Читать книгу Encounters - Barbara Erskine - Страница 6

The house at the end of the long, winding drive was elegant Georgian. The windows, all perfectly proportioned, looked out across sweeping lawns – not quite as smooth as they might have been, but nevertheless beautiful – towards the Black Mountains, brooding in the heat haze of the August afternoon.

Looking through the windscreen Victoria tried to suppress the quick catch of excitement which she felt in her throat. They had already seen so many houses which looked idyllic. Before there had always been a snag. This house, she felt suddenly, would be right; it was as if, in some secret part of herself, she knew it already. She glanced at Robert and saw that he felt it too: the hope, the anticipation, the agitation. When they found the right house it was going to be very special. Their home. The first since he had come out of the army. The place where they could start their new life.

The young man from the house agent was waiting for them, standing beneath the porticoed entrance proprietorially jangling the keys as they drew to a halt. Robert glanced at Victoria and winked as he set about climbing stiffly out of the car. She fumbled with the door handle, not wanting to watch, knowing better than to help. Each time it was easier. Each time it hurt him less. Each time the excitement that this might be The House helped.

They shook hands and the agent, introducing himself as William Turner, inserted the key in the lock and pushed open the heavy door. Beyond it a cavernous hall opened up, elegantly if sparsely furnished, with at the far end of it a graceful staircase winding up to a galleried landing. There was a faint smell of dogs.

‘Lady Penelope is away this weekend.’ William’s voice was reverently hushed. ‘So we can go all over the house as we like.’

They followed him soberly from drawing room to dining room to sitting room to morning room – a room for every hour of the day – and on through to the large north-facing kitchen.

‘Not modernized, I’m afraid.’ William looked round in barely disguised disgust at the unmatched cupboards, the painted deal table and the small electric cooker. The water, Victoria noted with amusement, ran from an old wall-mounted water heater into a deep stone sink.

William was watching her. He gave a broad smile. ‘Grim, isn’t it?’

‘It is rather.’ Victoria liked the young man. He had not mentioned exotic fitted kitchens; he did not pretend it had been left like this for the convenience of the buyer. Besides, after the initial shock, she loved it. The kitchen had a quaint, old-fashioned charm.

‘What’s through there?’ Robert nodded towards one of the internal doors. Beneath the grubby roller towel he had seen a key and three bolts. Three bolts seemed excessive for a door into a larder.

‘Ah.’ William gave his most charming professional smile, followed by a deprecatory shrug of the shoulders. ‘Well, every house has a few drawbacks.’

‘Oh?’ Robert glanced at Victoria. His heart, like hers, had sunk. He flipped through the glossy brochure in his hand. ‘No mention of any drawbacks here.’

‘Perhaps you’d like to see the upstairs first? The principal bedrooms have glorious views across into Wales,’ William said hopefully. He had seen how they felt about the house; he had seen her growing secretly more and more excited. He should have told them from the first. He glanced at them sympathetically. Robert Holland was tall, distinguished, in his late forties perhaps, his upright military bearing marred by an awkward limp. His wife was much younger, attractive, dark haired; slightly reserved, he guessed. The kind he thought of as deep and therefore probably interesting. He prided himself on his character analyses of potential clients. These people were understated, but that did not mean they weren’t wealthy. He had learned that one very early in his career. Money, particularly old money, did not always show. It was new money that liked to flaunt it. They could afford the house; he knew already that they would not buy it.

‘I think we should see the drawbacks first, don’t you?’ Victoria put in firmly.

‘You’re sure?’ His humorous smile was putting them all on the same side – allies against whatever eccentricity was the other side of the door. It also helped to hide his fear.

The key was stiff and the bolts unyielding. He had opened the door some half a dozen times now, but it never grew any easier and he could never overcome his reluctance to go through it. When at last he managed to push it open they peered into a long dark passage. ‘This,’ he said dramatically, ‘is the west wing. Lady Penelope seals it off more or less completely. I think she prefers to forget it’s there. To be honest, the best plan would be to demolish it.’

