Property of a Lady(58)

It was on the following page that Harriet’s writing became uncertain, and Michael put the diaries down for a moment, considering whether he should hand the rest of the pages to his colleague in the history department. But when he took the journal to the desk and switched on the table lamp, the next two pages were legible, although the writing itself was straggly and erratic. He would read as much as he could.

Harriet Anstey’s journal: concluding entries

I’m writing this by the dimmest light imaginable. I’m trapped in Charect House, and I can’t see any way that I can get out—

That’s absurd. Pure hysteria. Of course I’ll get out, either by my own efforts or because somebody will miss me and come to look.

But in case they don’t, I’m going to set down an account of what happened. I don’t know who might one day read this, so I’m making it as legible as I can. But it’s very difficult. There’s hardly any room to write. There’s hardly any light to write by.

It was half past four, and I was in the library.

I’d finally finished sorting through the boxes, and I was folding some curtains to take back to Cheshire. Beautiful material, excellent quality, and whoever had chosen it had very good taste. They would cut down very nicely for the spare room at home.

Normally, on a May evening it would still be bright sunlight, but a storm seemed to be brewing: there was that swollen, bruised look to the sky and the feeling of something pressing down from overhead. I thought – if this continues I shall end with a headache. The ticking of the clock in its corner seemed to be in exact rhythm with the slight throbbing against my temples, and I wondered whether to get up and stop the mechanism, but the builders seemed to be winding it up regularly, probably so they would know when it was time for their various breaks.

The builders had already left, driving off half an hour earlier in their rattletrap vehicles. The plasterer, they said, might come in early on Saturday morning to do the plastering in the attic. Only a couple of hours’ work, it was, then it could dry out over the weekend. I thought I knew which the plasterer was: he wandered around with large tubs of cement and whitewash, dabbing at walls with brushes, apparently at random.

I listened to the lorries go down the drive, then returned to the boxes. I was intending to work until about five o’clock: I had dispensed with the taxi driver since the work on the house commenced – shockingly expensive to have two taxis every day! – and had discovered that if I walked part-way along the lane, a little country bus came along every two hours and went all the way into Marston Lacy. Today I would catch the six thirty bus and be at the Black Boar in time for seven thirty dinner.

When footsteps walked across the room directly above me, I was startled, but not overly alarmed. I thought all the men had left, but it was possible one was still here – the electrician certainly came and went according to his own timetable, and both he and the plumber drove their own vans.

I got up, dusted down my skirt (old papers gather a remarkable quantity of dust), put my diary and pen in the pocket where I keep the matches, and went up the stairs.

At first I thought he was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down, then I saw it was only the mottled wall where a huge, damp stain had spread. In the dimness of the hall it looked like the outline of a man – I had noticed it before. But as I started up the stairs, I saw that after all it wasn’t the damp stain – it really was one of the workmen.

‘Hello,’ I said. My voice echoed in the enclosed space, and I saw him give a start of surprise as if he hadn’t realized I was there. ‘I didn’t know anyone was still here,’ I said. ‘I’ll be leaving and locking up in about ten minutes – have you finished?’

He did not answer. He began to come very slowly down the stairs – fumblingly, that’s the only word I can think of to describe it – and as he came, he was humming very softly to himself.

The throbbing headache that had started earlier increased, making me feel slightly dizzy, but – and this is the really curious thing – the soft humming was trickling in and out of my brain. Prowling music – beckoning music. Music that said: follow me . . .

I reached out to the banister to steady myself and began to say something else about intending to leave. Only, I don’t think it got said. The headache swelled to enormous monstrous proportions, and the music swooped and whirled around me, and the man seemed to come towards me through a kind of amber glaze. Like those insects you see trapped in resin – only, I was the trapped insect, looking out.

I have no recollection of moving up the stairs – I can only remember the soft cadences of the music and the overwhelming need to get closer to it. I think there was the feel of the new floorboards under my shoes, where the builders had nailed new sections of oak strips into place that day, but I can’t be sure.

And then, little by little, the humming faded, and I sank fathoms deep into sleep – only, I don’t think it could have been sleep in the normal sense of the word. I think it was much too deep and dense for that. I think I might have fainted.

When I opened my eyes, the amber glaze had gone and I was lying in a small, cramped space, half covered by pieces of old sacking. There’s the smell of new plaster, and it’s stiflingly hot and ominously quiet. Or is it? Isn’t that soft singing still going on somewhere, a long way away? No, there’s nothing to be heard.