House of Shadows (24 page)

Eventually, we all went to our rooms, and from next door I could hear William and his lady friend arguing. I gathered that while William was fascinated by the hall and its unusual residents, Miss Spears was appalled and afraid and wanted to go home to her cottage in the Brecon hills. Frankly, I didn't blame her. It seemed ludicrous to pay to spend a weekend being shot at and frightened half to death!

In the morning, the guests were up bright and early: going on walks in the fresh air, sitting in the library reading, and young William himself was on the landing, looking for bits of string or mirrors or goodness knows what. In spite of being a serious ghost-hunter, he was still trying to discover if there had been some sort of trickery.

I could scarcely believe what had happened myself. It wasn't so much the appearance of ghosts, or the intrusion of the soldiers and the way the men had treated me, that had upset me. It was Tom.

On the other hand, I was tired of being treated roughly, as if I were some sort of traitor. Tonight I would make sure the doors and windows were securely locked. Later, I would get a dog – a big dog that would bark and growl and maybe bite any intruders.

At breakfast the colonel was missing, and worried I went to his room. I knocked and opened the door, and there he was, handling a fierce-looking handgun. He turned and saw me. ‘Let anyone insult you again, my dear, and I'll use this on him.' His voice was booming fierce, his handling of the gun was clumsy, and I guessed his title of ‘colonel' was ‘honorary'.

‘I'm going to get a dog,' I said. ‘Maybe a
big
dog. At least then we will be warned if anyone tries to break in on us.'
Even Tom
, I thought to myself.

‘Very well, Riana, but I think you should report all this to the police.'

‘No, no. I don't want to alarm the local people. We might be shut down or something. Our ghost weekends might even be banned!'

The colonel nodded thoughtfully. ‘I think you could be right, least said soonest mended, but at least have someone on guard outside. Back and front doors and windows, and someone at the gate perhaps.'

I doubted I could afford all that, but I nodded placatingly. ‘We'll have to do something,' I agreed.

I spent the day painting and fuming about Tom and the trouble he'd brought me, while the some of the guests lazed about or read up on the ghosts of Aberglasney and young William took his no-longer lady friend into Swansea to catch a train home. I worked a hasty loose painting of the events of the night before, omitting the shooting incident. That would be hard to explain. Instead, I did the landing scene and below in the hall the mixed reactions of the guests. I spitefully painted in Miss ‘Young William' bottom up, crouching under the table, and ‘Plump Betty' clutching the arm of Mr Bravage. It worked well, it was good . . . but I didn't like it, so I painted out William's girlfriend and put in a bit of moonlight on the parquet floor instead. It kept the colours muted and blurred and worked much better.

In the afternoon, Diane arrived on a short visit from London and asked to look at my work. She admired my painting, but with a head on one side she regarded it speculatively. ‘Not with the “heart” you usually put into your work. Well executed, but something is lacking.' She stood back a bit. ‘I know!' She snapped her fingers. ‘The face in the window!'

‘How do you know about that?'

‘I've been talking to some of the others,' she said. ‘Betty was full of it. She said it frightened her much more than the ghosts of the young maids. It was an oldish man with a weary face, and “despair was written all over his ghostly features”. Her words, not mine.'

Enthused, I quickly painted in the face as I remembered it – pale, hollow-eyed, a grieving expression about the hooded eyes – and I painted in just the hint of tears. I stood back and breathed a sigh of relief; now the painting had meaning, life or death according to how the observer looked at it.

‘Good!' Diane said. ‘That will sell, as sure as eggs are eggs. I love it.'

‘Thanks to your input,' I said, ‘it's worked. You have a good eye, Diane, and perhaps even more intuition than dear Mr Readings had.'

‘Ah, dear Mr Readings. I miss him like anything, Riana, and I told you, the lovely man left me everything he owned – the house, the business and, most important to me of all, the wedding ring he bought for me.'

I glanced at her hand where the gold band shone in the bright light through my studio windows. Impulsively, I hugged her. ‘You were always his wife in every way,' I assured her. ‘He loved you very much.'

