The Honours (14 page)

‘Hello!'

The salutation vanished, a pebble tossed into a well. If she had had a match, she could have struck it then headed whichever way
the flame tilted, because that meant fresh air. She resolved to always carry a box of matches from now on. She felt for a breeze. The air was cold and still.

Delphine knelt.

‘Come on, boys,' she said softly. The ferrets scampered to her feet. She scooped them up and buttoned them into her cardigan. The day's rigours seemed to have tired them out – they moved like furred treacle.

She tested her injured foot. What had, at first, felt like a railroad spike driven into her achilles tendon now felt like a thwack from a rolling pin.

Delphine began to walk. The stone floor was more or less even underfoot. She sniffed, listened, hoping for clues as to where she was, where she might be going. She smelt damp rock. She heard her own breaths.

The tunnel was two yards wide and at least three high – big enough to ride a horse down. She ran a hand along the wall, traced the edge of stone blocks; mortar crumbled beneath her fingertips. Not a natural tunnel, then. And if someone had made it, they must have made it to lead somewhere.

The thought lifted her spirits. She sped up, even allowed herself to entertain fantasies of a search party scouring the grounds mere feet above her head, thrashing through the bracken with golf clubs and walking sticks. After a few minutes, she was starting to enjoy herself. She came to a T-junction.

One passage led left, the other right. She called down both.

‘Hello? Hello?'

Nothing.

Delphine dithered, her optimism draining. She unpopped her cardigan and placed Maxim and Lewis on the floor. Ferrets were bred to burrow underground then find their way back again. Whichever way they chose was surely the road to freedom.

Squinting through the darkness, she watched the two ferrets knot their bodies together and settle down to nap.

‘Useless!' She rubbed their backs vigorously, trying to chivvy them into action. ‘Come on! Which way?'

It was no good. The ferrets had woven themselves into a chubby pretzel of indolence.

She was starting to feel hysterical. She cried for help, and the low echo made her feel as if the walls were closing in. Her air was running out. She definitely felt lightheaded. Maybe the rabies virus was seizing hold of her wits. It was an horrendous way to die, frothing, baffled, enraged.

She considered praying, then worried it might make God angry. She hadn't prayed for months, not since school – to do so now might draw His attention and remind Him that her spiritual account was in arrears.

With every moment she hesitated, the air seemed to get thinner, her mind weaker. She had to decide.

‘Eeny meeny miny moe . . . ' The pendulum of her forefinger settled on the path to the left.

She grabbed Lewis and Max and marched down it before she could change her mind. The tunnel narrowed, curving right. Her sandals splashed through puddles. The thrill of committing herself had set her heart galloping, so she was oddly disappointed when the tunnel ended and her fingers closed around the rung of a metal ladder.

She shook it. The ladder held firm.

Delphine buttoned the ferrets inside her cardigan to leave her hands free. She climbed in short stages, resting in between, allowing her injured foot to hang. Very soon, she reached a ceiling. She pressed a palm against it. It was wood.

Delphine pushed. The ceiling held firm. The light had improved to such an extent that she could see her hand. She felt around. Heavy oak boards. She slapped the wood then, hooking her wrist round a rung, balled her other hand into a fist and pounded the barrier above her. Each blow boomed – there was space above. She was below a floor somewhere. If the boards had been rotten, perhaps she could have punched through, but they felt dry and sturdy. She thumped them again and again, beating her knuckles raw, punishing herself for her lack of preparation, for picking the wrong path, for not knowing the things to say to get grown-ups to
listen
to her, for –

Wait. She froze. Her fist crumpled, shaking. She listened.

There it was again. Noises from above. Movement.

Delphine beat against the oak for all she was worth, and was sucking in air to bellow for help when the roof lifted cleanly away, a hinged trapdoor, and a blast of light turned everything orange-white. She blinked, shielded her eyes.

The first thing she saw was the gun.

‘I expect the Hall is in uproar,' she told Mr Garforth, bathing her cuts by the warmth of the fire. ‘I expect they've sent out a search party.'

The old man did not look up. ‘Well, then you'd bestn't stay for cocoa.'

