The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton (10 page)

‘His Fascist Party are militaristic brutes,’ Eleanor said. ‘And he’s a swaggering oaf who thinks he’s Caesar.’

Even Patrick looked impressed by her vigour. Julian glanced anxiously at Lydia but she seemed fascinated. Laurence kept his eyes on Eleanor, her face pale and her shoulders tense, her napkin clutched tightly. He felt a flash of guilt that his horizons and his passions were so limited.

‘It’s men like that who threaten everything people have died for and everything we’ve lost,’ she said. ‘They like war. You think we fought the war to end all wars. Well, wait and see what Signor Mussolini and his cronies have up their sleeves. Their own
stunts.
Lethal ones.’ Her voice wobbled.

Frances said gently, ‘But if you go to Italy, Laurence, perhaps you can see these things for yourself.’

Julian cleared his throat. ‘They were our allies.’

‘Eventually,’ William said.

‘Well, if you’re going, you’d better check your host’s political credentials first, or perhaps you can just subvert the heir?’ Patrick said lightly but without a smile.

Laurence’s eyes remained on Eleanor, who stared fixedly at her lap. Only the slight tremor of her hand betrayed her emotion. From where Patrick was sitting, he wouldn’t have seen it. William put his own hand over hers and squeezed.

‘I loved Italy,’ Lydia said brightly. ‘Digby and I went to Florence for our honeymoon. What a wonderful start to a marriage.’

Chapter Six

Over the following weeks, while William dealt with the thatcher and had two visits from the stained-glass craftsman, Laurence had been working with David, the older Kilminster boy and Walter Petch, clearing the church floor. It was a larger area than he’d initially realised. Although the first strips had come off quite easily, the surface that had been underneath the pews had become denser and more thickly layered. David and the boy even seemed to be enjoying it, David speculating on why it was apparently so hurriedly and so badly applied. Walter remained dour and never once looked Laurence in the eye.

‘Don’t mind him, sir,’ David had said quietly. ‘He misses the old days.’ He smiled. ‘I was two villages away at the time so I get to hear a lot about how much better things at Easton were then.’

One day, when he went to see how work was going, Laurence found Eleanor and Frances on their knees, scraping the floor, scarves tied round their heads.

Aha,’ Eleanor had said. ‘Women at your feet. Every man’s dream.’

‘You should probably wear gloves,’ he said, looking at her red knuckles.

‘It’s fun,’ Frances said, ‘and besides, we think there’s a pattern underneath.’

She sat back on her heels and pointed to an area about eighteen inches square. Some geometrical shape was emerging, although the residue of tar made it hard to see it clearly.

Later, Lydia had come down, leaning heavily on Patrick, and then Eleanor helped William over in his chair.

‘If you’re happy, Laurence, I think it’s going to need solvent to clear it completely.’

‘The under surface looks good,’ Laurence said. ‘Solvent should be fine if we go slowly.’

Since then they’d been using petrol to dissolve the remainder, but it meant nobody could stay working there very long as the church was full of fumes.

Today it was so fine that when Patrick suggested taking a break and going for a walk, which would allow William and the stained-glass man to make final measurements in the church, it felt good to escape into the fresh air.

Frances and Eleanor accompanied Patrick and Laurence as they cut diagonally across the lawns that ran steeply down to the lake. Julian had said Lydia avoided going there and the hidden green-black waters were certainly uninviting. There was something artificial about the planting too. Ever since Laurence had arrived, William had been intending to visit the lake to see whether it was possible to fulfil Lydia’s hope of taking out the impenetrable thickets of evergreen shrubs that made it such a claustrophobic spot. However, the path was too muddy and narrow to take a wheelchair and somehow the visit had never happened. Laurence felt a pang of guilt.

The water level must have dropped recently and two dry bronze spouts, covered in verdigris, stuck out from the surface.

‘Does it fill just from those?’ he asked Patrick.

‘It looks stagnant, but actually it’s very clean water, hence the lilies. There are culverts bringing water from the Kennet and, of course, principally from the generator. But there is a sluice,’ he pointed to the end nearer the house, ‘which can shut off incoming water. It’s centuries old but with a couple of strong men it can still be made to work. Or it could before the war. And under the lilies there’s a drain, which empties out down the slope.’

