she whispered. ‘You said it was his daughter – ’

  ‘I was speaking metaphorically, Joss.’ Natalie kept her voice calm.

  ‘It’s Luke’s. I remembered. We made love in the bathroom. That’s when it must have happened – ’

  ‘Of course it did.’

  ‘It can’t be his,’ she gestured at the empty air near the bed where Edward had stood. ‘That’s not possible. It’s not. That’s obscene!’

  ‘Joss, I said metaphorically – ’

  ‘You are saying he made love to me in the cellar –’ Joss rushed on not heeding her interruption. ‘He put his arms round me and he kissed me and he held me. I think I must have fainted – I don’t remember what happened next.’

  His eyes. She could remember his eyes, close to hers, full of love and compassion, the black velvet, then the touch of his hands, warm, commanding …

  ‘He could have done anything – ’

  ‘Joss, calm down. He couldn’t have done anything. He has no body; no real body.’

  ‘Supposing he did the same to my mother. Supposing he raped my mother!’ She was rushing on now, her thoughts out of control. ‘Supposing – ’

  Forgive me, Jocelyn, but I can no longer fight your father’s wishes. I have no strength left. I am leaving Belheddon, with all its blessings and its curses, but he will only let me escape if I give in. He wants Belheddon to be yours and I have to obey. If you read this letter then he will have got his way.

  ‘Supposing he’s my father!’ She stared at Natalie, numb with shock.

  ‘No, Joss. Don’t even think it – ’

  ‘The women of this house. Laura, Lydia, Mary Sarah – all of them! He made love to all of them!’ She sat down abruptly, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. ‘My mother knew. That’s why she tried to send me away. She tried to break the spell! To save me! But she couldn’t. He wouldn’t let her!’

  ‘The spell was very powerful, Joss. A real spell.’ Natalie knelt in front of her and took her cold hands in her own warm ones. Her voice was very gentle. ‘But we’re going to break it. It’s half done already. Then Belheddon will be a safe, happy, place again.’ She smiled. ‘I promise. We can do it. You can do it.’

  ‘The others couldn’t.’ It was a whisper. Her lips were cracked and dry.

  ‘The others didn’t know how to. We do. The time is right and you aren’t alone as your poor mother was. You can do it, Joss.’ Natalie’s large grey eyes were fixed unblinkingly on Joss’s. ‘You can.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We have to call him back.’ Natalie was trying to will some of her own strength into the woman sitting in front of her. ‘We have to call him back and release him so he never wants to come back.’

  Joss bi
t her lip. ‘He’s buried at Windsor. In St George’s Chapel. I looked it up,’ she said slowly.

  ‘His body may be,’ Natalie said firmly. ‘And when this is over you can go and see his tomb if you want to, but his spirit is at Belheddon Hall.’ She stood up and walked across to the window. Rain was slanting across the garden, pitting the lake, soaking the grass. It was almost dark. As she watched she saw a faint flicker on the horizon. ‘There’s a storm coming.’ She turned. ‘Joss, we have to summon Katherine.’

  ‘Call him! In the name of Christ and the Virgin, bring him here!’

  Her mouth was too dry; the words she was screaming were barely audible.

  ‘Let him see what he has done to me!’

  ‘Hush sweeting, save your strength!’

  The old woman who had been her own nurse wiped her face again with the piece of linen wrung out in rose water, soothing the sweat-soaked hair off her face with a gentle hand. She looked up at Margaret. ‘You should send for him, my lady. Now.’

  The message conveyed in the direct gaze was clear. Send now or it will be too late. Your daughter is dying.

  Margaret half closed her eyes and looked away. The spell was a powerful one. It had worked well. It would not fail her now. The king was in thrall; the daughter who would hold him long after the child’s mother had lost her attraction, nearly born.

