on the affairs of the estate. I am determined to put right the neglect my brother allowed.
31st December 1900
I write these words as the nineteenth century draws to a close. In an hour from now I shall descend to our drawing room, where Julia and the children are waiting for me, and together we shall see in the New Year and the New Century. It is a night resonant with auguries for the future, also with unavoidable reminders from the past.
Because secrecy again has a hold on me, I must say that what Hutton and I did earlier this evening had to be done.
What I am about to write will be written with a hand that still trembles from the primaeval fears that were aroused in me. I have been thinking hard about what I can record of the experience, and have decided that a straightforward, even bald, description of what happened is the only way.
This evening, soon after nightfall, while the children were taking an early nap so that they could be awake later to see in the new century, I told Julia what I was about to do, and left her waiting in her sitting room.
I found Hutton, and we left the house and went together across the East Lawn towards the family vault. We transported the prestige materials on a handcart sometimes used by the gardeners.
Hutton and I had only storm lanterns to guide us, and unlocking the padlocked gate in near darkness took several minutes. The old lock had grown stiff with disuse.
As the wooden portal swung open, Hutton declared his unease. I felt terrific sympathy for him.
I said, 'Hutton, I don't expect you to go through with this. You may wait for me here if you like. Or you could return to the house, and I'll continue alone.'
'No, my Lord,' he replied in his honest way. 'I have agreed to this. To be frank I would not go in there alone, and neither, I dare say, would you. But apart from our imaginings there is nothing to fear.'
Leaving the cart by the entrance, we ventured inside. We held the storm lanterns raised at arm's length. The beams ahead did not reveal much, but our large shadows fell on the walls beside us. My memory of the vault was vague, because the only other time I had been inside I was still just a boy. The shallow flight of roughly cut stone steps led down into the hillside, and at the bottom, where there was a second door, the cavern widened a little.
The inner door was unlocked, but it was stiff and heavy to move aside. We grated it open, then went through into the abysmally dark space beyond. We could sense rather than see the cavern spreading before us. Our lanterns barely penetrated the gloom.
There was an acrid smell in the air, so sharp that it was almost a taste in the mouth. I lowered my lantern and adjusted the wick, hoping to tease a little more light from it. Our irruption into the place had set free a million motes of dust, swirling around us.
Hutton spoke beside me, his voice muted in the stifling acoustics of the underground chamber.
'Sir, should I collect the prestige materials?'
I could just make out his features in the lantern's glow.
'Yes, I think so. Do you need me to help you?'
'If you would wait at the bottom of the steps, sir.'
He walked quickly up the flight of steps, and I knew he wanted to be done as soon as possible. As his light receded I felt more keenly alone, vulnerable to childish fears of the dark, and of the dead.
Here in this place were most of my forebears, laid out ritually on shelves and slabs, rendered down to bones or fragments of bones, lying in boxes and shrouds, wreathed in dust and flaking garments. When I cast the lantern about I could make out dim shapes on some of the nearer slabs. Somewhere, down the vault, out of the range of my lamp, I heard the scuttling of a large rodent. I moved to the right, reaching out with my hand, and felt a stone slab at about the height of my waist and I groped across it. I felt small sharp objects, loose to the touch. The stink immediately intensified in my nose, and I felt myself beginning to gag. I recoiled away, glimpsing the horrid fragments of that old life as my beam swung around. All the rest were invisible to me, yet with no difficulty I could imagine the scene that lay before me just beyond the feeble reach of the lamp. In spite of this I held the lamp high, and swung it around, hoping for a sight of what was there. I knew the reality could hardly be as unpleasant as my imaginings! I sensed that these long-dead ancestors were being roused by my arrival, and were shifting from their positions, raising a grisly head or a skeletal hand, croaking out their own obscure terrors that my presence was arousing in them.
One of these rocky shelves bore the casket of my own father.
I was torn by my fears. I wanted to follow Hutton up to the outside air, yet I knew I had to plunge further on into the depths of the vault. I could make neither move, because dread held me to where I stood. I am a rational man who seeks explanations and welcomes the scientific method, yet for those few seconds Hutton was away from me I was tormented by the easy rush of the illogical.
Then at last I heard him again on the steps, dragging the first of the large sacks containing the prestige materials. I was only too glad to turn and give him a hand, even though he seemed able to shift the weight on his own. I had to put down my lantern while we got the sack through the door, and because Hutton had left his own light with the handcart we were working in almost total darkness.
I said to him, 'I'm profoundly glad you are here to help me, Hutton.'
'I realize that, my Lord. I should not have cared to do this myself alone.'
'Then let us complete it quickly.'
This time we went back to the handcart together, and dragged down the second large sack.
My original plan had been to explore the crypt in full, looking for the best place in which to store the prestige materials, but now I was here I lost all wish to do anything of the sort. Because our lights were so inadequate at penetrating the darkness I knew that all searching would have to be done at close quarters. I dreaded having to investigate any more of those shelves and slabs that I was so readily envisaging. They were around me on both sides, and the cavern extended far beyond. It was full of death, full of the dead, redolent of finality, life abandoned to the rats.
'We'll leave the sacks here,' I said. 'As far off the floor as possible. I'll come down here again tomorrow, when it's daylight. With a better torch.'
'I completely understand, sir.'
Together we went to the left wall, and located another of the slabs. Bracing myself, I felt across it with my hand. There seemed to be nothing significant there, so with Hutton's help I lifted up the two sackfuls of prestige materials. With this done, and without saying another word between us, we returned quickly to the surface, and pushed the outer door closed behind us. I shuddered.
In the cold air of the night-time garden, Hutton and I shook hands.
'Thank you for helping me, Hutton,' I said. 'I had no idea that it would be like that down there.'
'Nor I, my Lord. Will you be requiring anything else from me this evening?'
I considered.
'Would you and your wife care to join myself and Lady Colderdale at midnight? We plan to see in the New Year.'
'Thank you, sir. We shall be honoured to do so.'
And that was how our expedition ended. Hutton dragged the handcart away towards the garden shed, and I crossed the East Lawn then walked around the periphery of the house to the main entrance. I came directly to this room, to write my account while events were still fresh.
However, a necessary delay arose before I could begin. As I entered the room I caught a sight of myself in my dressing mirror, and I stopped to look.
Thick white dust clung to my boots and ankles. Cobwebs straggled across my shoulders and chest. My hair had become matted on my head, apparently held down by a thick layer of grey dirt, and the same filth caked my face. My eyes, red-rimmed, stared out from the hollow mask my face had become, and for a few moments I stood there transfixed by the sight of myself. It seemed to me that I had been hideously transformed by my visit to the family tomb, becoming one of its denizens.
I shook off the thought with the dirty clothes, climbed into the filled bath waiting for me in my dressing room, and washed away the grime.
Now this account has been written, and it is close to midnight. It is time for me to seek out my family and household for the simple and familiar ceremony that celebrates the end of one year and, in this case, one century,
