The light changed direction again and illuminated a third portrait.
A harsh white face in a black periwig. A diamond ring on a thin white hand lightly holding a small purple flower, a bunch of lace, lidded eyes. A clever face. A voluptuous face. I shivered.
‘Wicked William Easton,’ said Nicholas.
‘Not by Lely, this one,’ I said, peering more closely at the portrait. ‘But a similar style, surely?’
‘It’s unsigned, and we have no record of the painter. A pupil of Lely? Could be. Skillfully done, though. Taken during William’s youth, obviously, before he became dissolute.’
I shuddered. ‘That man was born dissolute!’
I looked again at the hooded eyes and tried to read their expression. Dark and scornful, but there was more – they gleamed with unconcealed invitation. The full lips twisted with a humourless certitude. This man knew he could have anyone he wanted. After more than three centuries, he still had the power to make me look away, blushing, repelled and overwhelmed by the force of his flaunting sexuality.
Locking more doors, having first checked that all the rooms were empty, and turning off the last remaining lights, we returned to the landing.
‘Hang on! Wait a minute!’ I said. ‘There’s someone downstairs.’
‘Can’t be,’ said Nicholas comfortably. ‘There’s no one in the house but ourselves.’
‘Sorry. For a moment I thought I saw someone under the stairs. Where does that door lead to?’
‘Doesn’t lead anywhere. It’s been blocked for over a hundred years.’
‘Perhaps it was the moon?’
‘That would be a miracle! No moon through all this cloud.’
We returned quickly to the cheerful, candlelit dining room under the roof.
It was midnight before, equipped with a spare toothbrush and an old pair of Diana’s pyjamas, I was shown to a small spare room on the floor below.
‘Hope you’ll be all right in here. We’d better aim for eight o’clock breakfast. Suit you? Right then, sleep well!’
It had been a long day, and I had hardly been able to keep my eyes open for the last hour, but as soon as I reached this little room I knew I was in for a sleepless night. My mind went into unwelcome overdrive. Schemes for the repair of the stairs were uppermost, but speculation as to the possible history of the little box and its pathetic contents followed close behind. I got out of bed, drew the curtains, and looked out across the park. The moon appeared briefly through a rent in the cloud, and a flight of mallards slipped swiftly across this luminous patch.
‘And there is nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon.’
I wasn’t so sure about that!
I climbed back into bed and the unwelcome thought came to me that I needed to make a last dash to the bathroom. I made my reluctant way onto the landing trying to remember where on earth the bathroom was and thankful for the torch that Nicholas handed to me. On my return I was, still more reluctantly, drawn to peer down into the darkness below, prodded by a childish element of self-challenging bravado.
A door opened and shut and a dim figure on the floor below slipped under the stairs and out of sight.
‘There is somebody down there! Somebody has got locked in. A cleaner perhaps? But surely the whole place is covered with movement detectors? Who the hell’s that?’
My question was answered by a sigh from below and an indistinguishable gabble of words in a female voice. The words ended in a rack of sobbing and I was much afraid.
A shaft of light broke from a suddenly opened door on the floor above and the Wemysses peered down over the balustrade.
‘Ellie?’
‘Yes?’
‘Did you hear that?’
‘Yes. There’s somebody down there. I thought there was.’
‘Can’t be,’ said Nicholas. ‘Can’t be.”
They hurried down and joined me. I was very glad of their nearness. The house was desperately cold.
‘We heard someone on the stairs,’ said Diana.
‘That was me going to the loo.’
‘No, before that. Did it wake you up?’
‘No, I wasn’t asleep. But I saw someone just now… And there – look there!’
The tail of a shaft of passing moonlight seemed again to illuminate a dim figure and once again we heard that mutter of pathetic sobbing.
‘Come on, Ellie,’ said Nicholas. ‘Let’s go and look at this.’
‘You’re not leaving me up here by myself,’ said Diana.
There was a hiss, a whirr, and a metallic click, and, after a moment of aged hesitation, an ancient clock struck one.
‘If I might make rather a folksy suggestion,’ I said, ‘would we all like a cup of tea?’
‘Now that’s what I really appreciate,’ said Nicholas. ‘The sheeted dead did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets, and the architect calls for a cup of tea!’
‘What did Johnny Bell say?’ asked Diana when we sat down in the kitchen, fragrant mugs of Earl Grey clutched in shaking hands. ‘That the coffin must have been put in when the staircase was constructed? Sixteen sixty-two. Then perhaps Mr Stillingfleet can help us.’
‘Mr Stillingfleet?’ I asked. ‘Who’s he?’
‘Was. Hugo Benedict Stillingfleet. Tutor to the little Easton boys.’
‘Wicked Easton?’
‘Yes, William and his brother Robert. He was also chaplain and finally steward. He lived here for about fifty years and kept the most wonderful account books – more like a diary, really. Every farthing that got spent, he recorded it. Everyone who was in the employ of the family and what they earned…family journeys, who came to stay and practically what they had for breakfast! If anything funny happened when the staircase was being installed, I bet Stillingfleet has recorded it. Nick, go and get Stillingfleet!’
‘I’m not getting Stillingfleet at this time of night! Weighs about a ton and I’m not going down there to unlock the library! It’ll keep until morning.’
‘That coffin,’ I said drowsily. ‘That secret little box. Did we release something? Something very small. Something very sad. Did we call back somebody? Somebody who is distressed by the disturbance?’
‘We’ll ask Stillingfleet in the morning,’ said Diana, and we finally went to bed.
It was a week before I could return to Felthorpe Hall. Johnny Bell was doing a beautiful job on the stairs, and it was nearing completion. The little box still stood safely on the table in the drawing room.
Diana and Nicholas were very subdued. ‘We’ve had terrible nights,’ they said. ‘The same mutterings and sobbings every night since we disturbed that box! Haven’t slept for a week. We don’t know what to do. But we’ve a lot to tell you!’
They led me into the library where the central table was covered in page of notes and several leather-bound and ancient books. With barely suppressed excitement Diana went straight into the result of her researches. ‘This is sixteen sixty-one,’ she said, one finger on her notes and turning the ponderous pages of the Stillingfleet papers with the other hand. ‘Here’s the boss telling him to get estimates for “Ye newe westerne stair”. And here’s “Jas. Holbrooke, Master Carpenter”, riding out from Norwich to give his estimate – £482.9.2d. Expensive!
‘And here we are in sixteen sixty-two. A lot of comings and goings. The family were here for nearly all that year. Lots of company. Ate them out of house and home. Bills for barrels of oysters, anchovies, game birds by the dozen brace, cakes and sweetmeats, sacks of coffee… John Fox and his brother Will taken up for pilfering at the Lammas Fair and the good Stillingfleet goes over to the assizes to plead for them. Successfully, obviously, because they were back on the payroll the next month. And here’s one Jayne Marston.’