Property of a Lady (18 page)

But I stood obediently inside the door and waited to see what came next. At first I thought the room was empty, but then from the darkest corner came a voice – an ugly voice that made me think of a fingernail scraping across a slate surface.

‘You are Anstey?’

‘I am Frederick Anstey.’

There was a blur of movement, as if the cobwebs gathered themselves together. I flinched and glanced behind me, but the door was firmly shut.

‘You have brought the child?’

‘Harriet. Yes. She’s here with me.’

Father glanced down at me, and I managed to say, ‘How do you do,’ directing the words towards the dark corner.

‘They wrote to you?’ said the voice, as if I had not spoken. ‘They wrote asking you to come here?’

‘Yes. The solicitor—’

‘The details have no interest for me.’ The movement came again. ‘Tell the child to speak to me.’

Father bent down. ‘Harriet, tell this lady how old you are and how you are good at lessons.’ He gave me the smile that meant: everything is perfectly all right. It wasn’t all right, of course, but I saw he wanted me to pretend.

So I said, as politely as I could, ‘I’m seven. I like reading books.’

‘She is well-mannered.’

‘I hope so.’

‘Her mother?’

‘She is at our home in Cheshire.’

‘Harriet Anstey,’ said the terrible voice, suddenly addressing me directly, ‘one day somewhere in the future, after I am dead, you will own a house – my house. If your father is still alive then it will be his first, but he is older than I am so he will most likely die before me. You may not understand all this now, but you will do so in time.’ A pause. ‘When you finally own that house, if you go to live in it,
he
will come looking for you. That’s what I want to warn you of, in case there is no one to protect you by then. You must never –
never
– let him find you. You understand that? For if he finds you—’ The voice stopped, and then went on again. ‘You may lose your sanity, as I did. At times it still deserts me. At those times I am mad.’ There was a movement within the darkness – the impression of something shrivelled and brittle unfolding itself. ‘It may desert me at any moment, that sanity, so I must know quickly that you understand.’

I said, ‘I will make sure he doesn’t find me.’

The sounds came again – like the dry rustling of some ancient winged insect – and a figure walked slowly into the dim light at the centre of the room.

I cried out, and at my side I heard Father gasp. A tall, thin woman, wearing – I don’t know what she was wearing exactly, but it was some sort of grey, shapeless garment that hung from her bony frame. Her hair was grey as well, but it did not look like hair, it looked like thick cobwebs.

Where her eyes should have been were two deep, dark pits, which was fearsome enough in itself. But what was so much worse, what had made me cry out and Father gasp, was that both eye sockets were faintly crusted over with grey. As if spiders had spun webs over them, and as if she had not known or felt it happen.

As she moved, her hands reached out in front of her, feeling her way towards me. I gasped again, and her head turned towards me. This time I thrust my clenched fist into my mouth to stop myself from making a sound. If she heard me she would know exactly where I was standing. If she touched me I would not be able to bear it.

She did not touch me. She had taken four steps when she stopped and lifted her head as if listening.

‘Hear him,’ she said, and her voice was different – younger, almost a child’s voice. ‘Hear him singing. He’s coming along the passageway outside – here he comes. Tappety-tap, feeling his way . . . If you listen, you’ll hear his singing. You oughtn’t to hear it, for there are some things human ears were never meant to hear. But I hear it – oh God, I hear it every night, just as I heard it the night he found me . . .’

In a cracked voice, she began to sing:

‘Open lock to the dead man’s knock . . .

Fly bolt, and bar, and band . . .

Nor move, nor swerve, joint, muscle or nerve,

At the spell of the dead man’s hand.

And now with care, the five locks of hair,

From the skull of the murderer dangling there,

With the grease and the fat of a black tom cat . . .’

She stopped, and when she spoke, her voice had returned to the scratchy, ugly tone.

‘That’s not the real spell, of course,’ she said. ‘The real spell is far more ancient, far darker – it comes from the black marrow of the world’s history – and the world has many such blacknesses. He learned the spell when his own mind touched one of those black cores.’

The terrible head tilted, as if trying to sense where we were standing, and Father seemed to understand this, for he said, ‘I’m still here. Harriet is with me. Say whatever you wish.’

She nodded, as if grateful. ‘He was once a cheerful man, so they say,’ she said. ‘An ordinary man – what they call Everyman. He enjoyed the company of his fellows – he would have a glass of ale with them at the end of his day’s work. He would laugh at a joke. That is what is said of him. But something happened. Something warped him.’ She paused again, and neither Father nor I spoke.

‘I wonder, Anstey and Harriet, if you have ever had an old tree in your garden which will not bear fruit. We had one when I was very small. An apple tree. Its roots had gone into unwholesome ground, and the branches were withering and dying. So my father had the tree dug up. I remember the day it was done – a sharp, cold winter’s day it was. I wore a scarlet scarf and hat. So vivid, that memory. I remember Father explaining it all to me – saying the roots were getting no nutrient from the soil, so we would replant it in better soil. Healthier soil. We made a little ceremony of it after the gardener had gone, just the two of us . . .’ Her voice broke again, as if some disturbing memory had come to her, then she said, ‘So it was with him. His heart went into unwholesome ground.’

Father said, ‘I understand you. But that song you chanted . . .’ I felt a shudder go through him.

‘He likes to sing it.’ The ugly voice was almost eager. ‘But it is a – the child will not know the word parody, but you would know it.’

‘Yes.’

‘It is a parody of the real spell. The essence can be found within the Greek writings of Herodotus. In the
Petit Albert
and in the
Compendium Maleficarum
, also. The enchanter Mohareb used it to lull to sleep the giant Yohak, who guarded the caves of Babylon. It is referred to in the Bible – Solomon had the secret of it, and the servant of Elijah, when he told his master that he saw from the top of Mount Carmel a cloud rise up from the sea like a man’s hand – he, too, spoke of it. That black cloud with flames issuing from it may have been the original of the dread and magical hand of glory.’

