Fiercombe Manor (37 page)

He looked at me oddly.

“There was nothing of any interest in there when I used that room. I think Mrs. J kept spare blankets inside, something of that sort. As I said, I never go in there now. I sleep at the other end of the house these days, now that it's up to me.”

“Yes, I think it's more or less untouched from your days there. Although it's strange, it's not dusted or anything—and the door is kept locked.”

He frowned. “Yes, that's not like Mrs. Jelphs at all. So what's left?”

“An old gramophone and some odds and ends. Apart from the dust, it didn't look as though it had changed much at all since you were a boy in there. It's as though it's been preserved in aspic. Actually, I went there twice yesterday.”

I looked up at him and could see he was intrigued, even slightly amused.

I took a breath. “The first time I found something in the window seat, but then, before I had a chance to look properly, I . . . well, I suppose I got a bit scared. I had put the gramophone on and . . . oh, it sounds ridiculous. Anyway, last night Mrs. Jelphs's back was
giving her a lot of trouble, and so she went to bed early. I knew then that I had to go back, look again.

“It was nearly dark by that time, and the light wouldn't come on, so I had to wipe off some of the dust on the window glass to let the last of the day in. It felt a bit sinister in there, so I went through what was in the window seat quite quickly. I didn't look at the last thing I came to at all, thinking it was just a bit of cardboard. I wonder now if it was another photograph.”

“Another photograph?”

“Yes, the first thing I found, wrapped in a blanket, was a sepia photograph of Elizabeth Stanton. I suppose she was your aunt. I never thought of it like that.”

It was odd that she was connected to the present like that, her marriage bonds tying her to the flesh-and-blood man who looked at me now. It made her seem closer than ever.

“Hugh Morton told me that there was only ever one photograph of her taken that didn't turn out blurred or spoiled in some way,” I continued. “He said that Edward Stanton—your uncle—hadn't liked it, so it had never been hung, but Hugh had seen it once and thought it must still be hidden away somewhere. She was very beautiful.”

“That's about the only thing I know about her,” said Tom. “Ropes and ropes of dark hair, apparently, like a Spanish gypsy. And great big eyes, like you. She was famous for them.”

I coloured at the implied compliment but managed to continue. “I forgot about the other photograph, though, if that's what it even was. You see, it was after that that I stupidly tripped and fell, and then it . . .”

“Wait a minute—that was when you fell?”

“Yes, it was dark and the stairs are steep and I just lost my balance. Listen, please don't tell Mrs. Jelphs, because she warned me
off them, but . . . well, I was on the old stairs. The narrow ones at this end of the house. I know it was silly of me.”

“It was. There's no light at all on that staircase. I never used it as a boy, I didn't like it. You might have broken your neck, Alice. Are you sure the child is all right?”

“Yes.” I swallowed at the memory of how I'd felt, and as if the baby heard, I felt him flutter again. I put my hand on my stomach. “I had a horrible day. I convinced myself that I was going to lose him.”

“Him? I noticed you said that before.”

I shrugged. “Ever since I've really thought of the baby at all, I've thought of him as a boy.”

“Well, I'm glad you've only got a few bruises to show for your tumble.”

He picked up his whisky and then put it down again. “So what do you think the other photograph was of, if it even is a photograph?”

“Perhaps another one of Elizabeth that no one else knows about.”

As I said it, an image of the ruined little boot came back to me with total clarity. There was something about it that I hadn't liked. I hadn't even wanted to touch it.

“Tom, do you mind if I have a sip of your whisky? I think I would like some after all.”

He passed me the tumbler. The amber liquid scorched its way down my throat and pooled warmly in my stomach. I took a deep breath.

“Shall we go and have a look?” I said quietly. “Will you come with me?”

He hesitated. “Well, I suppose we could. But we'll make sure there's some light on the situation this time.”

He picked up one of the oil lamps Mrs. Jelphs always lit in case the electricity failed and turned it up as high as it would go.

