The Silence (2 page)

Respectfully yours,

   Samuel Burlap,

   Builder.

Directly beneath this was a letter from the modernist architect, Archibald Filbert. Unlike Mr Burlap, who had written in careful and deliberate blue-black ink, Mr Filbert’s missive was written on one of the new typewriting machines.

Dear Mr West,

I have to hand the plans for your new house on Acton Field in Caudle Moor, and believe you will be very happy with them. It is a traditional design, since you say you will be employing Mr Samuel Burlap for the building, and he may find it a perplexity to follow plans for a modern dwelling, being what you might term set in his ways, although a very good builder.

I shall be pleased to discuss the house plans with you at a time and place convenient to you.

A note of my charges is included with this letter.

Assuring you of my best intentions at all times,

Archibald Filbert (R.I.B.A.)

The small warfare between these two gentlemen amused Nell, and she turned to the next blue-black ink missive, to see what else the traditional Mr Burlap had to say.

Dear Mr West,

I have to hand your letter of 12th ultimo, and if I may make so bold, I suggest you take
absolutely no notice whatsoever
of the letter sent you by Prebendary Gilfillan. Most country districts have a few old legends, but the Acton land is no more haunted than my vegetable patch and there will be no ghosts to trouble you. If I may make so bold, sir, Prebendary Gilfillan is a gossiping nuisance with an unhealthy preoccupation with the past.

Trusting you will also forgive my referring to a clergyman in such terms, but if Edgar Gilfillan has been nearer to a cathedral than a day-trip round All Saints in Derby, I should be very surprised indeed. Not wishing to be uncharitable, but I know the Gilfillan family well. They have lived in this area for many years and were always ones to present themselves as saintly.

Begging pardon again for plain speaking.

Very truly yours,

   S Burlap

Nell considered investigating the rest of the envelope’s contents, in case there was anything from the saintly Prebendary who had apparently issued ghost warnings to Ralph West, but it was already half-past eleven which was late enough if she and Beth were to set off at seven tomorrow. She slid the letters carefully back in the envelope and put the envelope in her suitcase for tomorrow’s journey to Caudle Moor.

But, drifting off to sleep, Samuel Burlap’s words slid in and out of her mind.

The Acton land is no more haunted than my vegetable patch,
he had written
. There will be no ghosts to trouble you . . .

What ghosts? What ghosts did people think had troubled the land in the past?

T
he drive to Caudle Moor was enjoyable. Nell and Beth played I Spy-type games as they went along, and stopped for an extra breakfast at a motorway pull-in, which Beth loved because she liked speculating where all the other people were going. Nell phoned Michael to say they were over halfway there. His phone went to voicemail, but she left a message and said she would ring again when they arrived.

As they left the industrial areas of the Midlands and crossed into Derbyshire, the landscape gave way to gently undulating countryside with rolling farmlands. There was a faint, early morning mist, and tiny B-roads branched off, with signposts marked with names that could not possibly have existed anywhere other than England: Wincle and Danebridge and Ramshorn. Beth read these out with delight, and she and Nell made up rhymes about them. It was something Brad and Nell used to do on long car journeys, but it no longer felt lonely to be doing it without him. Beth’s idea of rhymes was simplistic, but Nell heard, with a pang, that she had her father’s way of catching a resonance.

Beth said it was pretty cool to be going off like this on the very first day of the Easter holidays, and double-cool to be going to a house where Dad had stayed.

‘I found a photo of him taken at Stilter House,’ she said, not looking at Nell.

‘I didn’t know we had any.’

‘It was in that old suitcase. It’s a really old photo and it says “Stilter House” on the back. He looks about my age so it must have been taken
years
ago, and— Why are you laughing?’

‘I’m not. Tell me about the photo.’

‘He’s sitting at a piano, and I know it’s Dad on account of that photo we’ve got in the frame when he was ten. He looks exactly the same.’

‘I don’t remember ever seeing any photos of Stilter House. Did you bring it with you?’

