House of Echoes (35 page)

He lifted up the cross. ‘Here. Carry this and follow me.’

Slowly they processed around the room, Edgar in front, flicking the Holy Water into every corner, David behind clutching the cross. For all his fear David could not help giving his own small prayer of gratitude that his head master could not see him at this moment, and unbelievably a small gurgle of laughter rose in his throat. Edgar stopped and turned. His face was white with anger. ‘You find this funny? After all we have discussed? After all you have heard here, you find this funny?’ He was almost shouting with fury.

‘No. I’m sorry.’ David bit his lip, holding the cross higher, in front of his face. ‘Put it down to hysteria. I’m not used to this sort of thing – ’

‘Thank God you are not!’ Edgar stared at him for a long moment. ‘I just hope that our witch has not got to you as well. Perhaps it would be better if you waited outside.’

‘No.’ The thought that he might have been bewitched was so frightening David felt the cold sweat drenching his shoulders. ‘No, Edgar, I’m sorry. Please. I’ll help you.’ He glanced up at the beams of the high ceiling as they both heard clearly the sound of running feet. ‘Don’t forget the king, Edgar. If the king is here too – ’

‘First things first,’ Edgar snapped. His hands had begun to shake. He tossed a shower of water into the dark corners beneath
the gallery.
‘Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine. Ab ira, et odio, et
omni, libera nos Domine
! This way.’ He turned towards the door. ‘…
ubicumque fuerit aspersa, per invocationem sancti nominis tui,
omnis infestatio immundi spiritus abigator, terrorque venenosi serpentis
procul pellatur
…’

‘Mr Tregarron? Are you there?’ The loud voice echoing suddenly through the room stopped him dead. ‘Mr Tregarron, are you all right?’

David closed his eyes. He wiped his face with the back of his arm. ‘It’s Jimbo; Luke’s mechanic,’ he whispered. His hands were shaking so much he had to clutch the cross against his chest.

‘Mr Tregarron?’ The voice sounded less certain now.

‘Keep quiet. He’ll go away,’ Edgar commanded in a whisper.

‘Mr Tregarron? The back door was open.’ The voice was closer suddenly. ‘I thought I’d better check.’

‘Speak to him.’ Edgar slumped forward, crossing his arms across his solar plexus, all the energy draining suddenly out of him. ‘Speak to him. Send him away.’

David put the cross down on the table and made for the door. ‘Jim?’ His voice was croaky. ‘Jim, it’s all right. I’m here.’ He walked out into the kitchen, taking deep breaths, feeling as though he had been let out of prison. With a huge, body shaking sigh he leaned his arms on the kitchen table, his head in his hands.

‘Are you sure you’re all right, Mr Tregarron?’ Jimbo had been standing in the doorway. He moved forward, his face creased with concern. ‘You look white as a sheet, mate. What’s happened?’

David forced himself upright. ‘Just a bit tired. Sorry, I didn’t mean to give you a fright. I didn’t realise I’d left the door open.’

‘No problem. As long as everything’s OK.’ Jimbo hesitated. ‘There’s nothing wrong through there, is there?’

David shook his head.

‘I’ll go on back to work then. I had to go into Ipswich this morning to collect some parts.’ He still hadn’t moved. ‘Shall I put the kettle on for you? You look as though you could do with something hot.’

David shook his head wearily. ‘No. Thanks Jimbo. I’m fine. Perhaps I’ll make some later.’ He forced himself to smile. ‘I’m going back to London today. I’ll look in on you before I go and give you back the key.’

He stood watching as the young man at last turned to go. As the door closed behind him he had a tremendous urge to call him, but somehow he resisted it.

He had to go back.

‘L
uke, I have to visit the place where my mother lived.’

‘Oh, Joss!’ Luke sat up and stared at her. ‘We came here to leave all that behind.’

‘I can’t leave it behind, Luke.’ She shook her head. ‘All I need to do is look. See where she stayed. I’ve got the address. I need to know she was happy here in Paris.’

‘And how will you know that?’ He took a deep breath. ‘Joss, she’s been dead for years. I don’t suppose anyone is even going to remember her.’

