The Silence of Ghosts (2 page)

He went on looking at me, the anger in his eyes clear to see.

‘Have it knocked down, sir, what there is left of it. If you can find anyone willing to do the job, that is, for no one from Howtown or Pooley Bridge will touch it. It should have been knocked down years ago, sir. Now, if you’ll excuse my rudeness, I have to get back to my chores. I’m sorry I can’t be of further help to you.’

With which he turned and went back through the door he’d come in by. The young woman watched him go, her eyes wide and her mouth gaping. I could see she was genuinely upset, but I said nothing more of her grandfather’s behaviour.

‘Please don’t mind him, sir,’ she said. ‘He’s an old man and he’s getting a bit soft in the head. But he means no harm.’

I reassured her that the outburst had left me unaffected, but inwardly I was still shaking from its vehemence, from the implied warning his words had contained. I tried to shrug it off, but I was like a small child whistling in the dark. I could not cast off the sense that the old man’s words had meant something quite concrete, if only I could divine what that something was.

The girl told me to wait, then rushed outside and came back
with a young man, evidently the hotel gardener. A stout young man, tall and heavily built, he seemed unlikely to be anything but level-headed, and when I asked him for directions, he did not hesitate to tell me how to find my house. But when he was done and stood at the door, about to return to his digging and hoeing, he screwed his eyes up like someone reaching a decision, and he looked hard at me as if I was a weed that resisted all attempts to kill it.

‘Don’t think to spend the night there,’ he said, his voice strained. ‘And be careful who you speak to.’

‘Do you mean it’s haunted?’ I retorted. ‘Is that what all this is about? Some story for Hallowe’en that you locals all think is true?’

‘It’s not my place to say, sir. We mostly gives it a wide berth. I couldn’t say whether it’s haunted or not. No one I know has ever set foot in the place.’

He stepped away from me again, taking lengthy strides. I saw him take up the long shafts of a wheelbarrow into which he had been heaping leaves. A dog followed him, then dashed forward to sniff eagerly at the contents of the barrow. It was a large Münsterländer, full of curiosity and drive, like others of the breed. I wondered if our gardener went hunting with him.

Thanking the receptionist for her initiative, I left alone, following the directions I’d just been given. The houses of Howtown fell away quickly. A gravel pathway led me to the lake side. Where it turned along the lake, the last houses disappeared and I was forced to work my way slowly through sturdy trees that bravely tried to bar my way. I recognized oaks and beeches, with birches dotted here and there among them.

In the end, Hallinhag House proved easy to find. I came to a large clearing in which stood a considerable stone-built house. It stood two storeys’ high and was built on a platform
of grey stone that must have been taken from a nearby quarry. The house had been roofed in local slate, but I noticed that many of the tiles had fallen and that moss and sundry weeds had taken up residence across the gaps and even on the original slate itself.

For all that I had just come from bright daylight, the clearing in which I now stood was mired in gloom. I had come well prepared, since I’d guessed there would be neither heating nor lighting inside. I retrieved my large Maglite torch from its canvas bag and switched it on. A little brought down by my two conversations at the hotel, I felt my spirits lift as I held the torch high and watched the powerful beam shine on the façade of the building. Long and heavy, the Maglite was as much a weapon as a torch, and I felt sure that I could see off any intruders who might show up, perhaps locals aggrieved by my opening the house against their clear wishes.

The front door seemed to be locked at first. I cursed the solicitor for not having given me the key. But another glance told me that, key or no key, the door would be solidly jammed. I had no idea when anyone had last lived here, but I could see at once that it hadn’t been for several decades. I stepped back a few feet and rushed at the door, crashing into it with my right shoulder. It groaned and stood its ground, so I stepped back further and ran at it harder. Suddenly it gave way, leaving me to stumble into a wide hallway that had been plunged in darkness for who could say how long. I let the torchlight roam in a circle, picking out a broad staircase that rose to a landing and then twisted to the left and disappeared into yet more darkness that lay beyond the reach of my torch.

