Death be Not Proud (9 page)

“Why – have you heard something?”

“No, just wondered if you'd kept in contact. Seeing you reminded me of him. Difficult to forget, really – his sort
always is.” He gave a half-hearted shrug and scratched under his arm. “Well, I'd better be going; keep in touch though, won't you? Who would've believed it's been nearly ten years?” And he waved in farewell and went back inside.

The car was warm and smelled of mint humbugs.

“Successful?”

I thought about that for a moment, then decided it had been.

“Yes, in a way. But I'm not sure how yet.”

He looked quizzical but didn't push for details. “Where to now?”

“Martinsthorpe, please – via Brooke. Old Manor Farm?”

He nodded. “I know it – not far from the Guash – I used to go fishing down there with your grandad.”

“Did you? Have you been to the farm, then?”

He turned the car around in the road so that it faced south, and checked over his shoulder before pulling out.

“Before your mother and I were married, my mother and Nanna used to go for tea there before the war.”

“That's extraordinary!” I exclaimed.

“It's a small world where we come from, Emma, and our family has been here a long time.”

“I suppose…” I mused, thinking back to the Lynes family tree, wondering where the D'Eresbys fitted in. It occurred to me that, if Matthew proved to be a descendant of the Rutland Lynes after all, which seemed to be a fair possibility now, then he and I could be very distantly related. It would be an uncanny coincidence perhaps, but not as outlandish as what I proposed.

As we left Oakham's suburbs and ran through the countryside once more, I pondered why I wasn't finding that so hard to believe as I should have done; it didn't make sense
–
I
didn't make sense. Perhaps all that had happened over the past months had addled my wits after all, and I just didn't realize it yet.

The frost had lifted from the southern slopes of the rises but still clung in the hollows and on the north-facing dips, reminding me that the air temperature had hardly risen above zero. I nuzzled the scarf around my neck.

“That's his, isn't it?” Dad looked accusingly at the scarf; I noted he didn't use Matthew's name.

“It's Matthew's, yes,” I said.

“You wear it a lot,” he observed.

“Yes,” I said quietly.

 

We didn't speak again until we reached the tiny village of Brooke and branched right. My father knew where to turn off the road onto the rough track, relieving me of the responsibility of finding our way. He slowed right down, allowing the wheels to negotiate the frozen ruts. Grass sprouted down the centre of the track like green tufts of hair from an old man's ears, long enough to brush the underside of the car as it wobbled and rattled at no more than walking pace. My father frowned hard, concentrating.

I broke the silence. “What do you remember of the farm?”

“There's not much of it left as a working farm, but what there is, is pretty old. It belongs to – or
belonged
to – a distant cousin on my father's side. Nanna was a friend of the family and Grandpa met her there during the war.”

“Was he researching, then?”

My father paused whilst he negotiated a particularly deep rut.

“No, he was recuperating. You know he was injured in the war, don't you?”

I nodded.

“Well, he came here to recover – psychologically as well as physically. He had a job as their pig man to help him through it.”

“A swineherd! No, really?”

The image of my gentle, learned and erudite grandfather mucking out the pigs tickled my sense of humour, before I remembered why he had needed to do it.

“Did it help him?”

“He met Nanna, so it must have done.”

“Small world,” I murmured, thinking about someone else; “and getting smaller.”

“It is,” he agreed.

 

We came to an opening in the low hedge that indicated an entrance, and he turned into a driveway of sorts that ran along a ridge of land east–west with far views over the gentle hills towards the expanse of Rutland Water in the distance. Tall, sand-yellow stone pillars flanked the entrance, each capped with a swan made of the same material, the carving worn with time. A large, ornate metal gate lay drunkenly to one side, entangled in a decade of broken brambles, their brown stems forming a twisted stranglehold on the rusting metal. A startled hare darted out in front of the car. Dad peered out of the window, his mouth turned down at the corners.

“It's changed – it wasn't always this ramshackle. I take it you have phoned to let them know we're coming?” he asked as we pulled to a stop outside the remains of a small gatehouse.

