After Clare Page 5

  ‘Your sister is a very popular young lady. And very pretty.’

  He followed her glance. ‘Archie Elphinstone certainly thinks so. I wish she’d give him a bit more encouragement, only . . . well, there was somebody else, but . . .’ He shrugged. Another one killed in the war, Emily thought sadly. ‘You mustn’t mind her,’ he went on awkwardly. ‘She’s a good egg, really – works very hard, you know. Only, we’re both rather in the soup nowadays . . .’

  Emily recollected what had happened to these two young things, and was sorry. Their mother had run away to Italy with someone reprehensible and had never been spoken of again, whilst their father, an inveterate gambler, apparently totally bereft by her desertion, had managed to lose every brass farthing he possessed with a speed that had left even his betting cronies gasping, before shooting himself dead in despair.

  ‘Please, Valentine, I should like it very much if you would come down and see me.’

  ‘Is that the young chap who’s written the book about the war that’s no good?’ asked Rosie, taking the unoccupied seat next to her grandfather, who’d had enough of standing about.

  ‘Rosie, my dear, discretion, discretion!’ But no one was near enough at that moment to overhear. ‘On the contrary, there’s a great deal about the book that’s admirable, or so your father tells me. He’s an angry young fellow, and there was a lot he needed to get off his chest, but that’s not sufficient, you know. Won’t do, I’m afraid. As it is, it’s just not publishable – or not by us.’

  ‘I thought you had editors to correct spelling and grammar and that sort of thing?’

  ‘Hmph. I believe there’s nothing much wrong with his spelling, or his grammar, come to that.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Timing, mostly. The sentiments are there, but . . . well, nobody wants to be reminded of all that suffering, my dear. Besides, whether there’s anything else in him is debatable.’

  Rosie looked disappointed and once again her eyes strayed to Valentine, and to Poppy, who had been at the same school as Dee and had sometimes spent holidays at Steadings. She had grown so smart, unlike her brother, though Rosie thought him handsome in a dishevelled sort of way, and rather scornful of all this flummery, which made him even more interesting. Perhaps she’d get a chance to speak to him, and wondered what they would talk about if she did.

  Hugh, too, was wondering about Val. An idea stirred.

  Once, in the hideous time after her brother David had been shot down in flames over Flanders, in one of those cardboard and string contraptions they called aeroplanes, Hugh had thought that Rosie might take his place at the Markham Press – women nowadays baulked at nothing – but although there was a bright intelligence there, he had soon had to admit that her father was right, she was not cut out for work in a publishing firm. Her interests were wide, however, her sympathies equally so. She would find ways of fulfilling herself, very likely in caring for others, in marriage most probably, which Hugh thought a very good thing. He had a good many reservations about these so-called career girls and their unseemly ambitions, which he’d always been afraid would come to the fore once they got the vote. But he rather liked the cut of that young feller’s jib.

  ‘Leave it to me, Rosie,’ he said, and reflected that he seemed to be saying that quite a lot lately. He might have a word with Emily first.

  Mr and Mrs Hamish Erskine departed in a shower of confetti for a honeymoon in Biarritz. And then it was all over.

  Six

  ‘Shall I tell you a sad secret? I come over here to Leysmorton quite often when I want to hide with a book,’ Rosie admitted, making a face, guilty, as if confessing to a sin.

  Odd, that, Emily thought, in a household whose existence depended on the publishing of books. But Stella was definitely not of a bookish persuasion and probably frowned on too much reading, whilst here Rosie could read undisturbed; Markhams had always been free to take advantage of the Leysmorton House gardens.

  ‘It must always have been like this,’ Rosie went on, adding romantically, ‘sort of timeless.’

  ‘Somewhat less in need of attention than it is now,’ Emily replied drily.

  ‘Then we’d better get started on this mysterious project of yours, Lady Fitzallan.’

  ‘It’s not mysterious at all. Come with me and I’ll show you what I have in mind.’

  They walked towards the end of the garden, Rosie trundling the wheelbarrow she had come equipped with, complete with tools she had commandeered: a pair of tough gloves, fork, spade and a box of matches, all ready to start the bonfire they intended to make, as a start. Emily had resisted the impulse to check Rosie’s good intentions by telling her that someone else could be found to do the preliminary hard work. She was young, strong and healthy, and besides, it was quite on the cards that a modern girl like her might be offended if it was suggested something like that was beyond her.

