‘When are we going to sell the stuff?’ Timothy had completely forgotten to check it was safely hidden in his panic at seeing the man through the window.
‘Soon. There’s always a market for silver as bullion if you know where to go.’ April bent to the oven and removed a carton which had been keeping warm. ‘I bought chicken and chips.’ The kitchen filled with the aroma of vinegar on the chips as she put it on the table and Timothy felt his mouth water. They didn’t use plates, helping themselves from the trays. He didn’t mention where he had been that day and she didn’t ask.
Thomas now had his own room, new clothes provided by his sister and a valet. The young man, Stephen, had unpacked his trunk for him, removing his books and writing materials from the bottom. He then produced a small bundle and held it up with an expression of disgust.
‘Shall I dispose of this, sir?’
Thomas looked up. It was the obeah woman’s doll. He hesitated; for a moment he wavered then he shook his head. ‘Keep it. Leave it in the chest.’
He was a little abashed by the atmosphere of his sister’s dining room at breakfast. Prayers; excited talk, yes, but of churches and meetings and Bible classes for the poor. As he helped himself to kedgeree at the sideboard, he frowned. This was at odds with his dreams of London life.
Excusing himself from accompanying Anne on her morning visits, he set out to explore on his own as soon as he could decently escape, running down the steps of the house and into the noisy crowded streets. It was exhilarating and it was dizzying. The smell was atrocious, and yet as the sun fought free of the clouds and the streets were aglitter with reflected sunlight it was the most exciting place he had ever been. Anne and Selina Huntingdon listened patiently to his account of his day as, bathed and changed, he joined them to sip wine by the fire in the withdrawing room before dinner that evening.
‘It must all seem strange indeed after so long at sea,’ Anne put in at last. It had been hard to get a word in. She regarded her brother fondly. He had grown so tall since she had last seen him in Bath, taller than either of his brothers, and he sported a weathered complexion that suited him. She sensed a new strength there which was to be expected after his experiences in the navy. She found herself hoping he would not find a new ship too quickly. It would be fun launching her baby brother into society.
The young lieutenant became something of a trophy guest. His good looks and his quick wit were appreciated particularly by hostesses with daughters who could do worse than a brother of the Earl of Buchan. The lack of fortune was the problem. Four years’ worth of earnings seemed riches to Thomas, but he soon found the money would not go as far as he had hoped and, at the same time, his dream of a new ship was quickly dashed. The only berths available were for midshipmen – Jamie signed on again at once – but having returned to England as an acting lieutenant Tom could not bring himself to take a demotion. He dared to dream for a while of going back to university but that would only be possible if David would subsidise him and his letters from his eldest brother following a cautious enquiry were succinct on that point. The new young earl was not going to squander any of his precious but slender patrimony on a brother who had proved himself quite capable of earning his own living, although he did grudgingly pass on the small bequest left to Tom by his father.
Tom spent his days exploring bookshops, where he browsed to his heart’s content. It was Anne who suggested that he visit to his parents’ former advisor, Lord Mansfield, His advice was simple and so obvious Tom wondered why he had not thought of it himself. He might not be able to afford his idea of an academic career, but he could fulfil his previous dream of joining the army, sporting at last the coveted red coat which had so attracted him as a boy. Strings were pulled, introductions made and Tom found himself laying out his inheritance and most of his precious savings on a commission under the Duke of Argyll in the second battalion of the Royal Scots, the 1st Royal Regiment of Foot. His first posting would be Berwick-upon-Tweed.
The day before the regiment left he went for a last walk alone. He had only gone a few hundred yards when he stopped. It was there again, that feeling that he was being followed. Several times in the last few days he had glanced over his shoulder at the crowds surging to and fro behind him, the sea of faces, anonymous beneath tricorn hats and hoods and caps, hunched beneath the cold rain. No one seemed to be watching him but he had been warned of cutpurses and thieves, of which there were plenty in the teeming alleys and roadways. He turned sharply across the street, dodging between a heavy coach and a laden waggon, and retraced his steps to stand in a shop doorway, scanning the crowds. Rain teemed off the roof and the galleried upper storeys into a puddle at his feet and he stepped back, glancing at the distorted image of himself in the bulbous panes of the window next to him. There was someone standing close beside him, a face, leering into the shadow of the doorway. He turned swiftly back towards the street, but there was no one there.