‘Oh, well I'm sure five minutes won't make a difference.' She winced at the sting of the washcloth. ‘Since I'm here.'

Mr Garforth rolled his eyes. The table was covered with gun parts from a pre-war Belgian hammerless that he was struggling to re-assemble. He took a jug from the countertop and poured milk into a saucepan.

‘You're an idiot,' he said, ‘by the way.'

‘You're lucky I wasn't killed.'

‘
I'm
lucky?'

‘You must've known it'd break sooner or later, a flimsy bit of board.'

He set the saucepan on the stove. ‘I didn't think anyone'd be so stupid as to go jumping up and down on it.'

‘I didn't jump, I fell.'

‘There you go,' he said. ‘An idiot.'

Delphine dropped the washcloth back into the bucket and pulled on her long cotton socks.

‘I think I have rabies.'

‘There's been no rabies in England for years.'

‘A bat chased me.'

Mr Garforth looked back over his sloping shoulder. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘A bat. In the woods. It was huge.'

He stared at her for a long time. ‘A bat.'

‘It chased me all the way down the hill. I thought I was going to die.'

Mr Garforth lowered his head. He narrowed his eyes and his whiskers moved to the rise and fall of his chest. The cottage filled with hissing and spluttering. He swore and returned to the foaming pan of milk.

Delphine watched his back. Through his shirt, his shoulder blades formed a dark chevron.

‘What is it, anyway?' she said.

‘What's what?'

‘The place I fell into.'

‘What do you mean, “What is it”? It's a bloody great hole, what d'you think it is?'

‘All right.' She took a breath. ‘I suppose what I really mean is
why
is it? Why is there a tunnel going all the way to your cottage?'

Mr Garforth stirred the milk faster. ‘No idea.'

‘Don't tease.'

‘I'm not teasing. The master's father built them before I arrived.'

She sat up sharply. ‘There are more?'

‘They go all over the estate. Well, those where the roof hasn't caved in.'

‘Gosh.'

‘That's not an invitation to go exploring. They haven't been used for years. They're very dangerous.'

‘Of course.'

Delphine gazed at the uneven black and terracotta floor tiles, tracing the repeating diamond design with her eyes as if it were a maze. Several tiles were missing, creating dead ends from which she had to backtrack.

‘I wouldn't want to, anyway,' she said. ‘They were full of horrible insects.'

‘Eh?'

‘You know – creepy-crawlies. I felt them on my face while I was coming round.'

‘You dreamt 'em.' Mr Garforth appeared at her shoulder with a steaming mug. ‘Don't spill it.'

She lifted it to her lips.

‘And don't burn yourself,' he added.

Delphine blew. She looked from her cocoa, to the maze, then to Mr Garforth.

She said: ‘Was Lord Alderberen's father mad?'

Mr Garforth set his mug on the table and sat with a grunt. He picked up a screw.

‘Who told you that?'

Delphine shrugged.

Mr Garforth tried the screw in the top of the buttplate. After a couple of twists, it popped from his fingers. He swore, then groped around until his hand settled on a screwdriver.

‘I never knew him,' said Mr Garforth, a bit too loud, ‘but as I understand it, his only crime was wanting a bit of peace and quiet. If that's what passes for madness these days then argh, damn it all!' The head of the screwdriver slipped and scored an ugly line across the walnut gun stock, while the screw pinged loose and rolled off the table.

Delphine put her cocoa down by the fire, walked over and retrieved the screw. She held it up to her eyes, as if she were a giant clutching a tiny, naughty man.

‘Do you want me to have a go?'

Mr Garforth glowered. ‘Give me that.' He moved to snatch the screw; she pulled her hand back. ‘Stop fooling around.' Delphine hesitated. She placed the screw on the table.

She watched as he tried for a third time to fit it into the buttplate. A tremor worked its way from his hand, through the screwdriver and into the screw, which rattled testily. He tightened his grip; the shaking increased. He slammed the screwdriver down.

‘Useless! It's rusted to bits.'

Delphine nodded gravely. Mr Garforth ploughed his fingers through the final greasy strands of his hair.

‘Um . . . since it's broken, can I have a look? You know . . . just to see?'