They could all feel the cold striking up from the dirty stone floor. The rest of the house was hot and airless in the humid summer heat but here it was abnormally cold.

Victoria felt her mouth go dry. Suddenly her optimism and her excitement had gone. ‘I don’t suppose there is any reason to see it if it’s that bad …’ she said uncertainly. A tangible feeling of dread seemed to surround her, pressing in on her from the cold walls.

‘Nonsense.’ Robert stepped into the passage. ‘What’s wrong with it? Dry rot? Again?’ The again was for William’s benefit. It might help to knock a thousand or so off the asking price.

‘No, not dry rot.’ William glanced at Victoria. He gave a tight protective smile as he saw that she had grown pale. About half of his clients seemed to feel it. The other half walked through without any comment, but even they hurried. He motioned her through ahead of him and reluctantly followed her.

With a quick, doubtful look at him she stepped into the passage after Robert. He had pushed open the first door on the left. Sunlight flooded across the empty room and into the corridor showing up the dust and scattered newspapers on the floor. ‘It’s a good sized room.’ Robert walked across to the window, his shoes sounding strangely loud on the bare boards. He peered out. ‘That must have been a formal garden once.’

‘It still could be.’ William was standing near the door. ‘It only needs tidying up. There are seven acres here. The grounds are one of the best features of the house.’

‘Why is there no mention of this room here?’ Robert had turned back to his brochure. The inconsistency irritated him. He wanted room dimensions and particulars at his finger tips.

‘There is.’ Almost reluctantly William went over to him. He riffled through the pages and stabbed at one with an index finger. ‘There. “Behind the kitchen quarters there is an unconverted wing with the potential for fourteen extra rooms”.’

‘Fourteen!’ Victoria exclaimed in dismay. ‘But that would make the house enormous. Much too big.’

‘It does seem a lot, doesn’t it?’ Once more the disarming charm. ‘The wing was added about a hundred years ago. As I said, I don’t believe anyone ever uses it.’ He glanced over his shoulder uncomfortably. The feeling was worse today; it was beating against his head like the threat of a migraine – fear and pain and nausea, gripping him out of nowhere. He swallowed hard, trying to stop himself retching. ‘Look, Mr and Mrs Holland, would you mind if I left you to wander round for a few minutes. I have to make a phone call from the car …’ He didn’t wait for their reply. Already he was edging out of the room and back along the passage towards the kitchen.

Robert ignored him, but Victoria watched him disappear, fighting the urge to follow him. ‘He doesn’t like it through here, does he?’ she said softly.

‘It does have a bit of an atmosphere.’ Robert squared his shoulders. ‘You want to see it, though, don’t you? I suggest we hurry round this bit, see the upstairs, then we can drive off somewhere and have tea. I’m frozen.’

‘So am I.’ Victoria shivered. ‘And it’s about 80° out there.’

‘It must be damp in this bit of the house.’ Robert walked back into the passage and peered through the next doorway. ‘Another good sized room. And another. Good God, look!’

Victoria stared over his shoulder nervously. In the corner of the room was an enormous heap of old tin hats. Opposite them, near the window, a dozen long poles were stacked in the corner.

‘Those hats must have been here since the war.’ Robert picked one up.

‘Don’t touch them!’ Victoria was suddenly frightened. ‘Please don’t touch them. Let’s go. I don’t like it here either.’ She could feel the unhappiness, the desperation. It seemed to pervade the room.

‘Don’t be silly. We must see it all now we’re here. Look, the stairs are along here.’

‘No, Robert. Please.’ She felt panic clutching at her throat. ‘Don’t go upstairs. Don’t …’

‘Victoria!’ He stared at her in astonishment. ‘OK. You go back. Go and look at the garden with young Mr Turner. I’ll have a quick shufty up here and then I’ll come and find you, OK?’

‘Robert …’ She raised her hand as if to stop him but already he had set off up the steep stairs, awkwardly pulling himself up by the handrail.

