The following year England’s most successful barrister allowed himself to be involved in the idiocy of fighting a duel. In Lewes, of all places. My opponent was an apothecary, but as conscious of his honour as I was. Luckily neither of us was hurt (I had taken the precaution of writing a will) and the matter was dropped before we were discovered. I decided to forget the incident. Just as well. It was soon after that Lord Mansfield suggested I take silk.
I was a rich man now and my own family, my darling wife and children were happy. We called our house in Hampstead, Evergreen Hill. The air was good and there was land, the gardens we had dreamt of so longingly when we were first married with our own Scots pines, obtained from Kew at the behest of my garden designer, Humphry Repton, to join those already there. There were views across the heathland towards Windsor Castle in the far distance to the west and London to the south, space for the children and the animals, farmland behind us. It was heaven on earth.
As my workload increased I needed a base closer to Lincoln’s Inn so I bought a house there as well, at Number 36. It was the perfect balance. I did not forget to write to my brothers, informing them of my new addresses.
Modesty must prevail. I did not win every case in which I was involved but my speeches continued to be admired; I entered politics and became Member of Parliament for Portsmouth. I cared neither for Portsmouth nor politics. And I did not care at all for Prime Minister William Pitt, nor he for me; my loyalty was as ever with his rival, Charles James Fox. Speeches before parliament did not set me (or I regret to say my audiences) on fire! When I lost my seat after the fall of the government it was with relief that I returned to the practice of the law, and found all my enthusiasm and my natural wit and brilliance returned. Do I boast? I was often accused of it, especially by Fanny. People did not always appreciate my sense of humour. It didn’t worry me. I was passionately enjoying my life and, I confess, hoping that, from faraway Scotland, my brothers were watching my success as I travelled round the country, on one occasion as far as St Asaph’s in North Wales.
And then as a great meteor soared across the skies of London to the terror of the general populace, my nightmares began again.
54
‘It was a pencil. Just a pencil, rolling across my desk.’ Ruth was still mystified by her own reaction. ‘It scared me more than any of the vile things he has said and done.’
Malcolm sighed. ‘I think I can understand that.’
They were sitting by the fire in his living room, listening to the rain and wind battering against the tower.
‘And then Fin rang and said he wasn’t coming home. I thought I could stay there by myself, I thought I was strong enough, but I kept hearing noises …’ Her words died away. ‘I was reading about the hanging. It was awful. I couldn’t stay. I was terrified. I climbed into the car and I thought I was safe, then I sensed he had come with me after all and all I could think of was to get to the sea. It was wild. Primeval. Cleansing. I somehow knew he wouldn’t like it; he wouldn’t stay with me, if he was there at all.’ She sat back in her chair, staring into the flames.
‘You are one brave lady,’ Mal said softly.
She sighed. ‘Mad, more like. I can’t seem to stop reading the story even now it scares me so much.’
‘Because you want, even need, to know what happened. I know how that feels better than anyone. But, Ruth, you must accept that, if you go on reading, you will go on seeing things that frighten you. If you want all this to stop, stop reading.’
‘I can’t. It’s my history, My family. I want to know about them so badly. I suspect my mother never read this stuff, Mal. Maybe that’s why Farquhar left her alone.’
‘If he did.’
‘He must have. Otherwise she would have been in an asylum.’ She was silent for a while. ‘Where do they go between times, Mal? Is there a waiting room somewhere where restless spirits queue up ready to launch themselves into the world they used to live in? Harriet said I was muddling ghosts up with vampires, but I would like to think that Farquhar crawls back into his coffin at dawn.’
‘He wouldn’t have had a coffin.’
‘No. Dissected.’ She shuddered. ‘In public.’
‘A grim end.’
‘Do you believe having the vicar at your hanging laid your soul to rest? He was there, but Farquhar wouldn’t pray with him.’
‘I suspect it depended on whether you were repentant.’ Mal stood up to select another log for the fire. ‘I don’t subscribe to the authorised view of hell as depicted by Dante or Bosch, but I do believe people make their own heaven or hell, both before they die and maybe after. If Farquhar had a conscience about what he did in his lifetime, he would have repented. But he clearly didn’t. He is angry and full of resentment.’
