The Women of Heachley Hall Read online

  My stance thawed. ‘Later in the year,’ I squeezed out the words through gritted teeth. The effrontery of the woman, breezing in, warming me up with eggs and Tony’s good nature, then alluding to her designs. How could she afford to buy Heachley?

  ‘She should have sold it years ago.’ The bitterness in Liz’s voice hung in the air between us. She had an agenda which I hadn’t anticipated and I’d wrongly assumed she was Felicity’s friend. What she wanted was Heachley Hall and its land.

  I came close to telling her to get lost, to leave my property. But the swaying grasses caught my eye. She’d offered to cut it for nothing and I needed it done. I inhaled, plastered a fake smile on my face. ‘Probably. She couldn’t look after it on her own.’

  She paced along the flagstones. ‘We tried, Tony and I, to make her see sense, but she was a stubborn old battleaxe. Glenda and Bert didn’t help. Always giving her what she wanted – help with the shopping, deliveries and Maggie, too. She worked for nothing most of the time.’

  ‘Felicity was fortunate.’ My lips twitched with the pressure of maintaining that smile.

  ‘Then there was Charles,’ she spat his name out and glared at the house. I looked at the drawing room window, expecting Charles to be stood there with the putty knife observing our little chat, but he wasn’t.

  ‘Charles?’ I queried, my lips drooping slightly.

  Liz’s prim face with its powdered cheeks twisted into a scowl. ‘I’d forgotten about him. I bet he whispered in her ear, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘He’s just the handyman. The gardener, you said.’

  ‘Just – there’s a lot of misunderstanding in that simple word. He’d a hold on her, I’m convinced of it, now that he’s here again. It’s reminded me things are not what they appear around Heachley. Watch your back, Miriam. Felicity fell, remember?’ Liz spoke with a crazed conviction, as if a cascade of thoughts tumbled into her mind one after the other without much reasoning.

  I folded my arms, determined not to be bowled away by her ramblings. ‘Tony said it was an accident.’

  ‘That’s what Maggie said, but she never saw it happen and Tony, who’s not one for stirring up muddy waters, didn’t have the courage to ask how she came to fall.’

  ‘This is ridiculous. If Felicity had been hurt by somebody, why wouldn’t she say?’

  ‘Because,’ Liz hissed, placing her back to the house, ‘she was afraid.’

  ‘Of what?’ I wasn’t exactly sure what Liz was trying to imply.

  ‘This house,’ she gestured over her shoulder, ‘It wouldn’t let her go. A colourful woman who lived an exciting life in India turned into a recluse. Doesn’t it seem odd to you? There’s rumours about this house.’

  Finally, she touched on something that intrigued me. ‘And Charles, what about him?’

  Liz shrugged, throwing up her arms. ‘A malingering type. One who latches on to old folk and milks them for money.’

  I laughed, unable to agree to the idea of Charles showing interest in money. I had to thrust the notes into his hands when I paid him. ‘I doubt he’s interested. He comes and goes, and doesn’t stay too long.’

  Liz snorted, stuffed her hands in her coat pockets and cocked her head towards the garden. ‘So, the grass. Would you like Tony to come by?’

  ‘Oh yes, please,’ I forced the muscles in my face to respond and the smile returned.

  The moment her car left the drive I raced back into the warmth of the house. Liz had entered the house on her own, creeping quietly enough for us not hear her approach. What had she heard Charles and I talk about – Felicity, her secrets, the box that Liz herself had retrieved and took to the nursing home five years ago? Had she looked inside it? Who wouldn’t resist peeking inside a mysterious box? She mentioned documents and photographs; she must have sneaked a peep.

  The light flashed on the telephone, a red spotlight frantically blinking: I’d a missed call. I’d left the unit on a pile of directories abandoned on the floor. The last number I’d dialled remained my failed attempted to reach Eva Kendal earlier in the morning. I scrolled up to retrieve a list of incoming numbers from the caller display: the most recent caller I didn’t recognise. It had occurred during my trip to the library.

  Slowly, I set the phone down and chewed on my lip.

  ‘Miriam? Is there a problem?’ Charles stood over by the kitchen door, wiping his hands on a tea towel. ‘What did Liz want?’

