Читать книгу The Ghost Tree - Barbara Erskine - Страница 29

In the end, after driving away from Cramond, Timothy had found his way to the Hawes Inn at South Queensferry, had drunk too much and booked himself in for the night. He expected April to be angry when he returned home next morning; in the event, angry didn’t even begin to cover the mixture of rage and fear and indignation she hurled at him. She appeared to have been waiting in the hall for, as he put his key in the lock, the door was wrenched out of his hand and pulled open. He stared at her. She was deathly pale with huge circles under her eyes, her hair unkempt and there was a cigarette in her hand. He stared at it, uncomprehending. Since she had given up smoking two years before, she had been evangelical about not smoking in the house. Not that he ever did smoke. Much.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ It was obviously more than his absence overnight that had upset her.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ She caught his arm and dragged him inside.

‘I followed the Macdermott guy, as you told me to.’ He wanted to make that point clear. ‘I couldn’t come back earlier. It was all too interesting. Ruth was out there with him. I think they’re an item.’

‘So why didn’t you ring me?’

‘My battery was flat.’ That may not have been true last night but it was now. ‘What is it, April? What’s happened?’

She was still clinging to his arm. ‘Come and see.’

She almost dragged him upstairs to the door of the second bedroom; the room he thought of as his own. Abruptly she released him and gave him a push. ‘Go in. Go in and see for yourself.’ Turning, she ran down the stairs and into the kitchen where she slammed the door.

Timothy hesitated then put his hand on the door handle. Nothing frightened his sister ever.

Slowly he pressed down the handle. There was a squeak in the spring and he stopped, holding his breath, then he nudged the door open. The room looked as it normally did, sparsely furnished with the extra boxes and suitcase and the pictures where he had left them. There was an open box on the bedside table which he didn’t remember; apart from that, he could see nothing unusual.

April was sitting at the kitchen table, another cigarette in her hand. He stared at the smoke as it wreathed its way up and around the strip-light, and gave a small smile. Her weakness, her desperate breaking of her own rules gave him a huge advantage.

‘What was I supposed to be looking at?’ he said, his voice heavy with patience. ‘I can’t see anything wrong up there.’

She looked up at him and he saw the emotions cross her face one by one. Shock, surprise, disbelief and then, yes, there it was, scorn at his obvious failure. She stood up, pushing back the chair and went to the door. ‘You can’t have missed it! The cold. The ice! The sense of evil!’ She went to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. From where she was standing she could just see the landing. ‘You left the door open!’ she whispered.

‘Why not? What is supposed to have happened?’ He looked at her hard, worried now. ‘Has the heating broken? The radiator leaked? Tell me what I’m supposed to be looking at.’ He pushed past her and took the stairs two at a time.

After a moment she followed him up and peered into the room over his shoulder. ‘It’s gone,’ she said, her voice suddenly flat. ‘It’s all gone!’

He turned to confront her. ‘What’s gone?’

She was still staring round the room. ‘I couldn’t sleep because you weren’t here.’ At last came the flash of anger. ‘I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t know what had happened to you. I was looking at some boxes of stuff earlier, things you’d brought from Number 26. Silver and pictures and boxes of this and that, and in one of them’ – she gave an ostentatious shudder – ‘there was something evil.’

‘What?’ Timothy had turned away from her to survey the room again. He took a step inside.

‘No! Don’t go in!’ she cried.

‘What was it, April?’ He was scared now. ‘What was it you saw?’

‘I was on the landing and it felt cold in here.’ April shuddered. ‘I wondered if the window had blown open, so I came in—’ She bit her lip hard. ‘The room was full of ice.’ She whispered the words so softly he could barely hear them.

‘And was the window open?’ His own voice, normal, strong, sounded indecently loud.

‘No. It was cold as death. It smelt of the sea.’

‘Dear God, woman! Have you gone insane?’ In spite of himself, Timothy was rattled. He stepped backwards out of the room and pulled the door closed behind him, giving it a little push to make sure it had latched properly. ‘Well, whatever it was, it’s gone now.’

She followed him back into the kitchen and for the first time seemed to notice the smoke hanging there under the light. Her cigarette had burned to ash in the saucer on the table. ‘So,’ she said over her shoulder. Her voice was normal again. ‘What was so exciting that you couldn’t come home? Where does our celebrity chef live?’

He told her everything. Except about his night in the Hawes Inn.

She reached up to the top of a cupboard and produced a half-full pack of cigarettes which she proceeded to crunch in her fist and then throw into the flip-top bin. Timothy wisely decided not to say anything.

‘Do you know what it was that you were looking at last night, that made you feel so cold?’ he ventured cautiously.

‘You had put a box on the side table,’ she replied. ‘Cardboard. There were various things inside it including a carved wood box. Small. Exotic-looking. I opened it.’ She stopped as she sensed the nausea returning. She swallowed hard. ‘Inside it was some kind of stinking old doll.’ She took a deep breath. ‘The evil was in there. I was going to throw it out, but once I took the lid off I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see straight.’ She took another deep breath.

