Shadow Music

by Elisabeth Rose

  “Here are some Broomes,” he called. “Lots of them. There’s an Eleanor who would have been around at the time and a Joseph. And here’s an Ethan. He died youngish too. In 1900. He was only thirty, poor man.”

  They stood staring at the sad reminders of people long gone and mostly forgotten. Reading the names carved on the stones elicited not the slightest flicker of recognition or emotion apart from the natural sombreness always associated with such places. And there was something else. Something missing.

  “Piers isn’t here,” she said.

  “Perhaps it’s to do with the churchyard, the proximity to the church?” suggested Jessica. “He may not be in a state of grace.”

  “I think we can safely assume that,” said Martin. “He dabbled in all sorts of things the church would have frowned upon. And we don’t know he died near here. He certainly wasn’t from the village.”

  “Should we talk to the vicar?” asked Nina. “He might know something about what happened to these people.”

  “He’d have to be about a hundred and thirty to remember them.” Jessica chuckled. “The parish records might be interesting. I’m quite happy to do that part, if you like.”

  Martin nodded. “Let’s see if we can find him.”

  The church was locked which Nina found unaccountably disturbing and sad.

  “An indication of the times we live in,” commented Jessica. “It would never have been locked in Miranda’s time. A church was regarded as a sanctuary. No one would’ve dreamed of vandalising one or stealing the Poor Box.”

  A note on the door recommended that visitors seek out the Reverend Giles Peabody at the vicarage. An arrow indicated the way. They trooped round the far side of the church and along a more well worn path to a rambling building adjoining the churchyard. A small ship’s bell hung by the front door. Martin gave a hefty pull on the bell rope.

  “Let me do the talking,” said Jessica firmly. The bell tolled through the house. No one came. Rain began tumbling from the leaden sky and they stood under the shelter of the little porch debating what to do next.

  “I’ll run back and get the car,” said Martin. “Then we can drive up to Broome Hall. No sense all of us getting our feet wet.”

  He dashed down the path jumping puddles as he went, umbrella bobbing. Soon after he left, a small white car pulled up in the driveway, the door slammed and a plump young man scuttled toward them holding his coat over his head in a hopeless attempt to keep himself dry. The ends of a red woollen scarf flapped behind him.

  “Good morning, good morning.” He fumbled wet keys in his hand searching for the right one. “Are you here to see me? Or perhaps you’re just seeking shelter from the storm?” His round face split into a grin as he flung the door open. “Either way, do please come in. It’s a stinker of a day.” He removed the drenched coat and hung it on one of a row of hooks just inside the front door. His scarf fell to the floor and he fussed about picking it up.

  “Reverend Peabody? We did want to speak to you.” Jessica followed in his wake as he surged on down the long hallway. Nina closed the front door behind them, a detail he seemed to have forgotten.

  His voice came floating back, “Call me Giles. I don’t stand on ceremony. Tea? Mrs. Webb usually manages the kitchen for me but she’s away visiting her sister this morning. I know there’s some of her super fruitcake, and I can come up with a decent brew.”

  Jessica threw Nina an amused glance over her shoulder. Nina grinned back and shrugged.

  “That would be lovely, thank you, Giles,” said Jessica.

  “Just make yourselves at home, there on your right.” He reappeared briefly and waved an arm toward a door next to them. “Shan’t be a moment.”

  Nina and Jessica sat down in the comfortably furnished living room. A log fire burned brightly in a large fireplace but Nina suspected it was more for show than warmth. The vicarage looked too big to be heated solely by wood fires and she couldn’t imagine Giles chopping wood. Perhaps Mrs. Webb was a dab hand with an axe as well as in the kitchen.

  “Lovely fire,” she said to Jessica.

  “Yes, it always gives such a homey glow to a room.”

  Nina giggled suddenly. “I don’t think Giles is a hundred and thirty, do you?”

  “Not unless he’s found the elixir of eternal youth.” Jessica smiled, eyes twinkling. She craned her neck to peer out through the window between heavy, red brocade curtains. “We must keep an eye out for Martin.”

  “Surely he’ll see the car and come in,” said Nina.

