Barbara Erskine - The Ghost Tree

‘Oh no!’

‘The family pictures are missing and the silver. I remember Mummy showing me spoons and forks, wrapped in soft black cloths; they had what I now realise were family crests on them. There were candlesticks. And there was her jewellery. I know the only thing Daddy ever gave her was her wedding ring, but she had pretty jewellery which she used to let me try on when I was a little girl. As far as I remember she never wore any of it, but it was still there when I left home.’

‘And now it’s gone?’

‘Yes.’

‘You should tell the police.’

‘I would, but I have no way of proving it was still there. I don’t suppose you saw it?’

Sally shook her head. ‘I never went upstairs. I very seldom went in at all, to be honest. She came here. I did drop in to see your father every now and then after she died, but we always went into the kitchen. He would give me a cup of Nescafé and we would chat for a wee bit and that was it. He was a very lonely man after she went. I’m not surprised to hear he kept her stuff, the old hypocrite.’ There was another pause. ‘She gave me some of her books to take care of, Ruth, and I have them still. She was afraid he would burn them after one particular quarrel they had, and I said she could put them in my spare room. She came round sometimes to read them. I kept them after she died. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, to be honest. They’re yours now. Books about the family and books about all sorts of New Age stuff.’

Ruth felt a surge of excitement. ‘I’d love to have them. Thank you.’

There was a pause.

‘Your father talked to her, you know. After she died. I heard him once or twice when I came over. I could hear his voice when I was going to ring the doorbell. I confess I listened at the letter box. He was talking, arguing, crying.’ For a moment Ruth thought Sally was going to cry herself. ‘And he didn’t just talk to Lucy.’

Ruth froze.

Sally wasn’t looking at her. She was studying her hands in her lap. ‘It seemed that he was talking to Lord Erskine. Lucy told me that he would sometimes appear to her. He was kind and understanding and gave her the courage to stay with Donald. Naturally,’ she looked up at last with a wan smile, ‘I assumed she was going off her head.’

‘You’re saying his ghost appeared to her?’ Ruth found her mouth had gone dry.

‘I’m not sure that he was what you or I would call a ghost. After all, why would he haunt a terraced house in Morningside? No. Lucy used to call him up, summon him, in some way; like summoning the spirits of the dead. You know?’

‘And you are telling me Daddy called him too?’ Ruth felt her whole body stiffen with disbelief. ‘That’s just not possible. He wouldn’t.’

‘No, I don’t suppose he did.’ Sally’s shoulders slumped. ‘Perhaps he did it without meaning to. Perhaps he called out to him in his anger or anguish or whatever at losing Lucy and never expected, or even imagined for a second, that the man would respond.’

Ruth smiled grimly. ‘That must have given him a shock.’

‘Your father never stopped loving your mother, my dear.’ Sally glanced at her, uncomfortable with the sudden show of emotion. ‘He was the kind of man who finds it difficult to express himself. He came from a generation and a background which was …’ she hesitated, ‘very buttoned up.’ She smiled. ‘I know he was cruel to your mother, and I know when he hated something he found it easier to say so than when he loved something. But he did love her.’

Later Ruth relayed the conversation to Harriet on the phone.

‘Your father talked to him!’ Harriet was incredulous. ‘Dear God! You have to try to speak to him yourself!’ Her excitement was instant and infectious. ‘You absolutely have to. What are you waiting for?’

‘That’s all very well for you to say!’ Ruth was once more seated at the kitchen table at Number 26. ‘The idea appals me. Oh no, Harriet. I don’t believe a word of it. Absolutely not.’

‘But we know he was a spirit guide! He knows how to talk to people. Have you read that book yet?’

‘No, I haven’t. And I don’t believe all this stuff. You know I don’t!’

‘Why not? He’s not going to hurt you, is he. You are his however-many-greats-granddaughter for goodness’ sake! Did that woman, your neighbour, actually hear his voice through the door?’

‘Yes. No.’ Ruth was becoming flustered. ‘Of course she didn’t! She heard Daddy talking to himself.’

‘Go on. Try. You have to.’

‘No!’

‘I dare you.’

‘What, and discuss philosophy? Politics?’

‘No. Or at least not straight away. Ask him if he minds talking to you. Tell him you’re interested in him. Do it now. Then call me back.’

The phone went dead.

I knew Ruth wnted to speak with me; but I also knew she was terrified that it might happen. She was a brave woman, and in that she was Lucy’s daughter, but she was also her father’s child and alone in a dark and gloomy house. My own father had tried to distract me from the consequences of the gift of second sight, and from my precocious insistence that I knew best; if this young woman had the same tendencies, I knew she would have to be brought to the realisation gently and somehow taught, as I was taught, to handle it with care. For the time being, I contented myself with thinking back to my childhood and wondering how she would confront the truths of my life if she persisted in following the paths of her research, and, on this occasion, I left her to her thoughts and dreams rather than give in to the temptation to appear.

Lord Buchan studied his youngest son carefully. Tom was twelve now, clever, cheeky and precocious. He was standing in front of his father looking at this moment extremely sheepish. ‘Well, boy, did you do it?’ the earl sighed. They had been here before. With his eldest brother now in the army and Harry at university, Tom had been left at home with his sisters to be tutored by their mother. Agnes was a brilliant woman and she had taught all her children in turn, imbuing in them her own passion for learning as well as her strict religious views, and yet here was Tom, still running wild in the streets, this time caught stealing from a stall in the Grassmarket below the great castle walls. His excuse, given with passionate indignation, was not a denial but an explanation that there could be no crime for he had stolen from a rich man, who could well afford the loss, to give to a poor one. Lord Buchan sighed. The boy had no idea that, had he been a poor man himself, he would have faced the direst penalties for what he had done. Only a substantial bribe had bought off the indignant stallholder, a bribe they could not afford. Poverty, though, was relative. His paltry two hundred pounds a year would be an undreamed of fortune to the would-be recipient of his son’s intended largess.

‘I am sending you away, Tom. Mr Buchanan shall be your tutor and you will go to Kirkhill to learn discipline and study until you are ready to go to the High School.’ He did not add that they could not afford to send him to the school, otherwise he would have been there already. David and Harry were the lucky ones. Money had been scraped together for their education and now for David’s commission in the army, and enough for Harry to study law, but for this third son, probably the brightest of them all, there was little left in the coffers.