The Silence of Ghosts (8 page)

As for her compliment about being a good-looking man, I’m sure she says that to all her patients, men and women alike, choosing her words carefully in every case. For all that, it did lift my spirits. I can’t think of anyone I would rather hear compliments from. She may be teasing me within an inch of my life, but I’m in a mood to be teased. By Rose, that is; I won’t let anyone else pull my leg. Goodness, what have I just written? I need to clear this leg business out of my head.

Saturday, 14 December

We have only just had breakfast, but I need to write this down. Last night something strange happened. About three in the morning I was wakened by a shrill scream. It was Octavia, screaming loudly – something she has never done in her life before. I calmed her and the screaming stopped.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

She signed to me, her hands shaking.

‘I had a bad dream,’ she said. ‘There were children in it. Four children. They came down from the attic. I knew they were dead.’

‘But we don’t have an attic,’ I said.

She looked at me.

‘We did,’ she said. ‘Above the rooms upstairs.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because the children told me.’

‘What were these children like?’

‘They were very pale. There were three girls my age and an older boy.’

‘What did they want with you? Did they say?’

‘They want me to join them.’

She said nothing more, but she would not go back to sleep.

Monday, 16 December

Rose arrived today with Mrs Mathewman, the witch doctor. I call her that because I distrust anything superstitious or occult, be it holy healers or holy places or medicines or fairies at the bottom of someone’s garden.

I have only allowed this woman in because it pleases Rose to bring her, and I will do almost anything for Rose, though I have known her for only a very short time. She was here on Saturday and again on Sunday, although she had no need to come, and I’m sure she has plenty of other patients to see to. She told me she had attended church service at St Peter’s in Martindale on the way to see me, and she overheard a plan to put up a window in memory of over one thousand men who
drowned in the sinking of HMS
Glorious
in Norwegian waters earlier this year. She wants me to come to church with her next week, and I’ve said what it seems right to say, to keep her happy, though in truth I have never been much of a believer. I may go with her at Christmas and sing carols and admire their nativity. I find it odd that she is an active churchgoer, especially in a time of war, when I have lost my faith in man.

As I have said before, I am falling in love with Rose, and even though I know there can be no future in it, I cannot steady my heart or its trembling when I set eyes on her, the agitation when she is not around.

But I’m rushing ahead. I haven’t yet said a word about what happened. Rose got me up and into an armchair, and we stayed in the living room all the time. Mrs Mathewman took Octavia off to the sun room, where we used to sit and look at the lake across a vista made by cutting down some trees at the front of the house. I don’t know what they talked about: afterwards, Octavia refused to say what it was. All she would say was that it was ‘private’. She was given a second bottle of medicine, one more palatable to a child, and searched out a spoon to administer it to herself.

Mrs Mathewman came as a surprise to me. She did not look remotely like a witch or any other being with claims to supernatural powers. She was well dressed and softly spoken, with little trace of an accent. Rose later told me that she had been to university, to Newnham College, Cambridge and studied like a man, except that they won’t let women have full degrees. She’s not a great beauty perhaps, but not what I had expected. And she is clearly intelligent.

She told me what she had made of Octavia’s asthma, and assured me her remedies could improve it, maybe even banish it for good. I nodded and said ‘of course, of course’, or feigned
surprise with a string of ‘surely nots’. To be honest, I wasn’t overly enthusiastic, but the woman made a good impression on me. That is, until she changed the subject.

She got up to take her leave, then sat down again hesitantly. Her confident manner deserted her, as if she was having second thoughts about what she’d just been saying. A shadow seemed to cross her face.

‘Lieutenant,’ she said, ‘I hope you will forgive me if I raise another matter. Octavia told me one or two things that are troubling me. She says you might not like her having told me, that you are a sceptic. I understand that. My years at university taught me the importance of a sceptical attitude. But I’m not a sceptic through and through like you. I’ve come to realize that there are realities that fall between the grids and cages we make for ourselves. I studied mathematics and came top of my year, beating men as well as other women. I am a scientist, but I have learned to keep an open mind.

