Deadlight Hall (Nell West/Michael Flint #5)(48)
‘I understand,’ said Michael.
‘So I’ll walk along to the Radcliffe for a couple of hours. That coffee’s still hot, so help yourself to a refill.’
Left to himself, Michael carefully lifted out the top layer of the contents. And now, finally, the stored-away aura of the past did reach out to him. These were not letters and documents efficiently and neatly stored on computer hard drives or microfiche screens; this was the faded fabric of the long-ago – the curl-edged photographs, the ink-splodged missives, the cobwebbed, candlelit writings that were dim with age and that might even be illegible …
And there’s something here, thought Michael. I know there is. By the pricking of my thumbs … With the thought came another image – a half-memory of something he had seen very recently, something to do with cobwebs and a dim old place where there had been a shelf holding old books or documents … He waited, but the memory remained annoyingly elusive, and he left it alone and focused on what lay in front of him.
There were two or three shoe boxes filled with black and white photographs – even some that were sepia. Michael glanced at these briefly, seeing self-consciously posed gentlemen wearing wing collars and Sunday-best suits, and ladies with flowered frocks and shady hats. Nell would seize on these with delight, of course; he would ask the professor if she could see them. But for the moment he put them to one side, and reached for two large packages, virtually parcels, both wrapped in the old-fashioned way, with brown paper and string.
The knots in the string parted easily after so many years and, his heart starting to beat faster, Michael unfolded the contents.
At first look there did not seem to be anything of particular interest, and nothing looked likely to relate to Deadlight Hall. On the top was a handwritten note, addressed to ‘Dearest Mildred’. That’s Miss Hurst, thought Michael, remembering what Professor Rosendale had told him. Mildred and Simeon Hurst. He smoothed out the letter, trying not to split the paper where it had been folded for so long.
It was undated, and there was no address. Michael had the impression of a quickly written note, either delivered by hand, or thrust into a parcel.
Dearest Mildred,
It is very kind of you and Simeon to agree to store my things at Willow Bank Farm until I can send for them. I dare say the bits of furniture can go in your attic, and in these packages are a few old family papers – nothing valuable or even particularly important, but mostly old photographs and a few letters from my great-uncle’s time, which my mother always kept. I expect you’ll be surprised to find me being so careful – and even sentimental – but I’d like to think they were in safe-keeping. With the future so uncertain and everything being blown to smithereens around us, it seems somehow important to preserve the past – even though parts of this particular past are not very creditable!
I will write soon.
Fondest love to you and Simeon,
Rosa.
Rosa. By her own admission, there was nothing especially interesting in the papers she had left for her good friends Mildred and Simeon Hurst to store. It was slightly odd that if the papers had meant so much to her, she had never reclaimed them, but there could be any number of reasons for that. There was no date on the letter, but it sounded as if it had been written at the height of WWII, when there were all kinds of upheavals and tragedy in people’s lives. Curious to know what Rosa had wanted to keep for posterity, Michael turned over the next layer.
Two names leapt out at him at once. The first was that of Augustus Breadspear, the vaguely Dickensian-sounding name familiar from the documents found at the Archives Office a couple of days ago.
The second was Deadlight Hall.
Moving with extreme care, almost expecting the thin brittle pages to crumble into dust beneath his hands, Michael lifted out the little stack of papers, and carried them to the deep wing chair in the corner of the room.
He placed them carefully on the small side desk where the gentle sunlight filtered through the window, sat down in the deep wing chair nearby, and began to read.
FIFTEEN
Deadlight Hall
October 1882
My dear Mr Breadspear
Tomorrow I am sending you Douglas Wilger, who should be sufficiently strong for the work, being twelve years old, but could pass for fourteen. He may need discipline, for he has turned out to be a wilful and ungrateful child, one as needs a firm hand. Already he has had the impudence to say that to work at Salamander House is what he calls ‘beneath him’. He also makes objection to the hours, which he says are very long, and adds that it is a dangerous place.
I do not know what the world is coming to when a child born in shame is so ungrateful, although I will allow that his father – whoever that may be – pays our accounts very prompt.
To my mind the work at Salamander House is easy and the hours reasonable. My goodness, I should like to see how these young people would fare if they had to stand behind a counter in a busy apothecary’s establishment all day, as I did in Mr Porringer’s establishment.
The Wilger boy will come to Salamander House tomorrow morning at 7.00 sharp.
Respectfully yours,
Maria Porringer (Mrs)
Following this letter was what appeared to be an official report from the same year.
DEADLIGHT HALL TRUST
ENQUIRY HELD INTO INJURY AT SALAMANDER HOUSE.
Governing Chairman of Enquiry Board and author of report: Sir George Buckle.