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‘I met someone in the garden, that’s all.’ Victoria said. ‘A house guest of Lady Penelope’s. He’s been in some sort of accident and he has a nurse to look after him. I thought I saw her in the window upstairs, that’s all.’
‘Lady Penelope said the house would be empty.’ William swallowed hard.
‘Well obviously it isn’t.’ Suddenly Robert was impatient. ‘Let’s look round upstairs, quickly, then I think we should go.’
Hastily they trailed through the main bedrooms of the house, through the bathrooms and the guest rooms. The only one showing any sign of occupation was Lady Penelope’s own. There there were piles of books by the bed, a bottle of aspirins and some spare reading glasses. The other rooms were all neat and impersonal and unused. There was no room obviously allocated to Stephen. Or his nurse. Victoria felt a pang of disappointment. His face, his voice were still with her. It was as if for a few short moments he had been a part of her.
‘So. That just leaves the gardens.’ William had escorted them finally back to the kitchen via the second staircase. Checking the door into the west wing, he noted that the bolts were all firmly closed. ‘As you probably noticed when you came in they were once very beautiful. With some care and attention they could bloom again.’
He led them back to the front door and down the steps. The sun was high, beating on the gravel with the white reflective heat more commonly associated with a Mediterranean afternoon than with an English countryside, even in August.
They walked slowly round the south side of the house and wandered across rough uncut lawns, through untrimmed hedges, an overgrown vegetable garden and between rampant woody herbs. The garden was very silent. It was too hot for birds. The only sound came from the bees.
Beneath the cedar tree on the western side of the house they stopped. Victoria looked round expectantly. Then she frowned. ‘I don’t understand. I thought it was here I saw Stephen. It was near this tree. There were rose beds full of flowers and the house was painted on that side, and the windows were open. There must be another tree like this …’
‘No.’ William shook his head firmly. ‘There is only one cedar.’
‘But we were standing there, by the door …’
They all stared at the door into the west wing. It was boarded up.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve got confused. It must have been another door. There were rose beds, and a bank of hollyhocks and a garden seat, and the grass was short. There were daisies everywhere. And music. Music coming from the open windows. He picked a rose for me.’ She hadn’t realized that her voice was rising.
William swallowed. He shivered again.
She had the rose in her hand. It was a deep damask red. Several small thorns still adhered to the stem and as she held it out to Robert one pricked her. A fleck of blood appeared on her thumb. ‘It didn’t mean anything. He just gave it to me. It was a silly gesture.’ She could feel her eyes filling with tears. ‘I … I’ll go and look. There must be another part of the garden we didn’t see. The other side perhaps. Somewhere …’
Before either of the men could say anything she began to run, ducking through the thick laurel bushes which edged the grass onto the gravel of the drive.
William looked at Robert, embarrassed. ‘We have been all the way round the house, Mr Holland. There are no other gardens. There are no rose beds. Not now.’
Robert laughed uncomfortably. ‘Perhaps she fell asleep and dreamed it all. In this heat anything is possible.’
Slowly they walked after her. Both men were thinking of the rose.
‘There isn’t anyone else staying here, Mr Holland,’ William said after a moment. ‘Lady Penelope rang us this morning to say she’ll be away another week. She wanted to check we were locking up properly. She said the house was empty.’
‘Victoria, this is crazy. You can’t go back there. I’ve told the agents we’re not interested. And that’s that.’ Robert threw down the paper. Pushing his hands into his pockets he went to stand in front of the open window, trying to hide his despair.
Since the previous weekend she had not let him touch her. She had been tense, edgy and tearful and obsessed by the house.
‘I can and I’m going to. I’ve already rung Lady Penelope. And I’m going on my own, Robert.’
He stared at her. ‘You’re mad.’
‘It will only take me a couple of hours to drive over there and back. She’s asked me to have a cup of tea with her.’
‘But why? Why go? I’ve told you. We can’t afford it. That house is going to go for more than we could pay. Be reasonable, Victoria.’ He turned to face her desperately. ‘I don’t understand you, darling. What’s happened to you?’ She was a stranger.
She shrugged unhappily. ‘I don’t know. It was meeting Stephen. I have to find out who he is; where I knew him before. I can’t get him out of my mind …’
You and I were lovers once, in a land, long ago.
She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to rid herself of the echo of his voice, the image of his clear, grey eyes.
‘OK. Go then.’ Robert threw himself down onto a chair. ‘Who was he? A boyfriend? You fancied him, did you? He was younger than me, I suppose; not crippled? Are you in love with him?’
‘How could I be? I only saw him for a few minutes.’ She realized suddenly what he had said and for the first time she saw what she was doing to him. ‘Robert!’ She ran to him and put her arms around his neck. ‘It’s not like that. Perhaps he didn’t even exist! Perhaps he was a dream! I don’t know. That’s why I‘ve got to find out, don’t you see? And he was crippled, as you call it, too. I told you. Look,’ she hesitated. ‘Come back with me. Come and meet him yourself. Please.’