She took a deep breath. At the foot of the stairs a door led out onto the old terrace. She rattled the handle, not expecting it to open, but to her surprise it turned easily. It had not been locked.

The heat in the garden hit her like a physical blow. After the unnatural cold in the house it was wonderful. She threw her head back and raised her arms towards the sun with relief, then abruptly she dropped them to her sides. There was a young man standing on the terrace. Dressed in shabby corduroy trousers and an open-necked shirt, he had his arm in a sling. He turned and grinned at her.

‘Hello.’

Victoria smiled back. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know there was anyone else here.’ She was embarrassed, and at the same time relieved to see him. After the silence and the oppressive atmosphere of the west wing it was wonderful to see another human being. ‘Are you looking round too?’ she asked. She paused and found herself staring at him again. She knew him. Confused, she fumbled for a name, but none came. She couldn’t place him.

‘Looking round?’ He looked puzzled. ‘No. I live here. For the moment.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She was still desperately trying to think where she had met him before. ‘We understood the place was empty.’

‘Empty!’ He seemed to find the word ironic. ‘Well, I suppose it is in a way. I hate it in there. It’s so cold, did you notice? However hot it is out here. As cold as the tomb.’ He shuddered. ‘Why were you staring at me?’

She hastily looked away. ‘I’m sorry, but we’ve met before somewhere, haven’t we?’

He was the most attractive man she had ever seen. Shocked at her own reaction, she was trying to cope with the sheer physical impact he had on her. It confused and frightened her.

He didn’t seem to have heard her question. He was concentrating on the flower bed near them. And he obviously hadn’t seen the admiration in her eyes, for when he glanced back at her he scowled. ‘Not a pretty sight, am I?’ He half raised his injured arm. ‘Don’t look at me. Wouldn’t you like to see the garden?’

‘Yes. Please.’ Desperately she tried to get a grip on herself. Middle aged – well, nearly – women did not go round the country ogling handsome young men and feeling their breath snatched away by waves of physical longing for complete strangers. She concentrated hard on the flowers, as he seemed to be doing, hoping he had not noticed her confusion. ‘The garden is very beautiful.’ She hoped that her voice sounded normal. ‘Mr Turner told us it had gone wild, but it seems very neat to me.’ A crescent of rose beds curved around the neatly mown lawn, brilliant with flowers; beyond them a herbaceous border stretched towards the cedar tree, a riot of lupins and gladioli and hollyhocks.

The young man glanced at her and smiled. ‘A few of the chaps work on it when they’ve got the strength. I’m not much good. I can’t keep my balance without this damn thing.’ As he turned to step off the terrace onto the soft mossy lawn she saw he was using a stick.

‘You look as though you’ve really been in the wars,’ she said gently.

He frowned. ‘Who hasn’t? But I’m lucky, I suppose. I made it back. Look. Look at the roses. God, they’re lovely.’ He stopped and stared at them with a strange intensity.

There was a long silence. Victoria felt uncomfortable, as though she were in the way. He had withdrawn from her into some unfathomable pain. Glancing nervously back at the house, she remembered Robert suddenly and wondered where he was. She wished he would come. He had been there: through the fear and resentment; he knew how to cope with pain.

The house on this side was smartly painted. She frowned. Several windows stood open and from somewhere she could hear the sound of music – a band playing on a scratchy record. Staring up at the windows, hoping to see Robert, she glimpsed a shimmer of white at a window. Her exclamation of surprise brought the young man’s attention back to her.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I thought I saw someone up there. Someone in white.’

He gave a strained smile. ‘Probably one of the nurses.’

‘One of the nurses?’ She stared at him. ‘Do you have nurses to look after you?’ Her eyes were wide with sympathy.

‘Of course.’ His eyes were clear grey, his face handsome, tanned. He glanced down at his arm ruefully. ‘They’re threatening to take this off.’ Just for a moment she could hear the fear in his voice.

She didn’t know what to say.

Visibly pulling himself together he stared at her. ‘You were right. We do know each other, don’t we?’

‘I thought so.’ She forced herself to smile.

‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘Yes,’ he repeated with conviction.

She frowned. Her emotions were sending her conflicting signals. There was something achingly familiar about his eyes, his mouth, his hands; something so familiar that, she realised suddenly, she knew what it was like to have been held in his arms and yet he was a stranger. She turned away abruptly. ‘Perhaps we met when we were children or something.’

‘Perhaps.’ He smiled enigmatically. ‘Who did you come to visit? It obviously wasn’t me.’ There was a trace of wistfulness in his tone.

‘We came to look at the house.’

‘Oh?’ He stopped, gazing down at the grass. ‘Interested in history, are you? It must have been lovely here, before they moved us in.’

Victoria smiled. ‘Your family have lived here for a long time, have they?’

‘My family?’ He looked at her in amusement. ‘No, my family don’t come from here.’ He stepped down onto the soft soil of the flower bed and picked a scarlet rose bud. ‘Here. For you. It goes with your dress.’ He held it out to her. As she took it their fingers touched and the electricity which passed between them left them both for a moment confused. She slipped it behind the pin of the brooch she was wearing.

‘Thank you.’

He was frowning. ‘You’re wearing a wedding ring.’

She looked down at her hand, startled. ‘Yes.’ She bit her lip. ‘My husband is here. He was looking round upstairs. I ought to go and join him, really.’ She hesitated. She couldn’t bear the anguish in his eyes. ‘He was injured too – in the Falklands. He’s out of the army now.’ There was another long silence. ‘I can’t remember your name,’ she said at last.

‘It’s Stephen.’ He said it almost absent-mindedly, ‘Stephen Cheney.’

The name meant nothing to her. Nothing.

‘May I go and bring Robert to meet you?’ she asked after a moment.

He was staring at her again, leaning heavily on his stick, his eyes intense. The silence between them was tangible. It stretched out agonizingly. Then at last he spoke. ‘You and I were lovers once,’ he whispered, ‘in a land, long ago.’

She went cold.

For a moment they were both silent, stunned by what he had said, then he laughed. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. It’s a quotation. At least, I think it is. If not it ought to be. Perhaps I’ll write it myself. Yes, go and fetch your husband. I’d like to meet him.’

Victoria turned and walked slowly back across the grass towards the door into the house. She stopped as she put her hand on the handle and turned to look back over her shoulder. He was standing watching her. Jauntily he raised his stick in salute.

She let herself into the cold corridor with a shiver and ran to the stairs. ‘Robert? Are you up there?’

‘Here. Come and see this.’ His voice was distant. ‘This place is really weird,’ he went on as she found him in the end room. ‘Look at these –’ He broke off. ‘Victoria, darling, what is it?’

For a fraction of a second she hesitated, then she threw herself into his arms. ‘Oh, Robert!’ She buried her face in his shirt, clinging to him. ‘Robert. Where have you been?’

‘Only up here.’ He steadied himself with difficulty and pushed her gently away from him. ‘Victoria, what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I was suddenly so afraid I was going to lose you.’ She could feel it again; the terror; the pain; the dread. It spun around them in the air.

He laughed. ‘No such luck, Mrs Holland. You’re stuck with me. How was the garden?’

‘It’s beautiful.’ She had to be outside again. She couldn’t bear to be inside another minute. ‘You must come down and see it. I met one of Lady Penelope’s guests. He said he’d like to meet you.’ She knew she was gabbling.

‘I thought what’s-his-name said the house was empty.’

‘He obviously didn’t realize. It doesn’t matter.’ She glanced round again, at the long empty corridor and the silent rooms leading off it and she closed her eyes, trying to stave off the overpowering feeling of unhappiness which swept around her. ‘I saw Stephen’s nurse up here from the garden. Did you meet her?’ The air was stuffy; no windows were open. There was no music. The upper floor echoed with emptiness.

‘A nurse?’ He looked puzzled. ‘No, there’s been no one up here. No one at all.’

They both glanced over their shoulders.

