House of Echoes

  ‘Well even you can’t like it in this bloody weather. No doubt it will improve when spring comes,’ Lyn relented a little. ‘The vicar came while you were asleep. He brought the parish magazine, a piece of paper asking for jumble and a packet for you from someone called Mary Sutton.’

  Joss stared at her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before? Where is it?’

  ‘In the kitchen. Joss – ’

  As Joss scrambled to her feet she was brought up short by the anguish in Lyn’s voice. ‘You do realise Ma might be dying, don’t you?’

  Joss froze. ‘She’s not dying, Lyn. She’s tired. Not very well – ’

  ‘She’s got to have lots of tests, Joss. Dad told me on the phone. She doesn’t want you to know. She thinks it might upset you.’ Lyn’s voice was suddenly harsh. ‘Apparently they don’t mind upsetting me.’

  ‘Oh, Lyn.’ Joss knelt and put her arm around her sister’s shoulders. ‘You know Mum and Dad. It’s because of the baby. They come from a generation who thought any old thing could upset a baby on the way. They’ve told you because they want your comfort.’

  ‘I wanted to go to be with them. They don’t want me. They want me to stay here.’

  ‘Then stay here.’ Joss’s arms tightened round her. ‘When they need you they will tell you.’

  ‘You think so?’ Lyn’s eyes were full of tears.

  ‘Of course.’

  For a while they sat together in front of the fire, lost in thought, then at last Joss climbed stiffly to her feet. ‘Come on. Let’s make a cup of tea.’

  Lyn nodded. She sniffed. ‘I’ll get the young lord and master up from his rest. You go and put the kettle on.’

  The packet from Mary Sutton was a large envelope. Lyn had left it on the kitchen table with the parish magazine, a flimsy pamphlet with a lurid purple cover. Eyeing the package Joss filled the kettle and put it on the hot plate. Only then did she allow herself to open it. It contained another notebook – by now Joss was familiar with her mother’s jottings; she must have bought a whole stack of them in a job lot somewhere – and a few more letters and some photographs. She glanced at the photos. Sammy and Georgie. She didn’t need the pencilled names on the back to identify them. They were black and white school photos, she guessed, both wearing the same school uniform in spite of the eight-year gap between them. Sammy was very dark – she could see the resemblance to herself – with a thin, intense face and round light coloured eyes, perhaps blue like her own. Georgie was fairer, chubbier, more mischievous. Both had been about six when the photos were taken. She stared down at them for a long time before she saw the note scribbled by Mary. ‘I thought you could have the photos of my boys. The other things I found the other day. You may as well have them too.’

  The notebook was full of loosely scribbled writing. Poems, recipes, and again diary entries, seemingly carelessly and unchronologically scattered. Her mother, she was beginning to think, had a butterfly mind, leaping from here to there, from thought to thought, idea to idea, and from self-conscious musing to the need to confide somewhere, if only to an inanimate diary.

  The two letters were addressed to Mary. Joss picked them up, touched that Mary should part with them. One was dated 1956.

  Take care of my little one, Mary dear. Remember the doctor’s advice about his tummy aches. Kiss him for me and look after him. I’m so much happier to know he is there with you in your mother’s cottage.

  Joss looked up. The letter was headed Belheddon Hall. Why had Laura thought it necessary for Georgie to go and stay with Mary in the village?

  She smiled at Lyn and Tom as they appeared in the doorway. ‘Tea is nearly ready.’

  Next morning, almost before they were up, David had appeared with an extra belated Christmas present for Tom – a furry, hideously green, hippopotamus with which the little boy fell instantly in love and christened for some obscure reason, Joseph. ‘Arimathea or Carpenter?’ David asked mischievously and the little boy answered solemnly, ‘Hittopomatus.’

  In the laughter which followed David glanced at Joss. Pregnancy seemed to be agreeing with her. She seemed to be growing more attractive every time he saw her. Sternly he reined in his thoughts. ‘So, have you written enough for me to take to Bob?’

  She nodded. ‘Two chapters, like you said. I printed them up yesterday.’

