The Ghost Tree

  ‘What use is a title when your friends do not recognise me? When I am shunned and belittled and mocked.’

  ‘We are both mocked, as is everyone regarded as newsworthy,’ he said, more gently now. He recognised her loneliness. Her own family kept their distance from her as far as he knew, and his acted as though she didn’t exist. He sighed. ‘Sarah, you must realise that you can make this so much easier for yourself. People do not like a shrew.’

  He wished he could take back the word as soon as it left his mouth as he saw the shock and genuine hurt in her eyes. Surely she realised how unpleasant she was to people; she must understand why her servants never stayed, why she had no friends of her own. He moved towards her and held out his hand. ‘My dear, between us we can sort this out.’

  With a sob she threw herself into his arms; he stepped back, but she was clinging to him and he didn’t have the heart to push her away. ‘It will be all right, Sarah.’

  ‘Why?’ she looked up at him, and her eyes had changed. They were Fanny’s eyes. ‘Why don’t you love me any more? Why have you forgotten me?’ Her voice had softened, it was pleading, it was Fanny’s voice. He fell his heart lurch. He reached up without being aware of doing it, to pull off her pretty lace cap, and as her hair tumbled free he could smell the hair dressing that Fanny used, the aroma of sandalwood and orange and musk. The soft lips that reached up to his were Fanny’s lips and the hand that took his, and led him towards the staircase, was Fanny’s hand.

  When he woke he was lying alone on Sarah’s bed. He closed his eyes again with a groan. What had he done? ‘Fanny, my darling, forgive me,’ he murmured out loud; all he could hear were the rattle of wheels and the sound of horses’ hooves on the cobbles outside the window. The room was growing dark. In the distance the night watch called the hour and closer, downstairs, he heard Erskine’s voice as he shouted at his sister who was crying.

  Wearily adjusting his clothing he went downstairs. Candles and a fire had been lit in the sitting room but there was no sign of Sarah. He didn’t bother to call the servant. Letting himself out of the front door he beckoned his coach forward and climbed in. When he reached his house in Arabella Row he called for hot water for a bath and the brandy decanter and drank himself almost insensible as he sat there, barely noticing when Benjamin called a footman to help him heave his master up out of the water, swathed him in towels and guided him to bed. He fell asleep wondering how long it would be before he heard Andrew Farquhar’s spiteful laughter.

  It was already growing dark when Mal turned and made his way back towards home, leaving the door of the chapel wedged wide to let in the cleansing moonlight and the wind and the rain. He already knew he would pull the place down; the gods and creatures of the woods and mountains would take it back for themselves.

  Locking himself into the house he picked up his mobile and pressed Ruth’s number. He discovered his hands were shaking.

  ‘Ruth? I have to talk to you. Are Max and Fin with you? Listen. You need to be careful. The police still haven’t found Timothy. Apparently they were here all day yesterday. They had a helicopter up looking for him in the hills. I’ve just been out with the dogs, up to the chapel and he’d been in there. He’s wrecked the place. Desecrated it.’

  ‘Oh no! Mal. I’m so sorry.’

  They talked for half an hour, then Malcolm went up to his study, staring down bleakly at his desk. Two more of Thomas’s notebooks lay there; they had obviously been supplied to him by a bookseller in the Strand. Mal noted the printed insignia on the back of the flimsy leather covers. Sitting down he opened one. There was no date, it merely said Thursday at the top of the entry, and Thomas launched into his narrative, his writing cramped and hasty, his anguish almost tangibly pouring off the page.

  ‘I am with child!’

  Sarah, swathed in silks and with a new hat, aswirl with egret feathers, stood in the middle of his drawing room in Arabella Row, smiling triumphantly.

  ‘If you are, someone else is the father!’ His shock and disgust were palpable.

  ‘You know that’s not true.’ She was so confident now, this woman. ‘My servants will swear that you have visited me and they will swear they saw you in my bed.’ Her smile was heavy with sickly charm. ‘I have the date exactly when you came to me. The child will be born at Christmas.’ She waited to see what else he was going to say and when he said nothing she turned and sailed out of the room. He heard her shout abuse at the footman when he was slow to open the front door and he heard her call someone else, presumably a maid, as the sharp click of her heels died away. Then the door closed. The house fell silent. He tensed. There was something there, something that had entered the room with Sarah and that had remained when she had gone.

