by M K Jones
“No, Aunt. I’m happy here. I didn’t truly know that until tonight.”
“Good. Sleep now. Tomorrow will be busy, then on Boxing Day, we’ll both attend the servant’s ball. You’ll enjoy that.”
Esme Peach nodded sleepily. Outside thick snow fell. As she watched the flakes settle on the window pane a glimpse of a face, a dark-haired woman, crossed her mind, but she pushed it aside. There was no more thinking to do. No more faces rushing at her out of the dark. No more children crying. She was at peace. She was home.
Forty Eight
May 2015
Alice and her friends played in the garden for an hour until they were collected.
“See you tomorrow. Don’t let Buttster give you nightmares!”
“More DT?” Maggie asked as they walked back to the kitchen.
“’Fraid so. Sorry, Mum.”
“Did you deserve it?”
“Well, I don’t think so, but Buttster says I’m a bad character.”
“I told you, Al, I’ll go to see the woman. If she’s picking on you, it’s my place to speak to her. Anyway, you’re not bad, and it’s not right for her to say so.”
“Don’t worry about it, Mum. Mr Rees is back after half term. I’ll be OK.”
Maggie wanted to protest. She didn’t think she should let this go on, but just at that moment a blip from the computer told her that there was an incoming message. The moment’s hesitation as she turned her head in the direction of the computer was just enough to allow Alice to escape up to her room. Deciding she’d just have time to check the message before starting their evening meal, Maggie opened the email.
As they sat down to eat, Maggie waited for an opportune moment to tell the children what had happened, trying to contain her excitement. They began their ritual of talking about their day, first Jack, then Alice, then Maggie, who noticed that Alice didn’t mention the detention. If Alice had escaped earlier from talking about it, to bring the subject up again would only upset her.
“OK, my turn. Two things to report. One, I had the job interview today.” She screwed up her face. “Ugh.”
Alice brightened. “You didn’t get it?”
“Not so lucky. The man wanted to offer it to me but he has to wait until his boss comes back from holiday, which isn’t until after half term. So I’m OK for a couple of weeks. And talking of half term, we should make plans.”
“What’s the second thing?” Jack asked. “And before you make any plans to go away, I’ve made some with my friends, so check with me first, OK?”
Maggie looked at him wryly. She’d always known this would come, but being the chief organiser and planner, even when David was alive, being instructed to consult someone else was a bitter pill to swallow.
“I’d like to invite the girls back again, next week, if that’s OK, Mum. We’ve made plans to decorate the summerhouse.”
“Looks like everyone has plans.” She smiled. “That’s fine with me. I have just one thing to do next week. I had an email this evening, in reply to my post about the family history.”
Alice looked expectantly, but Jack showed no interest.
“It’s from a nurse in a nursing home, in Newport. She thinks she recognised some of the story, particularly about this house. It’s not her, it’s one of her patients, a very old lady, ninety-seven, apparently. Her name is Louisa Jenkins.”
“Can we go and meet her?” Alice was enraptured.
“Yes. The nurse said that we’d be very welcome to visit. I emailed back said that I would, probably early next week.”
“How’s she related to the story, Mum?”
“I don’t know, yet. We’ll have to speak to her to find out. In the meantime, Zelah and I are going to find out more about this house, and the farm that the family had, too.”
“It’s such fun, this detectiving, isn’t it?” Alice put her elbows on the table and leaned forwards on them.
“Yes, it is.”
Jack rolled his eyes heavenwards at both of them.
* * *
On Thursday morning, after depositing the children at school, Maggie headed up to County Hall to meet Zelah. She was waiting for her in the foyer. They were expected on the fifth floor, and were taken by a young clerical officer to a conference room where several maps were spread out ready for them on a large table in the centre of the room.
“Here you are, Mrs Fitzgerald, all the maps and papers we hold about the two properties you mentioned.”
