Barbara Erskine - House of Echoes

‘Joss!’ Luke stared round. ‘You realise what I could do here, don’t you! I’ve had the most brilliant idea! Looking for jobs in London will probably be a dead loss, but I could work here!’ In three steps he had reached one of the doors. Pulling it open he peered into an empty garage. ‘Cars! I can restore cars. I can start again. My God, there would be room to do it, too. It would give us a living of sorts.’ Excitedly he peered into the stable and outbuildings.

Behind him Joss was smiling. The house was working its spell. She could see his depression lifting as she watched. She stood there for a few minutes more, then, unable to resist it any longer she turned alone to the back door.

It was swollen with damp and grated against the York stone flags of a narrow dark hallway. ‘Wait for me!’ Coming up behind her, Luke caught her hand. ‘I think this is somewhere I should carry you over the threshold, don’t you?’

Giggling, Joss clung to his neck as he swept her off her feet and he walked with her into the darkness of the first room down the passage. There he set her down, panting. ‘My God, woman. What have you been eating? Bricks?’

They stared round in silence. The huge room was shadowy, a pale, reluctant light filtering around the edge of the shutters. ‘It’s the kitchen,’ Joss whispered. A huge fireplace took up the whole of one wall. In it a double size cooking range slumbered like some great black engine. On it stood an iron kettle. In the centre of the room stood a scrubbed oak table with round it six bentwood chairs. One was pulled out, as though the person seated on it had only a moment before stood up and left the room. To the left a glass-fronted dresser, dusty and hung with spiders’ webs, showed the gleam of china.

Silently, hand in hand like two trespassing children, Joss and Luke moved towards the door in the far wall. Over it a board hung with a line of fifteen bells, each controlled by a wire, showed how in days gone by the servants had been summoned from the kitchen quarters to other parts of the house.

Beyond the kitchen they found a bewildering range of small pantries and sculleries, and at the end of the passage a baize-lined door. They stopped.

‘Upstairs and downstairs.’ Luke smiled, running his hands over the green door lining. ‘Are you ready to go above stairs?’

Joss nodded. She was trembling. Luke pushed the door open and they peered out into a broad corridor. Again it was shadowy, bisected by fine lines of dusty sunlight. Here the scrubbed flags finished and they found themselves walking on broad oak boards which once had carried gleaming polish. Instead of an array of exotic carpets a drift of dried leaves had blown in under the front door and lay scattered over it.

To the right on one side of the front door they found the dining room. A long table stood there in the shuttered darkness, surrounded by – awed, Luke counted out loud – twelve chairs. To the left a large door, much older than anything they had seen so far, Gothic, churchlike, led into an enormous, high-ceilinged room. Amazed they stood staring up at the soaring arched beams and the minstrel’s gallery, screened by oak panelling, carved into intricate arches. ‘My God.’ Joss took a few steps forward. ‘It’s a time warp.’ She stared round with a shiver. ‘Oh Luke.’

There was very little furniture. Two heavy oak coffer chests stood against the walls and there was a small refectory table in the middle of the floor. The fireplace still held the remains of the last fire that had been lit there.

On the far side of the room an archway hung with a dusty curtain led into a further hallway from which a broad oak staircase curved up out of sight into the darkness. They stood peering up.

‘I think we should open some shutters,’ Luke said softly. ‘What this house needs is some sunlight.’ He felt vaguely uneasy. He glanced at Joss. Her face was white in the gloomy darkness and she looked unhappy. ‘Come on, Joss, let’s let in the sun.’

He strode towards the window and spent several minutes wrestling with the bars which held the shutters closed. Finally he managed to lift them out of their sockets and he threw open the shutters. Sunshine poured in across the dusty boards. ‘Better?’ He hadn’t been imagining it. She was deathly pale.

She nodded. ‘I’m stunned.’

‘Me too.’ He looked round. ‘What this room needs is a suit of armour or two. You know, we could run this place as a hotel! Fill it with tourists. Make our fortune.’ He strode across the floor to a door beyond the hall and threw it open. ‘The library!’ he called. ‘Come and look! There are enough books here even for you!’ He disappeared from sight and she heard the rattle of iron on wood as once again he fought with a set of shutters.

She did not follow him for a moment. Turning round slowly she stared about her at the empty room. The silence of the house was beginning to oppress her. It was as if it were listening, watching, holding its breath.

‘Joss! Come and see.’ Luke was in the doorway. He was beaming. ‘It’s wonderful.’

Joss gave herself a small shake. With a shiver she followed him through the doorway and immediately she felt better. ‘Luke!’ It was, as he had said, wonderful. A small, bright room, full of mellow autumn light, looking down across the back lawns towards the small lake. The walls were lined to the ceiling with books except where an old roll top desk stood, with in front of it a shabby leather chair. Round the fire stood a cluster of three arm chairs, a side table, an overflowing magazine rack and a sewing basket, still with its silks and needles, witness to the last hours of Laura Duncan’s occupancy.

Joss stared round, a lump in her throat. ‘It is as if she just stood up and walked out. She didn’t even take her sewing things –’ She ran her hand over the contents of the basket. There were tears in her eyes.

‘Come on.’ Luke put his arm around her again. ‘Everything was planned. She didn’t need her sewing things, that’s all. She was looking forward to a life of leisure in France. I bet in her shoes, you wouldn’t take your darning needles either.’ He squeezed her shoulder. ‘The desk is locked. Is the key there, in the box?’

It wasn’t. They tried a succession before they gave up and resumed their tour of the house. The only other room on the ground floor was a small sitting room which looked out across the drive. The squeaking shutters opened reluctantly to show their car, already dusted with crisp brown leaves from the chestnut tree on the edge of the front lawn. On the grass a trio of rabbits grazed unconcerned within a few feet of its wheels.

At the foot of the stairs Joss paused. Above them a gracious sweep of oak treads curved around out of sight into the darkness. Aware that Luke was immediately behind her she still hesitated a moment, her hand on the carved newel post.

‘What’s the matter?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I just had the feeling – as if there was someone up there. Waiting.’

Luke rumpled her hair affectionately. ‘Perhaps there is. The skeleton in the cupboard. Come on, let Uncle Luke go first.’ He took the stairs two at a time, disappearing around the corner and out of sight.

Joss did not move. She heard his footsteps echoing across the floor, the now familiar rattle of shutters and suddenly the stairs above her head were flooded with light. ‘Come on. No skeletons.’ His footsteps crossed the floor again, growing fainter until she could hear them no more.

‘Luke!’ Suddenly she was frightened. ‘Luke, where are you?’ Slowly she began to climb.

The stairs creaked slightly beneath her weight. The polished handrail was smooth and cold under her palm. She looked up, her concentration focused on the upper landing as she rounded the curve towards it. A broad corridor ran crossways in front of her with three doors opening off it. ‘Luke?’