Unhallowed Ground (8 page)

The sunlight glittered on crests of snow as she tramped determinedly up the path. A miniature bridge had been built over this section of the stream that dissected the house from the road, so much more sensible in light of the struggle she’d faced on arrival at Stephen’s cottage.

She pressed the bell, half expecting to hear nothing, suspecting she would be forced to raise the fox-head knocker, when she heard an encouraging soft burr echoing through the house. She composed her face and waited.

The door was opened softly by a long, straggling, powerful man with the face of an undertaker, gaunt and pallid. Well over six foot six, he stared at her morosely, and his eyes, sunk deep in his head, were almost obscured by his low-hanging eyebrows. The original Mr Munster. His thick tweed jacket was stained and his voice was deep and sepulchral.

‘Yes?’

But before Georgie could answer, the tall, burdened man was pushed aside by a quick-moving, spinning creature aged around sixty and dressed in trainers and a tracksuit which bagged badly at the knee. There was a fiery light in her eyes. ‘We thought it was being sold on. We thought you would sell it, didn’t we, Horace?’

‘Mr and Mrs Horsefield?’ asked Georgie nervously, not knowing which to address.

‘We kept an eye on him, you see. He knew he could count on us, did Stephen. Didn’t he, Horace?’

Horace looked down on his coiled-up wife fondly. While she talked she plucked at herself and no part of her very rouged face was still. Was this St Vitus’s dance? She seemed to be wearing a hairnet, her grey hair was so flat to her head, but that was the way she wore it, so cropped, so short it seemed it was netted. But her features were free and made the most of it, wrinkling, twisting and contorting as she went on.

‘Yes, yes, we used to pop in. I made you call on him, didn’t I, Horace? Well, it wouldn’t have been fitting for me to go, what with the way he was and that, and nearing the end it was three times a day. Sometimes four or five. Oh yes, and I sent little treats, even when he sent them back saying he didn’t want them. Not a friendly man, your brother, Miss, no, a troubled soul, I would say…’

The inside of this house wreaked of Glade air freshener. It reminded Georgie of her childhood home after Daddy died. Those mornings Mummy spent cleaning the silver, brightening the medals and trophies, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. If she rubbed hard enough, sprayed hard enough, they might go away.

‘I am his sister.’

‘We guessed as much, didn’t we, Horace, when we saw your car and you called at the farm. But Selby, the solicitor, said he thought the place would be sold. Nobody much interested in keeping it, he said. We never expected anyone to come looking, we never expected anything like this, did we, Horace?’

These were not farming folks, or locals, that much was clear. Nor were they the kind of people you’d expect to find in a Dartmoor valley. For all his staggering size—his slippered foot would do justice to a carthorse—Horace Horsefield was a mild sort of man, his wife had only to push him aside and he moved without a trace of annoyance. He merely suggested, ‘We ought to invite the young lady in, Nancy,’ which caused his wife to pause, straighten up on a sharp intake of breath and mutter, ‘Of course, of course, what am I about? Oh dear, you can see how unused we are to having visitors living down here. Come down in the world, and you’d never know now that we always lived such an active and sociable life,’ and she rushed off, soon out of sight. It was left to Horace to stand aside, Georgie followed him in and he closed the door behind her.

Nancy Horsefield knelt by the fire, a pair of bellows in her hand. She twitched now and then like a wounded sea bird, glancing over her shoulder lest she miss the slightest movement. ‘No, no, Horace, not there, move those magazines, she must sit in the chair by the fire. It’ll blaze in a minute. It’s this wood, it’s too wet, not nicely seasoned as I like it.’ And then Nancy Horsefield stood up. Extra daubs of vivid colour had been applied to her powdered face, a clumsy smear of lipstick, some of it stuck to the sand-coloured cardigan over her navy tracksuit. She brushed her knees, wiped her hands on her trousers and Horace said, ‘Would she like a cup of tea, perhaps?’

‘Would you, dear? Would you like a cup of tea?’ Her eyes glittered brightly in her tiny head. Already bent and ready for the off, ready for the race to the kitchen, her overlarge trainers, that made her feet look huge, were tied with bright-red laces.

At once Georgie agreed to the tea because Nancy was so keen to make it.