“Thank you.” Zelah nodded dismissively to the boy. “We’ll let you know when we’re finished.” He left.
Maggie raised an eyebrow at Zelah. “Mrs Fitzgerald?”
“Need to use it sometimes. You don’t think they do this for everyone, do you?” She looked quizzically at Maggie. “Are you feeling uncomfortable?”
“No. Not at all. Well, yes. A bit. I’m not used to special treatment.”
“I don’t do it often. Don’t get used to it.”
Maggie looked at the documents spread out on the table. Her house was instantly recognisable on a map dated 1910, with the canal running past the end of the garden. She could see that the parcel of land it stood on had been bigger then, stretching down to what was now a main road on one side, and almost as far as the canal lock in the hamlet of Henllys, a few hundred yards on the other side.
“They must have sold off the land over time. It was on its own then, look.”
“You can see why they chose it.” Zelah pointed to the chapel half a mile or so away, on a direct line along the canal path. “It would have been an easy enough walk. Aha!” She pointed to a building a short walk from the chapel. “Here’s the farm. It has a lot of land, too. Bigger than usual for this part of Wales.” She looked at Maggie. “Most farmers were tenants. Your great-grandfather owned his and it looks like the farm was more than thirty acres. That’s quite a feat, you know.”
“I think he must have been a remarkable man,” Maggie replied, tracing the line of the canal with her finger from house to chapel to farm. “I wonder when the farm disappeared. It’s definitely not there now.”
They checked through the other documents on the table.
“Here!” Zelah picked up a packet of papers. “The farm buildings and land were sold off in 1948. They knocked them down and built houses in their place.”
“Who was the beneficiary?”
“It was…” Zelah leafed through several pages. “It was a Mr William Jones. Sold for the grand sum of £40,000. Must have been a fortune then. Probably worth over a million today. Is there any other information about the farm?” Maggie was still examining papers relating to the house.
“Uh, no. That’s it. According to this, the council bought it lock, stock and barrel. Could even have been derelict. You’d have to find William Jones’s will to know what happened to the money. Probably left it to his children, unless he was settling a debt. You don’t know who the children are?”
“Not yet. Anyway, they’d be elderly or dead now. It’s gone. That’s the end of it. But there’s some interesting stuff here about the house. Look.” Zelah took the paper Maggie was holding out, a long parchment, covered in old-fashioned typing.
“It cost two thousand pounds to build the house. Amazing, considering what I paid for it!”
“You know, you’ve probably got copies of this and other documents that will give you the history of the ownership of your house.”
“Yes, I know. I lodged them all with the solicitor who organised the purchase for me. I’ve been meaning to get them back to have a look. But I don’t think I’ll find much more, do you?”
“Probably not, but every new bit of information adds to the completeness of your story.”
Maggie nodded and went back to the map.
After a further half an hour they decided that there was nothing else to be learned from the papers and maps. Maggie had made copious notes and was putting her notebook away when a thought occurred to her. “Zelah, would you like to come and see John and Ruth�
�s graves?”
“Love to.”
They let the clerk know that they had finished. Maggie was amused by his deferential attitude towards Zelah, who barely acknowledged him, even though he accompanied them out of the building, waving as they got into their cars and drove away.
They were the only people in the cemetery. Approaching the grave, Maggie suddenly felt reluctant to get closer and she stopped a few yards away.
“That’s it. Have a look at the inscriptions.”
Zelah walked up to the stone and bent over to peer at it.
“Beautiful, and just like you said. Why are you standing over there?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Explain?”
Maggie thought for a moment. “I feel… like there’s something else going on.”
“Then there probably is.”
“You don’t find any of this odd, do you?”
“No. What do you think is happening?”
“I have no idea. I just know. I have an odd feeling, that’s all. Is this weird?”
“No. It’s your history and your memories. They are connecting you to your past and this was, is a significant place,” Zelah replied.