‘Octavia told me she heard sounds in the living room when you were out with Rose, and that she feels uneasy about the upstairs rooms. She is not, I think, an imaginative child. After she had her medicine, when she went to talk to you, I slipped upstairs. I went into a few rooms, then I came down again. Mr Lancaster, allow me to speak to you honestly. There is something in your house. That’s as clear as I can be at the moment. I don’t know what it is or what it wants, but I can say that it is an evil force. I felt it immediately on climbing your stairs. This house is harbouring something wicked, and I believe that if you stay here it must destroy you in the end. You and Octavia and, if she is here, Rose too. If you care about Octavia and Rose then you have to act. Go back to London, Lieutenant, and leave this house to itself.’

I stopped her with a simple gesture.

‘Mrs Mathewman, I’m grateful for your consideration, but now I’d like to ask you to leave. I don’t want to hear more about this “something”. I’d like you to leave, and I don’t want you to come back. If Octavia thrives on your remedy, I’m sure Nurse Sansom can pick up a fresh bottle as she did before. You’ll be paid properly. I’m grateful for all you’re doing for her, but I don’t want to see her upset more than she is. Some brisk walks in the cold air will get these nightmares out of her system.’

She said nothing until we reached the door. As she made to leave, she turned back.

‘If there are further disturbances, don’t hesitate to call me. I will do what I can to help.’

Tuesday, 17 December

The weather has improved. The ice on the lake has melted like snow on a hot roof, though there is talk of worse weather to come. Rose came to me as usual, and I did not dare ask her how she managed to be so regular with me when she must have so many other patients for fear of awakening her conscience and leading her to choose to be with me only one day in seven, one day in ten, or worse. Without her, I cannot think how I would go on.

We took advantage of the milder weather. It was almost forty degrees outside, warm enough to melt ice, but still extremely cold. We wrapped up warmly as before. She held me at first, being unsure how soft the ground might be, but I soon settled into a way of walking that let me place increasing pressure on my stump. I found that my artificial limb had been soundly made, and I came more and more to rely on it as I walked.

We found a path along the lake. I remembered it from my
childhood. That made me think of the house, and the fact that we had never had talk of hauntings or ghostly noises until Octavia arrived. I did not think her mischievous. Quite the opposite. But I realized that coming all the way out here had placed a strain on her. She is completely deaf, and at home she can only respond to any of the family or servants by being right in front of them and able to read their lips. For the most part, life here is silent, and when she leaves the house she walks in silence until she reaches Howtown, where she has become something of a pet to the villagers. I fancy her brain is compensating for this loneliness by implanting sounds, in the way someone else might experience hallucinations.

As we walked, Rose slipped her arm through mine, and it was no longer a hand clasping me in order to steady my steps, but a gesture of affection, or so I let myself fancy.

‘Dominic, there’s something I need to talk with you about,’ she said. ‘I think you know what it is.’

‘Mrs Mathewman,’ I said.

‘She tells me you have forbidden her to enter your house again. Of course, it’s none of my business, but I did bring her here and I asked her to treat Octavia, so I feel responsible. And I’m worried in case word of this episode should get back to the hospital. They would turn me out the moment there was any suspicion I’d brought in a herbalist.’

‘There’s no need to worry about that,’ I said. ‘You acted quite honourably. I’m still interested to see what her remedy does, if it does anything. Herbs are material substances. I don’t rule out the possibility that they can have material effects. They used willow bark to relieve pain many centuries before we had it as aspirin. If Mrs Mathewman’s concoction can improve Octavia’s breathing, I’ll go along with it. But as you know, I’m a sceptic in these matters. And that’s why I won’t have her
in the house again. Did she tell you that she’s been encouraging Octavia in her belief that she hears thing here? She even warned me that there’s something in the house, though she wouldn’t tell me exactly what she meant by “something”. Octavia is a sensitive child, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, and someone like Mrs Mathewman could have a profound effect on her, for she seems a very admirable and confident woman. If she’s going to put ideas into Octavia’s head, I can’t tolerate that.’