He could see no one suspicious but the feeling remained, a slight shiver down the spine, an awareness of eyes following him. With an involuntary shudder he walked on, uncomfortable until he was safely in the warmth of the coffee house, where to his gratification he was greeted at once by a shout of welcome and was within minutes seated at a table with two gentlemen he had met some days before. By the time he returned home the incident was forgotten.
25
Ruth lay staring up at the ceiling. Harriet had left early in the morning, as originally planned, with some reluctance at leaving her alone, but Ruth had insisted. The house felt cleansed, if slightly garlicky, and she had gone back to her research without any qualms at being alone. It was late when she finally went to bed and she had fallen asleep at once but something had woken her. Groping for her phone, she stared at it, trying to focus on the bright screen. She had only been asleep for an hour. Slamming it back down on the bedside table she looked towards the window. She had left the curtains undrawn and the window was open a crack so she could hear the distant burbling of the river and, above it, the hoot of the owl. That must have been what had woken her. The sky had cleared and she could see the moon, low above the black outline of the trees. Pulling the covers over her head she tried to go back to sleep.
She must have dozed when she was awoken by a sound in the room near the bed. She lay still, rigid with fear, listening. There it was again. A sigh. And then she felt it, something pulling at the duvet. Someone was climbing into bed beside her, a hand was reaching out to her, touching her, and she smelt his breath as he leaned across her and tried to kiss her, to force his tongue into her mouth. She couldn’t move. She was paralysed. She couldn’t scream.
And then as suddenly as he had come, he had gone.
She leapt out of bed and turned on the lights. The room was empty.
It had been a dream.
She didn’t sleep again that night and it was still dark when she made her way down to the kitchen.
She was sitting at the kitchen table nibbling at a piece of toast an hour later when she saw a movement outside the window. A shot of adrenaline stabbed through her and for a moment she thought she was going to be sick, then she realised it was Lachlan. She didn’t wait for him to knock.
‘Come in. I’ve made coffee.’
She saw him raise an eyebrow but he kicked off his boots and walked in, pulling off his muddy gloves. ‘I thought I would catch up on some more tidying early,’ he said as he took the proffered chair. ‘The forecast is for storms next week and I might not get up here for a few days.’
‘Is this house haunted, Lachy?’ Ruth blurted out the question as she put the coffee pot down on the table.
He looked astonished. ‘Not as far as I know. Why?’ He surveyed her face curiously. ‘Have you seen a ghost?’
She forced herself to smile. ‘It was probably a nightmare.’
‘I don’t believe in ghosts myself.’ Lachlan grinned at her. ‘But they make good stories. I think Fin claims to have seen something. A little girl I think it is. Not ver
y frightening.’
‘No. Fin mentioned her to me. But he said she was in the garden. No this wasn’t a little girl. It was a man. In my bedroom.’
‘And it’s rattled you.’ He stood up and went to the dresser to find the sugar bowl. Subconsciously Ruth noted that he seemed to know his way round. ‘And I’m not surprised. But, I’m sure you’re right. It was a dream.’
She nodded. ‘I couldn’t get back to sleep.’
‘I can see that would be frightening.’
‘You haven’t heard from Finlay, have you?’ She didn’t want to sound so desperate.
‘’Fraid not.’ He took a sip of coffee then she saw him frown. ‘You’re not thinking of going?’
‘No, I promised him I’d stay. It’s just …’ she flailed about for the right words. ‘It’s a big house.’
‘Not really.’ He grinned again. ‘Do you want me to make sure there isn’t anyone lurking?’
She nodded, afraid that if she spoke she would start to cry.
