A Place of Secrets

by Rachel Hore

  “No, of course not,” Jude said hastily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you should twist the facts or anything.”

  “Since you e-mailed me last night I’ve been trying to weasel out something, anything, about your Anthony Wickham,” Cecelia went on. “I hadn’t heard of him before. I was trying to find if he was referenced by other astronomers. To be honest, I can’t find anything yet. But I’ll keep looking.”

  “Thank you,” Jude said. “That would be marvelous. I’ll do some research of my own, of course.”

  “Oh, and I’ve found someone to look at the globes.” She named an antiquarian based in Oxford. “Mind you, I’d love to see them myself.”

  “And you shall once they arrive,” Jude said, copying down the e-mail address Cecelia showed her. “But that won’t be until I get back from holiday, I guess.”

  “Where are you going on holiday?”

  “France. Well, I think I am.”

  “With your guy?” asked Cecelia, who, like most of Jude’s friends, hadn’t met Caspar but had heard talk of him through the grapevine.

  “Yes,” Jude said uncertainly, dragging the tea bag around in her mug by its tag. “I’m not totally looking forward to it.” In truth, every time she had thought about the French holiday today, it was like imagining a great big block of concrete that shut out the light.

  “Why ever not?”

  She explained about Caspar’s change of plan.

  “It’s quite a commitment, isn’t it, going on holiday with someone?” She looked up at Cecelia, her expression anguished. “I’m not sure I feel ready for it. Mark—”

  “Jude,” Cecelia said gently, reaching out and touching her hand. “It’s a long time now since Mark. Four years.”

  “I know, I know. Cecelia, do you think there’s something wrong with me? Perhaps someone’s heart can break so completely that it never mends.”

  “Oh Jude, dear, don’t sound so dramatic. Of course there’s nothing wrong with you. Perhaps Caspar’s just the wrong guy,” she said. There was a silence. She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh God. Was that tactless or what?”

  “Please don’t worry,” said Jude miserably. “I was only quiet because I was considering that you might be right.”

  * * *

  Caspar phoned that evening. She had sat down to watch the ten o’clock news, fed up with waiting for his call, and now she turned the TV sound off and watched the silent footage of estate agents’ “For Sale” signs, in a piece about gloom and doom in the housing market. She dreaded to think what implications this climate might have for antiquarian books.

  “How did today’s meeting go?” she asked politely.

  “Yeah, it’s gone well. What have you decided about France? Saturday or come with me on Tuesday?” He sounded as though he were brokering a business deal, not a love affair.

  “Actually, Caspar.” She closed her eyes and plunged in. “Will you think I’m awful if I don’t come at all?”

  “Jude! You must come. Don’t be like that. Listen, if it’s about my messing up the plans…”

  She took a deep breath.

  “Seriously, Caspar, I don’t think it’s right altogether.” And suddenly she was saying more than she’d originally intended. “I don’t think we’re right.”

  “Look, don’t say that. I’ll come back. I can get a plane tomorrow, at lunchtime probably. I can meet you at work. We’ll sort this out.” She was surprised how distressed he sounded, but she’d already gone too far.

  “No, Caspar. It’s not as simple as that. I … don’t think our whole relationship is right. I expect it’s my fault. I’m finding it very difficult. Getting over Mark, I mean.”

  “Mark? Your husband? Jeez, Jude, I know it must have been terrible, but it’s been some years now…”

  “Four,” she replied. “Yes, everyone keeps telling me.”

  “I suppose, I … don’t understand. But, give me the chance. I’m … fond of you. Really. We could make something—”

  “Caspar, no. I’m sorry.” She was surprised to hear his voice cracking, hadn’t thought it would matter so much to him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  She lay awake a long time that night. It was the right decision to have made about Caspar, she assured herself. Part of her grieved for him, but she also grieved for herself. Lying here alone it was Mark she missed most of all. In the darkest part of the night, the hour before dawn, she convinced herself that she would never be able to forget him, never find anyone who fitted her as well as he had. She would die alone. Finally, she slept. She dreamed she was walking up the spiral steps of a tower into darkness.