  The empty patch of ground was a place no one bothered with, at the farthest extent of the estate, a clearing that came as a surprise after an awkward approach through a dense, dark little copse. They made unsteady progress, Rosie manfully managing to keep the barrow upright along a path which was not much more than a track, where either side, under the beeches, bluebells were a picture in spring, but were now dying their unlovely death in a spreadeagle of decaying leaves. In February there would have been swathes of snowdrops, followed by aconites, and windflowers in great drifts of white. At one spot, overhung by hart’s-tongue ferns and mosses, a mysterious little spring bubbled through the rocks, then disappeared. You could find primroses, thick as clotted cream, on its banks early in the year.

  The clearing into which they emerged, blinking, was separated from the copse by an overgrown hawthorn hedge blanketed by bindweed, through which honeysuckle scrambled upwards in search of the light; bristly stems of sweetbriar held pure, delicately pink blossoms, and white flowering elders grew rampant. The rough grass outside the spreading reach of the great yew tree which stood there, black-green against the sky, was a foot high.

  Beyond it the high wall which surrounded the property was in need of attention. Bricks and coping stones had fallen off along its length, and in one place it was down to the lowest course, making an opening large enough for anyone to step through – enlarged, no doubt, by those needing a short cut, across the meadow bright with buttercups at this time of year, then the stepping stones over the river, and thus to the road leading to the village. The loose bricks had been tossed around anyhow, most of them landing on top of the remains of the old tree house, making a large heap stitched tightly together by stinging nettles, brambles, ground ivy and couch grass. The spot had a forlorn and neglected air, and for a moment the scary childhood feelings Emily had always tried to pretend didn’t exist – about the tree especially – were almost real again, and goose pimples rose on her arms. For all that, this had been their very own place, above all Clare’s, and it was an affront to see it looking so desolate.

  ‘Oh dear, I’m afraid it’s going to be a daunting task.’

  ‘Not to worry! Leave it to me,’ Rosie said.

  Emily had explained her intentions, and Rosie immediately donned her gloves and began to tear out brambles preparatory to clearing away the fallen masonry, anxious to do it alone, while Emily perched on what was left of the wall, watching her cheerful exertions, half wishing she could join her. It was at times like this that one became impatient with one’s own physical limitations. What she hoped for should not take long – in fact, she wanted little more than to return this remembered spot back to what it had been: half-wild, wholly mysterious. Perhaps the effort needed would prove to be a waste of time and energy, but that scarcely mattered. The point was to exorcize at least some of the ghosts that were disturbing her peace since she had come home.

  No ghosts, however, were hovering on this mild, soft summer morning. The Hecate tree, it seemed, was in its benign mood, the sun filtering through its thickly needled branches onto the loose scales of its purplish brown ba
rk. It was over a hundred feet high now, gnarled and scaly, its fluted trunk formed of several growths from the root bole which had fused together to make one trunk of immense girth. A fissure at the base made a doorway right into the hollow at its dark secret heart, a hidey-hole where Clare hid her treasures: the little heap of small, pearly pebbles, a string of ‘magic’ blue beads, a place where she would duck in and pull Emily after her, to crouch in the dark and hide from hateful Miss Jennett, their horrid governess, who would never have dreamt of peering into such a nasty place. Emily had never liked being in there, in fact she’d hated it, though she would have died rather than admit it to Clare. It didn’t smell nice inside and sometimes, faintly, you could hear the snufflings and squeaks of the bats who had made their roost high up. She felt inclined to shudder as she wondered if the bats’ descendants were still there.

  It was Clare who had prevailed upon Papa to build them a tree house in the yew’s branches.

  It went up in a day, made by Gifford, who did all the carpentry work around the house and garden, out of planks sawn from a mighty beech which had been torn from the earth in one of the great winter storms, revealing spreading, unbelievably shallow roots to have anchored such a giant to the earth. A tree unlike the Hecate tree. Nothing grew beneath the dense canopy of the yew except its own knotty roots, and though they were visible, pushing up through the dry and dusty earth, they spread like claws to maintain a secure foothold in the ground.