He threw the log onto the fire. They watched the sparks fly up the chimney. An extra strong gust of wind blew back and stirred the ashes, whisking smoke into the room. Watching it she tensed, then relaxed again.
‘It may be that reading the letters has reactivated him in some way,’ Mal said after a long pause. ‘Perhaps you are, in his eyes, fair game as Thomas’s descendant.’
‘I tried to do what you told me. I pretended to surround myself with light.’
He schooled his face not to show the despair he felt as he looked at her. ‘Well done.’ He kept his voice neutral.
She was not fooled. ‘I did a crap job, didn’t I? Obviously it didn’t work. I expect you can see the holes in my aura.’ She was either mocking herself or him. Or both.
He inclined his head. ‘For the word to even cross your lips is a step in the right direction.’
She smiled sadly, holding out her hands to the fire. ‘How do we get rid of him, Mal? Do you think he will have gone back to the Old Mill House?’
‘I don’t think it works like that. I think he drifts in and out of existence. He draws on the energy of the environment, or of particular people, and recreates himself. Then he clings to whatever – or whoever – he has fixed on. His grasp is not very secure, I’m pleased to say, but he is persistent and, don’t forget, originally, he came by invitation.’
‘We were so stupid.’
‘You did nothing thousands of other enthusiastic seekers after ghosts haven’t done before. The worst that usually happens is that people scare themselves witless.’
‘We were trying to be mediums. “Is there someone in the audience wearing a blue dress. John says to take care of yourself”,’ Ruth mimicked.
Malcolm gave a tolerant smile. ‘I have met genuine mediums. They are formidable in their knowledge. Just as I have met people who can read one’s aura and tell one everything that has ever happened in every lifetime and often everything that is going to happen as well.’
Ruth folded her arms on her knees. Near her feet, Pol stretched out his legs with a sigh. His brother had retreated behind Mal’s chair, too hot near the fire.
‘You are a sensitive, Ruth. You could do it.’
She shook her head.
‘Well, shall we say you are potentially sensitive, but were indoctrinated from birth.’ He grinned. ‘You’re work in progress.’
‘I told you that I pretended to surround myself with light.’
‘Pretended.’
‘You said pretending was better than doing nothing,’ she defended herself. ‘And it worked. Or at least I thought it did.’
Mal glanced up, looking round. ‘Cas?’ he called sharply. His voice was full of anxiety. The spaniel had shot to its feet and was standing huddled against the door, trembling. He walked over to let it out. It fled down the stairs and was immediately followed by Pol.
‘Was it something I said?’ Ruth enquired shakily.
Malcolm had turned back into the room, his hand still on the door handle, and was studying her with a strange expression on his face.
‘What?’ She stood up, frightened. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘We have a visitor.’
Outside on the stone staircase a light bulb was flicker
ing. And then she felt it, a cold touch on the back of her neck. She could smell him now too.
‘Stand still, Ruth!’ Malcolm stopped her in her tracks as she whirled round in a panic.
‘I command you to leave this place. Now!’ He had raised his hand and was making the sign of the cross as the room filled with the sound of insane male laughter. Ruth let out a scream as someone or something pushed her aside. She cannoned into the table, sobbing.
Malcolm ran to the window and pushed it open. ‘Out!’ he shouted. ‘Out. Now! You are not going to have her. Do you hear me? This is a place of light!’
Silence.
Then his phone started ringing.
The sound rang out round the kitchen for several seconds, then it stopped. Their visitor had gone.
55
The old stone church was deserted. It smelt of damp and candlewax and ancient rotting hassocks. Thomas had looped his horse’s rein over a gravestone in the churchyard before removing his hat, reaching for the iron ring on the door and lifting the latch.