  I passed him and entered the kitchen, depositing the egg box on worktop. The smell of linseed followed behind with Charles. ‘Were she and Felicity friends?’

  He guffawed. ‘Felicity hated her.’

  I slumped against the windowsill. All this new information confused me and seeing the peculiar spark of animosity in Charles’s eyes came as a surprise. ‘Hated. That’s a strong word. I thought given she and Tony visited Felicity when she fell ill that they were friends.’

  ‘Liz represents everything Felicity hated about Little Knottisham.’ With a sudden snap of his wrist, he tossed the tea towel onto the Rayburn and it flew across the hot plates and came to rest in a heap.

  I straightened up. Drip-feeding me information was becoming an irritating practice of Charles. ‘Rumour-mongering and the like?’

  ‘No, not so much that, although what community doesn’t suffer from gossip.’ He waved his hand dismissively through the air. ‘No. What Felicity saw in Liz Pyke is somebody who believes she is above everyone else. The pillar of society.’

  ‘The squire’s wife,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Yes, exactly.’ Charles had excellent hearing. ‘Liz wants this place.’

  ‘I know. She told me outside she couldn’t wait for the auction. How can she afford to buy Heachley?’

  ‘Liz has the money. The Watkins, her family, have owned the farm and surrounding land for generations. Tony married Liz because her father had no sons to run the farm. She is dripping in money. He, from what Felicity told me, lacks the ambition of Liz. She will stop at nothing to get this place. And, unfortunately, I don’t know if you can stop her, unless… well, it doesn’t matter what I think.’ From anger to despair, and now with his luminous eyes, he almost seemed desperate to convince me that Felicity never wanted this outcome.

  I slumped against the worktop. ‘Felicity told you this?’

  ‘Yes. This isn’t the first time Liz has tried to buy Heachley. She pestered your aunt. Kept turning up on the pretext of asking for cakes and badgered her, promising Felicity a fair price and a chance to retire somewhere smaller.’

  ‘And Felicity said no.’

  ‘Each and every time.’

  I shook my head, disgusted at Liz’s tactics. ‘Felicity was eighty odd and Liz visits the nursing home until… That’s why she stopped going to see Felicity.’

  ‘Why?’ Charles’s eyebrows shot higher.

  ‘After the stroke, Porter obtained power of attorney because Felicity couldn’t communicate her wishes. Liz probably gave up visiting because she’d no way of persuading Felicity to change her mind.’

  ‘And Mr Porter?’

  ‘Now, that would be interesting if Liz tried to influence him, encourage him to put it up for auction and not find me? Surely he had Felicity’s interests at heart – the will is clear. I have the choice when it comes to the future of this place, nobody else.’

  ‘A year and a day. She wants you to live here so you are discouraged from putting the house up for sale and Liz can’t acquire it?’

  ‘But that isn’t what the will states. After the year the choice is still mine: to stay or sell.’ I reiterated. Did I want Liz to have Heachley, to turn it into a bed and breakfast and hunt muntjac in the woods? Oh God no.

  The expression on Charles’s face showed pain, an etching of fine lines appeared on his forehead. ‘Why did she do it?’

  ‘Liz?’

  ‘No,’ he whispered, ‘Felicity. The will, trapping you here.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m certainly not trapped. But, I can’t live here, not without mo
re income. This place will be sold and consequently, it might go to somebody who doesn’t deserve it.’ I remembered what Liz had said about the house, holding Felicity bound to its walls. ‘Charles, do you think Felicity’s fall down the stairs was accidental?’

  ‘You think Liz … harmed her?’ He stuttered, his brows knotted into a quizzical frown.

  She’d been accounted for elsewhere, hadn’t she? ‘No, not Liz. I meant, somebody else.’ It remained a ludicrous notion to mention haunted houses. ‘Forget it.’ I slapped my hands on my thighs. ‘I’ve wasted a day on all this crap. I’m going upstairs to work.’ I needed to clear my mind of all of this.

  Charles called after me as I climbed the stairs. ‘I’ll be off, then. See you tomorrow.’

  I heard the anxiety in his voice. ‘Sure. Tomorrow.’ I reassured him because what would happen to me if I lost faith in Charles?