  CHAPTER 12

  When she awoke the next morning, she felt exhausted, strung out. What she wanted to do, needed to do, both from a work and a family point of view, was go back to Norfolk. In particular she might help with Summer, especially since her niece would be finishing school in another week or so. The whole thing sounded simple. However, Norfolk would hardly be a holiday if she was working at Starbrough Hall half the time, and sleeping on a lumpy mattress on Summer’s floor wasn’t something she could endure for more than a night or two.

  She remembered Robert’s invitation in his “PS” to stay at the Hall and, slowly, a plan evolved. If the invitation had been sincere, and if Robert’s wife, Alexia, didn’t object, it would suit her all around to accept. Not least because it would make good sense to be on the spot if she was researching and cataloging their collection, ready for the sale, and she could see lots of Gran and Claire and Summer while she was down there. Yet it was important that she had some holiday. She decided to speak to Klaus about it.

  Klaus, with his eye for the main chance, saw the answer immediately. “Why don’t you go down there for three weeks instead of two? You can work for some of the time, then do what you like the rest of the time. And book the whole thing in as, I don’t know, ten days’ holiday. Voilà!”

  Jude considered this. It was good of Klaus to be flexible, but it would be a strange sort of holiday. And yet thinking of the alternatives, being in the office, or taking the holiday and hanging around on her own in Greenwich, or patching together visits to friends at no notice, Norfolk seemed immensely attractive. She wouldn’t impose herself on the Wickhams for the whole three weeks, but maybe they would have her for some of that period. She picked up her phone and dialed the number she was quickly consigning to memory.

  It was Chantal who answered.

  “Jude, my dear, how are you?” she said enthusiastically, but then she must have remembered the likely purpose of the call, for she sounded more subdued. “I’m sorry, but Robert isn’t here at present. Can I help at all?”

  “I merely … wanted to discuss the next stage in the process … I’m sorry, Chantal, I know this is hard for you, losing the books…,” she ended.

  “Please don’t worry,” Chantal replied with a sigh. “Of course, it’s your job. I will tell Robert you called.”

  “Thank you. And, Chantal, I haven’t spoken to my sister yet, but you can tell Robert I’m planning to visit Norfolk again very soon. To be frank, my holiday abroad has fallen through and I could call in on you to look more closely at the books.” She explained that she’d given Cecelia the journals and said, “I could start the business of cataloging. It would be nicer to do it there than bringing it back here. Unless that’s inconvenient…”

  “That’s a wonderful idea,” Chantal said, passionately. “You must come to stay here. We have plenty of room, you know that, and it would be lovely to see you. I’ll ask Alexia. She and the children came home last night, you know.”

  “I couldn’t possibly impose myself upon you all.” Jude crossed her fingers under the desk at the lie.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t be. Robert liked you very much and I know he’d be happy to have you stay for a week or two.”

  “That’s enormously kind of you.” Jude thought longingly of the beautiful library, the conversations she’d had with this sympathetic woman.

 
When Jude ended the call, she felt a great sense of relief, of rightness. Norfolk was where she needed to be.

  PART

  TWO

  CHAPTER 13

  “I’m sorry, Caspar,” she whispered as the shreds of a dream fled, already forgotten. She opened her eyes.

  She was lying in a big double bed between soft white sheets and sunshine was pouring into the room. A split second later she remembered where she was. Starbrough Hall was deliciously quiet. If she listened she could hear birds singing all around, maybe the distant purr of a passing car, but otherwise there was no sound. She rolled over to consult the watch on her bedside table. Eight o’clock. Not too embarrassingly late, then.

  It was a perfect room to wake up in on a summer holiday, being on a corner away from the family bedrooms, with windows on two sides that admitted the morning sunshine. “You really don’t want dear old Max and Georgie bothering you at six o’clock,” Alexia had told her cheerfully the night before. “And you’ll have the bathroom next door all to yourself.”

  Cheerful was exactly the right word for Alexia. She had a light, happy voice, and was attractive in a fair, healthy, bright-eyed way. Her calm, encouraging manner with the three-year-old twins was only slightly adjusted when she soothed her husband, who, Jude observed, liked his routines. A countrywoman, the daughter of Yorkshire farmers, she also managed the housekeeping, the dogs and her grieving mother-in-law with equal facility. The accommodation of an unexpected guest into the household seemed not to trouble her in the slightest.