It had been a surprise to find out from his brother Harry that he had once wanted to be a vicar in the English church, that law had been very much a second choice. At the time it had infuriated him. Harry had walked into the career he hadn’t even wanted while he, Thomas, had had to struggle and fight to study something he had dreamed of since he was a boy. The curse of the third son. He walked slowly up the narrow aisle and stood staring at the altar. It was covered in a dark blue velvet cloth with a small brass cross and candlesticks. To his amusement, he saw one of the sticks was dented, immediately unable to resist visualising the vicar losing patience with a recalcitrant churchwarden and hitting him over the head with it.
Like Harry he found himself drawn towards the Church of England. It was in any case a prerequisite of his present position to attend. Methodism, which so attracted David and his sister Anne, was not for him. Nor was any religion, if he were honest. But this was where he felt at home, in the dark, spidery shadows of a country church where the only liturgy was a dim echo of the past and the prayers were whispered pleas from long-dead parishioners.
And that, he realised, was why he was here. He had ignored the voices in his head for too long. The rumbustious world of politics and the intensity of the study of law had left no time for silence. Fanny found peace in the gardens at Evergreen and he was there with her when he could, but already he had had to resign his sketches and plans for the garden to Repton. A man of his standing had no time to dig his own flowerbeds.
Or to pray.
Opening the door to the front pew, the one that no doubt belonged to the local squire and his wife, he sat down and looked up at the cross on the altar. Someone was there at the back of his head anxious and determined to make themselves heard. All he could do was wait. He glanced round. There, lying on the narrow seat beside him, was the squire’s lady’s prayer book, and her Bible, and a slim pamphlet hidden beneath them. He pulled it out, curious to see what it was, opening it at the page marked by a length of silk ribbon and found to his delight it was a privately printed copy of ‘The Diverting History of John Gilpin’. He laughed out loud. The poem had been written by his late lamented friend William Cowper. He closed the book and carefully replaced it under the Bible where the lady’s husband would not see it. He would have loved to send William a note telling him what he had found. He would have been cheered and utterly charmed to be so subversive an influence during the no doubt boring lengths of a country sermon.
When he looked up he wasn’t surprised to see the figure standing on the chancel steps. ‘Duncan, my good friend. I’m sorry, I have been ignoring your attempts to speak to me. The duties of a lawyer seem to preclude the good manners needed to listen to my first and best advisor.’
The old man was fading, reaching out a hand towards him, almost clawing at the cold air between them. Thomas leapt to his feet. ‘Duncan!’
But it was no use. In seconds he had gone. Thomas stood still, staring at the space where his old friend had been, bereft. Duncan had been trying to warn him of something, but what? He was still too unfocused to be able to hear him.
He heard his horse whinny and he turned abruptly and strode down the nave to the door. He had been in the church longer than he thought. It was growing dark. The shadows of the great yews cast black bars across the pathway. He closed the door behind him and walked over to the horse, pulling the rein off the gravestone and leading it away from the porch. ‘Sorry, Ebony.’ He rubbed its ears. ‘Did you get bored waiting?’ He led the animal out through the lychgate and halted it beside the mounting block. As he gathered the reins the horse sidestepped, and laid its ears back as he swung into the saddle. It was staring round nervously. High hedges blocked the last of the light from the lane as he turned it back towards Hampstead. There was something or someone out there, he could feel it as easily as could the horse. Cursing the fact that he had no pistol or sword with him, he urged the animal into a canter. Whatever it was would be easily outstripped on the heath. Ebony had raced at Newmarket in his day; there wasn’t a horse in London could outrun him.
But no horse could outrun his nightmares. There in the background, never far from his waking thoughts, was the hate-filled, dying face of Andrew Farquhar. Was that what Duncan had been trying to warn him about? He shuddered at the thought.
Fanny was waiting for him in the schoolroom with the children. They ran to him as he appeared. ‘Papa!’ Frances was now thirteen and a real young lady, her sister Margaret twelve, Elizabeth eleven and Davy ten.
‘They all have work to show you, Tom.’ Fanny smiled wearily. After years of blessed respite from pregnancy she was with child again and her body was heavy beneath her exhausted thin face.