Mr Garforth pinched his nostrils, tapping the bridge of his nose with his forefinger. He stared at the dark window. He pushed his chair back.

‘Do whatever you want.' He picked up his cocoa and walked to the fire.

Delphine waited, then took Mr Garforth's place at the table. Sitting hurt. The chair was still warm. She picked up the screw and examined it. The thread was a little worn at the tip, but otherwise it looked fine. She glanced over her shoulder at Mr Garforth. He was sitting with his back to her, watching little purple flames claw at a new log.

Lining up the holes on the buttplate and stock, she slotted the screw into position then took the screwdriver and began to twist. The screw rotated in place, refusing to bite. She pushed; the black bruise on her tricep sang. The screw yielded; three more turns and it sat snugly in the plate. Delphine sorted through the bits till she found the second screw. Once she had twisted it into the base of the stock, she turned to Mr Garforth.

‘I've done it.'

He did not look up from his bible.

She held up the gun butt, polished iron scrollwork flashing in the firelight. ‘Hey, look. I did it.'

Mr Garforth put a finger to his lips. As the finger lowered, she saw his lips were moving, silently reciting. She watched for a moment, then felt a little embarrassed and turned back to the table.

Over the next fifteen minutes, Delphine rebuilt the shotgun piece by piece. Pain left her, utterly. Her mind was empty as a jug. When she was finished, she took it from the table, heavy and whole. She looked down the breech then shut the gun with a sure, true click.

A hand gripped her shoulder.

‘Good.'

She looked up. Mr Garforth nodded.

‘They don't make 'em like that any more,' he said. He stepped round the table and pulled out the second chair. ‘Simple. Reliable. No fancy business to clog or wear out.'

‘I like it.' She held it out for him.

‘It's yours.'

She nearly dropped it. She blinked and wobbled.

‘No.'

‘Well, if you don't want it – '

‘No, no – I do, it's just . . . ' She put the 12-bore down on the table. Her hands felt too light without it. She looked at Mr Garforth. ‘I don't understand.'

‘Not yet you don't.' He set the bible down, next to the gun. His quiet time had changed him; he seemed calmer, softer. His lips formed a half-smile. ‘There's one condition.'

‘Go on.'

The half-smile vanished. ‘Stay away from the woods for the next few days. Till I've sorted your bat problem.'

She scratched the back of her neck. ‘Okay.'

‘And no playing in the tunnels.'

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Hey. That's two conditions.'

‘I mean it. Promise me. I'll know if you've gone back on your word.'

‘Fine.' Delphine looked the old gamekeeper in the eyes. ‘I won't play in the tunnels. I promise.'

*
The Esteemed Neo-Vrilian Epistolary League Of Potential Enlightenment.

†
Everything was ‘Hellish': the food, the weather, and especially Walter's lack of money. The letter closed with an appeal for a loan ‘just to tide me over till the end of term. Of course I miss you
blackly
. If I can only survive this Hellish year I promise I shall come and visit. Scout's honour.'

*
Delphine had taken the position that the Prince of Denmark was ‘stupid' for not killing his blackguard uncle Claudius while he prayed. ‘Hamlet knows the Bible is not true, because he has already met a ghost' she wrote, before conceding that the
true
dilemma facing Hamlet was: ‘what's the point of murdering someone if they just end up as a ghost?' She closed her essay by positing an alternative ‘more believable' ending, where Hamlet kills Claudius, then himself, the two ghosts ‘duelling vigorously on the spiritual plane' before Hamlet finally consumes his uncle's soul.

*
The ha-ha was a concealed ditch that ran widthways across the south lawn, a gentle slope on the south side, on the north a nose-high stone wall bearded in moss. Delphine considered it an exceptionally poor piece of landscaping, on account of the cover it would afford attackers in the event of a siege.

CHAPTER 8

UNDERWORLD

June 1935

T
he tunnel entrance was half her height, cut into a bank of soft brown clay set back from the beach. The stonework bore an orange corona of rust from the old iron grate, which lay half-buried in silt, like the rib cage of some furnace-born horror. The tunnel looked like a sewage outlet and stank of putrefying fish. She dropped down on all-fours, switched on her electric torch, and peered inside.

