That evening, as ever, Joseph’s trip to his own bedroom was a little disquieting. Much as he knew that he owned the house, he did not really feel it suited him. It was beautiful, of course. But at night, when the servants had settled in their quarters and it was mostly him alone, he walked the wide corridors to reassure himself that it existed outside of his boyhood fantasies of success.
The place was too large, too strange and too old. It would not do to let anyone—not even Breton—know how ill at ease he was, or that this late-night walk was a continual reminder of how far from his birth and true station he had come.
It was not as if a pile of stones could come to life and cast him out. It was his, from cellar to attic. He had paid for it and had got a good price. But when it was dark and quiet, like this, Clairemont Manor felt—for want of a better word—haunted. Not that he believed in such things. In an age of machines there was hardly room for spirits. Clinging to childish notions and common superstition bespoke a lack of confidence that he would not allow himself.
With a wife and children in it, the house would fill with life and he would have no time for foolish fancies. But since the wife he was in the process of acquiring rightly belonged here, it sometimes felt as though he was trying to appease them rather than banish them. Setting Anne Clairemont at the foot of the table would restore the balance that had been lost. It had been her father’s house, whether he’d been able to afford to keep it or not. Returning a member of the family to the estate, even if it was a female, might pacify some of the ill feelings he had created in the area. It fell in nicely with his plans for the business. There was nothing superstitious about it.
It was a pity the girl was so pale and lifeless. Had he the freedom to choose a woman to suit himself, it would certainly not be her. He’d have sought someone with a bit more spirit, not some brainless thing willing to auction herself to the highest bidder just to please her father.
He’d have wanted—
He stopped in his tracks, smiling to himself at the memory. He’d have wanted one more like the girl he’d seen in the crowd today. Fearless, that one was. Just like her father, that barmy Bernard Lampett who led the rebellion against him. What was the girl’s name? Barbara, he thought, making a note to enquire and be sure. She did not seem totally in sympathy with her father, from the way she’d tried to drag him away. But neither did she support Joseph, having made it quite clear that she disapproved of him. Barbara Lampett knew her own mind, that was certain. And she had no fear of showing the world what she thought of it.
But it wasn’t her sharp tongue that fascinated him. She was shorter than Anne, curved where Anne was straight, and pink where his prospective fiancée was pale. When he’d been close to her, he’d seen a few freckles on her turned-up nose, and handfuls of brown curls trying to escape from her plain bonnet.
But it was her eyes that had drawn him in. Her gaze had been cool and direct, like blue ice, cutting into him in a way that simple anger could not. She judged him. It made him doubt himself. For could any cause be wholly in the right if it might result in harm to such a lovely thing as a Barbara Lampett, tramping her casually into the dirt? While he was sure he bore a greater share of the right than the men who stood against him, the truth of what might have happened to her, had he not intervened, weighed heavy on his conscience.
And so tonight he walked the halls more slowly than usual, thinking dark thoughts and counting the many rooms as though they were rosary beads. If the servants had noticed this ritual, they were too polite or well trained to comment. But he found himself taking the same path each night before retiring, as though he were touring someone else’s great house and marvelling at their wealth. Reception room the first, library, breakfast room, dining room, private salon, stairs, reception room the second, card room, music room, ballroom. And then a climb to the second floor: red bedroom, blue bedroom, master bedroom … There was a third floor as well, and servants’ rooms, larders, kitchens and possibly some small and useful places he had not bothered to investigate.
It was a sharp contrast to his childhood. When it had been but one room they’d lived in there had been no reason to count. As his father’s business had grown, so had the rooms. A three-room flat. A five-room cottage. A house. They had risen from poverty in the days long before the war, when trade was unobstructed and money easier. But the successes had been small, and the work hard and unpleasant. He had hated it.
He had broken from it, rebuilt the work in his own image. And now he lived in the grandest house in the county—and was not happy here either. Perhaps that was his curse: to hurry through life reaching for the next great thing, whether it be invention or business. Each time he succeeded he would be sure that this time he had gained enough to please himself. Then the success would pale and he would seek more.
The thought left him chilled, and he felt the unease that seemed to stalk him through these halls. He remembered again the eyes of Barbara Lampett, who could see through him to his clockwork heart. It made him want to grab her and prove that his blood flowed just as hot as other men’s, and perhaps a little warmer for the sight of her. If the girl were the daughter of any other man in the village he’d have at least attempted a flirtation. But she was too young and too much of a lady to understand the discreet dalliance he had in mind. Even if she was of a more liberal nature it would not do to have her thinking that sharing her charms might lead him to show mercy on her father.