  Dragging my heels upstairs, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Liz had told me – the implication that my aunt was a victim of some kind of deceitful enterprise to take Heachley from her. But nor could I fathom Charles betraying Felicity or acting on Liz’s behalf; he clearly shirked her company and fervently told me how much Felicity hated the woman. Liz coveted the house to such an extent she spied on me, waiting in the wings for me to sell it. So would I? Would I give her the opportunity to buy when I still had no clue as to why Felicity had me living here? Nothing about Heachley Hall made any sense.

  TWENTY-THREE

  A picture of a blazing fire sprang into my dream. The wood spitting sparks across the hearth and up into the air before coming down onto the rug. The tiny flames munched on the fabric with sharp amber teeth.

  I leapt upright, my eyes blinking in the blackness and my heart racing. I couldn’t ignore my strange nightmare – had I failed to distinguish the fire in the sitting room prior to going to bed? I couldn’t remember. Somewhere on my bedside table lay the little torch. I hunted about, grasping it tight before switching on the beam. A halo of light bounced off the far wall and dazzled my unprepared pupils.

  With my feet encased in cold slippers, I scurried down the first flight of stairs, sniffing the air, testing it for the smell of burning embers or worse, a roasting fire. Nothing of the sort accosted my nose. Reaching the main flight, I steadied my pace, not wishing to follow the fate of Felicity and end up head over heels. I held the bannister, grateful for the guidance. Beyond the splayed beam of the torch hovered the familiar darkness, and it refused to show anything of what awaited me downstairs.

  I pressed my hand to the door of the sitting room, feeling for unwanted heat, but the wood was cold. It creaked as I pushed against the handle, edging the door ajar, then wider until the torch lit up my make-shift living space.

  Unlike my dream there was no sign of flames or leaping sparkles. I crept closer to the fireplace. The torchlight focused on the grating and hearth. Its appearance puzzled me. Although I couldn’t recall putting the fire out, neither had I a memory of arranging it so: the dregs of a burnt log buried under a pile of ash. When I moved my hand closer to the small pyre, I felt a plume of warm air; there was heat left in the fire. I poked at it gently with the poker and a wisp of smoke rose for a fraction, then collapsed.

  Someone had arranged the fire to keep it alive, but not fully burning. I stepped backward, my heartbeats pounding harder.

  They came rushing back; all those annoying references to haunted houses. Especially Maggie’s belief in the macabre, which Bert had based on her obsession with television programmes. What if the preoccupation began after working at Heachley Hall, after spending more and more of her time with the ageing Felicity? She’d seen the dust, heard the bangs and creaks and watched the mist hang around the windows. She must have done, just as I had. Had it led to a fascination with the supernatural?

  I shut the door behind me and hurried back upstairs to my bed. For a long time, I lay with the torch on my chest, the beam rising and falling in time to my rapid breathing. Sleep refused to return. I kept it at bay with my churning thoughts.

  Nothing made sense and I so desperately wanted my experiences, my discoveries about Heachley to make sense. When sleep arrived, it did so in a creeping fashion, sliding in beneath my drooping eyelids.

  After breakfast, I cleaned the kitchen while in the background the radio droned something musical. My brain, forced awake by caffeine, wasn’t in the mood for drawing.

  As I squeezed the mop into the bucket of water, Charles turned up and he heralded his arrival with a rap of his knuckles on the kitchen door.

  ‘Good morning,’ he greeted my back. ‘Not as cold today.’

  Since he’d walked, I wasn’t going to argue with him. The Rayburn – Kevin’s amazing idea – removed my fear of cold mornings, and it was probably why I hung about in the kitchen for longer instead of working.

  ‘Watch the wet floor,’ I warned.

  ‘I was going to tackle painting the window frames today, if you can tolerate the smell.’

  I leaned on the mop, puffing out a sigh. ‘Sure.’

  He furrowed his eyebrows. ‘Not still upset about Liz? You look flustered.’

  ‘Slept badly. Weird dream.’ I drained the water out of the bucket into the sink. ‘Actually, more than a dream.’

  ‘Dreams aren’t always meant to be understood.’

  ‘This one was like a warning. Except, it turned out to be something else.’

  He chuckled. ‘Now you’ve lost me.’

