Nell was having a good Monday morning, following an excellent weekend. On Saturday the Japanese customers had not only bought the Regency sofas, they had also bought the inlaid table. There had been much courtesy and compliments, and Mr Hironaka had extended an invitation to Nell to visit his family if ever she were in his country.
She had spent most of Sunday morning applying Danish oil to a late-Elizabethan dower chest, which would replace the sofas in the shop window, and at midday Michael had taken her and Beth to lunch at one of Oxford’s many riverside inns, after which Beth had gone to spend the rest of the afternoon with a school friend. Nell and Michael had ended up at Quire Court and had made slow, deeply satisfactory love, with the light fading gently on the Court’s old stones outside and sun slanting across the bed. Afterwards Michael had said something about the serenity of ancient, undisturbed ghosts, and Nell had thought it might be better not to tell him yet that she was considering bashing down walls and demolishing ceilings, and risking plunging the serene ghosts into distracted madness and probable mass exodus.
Monday had dawned full of sunshine and promise, and over breakfast Beth had talked with exuberance about Michael’s latest project for the Wilberforce history books.
‘Elizabeth the First and Guy Fawkes and stuff. He’s going to write about Wilberforce’s ancestors and I’m going to help.’
‘He’ll enjoy doing that. And it’ll help your history lessons as well.’
‘I thought,’ said Beth, giving her mother a cautious look, ‘that he could have a musician Wilberforce somewhere. Um, like when they had minstrels. They travelled around and wrote their own music and stuff. A bit like pop stars today,’ said Beth, with unexpected perception.
‘That sounds quite a good idea.’
Beth beamed, then said, ‘D’you think I could suggest it to Michael? Only I don’t want him to think I’m trying to kind of push in on things.’
‘I think it would be fine to suggest it,’ said Nell. ‘But I’m pleased you asked before you actually said anything to him.’
‘If you and Michael got married,’ said Beth, hanging over her breakfast so that Nell could not see her face, ‘I ‘spect he’d wouldn’t live in College any more, would he?’
‘I expect not, but we’re fine as we are, and you’re—’
‘Entering into the realms of fantasy,’ finished Beth.
‘Yes. Are you having any more toast? And have you got your gym things ready?’
‘Yes and yes. Don’t fuss,’ said Beth.
After Beth had been delivered to school, Nell spent an hour with Godfrey Purbles, inspecting the rooms in the bookshop, and discussing with him how practical it would be to knock through from her own premises to make one large shop.
‘If you could make it double-fronted,’ said Godfrey, ‘that’d make really lovely premises. The thing to do is to get a good builder to take a look. You don’t want to go smashing sledge hammers into supporting walls and bring the upper floors and the roof crashing in.’
Nell remembered Michael’s serene ghosts, and said, no, certainly she did not want to do that.
‘I tell you who’d be good to ask about the work,’ said Godfrey. ‘Jack Hurst. His firm have been builders in Oxford for ages – he did that archway for me last year. Wait a bit, I’ve got his phone number somewhere.’
Nell took the phone number gratefully, and went back to her own shop to phone the bank, pleased to be told that someone could see her later that day. After the meeting she would tell Michael what she was considering. Would she find she could open up to him about the finances of it all? Money was one of the few things they never really discussed. When, two years earlier, it had been decided that she would move to Oxford and she had found the Quire Court premises, he had made a cautious enquiry as to how she would be financing the move – doing so with a diffidence that suggested he found the subject a difficult, unfamiliar one. Nell, who had still been finding her way through a number of minefields after her husband’s death, but who had been determined to be independent, had said, rather abruptly, that she was fine, thank you, there was enough dosh in the kitty.
Michael had said, ‘Well, if not …’ and left it at that.
Remembering this, Nell wondered if he would make a similar semi-offer when she told him about Godfrey’s shop, and if so what she would do about it. To have a business partnership of any kind would cement their relationship in a rather odd way. Not matrimonially but fiscally. Always, of course, assuming he had money to invest and that she had not misunderstood that previous conversation. She had no idea what a don’s salary was, or what he earned from the Wilberforce books.