While he might consider offering a bijou, or some other bit of shiny to a pretty girl, something about Barbara Lampett’s freckled nose and the sweet stubbornness of her jaw convinced him that she was likely to bargain for the one thing that he was not willing to share: clemency for the man who plotted his undoing.
He shook his head, rejecting the notion of her as the long-case clock in the hall struck twelve and he opened the door to his room. To be sure he would not weaken, it was best to leave all thoughts of her here in the corridor, far away from his cold and empty bed.
‘Boy.’
Joseph started at the sound of a voice where there should have been nothing but the crackle of the fire and perhaps the sounds of his valet laying out a nightshirt. The opulence of the room, the richness of its hangings and upholstery, always seemed to mute even the most raucous sound.
But the current voice cut through the tranquillity and grated on the nerves. The familiar Yorkshire accent managed to both soothe and annoy. The volume of it was so loud that it echoed in the space and pressed against him—like a hand on his shoulder that could at any moment change from a caress to a shove.
He looked for the only possible if extremely unlikely source, and found it at the end of the bed. For there stood a man he’d thought of frequently but had not seen for seven years. Not since the man’s death.
‘Hello, Father.’ It was foolish to speak to a figment of his imagination, but the figure in the corner of his bedroom seemed so real that it felt rude not to address it.
It must be his distracted mind playing this trick. Death had not changed his da in the least. Joseph had assumed that going on to his divine reward would have softened him in some way. But it appeared that the afterlife was as difficult as life had been. Jacob Stratford was just as grim and sullen as he’d been when he walked the earth.
‘What brings you back? As if I have to ask myself … It was that second glass of brandy, on top of the hubbub at the mill.’ When he’d rescued the Lampett girl he’d been literally rubbing shoulders with the same sort of man as the one who had raised him. The brutal commonality of them had attached itself to his person like dust, sticking in his mind and appearing now, as he neared sleep.
‘That’s what you think, is it?’ The ghost gave a disapproving grunt. ‘I see you have not changed a bit from the time you were a boy.’ Then he ladled his speech thick with the burr that Joseph had heard when he was in the midst of the crowd around his mill. ‘Th’art daft as a brush, though th’ live like a lord.’
‘And I will say worse of you,’ Joseph replied, careful to let none of his old accent creep back into his speech. No matter what his father might say of him, he had changed for the better and he would not go back. ‘You are a stubborn, ignorant dictator. Two drinks is hardly a sign of debauchery. And I live in a great house because I can afford to. It is not as if I am become some noble who has a line of unpaid credit with the vintner. I pay cash.’ He’d been told by Bob that the habit was horribly unfashionable, and a sign of his base birth, but he could not seem to break himself of it. It felt good to lie down knowing that, though he might need investors for the business, he had no personal debts.
Although why his rest was now uneasy he could not tell. The bad dream staring him down from the end of the bed must be a sign that all was not right in his world.
His father snorted in disgust. ‘No matter what I tried to teach, you’ve proved that buying and selling is all you learned. You know nothing of art, of craft or the men behind the work.’
‘If the men behind the work are anything like you, then I think I’ve had enough of a lesson, thank you. You may go as well.’ He made an effort to wake and cast off the dream. To be having this conversation at all was proof that he was sleeping. To rouse from slumber would divest the vision of the last of its power.
His father gave a tug on his spectral forelock. ‘Well, then, Your Lordship, I am put in my place. I hope by now you know that you don’t fit with the posh sort that you suck up to. You are as much of a dog to be kicked from their path as I am to you.’
‘Probably true,’ Joseph admitted. There was no point in lying about that, even to himself. Though the gentry might be forced to mix with those in trade, there was nothing to make them enjoy it. ‘But if I am a dog, then I am a young pup with many years ahead of me. Their time is ending, just as yours did. In the day that is coming men of vision will be rewarded.’
‘At the expense of others,’ his father replied.
‘Others can seize this opportunity and profit as well, if they wish to,’ Joe snapped back. ‘It is not my responsibility to see to the welfare of every man on the planet. They had best look out for themselves.’
‘That is no better than I expected from you,’ his father replied. ‘And not good enough. Believe me, boy, I can see from this side of the veil that it is not nearly enough. It is no pleasant thing to die with regrets, to have unfinished business when your life is spent and to know that you have failed in the one thing you should have profited at: the care of another human life.’