‘That’s strange.’ She bit her lip, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘When I was out there, I could hear music. The windows were open …’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘You must have been looking at another part of the house. Come on, I’ve seen enough.’

‘We’re not going to buy it, are we?’ Suddenly she minded terribly. Irrationally, she wanted the house. She wanted it as she had never wanted anything before.

He shook his head. ‘It needs too much money spending on it, I’m afraid and it is far too large for us, you must see that. Sad, though. It’s a lovely place.’

She bit her lip. ‘I want to live here, Robert. I must live here.’

He stared at her and something in her eyes alarmed him. He was swamped by a sudden sense of foreboding; he could feel the cold coming at him from the walls, threatening to overpower him. Somehow he forced himself to smile; somehow he kept his voice calm. ‘Well, let’s see the rest of the place, then we can talk about it some more.’

At the foot of the stairs she put her hand on the door handle. ‘Come and see the gardens. They’re so lovely.’ Her fear had subsided as quickly as it had come. It had been an irrational, silly moment. She pushed at the door and frowned, rattling the handle. It seemed to have locked itself.

‘Here. Let me.’ Robert shook it hard. ‘You are sure it was unlocked?’

‘Of course I’m sure. It must have latched.’ He could hear the rising panic in her voice again.

‘Never mind, Victoria darling, it doesn’t matter.’ He put his arm round her, pulling her to him. ‘We can walk round the outside before we go.’

Victoria moved away sharply from his strangely alien embrace and with a little sob she turned and ran down the passage.

Robert stared after her in astonishment and fear, then slowly he followed her.

William was waiting for them in the main entrance hall. ‘Ready to go upstairs?’ He glanced at them surreptitiously. They both looked agitated; uneasy.

‘Why not?’ Robert followed him towards the staircase.

‘What did you think of the west wing?’

‘Not a lot,’ Robert smiled tightly. ‘What on earth happened to it?’

‘The house was used as a nursing home during the first war and they used that wing for the operating theatre and wards for the worst injured men.’ William glanced at Victoria who had gone white. ‘When the family moved back in about 1920 they left it as it was. Just closed the door and pretended it wasn’t there until they forgot about it. And I think each successive generation has done the same since. Did you see the stretcher poles? They always give me the creeps.’

‘So that’s what they were.’ Robert shuddered. ‘Something I know a bit about.’

‘It’s an unhappy place,’ Victoria put in quietly.

William nodded. ‘I suspect a lot of young men died here. Luckily the rest of the house seems unaffected. I wouldn’t let it worry you.’ He didn’t give them time to react. Turning, he led the way up the broad unlit sweep of stairs. Halfway up he stopped. ‘Mrs Holland?’

Victoria was standing where they had left her. Her face was drained of colour.

‘The nurse. Stephen’s nurse. She was wearing some sort of big white head dress …’

‘No, Victoria.’ Robert limped back down the stairs towards her. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Just stop it. What you saw was a real nurse. A modern nurse. She probably saw me in the distance and decided to go back downstairs.’

William was frowning at them from the staircase. He felt a shiver touch his spine. What had she seen? One of his colleagues from the firm had seen something when she had stayed to lock up after showing some people around a few days before. That was why she had refused to come this morning. ‘You can deal with that place,’ she had said. ‘I’m not going there again!’

He glanced at Victoria. ‘What happened?’ he asked cautiously.

‘I met someone in the garden, that’s all.’ Victoria said. ‘A house guest of Lady Penelope’s. He’s been in some sort of accident and he has a nurse to look after him. I thought I saw her in the window upstairs, that’s all.’

‘Lady Penelope said the house would be empty.’ William swallowed hard.

‘Well obviously it isn’t.’ Suddenly Robert was impatient. ‘Let’s look round upstairs, quickly, then I think we should go.’

Hastily they trailed through the main bedrooms of the house, through the bathrooms and the guest rooms. The only one showing any sign of occupation was Lady Penelope’s own. There there were piles of books by the bed, a bottle of aspirins and some spare reading glasses. The other rooms were all neat and impersonal and unused. There was no room obviously allocated to Stephen. Or his nurse. Victoria felt a pang of disappointment. His face, his voice were still with her. It was as if for a few short moments he had been a part of her.