  He grinned. ‘Great. Well, here’s your reward. More stuff about the house.’ He put a folder down on the table in front of her. ‘I’ve found out who Katherine is. Or was.’ He smiled. ‘Katherine de Vere was the eldest daughter of the Robert de Vere who lived here in the mid-fifteenth century. She was betrothed to the son of a local earl.

  Handsome and light hearted, the young man rode to Belheddon daily and Katherine’s father laughed out loud in delight.

  “We have a love match here,” he guffawed to all who would listen and when he saw the debonair Richard tuck his daughter’s favour in his cap he slapped him on the back and planned the wedding.

  She had eyes for no one but this young neighbour. Whilst she curtseyed to the king and served him with wine she did not look up and see his face.

  To her he was old.’

  David turned the page in his folder and went on: ‘I’m not sure whether or not she actually married him. The records are a bit cryptic about that, I thought. Anyway only a year later in 1482 poor Katherine died, and she’s in the church as Katherine de Vere. She was only seventeen or eighteen. When her father died Belheddon Hall passed to an Edward, presumably her younger brother. He too died at the age of eighteen, but had time to marry and have a daughter. By that time we are in the reign of Henry VII. The strange thing is –’ he paused and looked round – ‘that already, by the end of the sixteenth century the house had a reputation for being haunted.’ He grinned at Joss. ‘Do you want to know this?’

  ‘No!’ ‘Yes!’ Luke and Joss spoke simultaneously.

  David shrugged. He reached for a page out of the file. ‘“The beauteous house of Belheddon Hall, though well-favoured, did not boast many tenants. Men and dogs alike fled in terror from the wails of an apparition which inhabited its lofty chambers.”

  ‘That was written in the late seventeenth century by a diarist called James Cope who stayed here – only once.

  ‘“For more than a hundred years the house has been inhabited by this creature whose unhappiness is distressing to the ear and frightening to the eye.”’

  David laughed. ‘He then adds:

  ‘“Though I stayed three nights it did not, to my sorrow appear and has not been seen these last forty years.”’

  ‘He doesn’t mention the devil, though, does he,’ Luke put in tartly. ‘That’s interesting. An old gossip like that would have put that snippet in if he had heard it.’

  David nodded. ‘Interestingly though there is a mention of the devil in an account written only fifty years later by James Fosset, an antiquarian who spent several months collecting stories and history in the district. His theory seems to me to be on the right lines. Listen.

  ‘“Belheddon Hall, one of the most beautiful of the local houses was built on a much earlier site. Some say it goes back to the dawn of time. The name derives from the old English bealu, meaning evil or calamity, and heddon meaning a heather-covered hill and would appear to point to the site having been used in pagan times as a site of worship and perhaps of sacrifice. Superstition and fear cling to the site and as little as a hundred years ago a witch was taken and hanged after having concourse with the devil in the grounds of the house.”

  ‘Do you see a pattern beginning to form? The hauntings, the pagan site, some poor old woman taken as a witch – slowly the pieces are falling into place. Somehow over the ages the two have got amalgamated and the result is a wonderful legend that it is the devil who haunts, or inhabits, the house. There. Your problem is solved. Andrews was a fascinating man. He knew most of this, I suspect, though he hadn’t come across the Fosset references. He says Edward IV actually came to the house on several occasi
ons. That was when the de Vere family lived here. In fact he may have given them the house as at an earlier date the manor was in royal domain. After their day he thinks a whole host of different families lived here – none seems to have stayed more than a few generations, if that, although he thinks on several occasions the house passed down through the female line, so of course the surnames would have been different, just as it is now of course, with you.’ He looked up at Joss and smiled. ‘I hope you are pleased with my humble efforts?’

  Joss nodded slowly. Her head was buzzing.

  ‘The king! The king is coming!’

  The excitement in the house was reaching fever pitch.

  Katherine scowled as her mother reached for the brush and dragged it through her tangled curls.

  ‘Be sweet to him, child.’ The cold lips were very close to Katherine’s ear.

  The earl’s son was a good catch, but the king was better.

