The Empty Frame (11 page)

Sam stopped in the path and something made him say, “Can I help you?” Immediately, the old woman turned her face to him and their eyes met. She saw a freckled, hot young face and a tangle of coarse dark hair dusted with fine thistledown that had drifted
across the water. He saw an ancient lined countenance, with deep channels carved into the sides of the mouth and more channels defining the nose, and there were deep furrows seaming the forehead. It was a good strong face which might once have been beautiful, but it was the saddest he had ever seen.

Her eyes, a bright hard blue, now searched his face, but he saw that there was no recognition in them. He felt she had been expecting some other person and that he had come instead and was a disappointment. The kitten now howled very loudly and started to spit, managing to jam its head in the window in the wicker-basket, in its efforts to escape. The old woman had already turned away and was walking along the river bank, past the two boys hunched over their rods, walking very upright, almost stalking, holding up her long dress with thin white hands. And as Sam watched her go a chill swept across him, the sudden chill of a still, hot day when different weather is coming, heralded by peevish gusts of wind.

All the way back to the Abbey, he talked to Arthur through the wicker bars, comforting him, promising instant release and a handful of the crunchy cat biscuits that he loved. But all he could think about was the lean black figure and the beautiful, anguished face which remained imprinted on his memory, long after the grey-green beauty of the river and its trees had faded.

Next morning, Magnus, who had slept very badly, woke once again at precisely twenty-past five. It was as if there was an alarm clock inside his head. At bedtime, Sam had talked of coming with him to the swimming pool, but Magnus had been vague about his plans. He couldn't cope with Sam, who'd won medals for swimming, tearing up and down the pool while he did his pathetic hopping performance, clinging on to the sides. His plan was to go to the pool on his own each morning, and practise. That way he'd be swimming properly by the end of the holiday.

Fortunately, Floss and Sam were sleeping soundly. They'd all sat up late last night, discussing how they could get into the middle of that overgrown shrubbery where the tunnel entrance was. Sam had had a look in Wilf's workshop, with its orderly array of all kinds of tools, and Cousin Maude had plenty of gardening implements too, hung on pegs in her greenhouse. But they couldn't just help themselves. Expensive tools that went missing would attract immediate attention. If they borrowed them officially, however, they would have to
explain what they were needed for, and that meant taking Wilf, and possibly Cousin Maude, into their confidence.

Sam had not told the others about the old woman on the river bank. He wished he hadn't seen her and he wished he could stop thinking about her. He was trying to persuade himself that she was just a vague, lost old woman from the village, but he knew that this was not true. The Lady Alice Neale had appeared to him, but as an old lady, and it was not Sam she had wanted to see. When their eyes met she had immediately turned away.

Magnus pondered on the question of the tools as he pulled on his swimming trunks. Colonel Stickley had obligingly stayed in London for the rest of the week and yesterday, Cousin Maude had talked about going to a national garden show on the other side of Birmingham. So perhaps it was only Wilf they'd have to deal with – or deceive. The problem was, they all liked him so much. The thought of lying to Wilf did not appeal.

Before he crept away, Magnus checked his tell-tale piece of sticking plaster inside the fireplace. His heart came up into his throat when he saw it. The plaster had most definitely stretched and it was now strained quite tautly across the two broken lips of wall. They had moved apart, even though the movement was infinitesimal.

He took his clasp knife and made a tiny nick in the top of the sticking plaster – it had a plastic coating and
wouldn't tear very easily on its own. This cut might help the process, unless of course the plaster itself came off the wall. He noted down what he'd done in his “Appearances” notebook and dated the entry. If the workmen turned up today, and started disturbing things at the base of the turret, it would be interesting to see what happened to this piece of plaster.

Arthur appeared as he stepped out of the front door and scampered along beside him as far as the outer door of the pool, which was again propped open, though there was no sign of Wilf. Could this be a special act of kindness for the children alone? If so, Magnus was extremely grateful.

The little cat had stopped very suddenly at the door, almost skidding, as if brakes had been applied to his paws. Magnus picked him up and cuddled him, stroking his little round belly. “You're getting too fat,” he whispered. “You ought to eat less.” Then he carried him past the dusty pot plants and tried to show him the glinting blue water through the glass. But Arthur squirmed frantically, making the same throaty growling noise as yesterday. Then he leaped out of Magnus's arms and tore off in the direction of the Abbey.