‘No.’ Beth retreated into silence, and Nell did not press her. They still had private areas where Brad was concerned – memories which were not automatically available for discussing. This appeared to be one of those areas for Beth; she sent her mother one of her enigmatic smiles, and reached for the MP3. She’s tuning me out, thought Nell. Fair enough.

It had begun to rain as they pulled off the motorway and the signpost to Caudle Moor was half hidden behind dripping trees, but Nell saw it in time and turned in.

‘Almost there,’ she said to Beth.

Almost there . . .
Had Brad thought that when he came here for holidays all those years ago? Had he travelled along this road – perhaps on a bus or in an adult’s car – a delighted eight or nine year old, looking forward to going to the house with the magical piano? The rain was still pattering down and the car’s windscreen wipers clicked back and forth in time to the words. Almost there, almost there . . .

Caudle Moor was a speck of a place. There was a little main street, a straggle of shops including a minuscule supermarket, a pub, and a tiny police house overlooking a green.

Nell said, half to herself, ‘And they say English villages like this don’t exist any longer.’

‘Maybe this one doesn’t exist all the time,’ said Beth hopefully. ‘Maybe it’s magic and it’s only there for people who know where to look.’

‘We have to turn right into Gorsty Lane,’ said Nell, smiling. ‘I can’t see it – oh, there it is.’

Gorsty Lane was narrow and fringed by hedges and tall trees that interlinked their branches overhead, creating a green tunnel. With sunlight dappling the road it would be lovely here, and in a short time there would be a froth of white elderflower on the hedges and a haze of bluebells in the distant woodland.
Oh Brad
, thought Nell,
why did you never bring me here? Didn’t you want to remember this place?

I remember, I remember, the house where I was born . . .
The words of the old poem slid into her mind. Brad had not been born in Stilter House, but it had formed a large part of his childhood. Nell was starting to feel as if he was very close to her – not the Brad she had married and loved, but the child he had been.

They glimpsed a scattering of cottages, looking like dolls’ houses set down in fields, but Stilter House, when they reached it, was neither a cottage nor a dolls’ house. There was a weathered gate with the name tacked on – Beth scampered gleefully out to unlatch it and Nell drove through. As she waited for Beth to close the gate, she leaned forward, trying to see the house, but it was veiled by the rain and the trees. But on the left she could make out a high garden wall, the bricks mellow and crusted with moss and ivy. There was a latched door set into the wall halfway along and Nell stared at this and thought,
What would I do, if that door swung open now, and a boy with tip-tilted eyes like Beth’s and a flop of soft brown hair walked out . . .?

I remember, I remember . . .

Beth got back into the car, smelling of fresh rain and clean hair, and Nell suddenly wanted to hug her because she was all that was left of Brad. But Beth hated what she called slop, so Nell drove forward trying to avoid the worst of the ruts. And there, through the rain, was Stilter House.

On a sunlit day, Brad’s childhood house would be friendly and welcoming, the grey stones and mullioned windows glowing with light and warmth. Seen through an April rainstorm it was dour and remote. The trees surrounding it were bowed over with rain and thin branches reached out goblin fingers to the windows. The rooms behind those windows would be dark, and the tapping of tree branches would sound like someone asking to be let in.

It was larger than Nell had expected – what was once termed a gentleman’s residence – and it stood in substantial grounds.
Three-quarters of an acre, and if we site the house on the crest you will get a view over Pickering’s Meadows . . . And there will be no ghosts to trouble you . . .

Nell said cheerfully to Beth that this was much grander than she had expected – she had never known Dad had stayed in such a terrific place.

‘We’ll unload everything and set out the sleeping bags, then we’ll explore, shall we?’

They were going to stay in the house. Nell had thought this would make it easier and quicker to work through the contents, and Margery West had written that even though it had been empty for over a year it should be perfectly habitable. But seeing the house, Nell was not so sure if it was a good idea.

Margery had sent a set of keys and had arranged for the electricity to be switched on. Nell unlocked the front door and the mustiness of a long-empty house greeted her. She stood for a moment, feeling the house’s atmosphere engulf her. It was a quiet house, an elderly lady’s house.
Great-Aunt Charlotte
, thought Nell,
I think you lived a gentle, slightly old-fashioned life here. You visited friends and they visited you, you dabbled in local gossip, you read books, and enjoyed music . . .