‘I was a mistress for years. I don't suppose I will be accepted in polite society.'

‘There's no “polite society” left after the devastation of the war,' I protested.

She looked at me with eyebrows raised. ‘You are mistaken, Riana. Snobbery will always exist, whatever the state of the world.'

‘Let's go to the kitchen and have Mrs Ward make us a nice mug of hot chocolate, shall we?'

‘Hot chocolate! That sounds wonderful. Where do you manage to find such luxuries, Riana?'

‘It's Mrs Ward's doing. She conjures up various goodies! I think she's got a list of the local people's misdoings and blackmails them for luxuries.'

We had to make our own hot chocolate, for I saw Mrs Ward out in the vegetable garden, with the colonel helping her to pick spring vegetables for tonight's dinner. I smiled. ‘Those two unlikely people are getting on very well, aren't they?' I said.

Diane stood at my side and watched as Mrs Ward's head fell close to the colonel's, clearly examining the produce from the garden. ‘They certainly are,' she agreed, somewhat enviously.

It was quiet that night, in stark contrast to the events of the night before. For all that, we sat up in the drawing room, bathed now with firelight, and talked quietly about the ghosts and the strange men who had intruded on us.

‘It must be something to do with the American airmen who were stationed here,' William observed, newly knowledgeable after his research trip. ‘They intruded into the big houses and took all advantage of all the ladies, offering stockings and food as an inducement to wrongdoing and loose living.'

‘That's extremely prudish of you,' Betty said, perhaps feeling she should justify her own kind of approach to men. ‘Don't forget that Americans were killed in the war as well as British.'

‘I agree,' the colonel said at once. ‘There was that young pilot who died when the house was first open to us. Carl Jenkins – was that his name, Riana?'

‘That's right.' I thought of Rosie and the furore about her condition and how I'd blamed Tom for it all and felt ashamed. Poor Tom! He did so much for me, and yet I continued to blame him for everything bad that happened. But I couldn't deny, even to myself, that he was tied up in all the mystery. I just hoped it was military secrets and nothing too sinister . . . like arms-smuggling or, even worse, murder and some sort of revenge.

‘May I pour some drinks, Riana?' the colonel asked meekly.

‘Of course, it's all part of the weekend,' I said quickly. ‘Drinks all round, everybody?' That was the latest innovation of mine – to provide a bar and a variety of drinks. I could afford these little additions now.

I helped myself to a small sherry. I felt very tired after my day's painting. It was something I loved doing, but I still wore myself out every time I created a picture. I supposed that I put too much of myself in it. I tensed up at the thought of the haunted face in the window, but when I drank some of the golden sherry it warmed my throat and my stomach and relaxed me a little.

Eventually, the guests departed for bed. It seemed once one made a move, everyone followed, much to my relief.

I visited Beatrice briefly on my own way to bed and asked her, in a whisper, about the events of the night before.

‘The man in the window . . . that was my Edwin,' she whispered back. ‘He wants you to get on with it and prove he's not a murderer, and then we can all rest in peace.'

I nodded. I had been so bound up in my own problems that I'd forgotten my wish to clear Beatrice's husband.

‘Why don't you start by searching the house for suspicious signs,' she said. ‘I'm not going to be here tomorrow, so make a start in the blue room. That's where the gals died, you know.'

‘All right, Beatrice,' I agreed wearily. ‘The guests return home tomorrow so the place will be mine again, and I promise I won't work at all. I'll just make a search of the house and see if I can find anything.' I paused. ‘But surely you would have found something by now, Beatrice, if there
was
anything to find?'

‘I haven't the ability, dear, nor the strength. You are young and alive, and you can do anything you choose. You'll fight for me. You are the owner of the house now. It's your place to sort everything out, and then we can all rest.'

‘Goodnight, Beatrice.' I stumbled out and into my room, and without even undressing I kicked off my shoes, climbed on the bed and immediately fell asleep.

There was the usual bustle of departure in the morning. Even Diane went off home early. Although, of course, William's girlfriend had already left. I felt he would do much better without her presence. As if reading my thoughts, he came up to me. ‘A wonderful weekend, Miss Evans. I shall certainly come again, although probably alone. My girlfriend didn't really fit in. She is too sensitive for her own good, you know.'