Horace eyed the departing back with sad, half-closed eyes. He lowered himself into a sofa-sized leather chair opposite Georgie’s. She felt lost in hers. Her hand looked very small on the arm. He made his excuses. ‘She likes to keep herself busy. She always has, keeps the place like a new pin. My wife has so much nervous energy.’ But his tone was a pained one. And with Nancy gone from the room the atmosphere became peaceful, as if a machine had been turned off.

Every single thing in the house was neat, tidy, pleasant, but not the kind of furniture one might expect in a rambling old house. An Indian carpet covered the floor and an Indian tablecloth overhung the small upright piano. Apart from this the room had the modern bungalow touch, or that of a house on a new estate. As if he could read Georgie’s thoughts, Horace said, ‘Nancy can’t abide old things. She likes everything new. She does her buying from catalogues, you see, she’ll spend hours over a catalogue.’

Georgie had expected an old country family, retired, perhaps, children gone, country folks who decided to spend their retirement tucked away in glorious seclusion, or city people retired down here, walkers, bird watchers, shooters and fishers. Apart from that contradiction, the couple did not fit together at all, for while he could be a retired bank manager, or even a vicar, or a doctor, then Nancy would be his housekeeper.

Or was that the effect of the drifting cardigan, hung behind her like a broken wing? Or maybe the missing hairnet?

But at least this reception was more welcoming than the one she’d been given at the farm last night.

‘You were lucky to make it at all,’ said Horace darkly, ‘given the conditions yesterday.’

‘It wasn’t easy.’ And Georgie added, ‘But I was determined. And by the time I met the snow it was too late to turn back.’

‘Oh yes, of course.’ Horace, regarding her gravely, appeared to understand.

‘I was surprised to find the cottage so empty apart from a few basic essentials.’

‘Stephen never was a man to attach great importance to personal possessions. He never ate properly, either. Always thin as a rake.’

‘I realize that, but even so, there is an aerial beside the chimney but no TV set, and I could have done with a television last night.’

The Horsefields’ own TV was enormous, one of those you see in shops, almost the size of a cine screen. It stood on an imposing stand with a video recorder beneath it, obviously state of the art.

Horace sighed and turned his long sad face to the fire. ‘That’ll be Cramer, then. If anything’s missing, that’ll be Cramer.’

‘Cramer?’

Horace inclined his head and grimaced up the road. ‘Further along, lives with his girlfriend, Donna. Not much better than a pigsty. That’s where you’ll find Cramer.’

‘And you think this person, Cramer, came and removed Stephen’s things?’

‘Well, I didn’t actually see him, you understand. But then Cramer doesn’t make a fuss, he’d have gone early in the morning. If it was him,’ he added dourly, and Horace Horsefield’s eyes sank even further into his head.

Now Georgie was totally confused. From the kitchen across the hall they could hear cups rattling, plates being stacked and dropped. And was that an egg being beaten? ‘Did Stephen, did my brother tell this man, Cramer, that he could take his things?’

Horace rasped his large hands uneasily. ‘We all thought it would be sold on. That’s what everyone thought. Even old Tom Selby. So Cramer must have believed he could get away with it. If you want them back you’ll have to tell him.’

‘I certainly will.’ One small problem solved. But Georgie wanted more from Horace Horsefield, she wanted to know more of Stephen. She was keen to explain the reason for her presence. ‘I wasn’t sure whether to come to Wooton-Coney or not. I made the decision on the spur of the moment. I never knew my brother you see, Mr Horsefield. He cut himself off from his family many years ago, and when I was growing up I wasn’t even aware of his existence.’

‘Well, that’s what we all thought. We didn’t think there was any family.’

‘Did you know Stephen well?’ She had the feeling she needed to hurry. She wanted to dispense with any sensible questions before the excited Nancy came back. ‘You see, part of my reason for coming here was to find out more about him.’

‘He was a very sick man at the end. Very sick. But he wouldn’t let anyone help him.’

‘But you went in. You gave him your old magazines.’

‘He never wanted to see me. And even the magazines, they were Nancy’s idea. Stephen would have been happier left to himself. He never encouraged people. He preferred animals and children.’

‘He was an artist, I understand?’

‘Cramer must have the paintings,’ said Horace, crossing his long legs dispiritedly. ‘You ought to ask for those back. He was a good painter, no-one can take that away from him.’