  ‘Last for ever, that will,’ Gifford had said, positioning the sturdy ladder he had constructed for them to reach the finished structure, firmly settled in a cup where the branches spread from the trunk. Emily was sure it would. Anything Gifford made was, like him, solid, heavy and everlasting, like the yew itself. She liked the little house better than the tree that supported it – although she did not really believe any of those creepy things about the Hecate tree; neither did she share Clare’s unaccountable fascination with it.

  But Clare had gone too far one day, even for Emily, when she had tried to use its powers to bring a curse down on Miss Jennett . . .

  It is a day of heavy, enervating heat, when your fringe sticks to your damp forehead and you feel too hot for anything, when even white broderie-anglaise dresses and straw hats feel too heavy. She and Clare have been quarrelsome with each other all day, and as it becomes even hotter they have made their way to the tree house for coolness, only to find it stifling inside. In the clearing below, Clare throws off her hat, flings herself down under the tree and removes her kid boots and knee socks. The dress and petticoats come next and presently she’s stripped down to her drawers. ‘Oh, come on, Emily, take your things off. It’s much cooler.’

  Emily is tempted. ‘If Miss Jennett comes, there’ll be trouble.’

  ‘I don’t care. She won’t come anyway. Not if we put a spell on her.’ Clare has donned the magic blue beads and holds a handful of stiff grass she has twisted and tied up into a roughly human figure.

  ‘Clare! You wouldn’t dare!’

  ‘Oh, yes, I would. We can swear on the tree.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘Don’t be a baby. Swear on it! If you put both your hands on the trunk and say what I tell you, something awful is bound to happen to Jennett.’

  ‘That’s wicked. And you don’t mean it.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I do. Well, anyway, something to magic her away, to send her off in a puff of evil smoke. Come here and say it with me. Like this.’ Clare stretches out her own arms as far round the rough, scaly trunk as they will go and leans her cheek against it. She begins to chant. ‘I swear by—’ There is an ominous rumble of thunder.

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Then I’ll do it myself. I swear by—’

  But Emily has had enough. ‘No!’ she shouts, into the sudden heavy silence that has descended over everything. Even the birds have stopped singing. ‘I won’t! I hate this old Hecate! There’s nothing magic about it – it’s just a silly old tree!’

  And at that moment lightning splits the sky and the first heavy drops begin to fall. Emily flees, pursued by terror and pelting rain, into the house.

  But when Miss Jennett fell down the stairs and twisted her knee, which didn’t get better for ages and made her cry a lot, and in the end caused her to leave, she never again questioned Clare’s belief in the power of the Hecate tree.

  ‘Last for ever, that will,’ Gifford had said of the tree house. Well, it hadn’t lasted forever, any more than Gifford himself had. Fifty years later, the yew was still there, but the little house was no longer lodged in its branches. It was now just a heap of timber, collapsed or blown down by the wind, nothing left of it but rotting, piled-up planks that had been dragged onto the rough ground beyond the spread of the tree’s swooping branches and its carpet of dried needles, and tossed into a heap along with the fallen masonry.

  Rosie, heaving bricks to one side, tearing out nettles, brambles and tenacious trails of ground ivy, was by now breathless, hot and perspiring with her exertions. She stood back, looking at the wood beneath. ‘We’re going to need some paraffin, or petrol. This isn’t going to catch light easily. It’s damp and rotten underneath the top layer. Ugh.’ She threw a few more stray bricks aside and tugged at a stubborn plank. The wood seemed originally to have been laid in a rough pyramid, as if intended for just such a fire, but the weight of the bricks and other debris tossed on top of the wood had flattened it. The plank finally came loose and Rosie staggered back. Then stood, staring, the blood draining from her face.

  ‘Don’t look. Don’t look, Lady Fitz—’

  But it was too late. A glance had been enough. There was no mistaking what Rosie was staring at. A human skull was a human skull, even when it was stained and yellow and a dandelion thrust itself obscenely out of one eye socket.