When he was ready to swim, Magnus went into the pool area very cautiously. The cat had sensed something in this building. He had behaved just now in exactly the same way as on their first night, when the Lady Alice
had walked out of her frame, when they had heard her weeping up in the turret room. Was she here again and was she actually waiting for him this time? Would she speak?

But nobody was there and he swam up and down, going over and over things in his mind. From the beginning, Arthur had been like a piece of litmus paper in the way he had reacted so sensitively to the various moods and feelings that were abroad in the Abbey. It was possible that, just now, he had picked up the presence of the Lady Alice Neale, even though Magnus could neither see her presence nor feel her nearness. Or was the cat's unease about something more ancient, and more general? Miss Adeline had told them yesterday that some of the old village people would not talk about this particular area of the Abbey estate. It had always been called The Field and it was rumoured to be an ancient burial place. They hadn't wanted Colonel Stickley to disturb it in order to build a swimming pool, but he had ignored them. The old lady hadn't said if anything had been found but, buried deep beneath this hideous twentieth-century construction, there might be the remains of hundreds of people. Or was it just one person? Was it the skeleton of William Neale, and was that why his mother had appeared to Magnus, here?

When he got back, the other two were up, washed and dressed. Magnus expected recriminations from Sam
for not having waited for him, but the other boy made no comment. He was much too preoccupied with the problem of getting the necessary tools for their assault on the shrubbery.

“I know it's hot but I think you should put jeans on today,” he told Magnus. Both he and Floss were wearing theirs. “We're going to get scratched to bits, trying to get into the centre of those bushes. And take something with long sleeves to put on, you'll need to protect your arms.”

Eventually, feeling sweaty and over-dressed, they trooped down the cool stone spiral of steps to join Cousin M for breakfast in the Great Hall. But she wasn't there. A sheet of paper stuck to the cereal box explained, in her big, generous handwriting, that she had set off early for the garden show near Birmingham, to try and avoid traffic jams on the M6, and that she might stay overnight with a friend. Wilf would be around all day and they could have the run of the Abbey. “Heaps of love,” it ended.

Propped against the box were three postcards from Majorca, from their parents, one for each of them; some stone steps at the end of a flower-hung alley, a stunning blue sea ringed with mountains, a simple white church. Magnus looked at his for a long time and before setting off with the others to talk to Wilf, went upstairs and slid it under his pillow. Cousin M was
mothering him and he liked her a lot but he still had moments of missing his foster parents, especially the children's mother, who was always so kind to him and whom he allowed, privately, to hug him. She would have understood why the story of the tormented William Neale had distressed him so much and he thought too that she might have understood why, now, it felt so vital to find out what had happened to him, and why they were going down the tunnel. But if William
was
buried underneath the swimming pool building, how could anybody get him out? The ghost would be grieving for ever, it seemed to him.

Wilf, who was all set to go off in
Salut d'Amour
for a few hours fishing, didn't actually ask them why they wanted to borrow a spade, a saw, a couple of hammers and a jemmy. Sam's vague opening gambit had been that they wanted to do some exploring in the grounds.

Having shown them where he kept his tools, Wilf said very casually, “I suppose it's that old passage under the water you're after, is it? Miss A tell you all about it, did she? Don't get too excited. I've never been able to find it myself. Have fun.”

Somewhat crushed by this they set off for the river, carrying the tools between them. They'd gone into Maude's greenhouse on the way and they now had a pair of secateurs each. Sam seemed to think the initial assault would involve cutting away a lot of upper
branches, otherwise they wouldn't actually be able to see where they were going at ground level. Before they began, Sam got himself high enough in a big tree to be able to look down and site the remains of the elms by the river, and from these he worked out a rough line back, to where the shrubbery ended.

He decided that they should start by cutting a passage about half a metre wide, from the land side of the shrubbery into the middle, and they set to work with their secateurs, cutting through the thicker branches with the saw. It was back-breaking work and they were soon covered with scratches. Sam had been right to insist on long sleeves, on jeans and thick socks.

Once they'd made a bit of headway they discovered that it wasn't so daunting as they'd imagined, that in a funny way it was quite satisfying. You could sometimes advance several metres over sweet-smelling peaty soil where nothing at all grew, and some of the little bushes could be pushed aside, or stepped over. Only when it was something thick and dense did the hacking become necessary.

They worked hard and in virtual silence for nearly two hours and then found, to their general dismay, that they had actually reached the river. “Oh,” said Floss, “we've done it, we've come right through the shrubbery. Now what do we do?”

