Barbara Erskine - House of Echoes

David opened the book with careful fingers. ‘Here we are. The first entry is dated 1694.’

‘And the last?’ Joss craned over his shoulder.

He turned the heavy handmade page. ‘Samuel John Duncan, born 10th September 1946.’

‘Sammy.’ Joss swallowed hard. Neither Georgie nor she, the rejected member of the Duncan family, were there.

David stood back from the table, half diffident, half reluctant to relinquish his treasure. ‘Go on, have a look.’

Joss sat down, leaning forward, her finger on the page. ‘There she is,’ she said, ‘the Sarah in the church. Sarah Rushbrook married William Percival 1st May 1861. Then Julia Mary born 10th April 1862, died 17th June 1862 – she only lived two months.’

‘It was a cruel time. Infant mortality was appalling, Joss. Remember your statistics,’ David put in sternly. He was suddenly strangely uncomfortable with this close encounter with the past.

Joss went on. ‘“Mary Sarah, born 2nd July 1864. Married John Bennet spring 1893. Our firstborn, Henry John was born the 12th October 1900” – she must have written that. “Our daughter Lydia” – I suppose that’s my grandmother – “was born in 1902” and then, oh no –’ she stopped for a moment. ‘Little Henry John died in 1903. He was only three years old. That entry is in a different handwriting. The next entry is dated 24th June, 1919. “In the year 1903, three months after the death of our son Henry, my husband John Bennet disappeared. I no longer expect his return. This day my daughter, Lydia Sarah, married Samuel Manners who has come to Belheddon in his turn.”’

‘That sounds a bit cryptic.’ Luke was sitting opposite her, his attention suddenly caught. ‘What’s next?’

‘“Our son, Samuel, was born on 30th November, 1920. Three days later my mother, Mary Sarah Bennet, died of the influenza.”’

‘Incredible.’ David shook his head. ‘It’s a social history in miniature. I wonder if she caught the tail end of the great flu epidemic which spread round the world after the First World War. Poor woman. So she probably never saw her grandson.’

‘I wonder what happened to poor old John Bennet?’ Thoughtfully Luke sat back in his chair.

‘There is a letter in the study,’ Joss said slowly, reverting to a previous thought. ‘A note from Lydia to her cousin John Duncan telling him about her son’s birth. She must have written it straight away, before she realised her mother was dying.’ She glanced back at the page. ‘She had three more children, John, Robert and Laura, my mother, each born two years apart and then –’ she paused. ‘Look, she herself died the year after Laura’s birth. She was only twenty-three years old!’

‘How sad.’ Luke reached out and touched her hand. ‘It was all a long time ago, Joss. You mustn’t get depressed about it, you know.’

She smiled. ‘I’m not really. It’s just so strange. Reading her letter, holding it in my hand. It brings her so close.’

‘I expect the house is full of letters and documents about the family,’ David put in. ‘The fact that your mother obviously left everything just as it was is wonderful from the historian’s point of view. Just wonderful. There must be pictures of these people. Portraits, photos, daguerreotypes.’ He rocked back on his chair, balancing against the table with his finger tips. ‘You must draw up a family tree.’

Joss smiled. ‘It would be interesting. Especially for Tom Tom when he’s big.’ She shook her head slowly, turning back to the endpapers where the scrawled Italic inscriptions, faded to brown, raced across the page. The first four generations, she realised, had been filled in by the same hand – a catching up job in the front of the new Bible perhaps. After that, year after year, generation after generation, each new branch of the family was recorded by a different pen, a different name. ‘If I copy these out, I can take the list over to the church and find out how many of them were buried there,’ she said. ‘I wonder what did happen to John Bennet. There is no further mention of him. It would be interesting to see if he was buried here. Do you think he had an accident?’

‘Perhaps he was murdered.’ Luke chuckled. ‘Not every name in this book can have died a gentle natural death …’

‘Luke –’ Joss’s protest was interrupted by a sudden indignant wail from the baby alarm.

‘I’ll go.’ Luke was already on his feet. ‘You two put away that Bible and start to think about supper.’

Joss stood up and closed the heavy book, frowning at the echoing crescendo of sobs. ‘I should go –’

‘Luke can deal with it.’ David put his hand on her arm. He left it there just a moment too long and moved it hastily. ‘Joss. Don’t push Luke out with all this, will you. The family. The history. The house. It’s a lot for him to take on board.’

‘It’s a lot for me to take on board!’ She thumped the heavy book down on the dresser as over the intercom they heard the sound of a door opening, and then Luke’s voice, sharp with fear. ‘Tom! What have you done?’

Joss glanced at David, then she turned and ran for the door. When she arrived in the nursery, with David close on her heels, Tom was in Luke’s arms. The cot was over by the window.

‘It’s OK. He’s all right.’ He surrendered the screaming child. ‘He must have rocked the cot across the floor. It is a bit sloping up here. Then he woke up in a different place and had a bit of a fright, didn’t you old son?’

He ruffled the little boy’s hair.

Joss clutched Tom close, feeling the small body trembling violently against her own. ‘Silly sausage. What happened? Did you rock the cot so much it moved?’

Tom snuffled. Already his eyes were closing. ‘It might have been a dream,’ Luke whispered. ‘For all that noise, he’s barely awake, you know.’

Joss nodded. She waited while he pushed the cot back into the corner and turned back the coverings. ‘Tom Tom go back to bed now,’ she murmured gently. The little boy said nothing, the long honey blond eyelashes already heavy against his cheeks.

‘Clever invention, that alarm,’ David commented when they were once more back in the kitchen. ‘Does he often do that?’

Joss shook her head. ‘Not very. Moving has unsettled him a bit, that’s all. And he’s excited about Christmas. Alice and Joe and Lyn will soon be back. Lyn has agreed to come and help me look after him as a part-time nanny. And on top of all that Luke has promised him we will do the tree tomorrow.’ She was laying the table, her careless movements quick and imprecise. David leaned across and neatened the knives and forks, meticulously uncrossing two knife blades with a shake of his head. ‘The devil apart, do you think this house is haunted?’ he asked suddenly, squaring the cutlery with neat precision.

‘Why?’ Luke turned from the stove, wooden spoon in hand and stared at him. ‘Have you seen something?’

‘Seen, no.’ David sat down slowly.

‘Heard then?’ Joss met his eye. The voices. The little boys’ voices. Had he too heard them?

David shrugged. ‘No. Nothing precise. Just a feeling.’

The feeling had been in Tom’s bedroom, but he was not going to say so. It was strange. A coldness which was not physical cold – the Dimplex had seen to that. More a cold of – he caught himself with something like a suppressed laugh. He was going to describe it to himself as a cold of the soul.

‘Presents, food, blankets, hot-water bottles. I’m like a Red Cross relief van!’ Lyn had driven into the courtyard next morning, her old blue Mini groaning under the weight of luggage and parcels. ‘Mum and Dad are coming back on Wednesday, but I thought I’d give you a hand.’ She smiled shyly at David. ‘I’m going to be Tom’s nanny so Joss can write world-shaking best sellers!’