Distant Voices

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1996

This edition published by Harper 2017

Copyright © Barbara Erskine 1996 and as follows:

‘The Toy Soldier’ (Woman’s Weekly) 1996; ‘Writer’ (Chic Magazine) 1996; ‘Aboard the Moonbeam’ (Woman’s Story) 1976; ‘Dance Little Lady’ (Rio) 1981; ‘Distant Voices’ (Woman’s Weekly) 1994; ‘A Family Affair’ (Rio); ‘The Fate of the Phoenix’ (Woman’s Weekly) 1993; ‘Flowers for the Teacher’ (Your Story) 1975; ‘Moment of Truth’ (Romance Magazine) 1978; ‘The Poet’ (Judy) 1976; ‘Stranger’s Choice’ (Scottish Home & County); ‘A Test of Love’ (Romance) 1976; ‘To Adam, a Son’ (Truly Yours) 1975; ‘Watch the Wall, My Darling’ (Woman’s Realm) 1989; ‘When the Chestnut Blossoms Fall’ (Woman’s World); ‘Choices’ (Sunday Post) 1996; ‘Island Shadows’ (Sunday Post) 1996

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Barbara Erskine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008180911

Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN: 9780007375103

Version: 2017-09-08

Praise

‘Written with imagination, and spiced with a sharp observation of human foibles. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better book for your bedside table.’

Yorkshire Evening Post

Dedication

In Memory of

‘Uncle Stuart’

STUART ERSKINE BIRRELL

1887–1916

a kindred spirit

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Preface

Distant Voices

The Drop Out

Moment of Truth

The Duck Shoot Man

Frost

The Fairy Child

Who Done It?

Watch the Wall, My Darling

OBE

The Gift of Music

Island Shadows

A Test of Love

Witchcraft for Today

The Poet

The Toy Soldier

To Adam a Son

Writer

The Fate of the Phoenix

When the Chestnut Blossoms Fall

The Inheritance

Dance Little Lady

Rosemary and Thyme

Flowers for the Teacher

A Family Affair

Networking

Catherine’s Cat

Stranger’s Choice

Aboard the Moonbeam

Choices

Two’s Company

Keep Reading Barbara Erskine's Novels

Keep Reading Sleeper’s Castle

About the Author

Also by Barbara Erskine

About the Publisher

Preface

When my first collection of short stories, Encounters, was published in 1990 I did not expect to be asked to compile a second, so I was enormously pleased to find myself writing some new stories, and making a further selection amongst my old ones, for Distant Voices.

I still very much enjoy writing short stories. For me they are the sorbet between the courses of longer novels. They freshen and stimulate the palate. They indulge the writer’s and the reader’s whim with a quick glimpse into shadow or sunlight. They intrigue, they titillate, they frighten or they amuse.

As in Encounters those stories that are not new have been chosen from more than two decades of writing and are very varied in theme. To select a few for comment or explanation might help to put the collection in context. Three of the stories, for example, A Test of Love, To Adam a Son and Flowers for the Teacher are unsophisticated and sentimental, written in the early seventies for the so-called true-life market, while others like Witchcraft for Today and When the Chestnut Blossoms Fall depict incidents in an older world where romance has grown a little cynical.

There are of course ghost stories – two inspired by my own garden. The core story in Frost came from a sad tale told me about a greenhouse here, thankfully perhaps, now demolished; Rosemary and Thyme is based on an experience which I had myself whilst weeding in my herb garden one morning in early spring.

Catherine’s Cat has laid to rest (or perhaps not?) a terror which haunted me for a while as a child and made bedtime a torment for many months – the suitcase on the wardrobe. The Duck Shoot Man was based on an incident which happened to my mother and my grandmother and myself when we paused on a journey to Edinburgh and spent the night on Lindisfarne.

Dance Little Lady (purely imagination, this one!) was written in the brash eighties; The Toy Soldier (inspired by a toy we found in our cottage) in the more thoughtful nineties, a time of redundancy and re-evaluation.

There are many more, about different times and different places, depicting different moods and both the strange and the mundane.

Three of the stories are much longer than the others. Dance Little Lady, A Family Affair and Watch the Wall are almost novellas – two mini thrillers and one a historical romance – something to get your teeth into.

Whatever the length and whatever the subject, I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Distant Voices

The lock was stiff and the door swollen. It was several seconds before Jan could force it open and peer at last from the bright sunlight of the porch into the darkness of the house.