‘Wait here.’ He pushed the chair back and stood up.
She did as she was told, listening as his footsteps faded into the distance. She could hear him opening doors, the rattle of curtain rings, then the pad of his socked feet as he ran up to the first floor. Five minutes later he reappeared. ‘All clear. There’s no one here, living or dead. I even looked in the attic.’
‘Thank you.’ She was embarrassed. ‘I feel such a fool.’
‘I don’t see why. Nightmares can be very scary. I tell my kids they have to shut the door in their imagination after a bad dream and then push the bolts across. One two three.’ He laughed. ‘Luckily I don’t have nightmares any more. I reckon one usually grows out of them.’
‘I thought I had. Worrying dreams, exam dreams, yes. But not men who try and attack you.’
He gave a small whistle. ‘That does sound bad.’
She looked down at the table. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘I’ll remember your advice if it happens again. Bolts sound reassuring.’
He paused as though waiting to see if she was going to say anything else then he stood up. ‘I ought to get on.’
She smiled up at him. ‘Thanks, Lachy.’
He pulled on his boots, then paused on the doorstep. ‘Do you know Mollie Fisher, next door?’
‘No.’
‘Nice lady. I reckon if you were worried about anything you could pop round to hers and you can always ring me, don’t forget. I’ll come over with the kids. That would scare any ghost, believe me.’ He laughed and was gone.
She walked slowly out into the hall and looked round. He had left all the inner doors open, the curtains in the rooms drawn back and the downstairs was flooded with watery sunshine. The sitting room was its old self, neat, attractive, benign; the dining room, as before, littered with her books and papers. Finlay’s study was tidy with its usual slight spicy aroma of aftershave combined with the musty smell of old books. Upstairs Finlay’s bedroom was tidy, again that faint smell of vetiver and cedar. It was a lovely room, unexpectedly masculine compared to the rest of the house, with dark blue curtains and a wall of books which made it look more like another study than a bedroom. There was a second guest room, where Harriet had stayed, also lined with bookshelves. Her own was a mess, the bedclothes trailing across the floor, the light still on in the bathroom, an uncapped tube of toothpaste lying in the basin, her dressing gown dropped in a heap on the floor. She felt a wave of embarrassment at the thought of Lachlan surveying her clothes and the rumpled bed. She walked over to the window and pushed it open. The morning was cold and blustery and she could see him raking the leaves in the distance. The sight of him was reassuring. She turned back to the room and set about tidying it. The house felt empty and clean. Whoever – whatever – had been there, had gone.
Thomas
We were stationed for several months in the large barracks, designed some years previously by the architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. It did not escape me that this garrison, on the Scottish border, was created as a defence against my own countrymen, but then we were a Scots regiment and in the complicated politics of our time there were many, now good subjects of King George, who had in the years immediately before my birth wholeheartedly supported the Jacobite cause and perhaps still in their secret hearts yearned after their royal line. Even my mentor Lord Mansfield was accused of being of Jacobite sympathies. It had not done his career any harm.
I enjoyed my training as an ensign on this bleak, exposed corner of the east coast and even more my free time and my leave. I was able to visit Mama in Edinburgh whence she had returned with my sister Isabella soon after my father’s death. She took me to see his grave in Holyrood Abbey, which had escaped the roof fall in a terrible storm earlier in the year. And I met up with Harry, now well embarked upon his legal career, and we shared a few drams together.
I rode out whenever I could to explore the countryside around Berwick and on one of my visits I had an experience which drove me back to Edinburgh to seek out from my mother the whereabouts of the sennachie, the recorder of our family history. I had seen a ghost.
26
The wind was whistling round the ruins of Berwick Castle as Thomas rode up towards the collapsing stone walls and tethered his horse in a sheltered corner. He nearly always explored alone, preferring his own company to the gossip and ribald laughter of a group of young men, though he missed Jamie who was now back in the Caribbean and who had written to him but once, care of his sister in London.