“No, not really,” but I had already climbed out of the car, shutting the door as he began to remonstrate. Leaning on the warm bonnet, I shaded my eyes and surveyed the building some fifty yards away. Trees had grown up around the old
house, shrouding the aged stone walls with bare branches, camouflaging the outline that gave away its age. The drive – or what was left of it – led anyone approaching the house over a deep moat and through the high stone arch of the gatehouse. Originally, this was an expensive and well-defended building, but not any more. Now, the moat was filled with the twisted cousins of the brambles that decorated the gate, the visible floor matted with the long stems of seasonal grasses, brown and decaying. It was anybody's guess whether it held water in its day. Much of the simple gatehouse had collapsed, the stone robbed for the building of a later range of barns, partially visible beyond a line of trees to the east. All that remained intact seemed held together by the tendrils of ivy that covered most of it. I glanced over my shoulder at my father, still sitting in the car as if ready to make a quick escape, and walked purposefully towards the entrance.

Sunlight dissolved into darkness beneath the arch, cushions of emerald moss, dew-dripped where the frost had lately melted, no longer catching the low winter sun. Although it was only just past midday, deep shadows clung to the walls of the stone-flagged courtyard into which I passed, and here the air felt perceptibly colder. The only signs of habitation were a thin curl of smoke from the tall chimney close to the east wing, and a bedraggled pelargonium – stem split brown by the frost – sitting by the side of the broad stone step in a lopsided pot. My heart thumping loudly in the still air, I raised a hand to the ancient door. Oak – bleached silver with age and studded with nail-heads the size of my thumb – it echoed hollowly to my enquiring knock. I didn't have a moment to prepare my introduction, as the door swung silently open, and an elderly woman – eyes wide at the sight of me – halted abruptly on the step. Her hand
had shot up to her mouth and she now brought it down to clasp the other in front of her, automatically compiling her face into a mask of serene composure almost as soon as it had registered her surprise.

“Goodness, you gave me such a fright,” she said, her enunciation precise and clipped, instantly making me want to stand up straight and behave myself. She stood with the confidence and poise of someone who knew where she belonged, and I felt awkward and clumsy in the presence of this elegant stranger whose privacy I had invaded.

“I am so sorry, I do apologize. I… this was a mistake. I'm sorry to have bothered you,” I flustered, my mind blank, already beginning to turn and flee. A small, bird-like hand shot out and clamped firmly on my arm.

“My dear, do you have any notion of how utterly tedious it is here by myself? I only wish that I were
bothered
more often. Now, what did you come for? I hardly think you are selling anything, unless…” she eyed me sharply, “you are a purveyor of religion, in which case, I'm not interested, thank you.”

She removed her hand and stood waiting expectantly, and I faced her, realizing how rude I must appear. Her small, wiry frame and quick, black eyes reminded me of a wood mouse, but she had the stillness and composure of a hawk. The two sat more comfortably beside each other than I would have expected.

“My name is Emma D'Eresby,” I began, “and I'm looking for information on the Lynes family. I understand that there is some connection with the family here?”

“Are you, indeed?” She didn't say which of the two statements she referred to. “Those are two names I haven't heard in a long while. You had better come in…” Her eyes flicked away from me to focus behind my back. “There's a man lurking near my gatehouse; does he belong to you?”

I twisted sharply, and guiltily saw my father hovering uncertainly by a mounting block.

“He's my father,” I confirmed.

“Well, bring him with you – he makes the place look untidy.”

I caught the flash of humour in her dark eyes and beckoned to my father. The old woman had already disappeared, and I followed, pulling my reluctant father behind me, my eyes adjusting to the gloom. We entered a musty, dark hall where curtains hung across the great stair window, partially blocking the light struggling to find its way in. “Close the door behind you,” her voice called from a room leading off the hall. Dad shut the wide door, making the frame shake as the iron lock found its home with a satisfyingly reverberant
chunk
. The hall wasn't big, but it had once been very fine with linen-fold panelling on all sides, now dull with age and damp. Beneath the tall window, the stairs dog-legged around a massive baluster that gave it strength. Light from the window fell across an Italian inlaid table in the middle of the hall, on which stood a bowl of last summer's hydrangea heads – faded blue and spun with the gossamer threads of a spider. The woman reappeared, her white hair an insubstantial aura framing her face.

