Halton Cray (Shadows of the World Book 1) (4 page)

Utterly offended, I felt the unjustness of it, especially
with the involvement of a new stranger in some secret kept from me. But what
could I do? It was his problem and I would endeavour to let it never bother me
to that extent again.

Five

‘Satan has his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him;
but I am solitary and detested.’

– Mary Shelley,
Frankenstein

Mrs Evans assigned me to
the shop and Stacey to the front desk on Saturday, much to our disappointment;
we thought we’d be working together. Since the front desk allowed more freedom
to explore the house, I naturally preferred it.

Mrs Evans’s flushed face appeared before me in the
gift shop. I sensed my luck was about to change for the better.

‘Alex, I need you to swap with Stacey. She’s such
a silly thing! There’s a noise, she says, that’s scaring her. I couldn’t hear
anything when I went round, but she said it’s off and on. She’s very
uncomfortable to stay there today, so I said you would switch with her as
you’re not so fragile about these things.’

More than happy to oblige I went round to find
Stacey shaking at the desk, her face drained of colour.

‘You can relax, Stace, I’ve come to relieve you.’
I smiled. ‘Mrs Evans is terrified you’ll quit, so she’s about ready to do
anything to keep you happy. What’s this noise then?’

‘Oh, don’t make fun, Alex!’

‘I’m not making fun.’

‘It’s really creepy! It sounds like a fingernail
tapping on the wall, over there!’ She pointed to the wood panelling directly
opposite.

‘Maybe someone was hammering a nail in on the
other side?’

‘
No
– the room on the other side is empty.
I checked. I’m not that stupid
or
wimpy. I’m sure it’s something
paranormal, because it’s coming from inside the wall! – But you’ll be okay,’
she said, jumping up, ‘because those kind of things don’t freak you out.’

‘Well, if I hear it I’ll see if I can work it out
for you.’

Stacey waltzed off with the colour returning to
her cheeks.

The moment she was gone and I sat down…

Tap
–
tap
–
tap

There it was, a hollow knock drumming out of the wall.
After a while, I went to investigate the room behind it. Empty. Silent. I
returned to my desk where it soon got quite annoying.

‘Yet another foggy day out!’ said Frances on
seeing me sat there.

‘The Cray does seem to be a magnet for gloom,’ I
replied, glancing out the window.

‘It must be because it’s situated at the foot of
the hill.’

‘It never used to be so drab, though. I used to
come here all the time and I don’t remember one foggy day.’

‘Hmm. Lots of people say it’s been incessantly
gloomy for a couple of years now. Very strange, I suppose.’

‘Speaking of strange,’ I said, ‘do you know what
that drumming noise is?’

She listened from the desk. ‘I can’t hear
anything.’

‘It’s stopped again!’ I rose from my chair.
‘Weird! It’s been coming from that wall.’ I pointed.

‘Remember, Alex,’ she said with a steady voice,
unable to conceal a look of concern. ‘Many people report hearing and seeing odd
things in this place. Try to take it all with a pinch of salt.’

‘It’s not so much odd as it is annoying. It’s like
Chinese water torture.’ I rubbed my forehead.

Right on cue, it would seem, Thom approached from
the other end of the hallway. Evidently, he’d heard part of our conversation,
of course. He half-smiled, looking only at one of us.

‘I warned you, Frances’ – he ringed his temple
with his index finger – ‘she’s a basket case.’ He continued strolling until he
was out the main door.

She seemed unsurprised by his overfamiliarity on
this occasion. Perhaps she’d decided, as I had, the best action was to try to
ignore him.

The morning post came and most of it was for Mrs
Evans. One letter was addressed to a Mr George Oldham,
Curator
.

‘That’ll be for Thom,’ said Frances. ‘He’s our
curator. George hasn’t worked here for years. Just pass it on to Thom, or Dan,
his assistant.’

‘Oh. So Dan works for Thom. I’ll certainly try and
get the thing to Dan if I can avoid being called a maniac again.’

Frances giggled. ‘Well, you won’t get any personal
mail for Thom. His own mail gets taken round the back.’

‘His personal mail?’

‘He’s a tenant here,’ she said, as if I should
know that.

