Voices in a Haunted Room (14 page)

A log had collapsed, sending out a spray of little sparks. Jonathan rose and filled his glass with the port wine he had been drinking.

“David?” he said, the decanter poised.

David said: “No thanks.”

“Claudine?”

I too declined.

“Oh come, just a little toast to my safe return.”

He poured the wine into our glasses. I lifted mine. “Welcome home.”

His eyes met mine and I saw the blue flames which I remembered so well.

“You have been very lucky,” said David. “So… welcome home.”

“My dear brother, I am always lucky.” He looked at me and frowned; then he added in a low voice: “Well, not always but almost always, and when I am not I know how to make the best of the situation.”

“There must have been moments when you really thought the end had come,” said David.

“I never felt that. You know me. I would always find a way out, however impossible the situation seemed.”

“You certainly believe in yourself,” I said.

“With good cause, dear Claudine. With very good cause, I assure you.

“No wonder Lottie was a little upset by all those revelations,” said David. “That wine shop you were in with the girl… that must have been the one opposite the
mairie
where she was held on that awful night.”

“Yes,” I said. “I remember her telling how the mob ransacked the place and the wine ran out into the street all over the cobbles.”

“Our father brought her home far more dramatically than I brought Sophie and Jeanne,” said Jonathan.

“You brought them home. That was all that mattered,” I told him fervently.

“And came safely through myself. Surely that is a matter of some importance to you.”

“Of the utmost, of course.”

He leaned over me very closely and said: “Thank you, sister-in-law. That’s what you are now. You were step-sister before, weren’t you? Now you are sister-in-law and step-sister both.
Mon Dieu,
as they say in that benighted country which I am so thankful to have left, what a complicated family we are!”

We were silent, sipping our port and gazing into the fire. I was very much aware of Jonathan and it seemed symbolic in some way that I was sitting there between the two brothers.

I felt very disturbed. All the peace I had known in London was gone; and something told me that I should never know it again.

I had to get away.

“I’m tired,” I said. “I’m going to say good night.”

David said: “I’ll come up soon.”

I went to my room. I hastily got into bed. It was not true that I was tired. I was, in fact, wide awake. I was trying to look into the future and I did so with some apprehension. There was that in Jonathan’s attitude and one or two of his rather ambiguous remarks which had unsettled me.

I wished he had not come home. That was not true. I was wildly excited because he had come home. And I was looking into the future with trepidation because he would certainly be involved in it. I was fearful and yet awaiting what was to come with an intensity of feeling which I had never known before.

When David came up I pretended to be asleep.

He kissed me gently, tenderly, so as not—he thought—to wake me.

I resisted the impulse to put my arms about his neck and return his kiss. But I could not do that. I felt that if I did I might betray the inner excitement which possessed me and which he might guess had been engendered by Jonathan.

T
HE NEXT MORNING MY
mother sent one of the grooms over to Grasslands to ask for the key of Enderby, as a prospective buyer, who was staying at Eversleigh, wished to look over it during the afternoon.

The groom came back with a message from the manager to the effect that Mrs. Trent and her grand-daughters had gone into the town and would not be back until later that morning. As he did not know where the key was he could not send it, but if we would be at Enderby at three that afternoon he would make sure that someone came to us with the key.

That was very satisfactory, said my mother.

Enderby was no more than ten minutes’ walk across country from Eversleigh, and Sophie said she would be quite happy to walk the distance; and she and Jeanne came along, with me to show them the way.

I said: “It is a big house and it will be dark soon after four, which leaves us about an hour to look round. But that will be enough for you to get an idea whether you want to think seriously about it. If you did, we could keep the key and you could browse there all through the next day. You might decide immediately that it is quite hopeless.”

“Everyone seems determined that we shall think that,” said Sophie. “But we shall make up our own minds, shan’t we, Jeanne?”

Jeanne said that that was what Mademoiselle usually did.

“Well, I shall not say a word—for or against,” I promised.

An early November afternoon was certainly not the best time to see Enderby. There was the faintest of mists in the air and little globules of moisture clung like crystal beads to the spiders’ webs festooned in large numbers on the overgrown bushes.