‘So. That just leaves the gardens.’ William had escorted them finally back to the kitchen via the second staircase. Checking the door into the west wing, he noted that the bolts were all firmly closed. ‘As you probably noticed when you came in they were once very beautiful. With some care and attention they could bloom again.’

He led them back to the front door and down the steps. The sun was high, beating on the gravel with the white reflective heat more commonly associated with a Mediterranean afternoon than with an English countryside, even in August.

They walked slowly round the south side of the house and wandered across rough uncut lawns, through untrimmed hedges, an overgrown vegetable garden and between rampant woody herbs. The garden was very silent. It was too hot for birds. The only sound came from the bees.

Beneath the cedar tree on the western side of the house they stopped. Victoria looked round expectantly. Then she frowned. ‘I don’t understand. I thought it was here I saw Stephen. It was near this tree. There were rose beds full of flowers and the house was painted on that side, and the windows were open. There must be another tree like this …’

‘No.’ William shook his head firmly. ‘There is only one cedar.’

‘But we were standing there, by the door …’

They all stared at the door into the west wing. It was boarded up.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve got confused. It must have been another door. There were rose beds, and a bank of hollyhocks and a garden seat, and the grass was short. There were daisies everywhere. And music. Music coming from the open windows. He picked a rose for me.’ She hadn’t realized that her voice was rising.

William swallowed. He shivered again.

She had the rose in her hand. It was a deep damask red. Several small thorns still adhered to the stem and as she held it out to Robert one pricked her. A fleck of blood appeared on her thumb. ‘It didn’t mean anything. He just gave it to me. It was a silly gesture.’ She could feel her eyes filling with tears. ‘I … I’ll go and look. There must be another part of the garden we didn’t see. The other side perhaps. Somewhere …’

Before either of the men could say anything she began to run, ducking through the thick laurel bushes which edged the grass onto the gravel of the drive.

William looked at Robert, embarrassed. ‘We have been all the way round the house, Mr Holland. There are no other gardens. There are no rose beds. Not now.’

Robert laughed uncomfortably. ‘Perhaps she fell asleep and dreamed it all. In this heat anything is possible.’

Slowly they walked after her. Both men were thinking of the rose.

‘There isn’t anyone else staying here, Mr Holland,’ William said after a moment. ‘Lady Penelope rang us this morning to say she’ll be away another week. She wanted to check we were locking up properly. She said the house was empty.’

‘Victoria, this is crazy. You can’t go back there. I’ve told the agents we’re not interested. And that’s that.’ Robert threw down the paper. Pushing his hands into his pockets he went to stand in front of the open window, trying to hide his despair.

Since the previous weekend she had not let him touch her. She had been tense, edgy and tearful and obsessed by the house.

‘I can and I’m going to. I’ve already rung Lady Penelope. And I’m going on my own, Robert.’

He stared at her. ‘You’re mad.’

‘It will only take me a couple of hours to drive over there and back. She’s asked me to have a cup of tea with her.’

‘But why? Why go? I’ve told you. We can’t afford it. That house is going to go for more than we could pay. Be reasonable, Victoria.’ He turned to face her desperately. ‘I don’t understand you, darling. What’s happened to you?’ She was a stranger.

She shrugged unhappily. ‘I don’t know. It was meeting Stephen. I have to find out who he is; where I knew him before. I can’t get him out of my mind …’

You and I were lovers once, in a land, long ago.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to rid herself of the echo of his voice, the image of his clear, grey eyes.

‘OK. Go then.’ Robert threw himself down onto a chair. ‘Who was he? A boyfriend? You fancied him, did you? He was younger than me, I suppose; not crippled? Are you in love with him?’