How likely was it that he had been subconsciously or subliminally thinking the two of them might eventually get together under one roof? Nell had a sudden tantalizing image of a tall old house somewhere on the city’s outskirts, not too far from Oriel or Quire Court, filled with books and music, often invaded by Michael’s colleagues or even his students. It was a good image, but Nell was not sure if it was a workable one. Michael’s place seemed to be his rooms at Oriel. Her place seemed to be here, in Quire Court.
She locked up and went out to the little house behind the shop to put on a business-looking suit for the meeting with the bank. Assuming it was all favourable, when she got back she would telephone Godfrey’s builder, Jack Hurst, and ask him to give her a quote for the work.
She was perfectly prepared for the bank to try to dissuade her from cashing in the bonds, and to counsel extreme caution over the proposed plan. What she was not prepared for – what she angrily realized she ought to have foreseen – was that the bonds, if cashed before their expiry date which was two years away, would not yield anywhere near as much as she had calculated. There were penalties for early redemption and, to compound the problem, the bonds themselves had suffered from the disastrous economic situation of the last couple of years.
‘They’d recover if you left them,’ said the Small Business Adviser, whom Nell was trying not to think looked as if she had just left school. ‘The interest would roll over and mount up in the last twelve months, like endowment mortgages used to. See now, going on the figures you’ve given me, you’re several thousand short of the amount you want. It’s not a huge sum, though, and it’s not necessarily unreachable. We could see if a short-term business loan might be accepted. To cover that shortfall.’
‘I’m a bit hesitant about that. If I’m going to draw on these bonds and have a loan on top …’
‘Yes, you wouldn’t have much of a safety net, would you?’ She nodded, obviously understanding this, and flipped to another screen on her laptop. ‘You’ve got that separate fund for your daughter with us as well, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, but that’s cast-iron untouchable. I used one of my husband’s insurance payouts for that.’
‘It’s looking fairly good,’ said the adviser, turning the laptop so Nell could see. ‘Enough to put her through university comfortably, or provide a deposit for a house.’
‘Or backpack round the world,’ said Nell, smiling.
‘And why not? I’ll do a printout for you so you’ve got up-to-date figures for that.’ She set the printer whirring, then said, ‘I like your concept for these two shops, though. I think it could be profitable, and I hope we can work something out for you. That idea you’ve got about using the annexe behind your own shop for weekend courses – I love that.’
‘I’ve organized those courses before,’ said Nell, grateful for this approval. ‘When I lived in Shropshire. It works well – you book people into nearby pubs and hotels, depending on what they want to pay, and hold simple workshops and even have a visiting speaker over the two days of the course. Bookbinding or the history of glassware or something like that. And perhaps throw in a conducted tour around a suitable historic house in the vicinity.’
‘I’d sign up for all that,’ said the adviser. ‘I think though, at this stage you need to get some more exact figures. The cost of assigning the lease to you and a builder’s estimate – maybe even an architect’s as well – for knocking the shops into one unit. Once we’ve got that, we can make a more precise forecast and go from there.’
‘That would be sensible,’ said Nell. ‘Godfrey – Mr Purbles – has already asked the landlords for a figure on the lease. And I’ll get quotes for the work – he’s recommended a builder, as well. As soon as I’ve got those I’ll contact you again. Thank you very much.’
‘I haven’t helped much so far,’ said the business adviser.
‘No, but you’ve clarified things. And you’ve been encouraging about the whole idea. That means a lot.’
She went back to Quire Court, still undecided, and spent the next hour unpacking some pieces of glassware she had acquired at a house sale the previous weekend. Beth had come with her to the sale and had loved the tension and the excitement of the auction. They had chosen the pieces they wanted beforehand and Beth had been entranced by the bidding procedure. It was pretty cool, she said afterwards, to have a mum who did things like that.