  Seven

  Rosie was trying to believe what she had been taught – that snap decisions about people were unreliable, that you shouldn’t allow pre-conceived ideas to enter into it – however, she was honest enough to admit her instant antipathy to the detective from London probably had a lot to do with men who had deep-set eyes and black hair that grew in a widow’s peak, simply because they reminded her too much of the terrifying illustration of an evil demon in a book she’d had as a child. It was hardly fair to blame him for something he couldn’t help.

  All the same, she found her hackles rising at the judgmental looks she felt this man, Detective Inspector Novak, was casting around the dear, untidy old Leysmorton library, missing nothing of its shabbiness, and not seeing how unchanging, how reassuring that always made it. Even more annoying was his frankly incredulous attitude towards their activities in the clearing, before that gruesome discovery. What had she and Lady Fitzallan actually been doing there? Why had two ladies found it necessary to disturb that pile of stones and timber? To clear the ground ready for planting? No? Then what was the purpose, what was the clearing to be used for?

  The ‘purpose’, Emily replied, fixing him with a look, very Lady Fitzallan, was for nothing more than to get rid of the unsightly rubbish that had accumulated there. She, too, was having problems with Novak’s appearance, though for different reasons. He had brought a reminder of the past: Yerevan, and Stepan Saroyan, the young and handsome Armenian whose life Paddy had saved, and who had thereafter seen it as his mission to educate Paddy into the injustices of Armenian politics, bringing untold trouble and also passing on the tuberculosis which had eventually caused Paddy’s death.

  Unintimidated, Novak left the subject hanging in the air, almost as if he still thought she was hiding some ulterior motive, some knowledge about that macabre . . . thing they had unearthed!

  Rosie, who was having dreams about that skull, tried to pull herself together. Stop it! Don’t imagine aggressive attitudes where none exist. Detective inspectors from Scotland Yard would naturally have a different approach to Sergeant Chinnery from Kingsworth, who was sitting there beside him, his thick neck red above his uniform collar, trying to appear
as reassuringly kind as always. He looked as hot and uncomfortable and out of place as he undoubtedly felt – nasty, this, these sorts of things just didn’t happen around here, in the peaceful Netherley community, least of all at Leysmorton House! He couldn’t conceal that he was manifestly relieved to have outside support, though he still looked as if he wished himself elsewhere.

  That went for Rosie, too. There was nothing new to tell – she’d been through it all before. Several times, in fact. Everyone at Leysmorton and Steadings had been agog for details when the grisly discovery had been made – and then she’d had to repeat it all again to successively higher authorities after Grandfather, who had taken charge of the situation as he always did, had reported it. Firstly, she’d had to tell it to Constable Pickles, Netherley’s only representative of the police force, then to his superior, Sergeant Chinnery at Kingsworth, who had bicycled over to question them himself, and now to this detective inspector from Scotland Yard. When really there was nothing more than the simple facts of how she’d begun to clear the heap of debris until . . .

  She swallowed as the image of the grinning skull swam before her eyes yet again, despising herself for feeling so squeamish about it. It was horrible, and macabre, but she was mortified to find she couldn’t take it in her stride. ‘It’s a joke, isn’t it?’ she’d whispered when the thing had come to light, though an icy trickle was running down her spine. ‘Someone put it there as a joke.’ Skulls were objects of grisly comedy, and some person with a perverted sense of humour must have decided to give whoever found it a shock – always presuming they had known that disgusting pile of rotting timbers was likely to be dug up in the foreseeable future.

  ‘I shouldn’t think it’s any form of joke, Rosie, dear.’ Lady Fitzallan, her voice not quite as steady as usual, had put a supportive arm around her and said they must leave things as they had been found, and not attempt to cover up the grinning obscenity. And of course the skull was no joke, no theatrical prop, either; it was real, and what was more, it was attached to a body – or the skeleton of one. The police had to be informed, and very soon they were swarming all over the place. The situation had evidently been serious enough to warrant the chief constable, a long-standing friend of Hugh’s, making a request for the investigation to be taken over by Scotland Yard, although from her grandfather’s rather wry comments, Rosie conjectured that their presence might have more to do with the status of Leysmorton House and its owner than any shortage of local resources, as the chief constable had claimed.