  ‘Be loving. Whatever your king desires, remember, it is his to command! ’

  ‘There is so much to take in.’ Joss gave a little half laugh. ‘It’s fascinating. I especially like the link with Edward IV. As my book is set during the Wars of the Roses, I can do my research right here.’ She shook her head again. Briefly she wondered if David too had heard the strange echo which seemed to fill the spaces of the house.

  14

  In the kitchen Tom was whining crossly, pulling at Lyn’s long checked skirt. ‘Pick me up!’ When she ignored him he stamped his small foot and wailed even louder. Joss frowned. Her arms full of dirty washing she had pushed open the kitchen door and come in to find Lyn on the phone. ‘Lyn?’

  Tom’s wails grew louder.

  Lyn turned away from him in irritation, clapping her free hand over the ear that was not pressed to the receiver. ‘Listen, I can come up any time,’ she said into the phone, ‘you know I can. I want to.’ She pushed Tom none too gently towards his toys and his wails doubled in volume.

  Joss dropped the clothes she was carrying onto the floor in front of the washing machine and went to Tom, squatting down to give him a hug. ‘Leave Aunty Lyn while she’s on the phone.’ She looked up at Lyn. ‘Is that Mum you’re talking to?’ she whispered.

  Lyn nodded.

  ‘How is she? Can I speak to her?’

  But Lyn was already hanging up. ‘She’s OK.’

  ‘But she’s not! I wanted to speak to her.’

  ‘Then ring her back.’ Lyn scowled. ‘Tom was making such a racket I couldn’t hear myself think.’

  Joss shook her head. ‘You know he doesn’t like us talking on the phone. He just wants attention and hates us being distracted from him. It’s a phase they all go through.’

  ‘Well, I hope it’s not a long one!’ Lyn stared at the washing in distaste. ‘I suppose you want me to put that lot in the machine.’

  Joss narrowed her eyes. Lyn’s voice was full of resentment.

  ‘No, I can do it. What’s wrong, Lyn?’

  ‘You don’t care about Mum at all. You haven’t given her a thought. When did you last ring her? She said she hasn’t spoken to you in days!’

  ‘Lyn – ’

  ‘No. You don’t care anymore, do you. You’re just going to forget them. Your new family is so much more exciting. We were never good enough for you, were we!’ Lyn stormed across to the window and stood, arms folded, staring out.

  ‘That’s not true! For goodness’ sake, what’s the matter with you?’ Joss had to raise her voice as, upset by Lyn’s tone, Tom started to scream in earnest. Stooping, Joss picked him up and swung him onto her hip. ‘Lyn, what is it? Did Mum say something? Does she know what’s wrong with her?’

  Lyn shook her head without speaking.

  ‘Is it cancer, Lyn?’ Joss put her hand on her sister’s shoulder.

  Lyn shrugged miserably.

  ‘You must go, if you want to.’ Joss’s voice was gentler. ‘You don’t have to stay here, you know.’

  Lyn sniffed. ‘You need me.’

  ‘I know I do. And Luke and I love having you here, Lyn. But if you’re not happy – ’

  ‘I love Tom.’

  Joss smiled. ‘I know that too. And I love Mum and Dad. I always have and I always will. You mustn’t believe for a minute that I don’t. If I didn’t ring Mum yesterday, it was only that I was too busy – ’

  ‘Too busy to pick up the phone for two minutes?’ Lyn was still staring out of the window.

  ‘It didn’t mean I stopped loving her, Lyn.’

  ‘That’s what she thinks.’

  ‘She does not!’ Joss was angry suddenly. ‘And you know it.’ She turned away and unceremoniously dumped Tom on the floor in front of a pile of coloured bricks. Scooping up the heap of clothes she pushed them into the machine and reached for the detergent.

  ‘She’s going into hospital tomorrow, Joss.’ Lyn’s gaze was fixed unseeing on the window catch as she scratched at the flaking paint with her nail. Her voice was leaden.

  Joss sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’

  ‘She’s going to die.’

  ‘Lyn – ’

  ‘I can’t bear it if she dies.’ There were tears running down Lyn’s cheeks.