The glass was going to look very good indeed, and Nell washed it all carefully. But as she did so, one level of her mind was replaying the meeting at the bank. The thought of using up almost all of her careful stash of funds was suddenly alarming, and the prospect of a loan on top of that was outright terrifying. Supposing the venture failed? Supposing there was an even worse plunge in the economy? Supposing she became ill and could not run the shop? There would be absolutely no funds to fall back on, because Beth’s fund was indeed untouchable. As she placed the glassware in the smaller of her two windows and set out some Victorian jewellery with it, she thought it would be a bitter blow if she had to back out.
But when Godfrey came into the shop just before she was closing, clutching a letter and looking anxious, the prospect of backing out loomed even closer.
‘The freeholder’s figure for the assignment?’ said Nell, glad for once that there were no customers in the shop and they could talk freely.
‘Yes. Oh, Nell, it’s much higher than I thought it would be.’
‘How much higher?’
‘They’re saying that because the lease was created more than ten years ago, they’re now allowed to ask whatever figure they want for assigning it. There are stages in the life of the lease, apparently, and this is one of them. I thought the figure would be pretty much the same as I paid, but it isn’t …’
‘Godfrey, how much higher?’
‘Fifteen thousand pounds higher,’ said Godfrey, miserably.
Nell sat down abruptly. ‘Oh, lord, that really is higher.’
‘We can negotiate a bit,’ he said, hopefully. ‘I dare say they aren’t expecting to get the exact amount they’re asking, but they’ve said this is a prime spot. Nell, I do hope I haven’t got you all fired up about this, only to find it’s impossible.’
‘It isn’t like that at all,’ said Nell at once. ‘But that extra fifteen thousand pounds might stretch it too far.’
Michael had intended to spend most of Monday morning drafting notes for a lecture on eighteenth-century novels. There was the usual faculty meeting at nine, and he had a tutorial at eleven, but apart from that he was free. He thought he might try to track down Salamander House later. He would also see if Professor Rosendale had a spare half hour somewhere, to let him have the Porringer letters.
When he got back to his rooms after the meeting, Wilberforce was nowhere to be seen, but he made his presence felt in the form of an email from the photographer doing the publicity shots for the new book. They had rescheduled the shoot, and the photographer would like to come along to Oriel on Thursday morning. They would bring their own props this time, to save any further damage to Michael’s rooms, but it would be really helpful if Wilberforce could be persuaded to cooperate – although remembering the first shoot, Rafe could not think how this might be achieved.
Hard on the heels of this was an email from Michael’s editor, who expressed herself as thrilled (it came over as ‘thrrrilled’) to report that the editorial meeting absolutely loved the idea for a set of historical books set in Wilberforce’s world, using his ancestors as characters. They would like to make this a joint venture with their educational books department (who were very keen on the project) and they would, of course, be sending a formal offer, commissioning the series. But in the meantime, it would be great if Michael could let her have a treatment for the first couple. They ought to be sequential, of course. Perhaps Michael could start with King John and Magna Carta – the Wilberforce of the day might be a scribe, constantly losing writing materials or falling into ink pots. After that, maybe Elizabeth the First, in which a Tudor Wilberforce could be a swashbuckling court cat embarking on a life of piracy, bringing home treasure chests of doubloons. Although they must be careful not to plant the idea in the children’s minds that robbing and pillaging was good. And it was only an idea, of course. But could they say next March for delivery of Book One?
And while writing, here was a link to the website the marketing people were building for Wilberforce. Michael should remember it was a work in progress, and everyone was sure it would be possible to change the colour of Wilberforce’s fur in the illustrations, although so far nobody had admitted to making it that peculiar tangerine shade when it was well known by them all that Wilberforce – the fictional one at any rate – was black and white.
Michael regarded the orange splodge intended to represent Wilberforce with dismay, then typed an email to Beth, asking what her year and the year below her were currently learning in history at school. He added a line about her now being editorial consultant, which he thought would amuse and please her, and sent it off.