‘They might.’ She clenched her fists. ‘It’s not so long. Please, Luke. I’ll go alone if I have to.’

He sighed. ‘You know I won’t let you do that.’

She gave him a shaky smile. ‘Thank you.’

‘All right. I give in. Let’s get something to eat then we’ll go and find it. Then, please, can we relax and enjoy ourselves again? For our last few days?’

She pushed back the bedclothes. ‘Of course. I promise.’

Rue Aumont-Thiéville was in the 17th arrondissement. Their taxi driver dropped them off in a short street of what looked like purpose-built
ateliers
. Looking up at the huge studio windows Joss took a deep breath. ‘It was here. Here that she lived with Paul after she went to join him.’

‘Are you going to knock?’

She bit her lip. ‘Doesn’t one look for the concièrge? Or don’t they exist any more? I seem to remember that they are supposed to know everything about every one of their tenants in Paris.’

Luke grinned. ‘They’re dragons. Direct descendants of the
tricoteuses
who sat at the foot of the guillotine knitting, counting heads as they fell into the basket!’

‘You’re trying to put me off.’

‘Not really. I know nothing will do that.’ He put his arm round her shoulders. ‘Go on. Ring the bell.’

The young woman who opened the door to them looked nothing like a
tricoteuse
. She was smart, well made up, and spoke fluent English. ‘Monsieur Deauville? Yes, he still lives here, Madame.’

Joss glanced at Luke, then she turned back to the young woman. ‘Perhaps you remember my – that is, his …’ she floundered to a stop. It had suddenly dawned on her that she did not know if her mother had remarried or not. ‘Madame Deauville,’ she went on hastily. ‘She died about six years ago.’

The young woman made a face. ‘Pardon, Madame. My mother was here then. I’ve only been here two years. All I can say is that there is no Madame Deauville now.’ She shrugged. ‘Do you wish to go upstairs?’

Joss nodded. She glanced at Luke. ‘Do you want to come or would you rather go for a walk or something?’

‘Don’t be silly.’ He stepped inside after her. ‘Of course I want to come.’

The lift was wrought iron, small, ornate and terrifying. It carried them with unbelievable slowness up to the third floor where they heaved back the gate and stepped out onto the bare scrubbed landing. It took several minutes for the door to be answered. Paul Deauville was, Joss guessed, in his eighties, tall, white haired, astonishingly good looking and full of charm. His smile was immediately welcoming. ‘Monsieur? Madame?’ He looked from one to the other in enquiry.

Joss took a deep breath. ‘Monsieur Deauville? Do you speak English?’

His smile broadened. ‘Of course.’

He was dressed in an open-necked shirt and heavy wool sweater. There were tell-tale paint stains on his sleeve.

‘Monsieur, I am Laura’s daughter.’ She stared at him anxiously, half expecting a rejection as a look of shock then astonishment and then at last delight played across his expressive features. ‘Jocelyn?’

He knew her name.

Her face relaxed into a smile of relief as she nodded. ‘Jocelyn,’ she confirmed.

‘Oh,
ma chérie!
’ He put out his arms and pulled her to him, planting a kiss on each cheek. ‘At last. Oh, how long we waited,
Laura and I, for this moment.’ He drew back suddenly. ‘You knew – forgive me – you knew she was dead?’

Joss nodded.

He echoed her nod, then he seized her hand. ‘Please. Come in. Come in. This is your husband, no?’ He released her to give Luke’s hand an equally warm squeeze.

Joss nodded. ‘I am sorry to come without warning.’

‘That does not matter! What matters is that you come at last! Come in, come in. I will put on the coffee. No, we need something better than that. Something special to celebrate. Sit down. Sit down.’ He had ushered them into a huge studio room. The walls of the ground floor area were lined with paintings. There were two easels both with canvases standing near the vast window; behind them a small area served as the sitting room; three comfortable chairs, covered in woollen throws, a coffee table, a television with all round it piles of books and papers. To one side of the studio an open plan staircase – almost a ladder – ran up to a gallery where presumably he had his bedroom. The old man had disappeared into the kitchen area. As Joss and Luke stood in front of one of the canvases, looking in delight at the riot of colour in the painting, he reappeared with a tray carrying three glasses and a bottle of wine. ‘
Voilà
! To drink a toast!’ He put the tray down on a low table in front of the chairs. ‘Look, have you seen? The portraits of your mama? Here? And here?’