The house rose before us, grey, grim and ghostly, I thought. I glanced sideways at Sophie.

She was staring at it, but as her hood hid the side of her face from me, I could not tell whether she was experiencing pleasure or revulsion.

Then Mrs. Trent emerged from among the bushes; she was smiling and holding the key.

“Oh there you are Miss er… Oh it’s Mrs. now. Have to get used to that. No longer Mademoiselle de Tourville, but Mrs. Frenshaw.”

“That’s so. Thanks for bringing the key.”

Her grand-daughters came from round the side of the house.

“Good afternoon,” I said.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Frenshaw,” said the girls.

Dorothy—Dolly—was looking at Sophie as though fascinated, and I saw that Sophie had noticed her too. There would be a fellow feeling because of their disfigurement, I guessed.

“This is the lady who is interested in the house, Mrs. Trent,” I said. “She does not speak much English. She is my mother’s half sister.”

“My word! Is she now! I’ll open the door for you. When these keys are not used often, they get hard to turn. Ah, there we are!”

The door was opened and we were in the hall. Sophie looked at Jeanne and gave a little gasp.

I stepped in with them. I had expected the Trents to go but they came in with us.

“My goodness,” said Mrs. Trent. “I’d forgotten how grand it was. Although I’ve got the key I never come in. That’s the gallery where the musicians play. We’ve heard a lot about that gallery, haven’t we?”

“Yes,” I said, and added rather pointedly: “Thank you, Mrs. Trent, it was good of you to bring the key.”

“Oh, that’s nothing. I like to have a look round myself. The girls know quite a lot about it, don’t you, girls? They’ve always been interested in this house.”

“It’s the sort of house you can be interested in,” said Evie.

I noticed again how pretty she was with her fair curling hair and dark-lashed blue eyes. She was a real beauty—or perhaps one thought so in contrast to her sister. Poor little Dolly! Her sad face fitted the house.

“It’s more exciting than Grasslands,” went on Evie.

“Oh, is it, Miss? That’s a nice way to talk about your home. I’ll take Grasslands any day. At least we haven’t got ghosts springing out round every corner.”

I wondered what the owners would think of Mrs. Trent as a custodian of their property. She was certainly not going to encourage buyers with such talk.

I said with light reproof: “It is fortunate that Mademoiselle d’Aubigné cannot understand you or she would be deterred from considering the house.”

Mrs. Trent clapped her hands over her mouth. “My big tongue! It always was a bit of a clacker.”

Evie looked embarrassed and I noticed that Dolly watched her sister all the time as though she felt insecure without her.

“There is some furniture in the place,” went on Mrs. Trent, by no means abashed. “Some of it’s supposed to be quite good. It goes with the house. Mind you, a bit of renovation would be needed.”

I walked away from her, following Jeanne and Sophie to the staircase.

“Do you want to see the rest?” I asked.

“But of course,” replied Sophie.

“There’s a loose board on the first floor,” called out Mrs. Trent. “Evie… you know where. Go up and show them.”

Evie followed Sophie and Jeanne up the staircase and Dolly went with her.

I was looking about the hall. I thought I would allow them to look round on their own and I hoped that Evie would go when she had shown them the loose board.

“The stairs are a bit much for me,” explained Mrs. Trent. She came close to me. “What do you think of my Evie?”

“She’s very attractive.”

Mrs. Trent beamed. “She is. None could deny it. I’d like her to do well for herself.” She spoke a little wistfully. “It’s not easy. People have never taken to me in these parts. They never forget. Oh, I’ve been invited here and there now and again. But it’s not the same. I want my Evie to do well. I’d like to see her mistress of some grand house… with looks like that.”

I thought that perhaps in the right environment, which meant away from her grandmother, Evie might be very attractive.

“Well, there is time to go yet,” I said.

“I wouldn’t say that. She’s sixteen, coming up to seventeen, much of a muchness with yourself. No hesitation about you. It was going to be one of them, wasn’t it? And I don’t suppose it mattered which one. They’ve both got a tidy bit coming to them.”

