‘1773? It’s just possible, I suppose.’
‘It is indeed, sir. He was apprenticed to a Venetian stone carver in 1768 at the age of eleven.’ Jack bent down to examine the carving and beckoned his sons to study it too. The masks were finely, deeply cut without that smooth near-blandness that one associates with the mature Canova. The faces frowned and grinned fiercely. Peter put his hand on the tip of one of the little horns that protruded from their curling pates.
‘It’s sharp!’ he said in wonder.
‘Don’t touch!’ said Maggie.
Mr. Cheke said: ‘And above the mantel you will see the portrait that Pompeo Batoni painted of Lord Francis at Rome in that same year.’
The young Viscount Aylsham had elected to be portrayed in the then fashionable Van Dyck costume with a broad lace collar, leaning pensively against an ancient Roman sarcophagus. The face, handsome enough in its way, already showed signs of puffiness and self-indulgence. No doubt the painter had intended to convey an expression of soulful melancholy, but if this was so, he had failed. Lord Francis looked petulant and discontented, angry even, while a water spaniel fawned almost fearfully around his feet. The fleshy salmon pink of His Lordship’s silken fancy dress stood out sharply against an unusually sombre background. He appeared to be enclosed in a kind of classical temple or mausoleum. To the subject’s left a swag of dark red curtain half concealed the black entrance to some inner sanctum. Jack had the feeling that this fragment of painted darkness conveyed, for both artist and sitter, a hidden meaning which was now lost.
‘There’s a story about that fireplace which I think you’ll be interested to hear,’ said Cheke, interrupting Jack’s thoughts. ‘Now Lord Francis, he returns a year or so later with his treasures and an Italian manservant called Balthassare. At least he was called a manservant, but many thought he was more like a companion or tutor. He was a fine violin player, was this Balthassare, and it was said that he could charm the very devils out of Hell with his fiddle. There was a good deal of prejudice against the man, no doubt because he was a foreigner, but many thought his lordship had changed in some way since his voyage to Italy, and that this Balthassare was to blame. Well, a year later the old Earl dies, unexpected and sudden, and Lord Francis succeeds to the title. Changes are made in the house to make it new and fashionable. One of the changes happens right here. That room through there——’
‘The Black Room——’
‘Just so, sir, just so. It stops being a chapel and becomes — well, one doesn’t know what, but there was a statue put in there which came all the way from Naples that had to come up the Grand Staircase draped in a sheet for fear of offending the ladies, it was said. And that was not all. The Earl, as Lord Francis then was, took to roaming about the nearby villages with his man Balthassare, and began to acquire an evil reputation, as they say. This in the days, remember, when young gentlemen of noble birth were allowed some freedom. Well, what you might expect happened, and several of the young girls in the villages began to show signs of having been with him, as you might say. But he never made a single move towards helping them in their trouble. Quite the reverse. Some of these girls he had thrown out of their cottages and onto the mercy of parish charity. Now there was one of these girls who had a touch more spirit than the rest of those poor wretches, and she began to plague him for assistance. He scorned her appeals, but one night, it’s said, a freezing cold night, in November it was, she came here to this very house with the offspring of their sin in her arms. Somehow she found her way into the Hall and up to this chamber, his bedroom. It is a cold night, as I said, and a fine fire is burning there in the grate. His Lordship is in his silken gown and cap and no doubt toasting himself with good French brandy when in comes the girl with her child. She begs him for money, not for herself, but to feed and clothe the baby, his own offspring. “By the Gods below,” cries the Earl, “I’ll see your puling spawn burn in hell fire before I hand over a penny piece!” And with that he wrenches the child from the girl’s arms and he hurls it on the fire in that very fireplace. But that, believe me, sir, was not the worst of it. The baby lands on the fire and lets out this scream that’s not like any baby’s cry you ever knew. It’s like the roar of a damned soul burning forever in hell, and the sound of it could be heard all over the Hall, right up to the rafters where the servants slept and down into the kitchens where the kitchen boy was shivering over the last embers in the stove. They say that cry still seemed to be echoing round the house for weeks afterwards, and that even now on still cold nights in November that hideous howl can yet be heard, far, far off, but as clear as a needle point of starlight.’
‘What happened to the wicked Earl?’ asked Peter.
‘They say he was never the same again. He took against all company, even Balthassare, who vanished suddenly and was never heard of more. His Lordship used to eat all his meals alone at the long table in the hall, and then he stopped even that and would only take his food and drink at a little table in this very room. Then one night, a year after the business with the child, the servants come in here to clear the dish of mutton he had ordered and they found his lordship sitting bolt upright in his chair, dead at the head of his own table. He had choked to death, and in his throat they found what he had choked on. It was charred and burnt but still recognisable, and it was not the mutton. It was the fat little hand of a dead human baby.’
‘Right! That’s it!’ said Maggie. ‘I’m not listening to any more of this horrible, horrible talk. How dare you say such things in front of my children! Come along Andrew, Peter!’
‘But Mum!’
‘No arguments! Come along! Are you coming, Jack?’
‘Now, Maggie dear, don’t overreact!’
‘How dare you tell me I am overreacting! I am
not
overreacting! We are leaving now. Are you coming, Jack?’