There were several of them. Huge, reflecting his style of large solid blocks of colour, pure emotion, warmth and vibrancy and yet at the same time all managing to capture something of the delicacy of the woman they portrayed. Her hair – in two dark, streaked with white, in the last grey and white and wild, a gypsy’s hair. She was swathed in bright shawls, yet her skin had the fine luminous texture of the English aristocrat; her eyes remained wistful behind their teasing. Joss stood a long time in front of the last.

‘I painted that after we knew she was ill.’ Paul came to stand beside her. ‘She was twenty years younger than me. It was very cruel that she should be taken so soon after we had found each other.’

‘Will you tell me about her?’ Joss found there were tears in her eyes.

‘Of course.’ He led her back to the chairs. ‘Come, sit down.
I will give you some wine then I will tell you everything you want to know.’ He began to pour. ‘You have of course found Belheddon.’ He did not look up from the glasses.

She nodded. ‘That is how I knew how to find you.’ She took one from him. ‘Did you ever go there?’ She had gone back to look at the picture again.

He nodded, passing Luke his wine, and then sitting down himself, his long legs, encased in old denims, stretched out in front of him. ‘And are you pleased with your inheritance?’ The question was posed cautiously as he took a sip of his wine.

Joss shrugged. ‘There are problems.’

Paul nodded slowly. ‘There are always problems with old houses.’

‘Why?’ Joss turned away from the picture and looked at him hard. ‘Why did she leave it to me when she was so afraid of it herself? Why, if she knew there was danger there? I don’t understand.’

Paul met her gaze for several seconds then he put down his glass. With a shrug he climbed awkwardly to his feet and went over to the huge window. The greyness of the afternoon had lightened a little and a few streaks of brightness illuminated the sky above the houses opposite. His back to her he put his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his shoulders hunched. ‘She was in torment, Jocelyn. Torn this way and that. I had known her, I suppose, ten years. I met her a long time after your father died. She told me, of course, about your brothers and about you. She talked about you a lot.’ He was staring up, over the house roofs opposite into the sky, as though his gaze could recall the past.

‘I asked her to marry me then,’ he went on, ‘but she refused. She was a prisoner of that house.’ His voice took on a bitter tone. ‘She hated it. But also she loved it.’ There was another long silence. ‘You have asked yourself, of course, why she had you adopted?’ Still he did not turn round.

Joss nodded. She found she couldn’t answer.

He took her silence for assent. ‘I did not know her then, of course. I can a little imagine her pain after your father died. She adored him all her life.’ He gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘I was only ever a poor second best for her. But even then I could not imagine how she could give you, her last link with him, away to a stranger. Once or twice only, in all the time I knew her she
tried to explain a little to me, but that part of her life she guarded. I think –’ he paused, choosing his words carefully, ‘I think she felt that if you stayed at Belheddon, you too would be harmed, as her sons had been harmed. The only reason that would make her give away the little
bébé
she loved, was to save your life.’ He turned round at last with an expressive gesture of the hands. ‘Do not be angry with her, Jocelyn. She did it to save you. The act brought her only unhappiness.’

‘Then why,’ Joss cleared her throat. It was hard to speak. ‘Why then did she leave the house to me?’

‘I think it was the only way she could escape herself.’ He went back to his chair and sat down, running his hands through his thick white hair. ‘She found you, you know. I don’t know how, but she found who had adopted you and somehow she kept an eye on you. I remember her saying,’ he gave a wry smile, ‘“The girl is being brought up very solidly. They are good people and they have no imagination.” I was very cross with her. I said, “You mean you don’t want your daughter to have imagination, the most precious thing in the world?” and she said, “No, I don’t want her to have imagination. I want her to be down to earth. Solid. Happy. That way she will never look for her roots.”’

