The Whispering: A Haunted House Mystery (14 page)

I'm sorry to report, though, that while everyone was searching for Homer's lamp for illumination, or, at worst, a few candles or a cigarette lighter, Wilberforce appears to have padded through the Gothic darkness to Oriel's kitchens. He reached them unerringly, of course – that cat could find a scullery in a stormy night without a compass – and made a quiet and efficient assault on the abandoned lamb casserole. To be fair, the casserole had already been designated as uneatable, due to being only half-cooked, and I suppose Wilberforce couldn't be expected to understand about the dangers of imperfectly-cooked lamb.

It was a pity, though, that if he had to be sick afterwards, he must needs to so on the Dean's hearthrug. It's reputed to be a Persian rug which was presented to the Dean by some visiting Eastern potentate, and the Dean is currently being placated by promises of the best specialist dry-cleaning that can be found for the rug. To help out, I have placed my soul in pawn, Faustus-like, to stop him hauling Wilberforce to the nearest vet's slaughterhouse, and it took a remarkably long time, which is why I didn't get your phone message until now. I think the Dean is suitably placated, and even if he isn't, I suspect Michael's army of cherubic eight- and nine-year-old readers would form a protest march to stay Wilberforce's execution, anyway. Your Beth would most likely carry the banner.

Let's meet at half-past nine tomorrow outside the Bodleian. I'll need to be back at College for twelve, but if we don't find your letters, we can arrange a second trip, and if necessary take in the Radcliffe.

Owen

Nell read the email, shook her head over Wilberforce's exploits, but was pleased that Owen would help with the quest for Hugbert's letters.

As she went into the kitchen to put together some supper she was glad to think Michael would be returning to Oxford tomorrow. He would probably set off fairly early and be back in good time to have supper in Quire Court. With this in mind, Nell hunted out a favourite recipe book to find something really nice to cook. She might do rainbow trout – she had a recipe for stuffing it with smoked trout and horseradish, which was delicious. There was a bottle of Chablis in the fridge which a customer had given her for finding a beautiful set of needlepoint dining chairs, and she would buy fruit and cheese for dessert.

Michael would be all right in Fosse House, of course. But as Nell ate her supper, she kept glancing at Bodkin's book, which she had left open at the page referring to the Holzminden sketch and the taint of madness that was supposed to cling to it. She wished she had not read that. She wished, even more, that Michael had not mentioned hearing whispering voices at Fosse House.

M
ichael had no idea how he was going to cope with a second night in Fosse House, and he had no idea how he was going to face Luisa over supper this evening, and again tomorrow morning.

Should he pretend they had never had that unreal conversation on the landing and, instead, talk cheerfully about his work? He had a wild image of determinedly describing the breezy letters from the unknown Chuffy, and of Luisa industriously searching genealogies to find out who Chuffy had been and which Gilmore he might have been writing to, both of them studiously ignoring any sounds that might herald Stephen's arrival. Or Luisa might not ignore it at all; she might make a light-hearted reference to it: ‘And don't take any notice of my ancestor, Dr Flint, he usually takes a turn in the garden around this time …'

It was an image that defied credibility, particularly since Luisa would no doubt lead the conversation wherever she wanted it to go. It had been odd, though, to be afforded that glimpse behind the composed facade.

It was half past five, and when he went into the library it was wreathed in shadows. Michael switched on the desk lamp, grateful for the warm pool of light it cast over the leather-topped table which was still littered with notes and old letters.

He had thought work would be impossible, but when he opened the box file containing Chuffy's letters, he found he was able to step back into Fosse House's past easily, and even make some half-intelligent notes about Robert Graves and to draft a letter to the Old Carthusian Society about the setting of Rupert Brooke's
The Soldier
to music. A recording from so long ago was too much to hope for, but there was a faint chance they might have kept the setting or the score. Even a programme of the event would be a find.

