Encounters. Barbara Erskine

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СКАЧАТЬ had come. It had been an irrational, silly moment. She pushed at the door and frowned, rattling the handle. It seemed to have locked itself.

      ‘Here. Let me.’ Robert shook it hard. ‘You are sure it was unlocked?’

      ‘Of course I’m sure. It must have latched.’ He could hear the rising panic in her voice again.

      ‘Never mind, Victoria darling, it doesn’t matter.’ He put his arm round her, pulling her to him. ‘We can walk round the outside before we go.’

      Victoria moved away sharply from his strangely alien embrace and with a little sob she turned and ran down the passage.

      Robert stared after her in astonishment and fear, then slowly he followed her.

      William was waiting for them in the main entrance hall. ‘Ready to go upstairs?’ He glanced at them surreptitiously. They both looked agitated; uneasy.

      ‘Why not?’ Robert followed him towards the staircase.

      ‘What did you think of the west wing?’

      ‘Not a lot,’ Robert smiled tightly. ‘What on earth happened to it?’

      ‘The house was used as a nursing home during the first war and they used that wing for the operating theatre and wards for the worst injured men.’ William glanced at Victoria who had gone white. ‘When the family moved back in about 1920 they left it as it was. Just closed the door and pretended it wasn’t there until they forgot about it. And I think each successive generation has done the same since. Did you see the stretcher poles? They always give me the creeps.’

      ‘So that’s what they were.’ Robert shuddered. ‘Something I know a bit about.’

      ‘It’s an unhappy place,’ Victoria put in quietly.

      William nodded. ‘I suspect a lot of young men died here. Luckily the rest of the house seems unaffected. I wouldn’t let it worry you.’ He didn’t give them time to react. Turning, he led the way up the broad unlit sweep of stairs. Halfway up he stopped. ‘Mrs Holland?’

      Victoria was standing where they had left her. Her face was drained of colour.

      ‘The nurse. Stephen’s nurse. She was wearing some sort of big white head dress …’

      ‘No, Victoria.’ Robert limped back down the stairs towards her. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Just stop it. What you saw was a real nurse. A modern nurse. She probably saw me in the distance and decided to go back downstairs.’

      William was frowning at them from the staircase. He felt a shiver touch his spine. What had she seen? One of his colleagues from the firm had seen something when she had stayed to lock up after showing some people around a few days before. That was why she had refused to come this morning. ‘You can deal with that place,’ she had said. ‘I’m not going there again!’

      He glanced at Victoria. ‘What happened?’ he asked cautiously.

      ‘I met someone in the garden, that’s all.’ Victoria said. ‘A house guest of Lady Penelope’s. He’s been in some sort of accident and he has a nurse to look after him. I thought I saw her in the window upstairs, that’s all.’

      ‘Lady Penelope said the house would be empty.’ William swallowed hard.

      ‘Well obviously it isn’t.’ Suddenly Robert was impatient. ‘Let’s look round upstairs, quickly, then I think we should go.’

      Hastily they trailed through the main bedrooms of the house, through the bathrooms and the guest rooms. The only one showing any sign of occupation was Lady Penelope’s own. There there were piles of books by the bed, a bottle of aspirins and some spare reading glasses. The other rooms were all neat and impersonal and unused. There was no room obviously allocated to Stephen. Or his nurse. Victoria felt a pang of disappointment. His face, his voice were still with her. It was as if for a few short moments he had been a part of her.

      ‘So. That just leaves the gardens.’ William had escorted them finally back to the kitchen via the second staircase. Checking the door into the west wing, he noted that the bolts were all firmly closed. ‘As you probably noticed when you came in they were once very beautiful. With some care and attention they could bloom again.’

      He led them back to the front door and down the steps. The sun was high, beating on the gravel with the white reflective heat more commonly associated with a Mediterranean afternoon than with an English countryside, even in August.

      They walked slowly round the south side of the house and wandered across rough uncut lawns, through untrimmed hedges, an overgrown vegetable garden and between rampant woody herbs. The garden was very silent. It was too hot for birds. The only sound came from the bees.

      Beneath the cedar tree on the western side of the house they stopped. Victoria looked round expectantly. Then she frowned. ‘I don’t understand. I thought it was here I saw Stephen. It was near this tree. There were rose beds full of flowers and the house was painted on that side, and the windows were open. There must be another tree like this …’

      ‘No.’ William shook his head firmly. ‘There is only one cedar.’

      ‘But we were standing there, by the door …’

      They all stared at the door into the west wing. It was boarded up.

      ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve got confused. It must have been another door. There were rose beds, and a bank of hollyhocks and a garden seat, and the grass was short. There were daisies everywhere. And music. Music coming from the open windows. He picked a rose for me.’ She hadn’t realized that her voice was rising.

      William swallowed. He shivered again.

      She had the rose in her hand. It was a deep damask red. Several small thorns still adhered to the stem and as she held it out to Robert one pricked her. A fleck of blood appeared on her thumb. ‘It didn’t mean anything. He just gave it to me. It was a silly gesture.’ She could feel her eyes filling with tears. ‘I … I’ll go and look. There must be another part of the garden we didn’t see. The other side perhaps. Somewhere …’

      Before either of the men could say anything she began to run, ducking through the thick laurel bushes which edged the grass onto the gravel of the drive.

      William looked at Robert, embarrassed. ‘We have been all the way round the house, Mr Holland. There are no other gardens. There are no rose beds. Not now.’

      Robert laughed uncomfortably. ‘Perhaps she fell asleep and dreamed it all. In this heat anything is possible.’

      Slowly they walked after her. Both men were thinking of the rose.

      ‘There isn’t anyone else staying here, Mr Holland,’ William said after a moment. ‘Lady Penelope rang us this morning to say she’ll be away another week. She wanted to check we were locking up properly. She said the house was empty.’

      ‘Victoria, this is crazy. You can’t go back there. I’ve told the agents we’re not interested. And that’s that.’ Robert threw down the paper. Pushing his hands into his pockets he went to stand in front of the open window, trying to hide his despair.

      Since the previous weekend she had not СКАЧАТЬ