‘How could I be? I only saw him for a few minutes.’ She realized suddenly what he had said and for the first time she saw what she was doing to him. ‘Robert!’ She ran to him and put her arms around his neck. ‘It’s not like that. Perhaps he didn’t even exist! Perhaps he was a dream! I don’t know. That’s why I‘ve got to find out, don’t you see? And he was crippled, as you call it, too. I told you. Look,’ she hesitated. ‘Come back with me. Come and meet him yourself. Please.’

He shook his head and tried to smile. ‘No. You go. Whatever it is you have to prove, Victoria, you have to do it alone.’

Lady Penelope opened the door herself. She was a slim, elegant woman in her early eighties, with bright intelligent eyes. Once she had poured the tea she sat quite still behind the tea tray listening with complete attention as Victoria told her story.

When Victoria finished there was a long silence. ‘Stephen Cheney,’ she repeated at last.

‘He and I knew each other once,’ Victoria said softly. She looked down at her hands, covertly twisting her wedding ring around her finger.

You and I were lovers once, in a land, long ago.

‘You do know him?’

‘Oh yes, I know him.’ Lady Penelope frowned. ‘After tea, I’ll take you to him.’

‘He looked so ill.’

‘Yes, poor boy, I expect he did.’ Lady Penelope glanced up at Victoria. ‘What made you and your husband come to look around this house?’

‘The agents sent it. My husband has just been invalided out of the army and it seemed the sort of place we would like to live. We inherited Robert’s father’s house in London and neither of us wanted to live in town, so we sold it. But I’m afraid this is going to be too expensive.’ She smiled anxiously. ‘Mr Turner from the agents said you’d already had offers above the asking price.’

‘Even if I hadn’t I wouldn’t sell it to you, Mrs Holland.’ Lady Penelope’s smile belied the harshness of the words. ‘This is not the house for you, my dear. You’ll see why presently.’ She stood up. ‘Now. If you’ve finished your tea, I’ll take you to see Stephen.’

The heat wave had broken at last and the air was cool and damp after a night of rain as they walked slowly round the side of the house, through the laurels and across the lawn beneath the cedar tree. The west wing was still tightly closed up. No music rang across the grass. Victoria stopped and stared at it. The whole place gave off a sense of deep sadness. Lady Penelope watched her, but she said nothing and after a moment she moved on. Victoria stayed where she was. He had been here. On the grass. Near the flowers. She closed her eyes. She knew already where they were going.

Her hostess moved with deceptive rapidity in spite of her eighty years and Victoria found herself almost running to keep up with her as they cut through the shrubbery and found themselves on another unkempt lawn. Beyond it a high yew hedge separated them from the church.

Opening a gate in the hedge Lady Penelope glanced at Victoria. ‘I hope you’re strong, I think you are.’

She set off up a path between huddled gravestones, overgrown with nettles, some of them lost beneath moss and lichen. One of them had been recently cleared. They stopped in front of it.

Stephen John Cheney

Born 20 June 1894. Died 24 August 1918

in God I trust

‘I remembered the name when you mentioned it on the phone.’ Lady Penelope poked at the grave with her walking stick. ‘I came up yesterday to see if I was right, and cleared the stone. Then I went back to the records. We still have the nursing home ledgers in the house. My son found them years ago. I suppose they got overlooked with all the other stuff at the end of the war. Stephen died two days after they amputated his arm.’

‘No.’ Victoria stared down at the grave. ‘No. You don’t understand. I saw him. I spoke to him.’

‘There is no Stephen Cheney now, my dear.’ The old lady’s voice was gentle.

You and I were lovers once, in a land, long ago.

‘It’s not possible.’ It was a whisper. ‘He gave me a rose.’

‘Everything is possible.’

‘Perhaps it was his son – or his grandson,’ Victoria said uncertainly.

The old lady shrugged. They both stood, staring down at the mossy tombstone. Both knew somehow that Stephen had had no son.

‘I learned the names on all these stones, walking to church every Sunday over the years,’ Lady Penelope said slowly. ‘My family have lived in this house for more than a century. We had to move out during the last war, just as we did during the first one. But they didn’t use the place as a hospital again. The last time round it was the home guard. I brought my husband here in 1940, but we never lived here. He was killed in 1941, before our son was born.’ She paused for a moment. ‘The house is too much for me now. And my son doesn’t want it. So, sadly, it must go.’ She smiled. ‘Are you all right? Do you want to sit down?’