Music . . . A faint sound stirred deep within the house, not exactly music, but something that might once have been music. Nell glanced down at Beth, but Beth was looking about her with bright-eyed interest, and did not seem to have heard anything. Probably it had been the rain trickling through gutters.

The fresh rain scents were already filling up the hall, and the slight mustiness was dispersing. Rooms opened off the main hall on each side, and at the far end was a stairway with a carved banister, worn smooth by age. Had Brad slid gleefully down that, and been indulgently told not to in case he fell off?

Nell shook off the images, and said, ‘The kitchen will be at the back, I should think. Let’s take the box of food in and make ourselves a drink.’

The kitchen was a large, rather old-fashioned room, high ceilinged and stone floored. There was an oak table at the centre and a huge dresser against one wall. The dresser might fetch a very good price, thought Nell, eyeing it, and so might the gorgeous blue and white china set on it. It looked like Minton.

Thankfully there was a fairly modern gas cooker, together with a microwave and an electric kettle. Nell turned on the tap and the water ran rustily into the deep old stone sink, but then cleared. She let it run a while longer, then filled the kettle and switched it on. There was a fridge which she also switched on; it would take a while to get properly cold, but when she explored the rest of the kitchen, there was a narrow stone-floored larder with a marble slab where they could put the butter and milk for the time being.

She was setting out the provisions when she heard the music again, and this time it was certainly not rainwater. This was someone playing a piano – a piece of Mozart, Nell thought. Beth was nowhere to be seen; most likely she had been exploring the house and had found the piano. Nell listened for a moment, thinking Beth must have been practising diligently. Leaving the kettle to boil she went out into the hall, calling Beth’s name.

The music had stopped, but Beth called out from one of the rooms and Nell made her way down the shadowy hall, trying to see a light switch, but not finding one.

Beth was in a big room on the left of the hall. Rain rippled down the windows, bathing the room in a faintly greenish light as if it lay at the bottom of a deep lake. But even like this, it was a lovely room, high ceilinged and with deep bay windows. At the far end French windows overlooked a small terrace with mossy steps, and a jutting chimney breast was flanked by shelves stacked with books and what looked like music scores. Near the French windows was a low, dark, gleaming shape. Charlotte West’s piano – a baby grand – the piano that had been such a part of Brad’s summers.

Beth was perched on a music stool, beaming and Nell started to say, ‘So you found the piano—’ Then stopped, realizing that the piano’s lid was shut.

In the same moment, Beth said, ‘I was going to play something to surprise you, but it’s locked and I can’t find the key.’

There would be a perfectly logical explanation. Nell knew this. She had certainly heard piano music only minutes earlier, but it could have come from anywhere. A car could have been parked nearby – she had not yet worked out exactly where Stilter House was in relation to the bewilderment of lanes, but it was possible that one side of the house was closer to a road than she had realized. Or there could be a property nearby with a radio on and a window open. In this rain, though?

Still, it was important not to alarm Beth, who was already looking puzzled, so Nell said, ‘We’ll hunt for the key later and you can surprise me then.’

It was only when they were back in the kitchen that she discovered the kettle, switched on a good ten minutes earlier, was stone cold. Nell swore at it, then apologized to it – which made Beth giggle – and flicked several switches. Lights, cooker, even an iron. Nothing. Obviously Margery’s instructions had become lost or misunderstood.

‘OK,’ she said to Beth, ‘there are two things we can do. We can try to find a local pub or a b&b with a room—’

‘That’d be boring. I
like
it here, it’s Dad’s house.’

‘Or we can stay here and light candles.’

‘Could we? I’d like that’

‘Well, let’s find out if it’s practical,’ said Nell, opening cupboard doors. ‘Because if there aren’t candles or matches—’

‘We could drive back to the village and buy some.’

‘Yes, but . . . No, it’s all right, there’re candles and matches in this cupboard. So far so good.’ It was April, the middle of an English spring, the evenings were light and even with the teeming rain it was not cold. What about cooking though? There appeared to be a gas supply, but was it connected?