  He walked over to his desk and, stooping, pulled open the bottom drawer. There, in a box, still in its woven bag was the doll that had the power to keep him and his family safe. He picked it up wearily and carried it with him to his chair. Whatever else its powers, it had no magic that would save him from Sarah, but surely it could hold Farquhar at bay. Opening the drawstring that held the bag closed he looked inside. The small figure looked dusty and forlorn and it smelled faintly of nutmeg and cinnamon. The stones that made its eyes were dull.

  Malcolm looked up from the journal. A doll. Thomas referred to the fetish as a doll. Well, perhaps it was. It had legs and arms, well one arm, of sorts, and a head and eyes and perhaps two hundred years ago it looked more like a natural figure.

  He felt vaguely guilty about doing it, invading her privacy even more than he had already, but he couldn’t resist. Taking the stone steps two at a time, round and round up the spiral, he went into Ruth’s room, both dogs following. There was no sign anywhere of the doll. He sighed with relief. She was not likely to have forgotten to take it with her. Even if he wasn’t there to keep her safe, the fetish would watch over her.

  Timothy had slept deeply and it was late afternoon when he finally went downstairs. The house felt very empty. There was still no sign of April. Suddenly suspicious, he turned and ran back up the stairs two at a time and pushed open her bedroom door. Her stuff had gone. He went over and opened the cupboard. It was empty.

  He didn’t see the upturned corner of carpet until he had tripped over it and almost fallen. With a yell of fright, he recovered his balance and stood looking down at the floorboards under it. One of them was slightly raised and, dropping on his knees, he ran his fingers over it. He scrabbled round the edge of it, tearing his nails as he did so. However hard he tried, he couldn’t quite get enough purchase to lift it and with an exclamation of impatience he went downstairs to the kitchen and rummaged through the drawers until he found a sturdy carving knife. It took several seconds of violent waggling to loosen the board and lever it up an inch or so, then wrench it up so violently it snapped it with a loud splintering sound to reveal a dusty space between the joists. He sat back staring down. This was where she had been keeping her stash of money. If it hadn’t been for the carpet he would never have spotted it. He backed away to sit down on the edge of the bed and stared at the empty space for several minutes. The mix of frustration, fury and the sense of abandonment that possessed him as he realised what had happened left him incapable of thought.

  When at last he went back downstairs he crept automatically into the front room to peer through the curtains. He couldn’t see a police car anywhere. Turning back into the kitchen he slumped down at the table, his head in his hands, as the room grew darker around him.

  Time to go out soon, Timo!

  It was a whisper, a faint hiss in his ears.

  Come on. We need some excitement. Who needs April anyway?

  Samuel leaned forward to ask the coachman to stop. ‘I am going to drop you off at your father’s, then I will go on to see his wife,’ he said to Frances. ‘I don’t think it right that you accompany me there.’

  She looked back at him, her face pained. ‘I’m coming with you, Sam,’ she said firmly. ‘The law has decreed that she’s
his legal wife, and that they must stay married, even if separated, so it is right that I as his daughter recognise her as such. You will give her the consolation of the church; I will offer her friendship. We both know neither Davy nor Henry or Thomas will do anything for her, and Margaret has made it clear she will not stay under the same roof. You and I live far away. It is the least I can do to call in just this once.’

  ‘Your father will be furious with you.’ He knew better than to argue.

  She smiled sweetly. ‘My father will not know, at least not from me. If she chooses to tell him, that is her prerogative.’ Her hand strayed to her throat where the golden cross Sam had given her on their wedding anniversary nestled against her skin.

  Sarah kept them waiting ten minutes after they were shown into her sitting room. When she swept in to greet them she was dressed in an extravagant gown of cerise silk. It was obvious at once from the flow of the lightweight fabric that she was pregnant. Horrified, Frances glanced at her husband; Sam refused to meet her eye.