He shook his head and tried to smile. ‘No. You go. Whatever it is you have to prove, Victoria, you have to do it alone.’
Lady Penelope opened the door herself. She was a slim, elegant woman in her early eighties, with bright intelligent eyes. Once she had poured the tea she sat quite still behind the tea tray listening with complete attention as Victoria told her story.
When Victoria finished there was a long silence. ‘Stephen Cheney,’ she repeated at last.
‘He and I knew each other once,’ Victoria said softly. She looked down at her hands, covertly twisting her wedding ring around her finger.
You and I were lovers once, in a land, long ago.
‘You do know him?’
‘Oh yes, I know him.’ Lady Penelope frowned. ‘After tea, I’ll take you to him.’
‘He looked so ill.’
‘Yes, poor boy, I expect he did.’ Lady Penelope glanced up at Victoria. ‘What made you and your husband come to look around this house?’
‘The agents sent it. My husband has just been invalided out of the army and it seemed the sort of place we would like to live. We inherited Robert’s father’s house in London and neither of us wanted to live in town, so we sold it. But I’m afraid this is going to be too expensive.’ She smiled anxiously. ‘Mr Turner from the agents said you’d already had offers above the asking price.’
‘Even if I hadn’t I wouldn’t sell it to you, Mrs Holland.’ Lady Penelope’s smile belied the harshness of the words. ‘This is not the house for you, my dear. You’ll see why presently.’ She stood up. ‘Now. If you’ve finished your tea, I’ll take you to see Stephen.’
The heat wave had broken at last and the air was cool and damp after a night of rain as they walked slowly round the side of the house, through the laurels and across the lawn beneath the cedar tree. The west wing was still tightly closed up. No music rang across the grass. Victoria stopped and stared at it. The whole place gave off a sense of deep sadness. Lady Penelope watched her, but she said nothing and after a moment she moved on. Victoria stayed where she was. He had been here. On the grass. Near the flowers. She closed her eyes. She knew already where they were going.
Her hostess moved with deceptive rapidity in spite of her eighty years and Victoria found herself almost running to keep up with her as they cut through the shrubbery and found themselves on another unkempt lawn. Beyond it a high yew hedge separated them from the church.
Opening a gate in the hedge Lady Penelope glanced at Victoria. ‘I hope you’re strong, I think you are.’
She set off up a path between huddled gravestones, overgrown with nettles, some of them lost beneath moss and lichen. One of them had been recently cleared. They stopped in front of it.
Stephen John Cheney
Born 20 June 1894. Died 24 August 1918
in God I trust
‘I remembered the name when you mentioned it on the phone.’ Lady Penelope poked at the grave with her walking stick. ‘I came up yesterday to see if I was right, and cleared the stone. Then I went back to the records. We still have the nursing home ledgers in the house. My son found them years ago. I suppose they got overlooked with all the other stuff at the end of the war. Stephen died two days after they amputated his arm.’
‘No.’ Victoria stared down at the grave. ‘No. You don’t understand. I saw him. I spoke to him.’
‘There is no Stephen Cheney now, my dear.’ The old lady’s voice was gentle.
You and I were lovers once, in a land, long ago.
‘It’s not possible.’ It was a whisper. ‘He gave me a rose.’
‘Everything is possible.’
‘Perhaps it was his son – or his grandson,’ Victoria said uncertainly.
The old lady shrugged. They both stood, staring down at the mossy tombstone. Both knew somehow that Stephen had had no son.
‘I learned the names on all these stones, walking to church every Sunday over the years,’ Lady Penelope said slowly. ‘My family have lived in this house for more than a century. We had to move out during the last war, just as we did during the first one. But they didn’t use the place as a hospital again. The last time round it was the home guard. I brought my husband here in 1940, but we never lived here. He was killed in 1941, before our son was born.’ She paused for a moment. ‘The house is too much for me now. And my son doesn’t want it. So, sadly, it must go.’ She smiled. ‘Are you all right? Do you want to sit down?’
Victoria was fighting back her tears.
‘I’m sorry. It’s such a shock.’
‘There was no gentle way to tell you.’
‘You must think I’m mad.’
‘Oh no, my dear. I don’t think you’re mad. Far from it. On the contrary. I’ve heard their music from the old gramophone. I’ve smelt the Lysol in those wards. But I‘ve never seen any of the boys. You are lucky.’
‘Am I?’ Victoria tried to smile through her tears. ‘Why did I know him? Why did he know me?’
He had touched her; given her a rose. She could hear his voice … see his eyes. She stared down at the grey stone, seeing it swimming through her tears. ‘How?’ she whispered. ‘How?’
