The Silence (7 page)

The request was rather flatteringly couched, and the Director was a person of considerable repute in music and academic circles, so Michael thought he would probably accept, although he could not, for the moment, think how he would balance it with Wilberforce and Caudle Village, to say nothing of his normal term’s work. Wilberforce sold to a surprisingly large number of gleeful seven year olds, and the Director’s book would sell to a small number of earnest but influential academics, so there would be two lots of kudos to be gleaned next year. Michael spent ten minutes feeling pleased with himself, then remembered that Tennyson had said that pride was often the cap and bells for a fool, after which he banished the delusions of grandeur and turned his attention to emailing Nell.

He spent ten fruitless minutes trying to explain about Emily’s letter and Brad’s essay, before realizing that to abruptly confront her with the words of her dead husband via the Internet was unthinkable. In the end, he sent a brief message, saying he was looking forward to seeing her and hearing about Stilter House, and to stay in touch when and if she could.

This dealt with, he ate a sandwich lunch, thought what a good idea it would be to tidy his desk for the end of term, and made a half-hearted start which he abandoned after ten minutes when he came upon some draft notes he had made for a lecture on Beowulf, which contained several interesting references he had forgotten jotting down. This naturally led to a search of his bookshelves in order to track down the original sources, and almost made him late for the meeting with the Director of Music.

The two of them spent an absorbing afternoon, enlivened by several large glasses of sherry, which the Director thought an appropriate tipple for half past three, although his idea of measures was generous in the extreme so that Michael returned to his rooms slightly light headed from half a pint of sherry on an empty stomach. But his head was pleasantly full of Byron and Berlioz, Faust and Gounod, and he sat down to record the gist of the discussion while it was still fresh in his mind. It was getting on for five o’clock, so he thought he would make a few notes for the current Wilberforce chapter, then dine in Hall. First, though, he would check his emails to see if the promised note from Beth was there, and if Nell had replied to his own earlier message.

There was nothing from Nell, but Beth’s email was in the in-box. She had sent it from The Pheasant, clearly delighted at having had a grown-up lunch in a pub.

Hi Michael

This is from a pub called The Pheasant. I had chestnut soup for lunch, then chicken in mushroom sauce, then Bakewell tart and I’m stuffed to the eyebrows with food.

Stilter House is a really good place and this morning after breakfast I met a boy who lives somewhere here. I don’t know where his house is, because he just walked into the music room while Mum was in the attics, sorting out stuff. There’s a brilliant piano here, and he played it, then we played a kind of duet, only he’s a lot
lot
better than me, which is double-gross because I think he’s only the same age as me. So I’m going to practice extra double hard this afternoon because he’s coming back tomorrow. He didn’t speak, but what’s weird is I understand what he means without having to speak.

I don’t think he wants anyone to know he was here, so you mustn’t tell, and specially not Mum, because I’m not supposed to talk to people I don’t know. Anyhow, he showed me some music and it’s got his name written on it, so I know what he’s called.

He’s called Esmond.

   Lots of love from Beth.

The thing that initially slammed into Michael’s mind was the way in which Beth’s words echoed those of her dead father, twenty-odd years earlier. He reached for Brad’s essay. ‘He always waits for me in the piano room, and we play stuff together,’ Brad had written. Beth, twenty-five years later, had said, ‘He just walked into the music room . . . We played a kind of duet . . .’

Alarm notes began to sound in Michael’s mind. Emily West had said in her letter that she was afraid that Esmond would come back for Beth. And Beth’s email said Esmond was coming back tomorrow.

Emily was fantasizing, thought Michael determinedly. So was Charlotte when she talked about Esmond. Beth has simply met someone with the same name. It’s just a local name, that’s all it is.

Then he thought, But supposing it’s more than that?

N
ell had managed to forget about the eerily insubstantial music, and she had managed to convince herself that there was nothing sinister about finding the piano open last night. Probably it had never been locked in the first place and the lid had been jammed. And there was nothing sinister about the music with Esmond’s name on it, either. It was twenty-five years since Brad had known Esmond, so if the music had belonged to Esmond, of course it would be old and a bit faded.