  “Tea’s up.” Giles bustled in with a laden tray. “Are you expecting someone else?”

  “Our friend went to get the car. We’re staying at Blackstone Cottage,” explained Nina. “I’m Nina Lee and this is Jessica Harrow. We did want to see you.”

  Giles shook their hands in a firm, warm clasp. “I’m glad I came home when I did, then. How can I help?” He poured tea and handed them cups. Rich, dark slices of Mrs. Webb’s fruit cake sat temptingly on a plate.

  Jessica said, “We’re trying to find information about a family who lived here in the 1880’s and early1890’s. Templeton. Miranda Templeton, to be exact. She died in 1892.”

  Giles frowned. “May I ask why?” He sipped his tea and peered at them over the rim of the cup looking exactly like Humpty Dumpty peeking over his wall.

  Puzzled by his reaction Nina said, “It’s a long story. Do you know something about them?”

  “You’re not reporters of some kind are you?” he asked.

  “Hardly,” said Jessica as Nina said, “No, no. It’s personal.”

  Giles looked from one to the other as if assessing their veracity. They must have passed muster because he said, “I imagine you saw the tombstones in the churchyard?” They nodded in unison. “Her parents. He was the doctor in Cutting Marsh for nearly forty years. I’ve only been vicar here for two years so I don’t know all the details but some people still talk about the Templeton scandal. More a tragedy really, by today’s standards. Moral standards were rather rigid in Victorian England, especially in the country.”

  Nina put her cup down before her shaking hand spilled the lot.

  “Perhaps we should wait for Martin,” suggested Jessica. “So he hears it firsthand too.”

  “Are you related to the Templetons?” Giles asked Nina, surprising her. Would they have been of Chinese ancestry? Unlikely.

  “Me? No, I don’t think so. Although Sung was my Chinese grandfather’s family name on my mother’s side.”

  “Really?” The interest on his face was unmistakable. “I ask because you resemble a painting of Miranda hanging in Broome Hall. It was done when she was about eighteen. Quite extraordinary.”

  “I’ve never seen that,” exclaimed Jessica. “Rupert and Georgina are old friends and we used to visit quite a lot when my husband was alive,” she explained.

  “Rupert found it in a storeroom last year. He was quite taken with it. Her looks were remarkably striking. Very exotic features.”

  “Do you believe in spirits?” Nina asked. Two startled faces turned abruptly toward her. She must have spoken louder than she thought, or more harshly.

  “Well, the Holy Spirit, obviously,” Giles said. “But I’m assuming you mean the ghostly type, apparitions and clanking chains, midnight moaning and so on?”

  “Along those lines, yes,” interrupted Jessica before Nina could follow up her question.

  “I also assume you mean in relation to Cutting Marsh and in particular the Templeton’s?” asked Giles slowly. He looked directly at Nina and she nodded once. “There is a local tale about a ghost which haunts the area but I can’t say I subscribe to the belief.”

  “Whose ghost?” asked Nina. Surely she wasn’t a ghost. Not Miranda.

  “The story goes that it’s a man, a grief-stricken man searching for his love. Some say it’s Miranda Templeton’s lover, others that it dates from much longer ago, well before the Templeton scandal.” He shrugged. “Who can say? I’ve never
seen him—or rather, it—myself.”

  There was a brisk ring from the ship’s bell and Giles excused himself to answer it. Nina peered through the window.

  “It’s Martin.” The Saab was parked behind Giles’ little runabout. Voices echoed down the hall then Martin appeared, smiling and rubbing his hands together against the cold. Giles darted back in with another teacup.

  “We’ve been discussing ghosts,” he said cheerfully. “Not that I subscribe to any other than the Holy kind.” He chortled and the others joined in with dutiful little chuckles.

  Jessica said, “Giles tells us there are stories of a ghost in the area. A grief-stricken man searching for his lost love.”

  “He also tells us there was a scandal about the Templeton’s concerning Miranda. We were waiting for you to come back before Giles told us.” Nina glanced at Giles.

  “Go ahead.” Martin settled himself beside Nina and took her hand securely in his.