  ‘The fire in the sitting room.’

  The laughter died on his lips. ‘What about it?’

  ‘I’d forgot to put it out before I went to bed and in the night, I woke, panicked and came down to check on it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Somebody else must have tampered with it.’

  Charles followed me into the sitting room.

  ‘See,’ I pointed at the heap of ash.

  He scratched his head. ‘It’s been banked down.’

  ‘Banked?’

  ‘The ashes are layered over the remaining embers to trap in the heat. It keeps the warmth in and makes it quicker to light in the morning. I should have shown you how to do it.’

  ‘But you didn’t. So who did this?’

  He crouched, pushed aside the smouldering ashes and started to reconstruct the fire with fresh kindling and wood. ‘What are you saying, Miriam?’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense. I’m sure I didn’t do this.’ Perhaps I had, but unintentionally with my last prods of the poker. ‘Is it safe, like that?’

  ‘Banking it down is safe, but you ought to have a fireguard, too.’

  I slumped onto the nearby sofa while Charles stirred the fire back to life. I took a deep breath and made my stupid confession. ‘I don’t think I’m alone here. I’ve got it into my head that Felicity’s ghost is keeping me company.’ I cringed, waiting to hear chuckling or some other humorous riposte at my silly idea.

  With the poker in one hand, and the other clutching the mantel, Charles rose.

  ‘Felicity haunting here?’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I suppose it’s possible.’

  I jumped to the edge of the sofa, my back rigid. ‘You think so? I mean it’s ludicrous isn’t it? I said I don’t believe in any of it and in any case, she died miles away and—’

  ‘She’d never harm you. I’m sure of it.’ He propped the poker against the hearth. ‘I know you don’t want to believe in ghosts, that’s understandable, but if she was, all I’m saying is she’d not put you in danger. Why would she harm you?’ He looked at me expectantly.

  ‘You think she’d protect me?’ I waved at the fire, which had burst into life, cackling in the background with its own kind of laughter. ‘Like making the fire safe at night?’

  Charles swivelled and stepped away from the heat of the fire. His pale eyes had narrowed to pinpoints and he brushed a lock of hair away from his brow. ‘I can’t explain what you saw last night. Do you feel threatened?’

  I clutched my hands between my thighs, rubbing the
m up and down, drawing life into the cold fingertips.

  ‘No. Except, Felicity fell downstairs.’

  Always I came back to that sudden accident and the lack of witnesses. The resulting train of events meant my great-aunt never came home again. Perhaps she yearned to return so much, she made her way here in another form.

  A soft smile transformed Charles’s tense expression. ‘That doesn’t make sense does it – her ghost causing that accident? Felicity’s ghost couldn’t have been here while she was alive.’

  His correction snapped me into line. Something else, something that went beyond one person – the house. Leaping to my feet, I paced around the sofa.

  ‘I know. But what if the house itself has a strange effect on its occupants? Making them do odd things? Perhaps I did bank the fire down then couldn’t remember. Or I did it in my sleep. Maybe it’s not a conscious state, some kind of spirit. A poltergeist?’

  He rolled his eyes to the ceiling, his lips twitching. Was he laughing at me?

  I stomped my foot. ‘Stop it,’ I snapped.

  He jerked, his eyes widening. ‘I’m sorry. This must be unpleasant for you. You’re here on your own; it’s bound to make you feel uncomfortable. It’s a big house. An old house.’

  I flapped my arms; the rush of nervous energy agitated me like a double dose of caffeine had been shot into my veins.

  ‘Yes, it’s hard. Bloody hard. I lay in bed last night, running through it all. Felicity breaking her hip. Liz visiting her in the nursing home, not as a friendly neighbour, but badgering her to sell. Then Felicity had a stroke. Was it through stress? Had Liz driven her to it?’

  Charles grabbed my flailing hands. ‘I can hear music.’

  ‘What?’ I exclaimed. I didn’t hear anything, I only felt the touch of his hands on mine – I froze and in the stillness, he was right, there was music.

  ‘In the kitchen. I think you slept badly. You’re tired. Your thoughts are all jumbled up. I can tell you’re not making sense. Trust me, sleep will make it better.’ He squeezed my hands between his cool palms.