Tearing up some handfuls of rich grass for his horse to eat he turned towards the castle, clinging to its perch high above the River Tweed near the old stone bridge. He felt it as soon as he drew near: misery, defiance, longing. One person’s call from the distant past. He paused, looking round, aware that it was a woman’s voice reaching out to him, then shook his head to free himself of the echo and stumbled on towards some steps which led down towards the great wall.
An old man was dozing in the shelter of the wall, huddled in an ancient greatcoat. He scrambled to his feet as Thomas approached.
Thomas sighed. He felt in his pocket for a coin. No doubt the man would demand to be paid whether or not he was allowed to act as guide.
‘You can hear her then?’ The man waved Thomas’s hand away.
‘Who was she?’ The clouds were rolling in from the sea and the sunlight had been extinguished as though it were no more than a blown candle flame. Thomas shivered.
‘The Countess of Buchan.’
Thomas stared at him, startled. His skin, he realised, was suddenly crawling with fear. ‘Buchan, you said?’ he spoke more sharply than he had intended and he saw the man’s eyes narrow.
‘Aye, Buchan.’
‘My brother is the Earl of Buchan.’ It came out as a whisper.
The man eyed him curiously. ‘Then she would have been a kinswoman. Poor lady, hung there on the ramparts in a cage, the price to pay for crowning a king of Scotland and displeasing a king of England.’
Thomas stared round as the sky grew darker. ‘When was this?’
‘Hundreds of years ago.’ The man stood staring out across the river. He didn’t seem inclined to say anything else.
‘Did she,’ Thomas cleared his throat, ‘did she die here?’
‘No,’ the old man muttered almost reluctantly, as if it spoiled his story. ‘She was released in the end, but no one knows what became of her.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps the cage sent her mad, perhaps her soul could never escape.’ His voice took on the singsong tone of a story often told. ‘She haunts these ruins and her voice can be heard wailing in the wind.’ He glanced back at the young soldier curiously. ‘Very few people hear her though,’ he added censoriously.
‘Show me. Show me where the cage hung,’ Thomas said sharply.
The old man hesitated, visibly trying to decide whether or not to relay the answer he usually gave to that question. Visitors expected to be taken to a specific spot. They wanted to imagine the poor woman’s so
rrow and pain and they needed a particular stone upon which to focus their delighted horror. He obviously decided that it was not worth the risk of lying to a kinsman of the lady in question. ‘No one knows,’ he replied mournfully.
‘But she is seen?’
The man glanced up again, noting the stern face of the young man. ‘Not by me, sir.’ It was apparent that it hurt him to say it.
‘But by others?’
‘So I’m told.’ He hesitated, then, deciding he could contribute no more to the discussion, he touched his forelock. ‘I’m away to my lodgings, sir. I will leave you to your thoughts.’
As the old man scuttled away Thomas scrambled up towards a better viewpoint and stood staring round. He could feel her so closely now, her defiance towards her captors, her fear of the future, her hopeless resignation as time passed and she was forced to realise that rescue was not coming and she must accept her fate. He could feel the cold in her bones, hear the scream of the wind around the ramparts.
The old man had been right. He felt the need to touch the stones that had imprisoned her, to try to send her healing and comfort across the centuries, to reassure her spirit and let it understand that it had the freedom to soar away from this godforsaken place towards the sky.
A spatter of raindrops blew across the walls and he heard a rumble of thunder in the south. ‘Rest in peace, sweet lady,’ he whispered. ‘Your bravery will not be forgotten.’
As he turned away from the river he thought he saw her, standing on the rampart wall against the flicker of lightning, a defiant, slim figure, wrapped in a dark cloak, her hair torn from its hood by the wind, then she was gone.
Lachlan left at tea time. He knocked on the kitchen door to say goodbye. ‘Remember, you can ring me any time if you’re worried.’ And he handed her a piece of paper with his mobile number on, even though he knew it was on the wall there in the kitchen. She watched him climb into his car from the window then she turned back to the dining room.