She really was an impossible woman.

Evie appeared at the head of the stairs.

“Did you show them the loose board?”

“Yes, Grandmamma. And I told them where they must look for others.”

“There’s a lot wants doing to this house. Where’s Dolly?”

“She was talking to the lady with the hood.”

“Can they understand each other?”

“Not very well.”

“I’ll go and see how they are getting on,” I said.

I went up the stairs, leaving Mrs. Trent and Evie in the hall. Why didn’t the woman see that she was intruding? She was ignorant and ill-bred. I wanted to tell her that she would have little hope of catching a husband for her grand-daughter if she behaved with such crudity. I found Sophie with Jeanne on the first floor.

They were going through the bedrooms there.

“They are spacious,” Jeanne was saying, “and could be made attractive.”

Sophie replied: “Such a lot would have to be done.”

“You would enjoy doing it,” Jeanne told her.

They mounted the stairs with Dolly in their wake. I felt an urge to look at the rooms. I went into the main bedroom. There was a high four-poster bed there. I touched the curtains and they almost disintegrated in my hands, so old were they, but the wood of the bed was very solid and beautifully carved; and the court cupboard on the other side of the room would look very fine if polished. Yes, it was true, there was a great deal of good furniture in the place and going with the house.

But of course Sophie could not be seriously thinking of taking it. It was too large really… just for her and Jeanne. This was a house which needed people—lots of them—a jolly family, parties at Christmas and such times, dancing in the hall.

I went along to the smaller bedroom where I had once fancied I heard a voice. I stood in the centre of the room. There was a four-poster there, smaller than the other, more modern, and the curtains about it were quite good—heavy blue velvet; but they were very dusty and there were cobwebs in the room.

A ghostly room, I thought. But that was because I had fancied I heard a voice here.

Then I heard it again. The same hollow voice. It said: “You’re being watched, Mrs. Frenshaw.”

I stared up at the ceiling, at the walls; I stood, bewildered, looking about me.

“Who’s there?” I cried sharply.

Silence, and then clearly I heard the quick intake of breath, the low laugh… horrible laughter. Someone was jeering at me.

I went to the door. There was no one in the corridor.

I was shaking. Why should I imagine I could hear voices in this room? There was no one here. I must have imagined it and yet I could have sworn…

Dolly was coming down the stairs.

“Is Mademoiselle still up there?” I asked.

“Yes. They like it.”

“No,” I replied. “They are just interested.”

She shook her head. “They do like it. It suits the lady. It’s what she wants.”

“She won’t make a hasty decision.”

I had stepped back into the room and Dolly had followed me. I had a good opportunity of studying her. The drawn-down eye gave her an evil look at times—and yet the rest of her was so dainty, fragile even. Her good eye was large, blue and heavily lashed; her nose was delicate and well shaped. But for the deformity she would have been a beauty like her sister.

“Do you like this room, Mrs. Frenshaw?” she asked.

“No. I don’t think I like any of the house.”

“I like this house,” she said almost rapturously. She stood in the middle of the room and looked up at the ceiling.

Then I heard it again, the quick intake of breath and the low, quiet, sneering laughter.

“Who is that?” I asked.

Dolly was staring blankly at me.

“Didn’t you hear something, someone close… laughing?”

Dolly looked at me oddly. “I didn’t hear anyone,” she said.

“But—it was quite distinct.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything,” she repeated. “There are echoes in old houses. Besides, who could there be? There’s no one here.”

I went to the door and looked out. I felt I did not want to stay in that haunted room with the strange girl.

I hurried up to the next floor. Sophie and Jeanne were in close conversation.

Jeanne was saying what could be done, how they would furnish it. How they would use the space.

It can’t be true, I thought. Sophie is seriously considering Enderby.

On our walk back to Eversleigh Sophie was very quiet. Of course, I was telling myself, she is not really serious. There was something quite fascinating about looking at houses and considering them as potential homes; and I had to remember that Sophie had just come through a shattering experience. It must seem very exciting to her to be safe, to be in a position to consider making a home for herself in a new country.