An Inquiry Into Love and Death (3 page)

I
washed and dressed, scrubbing away the sweat and grogginess of the night, the floors cold and dusty beneath my feet. From my valise I pulled a comfortable shirtwaist dress and an old dark brown cashmere cardigan, a favorite garment I’d bought at a men’s shop. It fell to midthigh, and the cuffs were rolled. After a moment’s consideration, I left off stockings and shoes. This was the outfit I usually chose for studying; it was unfashionable and a little scandalous, but most of the girls in my boardinghouse had something similar they wore when hard at work, with no chance of one’s mother or any member of the male sex laying eyes on it.

I hurried down to the kitchen to light the stove. I was relieved to see that Toby had laid by a good stock of wood, if he had not bothered with much else; I could at least make tea and warm a few rooms in the house. We’d had few servants as I grew up, just a daily cook and a weekly washerwoman and maid, though we could have well afforded more—one of my parents’ many eccentricities. It meant I could lay a fire as quickly and neatly as any girl I knew.

I pulled open the stove door and stared.

Lying squarely in the cold stove, carefully placed in its grimy, unlit darkness, was a book. It lay open to a place in the middle, its pages flat and unruffled. It was thick, its binding of brown leather.

I stared at it for a long moment. It seemed to mock me, lying there. There was no reason for it—and yet, there it was.

I reached in and slid it out, careful not to flip the pages. A glance at the title page revealed
A History of Incurable Visitations
, by someone named Charles Vizier. I read the page where the book had been left open.

. . . A second translation of
De Spirituum Apparitione
, produced in Cologne in 1747, terms the most disturbing manifestations as
grappione
, or nearly demoniac in nature, though the specific demonic influence has not been classified. Certainly such accounts have been disputed over the years, though there is little doubt that the Abbey of Sénanque experienced one such visitation, consisting of thrown crockery, overturned rain barrels, and even ghostly slaps and pinches assaulting nighttime guests—which persisted over the course of several decades.

I stood reading, my body paralyzed by a strange sort of fear. It was only a book. I forced myself to read on.

Though possibly demonic, the account of the
grappione
at Sénanque also bears resemblance to the traditional Scottish haunt called a
boggart
, or sometimes
bogey
, a mischievous—sometimes vicious—manifestation tied to a single place, and often terrifying the inhabitants of any area in which it takes up residence. . . .

I closed the book and placed it on the table. I took out the watch from last night, which I had put in the pocket of my sweater, and looked at it. A watch on the table. A book in the stove.

I put the watch next to the book and strode out the kitchen door to the back garden. The sun was up now, the sky turning a crisp autumn blue. The cobblestones were cold and rough on my bare feet. I turned and looked up at my bedroom window. Just as I’d seen this morning, there was nothing there, nothing that could have scratched the glass. I stepped closer, peered into the remains of the dead garden that bordered the house. There were no footprints or telltale points of a ladder. I swept my gaze farther, into the dried weeds and nettles, looking for trampled spaces. There was nothing.

You could have dreamed it
, I told myself.
You must have dreamed it. You must have
. Still, I backed farther into the garden, away from the house, stepping around a heavy ceramic vase full of soil and dead flowers, and directed my gaze upward. Could someone have climbed down from the roof? Somehow scaled the other gable to get to my window? An animal, perhaps? I shaded my eyes against the sun and squinted. Had it all been in my mind?

“Excuse me!”

I jumped and turned, nearly overbalancing. Standing beyond the stone wall of the garden were two women, an older and a younger. Though they were dressed differently, their faces marked them as mother and daughter. The mother gave me an apologetic wave. “I’m so sorry to have startled you. We were passing on our morning walk and couldn’t resist stopping to say hello.”

I let out a breath. The fence wall was nearly shoulder-high, which made conversation awkward, so I walked to the gate and unlatched it. “Of course,” I managed. “Do come in. I’m Jillian Leigh.”

“Diana Kates,” the woman said as she approached and held out her hand. “And this is my daughter, Julia.”