‘Do you want me to throw it out for you?’ Timothy was all big brother now. To his alarm, he found the sight of April in such a state completely overwhelming. She was the eldest, she was the one always in charge. He wasn’t sure if he was frightened or if he was pleased to see her weak and indecisive.

Her reaction to his question was far from indecisive though. ‘Yes, get rid of it. But don’t for fuck’s sake open the thing again. Burn it. Or bury it in the dumpster in the next road. Let the council deal with it. Don’t try and be clever and take it anywhere in your car.’

He felt his face colour. That was exactly what he had thought of doing. He wasn’t sure where he wanted to take it, but of one thing he was certain; he had no intention of getting rid of it, not until he had had a chance to work out what it was.

Luckily, April didn’t notice. ‘Do it now,’ she said. ‘This minute. I’ll wait in here.’

‘OK.’ He turned towards the door. ‘And I might be a while. I have to do one or two things while I’m out.’ He didn’t wait to hear if she protested. He was already halfway up the stairs, his car keys in his hand.

It was late afternoon when Ruth went into the dining room and looked at the table with her piles of books, the notebook, the pens aligned neatly beside it, and the brown envelopes full of letters and she felt again that frisson of excitement at the thought of what was in there. Finlay’s abrupt departure had distracted her, but now she had time to start again on her reading and, she realised, she was actually pleased to be alone again. This was the freedom she had craved.

First she unpacked Sally’s books. Ruth pulled the box open and stacked the books on the table with the others. There were volumes on meditation and crystals, on past lives and ghost hunting and, she suddenly noticed, a slim volume, half-hidden between two others. Psychic Self-Defence by Dion Fortune. ‘Oh my God!’ she whispered. She picked it up and stared at it. So her mother had heard of Harriet’s strange magician. Perhaps she had known, too, about Lord Erskine’s alternative career as a spirit guide. She put the book on top of the pile. These books brought her closer in some ways to her mother than anything else she had found. These had been Lucy’s special treasures.

She glanced at the bulging brown envelopes. Letters were special. They were so personal, so immediate. She had already looked at a couple of them, documenting Thomas’s first months in the navy, and now she reached for one of the unopened packets. This wasn’t letters. There were several pieces of paper inside and some small cardboard-covered notebooks. She tipped everything onto the table and shook the envelope to make sure it was empty before picking up one of the notebooks and opening it at the first page.

There was a name scrawled across the top. Catherine Anne. Ruth frowned. The name was familiar. Then she remembered. Wasn’t that the name of her mother’s grandmother? She turned over the first leaf of the small book and found she was staring at a young girl’s diary. A teenager perhaps? The year was 1905. The beautiful, careful writing began neatly and the entries were much like any new diary, detailing a walk through the January woods, a trip to town to buy new boots, a friend’s birthday party. Ruth turned the pages slowly. The entries became more sporadic and less neat. Then came one that caught her eye. It had been scrawled with such force that the pen had blotted and the writing had been underlined so heavily that the paper was torn.

I had the dream again last night. Or what Papa calls the dream. But it isn’t. I know it isn’t. He’s real!!!

Ruth read the words several times then turned the page. The next entry was five days later.

I spoke to Dunc last night and he has seen him too. He said not to tell Papa. As a vicar, he isn’t allowed to believe in ghosts, but Mama sees them too, Dunc is sure of it. And so did Grandmama.

Dunc was her mother’s great uncle, Duncan, killed on the Somme in 1916. She knew that much. The only relation her father had approved of. So, Catherine Anne was his sister. Ruth found herself biting her lip.

There was a gap of several weeks before the next entry.

He came to me again. I don’t know what he is trying to tell me or who he is. I don’t know what to do. D is still away at school and I have no one to tell. I tried to ask Mama, but she pretended not to understand. She looked horrified when I told her and then Papa came in with his Bible under his arm and Mama went to talk to Cook. Papa looked very stern and made me put my hand on the Bible as if it would protect me. He asked me if I was still having bad dreams and I said yes and he patted my shoulder and said we should pray together.

Ruth could feel small shivers of horror and excitement prickling up and down her spine. She looked up at the window; it was very dark outside. She hadn’t realised how late it was getting. Standing up, she went over and pulled the curtains across. Behind her the diary lay in a pool of lamplight on the table.

He still comes to speak to me though I long since stopped trying to tell anyone. He is kind. He knows the future. He tells me that I will marry a handsome man and he smiled as if he knew such things were of importance to young girls. He tells me to listen to my father, that he is a good man and wise and that he only wants the best for me.

Ruth turned the page.

10 December 1912. My 19th birthday. As soon as he heard that he was to receive a living at last, Joseph asked Papa for my hand and Papa agreed. I’m the happiest person in the world. On our return from honeymoon he will be installed in his new church.

There were only two more entries. The first, dated December, 1913.