She and Beth had slept well in the deep old beds, and the kitchen was warm and friendly. As she made toast and poured cereal into bowls, Nell thought how impossible it was to believe in disembodied piano music, or figures made of rain or cobwebs who peered through windows.

How about that other ghost, though? How about Brad? If he was here at all, he was very faint and faraway. I’m not exactly over you, said Nell to Brad in her mind, and I probably won’t ever be, not completely. But I can think of you without that wrenching despair and loss.

After breakfast she and Beth drove to Caudle Village where she was able to phone Michael, and leave a message on his voicemail. After this she and Beth bought more candles and matches from the tiny supermarket, along with two electric torches.

Back at the house, she worked her way through the downstairs rooms, listing furniture and silver and china, photographing several more pieces, and making notes. The house was warm and filled with morning sunlight and it was remarkable how little the lack of electricity mattered, although sorting through some beautiful damask table linen stored in an old sideboard, Nell thought it might soon become irritating. But for a couple of days it was quite fun to camp out.

Beth spent almost an entire hour typing an email to Michael on the notebook computer which was her most prized possession. When Nell reminded her the notebook was on battery and could not be recharged until they got home, Beth said, solemnly, that an email to Michael had to be properly written on account of Michael knowing about English and stuff. You had to spell words right and things for him.

‘You have to do that for everyone, not just for Michael,’ said Nell, smiling. ‘But I know what you mean.’

At half past twelve they returned to the village, where the landlord of The Pheasant was happy to let them use the Internet connection. Beth sent her email and Nell sent various photographs to colleagues, mostly of items that were a bit outside her area of expertise. There were some paintings, and a pair of what she thought were patch boxes – tiny enamelled containers that would have contained beauty patches for elegant eighteenth-century ladies. There was also the piano, of course; that was a very specialized area. She wondered if she would want it herself and thought she would not. If Beth’s interest in music progressed she would buy a brand new one, with no vagrant memories embedded in its depths.

There were a couple of emails in her own inbox, one from Henry Jessel and one from Michael, but Henry only said there was no word yet from the Japanese customers about the Regency desk, and Michael’s message merely said he looked forward to hearing from her soon.

The Pheasant was bright and welcoming and the landlord, whose name was Joe Poulson, was interested to hear they were staying at Stilter House. A grand old place, that was, and everyone had known and liked Miss West.

‘Lived at Stilter all her life,’ he said, proffering the menu, which modestly announced itself as providing fresh, home-cooked food. ‘A very nice lady. I dare say the house will have to be sold, will it? Pity to see it go out of the family – it was as much a part of Caudle Moor as my own family – my wife’s family too, for they’ve lived here just as long. Folk don’t bother about that kind of thing much nowadays, do they, but I like the feeling of – well, continuity I suppose you’d call it. You’d like a table overlooking the market square for your lunch, maybe? And I’d recommend the Bakewell tart. You can’t come to this part of the world and not try Bakewell tart.’

They ate their lunch in the tiny dining room, the Bakewell tart was pronounced delicious, and Mr Poulson’s wife came beamingly out of the kitchens, to accept their appreciation. They were please to come again, and try the Ashbourne gingerbread next time.

It felt nicely familiar to drive back along Gorsty Lane; to recognize a home-made sign to a public footpath, to point out to one another the cottage Beth had said was like a dolls’ house. The door at Stilter House gave its distinctive little creak of old hinges when they unlocked it, and the house’s individual scents greeted them.

Beth went off to the music room to look through the music. There was a hugely big stack of it inside the piano stool and on the shelves, she explained. She would be very careful with it, but there might be stuff Dad had played and she could play too. It was great that Mum had found the piano key, wasn’t it? Nell was aware of a stir of unease at this innocent remark, but she ruffled Beth’s hair, which was about the only caress Beth would tolerate, and went up to check the bedrooms. Tallboys and wardrobes sometimes contained odd, overlooked things of value, but there did not seem to be any in Stilter House’s bedrooms. There were no pieces of Limoges glass or Hilliard miniatures; no lions or witches waiting to pounce, only a couple of forgotten fur coats smelling of mothballs, and several dried-out lavender muslin bags of the kind once used to scent wardrobes.

Late afternoon sunshine trickled through the latticed windows and lay in diamond patterns on the floor, and as Nell made notes, she thought about Samuel Burlap’s statement. She had glanced rather cursorily through the rest of the papers to see if there were any more of Dr Brodworthy’s distinctive typed pages, but there had not seemed to be. And I don’t really want to know anything else, thought Nell. If Burlap succumbed to some form of insanity, I’d rather not know. He built a beautiful house, and I think that’s what he’d like to be remembered for, not for some weird hallucination of a ravaged-face prisoner in the old game larder. And the music, said a voice in her mind. Don’t forget he heard the music, just as you did.

As if the thought had given substance to the memory, the music was suddenly with her again, distant but unmistakable, and Nell laid down the notebook and pen and sat very still, her skin tingling. Was it happening a second time? Burlap’s chill faery music that he believed had brought the ravaged-face woman back into being? The music that existed where no music could exist . . .

Except that this music she was hearing could exist, of course. Beth was investigating the music in the piano room, and clearly she had found something to try for herself. Nell relaxed and sat on the window seat to listen, smiling to hear Beth’s small hands stumbling over a section, then replaying it more accurately. She did not recognize it, but it was light and clear, the kind of simple or simplified piece Beth’s teacher used to lighten the tedium of scales. Nell thought she would go part-way down the stairs and listen quietly, so that later she could tell Beth how much she was improving.

She sat in the window seat on the half-landing to listen. Beth was certainly improving. Her teacher had tentatively suggested she be entered for one of the children’s music festivals, but Nell was torn between wanting Beth to shine, and concern about pushing her into a limelight she might not want. She leaned against the window recess, enjoying the music and the faint scents of old polish and oak brought out by the afternoon sunshine.

The music seemed to be reaching its end, and Nell went down to the hall and pushed open the music-room door. Sunlight poured through these windows, as well, momentarily dazzling her vision, but through it, it was possible to see the small figure at the piano, silhouetted against the oblong of the French windows – a figure so small it had had to pile up several cushions on the stool to reach the keyboard.

Nell blinked and put up a hand to shield her eyes from the strong sunshine. It was Beth, of course, and yet . . .

And yet it somehow seemed wrong for Beth. There was the silky brown hair and there was the familiar tilt of the head which meant Beth was concentrating on something important. She was concentrating fiercely on the music now – so much that she had not heard Nell come in.

Behind her the door swung in on its worn hinges, and at the sound, the music stopped abruptly. There was a blur of movement within the sunlight. The small figure jumped down and ran towards the open French windows, then paused and looked back, straight at Nell.

It was not Beth. It was a young boy, about Beth’s age, with the same colour hair as Beth’s. He paused in the doorway, looked back at her, then darted into the gardens.

Without realizing she had been going to speak, Nell said, ‘Brad . . .’ The name came out like a ghost-whisper, like the cobwebs of old memories, not quite frayed to insignificance yet still capable of hurting. It lay sadly on the old room, then Nell was running through the French windows and across the small terrace outside, half falling down the moss steps. She stopped at the foot, trying to see into the overgrown tangle of garden, but there was nothing. The boy had vanished, as completely and as suddenly as the rain-figure last night. Nell came back into the room, trying to calm her tumbling thoughts.

She closed the French windows, turning the key in the lock.

‘Beth, were you playing the piano earlier this afternoon?’

It was half past six and Beth was helping to make sandwiches which they would have for supper, with tinned soup.

Beth was buttering the bread, not looking at Nell. ‘I found some old music so I tried a bit of it. It was quite hard, though, so I didn’t play much. And it was a bit cold in there so I took my book into your room with the gas fire. Why?’