It was dark in the hallway, and the lamp made it seem darker. When we got to the foot of the old staircase, the light shining in through the leaded window was cold and faint. There was no moon, and the diamond patterns on the floor were hard to make out. I rubbed my arms, but the gooseflesh that had risen on them remained. Tom went straight towards the stairs, but I hung back.

“Come on,” he said. “Let's get this over with. Did you lock it again?”

I shook my head. I couldn't think what I'd done with the key.

“Tom, can we go back to the sitting room?” I said urgently. “I don't think I want to go anymore. I feel like I might faint.”

He took my arm and led me back to the sitting room. “You've gone pale,” he said softly. For a moment I thought he was going to stroke my cheek.

Instead, he shifted the heavy lamp to his other hand.

“Now, you stay here, and I'll go and get this blasted photograph.”

He was off before I had time to say anything. I hadn't warned him about the boot or the poor little blanket, yellowed with age.

He was back within a couple of minutes, pleased that he'd used the stairs he had disliked as a boy. I thought he must have wanted to prove something to himself in going that way, as well as to the nursery.

“I found this at the top of the stairs.” He showed me the key. “You must have dropped it when you lost your balance. I'll put it back later, before Mrs. J misses it.”

He put down the lamp and then sat down.

“You were right about Elizabeth,” he said, smiling sadly. “What a beauty she was. There was some other stuff in there, but it didn't seem to be anything interesting. I got this, though, as instructed.”

He held up the rectangle of stiff cardboard, which I could see now was a sort of envelope. He sat down and opened it, bringing it close to his face to study it.

“What is it?” I said, leaning forward to look.

He pulled back a little so I couldn't see it. “You were right, it is another photograph.”

“Is it of Elizabeth again? Let me see.”

He paused before handing it over and then took a gulp of whisky.

It was old; you could tell that from the brittle feel of it.

Although I had only imagined her, dreamt of her, I felt sure it was the daughter that Elizabeth had given birth to, the little girl who had owned the velveteen hare. I suppose I had thought of her often since the dream I'd had of her, weeks earlier.

As Elizabeth had predicted in her diary, she was fair, not dark like her mother. In the photograph, her silvery hair had been brushed until it gleamed and then fastened low at the side of her head with a dark ribbon. She was dressed in white, and someone had tied a sash around her waist that matched the ribbon in her hair. She was sitting in a broad, high-backed armchair that dwarfed her little frame, half a dozen stiffly plump cushions around her. It was difficult to see in such a small photograph—it was perhaps only four inches long by three across—but her eyes looked strange to me. Not empty, as I had seen them in the dream, but hard, almost flat.

I handed back the picture. There was something peculiar about it that made me not want to touch it any longer. The overall effect, strangely, was anything but childlike.

I looked up at Tom. “Do you know who she is?”

“No idea. Perhaps she lived at Stanton House. It looks about the right period. I've no idea how this got in the nursery, though. As I said before, I don't know much about any of the family history,
even the more recent stuff. Especially that. I don't even know what happened to Elizabeth.

“I know only a little more about my uncle, and that I found out from Henry before he died. Lord knows where he got it from. Apparently, Edward Stanton rattled through most of the family money in a decade—not that there was such an enormous fortune to begin with, frankly. My poor father didn't just inherit a virtually empty coffer, he was also saddled with his brother's debts. From what hearsay I picked up from my own brother, Edward died in London after leaving the valley for the last time.”

I realised I was leaning forward in my seat, the baby pressing painfully against my ribs. I hadn't even noticed.

“I'm not sure if they had any children,” Tom continued. “In truth, I suppose I had rather assumed they hadn't—at least none who survived beyond childhood. But perhaps this little one was their daughter, though she doesn't look much like Elizabeth, and she died young. There was certainly no surviving son, or my father wouldn't have inherited, and that's the one thing I do know: the estate passed to him a few years before I was born. I know there were debts on my uncle's side, and lots of them, but I suspect there was a great deal of gambling and drinking involved too.”