  “Well.” Giles pursed his lips. He frowned and seemed to order his thoughts before beginning his tale. “The Templeton’s were well known and respected in the village. Daniel Templeton was the doctor. He had a young wife and that fact itself caused rather a stir in the village. Not that she was younger,” he hastened to say, “but that she had foreign blood. Chinese to be exact.”

  “How on earth did that come about in those days?” asked Jessica. “I can imagine the fuss it would have caused!”

  “Yes indeed. Daniel travelled extensively as a young man. Remember, England had a vast Empire, and I can only assume they met somewhere overseas. Hong Kong or even Shanghai, perhaps? Amelia was only part Chinese apparently, and was extremely beautiful, but it says a great deal about their love for each other and of Daniel, that they were prepared to defy convention. Anyway he brought her back here and set up as the local doctor when the old one died. They had two children. First Tyler and then Miranda. Tragically Amelia died in childbirth. Miranda grew up in the care of her father, who never remarried, and a housekeeper. She was rather wild and independent, spoiled by a doting, grieving father and fiercely protected by the older brother. When she was eighteen Miranda was engaged to the local squire’s son Ethan Broome.”

  “We saw his tombstone,” interrupted Martin.

  “Yes. The Broomes didn’t have a family crypt. They are all buried in the churchyard.”

  “Is it Ethan’s ghost?” asked Jessica.

  “No, it’s supposed to be Miranda’s illicit lover.” Giles smiled, obviously a man who loved an audience and relished the telling of a good tale. “Now—the squire held a summer ball every year. That year, 1892, it was scorchingly hot—they were in drought conditions—and Miranda met and fell in love with one of the musicians in the orchestra the squire had hired to play for the festivities. This was scandalous of course, and Miranda and her lover must have known full well the impossibility of their affair.”

  Nina gasped. Martin gripped her hand tightly. Jessica sat forward anxious not to miss one word. Giles scanned their faces obviously delighted with the rapt attention of his audience.

  “But Miranda being the sort of girl she was, didn’t care, and her lover would have been more than happy to take advantage of a beautiful and innocent young girl. There was no question of their marrying.” Nina stiffened and made to object but Martin squeezed her hand and she bit her lip even though the rage was building. “He had her absolutely besotted and they met secretly in a grove of oaks a mile or so out along the Plymouth road. As I said the weather had been absurdly hot and it finally broke in a cataclysmic storm. Miranda was waiting for her lover in their meeting place and was caught outside. He stayed safely back at his rooms in Plymouth until the storm passed and then ventured out in case she decided to go after all. He found her crushed under a tree branch in the grove. She died.”

  Again the annihilating weight crushed down on Nina’s chest as she gasped for breath. Martin held her tightly, both frantic hands on her upper arms. Their faces swam before her as if through a mist. Martin the closest, intent, his mouth opening and closing as he spoke to her, Giles staring in horrified concern, Jessica pale and anxious clutching her hands together as if in prayer. The roaring in her ears subsided and her breath flowed freely once more. Martin’s voice sounded as if the volume had been restored suddenly to a video picture.

  “Nina. Are you all right?”

  “It’s never affected anyone like that before,” Giles said. His worried gaze flew from one face to the other.

  “Nina is very responsive to this sort of thing, very sensitive,” Jessica said. She made it sound perfectly natural.

  “Psychic?” asked Giles.

  “In a way, yes.”

  Nina lay back against the cushions of the couch, incapable of sitting upright, the strength sucked from her body. She fixed anxious eyes on Giles. Martin held her hand tightly.

  “What happened to P…her lover?” she whispered hoarsely. “Afterward?”

  Giles looked at Martin. “Should I continue?”

  “Yes, please go on.”

  “Please,” croaked Nina.

  “He was blamed for her death,” said Giles, although his previous delight in the retelling of a juicy story had gone. “Of course everyone was horrified at what had been going on. The man wasn’t even properly English. He came from somewhere else, a foreigner, one of the colonies. The West Indies, or Australia maybe?” He smiled tentatively at Nina. “And it was rumoured he’d entranced her somehow, had her under his spell. Witchcraft. Voodoo.” He chuckled and then stifled it quickly. “He certainly did, poor dear, misguided girl. The brother was furious, her father heartbroken and the fiancé devastated. What a tragedy all round.” The round face took on an unaccustomed gloom.