The pervasive gloom, the thick layers of dust, the cobwebs hanging in festoons everywhere, the grimness caused by the absence of much external light, the grime on the few cracked
window panes that were left, the ubiquitous patches of damp – all these led me to despair and to a growing conviction that I had made a mistake. Hallinhag House, I realized, was beyond repair, at least so far as my budget allowed. I had already moved into the family apartments in Bedford Square. But I doubted that the eventual sale of Hallinhag would realize sufficient funds to spend on what could prove to be a bottomless pit. Not just that, but I would be undertaking the repair of a house with a bad reputation, a haunted house, perhaps, a house where something terrible may have happened, a murder or a suicide. Or perhaps nothing at all. The house’s reputation was very likely nothing more than the result of local gossip. Whatever the locals thought or said or insinuated, I was too much of a rationalist to listen to their fears. That was then, of course: I know better now.

Slowly, I explored the house, walking through a shifting pattern of light and dark, chased by shadows, dispelling them with blows of the long beam that sliced the gloom. Everywhere I went I was met by patches of ingrained damp and cobwebs, and in the torchlight I could see spiders as they scuttled away from me. I have to admit that I don’t much like spiders: their presence was the most unpleasant aspect of my exploration.

To my great surprise, the rooms were still filled with furniture. Chairs, sofas, beds, tables, curtains – all stood or hung as though untouched since my grandfather had abandoned Hallinhag House. Not for the first time, I felt frustrated by the vow of silence he must have imposed on himself. Only he had known whatever stories belonged to these shadows, what events had happened around this furniture, who had sat in these chairs, bathed in this bathroom, slept in these beds, who had been born here, who had died here.

The furniture was, of course, ruined beyond measure. Mould
and fungus had wrought a terrible vengeance on the soft furnishings. What had been cushions on the sofas, and sheets and blankets and pillows on the beds, had been reduced to what was little more than slush. Nothing here could be retrieved.

I snapped shut the notebook in which I had planned to write a rough inventory, like an archaeologist making his initial survey of an ancient and once-splendid site. But there was almost nothing to inventorize. I doubted there was treasure here. I put the notebook in my pocket and started to leave, eager to get back outside again, where there would be birdsong and green light. But when I reached the landing, I saw standing at the foot of the stairs a girl of about ten dressed in what appeared to be homemade clothes. The clothes seemed a little out of date: a knitted pink cardigan over a blue skirt that reached to well below her knees, and red shoes with a strap across the top. She had long black hair. As I drew close, I saw that she had the most piercing, intense eyes I had ever seen. She gave me quite a start, I must admit, but I recovered quickly and continued down the stairs, smiling. I realized she must have stepped inside, seeing the front door more than half open.

‘Hello,’ I said, ‘where on earth have you come from?’

She did not answer, but waited impassively until I reached the bottom of the stairs. When I did so and was standing only feet away from her, she flashed a warm, friendly smile.

‘I’m Octavia,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you’ve heard of me.’

I shook my head and smiled.

‘Afraid not,’ I said. ‘I’m not from these parts. But I’m sure we can be friends.’

I reached out a hand as if to shake hers, but she drew back a little, and I decided she must be shy.

‘You must come from London,’ she said. ‘That’s where I used to live. When I was deaf.’

I guessed she must have cochlear implants; there was no trace of any infirmity now. I knew a little about such matters. My grandfather had established a small school for the deaf in Bloomsbury. That was before my day. Was this pure coincidence? I wondered. Had she attended the same school?

‘Were you at the Lancaster school when you were in London?’ I asked.

She shook her head.

‘No school,’ she said. ‘Not there.’

I shrugged. It hadn’t seemed very likely anyway.

She smiled and then said, ‘I have something to show you. Why don’t you follow me?’

She must have been exploring the house, I thought, and maybe she had found something that might seem to a child’s mind to be of some significance. Bemused, and happy to humour her, I nodded and let her go ahead of me up the stairs and on to the upper floor.

She stopped on the main landing, and I noticed that someone had taken trouble to board up a short expanse of wall, using long wooden planks that had been nailed down across what I guessed might be a doorway. I had no tools with which to make a breach in the wall. If I came back to the house at all, I vowed to tear the planks away and see what lay behind.

I followed her back to the hallway and, as I was about to ask her more about herself, she turned to me and gestured, inviting me to bend down with my ear to her mouth.

‘Dominic is with Rose now. With his wife and his ancestors. With your ancestors.’