As she had climbed out of the car, which was parked on the overgrown gravel of the drive, and looked up at the grey stone façade, she had felt a strange nervousness.

‘Go and have a look round, my dear. Take as long as you like.’ David Seymour had pressed the large iron key into her hand the day before, when she had met him for the first time. ‘I want you to get a feel of how it was.’ He smiled at her, his gentle face dissolving into a network of deep wrinkles, contradicting his initial wariness. ‘Then we’ll talk. Later.’

His grandson, Simon, had been with him. ‘Simon’s an architect. Clever chap.’ The old man had introduced him fondly. The young man was tall and fair with his grandfather’s piercing eyes. Where the older man had the look of a buzzard, hunched, predatory, the younger version was an eagle, right down to the aquiline nose. He had held out his hand to Jan, but his appraisal of her was anything but friendly. Clever he may be, she decided instantly, but also hostile, defensive, and summoned, she suspected, to guard his grandfather’s privacy.

Of all the people there on that fatal night fifty years ago, David Seymour had been the hardest to approach. And without him she would get nowhere. He had been, after all, the husband.

She had looked forward so much to this part of her research. Interviewing the people concerned; comparing their memories; putting the pieces of the jigsaw together. But it was harder than she had imagined. Some of the people there had suppressed what had happened for over fifty years. The memories were painful, even after so long. To have an inquisitive journalist raking over the past was the last thing many of them wanted.

She took a step into the darkness of the house and paused. It smelled damp and musty. The floors were dusty and cobwebs hung festooned across the landing window. She peered along the corridor towards the staircase which swept uncarpeted up towards the light and then round and out of sight.

That must have been where she fell.

Behind her the door creaked. A wind was getting up. She could hear the rustling of the leaves on the oaks which grew on either side of the long driveway and she shivered, half wishing now that she had brought someone with her. ‘This is silly.’ The sound of her voice in the intense silence was an intrusion, but a necessary one. She reached into her soft leather shoulder bag and brought out her micro cassette recorder.

‘Monday the fourth,’ she said firmly, holding the machine close to her mouth. ‘I have just arrived at The Laurels. I am standing in the front hall. The house is empty and has obviously been closed for a long time. No one lives here now and there is, as far as I can see, no furniture or anything here.’

She moved to a door on her left and put her hand out to push it open. The room inside was empty; pale light filtered through round the edges of the shutters, diffused green by the ivy which clung to the outside wall. The parquet floor was scuffed and criss-crossed with old, long-dried muddy footprints.

‘This must have been the drawing room. It’s large. Beautiful. Ceiling mouldings; candelabra, lovely carved mantelpiece,’ she murmured into the machine in her hand. She sounded, she thought with sudden wry amusement, like a house agent preparing particulars for the sale of an especially desirable property.

The silence was intense. She turned off her little machine and walked slowly around the room, trying to feel the atmosphere. Had they all been in here, talking, drinking, smoking, when it had happened? Dinner was over, they were all agreed on that. And the ladies had withdrawn. But what had happened after that? John Milton said they had all gathered in the drawing room and that someone had agreed to sing. Sarah Courtney said the men were sitting over their port whilst the ladies were still upstairs, powdering their noses. Stella had finished and had gone on down alone …

Walking back to the foot of the stairs, Jan peered up. ‘The staircase is shallow, graceful, curved elegantly around the wall,’ she murmured into her machine. The banister, polished and smooth, was almost warm beneath the light touch of her fingers. ‘Stella Seymour’s body was found crumpled at the bottom by the other guests who ran from the dining room, and presumably from the bedroom, when they heard her scream. At the time her death was widely thought to be suicide. It was only four years later, after the war had ended, at the instigation of the man who claimed to have been her lover, that the first accusation of murder was heard.’

Slowly Jan began to climb. Half-way up she stopped suddenly. She could hear something. The intense silence of the house had gone and instead, she realised, she could hear a gentle murmur of conversation coming from somewhere quite near her. She was almost at the bend in the staircase. Frozen with embarrassment she looked up and then back. David Seymour had promised her the house was empty. She could feel her heart beating fast. This was ridiculous. She had permission to be here.

Squatters? Was that it? Could there be squatters in the house? Uncertain what to do, she clutched her tape recorder more tightly as she tiptoed on up the stairs and peered along the upper landing. Several doors stood open up there; all the rooms were empty of furniture.

The sound of voices was louder now. She could hear the occasional chink of glass, of cutlery on china. It sounded as if a dinner party were in progress. Flattening herself against the wall she squinted back down the stairs where she could just see the door opposite the drawing room. It was closed. Why hadn’t she looked in there? Had she not noticed it in her anxiety to see the staircase? Whatever the reason, she thanked God she had not gone barging in, for that seemed to be where the noise was coming from. Get out. That was what she must do. Get out now, without anyone seeing her.

Taking a deep breath she crept back down the stairs, intensely aware that this was where Stella Seymour had died.

The sounds were quieter again now that she was nearly down. Gradually the hall fell silent. The front door was still ajar as she had left it. She could see the wedge of sunlight thrown across the dusty floor. How strange that the noises had been louder from upstairs.

She stopped. She could smell cigars. Then, quite near her, she heard a man laugh. Spinning round, she faced the sound. There was no one to be seen. Her mouth dry, she switched off her tape recorder. Pushing it into her shoulder bag, she tiptoed towards the dining room door, holding her breath as she edged closer. She could see now that it was not quite shut. Cautiously she moved forward. She could hear the voices again. And subdued laughter. Smell the tobacco. There was a sudden crescendo in the noise and a shout of laughter as she brought her eye to the crack in the door.

They were sitting around an oblong table – some dozen people – no, she saw suddenly, just men, all at one end of the table. The air was wreathed in smoke. They were all wearing dinner jackets.

A sudden sound behind her brought her upright swiftly, her heart pounding. She could hear footsteps on the landing.

‘David, darling –’ The voice was clear and high. Excited. There was a rustle of skirts, the quick patter of feet and then suddenly – horribly – a high-pitched scream.

Jan froze, her hand still clenched on the door-frame behind her back. She could hear it. The sound of a body falling, but there was nothing there. Nothing at all. The dust was untouched on the steps save for the scuff marks where her own shoes had been.

Whirling, she stared behind her at the door. Beyond it there was total silence. Her heart was hammering so loudly in her ears she felt sure it must echo all round the house as she pulled the door-handle and swung the door open. The dining room was empty. There was no table. No scent of tobacco. The room smelled merely of damp.

Only when she was sitting at last in her car peering back at the house did she start to breathe again. She flung her bag onto the passenger seat beside her and slammed down the door lock, then she sat for a moment, her forehead resting against the rim of the steering wheel. She was shaking all over.

David Seymour had poured her a cup of coffee himself, from hands which were considerably less shaky than hers, despite his ninety-four years. ‘You’ve just come from The Laurels now?’ He stood looking down at her, his expression curiously neutral. ‘My dear Miss Haydon, I am so sorry you should have been so frightened. There is no one there, I can assure you. My grandson keeps an eye on the place for me. He went over there only a couple of days ago.’

‘I shouldn’t have come straight to you like this.’ The black coffee was taking effect. This was an old man and his memories of the house must be bad enough without her adding to them with wild stories about ghosts!

He shook his head, sitting down opposite her. ‘I’m glad you did. Who else would you go to?’ He reached for the phone from the table beside him. ‘I’m calling my grandson now. He can go over there straightaway to check that there are no intruders.’ His voice was strong and alert, like the rest of him, Jan thought, as she leaned back against the cushions and sipped her coffee gratefully.

She realised he was watching her intently as he replaced the receiver. ‘Simon is coming over here first.’ He reached for his own cup. He paused. ‘You are irrevocably set upon writing my wife’s biography?’

Jan frowned. ‘There are a great many people who would love to read it. She was a very great painter. She’s been a heroine of mine for as long as I can remember.’

‘And that is a reason for raking over her bones?’

The sharpness of the words brought Jan up with a shock.

‘I’m sorry. I understood you had no objection to the book.’

‘Would it matter if I had?’ His gaze was suddenly piercing.

‘Well …’ She hesitated.

‘No. Of course it wouldn’t. In fact my opposition would whet your appetite. It would make you curious. You would want to know what the old buzzard was hiding!’ He glared at her.

She smiled shame-facedly. ‘I expect it would, if I’m honest.’

He nodded, seemingly satisfied with her answer. ‘Good. You’ll do. Now, do you believe that I murdered her?’ The directness of the question was shocking.

‘I – no – of course not.’ She was embarrassed.

‘There is no of course not about it, my dear. You must search the evidence. You must be a thorough and honest investigator.’

‘But they never charged you.’

‘No.’

‘You loved her.’