Both women were dressed for walking; and indeed, with the gate open, I noticed a path behind the property that skirted the woods. Mrs. Kates was perhaps thirty-five, her hair cropped very short and fashionably marcelled. Over this she had placed a cloche with a wide ribbon, under the brim of which only the well-placed ends of her hair could be seen. She wore a dress of faded blue silk, decorated with beads along the neckline, under a coat with a worn fur collar. The daughter, a step behind her, was no more than sixteen, in large shoes and a tweed coat that went to her knees. She had elected to wear her long hair in a braid down her back, from which wisps of frizz escaped.

As I greeted them, I realized I must look a perfect fright. My hair was wild, my man’s sweater was wrapped around me, and my legs and feet were bare. I’d never thought anyone would see my studying outfit. “I’m sorry,” I said, looking down at myself and up again. “I was just out here a moment—I didn’t realize—”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Kates, smiling. “We’ve intruded. But I couldn’t help but introduce myself. I’m the landlady here, you see.”

“Oh.” I looked back at Barrow House, then turned to her again. “I’m Toby Leigh’s niece. I’m here to clean out his things.”

“Yes, I had a letter from the solicitor. I’m so sorry about what happened to your uncle. Such a kind man.”

This was said with such cheer I could only stare for a second. “Yes, well, thank you.”

“Though he was rather a hermit,” she went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “I barely saw him. He prepaid the rent for the month, so you mustn’t worry about that, truly. Though I did have to write the solicitors when I sent them the key, to mention that he is paid only to the end of the month. I must admit, when they wrote me that his niece was coming, I pictured a married woman. Are you alone?”

My mind spun with the changes of subject. I glanced at the daughter, but she was no help; she merely looked at me and waited for an answer. “I’m alone,” I admitted. “My parents could not come.”

That stopped Mrs. Kates, but only for a moment; the daughter’s jaw dropped visibly, as if I’d just shed my clothes.

“Why, how very modern!” Mrs. Kates exclaimed. “We don’t get much of that here. Are your parents ill, perhaps?”

It was well-meant, but both Mr. Hindhead and Edward Bruton had already commented on my single status. I was beginning to feel like a two-headed cow or a bearded lady. Was a girl alone so very freakish? My parents had always been too busy or preoccupied to coddle me. “They’re not ill. I’m twenty-two; I can care for myself, I assure you.”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t know.” Mrs. Kates lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I went straight from my father’s house to my husband’s when I was seventeen, and then I had Julia. People say we look more like sisters than mother and daughter.”

“You do,” I said politely, though it was altogether true. Mrs. Kates wore a great deal of makeup, skillfully applied, but under it she was blessed with unlined skin, as if she’d never had a worry or a day in the sun. Julia, with her unvarnished face and ungroomed brows, looked like an alternate version of her mother.

“I don’t know much about modern girls,” Mrs. Kates was saying. “Marry and have children, that’s what’s always worked just fine, as far as I know. Is that motorcar yours? Are you married?”

“No,” I said, rubbing the bottom of one bare, cold foot over the top of the other and contemplating the chilled air on my knees. “I’m a student at Oxford.”

This was greeted with a thunderous, surprised silence, as if I’d announced my intention to run as MP. I plunged ahead into the gap. “Look, I’d ask you in for tea, only the stove’s not lit, and I haven’t looked at the supplies. Perhaps—”

“Oh, no, dear.” Mrs. Kates regained her voice. “You mustn’t worry. What brings you into the garden on such a morning, anyway?”

“The window,” I replied, motioning up toward the bedroom. “I thought I heard something there last night. You don’t know anything about rodents or birds on the roof, do you?”

“Heavens, no. Though the house belonged to my husband, and I’ve only taken it over since he died. I don’t know much of anything about those sorts of things at all. I don’t even come out here often, as it’s so far at the end of the road. Was it very bad?”

“Halloo!” came another voice over the wall.

We all turned. Edward Bruton came through the gate carrying a paper sack in each hand. “I knocked at the front, miss,” he said to me, “but no one answered, and when I heard voices, I came ’round. I thought you could do with some supplies from town.”

I tried to decline, but he waved me away and said he had a few things in his cart anyway, which he may as well give to me, as they were entirely extra and he had no idea what he would do with them otherwise. I could do nothing but accept in the end, as he would have it no other way, though I did manage to convince him that I could light the stove myself. No, he hadn’t heard of any rodents on the roof, though if I needed him to do so, he could check in a jiffy. He’d done some light work around Barrow House when Mrs. Kates needed it, hadn’t he?

