Deadlight Hall (Nell West/Michael Flint #5)(42)

Mildred Hurst lay on her bed and sobbed for two days, after which she got up, put on a black frock of ancient cloth and forgotten style, netted her hair, and presided ferociously over the sandwich-cutting party. The sandwiches were egg and cress, cheese and chutney, and shrimp and anchovy paste. Leo heard one of the ladies say that ham was the usual offering, but that nobody had had the heart – or the stomach – to bake a ham.

During the sandwich-cutting Miss Hurst was given several glasses of elderflower wine by one well-meaning lady, and several glasses of brandy by another, neither of whom realized what the other had done, both of whom thought it would help the poor soul to pluck up a bit. After the second round of brandy, Miss Hurst said that she was perfectly all right, and Simeon would not have wanted a lot of wailing and beating of breasts. Everything must be devout and respectful, and please would people cut that bread thinner for the sandwiches otherwise it would not go round and she was not made of money.

Leo sat next to her during the service, and hoped nobody noticed that she took frequent and furtive sips from a small silver flask. Before the congregation went out to the graveside, she sprayed the front of her fur tippet with a scent bottle labelled Attar of Roses. It smelled peculiar, but it helped cover up the brandy fumes.

During the wake at the farmhouse, Leo heard the vicar’s sister say that Deadlight Hall had been shut up and a fence put round it. ‘Downright dangerous,’ she said, disapprovingly, and the lady to whom she was speaking said, in a low voice, that it was not the first time there had been a dreadful tragedy there.

‘I suppose they’ll try to sell it,’ said her listener.

‘Oh, they’ll try,’ said the vicar’s sister. ‘But I shouldn’t think they’ll succeed. Nobody will want it.’





THIRTEEN


Life changed after Simeon’s death. The farm began to fail, not all in one tumble, but little by little. Things that wore out were not replaced. Livestock dwindled. Crops did not have just one bad year, which most farmers expected, but several in a row.

Miss Hurst employed a manager, but the place became less and less prosperous. She herself did not change very much with the years; she continued to have her elderflower wine – ‘Just a little nip for comfort,’ she said – and the vicar continued to call regularly. Miss Hurst was always pleased to see him – a very kind gentleman, she said, entirely trustworthy, and most helpful over financial affairs. She did not understand these things, and Simeon had always handled such matters. If she had to go to the bank or the solicitor’s offices, the vicar always accompanied her, and his sister went along as well, because dear Cuthbert was an unworldly soul, and must be guarded against hussies such as Mildred Hurst. So they had gone all together in the vicar’s little rattletrap car, Miss Hurst in the back, her feet primly together, the vicar’s sister seated in the front so that Miss Hurst could not throw out any lures.

After Mildred’s death, there was a note for Leo which the solicitor handed to him.

‘I can’t leave Willow Bank Farm to you, Leo,’ she had written. ‘I should like to, but there are cousins who have a legal claim and there’s nothing I can do about it.’ Reading that, Leo had supposed there was some kind of entail. He had never expected to be left the farm, anyway. But Mildred Hurst had left him a fair sum of money. ‘The life savings of my brother and myself,’ the note said. ‘Dear Leo, you were the son I never had.’

Leo had cried over that, quietly and genuinely. He wished he had known what she meant to do, because he could have told her how very grateful he was, not specifically for the money, but for the home she and her brother had given him.

The vicar’s sister had been right in saying nobody would want Deadlight Hall. It had crouched on its patch of scrubby land, quietly decaying, its windows falling in, its stonework gradually covered by creeping moss and lichen. Sometimes Leo had frightening dreams about the misshapen shadow who had walked the dark corridors, and the voice calling for the children. After a while the dreams became less frequent, but they never quite went away.

He never forgot Deadlight Hall. Of course he did not – it was not the kind of place anyone could forget. It was reassuring, though, to remember that it was still standing empty. No one will ever live there, he had thought. It will fall down of its own accord in the end, and the shadow and whatever was in that furnace room will go.

But if he was able to push Deadlight Hall into the corners of his mind, he was never able to do the same thing with Sophie and Susannah. Just as Deadlight Hall was not the kind of place to forget, Sophie and Susannah were not the kind of people to forget, either.

As the years slid past he gradually accepted it was unlikely he would ever find out what had happened to them.

London

1944

Dear J.W.

Later today I shall try to get on a train for the journey home, although it is not easy to do so, and I may have to make several attempts. All the trains are constantly crowded with service men and women, some wounded, others who are joining or rejoining their regiments. So although I hope to be home in the next few days, it could be longer.

Yesterday I heard from Sch?nbrunn – a letter sent from the very lip of Auschwitz itself. I cannot begin to imagine how he was able to get a letter out from there, but it should not surprise me that his remarkable network stretches even to the town of Oswiecim. He has never talked much about that network, but from time to time I have had glimpses of it – of people with whom a letter or a message can be left … A small shop in an unobtrusive side street where the shopkeeper can be trusted … Stone bridges spanning narrow rivers where there are cavities within the stones, allowing messages to be left for collection …