‘And so they shall.’ Thomas sat down at the table with them. ‘My darling, you should go and rest. Leave the children to me. I shall expect them to line up neatly, youngest first, and present their best efforts of the day.’
‘Oh, Papa! That means I’m last!’ Frances stamped her foot. She was turning into a beauty, his eldest child. He eyed her fondly. ‘So, you have most to learn, sweetheart.’ He reached out and drew her to him, kissing the top of her head. ‘And, you must wait. Davy will be going to school soon. He must show me his efforts as he might have the most to correct.’ He looked severely at his only son, who instantly reacted by going red in the face, and opening his mouth to protest. Thomas patted Frances on the behind and pushed her to the back of the queue. He adored his children.
He helped Fanny to her feet and escorted her to the door. ‘Rest,’ he said sternly. He pulled her to him and kissed her gently on the lips. ‘Later, when the brood have gone to bed, I shall need your advice.’ She was the only person now who knew about his tussles with the visions in his head. Only Duncan knew besides her, and he had failed Duncan today.
Later when the children were dispatched to their bedrooms he let himself out into the gardens, followed by Toss. This was a magical place, surrounded by trees. He went over to the stables first to check that Ebony had been bedded down. He heard the horse give a throaty whicker of welcome while he was still outside the stable yard. He opened the door and went into the loosebox, putting his arms round the animal’s neck and kissing its nose. There was no one there to see; Jake the groom had gone in for his food. ‘You could tell me who it was out there on the road, old fella, couldn’t you,’ Tom whispered in the horse’s ear. The ear flicked knowingly, but the horse said nothing. He toured the stable, speaking to each horse in turn, the coach horses and Fanny’s mare and the children’s ponies and, last of all, little Invincible.
He told Fanny later about the old church and its visitor. ‘It worries you,’ she said softly. ‘But there is no danger, surely. Unless it’s your own foolishness in riding round the countryside alone. Supposing there was a footpad lurking, or a highwayman.’
He laughed. ‘I don’t think I was in danger there, my darling. Your husband was a soldier, don’t forget. I just need to get away sometimes. I
am so busy. I travel with my clerk and my driver in a grand coach; I work on my briefs as I travel, I read till the early hours and my eyes close of their own volition when all I want to do is take my darling wife in my arms and make love to her.’
She giggled. ‘You have found plenty of time to do that, husband mine! With all these children of ours to prove it.’
He sat with his arms round her in silence for a while. The logs on the fire were turning to ash and the candles in the candelabra were burning down, leaving trails of wax. ‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you,’ he whispered.
‘And nothing will. You know I drop children with the ease of one of your bitches whelping.’ She laughed. He reached over and patted her stomach gently. ‘Will this be another boy?’
She shook her head. ‘Abi says it’s a girl.’
‘What?’ He pretended to be shocked. ‘Am I to be drowned in women?’
‘Serves you right for being such a doting father. You spoil them too much.’ She sighed. ‘Do we have to send Davy away to school?’
‘Of course we do. This female household will be the ruin of him. All those big sisters to spoil him and now a baby as well. Winchester will knock some sense into him.’
They both fell silent at the sound of the owl somewhere close outside the window. He heard Fanny take a sharp intake of breath. She clutched his hand. ‘Do you ever think about Farquhar?’ she whispered.
He felt himself grow tense. ‘No!’ he lied. ‘Why do you mention him now?’
‘I saw some of Mr Hogarth’s prints today when I went to take coffee with Lady Mansfield. One of them showed the body of a highwayman being,’ she paused, unwilling to frame the word, ‘dissected, by a surgeon. In front of an audience. It made me think what an awful fate it was.’ She took a deep breath. ‘How could any man’s soul rest in peace, Tom, after such a thing? Supposing he still walks the earth, looking for some kind of restitution?’
‘You must not think such things, my darling.’ He put his arms round her. ‘You are bound to be fanciful, in your condition. What was Elizabeth Mansfield thinking of, showing you such things? He has gone, his soul fragmented and scattered as his ashes must have been at the end of the experiments.’