By this time his student had arrived for the tutorial, and an absorbing hour followed, in which the student, who was Michael’s particularly promising first year, displayed some satisfyingly original thinking, and argued his points with polite insistence.
After the student had left, Michael put in a couple of hours on his lecture, covering his desk with books, and enjoying himself wandering along paths in the company of such people as Jane Austen, Oliver Goldsmith, and Fanny Burney. He added Tobias Smollet and Henry Fielding to the mix to spice things up a bit.
It was mid-afternoon before he was able to tell the professor about the Porringer letters.
‘I should like to see them very much,’ said Leo. ‘Are you free at the moment?’
‘I am,’ said Michael. ‘I’ll drop them in now, shall I?’
‘Yes, do. I’ll get someone to bring coffee.’
Michael, seeing the rooms for the first time – seeing the charm of their clutter and feeling the gentle atmosphere of books and scholarship – understood why they were a small legend of their own within Oriel. Seeing the professor bestow his smile on the bearer of the coffee, he also understood why the tray had been carried up three flights of stairs without demur.
Rosendale read the letters with deep interest.
‘I don’t know if they’ll provide any answers for you,’ said Michael, when Leo laid them down, ‘but it’s all useful material. It might be worth delving into Salamander House, as well – oh, and you note the suggestion that there was some kind of private arrangement between Breadspear and Porringer – something off the record, as it were.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Leo thought for a moment, then said, ‘Dr Flint …’
‘Michael.’
‘Michael, I think I told you I lived near to Deadlight Hall as a child. I was one of a group of children who were smuggled out of Poland in 1942, and I was sent to live with a brother and sister. Simeon and Mildred Hurst, at Willow Bank Farm.’
‘Maria Porringer mentions that place,’ said Michael eagerly, reaching for the printouts. ‘And the name Hurst, as well. Yes, here it is. John Hurst, of Willow Bank Farm.’
‘Yes. And I rather think,’ said Leo, ‘that John Hurst might be the man Simeon and Mildred referred to as their shameful ancestor. “Wild and godless” they called him, usually with the Biblical line about the sins of the fathers, as well.’
This was the most Michael had ever heard the professor say about his background – he thought it was probably the most anyone at Oriel College had ever heard him say. Not wanting to intrude, but interested, he said, ‘Were they good to you, that farmer and his sister?’
Leo smiled. ‘They were strict and rather severe, but they were kind in their own way. But when Mildred Hurst died, she left the contents of the farmhouse to me. Furniture and china and so on. I sold most of the furniture – it was nearly all Victorian and rather florid, but one of the things I did keep was that old blanket box.’ He indicated an oak box beneath a latticed window. ‘It stood outside my bedroom at Willow Bank, so it felt like a bit of my childhood. The Hursts used it to store odd papers and photographs. None of them were relevant to me, but it seemed wrong to destroy them.’
‘Are they still there?’ said Michael, hardly daring to hope.
‘Oh, yes. I’ve never really looked at them, but I always felt they were a fragment of a particular era of history, so I kept them.’
‘Professor, when you say papers …?’
‘Mostly old letters and photos and the odd newspaper cutting, I think. It’s a bit of a jumble.’ He was already crossing the room to the carved box. Sunlight filtered through the window, laying chequered patterns on its surface.
‘It’s been under this window … well, ever since I’ve been here,’ said the professor. ‘I’ve used it as an extra shelf.’
‘So I see.’ The grain of the lid showed dark oblongs where books had lain for years, and where the sun had gradually faded the rest of the surface around them. Michael knelt down and lifted the lid. It tipped back smoothly and with only the faintest creak of old hinges. He waited for the scents of age to engulf him – old paper and forgotten memories – but there was nothing. Was that because there was nothing of the past in here? No, he thought. It’s because the darkness is too dense. This is dead light in every sense.
He became aware of the professor explaining that the papers might go quite far back.