How strange it is to read this diary now. The day before my marriage and once again I saw my ghostly visitor. He gave me his blessing and told me I would be happy with Joseph. He told me that we would have four children and said I should give them all his name. I pointed out that he had never told me his name. He said he was Thomas Erskine. I told him that I already bore his name, given to me at my baptism, and he smiled and told me that he knew it! I have a little girl of my own now, and to her I have given the family name of Erskine.

Ruth felt she had stopped breathing. Thomas. Her Thomas. But then she had guessed it might be him. The last entry was written after two blank pages and was dated 1916:

Thomas came to me last night. He was gentle and kind and told me Dunc was dead in France. He told me to prepare my parents for the coming news as they would find it hard to bear. How can I prepare them? He told me my children would thrive and live long lives to comfort me and that my parents would find joy in my children. I am broken-hearted. I believe him though even now Mama has written to say she has received a letter from Dunc, dated some weeks ago. He says he is not allowed to say where he is but that he is well. Yet I know it isn’t true …

The remainder of the notebook was empty.

Ruth sat for a long time staring into space then at last she reached for the rest of the papers that had fallen from the envelope. There was the letter sent by Duncan’s commanding officer to his parents, saying he had been fatally wounded after showing exceptional bravery leading his men; there was another giving the date of his death.

There was a copy of her mother’s family tree. She realised there were tears running down her cheeks as she studied the letters and then the notes her mother had drawn up. Ruth ran her finger from the bottom to the top of the page, pausing when she came to her great-grandmother Catherine Anne, the author of the diary, who was born in 1893. Thomas, Catherine’s great-great-grandfather, who had died in 1823, was there, and there above him were lines and lines of names. Her mother had traced her own line of descent from Thomas down through the daughters of the family, every one, save Lucy, married, she noticed, to a man of the cloth. There were other lines of descent, of course there were, the male lines, the direct lines, but this one was hers and Lucy had added Ruth’s name at the bottom of the page. Ruth stared at it incredulously. She was there, but this was a version of herself she had never seen before. Ruth Catherine Erskine Dunbar.

Her mother had given her his name. Her father couldn’t have known. He would never have countenanced such a thing. It wasn’t on her birth certificate. Or her passport. So, it was her mother’s secret name for her, the name she had wanted her to carry.

She sat back for a moment, overwhelmed. Then it occurred to her that she didn’t need to make a family tree; her mother had done it all for her, but that made her want to know their stories even more. This was her family, the family she had craved since she was a little girl.

She reached for the next envelope. It contained a neat bundle of letters with remnants of broken seals, tied together with ribbon. Had her mother read all these? If she had, it must have been in secret, and when her father locked all Lucy’s treasures away he couldn’t have realised what they were or surely he would have burned them. Perhaps they had never been read again since they were first opened.

She carefully unfolded the first. This was from Thomas himself, addressed to his daughter, Frances; these had been arranged in order of date of writing, beginning in 1821 – addressed from somewhere called Buchan Hill. Her heart hammering with excitement, she glanced through them, aware that she had something inestimably valuable in her hands, something of national importance and, to her, fantastic interest. She picked out one and looked at it closely. The handwriting was firm and there was a small sketch at the end. Ruth screwed up her eyes, trying to see what it was. A cartoon character of some kind. An old man, with glasses and wild hair, a letter in his hand, at his heels a small attentive dog. It was a tiny, mocking, self-portrait. She put down the letter and stared at the wall for several moments, trying to calm herself, her instinct to ring Harriet and tell her what she had found. She resisted the urge. For now, this was her secret. It was too important, too exciting to be hijacked by Hattie.

This was her route into her family and the first thing she must do, she realised, was to sort everything into chronological order, starting with the first letter from the copies, which were Thomas’s letters to various members of his family that had been collected together. Thomas’s own writing was condensed and hard to read and she carried it over to the lamp on the side table. It was like finding a route into his head. His style was direct, if wordy, but that was a character of the age in which he wrote, detailed, seemingly with total recall and with a delightfully dry sense of humour.

Pushing the letters aside two hours later, she realised her head was aching and her eyes sore; she felt extraordinarily tired. Going over to the French doors, she pulled back the curtains and looked out into the dark. It had started to rain. The garden was wet and windy, the trees thrashing noisily as she stepped out onto the terrace and felt the rain on her face. The wind tore at her hair and she took a deep breath, smelling the salt in the wind off the churning Forth and the sweeter scent of mountain grass from the far-off Highlands.

It had always been a source of great pride to her Sussex-born mother that her ancestors came from Scotland, that wild, untamed place of history and myth and legend, a place that had pulled at the heartstrings of generation after generation of her family. And now that she was reading about it through the eyes of her Scottish ancestor, Ruth was beginning to understand. How strange that the wiles of Fate should have snatched him away from Scotland so young, first to Bath and then to the heat and sun of the Caribbean. Perhaps it was from these letters, written from so far away, that they had inherited their sense of nostalgia.

Ruth hugged herself with glee. She was at the beginning of the most glorious adventure. This was the world she had seen in her dreams. She was hooked.