‘At the Gatekeepers Lodge?’ I asked, looking out
the small side window to the barely discernible cottage across the east lawn.

‘No, the caretaker lives there. Thom lives
upstairs.’

‘I never realised people could live here, I mean,
actually in the house.’

‘It’s not uncommon.’ She shook her head. ‘Although
usually it’s a descendant of the original family, or the owners themselves who
get an income from exhibiting the house and historic artefacts. I don’t know
how anyone could live in an old house like this, though.’ Frances feigned a
shiver of the shoulders. ‘I couldn’t stand to myself, nice as it is, and a
great place to work. It’s too deep and dark for me. It would bring me down.’

I was at that moment thinking how I would love to
live at such a place as Halton Cray.

‘The estate manager lives in that house over by
the stables, but you hardly ever see her.’

Just as she said this Mrs Evans strolled past and
subjoined: ‘If there’s anything she manages so well, it’s managing to stay out
of sight.’ And the woman was gone, out the main door, a pack of cigarettes in
her hand.

Frances carried on talking to me.

‘Thom lives in what used to be the servants quarters.
The last Lady of the house made apartments out of certain upper rooms at the
back. Only Thom lives up there now, because the opportunity was given to him when
his predecessor left. It’s at the very back, in the attic space above the
southwest rooms. His post goes in at that little black door near the alleyway
to the courtyard. In fact, I have some time – well, give me five minutes and then
meet me in the Colman Smith Gallery. I’ll show you Thom’s office.’

Good, I thought. While Thom was out of the building
I could leave the letter on his desk.

The moment Frances walked away, the horrid
tap
–
tap
–
tap
returned opposite. I got up now and made my way
towards the house’s south extension, where many whitewashed rooms were
generally used for modern art exhibitions. These usually bored me quickly. I
found more interest in the originality of the house.

Frances found me there and showed me Thom’s office
to one side of the gallery. With the door closed, she didn’t seem to want to
knock.

‘I don’t like to disturb him in case he’s on the
phone or something.’

‘But we just saw him leave the building,’ I
reminded her.

‘It’s not unlike him to come back in another way.’

On the door, above my height, was a sign that read
STAFF
ONLY
. Frances’s eyes levelled it. She giggled softly before peeling back
the bottom corner to reveal a panel of glass, through which she peered.

‘Nope! He’s not in there.’

With that, she burst in humming a tune. I
followed, taking that opportunity to leave the letter on his desk, ready to
make my escape.

‘I expect he’s gone to one of the other sites then,’
she said. ‘Richford House, probably.’

Thom’s office comfortably held a large antique desk,
cabinets, and even a wardrobe, which stood against the wall opposing the
window. This was south facing. Next to the wardrobe was another door.

‘That door leads round to a stairwell,’ she told
me. ‘Thom can get to his apartment from there. Handy, huh? Just roll out of bed
in the morning and you’re at work!’

It didn’t sound too great to me.

‘What was it you wanted to show me?’ I urged. She
didn’t seem in any hurry to leave whereas I was dying to get out of there.

‘Oh, I feel a bit silly now. It’s in the gallery.’

She closed Thom’s door having followed me out,
before taking me over to a partition subtitled
LOCAL ARTISTS
.
It held numerous pieces of artwork. She pointed out one of a ballerina
scratched on black clayboard. It was beautiful and underneath was her moniker:
By
FRANCES S. ELLIS
.

‘You did this? I don’t mean to sound surprised.
I’m just so impressed! It’s perfect,’ I said, tracing the contours of the
ballerina’s waist and torso. ‘The wrists are impeccable, but I really admire
the hands. Hands are for me the most difficult to draw.’

She smiled. ‘Thank you. Thom was very sweet to
include it in the exhibition.’

It shocked me to hear
Thom
and
sweet
in
the same sentence.

‘So you draw too, Alex?’

‘Nothing fit to be seen like this.’

‘I’m sure you’re just modest. Do you mind if I ask
what you plan to do with yourself? Oh, that sounded rude! I only meant, are you
studying at all?’

‘Not at the moment.’

‘Oh. You didn’t go to college?’

‘No,’ I said, recalling my mums frustration with
me for sidestepping further education.

‘What made you leave school and go straight to
work?’

