Barbara Erskine - Encounters

Once more I began to plan a novel and this time I felt I had the experience and the confidence to do it. Not the story of Robert and Isobel – I still wasn’t ready for that – but a novel of history and passion and mystery which was born of the mysterious, ancient landscape around me.

While I read and researched and visited the sites which were to become the background for Lady of Hay I went on writing short stories and, eventually, half a dozen short historical romances as well, perhaps to complete my apprenticeship before at last I could start writing the big novel.

But by now I enjoyed writing short stories too much to stop. Heavily involved in a book full of passion and hatred and fear it is nice to come up for air from time to time to write a humorous story, or an unashamedly sentimental one; a modern thriller or a plain old-fashioned love story, and I have chosen some of each of these for this collection. There are also, of course, ghost stories and a couple of stories where the past and the present slide together and the curtain which separates us from the past is temporarily drawn aside. Most of the stories are about places as much as about the people who find themselves within them, and most of them are, in one way or another, about encounters. I hope you enjoy them.

Barbara Erskine

Great Tey, 1989

The house at the end of the long, winding drive was elegant Georgian. The windows, all perfectly proportioned, looked out across sweeping lawns – not quite as smooth as they might have been, but nevertheless beautiful – towards the Black Mountains, brooding in the heat haze of the August afternoon.

Looking through the windscreen Victoria tried to suppress the quick catch of excitement which she felt in her throat. They had already seen so many houses which looked idyllic. Before there had always been a snag. This house, she felt suddenly, would be right; it was as if, in some secret part of herself, she knew it already. She glanced at Robert and saw that he felt it too: the hope, the anticipation, the agitation. When they found the right house it was going to be very special. Their home. The first since he had come out of the army. The place where they could start their new life.

The young man from the house agent was waiting for them, standing beneath the porticoed entrance proprietorially jangling the keys as they drew to a halt. Robert glanced at Victoria and winked as he set about climbing stiffly out of the car. She fumbled with the door handle, not wanting to watch, knowing better than to help. Each time it was easier. Each time it hurt him less. Each time the excitement that this might be The House helped.

They shook hands and the agent, introducing himself as William Turner, inserted the key in the lock and pushed open the heavy door. Beyond it a cavernous hall opened up, elegantly if sparsely furnished, with at the far end of it a graceful staircase winding up to a galleried landing. There was a faint smell of dogs.

‘Lady Penelope is away this weekend.’ William’s voice was reverently hushed. ‘So we can go all over the house as we like.’

They followed him soberly from drawing room to dining room to sitting room to morning room – a room for every hour of the day – and on through to the large north-facing kitchen.

‘Not modernized, I’m afraid.’ William looked round in barely disguised disgust at the unmatched cupboards, the painted deal table and the small electric cooker. The water, Victoria noted with amusement, ran from an old wall-mounted water heater into a deep stone sink.

William was watching her. He gave a broad smile. ‘Grim, isn’t it?’

‘It is rather.’ Victoria liked the young man. He had not mentioned exotic fitted kitchens; he did not pretend it had been left like this for the convenience of the buyer. Besides, after the initial shock, she loved it. The kitchen had a quaint, old-fashioned charm.

‘What’s through there?’ Robert nodded towards one of the internal doors. Beneath the grubby roller towel he had seen a key and three bolts. Three bolts seemed excessive for a door into a larder.

‘Ah.’ William gave his most charming professional smile, followed by a deprecatory shrug of the shoulders. ‘Well, every house has a few drawbacks.’

‘Oh?’ Robert glanced at Victoria. His heart, like hers, had sunk. He flipped through the glossy brochure in his hand. ‘No mention of any drawbacks here.’

‘Perhaps you’d like to see the upstairs first? The principal bedrooms have glorious views across into Wales,’ William said hopefully. He had seen how they felt about the house; he had seen her growing secretly more and more excited. He should have told them from the first. He glanced at them sympathetically. Robert Holland was tall, distinguished, in his late forties perhaps, his upright military bearing marred by an awkward limp. His wife was much younger, attractive, dark haired; slightly reserved, he guessed. The kind he thought of as deep and therefore probably interesting. He prided himself on his character analyses of potential clients. These people were understated, but that did not mean they weren’t wealthy. He had learned that one very early in his career. Money, particularly old money, did not always show. It was new money that liked to flaunt it. They could afford the house; he knew already that they would not buy it.

‘I think we should see the drawbacks first, don’t you?’ Victoria put in firmly.

‘You’re sure?’ His humorous smile was putting them all on the same side – allies against whatever eccentricity was the other side of the door. It also helped to hide his fear.

The key was stiff and the bolts unyielding. He had opened the door some half a dozen times now, but it never grew any easier and he could never overcome his reluctance to go through it. When at last he managed to push it open they peered into a long dark passage. ‘This,’ he said dramatically, ‘is the west wing. Lady Penelope seals it off more or less completely. I think she prefers to forget it’s there. To be honest, the best plan would be to demolish it.’

They could all feel the cold striking up from the dirty stone floor. The rest of the house was hot and airless in the humid summer heat but here it was abnormally cold.

Victoria felt her mouth go dry. Suddenly her optimism and her excitement had gone. ‘I don’t suppose there is any reason to see it if it’s that bad …’ she said uncertainly. A tangible feeling of dread seemed to surround her, pressing in on her from the cold walls.

‘Nonsense.’ Robert stepped into the passage. ‘What’s wrong with it? Dry rot? Again?’ The again was for William’s benefit. It might help to knock a thousand or so off the asking price.

‘No, not dry rot.’ William glanced at Victoria. He gave a tight protective smile as he saw that she had grown pale. About half of his clients seemed to feel it. The other half walked through without any comment, but even they hurried. He motioned her through ahead of him and reluctantly followed her.

With a quick, doubtful look at him she stepped into the passage after Robert. He had pushed open the first door on the left. Sunlight flooded across the empty room and into the corridor showing up the dust and scattered newspapers on the floor. ‘It’s a good sized room.’ Robert walked across to the window, his shoes sounding strangely loud on the bare boards. He peered out. ‘That must have been a formal garden once.’

‘It still could be.’ William was standing near the door. ‘It only needs tidying up. There are seven acres here. The grounds are one of the best features of the house.’

‘Why is there no mention of this room here?’ Robert had turned back to his brochure. The inconsistency irritated him. He wanted room dimensions and particulars at his finger tips.