  ‘She won’t die.’ Joss put her head in her hands and took a deep unsteady breath. ‘She won’t, Lyn. She’s going to be all right. I’m sure she is.’ She had to be. She couldn’t cope, she realised suddenly, if her mum, the woman who had been her mother all her remembered life, was not there in the background to support her. She looked down at Tom. Suddenly engrossed in his toys his wails had ceased as he examined a large yellow beaker and she was overwhelmed by a sudden rush of love for him. It was love that made everyone so vulnerable, in the end. She sighed again. That was what made families such a joy and such a heart-break.

  Gerald Andrews drew his cup towards him and raised it with difficulty in arthritic fingers. He beamed at Joss however as he got it at last to his lips. ‘My dear, it was good of you to ask me to tea. You don’t know how much I have longed to come to see this house. It seems extraordinary that I should have written a history of it and yet never set foot across the threshold.’

  The history in question, a slim booklet in pale buff cardboard covers, lay between them on the kitchen table. On the front an eighteenth-century woodcut showed the front of the house with the beech tree perhaps half as big as it now was.

  ‘I couldn’t believe my luck when I found myself talking to David Tregarron and he said he knew you!’ He picked up a biscuit.

  ‘It’s lucky for me too.’ Joss was dying to look through the book. ‘I have so much catching up to do. I know so little of my family.’

  He nodded. ‘I wrote to your mother several times asking if I might come and see her when I was writing that, but I understand she had not been well. Miss Sutton wrote back and each time said it was not convenient. Then your mother left and it was too late.’

  ‘You lived in the area a long time?’ Unable to resist it any longer Joss picked up the pamphlet and opened it. The first chapter was called Early Days.

  ‘About ten years. I compiled some half dozen of these little books. All on the notable houses of the district. The Old Rectory, Pilgrim Hall, Pickersticks House …’

  ‘Pilgrim Hall?’ Joss looked up. ‘My father’s home?’

  ‘Your grandfather’s home. John Duncan was appointed guardian to your mother and her brother Robert when their mother and father died – I suppose it was inevitable that his son should fall in love with Laura – he kept both houses going for a while, then after Robert died he took Laura back to live at Pilgrim Hall with them. This place was practically derelict for a bit, but of course it was Laura’s inheritance and they couldn’t sell. John Duncan came into a lot of money, late in life – an inheritance as far as I remember from some relative who had lived in the Far East. He was a strange man, John. He hated Belheddon and Pilgrim Hall with equal loathing. He settled money on the two children, Philip and his ward, Laura, and went to live abroad.
His wife, Lady Sarah, stayed on for several years, until the children got married, then she sold Pilgrim Hall which is much smaller than this, and went off to join him. He never came back, not even for the wedding. It was a frightful scandal at the time. People locally thought he’d gone off with a dusky lady,’ he gave a delighted chuckle. ‘I don’t somehow think Lady Sarah would have stood for that. She would have beaten any rivals to death with her umbrella. Powerful lady, your grandmother on the Duncan side.’

  Joss smiled. ‘They died abroad, did they?’

  ‘John did, I believe. He had vowed never to come back to England. I never found out why. Some kind of quarrel with the family, I suppose. After he died, Lady Sarah came home. She even tried to buy back Pilgrim Hall. That must have been in the sixties, but by then they had built a huge annex and turned it into a country house hotel. I met her once, because I had already published the booklet on Pilgrim Hall. She wanted a copy for herself. It must have been the mid to late sixties because your father, Philip, was already dead – that dreadful accident with the horse – so sad – but I expect you know all about that. She suggested that I write about Belheddon. She was very scathing about the place. Thought it was cursed. She thought Laura was mad to stay here, but Laura seemed to be unable to tear herself away. I can remember her telling me that she was fixated on the house. She would walk about on her own, even at night, for hours, sometimes talking to herself.’ He glanced at Joss. ‘She thought Laura had finally lost her mind when she gave you up for adoption. The whole village took it very badly. Your mother was virtually ostracised afterwards. Lady Sarah said she would never speak to her again, and not long after that she moved somewhere up north.’ He hesitated. ‘It was her theory that the house was cursed which attracted my attention. I don’t normally believe in these things,’ he smiled almost apologetically, ‘but this place has had more than its share of tragedy by any standards.’