“Would anyone like some of this?” Magnus said, wiping his forehead. “I feel dehydrated. Wilf gave me this flask. I think it's iced lemonade,” and he handed it to Floss.

“Brilliant,” she said, taking a long swig. Her throat was parched. “Want some, Sam?” she said. “It's really cold.”

But Sam was staring across the water at the thin black figure he'd seen yesterday. She was sitting on the bank staring straight at him. He hesitated, then waved aimlessly. “Hello,” he called. “Hot again, isn't it?” But the old woman did not reply, merely got to her feet and began to walk away in the direction of the village.

His eyes followed her until she was lost in the trees then, very slowly, he turned back to the others. Magnus had not seen the old woman because, after swigging the lemonade, he'd disappeared into the bushes for a minute, “to attend to himself”, which was how Father Godless had always described answering a call of nature, and Floss was still there. If Magnus had been with him at that moment, would the old woman have stayed? Might she even have glided across the river as she had glided across the swimming pool, and spoken to him? Sam felt cold again, but he decided the cold was coming from inside himself, and was the cold of fear, until a sharp gust rippled the water, turning it momentarily into choppy little ocean waves.

Magnus was now staring glumly at the great flat discs which marked the place where the diseased elms had been sheered away. “She said holly trees,” he reminded them, “and we didn't see a single holly in there, you know. There was hawthorn and there were brambles but definitely no holly. I think we're on quite the wrong track.” And he sat down to examine his scratches.

“Thanks for your support,” Sam replied sarcastically. “I don't agree, and I'll show you why.” He turned away from them, knelt down and wormed his way back through the passage they had cleared until he reached the massive copper beech from which he had taken his bearings. Then he clambered up it until he had an overview of the shrubbery, and of the river and the fields beyond. Then, from his jeans pocket, he produced the small compact pair of binoculars his father took to cricket matches, put them to his eyes and swept the landscape.

First, he trained them on the thick shrubbery, locating Floss and Magnus on the river bank, dangling their feet in the water. From up here, he could see that to the left of the passage they had hacked out there seemed to be quite a big area, where nothing much grew. This formed a rough square and in one corner of it were the dark glossy tops of what looked to him like holly. This, perhaps, was the bit they should explore
next. Sam wasn't giving up yet. He was quite enjoying this safari, it appealed to his practical nature. But now he shared Magnus's reason for wanting to uncover the tunnel. The ghost had appeared to him, even to
him
, who had not believed. He should tell the others. But not yet.

He was about to make his way down again when he realised that from here he might get a view of the village. He climbed higher, to the next fork. Then he trained the binoculars on the terrain that lay to his right, first picking out the sinuous river, then the red roofs of the village, then the church spire. He could see the black dot of the old woman who, having emerged from a fuzz of trees, was moving along a whitish track that led from the water on to a hooped stone bridge over which, as he stared, a red van slowly passed.

Floss said, when he joined them again, “Find anything?”

He was cautious. “Well, there are some holly trees nearer to the middle, and what looks like some waste ground. It might be worth trying there. But if you want to go back—”

“No. But could we have a rest? I'd quite like to swim in the pool Cousin Maude showed us. If I don't, I'm going to melt.”

“I'll come,” Magnus said. “I'm not swimming, though. I might just… paddle.”

Sam said, “OK.” The plan suited him. “See you in a bit, then. I'm going to the village for another mosey round.” And he set off briskly along the river path. Something felt urgent suddenly. He wanted to talk to that old woman.

When he reached the bridge, he was held up by a queue of traffic. The road across it was too narrow for two cars to pass and there was a line of waiting vehicles and a policeman in a car, monitoring the flow. Sam didn't dare dodge dangerously across. He had to wait for a gap.

As he stood there, he saw the old woman enter the church. By the time he had reached it and gone inside there was no sign of her. The only other occupant of the airy, simple building was the officious middle-aged man who had spoken to him last time, and shown him the guide book, a neatly-suited individual with small gold spectacles, who eyed Sam up and down just as he'd done before, as if people only came into churches to steal things.

Sam wandered round, enjoying the coolness and the play of branches against the plain, uncoloured glass in the square Tudor windows, breathing in a sweet mustiness from the undecorated pews. The elaborate Neale memorial, so highly painted, looked like a fairground object in the midst of so much understated
simplicity. He looked again at all the Latin writing and wished he could translate. Only one thing seemed to be in English and this appeared several times, painted on scrolls set underneath several of the pious effigies of people at prayer:
Perfecte love casteth out feare.