‘Maggie, you go if you like and take the kids with you. I will join you in a minute. But it so happens I have at last found someone in this Godforsaken place who is not a complete ignoramus. I know that may mean very little to you, but it does to me. You don’t understand. That’s fine by me! I don’t mind! So you just go along and take the kids with you. All right, love?’
‘All right! Fine! Don’t mind me! Come along, boys!’ And she marched them out of the Grey Bedroom. As she was leaving she thought she heard Jack saying to the man in pebble glasses:
‘Now then, Mr Cheke, I wonder if I can prevail upon you to show me this famous Black Room.’
She shut the door of the Grey Bedroom and breathed deeply. It was not often that she stood up to Jack, and she was quite convinced that she had been in the right. It made her feel rather light-headed.
The boys were already scooting along the polished floor of the long gallery which was, oddly enough, deserted. The old man with the paper-thin skin had obviously gone off duty and had not been replaced. Sun came from behind a cloud and filled the great room with angled shafts of light.
‘Come along, boys. Let’s go outside,’ said Maggie. Jack would just have to find them, and serve him right.
The boys liked outside a lot better than in. There were a number of interesting features in the grounds, including a shell grotto which captivated her youngest, Andrew. Peter liked the fact that the fountain in it was in the form of an old river god crouching over the basin, his great stone body diseased with lichen, water belching from his bearded mouth.
‘It’s like he’s being sick for ever and ever and ever!’ said Peter. He was extremely proud of this observation, which he made several times until Maggie had to tell him to stop. It was getting towards lunchtime, and Jack must have finished in the Grey Bedroom by now. They made their way towards the house.
As they came round to the front they saw an ambulance parked on the gravel drive. Maggie felt suddenly anxious: had something happened to Jack? Two paramedics were carrying a body on a stretcher out of the front door. The face that showed itself above the red blanket was not Jack’s, but that of the old man from the Long Gallery. His eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open, the features, turned skyward, seemed sharper and more birdlike than ever.
‘Is he dead?’ asked Peter in a whisper.
‘Good heavens no!’ said Maggie. ‘Don’t be silly! I expect he’s just had a bit of a turn. They’ll have him right as rain in no time.’ But he looked quite dead to her.
She went into the entrance hall where the girl selling tickets was talking urgently to Mrs Loxton-Pocock from the Green Drawing Room.
‘I hope the poor old man’s all right?’ said Maggie
‘I am afraid poor Mr Deverell is
not
all right,’ said Mrs Loxton-Pocock. ‘No thanks to your husband, if I may say so.’
‘As a matter of fact I was looking for him. Is he still here?’
‘I haven’t seen him. I have no idea where he is.’
‘Have you seen him leave?’ she asked the ticket girl.
‘No,’ said the girl. ‘Nobody left the Hall after you, except poor Mr Deverell.’
‘Well then he’s still here, isn’t he? May I go and look for him?’
‘Could I see your National Trust Membership card again, madam?’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous! My husband’s got it. I just want to find him. Peter, Andrew, you stay here.’
‘But mum!’
‘No buts. I won’t be a minute.’
Maggie went through all the rooms but could not find Jack. When she came to the Long Gallery, still without a custodian, she went immediately to the door of the Grey Bedroom but found it locked. It was only then that she began to feel fear. As soon as she turned the handle and found that it would not yield, the blood began to sing in her head. A drop of cold sweat started to crawl down her back. She ran down to the front hall and took her children out to their car in the car park — thank goodness Jack had given her the keys — and left them playing with their Gameboys while she searched the grounds and the house once more. Again she found the Grey Bedroom locked. This time she did what she had not thought of doing previously: she knocked on the door and called out her husband’s name. There was no reply, but she thought she heard the sound of another door closing from within. She shouted, but there was silence. Finally she came down to the Hall and confronted the two women, Mrs Loxton-Pocock and the ticket girl, still conferring earnestly.
She almost screamed at them: ‘You’ve locked my husband in the Grey Bedroom!’ The two women looked extremely startled.
‘I’m afraid that’s impossible,’ said Mrs Loxton-Pocock with a condescending smirk that infuriated Maggie.
‘What do you mean impossible? I have just been up there and found it locked.’
‘Of course it is locked. That room is kept permanently locked. Your husband can’t be in there.’
‘But he’s been in there!
I’ve
been in there. Bloody hell, the kids have been in there!’
‘I’m afraid that’s quite impossible.’
‘Are you calling me a liar?’
‘There must be some mistake.’
‘There is no mistake. Look — I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name——’
‘Penny Loxton-Pocock,’ said Mrs. Loxton-Pocock. ‘
Do
call me Penny.’
‘All right, Penny. I have been in the Grey Bedroom. There is no mistake. Would you like me to describe it to you?’ And she did so, in some detail, concluding: ‘and there was a Mr Cheke in there who showed us everything.’
Mrs. Loxton-Pocock’s iron grey composure was obviously shaken, particularly by this last remark. She exchanged troubled glances with the girl. There was a pause, then in a frozen voice she said:
‘Mr Cheke, did you say? Is this some kind of a joke?’
‘No, it is not a bloody joke! I want my husband!’ Some visitors entering the hall looked on, startled.
‘Please! There is no need to raise your voice, Mrs——’
‘Maggie Protheroe.
Do
call me Maggie,’ she added with a hint of mockery.
‘Very well, then . . . Maggie. Won’t you come into the office? I’m sure we can sort this out.’