Mrs. Kates agreed with this, though she had notably ceased talking. Julia, predictably, said nothing. And after Edward Bruton had gone—kindly without mention of my horrid appearance—Mrs. Kates turned to me with a new look in her eye, that of the gossip who had been waiting for her subject to leave.

“And how did you meet Edward already?” she asked me.

“Last night, on the road into town. He gave me directions.”

“I see. He’s had a hard time since the war, you know. His father left the business in a terrible state—he had health problems, and he got taken in by some sort of phony investment scheme, not that I understand such things. In any case, poor Edward came home to financial ruin. But he’s been working hard since then, and I think things have turned around. He hasn’t taken a wife yet, but I believe he has an eye on my Julia.”

“Mother!” Julia cried in anguish, the first word I’d heard her say.

“I see,” I said, wondering madly what was expected. “He seems very kind.”

“Yes, he is. My dear, we simply must be on our way. It’s been a pleasure. Julia, come with me.”

I watched them go, the girl slouching with embarrassment as she followed her mother. Mrs. Kates stopped and turned. “By the way, it’s a strange thing. I don’t have a key to the house. I set it down when I was in the house last, and I forgot it. Have you seen it lying about?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t,” I said. “I have the one given me by the solicitor.”

“Yes, that was your uncle’s. I kept my own—until I misplaced it, that is. You haven’t seen it?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Well. Do keep an eye for it, if you would. I really will need both sets of keys back at the end of the month.”

“I understand.”

Inside, I finally lit the stove and put on tea—Edward Bruton, bless him, had brought some—grateful for the silence again. As kind as they were, I could see how small-town neighbors could be exhausting.

As I poured the tea, I looked at the watch and the book on the table again. In the mundane light of day, they were less unsettling. It was strange to find the book in the stove, certainly—but it wasn’t inexplicable. Toby could have put it there in an absent moment. As for the watch, it had been left on the table; that was all. The sounds outside my window last night were made by some sort of rodent, and I’d turned the sounds into nightmares because of my grim, depressed mood. The experience in Barnstaple had made me see things, feel things that weren’t there.
An accident. It was an accident; that was all.

I took my cup and wandered through the hall to the front rooms, which I’d seen only in the dark last night. I’d start over as if last night hadn’t happened. I’d collect Toby’s things and pack them up, and then I’d return to Oxford.

I poked my head into the library and saw no personal effects there. I moved into the mismatched front parlor at the front of the house, taking in the worn rug, the spindly chairs, and the ugly fireplace. There were no personal effects there either, and no wonder; I couldn’t imagine anyone using such an uncomfortable room.

I was about to move on to the stairs when a movement outside the parlor window caught my eye. I pulled back the curtain and peeked out.

A large, dark brown sedan was pulling up in front of Barrow House, coming to a stop behind my parked Alvis. The driver’s door opened and a man got out—a long-legged, dark-cloaked man. As I watched, he shut the door of the motorcar and strode toward the house, his chin tilted down, the brim of his hat shading his eyes from view.

He moved easily, powerfully, clad in a slate gray suit under an overcoat of deep, almost velvety black. There was something almost sinister about the black of that coat and the sharp, low brim of his hat; he made an incongruous figure on a sunny morning in a small English town. As if in answer to this, a cloud dimmed the sun and a gust of wind blew up, swirling the dead leaves in the garden behind him.

I felt my well-being fade away. The man slowed and raised his head, and the hat brim lifted, revealing a square jaw, a well-shaped mouth, high cheekbones. His eyes were dark, and though he was handsome, there was nothing comforting about that face. It was grave, intelligent, perhaps a little weary, his gaze taking in the house with mechanical precision.

He’s from the solicitor’s office,
my mind scrambled. But no, he didn’t look the lawyerly type.
The undertaker’s man, then, come to the wrong place.

Then he saw me watching from the window, and his gaze stopped on me. I felt a flush of awareness and an inexorable drop of dread. The cloud thickened over the sun, the sky darkened further, and he silently touched his hat, then lowered his hand to point at the front door, a request for me to let him in.