how it stays. You’ve got time on your hands. I wish you luck, little brother. Just don’t get too carried away with it, that’s all. I wouldn’t want you running amok and smashing up Kilnsgate House. Or this place, for that matter.’ He looked around at the farmhouse I knew he and Siobhan loved dearly. ‘This place has its history, too, you know, its memories. Not to mention its night noises.’
I smiled and stood up. ‘I’ll try not to let them drive me to destruction,’ I said. ‘Goodnight, Graham, and thanks for the cognac. And the story.’
Graham nodded. ‘See you in the morning.’
I was definitely feeling a little drunk as I made my way over the uneven stone flags to the creaky wooden stairs. Graham was right; this was an old house, and it no doubt had a few stories to tell of its own. I wasn’t in the mood for them tonight, though; all I wanted was sleep.
But, of course, sleep wouldn’t come. The room I was in was the one where I slept with Laura when we visited. The same bed. It felt much lonelier than the bed at Kilnsgate, in which I had never slept with anyone. Thoughts like this spiralled in my mind, the way they do when you’re a bit drunk, and began to turn into thoughts about the conversation I had just had with Graham.
I thought of taking out my iPod and listening to some soothing music, or to a story. I had an unabridged audio book of Far From the Madding Crowd that I was very much enjoying. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate. Graham’s story haunted me, though it still sounded very much like something that had happened to someone else. Still, the scar was there, on my hand, and sometimes it itched.
Had I really seen a young woman’s figure in the mirror and smashed the glass out of fear? Had it really been the image of a woman who had hanged herself in that very room several years earlier, or had I simply awoken from a bad dream and imagined it all? I didn’t know. And how could I ever know? It was the same with the figure I’d glimpsed in the wardrobe mirror at Kilnsgate. I’d put it down to a trick of the moonlight, but was it something else? Was it Grace? I hadn’t told Graham about it. I hadn’t told anyone. Why? Because I couldn’t explain it rationally? Because it would make them think I was going mad?
I trusted Graham. He had no reason to lie to me about something as momentous as this, but nobody could really know what happened in that room except me, and I couldn’t remember. My father was dead, so he couldn’t help me, and Mrs Gooch was no doubt long since departed, too. I supposed I could ask Mother and check the newspaper archives, as Graham himself had done later, but what was the point of that, if I believed him? It would only confirm the truth about the suicide, not that I had seen anything unusual in the mirror. Graham had told me everything I needed to know. Only through remembering could I be certain what happened that night.
All these questions circled in my mind like birds of prey while I tried to get to sleep. What did it all have to do with Grace Fox and Kilnsgate House? I wondered. I had thought it was my choice to become interested in Grace’s story, but was it? I remembered the sense I had had on first approaching Kilnsgate that the house was somehow waiting for me. Had I been pushed into my investigation by forces I didn’t understand? I found it hard to accept that powers beyond my own will were playing me like a puppet. It all seemed a bit too Don’t Look Now . Donald Sutherland thinks he sees his wife on the prow of a funeral boat in Venice when she’s supposed to be out of town, and it turns out to be his own funeral. He was psychic but he didn’t know it. Music by Pino Donaggio.
I heard creaking noises outside in the corridor, then realised that it was probably just Graham going to the toilet. A few moments later, I heard a flush and more creaking as he went back to his room. His story had got me edgy, and I found myself jumping at every little thing.
I pictured Grace again, and this time her image was calming. She appeared just as she did in one of Sam’s best portraits: pensive, distant, but still sensual and alluring, her mouth downturned slightly at the edges, eyes like midnight lakes you just wanted to plunge into and drown in, the tangle of waves framing her oval face, her shoulders pale and naked. I felt myself drifting towards sleep. Grace opened her arms to me. Then the image changed into Laura, the snowflakes melting on her cheeks, in her golden hair as she took off the fur hat, then it became someone else, someone I didn’t recognise. Perhaps the girl from the mirror. I could smell cocoa and hear the wind outside scraping some fallen leaves across the courtyard. The image in my mind started to say something to me but, mercifully, oblivion came at last.
10
Famous Trials: Grace Elizabeth Fox, April 1953, by Sir Charles Hamilton Morley
A pale Grace Fox appeared in the dock wearing a simple grey cardigan over a high-buttoned pearl blouse, her face free of make-up, her hair tied back in a tight bun. The austerity and severity of her appearance would be in marked contrast to the picture that Sir Archibald Yorke, QC, was about to paint of her for the jury. Grace also seemed remarkably composed, or resigned, for a woman on trial for her life, and her expression, though drained of all colour and joy by the dim and airless character of the prison cell, rarely showed any signs of emotion. Sir Archibald Yorke, QC, hitched his gown with a flourish, adjusted his wig, and set about his opening remarks, depicting Grace Fox in no uncertain terms as the deceitful, sexually profligate wife of an elderly unsuspecting country doctor. Finding her relationship with a penniless artist young enough to be her son threatened by a potential move out of the area, Grace took the dramatic step of putting an end to her husband’s life. This, Sir Archibald argued, she did with a great degree of cold-blooded cunning and premeditation. Not only did she have the necessary means at hand, but she also made certain that she had a house full of captive witnesses who, she hoped, would all be willing and able to appear in her defence, having participated to varying degrees in the charade she had planned for the night of 1st January, 1953. In his words, Grace Fox was ‘a very clever, manipulative, resourceful and evil woman’. Grace knew full well that her husband suffered from stomach problems and was prone to heartburn and indigestion, especially after so rich and hearty a meal as they enjoyed on the evening in question. She also knew that this had never curbed his enthusiasm for food and drink, which she supplied in plenty. Though Hetty Larkin had prepared the dishes, she had done so under the full supervision and instructions of Mrs. Fox, who had provided her with both the menu and the receipts. Mrs. Fox knew that she needed witnesses in order to ensure that no blame fell on her, that her husband’s death appeared as if it had occurred from natural causes, and that it appeared as if she, as a trained nurse, had done everything within her powers to save him. What Grace had, in fact, done, Sir Archibald contended, was adulterate her husband’s stomach powder with chloral hydrate, thereby sedating him, then returned to the dinner party and rejoined the unsuspecting convivial gaiety of the Lamberts. Later, when her guests and her servant had all retired for the night, Grace entered her husband’s room – they had been sleeping in separate bedrooms for some time now, Sir Archibald stressed – and injected Dr. Ernest Fox with enough potassium chloride to cause cardiac arrest. When her husband had begun to show symptoms, Grace Fox had raised the hue and cry, thereby ensuring that the eminently sensible and light-sleeping Alice Lambert would be present to watch over Grace’s desperate ministrations to her dying husband, the very husband she had poisoned in the first place. But Ernest Fox died even faster than Grace had imagined, and Alice Lambert arrived on the scene only after Grace had administered the final, futile injection of digitalis. Could ever a crime be so heinous in its machinations? Sir Archibald demanded of the jury at this point. Afterwards, in the hours and days during which the four people were snowbound and out of communication with the rest of the world, Grace Fox had plenty of opportunity to get rid of the evidence. The paper that had contained the contaminated stomach powder could easily have been destroyed in the fire downstairs, which was burning constantly owing to the excessive cold, and the syringe was thoroughly sterilised and replaced alongside its companion in Dr. Fox’s medical bag. Any traces of potassium chloride or of chloral hydrate that remained in the house could also have been easily destroyed, as none was found. It was a shrewd but simple plan, Sir Archibald concluded. Afterwards, all Grace had to do was clear up after herself, keep quiet, play the grieving widow, and forbear secret meetings with her lover for some months. They had been careful and discreet in their adulterous meetings, but then they had not bargained for Sir Archibald’s first witness, Mrs. Patricia Compton of Leyburn.
October 2010
I stayed with Graham and Siobhan for another few days, as I had no urgent business back in Richmond, and perhaps also because I wanted to convince Graham that I wasn’t obsessed with Grace Fox, that I could relax and enjoy the scenery. It was the end of October, and though the days seemed longer in the south, at night there was a distinct autumn chill in the air. Both days started with an early mist through which the sun had usually burned by
