This House is Haunted (22 page)

“No, of course not,” I replied, blushing furiously. “I was being facetious, that’s all.”

“Hmm,” she said, unsatisfied. “I hope so. Clara Sharpe the manager of a bank! The very idea!”

And yet, although I did not consider myself to be a modern at all, I found her level of offence to be, in itself, offensive. Why should the girl
not
strive for higher things, after all? Why should we all not?

So intent was Mrs. Farnsworth on scolding me that I rather suspected she would have liked to call Father in to discuss the matter with him, and perhaps she might have done so had she not finally realized that there was a distinction to be made between the small girls and their teachers, and that she could call on parental authority to discipline the former but it was entirely her responsibility to control the latter.

I thought of Clara now because she ended up in a rather distressed condition. Her father was a drunkard, while her mother
did all she could to keep the family home together, despite the pittance her husband brought in for the upkeep of his wife and daughter. What little money the man earned was more likely to be spent on porter than on food or clothing, and there was more than one morning when Clara arrived in the classroom, her face bruised, and I longed to live in a decent civilized society where I might make enquiries about who had done the bruising and why. Not that I had any doubts as to the answer to that question. On such days, I dreaded to imagine what Clara’s mother looked like, for I suspected her father of mistreating his wife just as badly as he did his daughter. I considered going to the police but of course they would have laughed at me and said that what an Englishman did in the privacy of his own home was his own business.

But the man must have gone too far one night and attacked Mrs. Sharpe when her ire was drawn, for she took a roasting pot from the oven, turned on her heel and hit him so sharply across the head with it that he fell to the ground, dead. The poor woman, a victim of unanswered violence for so long, was immediately arrested—for naturally, an assault upon a husband was a crime, whereas an assault upon a wife fell into the realm of marital privilege. Unlike Santina Westerley, however, who was clearly an unbalanced creature, Mrs. Sharpe was not sentenced to death. The judge, a modern sort—Mrs. Farnsworth would not have approved of him—believed that she deserved some leniency and commuted her sentence to life imprisonment without any possibility of parole, a sentence which, in the same position, I would have liked infinitely less than a week of nervous anticipation, a few seconds of extraordinary pain, and an eternity of peace ever after, the reward offered by the rope.
Clara, having no other family to take her in, ended up in the workhouse, after which I rather lost touch with her. But she returned to my thoughts on one of those mornings as I considered the murder of Miss Tomlin by Santina Westerley and her violent assault upon her husband, which had left him in such a horrendous condition. And I wondered about the minds of women who committed these acts. Mrs. Sharpe, after all, had been abused and beaten; Santina Westerley, I had no doubt of it, had been loved and offered the security of a home, wealth, position and a family. Placed alongside each other, I found that motivation was a curious thing.

It was while thinking this that I turned the corner of the estate and found myself back in front of Heckling’s cottage, only to discover that difficult man standing outside, a pile of logs on the ground beside him, which he was cleaving in two with an axe. Upon seeing me, he put the axe down and wiped his brow with his handkerchief, offering me a nod as the dog, Pepper, ran towards me and scampered about my feet.

“Governess,” said Heckling, licking his lips in a repellent fashion.

“Mr. Heckling,” I replied. “No rest for the wicked, is there?”

“Aye, well, if I don’t do it there’s no one else as will,” he muttered. The man was nothing if not a burst of sunshine on a gloomy day.

I glanced round and noticed the door at the side of the house, almost hidden, through which Mrs. Livermore made her daily journeys up and down the staircase to Mr. Westerley’s rooms. I hadn’t noticed it at all until the day she pointed it out to me, but now that I saw it I wondered why the original builders had sought to make it such a secret.

“Have you always worked alone, Mr. Heckling?” I asked, turning back to look at him, and he raised an eyebrow at the question.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“I wondered whether it had always been just you on the estate. Fixing things, chopping logs, driving the carriage and whatnot. I would imagine, in past days, there was a lot more to do.”