‘I know,' I agreed, finding it difficult to keep my thoughts to myself about his girlfriend's sensitivity. ‘Ghosts and armed men aren't everyone's cup of tea,' I said tactfully. ‘But I do admire the way you investigated the landing area of the house to find out if there was any trickery involved.'

He blushed.

‘It's all right,' I said. ‘I doubted the evidence of my own eyes. I don't know, even now, if I was seeing things.'

‘If you were, we all were,' William said. ‘And we certainly didn't imagine the disembodied face in the window, did we?'

‘No.' I made a mental note to start searching the house once the last guest departed.

When it was quiet, I watched Mrs Ward prolonging her farewells to the colonel and smiled to myself as I put the kettle on. The war hadn't managed to kill off all the romance in the world then!

I made a hot pot of coffee, and when Mrs Ward came into the kitchen, her pale cheeks flushed, I poured us a cup. ‘You like the colonel, do you?'

The question was superfluous, and Mrs Ward turned away to pour milk in her cup. She shrugged eventually, and I realized it would be wise to drop the subject.

‘I'm going to search the house today,' I said firmly. ‘I want to look for clues as to what's hidden here.'

‘What on earth do you mean?' Mrs Ward gave me her full attention.

‘For one thing, why do people keep running in here with guns and things? What are they looking for?'

‘It's just because of those Americans, I think,' Mrs Ward said. ‘In any case, don't you think we'd have found whatever it is they're looking for, with all the renovation work that's been going on here?'

‘You have a point,' I agreed. ‘But what on earth do all these armed men think we've got here?'

‘Well –' Mrs Ward's voice was dry – ‘you've certainly been the target for their violence. If the ghost silliness hadn't happened, they might have begun to torture you for information! I still reckon that Tom bloke has got something to do with it – and him so nice to us, too.'

‘I don't think Tom could be involved,' I protested. ‘I'm sure he wouldn't want anyone bullied and humiliated, and he was abducted himself at one stage, remember?'

‘A cover,' Mrs Ward declared, her lips pursed with disapproval. ‘Those Americans caused us enough trouble during the war, and why hasn't that Tom gone back to America with the rest of them, that's what I want to know.'

Again, Mrs Ward had a point. I sighed; there was no use arguing about it. I was too weary and too puzzled and too afraid of what I might find out about Tom to continue with the conversation. Instead, I started a systematic search of the house, starting with the servant's rooms at the top of the house. I found nothing untoward in the recently refurbished and brightly-curtained rooms, however.

I knew Beatrice would be away, so I went to the first floor, entered Beatrice's room, and immediately wondered if there was a window open. Everything felt cold and damp and decayed, and yet when Beatrice chose to be in residence the room felt warm and normal.

I felt dreadful as I searched in drawers and cupboards and even tested the floorboards for anything coming loose – but there was nothing. I left Beatrice's room, having made a thorough search, but feeling uneasy that I'd intruded on her privacy. The blue room, which up until now had been unoccupied, was where the whole thing had begun, the scene of the deaths. The paint was still on the wall, the windows unchanged. So far as I could tell, the room was the same as when the maids had died. Why they hadn't been housed in the servant's quarters at the top of the house, I didn't know. Perhaps the rooms were left to flake away as they weren't needed. But lead from the paint in the blue room had killed the girls, the stories claimed, and indeed it did smell strange in there. I shrugged and went outside and shut the door. There was nothing to find, and I hardly thought it worth searching the other rooms. But I'd promised Beatrice that I would look for evidence of her husband's innocence, and look I would. Perhaps in searching Aberglasney I would find some answers to my own problems.

TWENTY-EIGHT

T
o my great happiness and relief my paintings continued to sell well, in spite of the gallery having changed hands. The art-loving crowd knew Diane well and trusted her honesty and judgement. One or two of the more senior critics watched on the fringes for a while, expecting – or perhaps hoping – Diane would make mistakes and have to put the valuable gallery up for sale, but that didn't happen.