  “Where is she buried?” Nina sat forward. Giles glanced warily at Jessica but she was regarding him as intently as was Nina.

  “The minister at the time refused her burial in the churchyard.” He spread his hands and grimaced. “I must say I’m not proud of the attitude of my predecessor. Very harsh. The Broome family made a plot available on the estate. At the insistence of her fiancé. He must have loved her dearly and shown a truly Christian spirit of forgiveness.”

  “And her lover?” asked Martin.

  “I’m sorry to say he was hunted down and murdered by the brother. He held the poor man responsible for his sister’s death, you see? Tyler. The brother’s name was Tyler,” he finished. “Oh, my dear girl!”

  Nina slipped gently from the couch to the floor, powerless to prevent the collapse, surrendering to a total and overwhelming nothingness.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You are with me now, my dearest, my only love.”

  Strong arms held her close, warm breath tickled her ear, her cheek and then insistent lips found hers in a crushing kiss. Nina opened her mouth and responded to the passion, desire leaping like a flame making her body weak and fluid, ready to do anything he asked, go anywhere so long as she could stay with this man, be his, forever.

  He lifted her in his arms, her body feather light as he swung her upward. A sharp pain stabbed in her chest but then she was floating and the pain had gone. All around was music, Piers’ music, entrancing and beautiful.

  “Piers,” she murmured. His face swam toward her on waves of sound. His eyes held her in their dark intensity. She felt the love and the passion pouring from him to her, saw the emotion crackling and dancing between them in golden beams of light. And all around sang the Shadow Music, Piers’ music, Piers’ violin sobbing and sighing, calling to her, loving her, calling, pleading…

  “Mira. You will live. You are my life. My love. Mira, Mira.” And his face appeared again, his unutterably handsome, beloved face contorted by grief and tears, his hands reaching for her but she was slipping away.

  “Piers,” she breathed, “Piers, hold me, hold me.” And then the pain pierced her chest again, tearing her in two, but the pain of grief combined with the physical agony and she couldn’t escape.

  Nina floated.
She felt no pain. She saw Piers and he was kneeling in their spot under the giant oaks in the grove. His head was bowed and his shoulders heaved with the violence of his sobbing. She longed to reach for him, to comfort and hold him and lay his dark head against her breast but she was powerless, could only watch helpless and detached.

  The music overwhelmed her, voices chanting and Piers’ voice clearly intoning a phrase of some sort over and over. The sound drew her inexorably. Piers stood before her smiling, arms outstretched and she fell into his embrace. Into blackness.

  ****

  Piers was winning, he was taking Nina away and Martin didn’t have the faintest idea how to fight him. How to fight a man dead for a hundred years or more? Tyler had it easy, all he had to do was put a bullet in him. Martin was powerless and with that came a deep bone chilling fear he’d never experienced before in his life.

  Nina was completely adrift this time. Nothing they did roused her. Giles helped lift her to the couch and then scurried off to fetch a blanket. Fortunately he was completely unaware of what they were dealing with. Jessica and Martin had a frantic whispered conversation while he was out of the room.

  “I think we should tell him everything,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “He may be able to help with the spiritual thing. Do an exorcism or something,” she replied but her voice was unusually feeble and shaky, her eyes reflecting his own fear. “It might help. Mightn’t it?”

  He didn’t have Jessica’s faith in the Christian church and its rituals. This was outside the realms of mainstream religious practice. Piers wouldn’t be abiding by any rules. He’d circumvented everything.

  Giles bustled back in at that point with a red checked rug which he carefully placed over Nina. Her breathing was steady and her pulse strong but her face had a deathlike pallor. She was much deeper into the trancelike state than yesterday. He looked at Jessica with a raised eyebrow. A small frown appeared but she nodded. He turned to Giles.

  “We have a story to tell, too,” he said. “You’d better sit down. It’s going to take a while.”