Sarah Rayne - What Lies Beneath

‘I was very tactful,’ Gramps said. ‘I just asked if he would have to go back to Oxford soon, to be with his family.’

‘You said that?’ This did not sound so bad after all. ‘What did he say?’

‘That he only had a sister and some nephews. And that he had no intention of going back until he was sure you were all right. That’s your Cheshire-cat smile,’ he said as a grin broke on Amy’s face.

‘I shouldn’t be smiling at anything at the moment, what with Gran and all. Gramps, about that – she’ll be in some kind of – um – institution, won’t she?’

He had been staring into his brandy, but he looked up. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I think we can be sure about that.’

‘It’s awful,’ said Amy.

‘Yes, but it’s not Ella any longer, you know. Not my Ella, the girl I married.’

This was so unbearably sad that Amy had to fight back tears. She stared into her own brandy, and eventually managed to say, ‘But an institution – an asylum… Gramps, it’ll be dreadful for her.’

‘She killed at least two people,’ he said. ‘She was probably going to kill you.’

‘But it wasn’t the real Gran,’ said Amy a bit desperately. ‘You’ve just said that. Or didn’t you mean it?’

‘I did mean it.’ He reached out to take her hand. ‘Amy, I think she’ll cope in a way you and I can’t understand,’ he said. ‘When I look back, I can see all the times when she twisted situations so that they looked how she wanted them to look.’

‘Lied to herself about them?’

‘No, she doesn’t lie, exactly. But she twists things around and forces them into a shape that’s satisfactory to her. She’ll do that with this place where they’ve put her. She’ll mould it into some form she can accept.’

Ella quite understood she had to stay in this hospital place for a while. They had explained it all to her. A sickness, they had said, and she rather had the impression that they regarded her as an unusual case. That meant it was important to give them all the help she could. One heard of case studies being done, research, articles in the Lancet .

When they questioned her, she admitted to headaches and some confusion. It was a curious confusion, though; almost as if she lost long spells of time – hours and hours or even as much as a whole day. When she tried to remember what had happened during these lost times, there was only a jumble, a messy darkness threaded with faint echoes of music, and with people who stared out of dead, open eyes…

She told them all this, because if they were studying her case they would need to know everything. They wrote things down and nodded, and occasionally gave her pills.

What she did not say to them – although she might do so later – was that although the staff seemed excellent, she was not overly impressed with the actual hospital. Several times she wondered why Derek had paid all those private-patient-plan subscriptions over the years if it was not to make use of them now. She would ask about that when Derek came to see her.

But she had to say this was a somewhat old-fashioned set-up, what with the faded curtains and old-fashioned bathrooms. A few coats of emulsion would not have hurt the walls, either. Even so, Ella slept very soundly each night, and during the day it was remarkably easy to blot out the bleak rooms and echoing corridors, and the sound of doors being locked.

‘We have to lock the doors,’ they told her. ‘To keep everyone safe.’

Ella said she quite understood that; there were so many wild people about today. It was the parents’ fault. Young people were not taught standards, not like she had been.

One of the doctors talked to her about Priors Bramley. He seemed very interested in it. She had been there recently, hadn’t she? he said. Ella said, no, she had not been to Priors Bramley since she was ten years old. She had gone there with her friends, Veronica and Clement, and the three of them had walked along the village street on the day it was to be closed.

He was interested in Veronica and Clem, so Ella told him all about them. How they were good friends, all three of them; they had been so from their schooldays, in fact. They would certainly be coming to visit her, she said. Veronica would no doubt try to flirt with the doctors a bit, but that was just her way. She would be very smart, they would all admire her clothes and jewellery. Clem would be interested in the old building and ask about its history. He liked history.

Ella told the doctors and nurses to be sure to let her know the minute Veronica and Clem arrived. And her family, of course. Her son was working abroad, but Derek would come and probably their granddaughter, Amy. They would all like Amy, said Ella proudly. She was a lovely girl, so intelligent. She and Ella were very close.

She took the pills they gave her and looked forward happily to the visits of Derek and Amy, and her dear good friends, Veronica and Clem.

Final Entry in Jamie Cadence’s Journal

I don’t think I can write much more. There’s a dreadful searing pain over most of my body, and I can feel it eating down and down into my flesh. Oh God, this is dreadful…

But I’ll manage to finish this last page, I think. I shall sign it, then put the papers in the desk drawer. I don’t know if they’ll ever be found. I don’t know if one day – years ahead in the future – people might walk through Priors Bramley again, and see the ruined old manor house and perhaps wonder about its history and the people who lived here.

The people who lived here…

They’re all gone now. Serena and Julius, Crispian and Gil. Colm and old Dr Martlet and the Flaggs. They’re all entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality. Who wrote or said that? I’ve forgotten, if I ever knew. I think it must have been somebody who mourned the passing of England’s great houses. Cadence Manor wasn’t a great house, but in the main it was a good one. Except for that seed of disease that came into the family with my mother and destroyed us all.

I’m finding it more and more difficult to breathe, and my lungs feel as if they’re on fire. Moments earlier I heard dreadful formless screams and my heart leaped with hope because I thought someone was at hand – someone who would rescue me. But then I understood that of course it’s my own screams I’m hearing.

It’s mid-afternoon – the ticking clock tells me that – and I think my mind is becoming affected, because a little while ago I thought I heard voices outside, as if someone might have come into the manor grounds and gone across the kitchen garden. I tried to get to the window to see, but I can no longer stand upright. But even if entire armies marched across the old gardens I couldn’t call out to them.

Three days ago I found the old wind-up gramophone in the back of a cupboard. It’s one I bought in the 1920s, and put away when I got a better, electricity-driven one. But after the power failed I was glad of something to drive back the silence.

I’m trying to do that now. I’ve played several pieces, but today I’ve played the music that always meant so much to me, The Deserted Village . If ever there was a prophetic piece of music, it’s that. It’s the music I shall hear as I die.

I believe I’ll die soon now – I hope so. The pain is becoming worse now, and I can barely breathe.

I wonder if these pages will ever be found. I hope so. I’d like those people of the future to know my story.

The Present

The young man from the forensics department investigating the Cadence Manor bodies passed the autopsy to his inspector.

‘Cause of death for both bodies,’ he said. ‘The Cadence Manor chap had a broken neck. I’d say a straightforward fall from the upper floor.’