“This way – don't trip over the cat,” she added, as my foot stumbled over a large, soft, immovable object lying in front of an old Gurney radiator that looked as if it had come out of the Ark. The radiator belted out heat, and the huge ball of dark-brown fluff stretched and rolled onto its back languorously at the touch of my foot, wantonly inviting me to tickle its exposed, softly striped stomach. I stepped around it carefully and entered the room.

We stood in the remains of the great hall: not the cosy familiarity of the first-floor solar that would have served the family in terms of privacy, but the high-ceilinged public
domain, with windows running down one side. Houses like this inspired Ebenezer Howard to build his concoction of the college in Maine. At least he had the luxury to include central heating, but here a fire burned in the coal-black grate of the large stone fireplace without making much of an impression on the overall temperature of the room. Our hostess, already seated on one of the two large faded chintz sofas huddling close for warmth either side of the fire, sat bolt upright with her legs crossed at the ankles. The stronger light from the range of windows showed that she must have been in her late eighties, but her eyes made her look much younger. They scrutinized us as we crossed the room towards her.

“May I introduce my father, Colonel D'Eresby,” I said formally. Her mouth twitched as he held out his hand to her; she shook it lightly.

“Well, well, Hugh, it has been a long time.” Recognition spilled across his face, and it lit in the broadest smile I had seen from him in many years. “Didn't recognize me at first, did you? Must be something to do with these,” and she pulled at the wrinkled skin that lined her face.

“Joan… I had no idea you were still living here,” he stammered.

“Still living, don't you mean? And I haven't seen you for… now, let me see… an outrageously long time. Your mother was still alive then, and you had only been married for a few years. Is this your eldest?” she asked, peering at me.

“No, Emma is my youngest daughter.”

“Well, well. I can see both your parents in you, my dear, but you look more like your grandmother. How is she, by the way?”

I was thoroughly confused, but my father seemed to be following the thread.

“She's had a stroke, but she's holding her own. Penny will want to be remembered to you.” He saw the query on my face. “I'm sorry, Joan; Emma – this is Mrs Seaton. This is Mr and Mrs Seaton's farm, where your grandfather came to recover. It was Mrs Seaton who was your grandmother's friend, if you remember.”

“
Both
of them, my dear; all the families knew each other back then. We had such fun, but that was an age ago.” Her eyes misted fleetingly, then her tone became brisk. “Now, you said you wanted some information on the Lynes family…”

“Emma! You said this was about your research,” my father interjected, his face clouding with displeasure.

“It is…” I began, already on the defensive, but Mrs Seaton patted the sofa for me to sit beside her while giving my father a stern look.

“Be quiet, Hugh; the girl's old enough to know what she wants to ask.”

My father puffed but kept quiet, eyeing the pair of us as if we had just won his favourite marble.

She neatened her tweed skirt over her knees. “The Lynes – yes. The family's died out now, of course, and they never lived in this house, but there are still remnants of them in the church – what's left of it. Is that what you are referring to?”

“I think it must be; I'm afraid I have very little to go on.”

“Well, my dear, my husband was most interested in the history of the area; that's why he got on so well with your grandfather, of course. My husband was twenty years older than I am – if you are trying to work out the numbers.”

I smiled sheepishly and tucked my fingers away in my sleeves where they had been secretly adding them up.

“Now, my husband did a great deal of research into the notable families of the area – including the Lynes – who,
being a
new
family as such, proved somewhat elusive to trace. However…” she said as she saw my face fall, “there is a window – and a tomb – commemorating them, if you would like to have a look. Oh, and then, of course, there are the
stories
.”