He paused and looked wryly at the glass in front of him.

“My mother and father must know all this, of course, but they would never speak of it. Even before Henry, that sort of talk would have been dismissed as superstition and gossip: old ghosts and needless raking up of the past when the thing was to go forward, not hark back. Of course, since 1914 there's a different reason why we can't be reminded of what went before. My mother would leave the room if I tried to. It would make her unwell. She was the one who insisted that the lake be filled in after Henry drowned. She said it should have been done long before. It took the men three
days. There's still a great gouge in the ground at the back of the beech woods, where they dug up the earth to fill it.”

I didn't know what to say and found my eye drawn back towards the photograph of the little girl. I was trying to remember exactly what Elizabeth had written about her daughter when Tom spoke again. His voice was gentle.

“What are you thinking about, Alice? You looked then as though you were a long way away.”

I looked at him rather blankly. “Yes, I suppose I was. Perhaps it's something to do with him”—I placed my hand on my stomach—“but I can't stop thinking about what happened to Elizabeth. I think that picture is of her child. Perhaps she took after her father in colouring. You're fair.”

Something held me back from telling him about the diary in the summerhouse. Just as with Hugh Morton, I felt as though Elizabeth was my secret, and I was reluctant to share her.

He watched me for a while as he sipped his drink.

“What is it?” I said finally.

“You never mention him at all.”

“Who?”

He reddened slightly. “Your husband. I'm sorry, I shouldn't intrude on your grief again. I should know that better than most. It's the only time you look guarded, though—it was the same when we were walking back from the meadow, and I asked then. I'm sorry, though.”

I swallowed, suddenly alert. “It's all right. I . . . we hadn't known each other very long when we were married. It sounds very callous, but I don't think of him much. I can barely imagine my life in London now.”

I hated lying to him even more than to Mrs. Jelphs, although the last of it was true. It dawned on me then with complete certainty that
I wasn't in love with James anymore. It had simply stopped. I made myself picture him, but his image had finally lost any potency.

I realised that Tom was looking at me intently, as though he was deciding something. Then he put down his glass and took my hand and pressed it to his lips. We looked at each other for a long moment, his mouth hot against my cool hand, until I found myself pulling away.

“What is it?” he said. “What's the matter?”

His tone had sharpened, but his eyes were vulnerable. That made me hesitate, and in the lull he reached forward. I thought he was going to kiss me on the mouth, but something made him hesitate, and in the new lull, I found myself talking.

“We can't,” I said crossly, because I wanted him to. “Mrs. Jelphs might come in.”

“Very well,” he said quietly.

Awkwardly, we both got to our feet. I turned away to face the window, my mind as well as my heart racing with what had just happened. The darkness outside was complete, and I could see both of us clearly reflected in the window, our outlines distorted slightly by the old glass. He was standing behind me, and I couldn't tell if he was looking at me in the window or not. I was looking at him. I was about to say something, attempt to laugh the whole episode off, when he turned and walked towards the door. Too proud to move, I watched him go.

“I'll leave you in peace then, Alice. I'm sorry if I've offended you.”

I couldn't stop myself finally turning then, but he'd already gone, and this time there was no sound as he made his way along the dark hall towards the staircase.

I felt close to tears after he left me there. I was angry with him for wrong-footing me, and I was angry with myself for my own desire, which had sidled up and then pulled me under like a
retreating wave. I waited a while, pretending that I was calming myself down when in fact I was hoping he might come back. He didn't.

When I got to bed, it took me a long time to get to sleep. When I did finally drift away, my dreams were full of Tom and the lake and his brother—the latter a curiously flat, two-dimensional figure that my mind had pieced together from the photographs I'd seen. The little girl—her strange likeness alone on the table downstairs—didn't appear in those dreams, and for that, at least, I was grateful.