The glossy leaves of the water lilies covered a quarter of the pool’s elsewhere smooth, obsidian surface, and patches of bright duckweed speckled the dark water.

‘When we drained it...’ Patrick faltered. ‘To see whether Kitty ... before the war...’ Then he said more firmly, ‘When we were looking for my niece, we found the lining had been painted black. Possibly it was to seal it, but I’d guess my forebears intended to create this rather Gothic effect.’

‘But you can’t swim in it,’ Eleanor said, coolly. It was the first time Laurence had heard her talk directly to Patrick since the row at dinner. It was almost a question, but she was looking at the lake with apprehension.

‘I do,’ Patrick replied. ‘Or I used to a lot. So did Digby. Julian replanted the lilies after the old ones were lost when we emptied it—you’ll have noticed that Julian likes things to stay the same—but he’s not so keen on going in, as he had a bad experience with water when he was a child. Our father believed that, like puppies, we’d swim if we were thrown in. It worked on Digby, but very nearly drowned Julian.’

Eleanor seemed about to speak, but Patrick continued, ‘Wait until a really hot day and you’ll be raring to go in.’ For once he lost his calculatedly careless tone. ‘Or by moonlight—when it has a certain atmosphere—slipping into its Stygian waters by night.’

Eleanor appeared unconvinced.

Frances was silent and when Laurence glanced at her she was looking away. It was not hard to imagine the men struggling to open the drains and close the sluice gates—in search of Kitty. He could visualise the scene as the water churned out of the lake, its usually motionless surface turned to mud and debris, and the tension as the level dropped, the waiting to see whether a small body lay in the dark slime on the lake bed. He could not imagine the effect on Frances, watching her sister’s despair, and the fear of the desperate searchers of either finding the little girl dead or of not finding her at all.

Laurence was glad to leave the sunless spot, while Frances and Eleanor seemed to come to life as they emerged into the sunlight. They all passed through an open stone gateway on to a country lane. The downs swept up to their left. Hawthorn hedges, distorted by the wind, cut along the valley, and sheep were grazing on the nearest hill. As they left the lane and followed a grass track, the ancient turf felt springy underfoot and the air smelled fresh as if after rain.

Eleanor looked around her. ‘What a glorious day,’ she said. The long tassel of her tam-o’-shanter swung as she turned her gaze from side to side. ‘Now to mysteries of iron age forts and standing stones and pagan deities.’

Laurence wondered what future historians would make of the landscape of death they’d created in France and Flanders and Turkey: the fortifications, the bones, the weapons. Would somebody stand in those places in centuries to come, excited at the extraordinary nature of what lay around him? Would he puzzle over what its creators thought they were doing as he sifted through fragments of men and metal, horses and ruined timber? Would he think these early twentieth-century people had been trying to appease some particularly cruel god?

Frances said softly, ‘You’re miles away.’

He realised he had stopped walking and started forward again, intending that they both catch up with Patrick, and with Eleanor who kept a few paces behind him, just out of earshot. She had not yet forgiven Patrick for the row, he thought.

‘Patrick truly loves all this stuff,’ Frances said. ‘He’s in his element. This is where you see him with his guard down.’

‘He looks pretty fit,’ Laurence said, watching Patrick stride out down the track, with Eleanor still a little way behind him.

Frances looked sideways at him. ‘You’re thinking if he can dig up palaces in Greece, he could have fought?’

Laurence felt defensive. Had he been thinking that?

‘He does have some quite serious heart problem,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t well enough to go to Oxford when he first left Eton. I once saw him collapse and he looked ghastly. I thought he was having a fit but it’s something to do with his heart valves. And I don’t think he actually digs. He looks after the things they find. Identifies them,’ she said, lowering her voice slightly although Patrick was too far away to hear.

Ahead of them Patrick had come to a halt. He pointed to a tidy mound, with a tree on top, about half a mile away.

‘That barrow was one I dug with Digby when we were about eleven and fifteen. We weren’t supposed to, of course, and we didn’t find much—not the fabulous treasure we were looking for—but there were a few bits and pieces, which we had to hide in the stables or there would have been trouble with our father. We dug straight down at right angles to the surface in our haste to find gold, and we were lucky it didn’t all cave in on us.’