Rifling a second box, he found what appeared to be the basis for an essay – perhaps even a thesis on the Palestrina Choir's history – which seemed to have been originally drafted in the early 1930s. It looked as if it might be useful, although it was slightly disconcerting to think someone else had trodden the path Michael himself was now treading. Had the unknown writer found and made use of Iskander's journal? He experienced a pang of the unreasonable, possessive jealousy known to many academics and writers. Iskander's mine! he thought, then was aware of the absurdity.

The gardens were shrouded in darkness, and Michael drew the curtains, returned to the big table, and continued working. The thesis, which was intelligently and interestingly written, began by describing how in 1899 a community of nuns in Liège had conceived the idea of marking the new century by forming a Choir within their school, and how they had named it for Giovanni Palestrina, the sixteenth-century Italian composer of sacred music.

‘It was to be an integral part of the Convent's life,' wrote the unknown essayist. ‘The sisters of Sacré-Coeur had the praiseworthy aim of entering the twentieth century on a strong wave of prayer and goodness, and they saw their long-held tradition of music as a way to do this. This may perhaps be described as idealistic, but it is a good precept in any age.'

Having struck this optimistic note, he – or it might be a she – then turned to the effect the Great War had had on the Choir and its environs.

‘Accounts of 1914 – that troubled, tragic year for Belgium – are fragmentary and not all of them can be relied on. It was an emotional time for the Belgians, but it seems certain that the Convent of Sacré-Coeur, the home of the Palestrina Choir, was badly damaged and some of the nuns were killed in the initial invasion.'

It did not sound as if the writer had read Iskander's journal, after all. That could mean he or she had found other source material. Michael read on, hoping this would be the case.

‘I was fortunate in finding a letter sent to a Sister Clothilde, the Mother Superior of the Sacré-Coeur Convent,' the writer explained. ‘It was apparently written a short time after the initial invasion of Liège. By then France had been crushed by the Kaiser's armies and Belgium was occupied, which makes it remarkable that the letter reached its destination.'

Here he conscientiously added a footnote: ‘This letter, along with other interesting and informative papers, is in a small museum in Liège itself (one of the city's many museums), and is part of the annals of the city's tribulations which have been preserved. The text of the letter may have lost a little in my translation, but I hope I have captured the spirit.' The letter followed:

My very dear Sister in Christ,

Permit me to send you my love and prayers in your time of sorrow and loss – but also to express my heartfelt gratitude to
le bon Dieu
for your safe deliverance. We, in the Paris House, were shocked and saddened to learn of the violent deaths of two of your novices at the hands of the Kaiser's armies, and have offered up Masses for them. Father Albert has tentatively suggested we should also offer prayers that the soldiers responsible will feel proper contrition for their actions, but most of us feel this is taking charity a little too far, although we are praying that God will help the Kaiser see the error of his ways. This, however, seems unlikely at the present, for he is a bellicose man, although I dare say many of his weaknesses can be ascribed to his withered arm.

We were horrified, also, to hear of your enforced siege – that you were actually forced to barricade yourselves in the crypt – but we are heartened to know of your courage and resourcefulness. It is certainly a pity you were unable to move the stone sarcophagus containing the Founder's body to use as a barricade (remembering our redoubtable Founder, she would have repelled all enemies purely with one of her glacial stares), but the blanket chests and oak coffers with Mass vessels seem to have served the purpose well enough and kept the enemy from the gates. It is a pity the young girls of the Choir were forced to listen to the curses and blasphemies of the soldiers as they tried to break through, but no doubt their innocence will protect them from the worst of the profanity, and presumably it would have been in the German language anyway.

God is good in that He had guided you to stock your larders so well – also that you were able to make that frantic journey through the convent to snatch up all the food you could carry from the larders before taking refuge underground. You have my sympathies in the privations you endured during those days. Living off oaten cakes and lentils for so long is not something one would wish to do, even in Lent. But your sojourn in that particular Wilderness will have strengthened you all spiritually (even if it wrought havoc digestively). As to the sanitary arrangements you made, I shall preserve a mannerly reticence, and only say that Sister Jeanne seems to have created a most ingenious solution. I am sure your gardens will eventually profit.