“I can feel a strange atmosphere now, as if… as if I just reached out, I could touch something that I can’t see, but that I know is there.”Maggie sighed. “Let’s go get a coffee, shall we? My place?”
Forty Nine
Zelah went straight to the kitchen and sat, arms folded, at the table, waiting while Maggie pottered around, talking of trivialities. When the pot of coffee was ready she indicated the sitting room and led the way, where they sat in the chairs at the back window.
“I was sitting here when I saw the face – my face – looking back at me the evening I found the grave. I think she sat here a lot too, and thought about what had happened to her. I’ve wondered if, when I sit here, I might be recalling her thoughts.”
“I get the sense that you’re still troubled,” Zelah said. “But you told me Alice is fine, and not having nightmares any more. What’s wrong now?”
Maggie didn’t look at Zelah but stared out of the window, her cup at her bottom lip, but not drinking.
“Lately, I feel… I feel like I’m being watched.”
Zelah raised an eyebrow, but waited for more.
Maggie spoke slowly. “I feel, and it isn’t a nice feeling, like whatever it is, it’s coming closer. At first it was just an uncomfortable sensation, nothing connected with anything in particular. It just came on me suddenly, like a shiver, but went away at once. Then it started to feel a bit more solid, like when I’m in the garden I’ll look up suddenly as if I expect to find someone standing on the towpath. Or in the supermarket the other day I thought someone was looking at me from the car park. But there’s no-one. Last night, I woke up and expected to find one of the kids standing next to my bed. But there was no-one there.” She paused. Zelah said nothing.
“Lying awake last night, I thought over everything that’s happened since I moved here, all the strange things, you know. The picture of the arm, the girl in the graveyard, the face at the window, the family likenesses. On their own they’re all fascinating and interesting, exciting even. I thought of it as telepathic experience, or your theory of the inherited memory, but this is different. It’s threatening. I’ve thought since the beginning that I was being impelled, like something was making me discover the story of my family. But now I think there’s something else, something behind the events that happened back then.” She looked at Zelah wryly. “Am I reading too much into this stuff?”
“Why are you asking me? If you want reassurance, I’m not going to give it to you.” Zelah considered for a moment. “Most family history research is just a trawl through records to find something that’s only meaningful to whoever’s looking. But sometimes a story stands out. You’ve seen it in those celebrity programmes. But some of us find more than that. And I think you’ve gone further still. I’ve said from the start that it’s up to you. You can stop whenever you like, but if something’s there now, looking for you, I don’t know that you stopping will prevent it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You set out to look for something. Now, maybe something is looking for you.”
Maggie cradled her hands around her cup.
“I’ve almost stopped a couple of times. It’s getting weirder, not clearer.”
“Your choice, Maggie.”
“I know. I’ve arranged to go to the nursing home to meet Louisa Jenkins on Tuesday next week. I’ll see how that goes, then decide whether or not to pack it all in. Anyway, I’ll be hearing more about that job soon. The decision may make itself.”
“Let me know what you decide. I need to go. My turn on the desk in the library this afternoon.” Zelah picked up her bag. “For what it’s worth, whatever decision you take, it’s OK with me. And tomorrow, back to County to look at some parish records?”
“Yes, great. Same time. I’ll drop Alice at school, then meet you in the lobby. Jack will be on holiday, but he’ll be OK on his own.”
Zelah nodded, went to smile, changed her mind, then was gone.
For the rest of the day, Maggie couldn’t settle to anything. Fiona phoned to find out about the interview and had enthused down the phone, oblivious to Maggie’s lack of interest. When Fiona began to plan Maggie’s future, starting with how she could arrange their summer holidays and childcare, Maggie made an excuse and put the phone down. Her sister meant to help, she knew that, but speaking to her made Maggie more depressed than hopeful, and less certain about what to do next.
Having nothing much else to do, she set out early for school and found herself with ten minutes to spare before the children came out. Remembering that Jack had said that he would meet her there she looked around, but there was no sign of him.