‘I didn’t like school, Frances. After my mum
remarried we moved around and my new school was hard to adapt to. I liked
learning but I didn’t seem to fit in.’ I shrugged. ‘I couldn’t wait to leave
and earn my own money.’

‘But isn’t there any sort of job you want to do in
the future?’

‘I don’t know. I’m happy to decide in my own time.
Besides, I’m not ambitious.’

‘You might not feel like that when you get to my
age,’ she said, as if she was at death’s door. ‘You’ll wish you’d done more
with yourself.’

‘You can’t be more than… thirty?’

‘I’m thirty-five.’ She winked. ‘It’s not old.
Though to a youngster like you it might seem so.’

‘Not at all.’

‘It’s just that when you haven’t managed to do all
the things you wanted to by now, Alex, it feels like you’re wasting away when
you could have achieved so much more.’

‘I don’t see it that way.’ I looked back over her
picture. ‘You have all your life to do the things you want. There’s no point in
rushing to get something done before a certain age. It makes no sense to me.’

‘Most people want success, Alex, while they’re
still young and then they have more time to enjoy it.’

‘But people should enjoy the journey. Surely
success comes more easily from experience and understanding, which takes time.
Getting older is just a part of life. People obsess so much with staying
wrinkle-free. It’s pointless.’

‘I don’t think that will ever change in the
masses. It all comes down to people wanting to hold on to their youth.’ She
smiled with a shrug. ‘Maybe it’s so the thought of dying seems further off.’

‘To live life in fear of impending death,’ I
sighed, amused. ‘What a waste. Death can only be terrible for the wicked. And
when I go grey, which I fully expect to do, I’m determined not to cry about
it.’

‘You think very deeply about things for your age,’
she said, rounding this off with her soft laugh.

‘I just don’t like the idea of living in fear of
something.’

To this she summed me up as being an unusual girl,
adding that this was not a bad thing. I took it as a compliment.

I discovered that Stacey
and I wouldn’t be lunching together either, as Mrs Evans insisted she or Susan needed
to be available for one of us. To top that off it had started raining, which prevented
me from walking in the gardens.

For the last twenty minutes of my break I wandered
through the Cray and into the De Morgan Gallery. The collections in there were
devoted to nocturnal animals and associated paraphernalia, such as nineteenth
century traps and snares. Against the east wall of walnut panelling stood a
huge showcase displaying a taxidermy collection: the stuffed skins of foxes,
hedgehogs, rodents, bats and an owl, all positioned as if in motion amongst simulated
foliage. The foxes stared out of the glass with great ominous beady eyes that
followed you round the room like a haunted painting from Scooby Doo.

I was sure that this kind of display must marvel some
people, but I didn’t like it. I much preferred to see animals alive and free,
not their corpses staring out of glass cages. – I could hear Thom’s voice in
the corridor talking to someone. It sounded like he was heading this way. I
couldn’t get out of the room in time, but the open door half obscured me. I
remained there as he and Dan entered. They crossed the room, and now that I saw
them side-by-side, Thom was quite an imposing figure next to Dan, despite being
no more than a few inches taller, and broader in the chest. I noticed that one
of them was wearing cologne: a familiar peppery scent, subtle and very
pleasant. They were in mid-conversation and didn’t notice me.

‘So what generally follows marriage?’ Dan was
asking him.

‘I think you’ll find divorce is a popular choice
these days.’

‘No – kids! Kids follow marriage. It’s just expected.
You date, marry, procreate.’

‘But not necessarily in that order, eh?
Particularly if you live this side of the river.’

‘Savages!’ Dan laughed. ‘Well, according to custom
then, it’s next on the list. The other day she was saying that the idea of
getting large is very off-putting. I feel like I’m being set up! I mean what
can I say to that, “Oh no, love, the more of you the better!”’

‘Careful,’ was Thom’s response. ‘If she heard that
one you’d lose the faculty to have any.’

I was too embarrassed to step out now, or make it
known that I was there. At this point I caught Thom’s eyes shift mischievously in
my direction and back again, making me wonder if he’d seen me or felt my
presence. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had and carried on regardless.

Thom moved towards a large corner table on the
other side of the room, which held a display case. Dan followed with a half-interested
tread.