“Aye, there was that,” he said, apparently reluctant to say too much about the past. “There were others, under me that is, but there’s no need for them now so they were let go. I were kept on account of the grounds needing one caretaker at least. And I were born here, of course.”

“You were born here?” I asked, surprised.

“In yon cottage,” he replied, nodding at his dwelling. “My father were the caretaker before me, you see. And his before him. I’m the last of them though.” He gave a sigh and looked away and for the first time I could see that beneath all his bluster there lay a rather lonely figure.

“You’ve no children of your own then?”

He chewed something at the side of his mouth. “None as are still living.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. Of course; we all had stories.

“Aye.”

He reached down and gripped the handle of the axe in his hands before settling it against the stump and reaching into his pocket for a rolled cigarette.

“You watch everything, I expect, Mr. Heckling?” I said after a pause.

“How’s that?”

“You keep your eyes open.”

“ ’Cept when I’m sleeping.”

“Have you ever noticed any intruders?”

He narrowed his eyes and took a long drag on the cigarette as he stared at me. “Intruders?” he said. “Now why would you ask such a thing, Governess? Has there been someone about?”

I shook my head. “Eustace mentioned something,” I replied. “About an elderly gentleman who has been spotted on the grounds. They’ve been in conversation.”

“Ain’t no elderly gentleman around here,” said Heckling, shaking his head. “Else I would have noticed him. Or Pepper here would, and that would have gone worse for him.”

“Perhaps he was mistaken,” I said.

“Happen he were. Boys invent things. You must know that as well as anyone.”

“Eustace doesn’t tell lies,” I replied, surprising myself by how defensive I sounded.

“Then he’d be the first lad of his age who didn’t. When I were a lad, lying came second nature to me. My father used to beat me for it regular-like.”

“I’m very sorry to hear it.”

His expression changed to one of confusion. “Why?” he asked.

“Well … that must have been unpleasant for you.”

He shrugged. “I daresay I deserved it,” he said. “That boy might need a beating if he lies about things he’s seen and things he hasn’t.”

“I won’t be beating Eustace,” I said in a firm tone.

“Well, it’s a father’s job, I expect,” he said, looking away with a sigh. “And Mr. Westerley ain’t exactly in a position to do anything about the lad, is he?”

I didn’t know whether he was being deliberately offensive or simply stating the facts as they were; he was right, after all.
It was a father’s job to discipline his son and Eustace’s father could certainly never do so again. I shook my head; all of this was neither here nor there, for I did not believe that Eustace was being deceitful.

“If you did see such a gentleman,” I said finally, “an elderly gentleman, or any stranger who does not belong in these grounds, perhaps you’d be good enough to let me know.”

“Or I might just shoot him,” said Heckling. “On account of his being a trespasser and that.”

“Yes, well,” I said, turning away, “that would be another option, I suppose.”

A sound made me turn back round and to my amazement I saw none other than Mr. Raisin, the solicitor, emerging from behind Heckling’s cottage. He broke into a delighted smile before coughing and allowing his features to return to normal, whereupon he offered me a polite bow. “Miss Caine,” he said. “How nice to see you.”

“And you, Mr. Raisin,” I said, reddening slightly for I know not what reason. “Quite a surprise.”

“Yes, well, I had some business with Heckling here and was caught rather short, if you’ll excuse me. Thank you, Heckling,” he added, nodding in the man’s direction. “Our business is concluded for today, I think?”

“Aye,” said Heckling, picking up his axe again and taking a step back, waiting for us to depart so that he might begin chopping again. Taking the hint, Mr. Raisin and I stepped in line with each other and began walking in the direction of the house, where I saw his carriage was standing.

“A matter of some invoices,” he stated as we walked along. “Heckling is a reliable man and honest as the day is long, but when he needs something he thinks nothing of simply ordering
it from one of the village shops and telling them to send the invoice directly to me. I don’t begrudge him this, of course, I know he would never take anything for his own benefit, but I do like to go through the invoices with him from time to time so we’re both clear about the estate’s expenses.”

“I imagine it must be a complicated business,” I said.