The old face softened. ‘Indeed I did. I worshipped her.’

‘And she didn’t have an affair –’

‘Didn’t she?’ He seemed suddenly to be looking inside himself, searching for pictures which had long ago grown fuzzy and out of focus. ‘She was a vibrant, sociable, lovely person and she was lonely. I had been away so long. It was the war.’

Jan bit her lip. ‘Then the article in the American paper was true?’ It had appeared only a few months ago, reviving old memories, claiming that the baby Stella had been expecting was the result of an affair.

‘I did not say that.’ She could see his pain. ‘I didn’t know if I could father more children; I had been wounded. But the American had long gone and Stella was above all honest. She said he had meant nothing and I believed her. I did not know he had taken so many of her pictures away …’

‘Surely the pictures didn’t mean anything.’ Obscurely she felt she had to comfort him. ‘He could have been going to sell them or exhibit them for her –’

‘Perhaps.’ He sighed. ‘The fall was an accident. A catastrophic, disastrous, tragic accident. She would not have killed herself. I’m sure she wouldn’t. And yet how can I be sure? And how will I ever know about the child?’ He took a deep breath and looked up at her again, suddenly almost pleading. ‘You will make your own mind up as to the truth of all this, and I think you will make the right decision.’

Was he asking her to decide? To find out the truth for him? Jan bit her lip as the old man sighed again, a bone-weary sound which tore at her heartstrings.

‘In a way I’m glad all this has happened,’ he went on after a moment. ‘Simon has been trying to make me face the rumours and think about that house for years. It’s an albatross; a Pandora’s box. If there are people squatting there, which I doubt, then it’s time to let it go. I hope Simon will get married, then he could live there, but it’s too big for one person alone.’ There was another short silence. ‘Stella wouldn’t have liked squatters. She loved that house, you know. All her best painting was done there.’ He levered himself to his feet. ‘Did you see her studio?’

Jan shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I left rather quickly.’

The old man grinned. ‘Ran away, did you? Can’t blame you. I’ve always thought the house was rather spooky, myself, but Stella always filled it with people. There was never any silence. Only when she was painting, or when she said she was painting …’ He turned away sharply. For a moment Jan wondered if he were sobbing silently. She could see the movement of his shoulders and she ached to comfort him. But as she watched he straightened himself and with a visible effort he turned and went over to the window.

Jan too had heard the car draw up outside. She waited, watching, as David Seymour turned to face the door.

Simon’s first words were to the point. ‘If you have been upsetting Grandfather –’

‘No, Simon!’ The old man’s interruption was peremptory. ‘She has been doing nothing of the kind. I gave the girl permission to go to The Laurels. And I want her to write Stella’s story. It’s all so long ago now. No one is going to be hurt …’

Simon swung round. ‘But Grandfather –’

‘Enough.’ David threw himself back on the chair with a groan. ‘I want you to tell her everything she wants to know. And go with her to check out the house.’ He gave a short laugh which after a moment changed into a cough. ‘She thinks someone is squatting there. She heard people in the dining room.’

They went in Simon’s car. Jan had followed him out of the house reluctantly, sensing his hostility. ‘I’m sorry to inflict this on you,’ she said as she slotted her seatbelt into place. ‘I’m sure you have better things to do than chase out to the country at a moment’s notice.’

‘If there are squatters something must be done about it,’ he replied. Engaging gear smoothly he swung the car out into the traffic. ‘How long were you in the house?’

‘Only a few minutes.’

‘But you saw no one?’

She hesitated. How could she tell him what she saw? ‘No.’

‘And the door was locked?’

She nodded. ‘It didn’t seem to have been opened for ages.’

‘I have the back door key. I imagine that if there are intruders, they too have gone in that way. Only Grandfather still has the front door key, as far as I know.’

‘Do you remember your grandmother?’ Jan glanced at him curiously.

He gave a short laugh. ‘Hardly. She died long before I was born.’

‘I’m sorry. Of course.’

‘You’ve seen her self portrait? The one in the town gallery?’

Jan nodded. ‘She was very beautiful.’

‘Yes.’ He turned onto the bypass and accelerated away from the traffic. ‘I suppose the idea is to bring your book out in time for the exhibition they’re planning for next year to mark the fiftieth anniversary of her death.’

‘It will be wonderful to have so many of her paintings together.’

‘Even the ones in the States. Quite.’ His voice was dry. ‘We’re almost there.’