‘Are we going to Silbury?’ Frances asked.

Patrick nodded. ‘Why not? The last resting place of the strangely elusive King Sil.’

‘Are we going the usual way?’ Frances asked, sounding puzzled.

‘I thought we’d show Eleanor and Laurence a fine long barrow first.’

He pointed to what looked like a cairn of stones just showing at the top of the hill. As they drew closer it was revealed as a partly turf-covered hump, rising a few feet out of the ground. Patrick led them round the far side, where large stones stood upright, not quite blocking what appeared to be an entrance.

Patrick bowed slightly. ‘Eleanor?’ he said. ‘Ladies first.’

Eleanor and Frances exchanged glances, looking reluctant. Laurence stepped forward to the blackness of the opening and bent to clear the keystone. His heart was thudding. The inside was dark but there were tiny specks of light, evidently coming through the stonework. He stood up straighter and found he was holding his breath. He let himself breathe; he dreaded smelling something terrible but it was nothing more than earth. Every instinct told him to turn and clamber back to the open hillside and the light. His eyes strained to make out the dimensions of the chamber and he stood to one side to maximise the light coming between the entrance stones. He looked around him. It was essentially just a long, narrow room, constructed out of dry-stone walling with a beaten-earth floor.

‘Laurence,’ Patrick called, and he turned to see Patrick at the entrance, holding out a candle, already lit. ‘At the far end there are ledges you can rest this on.’

Laurence took it gratefully and held it out in front of him. The space was not large. Carbon coated the rock above the ledges Patrick had directed him to. He was evidently not the first person to light the barrow. He half expected to hear rats, but to his relief it was silent and not even especially damp. Behind him Frances rustled as she came in. She looked around her, slightly fearfully, then looked relieved as no horrors presented themselves. She stood very close to him and he could hear her breathing quickly. He could still catch Patrick talking outside and then Eleanor laughing.

Frances said, ‘I think I’ve seen all I need to see.’

She turned and for a moment her body blocked the exit. Again, he felt a wave of panic, but she was soon outside, with him close behind her. Patrick stepped into the chamber and Eleanor, with a wry smile, followed him. Laurence focused on the landscape around him and took a long, deep breath.

Patrick and Eleanor emerged, Eleanor also looking happy to be out once more.

‘Are they certain people were buried here then?’ Frances asked. ‘If they haven’t dug it all out?’

‘Oh, they found bodies here all right,’ Patrick said. ‘Four or five adults and a child.’

Laurence saw the look that passed across Frances’s face but Patrick hadn’t noticed. In many ways Patrick seemed much less sensitive to the tensions around Easton, but perhaps as the member of the family least often back home, he was simply determined not to join them all in stasis.

‘They were found in the last century,’ he said, ‘and buried millennia ago.’

Frances’s expression relaxed.

‘One odd thing: there were tiny bones, finger bones, mostly, in the interstices—the little gaps between the stones. Too many for it to be coincidence.’

Eleanor made a face. ‘I don’t like the idea of somebody rooting through my grave in two millennia, waving my femurs about, putting me in a case in the British Museum and deciding I was a serf on the basis of my lack of jewellery.’ Her face lightened as she spread out her fingers, revealing only the thin band of her wedding ring.

Frances looked at her, apparently amused. ‘But you don’t believe in an afterlife, Eleanor, and you do believe in knowledge, so I would have thought you’d be thrilled to come to such an instructive end.’

‘Of course she believes in an afterlife,’ Patrick said. ‘Everybody does at heart, every culture, whatever the intellectual fashion. We’re far too selfish to believe all our worldly endeavours only come to this.’

Eleanor turned sharply and Laurence expected her to flare up at Patrick, but she simply said, ‘Actually, Patrick, I’m rather surprised that an educated man like you is so superstitious.’

‘Actually you don’t know what I believe.’

‘By inference I do.’

‘You should work with evidence, Eleanor, not prejudice.’

Laurence watched Eleanor’s face but she appeared surprisingly placid. Although Patrick was watching her too, he noticed, Eleanor turned away.

‘Shall we walk on?’ she said, brightly.

They strode downhill in single file, but not before Frances rolled her eyes at Laurence. He tried not to laugh.