  ‘How kind of you to find the time in your busy schedule to call on your stepmother,’ Sarah said. She seated herself by the fire before asking Frances to sit down. She ignored Samuel and he was forced to collect a chair for himself from where it stood by the table.

  ‘We wanted to see how you were,’ Frances said politely. The woman was younger than herself by a good ten years. ‘And see how the children are. May we see them?’

  ‘Why?’ Sarah’s voice was sharp. ‘None of the family have shown any interest in their welfare so far.’

  ‘And for that I’m sorry,’ Frances went on. ‘Can we make up for that now? I have brought some little gifts for them.’

  ‘We don’t need your gifts,’ Sarah snapped. ‘Your father gives us everything we need, as is his legal duty.’

  She seated herself more comfortably, one hand on her stomach, then she raised her head to gaze at Frances. ‘In some ways you are very like your mother,’ she said at last. ‘You have her eyes.’ Noting with satisfaction the look of shock and distaste that fleetingly crossed Frances’s face, Sarah leaned forward to the side table and reached for a small hand bell. ‘Will you take tea? Now that you’re here, I don’t want to fail in my attempts to behave like a lady.’ The sarcasm of the remark left Frances speechless. This time her helpless glance towards her husband was answered. He sat forward.

  ‘My mother-in-law was a lovely, gentle soul, you must agree.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Sarah retorted. The door opened and she ordered the tea. ‘Thomas has told you how I came to meet him, I presume?’

  ‘We never discuss it,’ Frances managed to reply.

  ‘Fanny introduced us. It was her need to go on speaking to him that led to our first encounter. It was your eldest brother’s wife who arranged the meeting; the American woman. She came to a séance where I was communicating with those who have departed and your mother spoke to her begging to speak to Thomas. He came the moment he heard about me.’ She smiled complacently. ‘So you see, it was your mother who introduced your father to me. I thought you knew.’ There was a long pause as the housemaid and a manservant came in with the tea trays. They set up a table, laid out the cups and saucers and produced a cake which the maid cut into the neat slices, after which with a curtsy and a quick, curious glance at the visitors, she left the room with her companion. Sarah smiled and now her eyes were Fanny’s eyes and her voice was Fanny’s voice. ‘Perhaps you would pour out, my dear,’ she spoke gently to Frances, ‘as you see it is difficult for me to do so in my condition.’

  Frances let out a whimper of misery. ‘Mama?’ she whispered.

  ‘Enough!’ Samuel stood up. ‘You call yourself a medium, I presume, madam?’ His voice was frosty.

  ‘I presume I do.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘I fear the church does not approve of attempts to contact the dead.’

  ‘How sad. I fear I don’t care what the church thinks.’ She gave him an insincere smile. Her voice was her own again. ‘I don’t attempt to contact her, I succeed with ease. I speak for Fanny whenever Thomas asks me.’

  ‘Dear God!’ Frances stood up so abruptly she almost knocked the table over and slopped the tea over the lace cloth. ‘You pretend to be my mother! That’s how you lured Papa into your clutches?’

  ‘I pretend nothing.’ Sarah was still complacent, then she gave a gasp and clutched her stomach.

  ‘What is it?’ Frances was gazing at her in horror. ‘Is it the baby?’

  ‘No.’ Sarah’s voice was deeper now, coarser, her face twisted, her eyes narrow slits. ‘No, it’s not the baby. I met you when you were a child, Frances. Have you forgotten?’ The voice grew louder and more alien.

  ‘Sam!’ Frances clutched at her husband’s arm. He was standing, looking down at Sarah in horror. ‘What’s happening? What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘She’s possessed,’ he cried desperately. ‘In the name of our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, leave this woman!’ he shouted. ‘This cannot be happening! Sarah, Sarah, fight him!’

  ‘She can’t fight me, no one can.’ The voice coming from Sarah’s mouth was a man’s, and obviously amused. ‘Look at her, she’s helpless. Foolish woman.’ Sarah did indeed seem almost unconscious. Her eyes had rolled up in her head and she was lying back in the chair, her arms hanging limply at her sides.