  She smiled and walked across to the side board. Pouring a cup of wine she sipped a little herself, then turned back to the bed. ‘Here, child. Drink this. It will give you strength.’ Raising Katherine’s head a little she held the cup to her lips, then dabbed them gently with a fine linen napkin. ‘There. Rest now.’ She bent low, putting her lips to her daughter’s ear. ‘Remember your mother’s art. You have my strength and my power, and through me, the power that lies sleeping in the ground beneath this place. With it you can do anything.’

  The last word was a hiss of triumph as her daughter caught her hand and, convulsed with new waves of pain, began to scream again.

  ‘How do we call her?’ Joss was staring at the floor. She shook her head slightly, trying to rid it of the noises – the voices, echoing in her ears just beyond her hearing.

  ‘We could try her name.’

  ‘In here?’

  ‘Why not. I suspect this has always been the main bedroom. They could have made love here. Perhaps even in this very bed.’

  They both stared at it in silence.

  ‘I don’t think I can go through with this.’ Joss rubbed her eyes wearily.

  ‘Yes, you can. I promise.’ Natalie came and knelt in front of her again. ‘Think of your two little boys. You can do it for them.’

  Joss took a deep breath. She looked up as the lightning flickered at the window again. ‘Yes, I can do it for them.’

  There was a veil of red across her eyes. Beneath her hips the red soaked into sheets and mattresses and dripped into the thick-strewn herbs. Behind the red there was darkness.

  Power.

  Summon the power.

  Remember the words she had heard her mother cry in the black candleless undercroft of the hall, the cry that would summon the powers of darkness from the very bowels of the earth.

  Shrinking back from the woman in the bed who only seconds before had been her child, the old nurse stared into the shadows of the room. The whole household was there, watching in terror.

  ‘You,’ she caught the sleeve of the steward as he was slipping with the other men from the room, ‘call the priest and then ride for the king. Don’t stop for anything or he will be too late.’

  ‘But the Lady Margaret said –’ the man’s face was pasty with horror at what he had heard and seen.

  ‘This is not the time to obey the Lady Margaret. Lady Katherine’s wishes rule this house now.’

  He nodded and with a final glance at the bed he slipped from the room.

  For a while she drifted in and out of consciousness, then, slowly, her body began to tense, preparing for its last convulsive effort to rid itself of the burden that was killing it.

  Her eyes flew open and she grabbed at the hands of the woman who still dared to come near her.

  Behind them the priest, his hand outstretched to form the holy cross, had begun to murmur the words designed to bring her peace.

  ‘Per istam sanctam unctionem indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid deliquisti – ’

  ‘Stop!’ she screamed. ‘If God cannot help me, the devil will. The devil conjured by my mother to oversee my daughter’s birth.’

  She half sat up, galvanised by one last burst of energy.

  ‘Go! Go priest! I don’t need you. If I die I will be buried in the devil’s earth! Go!’ Her voice had risen to a shriek.

  ‘Lie back, my lady, lie back. The little one is nearly here.’

  The midwives had long gone, it was her own old nurse who pushed her back on the pillows, who reached amid the bloodied sheets and who at last held up the limp, half dead baby.

  ‘It is a boy, my lady,’ she whispered. ‘A little boy.’

  ‘No!’ Margaret pushed her aside. ‘It can’t be a boy!’

  ‘It is, my lady, a sweeting boy.’

  The nurse busied herself with towels from the rail by the fire, rubbing the small cold body back to life. Behind her Katherine lay inert, her own life pouring from her.

  ‘See, my love, see your baby.’ The nurse wrapped the child tightly in a blanket and tried to push it into Katherine’s arms.

  She opened her eyes. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No! No – ’

  The last word was a scream.

  ‘I curse the man who got that child on me! I curse all men. I curse my son. He took my life from me. I curse that baby – the devil’s child – and I curse my mother for her sorcery.’

  The hot tears trickled down her cheeks.

  ‘I wanted to live!

  ‘I wanted to live. Forever!’