She got out of the car and walked down the path towards Alice’s classroom. The side door to the classroom was open, letting out a low hum of chatter that attracted her attention. Looking in, Maggie spotted a couple of Alice’s friends. They saw her, but quickly looked down at the books in front of them. This puzzled her, knowing that Mr Rees wouldn’t have taken umbrage at a quick smile to a passing parent, so she slowed down and looked more closely at the faces of the children as they worked. They were all frowning with concentration, as a teacher walked among them. As the teacher approached, each head went further down. Maggie could sense the tension. Then she spotted Alice, working alone, and she appeared to be crying.
Turning away from the door she walked briskly around to the back entrance, as the bell rang for the end of the day. Jack was waiting, hovering at the door and looking anxiously inside. She walked past him, straight into the school.
“Stay there!” she barked at him without stopping. She marched to Alice’s classroom, just in time to spot the teacher she had just seen walking out of the side door. Another teacher was talking to the class now and they were putting their papers away. As the children filed out of the classroom, Maggie pushed past them to the teacher’s desk. Alice was still in the corner, not moving, but Maggie ignored her.
“Excuse me, are you the supply teacher or the assistant?” The young woman looked blankly at her. “I’m Alice Gilbert’s mother. Why is she sitting alone and crying?”
“I don’t know, Mrs Gilbert. I’ve was out until a few minutes ago. My assistant told me that she caught Alice cheating in a test.”
Maggie looked slowly from the teacher to Alice, stared at her daughter’s forlorn expression then turned back.
“No, she didn’t.”
“I beg your pardon?” The teacher was unsettled by Maggie’s challenge.
“Alice, come here,” Maggie called her. Alice stood and walked slowly to the teacher’s desk.
“Did you cheat?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Has anyone asked you what happened?”
“No. She just said I cheated and put me in a corner, then said I had to do a detention.”
>
“By ‘her’ I assume you mean the teaching assistant?”
“Yes.”
“Did she have any proof?” she asked the teacher.
“She just said that Alice had cheated. I had no reason to assume that it wasn’t true.” The teacher was rattled, but wasn’t backing down.
“But you were given no proof?” The hesitation, the glance that didn’t quite meet Maggie’s, was enough. Looking down at the pile of papers in front of her she muttered, “No, I assumed she had seen something.”
Maggie put her arm around Alice’s shoulders.
“Alice has always been a model student and she doesn’t cheat. There will be no detention and I’m taking her home now. She won’t be in school tomorrow. I’ll arrange to see Mr Rees after half term. Good day.”
She put a hand on Alice’s shoulder and steered her out of the classroom, leaving the teacher gaping. At the front door she signalled to Jack to follow her. They walked to the car in silence and got in.
“Enough is enough,” she barked at Alice and Jack. They both nodded and she drove home.
As soon as she could, Maggie called Zelah to tell her that she couldn’t keep the appointment at the archive the following morning, relating the story of what had happened at the school.
“Quite right, too. Of course you should keep her away. I’ll wait for you before I do anything else.”
“Yes, of course. Zelah, since we spoke, I’ve been thinking about whether or not to carry on, but I’m still shaking after the school thing and I can’t reflect on anything in a meaningful way right now. So, I’ve decided to go away with the kids for a couple of days. It’ll give me chance to think and give Alice some breathing space. I’ll be back Monday night.”
“Sounds like a good decision. Call me when you get back.” Zelah put the phone down abruptly, as usual.
Maggie drew in a deep breath, and went to her computer. Half an hour later she called Alice and Jack and told them that she had just booked four nights away, starting immediately, and sent them to pack.
“Where are we going?” Alice asked, dancing happily.
“Down to Cornwall,” Maggie replied, pulling rucksacks from under the stairs. “I’m going to get the camping stuff ready. We’re leaving in an hour. The weather’s looking good. Let’s get going!”