‘Even as far back as Maria Porringer and John Hurst,’ he said. ‘So take as long as you like to look through them. But if you wouldn’t mind, I’ll leave you to do it on your own.’ He stared into the trunk for a moment. ‘I don’t know what there might be in there,’ he said. ‘And I’m not sure if I want to find it. I don’t mean there’ll be anything criminal or damning or scandalous – at least, I shouldn’t think so – but whatever is there is a link to some very mixed memories for me. I think, you know, that’s why I decided to sell the silver golem.’
‘I understand,’ said Michael.
‘So I’ll walk along to the Radcliffe for a couple of hours. That coffee’s still hot, so help yourself to a refill.’
Left to himself, Michael carefully lifted out the top layer of the contents. And now, finally, the stored-away aura of the past did reach out to him. These were not letters and documents efficiently and neatly stored on computer hard drives or microfiche screens; this was the faded fabric of the long-ago – the curl-edged photographs, the ink-splodged missives, the cobwebbed, candlelit writings that were dim with age and that might even be illegible …
And there’s something here, thought Michael. I know there is. By the pricking of my thumbs … With the thought came another image – a half-memory of something he had seen very recently, something to do with cobwebs and a dim old place where there had been a shelf holding old books or documents … He waited, but the memory remained annoyingly elusive, and he left it alone and focused on what lay in front of him.
There were two or three shoe boxes filled with black and white photographs – even some that were sepia. Michael glanced at these briefly, seeing self-consciously posed gentlemen wearing wing collars and Sunday-best suits, and ladies with flowered frocks and shady hats. Nell would seize on these with delight, of course; he would ask the professor if she could see them. But for the moment he put them to one side, and reached for two large packages, virtually parcels, both wrapped in the old-fashioned way, with brown paper and string.
The knots in the string parted easily after so many years and, his heart starting to beat faster, Michael unfolded the contents.
At first look there did not seem to be anything of particular interest, and nothing looked likely to relate to Deadlight Hall. On the top was a handwritten note, addressed to ‘Dearest Mildred’. That’s Miss Hurst, thought Michael, remembering what Professor Rosendale had told him. Mildred and Simeon Hurst. He smoothed out the letter, trying not to split the paper where it had been folded for so long.
It was undated, and there was no address. Michael had the impression of a quickly written note, either delivered by hand, or thrust into a parcel.
Dearest Mildred,
It is very kind of you and Simeon to agree to store my things at Willow Bank Farm until I can send for them. I dare say the bits of furniture can go in your attic, and in these packages are a few old family papers – nothing valuable or even particularly important, but mostly old photographs and a few letters from my great-uncle’s time, which my mother always kept. I expect you’ll be surprised to find me being so careful – and even sentimental – but I’d like to think they were in safe-keeping. With the future so uncertain and everything being blown to smithereens around us, it seems somehow important to preserve the past – even though parts of this particular past are not very creditable!
I will write soon.
Fondest love to you and Simeon,
Rosa.
Rosa. By her own admission, there was nothing especially interesting in the papers she had left for her good friends Mildred and Simeon Hurst to store. It was slightly odd that if the papers had meant so much to her, she had never reclaimed them, but there could be any number of reasons for that. There was no date on the letter, but it sounded as if it had been written at the height of WWII, when there were all kinds of upheavals and tragedy in people’s lives. Curious to know what Rosa had wanted to keep for posterity, Michael turned over the next layer.
Two names leapt out at him at once. The first was that of Augustus Breadspear, the vaguely Dickensian-sounding name familiar from the documents found at the Archives Office a couple of days ago.
The second was Deadlight Hall.
Moving with extreme care, almost expecting the thin brittle pages to crumble into dust beneath his hands, Michael lifted out the little stack of papers, and carried them to the deep wing chair in the corner of the room.
He placed them carefully on the small side desk where the gentle sunlight filtered through the window, sat down in the deep wing chair nearby, and began to read.