‘Very well. I’ll explain this to her. I’m sure you’re right, and it’s right of you to be concerned about Octavia. It’s a shame this has happened. She’s an intelligent woman and it’s a pity you can’t talk with her more. She’s a mine of information on any number of topics. Most of it’s far above my head, of course. She knows a lot about this district and the Lakes in general. History, ancient customs: things like that.’

I left it at that, not wanting to reawaken whatever negative emotions my banning Mrs Mathewman might have caused for Rose. Rose says she will take me to the North Lonsdale Hospital for an examination.

‘I’ll see if I can get an appointment in a week or two. It’s not that I don’t trust Dr Raverat, but the Lonsdale has a specialist in your sort of trauma, and I’m surprised you weren’t taken to see him as soon as you arrived there.’

‘You know I depend on you for everything,’ I said.

‘I realize that. But it’s not healthy for a patient to grow excessively fond of his nurse or to depend on her for everything. We shall have to find a way to wean you off me, Lieutenant.’ My heart sank when she said this.

We walked a little further. Near the path and down among the winter-bare trees, plants of a hundred varieties lay dormant. Wood sage and wood sorrel, golden saxifrage and marsh marigold
lay waiting, curled and pale for spring. A part of me had sincerely hoped there would be no spring, or that I should not set eyes on the next. But my feelings for Rose have changed all that.

‘I used to sail round here,’ I said. ‘All the nine miles from the bottom to the top.’

‘Were you good?’ Rose asked.

‘Of course I was,’ I said, grinning.

‘I imagine you were. You must have had years of practice.’

‘My father taught me. We’ve always been a sailing family. Until now, that is.’

‘Why stop now?’

‘Surely you know the answer to that,’ I exclaimed, more harshly than I had intended.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I think you and I are about to have our second argument. But you aren’t the first and you won’t be the last to take this attitude. Yes, you’re disabled. But I’ll have no sympathy with you if you claim you can’t do this or that because of your disability. You’ve proved that you can walk, and I know you’ll walk better as time goes by. You may not be able to kick a ball round a football pitch or join the local rugby team. But you’ll be able to play some gentle tennis, and in the next few days you’re going to take me and Octavia for a sail up and down Lake Ullswater.’

I froze at the thought, but she wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

We turned and started to walk back. The light was falling, and in the woods a darkness full of shadows lurked among the trees. I felt a tremor passed through me. Could Mrs Mathewman have been telling the truth, could there be something in the house?

We were almost there when we saw the four children again, standing in what seemed to be the same spot, and looking at the house. As we came near them, I decided I must speak to them.
They were looking at me, and a chill went through me, for they all turned and looked at exactly the same moment, as though guided by a single thought. Their faces seemed livid as before. I smiled in an attempt to disarm them. Rose came behind me, a smile on her face as well. But as I drew close, the children ran off into the woods and were swallowed up in seconds by the darkness. I called after them, but no one answered.

We continued to the house. My sour mood was beginning to lift as my fancy played with the pleasures of sailing on the lake, even in winter, and above all with the thought of sailing with Rose and showing her the paces of the
Firefly
. I would try and go to the yacht club in the morning and remove the dust sheets. Perhaps Rose was right. Perhaps I could sail again.

She stayed again for supper. Her bicycle panniers were stuffed with food saved from her rations.

‘I can’t let you feed me,’ she said. ‘Your allowance won’t stretch to guests. But what I’ve brought should let us all have a feast.’

She had brought eggs and ham and tins of baked beans, and it dawned on me that a district nurse must come in for her fair share of ‘extras’ passed on by grateful patients.

‘I’m sorry the baked beans are the new type,’ she said.

I creased my brow.

‘I hadn’t known there was a new type.’

‘While you were away, they took the piece of pork out of the tins.’

‘Another reason to be angry with Herr Hitler.’