‘Don’t worry, I intend to ask for them back,’ said Georgie, straightening up. And then, out of politeness, she was a stranger here after all and might be boring him with her problems. ‘This is a lovely house. How long have you and Mrs Horsefield lived here?’

Horace stroked his long grey chin. His eyebrows wound their way over his eyes. ‘We’ve been here twenty years, since Nancy had her breakdown. We didn’t mean to stay to start with, but the place grew on us and now she’s terrified to go out. She won’t go back. I wouldn’t want to go back now, not even if she wanted to.’

Something about him seemed so lonely. She knew she’d be beside herself stuck with just the few oddballs in the hamlet and Nancy to care for all day. ‘I’ve only met Mrs Buckpit briefly, and you’ve said enough about Cramer, Stephen didn’t seem the sociable type, so don’t you find you miss company in such a small community?’

‘Sometimes,’ mused Horace with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘We don’t have visitors. We have no other family, you see, none that we’re in touch with now. But Nancy does tend to get so excitable round people and that’s not good for her condition, so all in all it’s better that we don’t see many.’

Oh, the poor man. Given up so much for his wife. In her social-worker role Georgie had visited several carers, and had always worried that she, unlike them, would never be able to deny herself, endure such hardship, day after day, night after night, with no respite and little complaint, had she ever loved anyone enough to do that? She hoped she would never be tested.

‘Where did you come from?’ She wore her official social-worker face and smile, immediately assuming they were needy. The fire glowed neatly beside her feet, the wood was arranged in neat little piles and the flames licked them obediently. Everything in this house was obedient and neat save for the wallpaper-sample book out on the floor, where someone had been choosing some appropriate pattern. So poor Horace Horsefield had buried himself away twenty years ago to look after his sick wife. Looking round, meeting Nancy, it was obvious she was still sick. Is this what had given him, over the years, this stooped and miserable air?

‘We came from Preston originally. That’s where our roots are. I still have some family up that way, but we’ve lost contact now. I was in the biscuit-packaging business. Small family firm. We sold up. Had to because of poor Nancy.’ Georgie thought he winced when he said, ‘A child, you see, it was over a child. A dear little girl. Very sad.’ He drew a deep and sonorous breath, ‘Luckily it was a good time to sell, as it turned out.’ Horace looked round the room and nodded in satisfaction, the first sign of pleasure he had shown. He cleared his throat and became more positive. ‘Yes, we invested the money well and we live quite comfortably on it. And there were stocks and shares inherited. Yes,’ and he stretched when he heard his wife coming back, ‘we live well enough. Nancy and I.’

Georgie breathed in and settled her shoulders. She dropped a sigh heavier than his. Dead children. Dear God. Was there nothing in the world except dead children?

On fast squeaking wheels the afternoon tea came into the room on a hostess trolley. ‘I like a challenge,’ said Nancy, wrapped in an enormous white apron. The silver-plated cake stands were made pink with doilies, and the little round cherry cakes sprinkled with hundreds and thousands were clearly home-baked. The sandwiches, on brown and white bread, had their crusts cut off and were cut into triangles, small and neat, while Nancy, crouched above the trolley said, ‘There’s sardine or tomato paste, or there’s sardine and tomato paste with cucumber.’ And her eyes darted this way and that.

She handed Georgie a plate with a napkin folded on it and a terribly modern knife with a red plastic handle. ‘I do so like having people,’ she murmured contentedly, smacking her lips together, ‘although, just recently, I have become a drudge to this house and we have been reduced to living this creeping existence.’ And when Georgie took a sandwich she knew that Nancy watched to see how she was enjoying it, or if she dropped crumbs. The certain knowledge was that the minute she had gone Nancy would fetch a dustpan and brush and clean out the chair she was sitting on, fluff up the cushions, go round the carpet with a sweeper. She raised sympathetic eyes towards Horace, but he sat giving nothing away, tugging on a sandwich of his own.

Christ. Not only did this poor defeated man have Nancy to contend with, but, until recently, he had heroically coped with Stephen, too.

Nancy did not sit down. She stood beside the hostess like a waitress after a meal in a restaurant, pointing out the desserts with pride. No sooner had Georgie finished than Nancy was there with that plateful of sandwiches, urging just one more.

‘I can’t,’ she confessed after three. She patted her chest. ‘I’m full up. But they were lovely, Mrs Horsefield.’