She smiled and took sudden flight, dashing for the open door. I hurried after her, but when I burst into the open and looked round in both directions, I couldn’t see her anywhere. I had
found my ghost, or so I reckoned. She hadn’t seemed frightening in the least. I still had a lot to understand.

I had decided not to stay in the hotel after all, in fact I could not bear to remain in the Lakes another day. I retrieved my luggage and paid what I owed them, then went down to the landing stage and waited for the next steamer from Glenridding. I boarded the
Lady of the Lake
, the oldest passenger vessel in the world, or so they say, and sat on deck in an attempt to throw off the stifling atmosphere of the old house.

I returned to London later that day. Exhausted and not a little spooked, I said nothing to my wife and children, but went to bed and slept.

Next morning, a thick package was waiting for me on the kitchen table. I recognized the name and address of the family solicitors, Abercrombie, Lund and Humble, who kept offices in Lincoln’s Inn.

My wife Jess watched closely as I cut the packet open and reached inside to fish out the contents. These consisted of a letter and several hardback notebooks. I opened the first one. It appeared to consist of handwritten notes, but at the top of the first page someone had written in red ink: ‘The Ullswater Diary of Dominic Lancaster RN’. My grandfather. Tucked in between the page and the cover was a medal and a ribbon, Dominic’s 1939–1945 Star, awarded him for services at the Battle of Dakar. I put the medal in my pocket. Later that evening, alone in my study, I started reading.

Charles Lancaster

21 March 2012

Saturday, 16 November 1940

Bedford Square

Bloomsbury

I used to go to the Lakes as a child. My parents would sweep me up at the start of summer and drive me all the way from London in our Hispano-Suiza H6 and, from the early thirties, the J12. We had a chauffeur, of course, first a man called Higgins, an elderly chap (or so he seemed to me), then Morris, a much younger man. In town, only my mother drove, getting, I think, a measure of pleasure and independence from doing so. And they were very beautiful cars, which added greatly to her enjoyment, for she was something of a snob and an
aficionada
of fine things like Japanese netsuke and, of course, the best Portuguese
azulejo
tilework, which she used in our Oporto home to such great effect. Not that many people had cars back then, and no one of our acquaintance fielded a Hispano-Suiza. For that matter, not many people had a house in the country either, to which they could repair for summer holidays. We went to the Lakes because we Lancasters always went there, apart from our
stays in Portugal, which were mainly for business. The Lakes’ house was old and went back in the family to the early eighteenth century. Growing up, I felt rather special trundling down country roads almost free of traffic, cocooned in the protected space my mother and father created. I would spend the summer playing with the Howtown children or setting out with my friends Peter and Maurice for trips on the lake, to play pirates or swim out to Cherry Holm Island. I tried to contact them when I arrived here in London last week, only to be told that Peter has already been called up and Maurice has followed in my footsteps and joined the Navy. I wish him better luck afloat than I have known.

I was one of the first casualties of the war. I worked in a non-reserved occupation, in the small advertising department of the family firm. I was twenty-three when hostilities began, and when conscription was brought in that November, I signed up for the Navy in the old church hall where I’d gone once a week as a child to our Cub Scout meetings. There were old friends with me, old Cub Scouts, winking and smiling at each other, walking to our fates. When I was ten years old, I’d hastened to join the local branch of the Sea Cadets, where I learned to climb without flinching the rigging on a tall sailing ship in the heart of a storm. I fancied myself a sailor, and spent more and more of my holidays on Ullswater, sailing on board our little yacht, the
Firefly
, and swimming in the lake’s calm waters. The outbreak of war seemed to me such an opportunity, a chance to show I was more than just a businessman being groomed to run the family enterprise, but a real man, perhaps a hero in disguise. My father, who had always thought me a sad disappointment to the family because I loved music more than business and had talked more than once about going to music college, grudgingly accepted my newfound status as a fighting man. He had served in the last
war, and I think he believed that this onset of manliness might bring me round to his idea that I should commit to taking over the Lancaster Port House when the time came. At twenty-three, I had never found a girl to walk out with. Some thought me a sissy, others seemed to have their own reasons for turning down my invitations to a dance or the pictures. But now, I thought, a sailor in uniform might catch some glances from the fair sex.