She was not
playing
in the tunnels, she reminded herself – this was research.

Professor Carmichael had assigned her a book on horse breeding (in retaliation, she suspected, for her disparaging remarks on Malory
^*
in a previous essay).
The Modern British Breeder
was so punitively dull she had passed into a kind of trance while reading, and it was with groggy eyes that she began a section on the old stables at Alderberen Hall.

What she read next snapped her awake:

Latterly, the Earl's contribution to modern equestrianism has been almost entirely overshadowed by the manner in which it ended. After the fire of 1854, the Earl – never a gregarious man, even in his prime – retreated from public life completely. During this period, he commissioned a great deal of building work: the widening
and extending of old smugglers' tunnels beneath the estate, the construction of corridors within the house hidden by internal walls, and the long overdue relocation and expansion of the Stokeham family mausoleum. Although the tunnels seem to have been built to accommodate horse and rider (perhaps for ease of transport between the stables and the railway station), in 1855 the Earl dismissed Mr Mercer, the stablemaster upon whose expertise and dedication the success of the Alderberen breeding programme had been predicated. The stables entered a rapid decline, losing all of their prized studs to theft, anaemia and mystery ailments, before the remaining stock was sold off and the stables closed
.

Construction work continued until the Earl's death in 1884, providing employment for a large number of labourers, each of whom he furnished with a pony and a parasol to ease their burden in hot weather. This, alongside his sacking of Mr Mercer, is often held up as proof of his diminishing mental faculties, but the affection in which his workers held him is evidenced by the fact that many moved to the village and remain there to this day. Throughout the last years of his life, the Earl was rarely seen or heard. He moved about the estate by means of his passages and tunnels, often going for long midnight strolls, his valet walking twenty paces ahead, holding a lamp, the master's face always obscured by a high collar and wide-brimmed hat. By day, he lived in five rooms of the Hall's west wing, receiving correspondence and delivering orders by means of a letterbox. Such behaviour earned him the nickname ‘the Silent Earl'
.

Rumours abounded as to the cause of his reclusiveness, ranging from absurd fancy to the basest libel: the Earl had been disfigured by syphilis, the Earl was a vampire, the Earl was gradually turning into a woman, the Earl was leading a double life as a London upholsterer – one Leopold Speed – and had fathered a second son. Though it is beyond the purview of this modest volume to speculate as to the true nature of his Lordship's burden, a note in Mr Mercer's diary, dated one week before the fire, records that her Ladyship had twisted her ankle dismounting a visiting Holstein mare, and was confined to her bedroom. Perhaps the Earl blamed himself for letting his young wife ride so soon after childbirth. Certainly he may have concluded that her lack of mobility counted decisively against her in the tragedy that followed. It is this author's humble opinion that gossipmongers looking for scandal in the Earl's retreat from society ignore the simplest explanation: he stayed indoors because he was grieving
.

Not just madness, but accusations of vampirism? And his young wife dead in a fire not long after giving birth to their only son. No wonder he had filled the Hall with paintings of her.

Most pertinent of all was the book's suggestion that Lord Alderberen's father had built the tunnels to transport horses. As a diligent student, Delphine had a responsibility to find out more.

She had a duty to her country, too. What if Mr Propp were using these tunnels to meet his contacts from across the channel? She must at least check the entrances for signs of use.

The long library had big leather books marbled with damp, containing maps of the Hall and grounds. Design sketches in faded brown ink showed structures like the mausoleum and the ice house. None appeared to show the tunnels, but then most were more than fifty years old. At last, in a thick new album stuffed with photographs (mainly studies of trees, but including several pages of hunting parties in the field, reposing on wicker chairs in bowler hats and tweed waistcoasts, the grandeur of their moustaches matched only by the circumference of their paunches) she had found a foldout hand-drawn map behind a sheet of glassine paper, depicting the entirety of the Alderberen estate: to the north, Prothero Wood and the ocean, to the west, the village of Pigg, to the south, the railway station, and, sinuating from the Hall like the arms of an octopus, four trails of red dashes signifying, according to the legend:
tunnels
.

They all appeared to begin at the house, but getting below stairs was a trial worthy of Orpheus. The housekeeper Mrs Hagstrom ruled everything her side of the green baize door. She was impressed by no one, serene in her judgements, strong and terrible as a valkyrie. If she had a weakness, Delphine could not yet guess at its nature.

Delphine had decided to search for the tunnel entrances across the estate. Surely Mr Garforth would see no harm in her observing from a safe distance. How could she avoid them unless she knew where they were?

One tunnel apparently emerged inside the boat house, but after jemmying the lock (the wood was splintered anyway and it would have fallen off sooner or later) and slipping inside, hunting amongst the humid funk of mildewed canvas, listening to punts bump and
knock, she found no sign of an entrance. Perhaps it was underwater.

The mouth of the western tunnel, near Pigg, was a sandstone arch blocked with dirt and smashed bricks. It had obviously been that way for some time – beech roots had threaded into the soil, binding it together. She dug at the pile for a few minutes before giving up.

When she found the northern tunnel, near the beach, she stood back, observing. Surely it would make no odds if she shuffled an inch closer. Soon, she was ducking inside. After all, she had obeyed Mr Garforth's edict about staying away from the woods. She would just have a quick glance, for the purposes of her essay, then leave.

The stone floor was slimy with mud; ragworms squelched beneath her splayed fingers. Pools flashed in the torchlight. She found a sprat, twitching forlornly. This section obviously flooded at high tide. The stench got thicker as she went deeper. The ceiling dripped. She had to duck right down and squirm forward on her belly. Sharp nodules of rock scraped her breastbone, her bare knees, her raw and freezing hands. If Lord Alderberen's father intended these tunnels for horses, he must have bred them very small indeed.

The crawlway ended in a ladder of iron stemples leading up. She stood. Now she had come all this way, it seemed silly to turn back – ungrateful, almost. She needed both hands. She switched off the torch.

The dark was liquid. She slipped the torch into her rucksack then felt for the first rung. Her hand slid over lichen-greased rock. The rung was gone. She spider-walked her fingers up the wall. They closed round cold, wet metal.

The stemples were slippery. The only grip came from blisters of rust and, on the lower rungs, the occasional barnacle. Delphine climbed, the sure weight of her drawstring bag swaying between her shoulder blades. Her hand found a ledge. She swung her bag onto it, hauled herself up.

She switched on her torch. Ahead, a long, vaulted tunnel led into darkness. She pulled the bag tight on her shoulders, spat, and marched into the unknown.

* * *

According to the map, the tunnel ended beneath Alderberen Hall's wine cellar. Delphine stood at a crossroads, breathing damp, chilly air. Other tunnels branched off into the darkness. A ladder led up towards a trapdoor.

Delphine picked a tunnel and followed it. It was wide and airy and apparently not very deep underground – through corroded ventilation grilles in the ceiling, she could hear the wheezy
ee-wits
of lapwings. The tunnel curved and the damp atmosphere increased. Delphine's feet were aching and she thought she might be getting blisters.

The beam from her electric torch was beginning to dim. She would have to go to the village to buy new batteries. It had just occurred to her that they might not last till she found an exit when the light winked out.

For a dizzying moment, she did not know which way was up. She steadied herself against a cold stone wall. She shook the torch.

Her eyes began adjusting. Faint threads of light from a ceiling grate caught the curve of the walls. There was something up ahead.

Dragging her fingertips along the stonework, she edged forwards. Hard black lines sharpened into the bars of two sturdy iron gates. Metal flaked under her thumb as she felt for the lock. They were rusted shut. She gave them a few experimental kicks; they did not even wobble. She pressed her face to the bars.

In the darkness she could make out broken, half-shapes – things that might have been smooth clods of earth, things that seemed to shift and cower as she peered at them. She heard rustles, clicks.

‘Pow!' she yelled. Her voice shattered and faded.

As she stepped back from the gates, the torch clipped the wall and the tunnel blazed with light. She was blind. She threw an arm up to shield her eyes. She heard scuttling, a clatter, breaths. Rats? Or her own panicked stumbles echoing back at her?

As her eyes adjusted, she squinted in the direction of the torchbeam. The tunnel was empty.

*
‘He manages to make war and swordfights boring. I hated all the swooning.'