“It can be,” he admitted. “But Gaudlin Hall is not the most byzantine of my clients. I know people with less property and far less money who tie it up in the most elaborate tangles. Unravelling the knots would take the skill of a lifelong sailor. Anyway, Mr. Cratchett takes care of most of the daily business for me. I’m simply on hand for anything more complicated. And it’s nothing compared to the old days, of course. Certainly, when my father was lawyer for James’s father—”

“Goodness me,” I exclaimed. “Must everyone in this county follow their father’s profession? And take up their father’s duties when their time comes? Heckling was just telling me the same thing about his own family.”

“It’s the natural order of things, Miss Caine,” he said, sounding a little offended, and I rather regretted the tone in which I had spoken. “And the law is a respectable business, you know. As is being a general caretaker, if that is the class into which one is born. As, for that matter, is being a governess.”

“Of course, Mr. Raisin,” I said apologetically. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

“Might I ask what line your father was in?” he asked.

“He worked in the Department of Entomology at the British Museum.”

“And that was his lifelong career, was it?”

“Well, no,” I admitted. “When he was my age, he was briefly a teacher. In a school for small boys.”

“And before you came to join us here at Norfolk? Remind me what you did again?”

I smiled. For the first time in a long time, I felt like laughing. “I was a teacher,” I said.

“In a school for small girls, no doubt?”

“Quite so.”

“Well then, Miss Caine,” he said, stopping before the carriage and raising himself to his full height, his chest puffed out and with an expression of pure satisfaction on his face, “it seems that what’s good for us in the country is good enough for those in the blessed capital too.”

I stared into his face, those bright blue eyes, and we smiled at each other. Our gaze held and his expression became confused. His lips parted; he looked at me as if he wanted to say something but could not find the words.

“Yes, yes,” I said finally, willing to let him have his little victory. “I stand rightly chastised. But now, Mr. Raisin, you’re not leaving us so quickly, are you?”

“Would you have me stay?”

I had no answer to this question. Finally, he sighed and patted his horse. “I have given myself a half-day’s holiday, Miss Caine,” he told me. “I thought I would sort out the issue of the invoices with Heckling and then retire to my home with a glass of claret and
Oliver Twist
, which I am reading for the first time since its original publication. It’s such a wonderful story. I could let you have the back numbers if you’d care to take a look?”

“That’s kind of you,” I said.

“Kindness has nothing to do with it,” he replied. “I understand it must get a little … how shall I put this?… boring out here at Gaudlin Hall from time to time. With such a dearth
of adult company. A little reading might provide a welcome escape?”

I smiled and considered that there were three other adults almost permanently present at the Hall: Heckling, Mrs. Livermore and Mr. Westerley. One of whom didn’t like to speak to me, one of whom didn’t want to speak to me and one of whom simply couldn’t speak to me. And yet, despite all that, “boring” was the last word I would have used to describe life on this estate.

“Perhaps,” I said. “But, Mr. Raisin, before you go, could I trouble you for a few minutes of your time?”

His face turned slightly pained; I suspect that he guessed the subject on which I wanted to speak and he felt disinclined. “I would love to, Miss Caine. Truly, there is nothing I would like more. But work calls.”

“You said you have a half-day’s holiday.”

“Ah yes,” he replied, frowning. “I meant … that is to say …”

“Mr. Raisin, I won’t keep you long, I promise. Just a few minutes. There are some questions I have for you.”

He sighed and nodded, aware perhaps that there was no proper way out of this, and I indicated a bench at the front of the lawns and we walked towards it, sitting down. He kept a safe distance from me; Isabella and Eustace could easily have taken their places between us and none of us would yet have touched. I looked down at his left hand resting on his lap. The golden band on the fourth finger. He followed my eye but did not stir.

“You’re not going to ask me more about the Westerleys, are you?” he asked. “I feel that I have told you as much as I know about them. From their first meeting to their last.”

“No, it’s not that,” I said, shaking my head. “And if I may say so, Mr. Raisin, you were very generous with your time with me
that day. I could see that it was a distressing subject for you. It was obvious by the end of our conversation how deeply affected you had been by the events that took place here.”