We were all very interested in the unknown young man who managed to thwart the soldiers and give you opportunity to flee the chapel. I hope that when this terrible time ends – as it must do some day – you will be able to have the statue of the Sacred Heart repaired. The stonemasons' art is a noble one, although it is a pity that the nose and left foot of the Figure were ground into splinters. But I dare say they can be remodelled, and Jesus is still Jesus, even
sans
nose and several toes.

I regard that unknown young man in the guise of a messenger – a latter-day St George, overthrowing the enemy and preserving the innocence of the maidens. I would be inclined to ascribe the arrival of the small detachment from the Belgian Army at Sacré-Coeur as entirely due to that young man's endeavours as well. Clearly, he was resourceful as well as brave.

We read recently that the Prussian commander, Colonel von Bülow, was shocked and surprised by the degree of Belgian resistance, and that the siege at Liège took over a week – time he had not taken into account. This, I feel, illustrates that pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall, although I suppose I must do penance for entertaining such an uncharitable thought. At least the delay allowed the British forces to lend their fighting strength to the conflict. We wept for the fall of Antwerp, though, and for the poor people forced to flee their homes.

I shall do my best to trace for you the poor young thing, Leonora Gilmore, who was swept along by your unknown saviour in the chapel and seems to have vanished with him. May God grant that she was not destined to meet a worse fate in the stranger's company, that he continued his mission as protector of the innocent and had sufficient conscience and honour to deliver her into safe hands.

However, I fear that with your country and mine in such turmoil it will be very difficult for me to find out what happened to Leonora. She sounds an unusual and intelligent girl – it is rare for one of your Chorists to display interest in world affairs, but I think you were right to permit her to read newspaper accounts of what was happening in the world.

It is too easy, in our enclosed lives, to also enclose our minds and be unaware of the events beyond our walls. I was slightly shocked, though, at the story of how Sister Jeanne found copies of those two books in Leonora's locker, and actually caught her reading one of them under the bed sheets by candlelight after the Great Silence. It is understandable that with an English father Leonora would be interested in the books of English writers, but I believe Mr Somerset Maugham's private life is extremely dubious, and that of M'sieur D.H. Lawrence is little better.

However, if I can obtain news of Leonora I will assuredly write to you at once.

In the meantime, I hold you and your Sisters in my prayers.

Your loving sister in Christ,

Sr Dominique

Order of the Sacred Heart

Michael sat back, his mind filled with the images Sister Dominique's lively letter had summoned.

It was good to hear that the sisters of Sacré-Coeur had withstood the invasion – that they had hidden out in the crypt, eating lentils and waiting for deliverance – which had either come because Iskander had sent it, or because the Belgian armies had been resisting the Germans and had come to the convent. He reread the paragraph in which the trustful Dominique had expressed concern over Leonora's innocence, and thought she probably need not have worried, because deflowering virginal seventeen-year-olds was unlikely to have been in Iskander's code. Rogue and burglar he might have been, but Michael thought he had possessed the principles of a gentleman.

There were no further notes after the letter, but there was, rather unexpectedly, a further letter from the ubiquitous Chuffy, giving details of a niece's christening at which he had stood godfather – ‘The little sprog yelled her head off, and the godmother got potted on gin afterwards and had to be decanted into a taxi' – and went on to express a hope of seeing Boots at Christmas, because somebody called Bingo was giving a party at the Club which it would be a crying shame for Boots to miss.

Michael could not see why this should have been filed with the Palestrina Choir history, and was just deciding it had been shuffled together with the notes by mistake, when he turned to page two of Chuffy's letter, in which Chuffy observed that if Boots could not come up to Town for Bingo's festive bash, he, Chuffy, would have to come along to what he called Boots's draughty barracks and rout him out. Chuffy wrote: