‘There’s none like a sister for remembering one’s ancient sins.’ She smiled at me then, but its warmth fell short of transforming her sentiment to humour. She must have suspected as much, for she let the smile fall away, nodding towards the staircase. ‘Come along,’ she said. ‘Let’s go down. Careful, now. Make sure you hold the rail. My uncle died on those stairs when he was just a boy.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Hopelessly inadequate, but what else does one say? ‘How awful.’
‘A great storm blew up one evening and he was frightened, or so the story goes. Lightning sliced open the sky and struck right by the lake. The boy cried out in terror, but before his nurse could reach him, he leaped from his bed and fled the room. Silly lad: he stumbled and fell, landed at the bottom like a rag doll. We used to imagine we heard him crying in the night sometimes, when the weather was particularly bad. He hides beneath the third step, you know. Waiting to trip someone up. Hoping for someone to join him.’ She pivoted on the step below me, the fourth. ‘Do you believe in ghosts, Miss Burchill?’
‘I don’t know. Sort of.’ My gran had seen ghosts. A ghost, at any rate: my uncle Ed after he came off his motorbike in Australia.
I followed Percy Blythe down flights of stairs, along gloomy corridors, then down further still. Deeper, surely, than the level from which we’d climbed initially? Like all buildings that have evolved over time, Milderhurst was a patchwork. Wings had been added and altered, had crumbled and been restored. The effect was disorientating, particularly for someone with no natural compass whatsoever. It seemed as if the castle folded inwards, like one of those drawings by Escher, where you might continue walking the stairs, round and round, for eternity, without ever reaching an end. There were no windows – not since we’d left the attic – and it was exceedingly dark. At one stage I could have sworn I heard a drifting melody skating along the stones – romantic, wistful, vaguely familiar – but when we turned another corner it was gone, and perhaps it had never been. Something I certainly did not imagine was the pungent smell, which strengthened as we descended and was saved from being unpleasant by sheer virtue of its earthiness.
Even though Percy had pooh-poohed her father’s notion of the distant hours, I couldn’t help running my hand against the cool stones as we walked, wondering about the imprints Mum might have left when she was at Milderhurst. The little girl still walked beside me but she didn’t say much. I considered asking Percy about her, but having gone this far without announcing my connection to the house, anything I thought to say carried the stench of duplicity. In the end I opted for classic passive-aggressive subterfuge. ‘Was the castle requisitioned during the war?’
‘No. Dear God. I couldn’t have borne it. The damage that was done to some of the nation’s finest houses – no.’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘Thank goodness. I’d have felt it as a pain to my own body. We did our bit though. I was with the Ambulance Service for a time, over in Folkestone; Saffy stitched clothing and bandages, knitted a thousand scarves. We took in an evacuee, too, in the early years.’
‘Oh?’ My voice trilled slightly. Beside me the little girl skipped.
‘At Juniper’s urging. A young girl from London. Goodness, I’ve forgotten her name. Isn’t that a pip? – Apologies for the smell along here.’
Something inside me clenched in sympathy for that forgotten girl.
‘It’s the mud,’ Percy went on. ‘From where the moat used to be. The groundwater rises in summer, seeps through the cellars and brings the smell of rotting fish with it. Thankfully there’s nothing down here of much value. Nothing except the muniment room, and it’s watertight. The walls and floor are lined with copper, the door is made from lead. Nothing gets in or out of there.’
‘The muniment room.’ A chill rippled fast up my neck. ‘Just like in the
Percy paused, leaned on her cane and turned her eyes on me. ‘You’ve read it then.’
It wasn’t a question exactly, but I answered anyway. ‘I adored it growing up.’ As the words left my lips I felt a stirring of old deflation, the inability to express adequately my love for the book. ‘It was my favourite,’ I added, and the phrase hung hopefully before disintegrating into specks, powder from a puff that drifted unseen into the shadows.
‘It was very popular,’ said Percy, starting again down the corridor. No doubt she’d heard it all before. ‘It still is. Seventy-five years in print next year.’
‘Really?’
‘Seventy-five years,’ she said again, pulling open a door and issuing me up another flight of stairs. ‘I remember it like yesterday.’
‘The publication must have been very exciting.’
‘We were pleased to see Daddy happy.’ Did I notice the tiny hesitation then, or am I letting things learned later colour my earliest impressions?
A clock somewhere began its weary chime and I realized with a stab of regret that my hour was up. It seemed impossible, I’d have sworn black and blue that I’d only just arrived, but time is an odd, ungraspable thing. The hour that sagged between breakfast and my setting out for Milderhurst had taken an age to pass, but the sixty brief minutes I’d been granted inside the castle walls had fled like a flock of frightened birds.
Percy Blythe checked her own wristwatch. ‘I’ve dallied,’ she said with mild surprise. ‘I apologize. The grandfather is ten minutes fast, but we must get on nonetheless. Mrs Bird will be here to collect you on the hour and it’s quite a walk back to the entrance hall. There’ll be no time to see the tower, I’m afraid.’
I made a gasping noise, a cross between ‘Oh!’ and a sharp reaction to pain, and then I recovered myself: ‘I’m sure Mrs Bird won’t mind if I’m a little late.’
‘I was under the impression you had to be back in London?’
‘Yes.’ Though it seems unfathomable, for a moment I’d actually forgotten: Herbert, his car, the appointment he had to make in Windsor. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Never mind,’ said Percy Blythe, striding after her cane. ‘You’ll see it next time. When you visit us again.’ I noticed the assumption, but I didn’t think to query it, not at the time. Indeed, I gave it little thought other than to pass it off as a rather fun and meaningless rejoinder, for as we emerged from the stairwell I was distracted by a rustling sound.
The rustling, like the caretakers, was only very faint and I wondered at first if I’d imagined it, all that talk of the distant hours, people trapped in the stones, but when Percy Blythe also glanced around, I knew that I had not.
From an adjoining corridor, the dog lumbered into view. ‘Bruno,’ said Percy, surprised, ‘what are you doing all the way down here, fellow?’
He stopped right beside me and looked up from beneath his droopy lids.
Percy leaned forward to scratch him behind the ears. ‘Do you know what the word “lurcher” means? It’s from the Romany for thief. Isn’t that right, boy? Terribly cruel name for such a good old boy as you.’ She straightened slowly, one hand in the small of her back. ‘They were bred by the gypsies originally, used for poaching: rabbits and hares, other small creatures. Pure breeds were forbidden to anyone who didn’t belong to the nobility and the penalties were severe; the challenge was to retain the hunting skills whilst breeding in sufficient variation that they didn’t look like a threat.
‘He’s my sister’s, Juniper’s. Even as a small girl she loved animals specially; they seemed to love her too. We’ve always kept a dog for her, certainly since the trauma. They say everyone needs something to love.’
As if he knew and resented being made the topic of discussion, Bruno continued on his way. In his wake, the rustling came again faintly, only to be drowned out when a nearby phone began to ring.
Percy stood very still, listening the way people do when they’re awaiting confirmation that someone else has picked up.
The ringing continued until disconsolate silence closed around its final echo.
‘Come along,’ said Percy, a note of agitation clipping her voice. ‘There’s a shortcut through here.’