  It was my Lad-y Kath-er-ine!

  The childish treble sounded in the room suddenly.

  It was my Lad-y Kath-er-ine!

  ‘Georgie!’ Joss stood up. She took a deep breath. ‘Georgie, I want to see you!’

  He was a dark-haired boy, sturdy, with a scattering of small freckles over his nose. Standing near the door he seemed very small, an uncertain shadow amongst deeper shadows. He grinned at Joss and she found herself grinning back.

  ‘Do you and Sammy want to go to heaven, Georgie? To be with our mother?’ She found she could speak quite steadily now.

  He didn’t seem to hear her. He was staring past her at the window. ‘It was my Lady Katherine!’ he sang again, his voice more husky this time.

  ‘Shall we call her, Georgie? Shall we call the Lady Katherine here?’ she asked, but he had gone.

  A flicker of lightning showed at the window followed by a low rumble of thunder as the lights dimmed.

  ‘I’m afraid.’

  ‘So am I. So was Georgie. That song. He was trying to warn us.’

  ‘Of what? That we had got it wrong? Is it Katherine who is the killer?’ Joss was still standing by the bed. She stared down at the crewel work cover as though she could find the answer stitched into the faded wools.

  ‘I don’t think she’s buried in the church, Joss. I don’t think she can be buried in consecrated ground.’

  ‘Not here! You don’t mean she’s somewhere here?’

  They stared at each other in silence. It was Joss who spoke at last. ‘She’s under the cellar, isn’t she. Oh God, what are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re going to summon her.’

  ‘Down there? In the cellar?’ Joss took a deep breath. ‘Yes, that’s the best place. I don’t want her here. Oh God, Nattie, what are we going to do?’

  ‘Come on.’ Natalie took her hand. ‘Let’s get it over.’

  ‘Will Edward come down there? We need him. Katherine is the one who has killed. He never hurt anyone. He never hurt Tom or Ned, or not intentionally. He carried them. He hid them. He hid them from her.’ Joss’s face was white with strain
.

  ‘You don’t know that, Joss. We must be careful. That’s all. Careful of everyone and everything.’

  Her jaw set, Natalie led the way to the staircase. Lying on the top step was a white rose.

  Joss stopped and picked it up. She stared round the shadowy landing.

  ‘Help us,’ she whispered. ‘Help us help her.’

  It was my Lady Katherine!

  It was my Lady Katherine!

  The high voice was barely audible now, echoing down from somewhere in the attics.

  She took a deep breath and, still holding the rose, she began to walk down the stairs.

  44

  ‘We can’t wait here, David. We’ve got to go back.’ Luke was staring out of the window in Janet’s kitchen. Janet and Lyn were making sandwiches, spreading strawberry jam on thick slices of home-made bread. ‘What the hell do we know about that woman? For all we know she’s a complete fraud. Or worse.’

  David didn’t bother to ask what he meant by worse. He was feeling very uncomfortable. Out there in the rain on the terrace at the Hall he had been carried away by Natalie’s calm. He had believed that this was something almost mystically female, something from which men were excluded, something mysterious and movable and watery, like moonlight on the lake, something born of thousands of years of female secrets, but now he wondered. If Margaret de Vere was a practised sorceress – not just a witch with her herbs and her healings and her wax dolls to help with her spells and curses – what if she were more powerful than that?

  Janet put down her knife. ‘If Lyn is willing to look after the children, I’ll come with you.’

  They all looked at Lyn who shrugged. ‘I don’t mind. I’d rather stay here anyway.’ She glanced at David and sighed. She had admired him so much when she first met him; he was such an attractive man, but now. At least Luke had had more sense than to believe all this. David had proved himself in the long run as neurotic as Joss!

  She watched from the window as they all climbed into Janet’s car then she turned back to Tom who was cheerfully eating jam sandwiches sitting in the old oak carver at the end of the table, his legs stuck straight out in front of him.