  Jude was glad of the remoteness of her bathroom. As she ran water into the great claw-footed bath the pipes clunked and groaned so much she’d have been worried otherwise about disturbing the rest of the house.

  She climbed out of the water, her mind as free and refreshed as her body. It was difficult in fact to believe that she’d arrived yesterday evening hot and dusty, the great rush of Friday-afternoon traffic adding an hour to her usual journey time. A good night’s sleep, and the deep quietness of the place had quickly restored her. The trauma of Caspar and the stress of the office had quite melted away.

  Downstairs, breakfast was in progress. Chubby, golden-haired Georgie was pouring as much milk on the wooden table as on her cereal, chattering all the while; Max, neat and dark like his grandmother, shouted at his sister for splashing the book about dinosaurs he had open by his bowl. Alexia greeted her brightly; Chantal’s small spaniel, Miffy, shuffled over to sniff her feet, waving his flaglike tail. Of the other inhabitants there was no sign.

  “Come and sit down. Sleep well?” Alexia said, mopping up milk with one hand and stacking dirty bowls with the other. “The tea’s only recently made.”

  “I slept wonderfully, thanks,” Jude replied, pouring herself some.

  “Please help yourself to breakfast,” Alexia said. “We’re going swimming in a moment, aren’t we, children? Like to get your shoes on now? Robert’s out somewhere with the dogs,” she explained to Jude, “and I don’t think Chantal’s been down yet. She’s often awake in the small hours, poor thing.”

  As she ate her cereal, Jude listened to the sound of the twins running up and down stairs, gathering jackets and plastic backpacks, their chirpy voices squabbling over swimming goggles and towels. Then the back door banged, the car revved away and there was blissful silence.

  She put her bowl in the dishwasher and made a piece of toast and some coffee, and reviewed her plans as she drank it. Three whole weeks in Norfolk, she could hardly believe it. When Robert had rung her at the office to repeat Chantal’s eager invitation to stay, she’d confessed that she might be in the county for this length of time.

  “You must come for as long as you like,” he said. “After all, it’s in our interests. And my mother seems to have taken to you. It will be nice for her to have somebody new about the place. She doesn’t have much of a life, poor thing.”

  This morning she would start work; however, Claire had rung yesterday inviting her over to supper. Jude had already told Alexia this, adding, “I’d be glad to cook for you all occasionally while I’m here. Call it my contribution to the household.”

  “Oh you needn’t do that,” Alexia replied, but she seemed pleased that Jude had offered.

  Jude took her coffee and her laptop along to the library. Everything there was as it had been, except for the journals that were now with Cecelia, but not for much longer, Jude thought sadly. Soon the shelves containing Anthony Wickham’s books would be empty, the globe and the orrery would no longer grace the room. But the roof of the Hall would be sound. Robert, she’d learned at dinner last night, ran some mysterious import-export business, but it was suffering in the recession. This explained further both why he was around the house so much and why there was no money for the upkeep of the Hall.

  She stood staring out over the park and, once more, her eyes were drawn to the line of trees on the hill. It was funny how you couldn’t see the folly from the house, but you could see the house from the folly. Again, she wondered whether that had been the case when the folly was built. It seemed odd that, when follies were supposed to be decorative, you couldn’t see it.

  There were a dozen rolled-up charts in the cupboard and she knelt down to take them out one by one, then passed an absorbing hour while she tried to make sense of Wickham’s plotting of double stars or objects he thought were comets. She jotted down in her notebook anything she thought might be interesting for cataloging.

  Then, underneath the last bundle of charts, she was surprised to find what looked like another volume of the observation journal, one she had obviously overlooked. She opened it and turned the pages. What a shame, it was mutilated. About a third of the leaves had been torn out of the back. The remaining two-thirds were entirely written in the newer handwriting, and when she turned to the first page she realized that the first entry was 10 March 1778. The volume followed the others in date order, in fact. How could she not have noticed the book before? She began to read and, as she did, her amazement grew.

  Father wishes me to continue our charting of new nebulae and double stars, now that he can no longer. It is a heavy burden that I bear, but I will endeavour to carry out his wishes with all the skill and mastery that he has taught me. I will not fail him, though the nights are lonely and cold and he at least had me to help him. I have no one and must consult an atlas frequently, so that much time is lost.

  4.30 in the morning, as the moon nears the horizon in Ursa Major, I saw Bodes Nebula, round with a dense brighter core.

  Jude stopped to consider. “My father…” So the second author was Wickham’s son. Who was he? She’d have to ask Chantal. Had Wickham died or was he away or incapacitated? She’d need to find all this out for cataloging purposes. She continued to read.

  24th March

  Early evening, no moon tonight and the air is very still. In Taurus near Tau Tauri at 15' distance a new star cloud or perhaps a comet.

  In several subsequent entries, the diarist mentioned this new object, deciding that it was moving. By early April he concluded: “Viewed at 278 magnifications bright and clear-defined. Possibly a comet. No previous reference in my father’s notes.”

  Eventually, it seemed, he recorded it as a comet, though he seemed to have some doubt.

  After this, there were long gaps of time between diary entries and little of a personal nature. The observer mentioned a partial eclipse of the moon, the addition of a new nebula and, with notable excitement, a possible double star that Wickham senior had been tracking for some years.

  * * *

  Jude finished making notes and was about to put the book back in the cupboard when Chantal came in.

  “Don’t let me disturb you,” she said. “I only wanted to see if you were all right.”

  “I’m absolutely fine, and you’re just the person I want,” Jude told her. “I’ve found another volume of the diary—look—and need to check Anthony Wickham’s dates with you. And those of his children.”

  “Of course,”
Chantal said, taking the book and examining it. “It’s a pity that it’s damaged. I wonder who did that? Yes, I will look up the dates you need. But I can tell you right away that he did not have any children, not as far as we know, anyway. Or even marry. His estate passed to his nephew, you see. A man called Pilkington, who changed his name to Wickham.”

  Jude stared at her in puzzlement. “Then who is it in these pages who calls Anthony Wickham ‘Father’?”

  “I have no idea. I will search for the family tree upstairs, if you don’t mind waiting a bit. I have to hurry now. Last night, I had such a toothache…”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “The dentist told me to come straightaway. Will you be all right here for an hour or two?”

  “Please don’t worry about me,” Jude said. “There’s plenty I can get on with, I can assure you. Good luck with the dentist.”

  When Chantal had gone, Jude settled down to work once more. She had reached the bottom of the cupboard now and was surrounded by scrolls and books. She bent down and looked toward the back of the bottom shelf, in case she had missed something. It wasn’t a very well constructed cupboard, she saw. There was a piece of wood missing at the back and she could see the crumbling plaster beyond. Or was it plaster? There was certainly something. She reached in and put her hand through the gap, and felt paper. She grasped it and pulled gently, but it was stuck, so she shuffled herself round a bit and tried to fit her other hand into the gap as well, to find out what was holding it. She felt more paper. There seemed to be a whole wad of the stuff. She held it together and once more tugged. This time it moved, and she wiggled it out through the hole.

  What she’d found was a thick curled-up wedge of pages covered in a faded handwriting, the same writing, she quickly realized, as in the journal she’d just been reading. She opened the journal toward the end, and, fitting the pages to the torn binding, saw that, amazingly, she’d found the missing leaves. How extraordinary. But why had they been torn out? She tried to smooth out the pages she’d found, anxious not to damage the paper further, but they kept curling up again. At least they weren’t damp, which was lucky really, considering where they’d been hidden. The writing was very faded, though, and difficult to read. With growing anticipation, she took her find over to the desk, turned on the lamp there, and tried to decipher the first line. It was a title. She thought it said “An Account of Esther Wickham.” It wasn’t a name she’d heard before. She began, with great difficulty, to spell out the first few lines. “I was…” something—eight, perhaps. Goodness, was the whole document going to be as illegible as this? But when she peeled back the first page to check she saw that the writing on the next was darker and easier to interpret. Heartened, she turned once more to the first page and began to make out the faded letters. The voice was awkward at first, the sentence structure overcomplex, but quite quickly it became more fluent.