Barbara Erskine - House of Echoes

‘I knew him.’

‘What was he like?’

‘Your mother was fond of him.’

‘I don’t even know his name.’

Mary looked up at last. This at least was something she seemed able to divulge without reservation. ‘Paul Deauville. He was an art dealer. He travelled the world I understand.’

‘Did he live in Paris?’

‘He did.’

‘And my mother went to live with him?’

A definite frisson – almost a shudder. ‘He took your mother away from Belheddon.’

‘Do you think he made her happy?’

Mary met Joss’s eye and held it steady through the grotesquely magnifying lenses of her glasses. ‘I hope so, my dear. I never heard from her again after she left.’

As if she were afraid she had said too much Mary clamped her lips shut, and after several more perfunctory attempts at questioning her Joss rose to leave. It was only as she turned to walk through the front door into the blinding frosty sunlight that Mary at last relinquished the notebook.

‘Take care of it. There is so little of her left.’ The old lady caught her arm.

‘I will.’ Joss hesitated. ‘Mary, will you come and see us? I should like you to meet my little boy, Tom.’

‘No.’ Mary shook her head. ‘No, my dear. I’ll not come to the house if you don’t mind. Best not.’ With that she stepped back into the shadows of her narrow front hall and closed the door almost in Joss’s face.

The graves were there, beyond her father’s. Quite overgrown now, she hadn’t seen the two small white cross headstones side by side in the nettles under the tree. She stood looking down at them for a long time. Samuel John and George Philip. Someone had left a small bowl of white chrysanthemums on each. Joss smiled through her tears. Mary at least had never forgotten them.

Luke and Tom were busy in the coach house when she got home. With one look at their happy oily faces she left them to their mechanical endeavours and clutching the notebook retreated to the study. The sunshine through the window had warmed the room, and she smiled a little to herself as she stooped and throwing on some logs, coaxed the fire back into life. In a few moments it would be almost bearable. Curling up on the arm chair in the corner she opened the notebook at the first page. Laura Manners – Commonplace Book . The inscription in the flyleaf of this notebook was in the same flamboyant hand as that in the other. She glanced at the first few pages and felt a sharp pang of disappointment. She had assumed her mother would have written the poems herself, but these were bits and pieces copied out from many authors – a collection obviously of her favourite poems and pieces of prose. There was Keats’s ode To Autumn , a couple of Shakespeare sonnets, some Byron, Gray’s Elegy .

Slowly, page after page she leafed through, reading a few lines here and there, trying to form a picture of her mother’s taste and education from the words on the page. Romantic; eclectic, occasionally obscure. There were lines from Racine and Dante in the original French and Italian, a small verse from Schiller. She was something of a linguist then. There were even Latin epigrams. Then suddenly the mood of the book changed. Stuck between two pages was a single sheet, old and torn, very frail, held in place by tape which had discoloured badly. It was an India paper page, torn, Joss guessed from a Roman Missal. On it, in English and in Latin, was a prayer for the blessing of Holy Water.

… I do this that the evil spirit may be driven away from thee, and that thou mayest banish the enemy’s power entirely, uprooting and casting out the enemy himself with all his rebel angels …

… so that whatsoever in the homes of the faithful or elsewhere shall have been sprinkled with it may be delivered from everything unclean and hurtful. Let no breath of contagion hover there, no taint of corruption. May all the wiles of the lurking enemy come to nothing, and may anything that threatens the safety or peace of those who dwell there be put to flight by the sprinkling of this water …

Joss stared round, letting the book fall into her lap, realising she had been reading the words out loud. The house was very silent.

Exorcizo te, in nomine Dei † Patris omnipotentis, et in nomine Jesu † Christi Filii ejus, Domine nostri, et in virtute Spiritus † Sancti …

The devil himself lives here …

Alan Fairchild’s words echoed through her head.

For several minutes she sat staring into space then, closing the notebook she stood up and going to the desk, she reached for the phone.

David Tregarron was in the staff room marking test papers when her call was put through.

‘So, how is life in the outback, Jocelyn?’ His booming voice seemed to echo round the room.

‘Quite a strain actually.’ She frowned. The words had come spontaneously, accurately, instead of the easier platitude she had framed in her head. ‘I hope you can come and see us soon.’ She sounded so much more desperate than she had intended. ‘David, would you do me a favour? When you are next in the British Library reading room would you look up Belheddon for me and see if you can find anything about its history?’

There was a slight pause as he tried to interpret her tone. ‘Of course I will. From what you said before it sounds like a wonderful old place. I’m looking forward to my first visit.’

‘So am I.’ She heard the fervour in her voice with surprise. ‘I’d like to know what the name means.’

‘Belheddon? That sounds fairly straightforward. Bel – beautiful, of course, or if the name is much older it might come from a Celtic derivation, like the Irish, which if I remember it rightly, has much the same meaning as Aber in Wales or Scotland – the mouth of a river. Or it could come from the old gods Bel, you remember Beltane, or Baal from the Bible who came to represent the devil himself. Then I think heddon means heather – or a temple on a heathery hill or some such –’

‘What did you say?’ Joss’s voice was sharp.

‘A temple –’

‘No, before that. About the devil.’

‘Well, it’s just a possibility I suppose. Rather romantic really. Perhaps the original site housed a temple.’

‘There’s a local legend, David, that the devil lives here.’ Her voice was strangely thin and harsh.

‘And you sound afraid rather than amused. Oh, come on Joss. You’re not letting the credulous yokels get to you, are you?’ The jovial manner had dropped away abruptly. ‘You don’t believe in any of this, surely?’

‘Of course not.’ She laughed. ‘I’d just like to know why the house has this reputation. It is a bit sort of dramatic!’

‘Well, I suppose it is on dark nights with the wind howling round. I must say, I can’t wait to come and see it.’ There was a pause. ‘I don’t suppose I could look in this weekend, could I? I know it’s getting awfully near Christmas but term’s practically over. I can look a few things up for you; find a few books, perhaps?’

She laughed, extraordinarily pleased. ‘Of course you can come! That would be wonderful. One thing we are not short of is space, providing you pack enough warm clothes. It’s like the Arctic here.’

When Luke came in, carrying a filthy small boy, both of them cold and terribly pleased with themselves Joss was smiling to herself as she stirred a huge pan of soup. ‘David’s coming up the day after tomorrow.’

‘Great.’ Luke held Tom under one arm over the sink and reached for the Swarfega. ‘It will be nice to see him. He’ll bring news no doubt of dear old London and civilisation.’ He chuckled, smearing green goo all over his small son’s hands as Tom crowed with delight. Luke glanced at her over the sticky curls. ‘He’s not going to make you feel you’re missing out, is he? Rural stagnation instead of academia.’