Victoria was fighting back her tears.

‘I’m sorry. It’s such a shock.’

‘There was no gentle way to tell you.’

‘You must think I’m mad.’

‘Oh no, my dear. I don’t think you’re mad. Far from it. On the contrary. I’ve heard their music from the old gramophone. I’ve smelt the Lysol in those wards. But I‘ve never seen any of the boys. You are lucky.’

‘Am I?’ Victoria tried to smile through her tears. ‘Why did I know him? Why did he know me?’

He had touched her; given her a rose. She could hear his voice … see his eyes. She stared down at the grey stone, seeing it swimming through her tears. ‘How?’ she whispered. ‘How?’

There was a long silence. Lady Penelope was staring across the churchyard into the distance where, through the trees, they could see the hazy mountains bathed in the afternoon sun. ‘Maybe you knew one another in a previous life,’ she said at last. ‘Maybe you should have known each other in that life – his life – but he died too soon and you missed one another on the great wheel of destiny. Who knows? If it is still meant to be, you’ll have another chance. You both stepped out of time for a few short minutes and one day you’ll find each other again.’ She put her arm around Victoria’s shoulder. ‘When you reach my age you know these things. Life goes round and round like the records those boys used to play endlessly on those hot summer afternoons. Once in a while the needle slips; it jumps a groove. That’s what happened when you walked out through that door onto the terrace. You and Stephen heard the same tune for a while – then the needle jumped back. If it is meant to be, you will see him again one day.’

‘You really believe that?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘But it won’t be in this life, will it?’

‘You have a lover in this life, Victoria,’ Lady Penelope pointed out gently.

‘You mean Robert?’

‘If he is your lover as well as your husband.’

‘Yes, he is my lover as well as my husband.’ How could anyone doubt it? How could Robert have doubted it? She had left him alone, his face a tight mask of misery. But he had made no further attempt to stop her coming.

‘Then don’t hurt him.’ It was as if the old lady knew what had happened. ‘Stephen has had his life; now you must live yours.’

‘How does it work? How could I see him? Was he a ghost?’

Her companion shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter what he was. He was real. For you. And for me.’

They were both looking down at the grave.

‘He told me he was afraid they would take off his arm,’ Victoria said sadly. ‘He was so frightened. I wish I’d said something to reassure him.’

‘Your being there reassured him.’

‘Did it?’ Victoria bit her lip. ‘Do you mind living in a haunted house?’ she asked after another long silence.

Lady Penelope smiled. ‘Every old house has its ghosts, my dear. You grow used to them. I’m fond of mine. But that poor boy from the agents hates it here. He doesn’t understand.’

‘Why did you say we couldn’t buy the house?’

Lady Penelope smiled. ‘If you hadn’t seen Stephen, it wouldn’t have mattered. But you have and you recognized him. You cannot live in a house with two lovers, Victoria. It wouldn’t be fair to your Robert, or yourself. Or to Stephen for that matter.’

‘But fate must have brought me here.’

Lady Penelope smiled. ‘There are times, my dear, when we have to turn our backs on fate. For the sake of our sanity. Always remember that.’ She glanced towards the house. ‘I’ll go on back, my dear. You catch me up when you’re ready.’

Victoria stood looking down at the grave for several minutes after the old lady had gone. She made no attempt to reach him. Her mind was a blank. The churchyard around her was empty. There were no ghosts there now. Wandering on down the path she passed a wild climbing rose, scrambling over some dead elder bushes. Picking one perfect bud she took it back and laid it on his grave. Then she turned away.

As she walked back across the lawn she glanced up at the windows of the west wing as they reflected the late afternoon sunlight in a glow of gold. One or two of them were open now, she saw, without surprise. And, faintly, she could hear the sound of music. But the gardens were empty.