Her voice faltered, as if a string was fraying. Father said, ‘You are extremely knowledgeable.’

‘For one who has no sight? I have not read the books for myself, but when you have money it is possible to pay others to read them for you. I was taught most straitly never to discuss money,’ she said. ‘A sordid subject, it was always thought. But I ceased to care long ago about that.’

Without warning she began to chant again, crooning the lines about
open lock to the dead man’s knock
. Her face seemed to change, as if a looking glass had splintered, and she sank to the floor, wrapping her arms around herself, sobbing pitifully, writhing and screaming and beating on the ground with her fists.

Father instinctively moved forward – I think to comfort her or prevent her from injuring herself – but before he could do so the door was flung open and the grey woman who had brought us here darted across the room. In her hands she held a thick leather strap, and before either of us could speak or move, she had it wrapped around the woman – not too unkindly, but firmly. I had backed away to a corner of the room by then, but I saw how the strap pinned her arms to her sides.

‘He’s not here,’ said the grey woman. ‘You’re safe. He’s not here.’ She looked back over her shoulder. ‘Best go now,’ she said. ‘This one won’t be lucid for at least a day. And we know what to do for her. You had the speech with her you wanted, did you? The speech she wanted?’

Father began to say he had no idea, but the grey woman had already dismissed him, and so without saying anything we went out, and somehow – I cannot remember how – we found our way back down the stairs and out into the sweet fresh air.

We sat for a long time on the side of the road, not speaking. Then, finally, I summoned up enough courage to say: ‘Who was she, that woman?’

He took a long time to reply, but at last he said, ‘She owns the house that will one day be yours. She told you that, didn’t she?’

‘Why doesn’t she live in it if it’s her house?’

‘Because she’s – she’s very poorly. Her mind is sick, Harriet. Always remember that it’s possible for people’s minds to become ill, as well as their bodies.’

‘Who lives in her house now?’

‘Nobody. It’s looked after by people called solicitors. They keep it clean and tidy the garden and make sure it’s all right.’

‘Would she like to live in it if she could?’

‘I don’t know. She was there when she was a little girl. But she’s lived in that place – Brank Asylum – for a very long time.’

‘She has no eyes,’ I said, and he shuddered.

‘No. You heard her say she can pay for people to come in to read to her. She pays people to write letters as well. She asked her solicitor to write a letter to me.’

‘Will she ever get better?’

‘No. She’ll have to live there for always. That’s why she sent the letter – she wanted to meet the people who will inherit her house after she dies.’

‘Is she going to die soon? Is she very old?’

‘Oh, Harriet, she can’t be much more than thirty. That’s the great tragedy.’

Thirty was quite old, though. I said, ‘Is she my aunt? What’s her name?’

‘I’m not sure of the precise degree of relationship,’ said Father. ‘She’s a cousin to me – perhaps a third cousin. So she’d be a cousin to you, as well. Her name is Elvira Lee.’

Elvira Lee. The name seemed to jump out of the page and snatch Michael’s throat. Elvira, who had been commemorated on an old, forgotten grave as a dearly loved daughter of Elizabeth. Elvira, who Ellie insisted was in danger, and Beth said was being sought by the man in her nightmare.

If Harriet’s journal could be believed, Elvira had ended her life, blind and insane, in a place called Brank Asylum.

Michael suddenly wanted to talk to Nell about this, but saw it was after eleven already. He would phone her tomorrow. But he would read some more of Harriet’s journal before going to bed.

FIFTEEN

17th February 1939

9.15 a.m.

S
unlight is pouring into my room at the Black Boar, and it’s almost dispelled the ghosts. But not quite. I can’t stop remembering Elvira Lee, poor haunted creature, incarcerated in Brank Asylum for all those years – thirty years at least. How much of those thirty years did she spend inside that dark madness?

She was fifty-eight when she died – I know that because the solicitor sent me her birth and death certificates. She was born in 1880 at Charect House, and she died in 1938 in Brank Asylum of arterial embolism. I looked that up in Mother’s old Home Doctor reference book, and I think it’s what we would call a stroke.

Even all these years later I can remember how sane Elvira sounded when she talked about her own madness. I can remember her terror of the man she believed searched for her, as well.

After breakfast, I asked at the reception desk for directions to Charect House. The man gave me a slightly startled look, but said it was easy enough to find.

‘Out of the village, and along Blackberry Lane, past the old carriageway to the manor – that’s long since gone, of course – and there you’ll be. It’s a fair old walk, though. I could telephone the local taxi service. They’d be here in a matter of minutes, well, always supposing they’re free.’

A ‘fair old walk’ might mean anything from a mile to five miles, so I’ve accepted the taxi offer, and I’m writing this in my room while I wait for it to arrive. The romantic in me would like to walk by myself to the home of my ancestors, savouring every blade of grass and every breath of atmosphere, but the pragmatist knows perfectly well I should get lost in the bewilderment of lanes around here. So I shall approach my inheritance, Father’s cherished dream, in a cloud of exhaust fumes.

3.15 p.m.

In the end I compromised. I asked the taxi driver to let me down at the end of Blackberry Lane so I could walk the rest of the way. With a faint echo of my childhood, I arranged for him to collect me in an hour’s time.

Blackberry Lane is like any other English country lane. It’s fringed with hedges, and at this time of year there’s the promise of cowslips in the fields and of May blossom and lilac to come. As I walked, my spirits rose, and the lovely evocative line that opens Rebecca was strongly with me.