  Samuel glanced at Frances. ‘Get out. Get out of here. Now. Please, my darling, leave this to me.’

  Frances didn’t argue. She ran for the door, pulled it open and fled into the hall. A manservant was lighting a lamp on the table by the front door. ‘Let me out!’ Frances cried. ‘I have to find our carriage!’

  He reached for her coat and somewhat unceremoniously draped it over her shoulders before opening the door, preceding her out onto the pavement and waving forward the coach that had been waiting in a side mews. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he murmured as he handed Frances in. ‘This happens quite often. She’ll be herself again soon.’

  ‘You heard?’ She turned and stared at him. ‘You know she does that and you still work in that house?’

  He nodded. ‘Most of the servants leave at once, but someone has to stay there for her little ones. Cook and I stay. Lord Erskine pays us well.’ He pushed the door closed. ‘You wait there, ma’am, and I’ll fetch your husband.’

  She sat back on the seat, huddled in her coat, amazed to find she was actually shaking. It was several minutes before she noticed the denser patch of shadow on the seat in the opposite corner and heard the quiet sound of mocking laughter.

  Caddy found her vinaigrette and waved it under Frances’s nose then called for brandy and sal volatile, then as Davy took Sam out into the garden of their house for a serious talk, she drew her sister-in-law to the sofa.

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  Frances took a deep breath. She was not proud of herself. She was not a woman to resort to the vapours. Standing up, she went over to the door to make sure it was shut. ‘Sam and I went to see Papa’s wife.’ She steadied her voice with an effort then she related what had happened.

  ‘Oh my!’ Caddy was appalled. ‘I felt so guilty about the way that woman attached herself to your father. When he took up with her we were as shocked as you were. We never ever expected him to marry her. I promised myself I would never tell anyone how he met her. It seemed so shocking.’

  ‘She forced him.’

  ‘Honey, your papa is a strong man, a clever man—’

  ‘Not when it comes to Mama. He loved her to distraction. If he thought he could contact her, speak to her again he would do anything to have her back. I heard her. I heard Mama’s voice coming out of that woman’s mouth. And someone else’s.’ She drew in another quavering breath, clutching at her cross. ‘A man’s voice. She seemed really frightened. Sam tried to bless her, to chase away the demon but it, he, followed me out to the carriage.’

  There was a long silence as Caddy stared at her, speechless.

  ‘I didn’t imagine him. The carriage was so col
d. I could smell him, the stink of him clung to upholstery. He was only there for a few seconds. He disappeared when Sam arrived. Our coachman saw nothing. He said it was a shadow from the carriage lamp.’

  Caddy reached for the brandy glass and pressed it into Frances’s hands again. ‘Have another sip, honey. At least you have Sam to deal with this now. He’s a man of the church. He will know what to do. He and Davy between them will come up with a plan.’

  81

  Ruth sat looking down at the letter before her. The letters were blurred, swimming before her eyes. The cross. The gold cross. Was that the same cross she was wearing now? Her fingers strayed towards it. She had left it on, taking comfort from it, illogically, knowing it had been her mother’s. She could make sure, she could date it from the hallmark, but somehow that didn’t seem important now; she knew in some inner part of herself that it had been Frances’s cross and as such it had been there in the sitting room with Sarah, in the carriage with the ghost of Andrew Farquhar, in the presence of her father, in all the places Frances had been and it had kept her safe.

  Timothy found a bowl in the cupboard then a whisk, then as he reached for the eggs he heard the doorbell ring. He froze. He turned off the light, holding his breath.

  ‘Ruth? Are you there?’ A woman’s voice echoed through the house. She must have put her mouth close to the letter box. ‘Ruth?’

  He waited by the kitchen door without moving.

  She didn’t call again and after a full five minutes he tiptoed out into the hallway and crept into the front room, peering through the gap in the curtains. The street light outside threw a cold light over the doorstep. There was no one there. He guessed it had been the nosy neighbour from next door.

  Walking back into the kitchen he shut the door firmly and went over to the small TV which sat on the worktop. He turned it on quietly and began to break the eggs one by one into the bowl.