Sarah Rayne - What Lies Beneath

‘There’s only the spooks to hear you.’

‘I’ll bet they’ve cursed a bit in their time. OK, I’ve got it.’ She held up a small oblong plaque.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know. It’s filthy,’ said Amy, screwing up her face in disgust. ‘Wait a bit, I’ll find another tissue. It’s crusted with disgusting mould, but there was that sheen of something in the camera flash. I thought it might be brass or even silver.’

She bent over, cleaning the oblong industriously, then gave a soft hoot of satisfaction. ‘Brilliant, it’s inscribed. I thought it looked as if it was.’

‘What does it say?’

‘I think it’s brass, like you see on church pews or pulpits. It says: “Donated by the Cadence family, 1920. ‘I have learned to look on the still, sad music of humanity.’ ” Wow.’ She scrambled back over the pews to show him. ‘The Cadences are the family who used to live at the manor,’ she said. ‘They were some kind of merchant bankers, I think, or one of those ultra-posh private banks for the super-rich. I only know about them because of helping at the library,’ she added, in case Jan thought she had any sympathies with plutocracy. She reached out to trace the engraved words with a fingertip. ‘I suppose it could have come off one of the pews, but I wonder why 1920 was significant? To commemorate someone who died in the First World War?’

‘They’d have named him in that case,’ said Jan.

‘True. D’you mind if I have a look to see if there’re any more of these? If so, I might liberate one for the library’s exhibition. I’ll leave this one where it is, though.’

She went back to the altar. The Cadence family were all long since dead, including the man with dark hair and sexy eyes in the photo dated Christmas 1910. It would be interesting to know who he was, though. The line about ‘the still, sad music of humanity’ was disturbing. It suggested some kind of lesson learned or some deep tragedy. Amy would look it up at the library.

Jan’s voice broke into this. ‘Amy, it’s half-past one. Are you hungry? How about I buy you lunch at the Red Lion as a thank you for helping me?’

‘That’s the kind of thanks I like,’ said Amy. ‘OK, we’ll leave the spooks to themselves.’

London, 1912

Serena had relived the night when Julius attacked her over and over again. The dreadful thing was that it was not Julius’s madness or his brutality she kept remembering: it was the way he had crouched sobbing in a corner of the room afterwards.

She sought for an emotion that would drive this memory out and that would also drive out the fear of the approaching birth, and after a while was aware of resentment – not towards Julius, but towards the child. She tried to quench this shameful emotion, but it stayed on her mind like a bruise. Julius might be dead by the time the child was born, but Serena knew that every time she looked at his son or daughter the painful memory of its father would taunt her. She did not think she could ever love this child. She did not think she could even like it.

Each morning she had violent spasms of sickness, so severe her insides felt as if they were being wrenched out. Her ankles and wrists swelled painfully and so grotesquely that in places her skin cracked and split. Serena hated this almost more than the sickness. She took to wearing loose teagowns with long, wide sleeves and trailing hems. The gowns were mostly sent from Bond Street and Knightsbridge stores; Harrods and Debenham and Freebody were always so obliging. The dresses covered the swellings and sores quite well but, to make sure no one caught sight of them by accident, Serena told Dora and Hetty to keep all the curtains three-quarters closed. Yes, she said snappishly, she did mean all day long – she had a constant headache and the light hurt her eyes. She left her own rooms less and less. Dora and Hetty were young and spry, and quite able to scamper up and down the stairs with trays.

Guests to the house were discouraged, except for Dr Martlet, although when he suggested performing another of the embarrassing intimate examinations – ‘to make sure the child is in the proper position’ – Serena discouraged him. She hated that kind of examination, with its fearsome instruments, but she was more afraid of what he would say if he saw the rash and the sores under her flowing gowns. So she said she was not feeling quite up to an examination today. They would consider it on his next visit.

Crispian had written to her twice, and Dr Martlet said he had had an untidy scribble from Gil. Julius had not written, but Serena had not expected that because Julius seldom wrote to anybody. Crispian’s second letter was sent from Nice, although he said by the time it reached England they would probably be halfway round Italy. They were all very well and hoped to see a little of Nice while they were here. They had all suffered brief bouts of seasickness but Gil Martlet said cold champagne was helpful so they were taking a few bottles of Veuve Clicquot on board.

After reading this Serena told Mrs Flagg to serve a glass of chilled champagne at dinner each evening. It did not, in the event, help her own sickness a great deal, but she enjoyed drinking it so much she took to drinking a glass with her lunch as well. And since one glass made her feel better able to face what was ahead, she increased it to two glasses with lunch and three with dinner.

Dora and Hetty said having the curtains closed all day made the housework a fair trial. You could not see a hand in front of your face. Hetty had left a broom on the stairs the other day while answering the door to Dr Martlet, and Mr Flagg had missed seeing it and tumbled over it. His language had been shocking and Mrs Flagg had to rub his shoulder with arnica, which stank out the kitchen for an entire day.

Dora said it was becoming a nightmare to wait on the mistress, what with her trailing silks and chiffons. Dora was partial to a bit of silk, but not when the hems were dragged over the floor like a weeping willow, making a deal of washing and ironing because the mistress could not be doing with anything grubby.

‘And silk scarves round her neck,’ said Dora, over a midday dinner of Mrs Flagg’s roast mutton.

‘Ladies in the desert fold scarves over their faces,’ said Hetty. ‘I read about it in a novel. P’raps she’s trying to start a new fashion.’

‘Some hopes of that with madam never setting foot out of doors,’ said Mrs Flagg, passing the potatoes to Flagg, because people had to eat, even if the mistress had taken to a diet of champagne, nasty windy French muck.

Dora, who liked to live in an atmosphere of friendliness, asked Mr Flagg to tell about the journey the master and Mr Crispian were on. Where would they be about now? Mr Flagg had a book of maps that showed where other countries were with little coloured pictures; Dora thought it was ever so interesting although you couldn’t pronounce half the names.

‘No, nor want to,’ said Mrs Flagg, who could not be doing with Abroad ever since she and Flagg had taken a day trip to Ostend and she had been sick on the ferry crossing.

Flagg was pleased to be appealed to and he looked out the atlas there and then, spreading it on the table so as to trace the route for the two girls.

‘All those places,’ said Dora, as she and Hetty pored over the map of Italy and the Adriatic Sea. ‘Romantic, I call it.’

‘I don’t know about it being romantic, it’ll be a long time before they get home,’ said Mrs Flagg, setting down a rhubarb tart and reaching for the pudding dishes, while Flagg removed the atlas in case somebody spilled custard on it.

Dr Martlet called most days, generally just after lunch, which Serena considered a very suitable time. He could be offered coffee, which Flagg generally brought upstairs, and then poured out. Today, however, it was Flagg’s half-day and it was Hetty who carried in the tray and set it down. Serena did not trust Hetty to pour coffee, so she dismissed her and poured it out herself.