House of Echoes. Barbara Erskine

go down there, please –’

      Someone was in her way. Pushing against him she struggled to get past …

      ‘Hey! Stop it!’ Luke wriggled out of reach of her flailing fists. ‘Joss, stop it! What’s the matter?’

      ‘Sammy!’ She was battling up out of a fog of sleep, her mouth sour, her head thudding like a steam hammer. ‘Sammy!’

      ‘Wake up, Joss. You’re dreaming.’ Luke caught her hand as it struggled free of the entangling duvet. ‘Joss! Wake up!’

      She was naked, her clothes trailed across the floor; her shoulders, bare above the duvet ached with cold. The moonlight, streaming across the floor showed the overturned glass on the floor beside the bed, the empty bottle on the table by the lamp. Dragging herself back to the present she turned her head on the pillow, still disoriented. ‘Sammy –’

      ‘No Sammy. No such person, Joss. It’s Luke, your husband. Remember?’ He stroked her shoulder, wincing at the ice cold feel of her skin, and drew the duvet higher to cover her.

      ‘Tom –’

      ‘Tom’s OK. Not a peep out of him. Go back to sleep. It will soon be morning.’ He tucked her up tenderly and remained, propped on his elbow looking at her for a few moments, studying her face in the strangely ethereal moonlight. Her eyes had closed. She had never really awoken. It had all been some frightening dream. Too much wine. He glanced ruefully at the bottle. He already had the beginnings of a headache. By morning it would have turned into something approaching a hangover. Stupid. He threw himself back on the pillow, staring up at the embroidered bed hangings while beside him Joss’s breathing slowed and settled back into deep sleep.

      The shadow in the corner, ever watchful, stirred slightly, scarcely more than a flicker of the moonlight on the curtains, and a shiver of lust curled into the darkness.

       10

      Oavid had leapt at the idea of a weekend in East Anglia before he sat down and thought out the consequences. Peering now through the windscreen of his eight-year-old Vauxhall at the ancient, creeper-covered façade of Belheddon Hall he felt a pang of something near terminal jealousy. Then his better nature asserted itself firmly. If anyone deserved the fairy tale romance which had handed her this pile on a plate, it was Joss. He thought again of the few rough notes he had scribbled down for her and he smiled to himself. The house was far far older even than the architecture visible from where he sat implied, and it had an enviably romantic history.

      Climbing stiffly out of the car he straightened to stretch the exquisite agony of cramp out of his bones before diving head first back in to withdraw suitcase, box of goodies from Harrods food hall and briefcase.

      ‘See here.’ He tapped a page of notes with his finger as they sat an hour later at the lunch table. ‘The church was built in 1249. I don’t know for sure, but I would think the foundations of this house go back that far at least. I’m no expert of course, but that glorious room of yours with the gallery looks fifteenth century if not earlier. Why haven’t you contacted this local historian chappy yet?’

      ‘We haven’t had time.’ Joss whisked off Tom’s bib and wiped his face with it while David watched with horrified disgust. ‘Wait while I put this young man down for his rest, then we’ll talk some more. Put the coffee on, Luke.’ She hauled the child out of his high chair and straddled him across her hip. ‘You don’t know how glad I am to see you, David.’ She rested a hand lightly on his shoulder as she passed. ‘I need to know about the house.’

      David frowned as she disappeared through the door. ‘Need to know is rather a strong term.’

      ‘It’s weird for her, living here.’ Luke filled the kettle and put it on the hot plate. ‘Imagine it. Generations of her ancestors and yet she knows almost nothing even about her mother.’ Sitting down he leaned forward and cut himself a generous lump of cheese. ‘She’s been having a lot of nightmares. Some tactless old biddy who lives locally told her that both her elder brothers died here in accidents. She’s got a bit obsessed by the thought.’

      David raised an eyebrow. ‘I can hardly blame her for that.’ He shivered. ‘How dreadful. Well, the more distant past seems to have been more cheerful. A junior branch of the De Vere family lived here for a couple of hundred years. One of them got his head chopped off in the Tower.’

      Luke laughed, reaching for the wine. ‘And you find that more cheerful?’

      ‘I’m a historian; it fills me with morbid delight.’ David chuckled contentedly. ‘History is a moving staircase. Characters step onto the bottom, rise slowly. They get to the top, they descend. Occasionally something goes wrong and they fall off or get a foot trapped. They face forwards, looking up at the heights or they face backwards, looking down.’ He smiled, pleased with his metaphor. ‘In the end it makes no difference. One disappears, one leaves no trace and already another queue of figures crowds behind one all rising and falling in just the same way.’

      ‘Chateau-bottled philosophy.’ Luke topped up Joss’s glass as she reappeared. She had combed her hair and removed from her cheek the imprint of Tom’s gravy-covered fingers. ‘This has been a house of substance for hundreds of years, my love. You should be very proud to be its chatelaine.’

      ‘I am.’ Switching on the baby alarm which stood on the dresser, Joss sat down contentedly. ‘I’ll take you over to the church later, David. It’s very beautiful. They were doing the Christmas decorations and flowers earlier.’ She smiled. ‘Janet said I would be let off helping this year, as we’ve only just arrived.’

      ‘Imagine!’ Luke shook his head in wonder. ‘Joss, do you remember the old joke about the flower ladies hanging in the porch? Another few weeks and you’ll be a pillar of the church.’

      David was scrutinising Joss’s face. She had lost a lot of weight since he had seen her last; there were dark rings under her eyes and in spite of the laughter he sensed a tenseness about her which worried him. It was two hours before he had the chance to talk to her alone, when she put Tom in his buggy and they pushed him across the drive and down the narrow overgrown path towards the churchyard gate.

      ‘That’s my father’s grave.’ She pointed down at the headstone.

      ‘Poor Joss.’ David pushed his hands deep into his pockets against the cold. ‘It must have been disappointing to find neither he nor your mother were still alive.’

      ‘To put it mildly.’ She pushed Tom on a few feet and stopped as the little boy pointed at a robin which had alighted on a headstone only a few feet from them. ‘Did you find out anything else about the name?’

      ‘Belheddon.’ He chewed his lip. ‘The name goes back a very long way. Multitudes of spellings, of course, like most old English place names, but basically the same in the Domesday Book. That takes you back to about 1087. How far did you want me to go?’ He grinned at her, blowing out a cloud of condensed air to make Tom laugh.

      ‘You mentioned Celtic. Iron Age? Bronze Age?’

      ‘That was guesswork, Joss, and I’m afraid I haven’t made any more progress on the definitions. There was a possibility of it coming from belwe which means bellow in middle English. Heddon does seem most likely to mean heather hill. Perhaps they grazed noisy cattle up here once! But we’re really talking archaeology here. There are recognised sites around here – I noticed in one of the county histories that there are several very close to the house – but who knows when it comes to names? I don’t know yet if there is anything Roman.’

      ‘Why would the devil live here, David?’

      She had her back to him, watching the robin. He frowned. There was a strange tone to her voice – a forced jocularity.

      ‘I