Barbara Erskine - House of Echoes

‘I know.’

‘Have you got any ideas?’ He glanced at her sideways.

She laughed. ‘You know I have, you idiot! And you know I’ve already made some notes on how to expand that story. I’m going to take it back to when my hero is a boy living in a house a bit like this one. He’s a page, learning to be a gentleman, and then he gets mixed up in the wars between the white rose and the red.’

‘Great stuff.’ Luke dropped a kiss on her head. ‘Perhaps they’ll televise it and make us millionaires!’

Laughing she pushed him away. ‘It’s got to be written and published first, so why don’t you go out and play cars while I make a start right now.’

She had found an empty notebook of her mother’s in one of the drawers. Sitting down at the desk she opened it at the first page and picked up a felt-tipped pen. The rest of the story was there, hovering at the edge of her mind. She could see her hero so clearly as a boy. He would be about fourteen at the beginning of the novel. He was tall, with sandy hair and a spattering of freckles across his nose. He wore a velvet cap with a jaunty feather and he worked for the lord of Belheddon.

She stared out of the window. She could see a robin sitting on the bare branches of the climbing rose outside. It seemed to be staring in, its bright eyes black and intent. He was called Richard, her hero, and the daughter of the house, the heroine of her short story, his age exactly, was called Anne.

Georgie!

She shook her head slightly. The robin had hopped onto the window sill. It was pecking at something in the soft moss which grew around the stone of the mullions.

Georgie!

The voice was calling in the distance. The robin heard it. She saw it stand suddenly still then with a bob of its head it turned and flew off. Joss’s fingers tightened round her pen. Richard was of course in love with Anne, even at the beginning, but it was a sweet innocent adolescent love that only later was to be dragged into adventure and war as opposing sides brought tension and dissent and murder to the house.

She wrote tentatively, sketching in the first scene, twice glancing at the window, and once at the door as she thought she heard the scuffle of feet. In the fireplace the logs shifted and spat companionably, once filling the room with sweet-smelling smoke as a gust of wind outside blew back down the chimney.

Georgie! Where are you ?

The voice this time was exasperated. It was right outside the door. Joss stood up, her heart pounding, as she went to pull it open. The hallway outside was empty, the cellar door closed and locked.

Shutting the study door she leaned with her back against it, biting her lip. It was her imagination, of course. Nothing more. Stupid. Idiot. The silence of the empty house was getting to her. Wearily she pushed herself away from the door and went back to the desk.

On her notebook lay a rose.

She stared at it in astonishment. ‘Luke?’ She glanced round the room, puzzled. ‘Luke, where are you?’

A log fell with a crackle in the fire basket and a shower of sparks illuminated the soot-stained brickwork of the chimney.

‘Luke, where are you, you idiot?’ She picked up the flower and held it to her nose. The white petals were ice cold and without scent. She shivered and laid it down. ‘Luke?’ Her voice was sharper. ‘I know you’re there.’ She strode across to the window and pulled the curtain away from the wall. There was no sign of him.

‘Luke!’ She ran towards the door and tugged it open. ‘Luke, where are you?’

There was no answering shout.

‘Luke!’ The scent of resinous pine was stronger than ever as she ran towards the kitchen.

Luke was standing over the sink scrubbing his hands. ‘Hello. I wondered where you were –’ He broke off as she threw her arms around his neck. Reaching for the towel on the draining board he dried his hands and then gently he pushed her away. ‘Joss? What is it? What’s happened?’

‘Nothing.’ She clung to him again. ‘I’m being neurotic and hormonal. It’s allowed, remember?’

‘You’re not going to let me forget, love.’ He guided her to the table and pushed her into the armchair at the end of it. ‘Now. Tell me.’

‘The rose. You put a rose on my desk …’ her voice trailed away. ‘You did, didn’t you.’

Luke frowned, puzzled. With a quick glance at her he sat down next to her. ‘I’ve been out working on the car, Joss. It seemed a good idea before it got too dark. The lights in the coach house are not good and it’s freezing out there. Lyn is still out with Tom. They went to collect some fir cones but they’ll be back at any moment, unless they came past me without my noticing. Now what’s this about a rose?’

‘It appeared on my desk.’

‘And that frightened you? You cuckoo, David must have left it.’

‘I suppose so.’ She sniffed sheepishly. ‘I thought I heard –’ she broke off. She had been about to say, ‘Someone calling Georgie,’ but she stopped herself in time. If she had she was going mad. It was her imagination, working overtime in a shadowy too-silent house.

‘Where is this rose? Let’s fetch it in.’ Luke suddenly stood up. ‘Come on, then I’ll help you put the supper on for the infant prodigy. He’s going to refuse to go to bed until he’s had his money’s worth of the Christmas tree this evening.’

The fire in the study had died to ashes. Stooping Luke threw on a couple more logs as Joss walked over to the desk. Her pen lay on the page, a long dash of ink witness to the haste with which she had thrown it down. Next to it lay a dried rose bud, the petals curled and brown, thin and crackly as paper. She picked it up and stared at it. ‘It was fresh – cold.’ She touched it with the tip of her finger. The petals felt like tissue; a crisped curled margin of the leaf crumbling to nothing as she touched it.

Luke glanced at her. ‘Imagination, old thing. I expect it fell out of one of those pigeon holes. You said they were full of your mother’s rubbish.’ Gently he took the rose out of her hand. Walking over to the fire he tossed it into the flames and in a fraction of a second it had blazed up and disappeared.

Lydia’s notebook fell open at the marker, a large dried leaf which smelled faintly and softly of peppermint.

16th March, 1925. He has returned. My fear grows hourly. I have sent Polly to the Rectory for Simms and I have despatched the children with nanny to Pilgrim Hall with a note to Lady Sarah beseeching her to keep them all overnight. Apart from the servants I am alone.

Joss looked up, her eyes drawn to the dusty attic window. The sun was slanting directly into the room, lighting the beige daisies which were all that was still visible on a wall paper faded by the years. In spite of the warmth of the sun behind the glass she found she was shivering, conscious of the echoing rooms of the empty house below her.

The rest of the page was empty. She turned it and then the next and the next after that. All were blank. The next entry was dated April 12th, nearly a month after the first.

And now it is Easter. The garden is full of daffodils and I have gathered baskets of them to decorate every room. The slime from their stems stained my gown – a reprimand perhaps for my attempts to climb from the pit of despair. The best of the flowers I have saved for my little one’s grave.

April 14th. Samuel has taken the children to his mama. Without Nanny I cannot look after them.

April 15th. Polly has left. She was the last. Now I am truly alone. Except for it.

April 16th. Simms came again. He begged me to leave the house empty. He brought more Holy Water to sprinkle, but I suspect like all the perfumes of Arabia, even jugs full of the miraculous liquid cannot wipe away the blood. I cannot go to the Rectory. In the end I sent him away …