There was a long silence. Lady Penelope was staring across the churchyard into the distance where, through the trees, they could see the hazy mountains bathed in the afternoon sun. ‘Maybe you knew one another in a previous life,’ she said at last. ‘Maybe you should have known each other in that life – his life – but he died too soon and you missed one another on the great wheel of destiny. Who knows? If it is still meant to be, you’ll have another chance. You both stepped out of time for a few short minutes and one day you’ll find each other again.’ She put her arm around Victoria’s shoulder. ‘When you reach my age you know these things. Life goes round and round like the records those boys used to play endlessly on those hot summer afternoons. Once in a while the needle slips; it jumps a groove. That’s what happened when you walked out through that door onto the terrace. You and Stephen heard the same tune for a while – then the needle jumped back. If it is meant to be, you will see him again one day.’
‘You really believe that?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘But it won’t be in this life, will it?’
‘You have a lover in this life, Victoria,’ Lady Penelope pointed out gently.
‘You mean Robert?’
‘If he is your lover as well as your husband.’
‘Yes, he is my lover as well as my husband.’ How could anyone doubt it? How could Robert have doubted it? She had left him alone, his face a tight mask of misery. But he had made no further attempt to stop her coming.
‘Then don’t hurt him.’ It was as if the old lady knew what had happened. ‘Stephen has had his life; now you must live yours.’
‘How does it work? How could I see him? Was he a ghost?’
Her companion shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter what he was. He was real. For you. And for me.’
They were both looking down at the grave.
‘He told me he was afraid they would take off his arm,’ Victoria said sadly. ‘He was so frightened. I wish I’d said something to reassure him.’
‘Your being there reassured him.’
‘Did it?’ Victoria bit her lip. ‘Do you mind living in a haunted house?’ she asked after another long silence.
Lady Penelope smiled. ‘Every old house has its ghosts, my dear. You grow used to them. I’m fond of mine. But that poor boy from the agents hates it here. He doesn’t understand.’
‘Why did you say we couldn’t buy the house?’
Lady Penelope smiled. ‘If you hadn’t seen Stephen, it wouldn’t have mattered. But you have and you recognized him. You cannot live in a house with two lovers, Victoria. It wouldn’t be fair to your Robert, or yourself. Or to Stephen for that matter.’
‘But fate must have brought me here.’
Lady Penelope smiled. ‘There are times, my dear, when we have to turn our backs on fate. For the sake of our sanity. Always remember that.’ She glanced towards the house. ‘I’ll go on back, my dear. You catch me up when you’re ready.’
Victoria stood looking down at the grave for several minutes after the old lady had gone. She made no attempt to reach him. Her mind was a blank. The churchyard around her was empty. There were no ghosts there now. Wandering on down the path she passed a wild climbing rose, scrambling over some dead elder bushes. Picking one perfect bud she took it back and laid it on his grave. Then she turned away.
As she walked back across the lawn she glanced up at the windows of the west wing as they reflected the late afternoon sunlight in a glow of gold. One or two of them were open now, she saw, without surprise. And, faintly, she could hear the sound of music. But the gardens were empty.
Visitors (#uf3fe027c-6611-5753-baa3-d7c832dcc5de)
‘You know, I’m not sure that I do want to see you again after all, Joe.’ I leaned back, beginning to enjoy myself, and shifted the receiver to the other hand. ‘How long did you say it was?’
‘Oh, come on, Pen. Don’t be like that.’ His voice was starting to sound the tiniest bit tetchy.
I hoped the smile on my face didn’t come over in my voice. ‘OK, then. As it’s Christmas. You can come for the night. Spare room.’
‘Spare room?’
‘Spare room.’
I put down the receiver and stood up. Twenty minutes, he had said. Twenty minutes to tidy up, fix my hair and nails, slip into something infinitely casual and arrange to be very, very busy when he arrived. I glanced out of the window. The village street glistened beneath the dusting, melting snow. Rather as it had been when he walked out on me three years before. I had sworn I would never see the swine again.
Well, three years and a couple of morale-boosting affairs can do a lot for resolutions like that one. Anyway, I was curious. What had happened to my Joe in the last three years? I put a couple of logs on the fire and poured myself a drink.
I stayed where I was at my writing desk when I heard the car drive up outside. I counted to ten when the bell rang and then, slowly, walked to the door.
Damn. The sight of him could still make my pulses race. I stretched out a hand. ‘It’s good to see you again, Joe.’ There were tiny unmelted snowflakes caught in the crisp curl of his hair. But his eyes were the same. Mocking; insolent; irresistible … ‘Come and have a drink.’ I put my hand on the door behind him to push it closed, but his foot was in the way.
‘Pen, I’m not alone …’
As his voice tailed away I felt my nerves begin to throb warningly. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve brought a woman, Joe.’ My voice was melodious, but I could see it made him uneasy.
‘Of course not, I told you. It’s all over. There’s no one. But …’
Never in all the time I’ve known him have I seen Joe look shifty before. His eyes skidded away from mine and fixed, concentrating, on the battered coal scuttle on the hearth. I was taut with suspicion.