Joss bit her lip. She couldn’t speak. It was Luke who turned to Paul. ‘You mean she never intended Joss to have the house?’

Paul shrugged. ‘She was a very complicated woman. I think she was trying to fool herself. If she left the house to Jocelyn she would appease some spirit of the place which would then let her go. But when she made the will she made it sufficiently complicated, no?’ He glanced at Joss again. ‘So that it was unlikely that she would inherit. It had to be Jocelyn’s free choice. If she made that choice, then,’ he lifted his hands helplessly, ‘she would have brought whatever fate brought to her upon herself. She was if you like being deliberately self deluding.’

‘She said, in the letter she left me, that it was my father’s wish that I inherit the house,’ Joss said slowly.

‘Your father?’ Paul looked shocked. ‘I find that very hard to believe. Your father hated the house, I understand. He begged and begged her to sell it, she told me.’

‘How did you make her leave, in the end?’ Luke reached for the bottle of wine and poured himself a second glass.

‘It was the will.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know who persuaded
her to leave the house to you, but as soon as she had done that it was as if the locks had been unfastened and suddenly she was free.’

‘I don’t know why, but that thought leaves rather a nasty taste in my mouth,’ Luke said softly. He was watching Joss. ‘You know, the terms of her will forbid us to sell it for a set number of years.’

Paul frowned. ‘But you don’t have to live there.’

There was a silence. He sighed. ‘It is perhaps already too late. The trap has closed. That is, of course, why you are here.’

Joss sat down at last. Her face was pale and strained as she looked at him.

He found himself biting his lip. She was so like her mother – her mother as she had been when he first met her, before that last cruel illness had struck.

‘Did she tell you about the ghosts?’ she asked at last.

Paul’s face grew wary. ‘The little boys upstairs? I did not believe her. It was the imaginings of a grieving woman.’

‘They weren’t imaginings,’ Joss’s voice was very quiet. ‘We’ve all heard them too.’ She looked at Luke, then back to Paul. ‘There is something else there. The devil himself.’

Paul laughed, ‘
Le bon diable
? I don’t think so. She would have told me that.’

‘She never told you about the tin man?’

‘Tin man?’ Paul shook his head.

‘Or Katherine?’

He looked suddenly wary again. ‘Katherine who is buried in the little church?’

Joss nodded slowly.

‘Yes. She told me of the sorrow that still haunts the house. She told me that, like in a fairy story, there needs to be a deliverance. To break the spell.’

Joss stared at him a sudden flash of hope in her eyes. ‘Did she tell you what that deliverance would have to be?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘She did not know, Jocelyn. Otherwise she would have done it. Once, when she came to Paris for the weekend we went to Montmartre where I have many friends. That day we went to the Sacré Coeur together. There she bought in the shop a cross. She asked the priest to bless it for her, and she wore it round her neck until she died. That day we lit a candle to bring peace to the children at Belheddon, and to Katrine,’ he
pronounced it the French way. ‘She was very superstitious, your mother, though she was so intelligent a woman. We quarrelled about that.’ He gave a sudden mischievous smile. ‘We often quarrelled. But there was much love between us.’

‘I’m glad she was happy here.’ Joss’s eyes strayed back to the painting.

Paul followed her gaze. ‘The pictures of her will be yours one day. To take back to Belheddon. And,’ he levered himself to his feet once more, ‘there are some things of hers here, which you should have. I will fetch them.’

They watched as he climbed the stairs to the gallery and they heard the sound of drawers being pulled in and out, then he appeared once more, negotiating the ladderlike contraption without any difficulty in spite of his age. Under his arm he had wedged a small carved box. ‘Her pieces of jewellery. They should be yours.’ He pushed it at her.

Joss took the box with shaking hands and lifted the lid. Inside was a tangle of beads and pearls, two or three brooches, some rings. She looked down into the box, shaken by the emotion which had suddenly swept over her.

Paul was watching her. ‘Do not be sad, Jocelyn. She would not have wanted that.’

‘Is the cross here? The one she had specially blessed.’

He shook his head. ‘She took that to her grave. With her wedding ring.’