The statement made the speaker uncomfortably real. It was most unlike anything in Joseph’s own mind. It sounded almost like an apology. And never would he have put those words in his father’s mouth—no matter how much he might have wished to hear them. If things went as planned Joseph would be a father soon enough. It would not take much effort on his part to do a better job of it than his father had done with him.
‘You would know better than I on that, I am sure. As of this time, I have no one under my care. I answer only to myself, and I am happy with that.’ Surreptitiously he made a fist and dug his nails into his palm, pinching the skin to let the pain start him awake.
‘Boy, you are wrong.’
‘So you always told me, Father. Although why I should dream of your voice now, I do not know. I have only to wake up and look around me to prove that I am doing quite well for myself.’ Although, thinking on it, he could not seem to recall having fallen asleep in the first place. But it was the only explanation for this. He was not in the habit of conversing with ghosts.
He was sound asleep in this bed and having a dream. No. He was having a nightmare. If he could not manage to wake, he must try to go to a deep, untroubled rest where his father would not follow. To encourage the change he sat upon the edge of the bed and began to undress himself. While it seemed strange to do so during a dream, he could think of no other way to set things right.
As he leaned forwards to pull off his boots his father stepped closer and brought with him the smell of the grave—damp earth, a faint whiff of decomposition and the chill of a cold and lifeless thing made even colder by the season. ‘Do not think to ignore me. You do so at your peril.’
‘Do I, now?’ Joseph could not help it and stole a glance up at the spirit—if that was what it was. And he wondered when he had ever had a dream this real. He could smell and feel, as well as hear and see. He had to struggle to keep himself from reaching out to touch the shroud that the man in front of him carried like a mantle draped over his bony arm. He stared at the ghost, willing it to disappear. ‘I ignored you in life as best I could. Because of it I gave you enough money to die in comfort, instead of bent over a loom. But that was years ago. Go back to where you have been and leave me in peace.’
‘You do not have peace, if you would be honest and see the truth. Just as it always was when you were a boy, you are careless. You have not attended to both the warp and the weft. The tension is uneven. You have done much, and done it quickly with your fancy machines. But your work is without shape.’
Joseph glared into the hollow eyes before him, too angry at the slight to stay silent. ‘I bore enough of that needless criticism from you when you lived—trying to teach me to weave when it was clear I had no skill for it. The last piece of work you will ever see me make on an old-fashioned loom was the shroud I buried you in. I wove it on your old machine with my own hands. I made it out of wool in respect for custom and your trade. If you have come to me to complain of the quality, then go back to your grave without it. As for my current life—there is no basis for this criticism. I can measure my success by my surroundings. This Christmas I will have a house full to the brim with guests and a table creaking with bounty. I have a new mill. When it opens I will be able to afford to fill the warehouse with goods, ready to ship when the sanctions are lifted.’
The ghost shook his head, as though all the achievement was nothing, and waved the shroud before him. ‘Shapeless. Tear it out. Tear it out before it is too late. Your grain is off, boy.’
Joseph finished with his undressing and pulled a nightshirt over his head. Then he lay down on the bed with his arms stiff at his sides, fighting to keep from stuffing his fingers in his ears. He could hear the old man’s death rattle of a breath, along with the same repeated criticisms that had tortured him all through his failed apprenticeship.
Then he thought of the girl who had been clinging to Bernard Lampett’s arm in front of the mill. Her difficulties with her father had raised these memories in him. He felt a sympathy with her. And, for all his convictions that there could be no mercy shown, he would not rest easy until he had found a peaceful solution.
He looked at the shade of his father again, half hoping that it had evaporated now that he’d found the probable cause. But it was still there, as stern and disapproving as ever he had been. ‘If you are my own guilty conscience, the least you could have done,’ Joseph said, ‘was come to me in the form of Barbara Lampett. And I’d be much more likely to listen if you told me plainly what you wanted.’
The ghost looked at him as though he was both stupid and a disappointment. It was a familiar look. ‘It will not go well for you if you persist in talking nonsense. I came here hoping to spare you what is soon to come. My time is wasted, for you are as stubborn as you were right up ‘til the day I died.’
‘You? Spare me?’ Joseph laughed. ‘When did you ever wish to spare me anything? It was I who saved myself, and none other. I used my own brain and my own hands to make sure that I did not live as you did. And I succeeded at it.’
The ghost looked troubled, but only briefly. ‘My goal is not to make you into myself. I was a hard man in life. A good craftsman, but a poor father.’
‘Thank you for admitting the fact now that it is years too late,’ Joseph snapped, annoyed that his mind would choose his precious free hours to remind him of things he preferred to forget.
‘I bear the punishment of my errors even now. But my goal was to make you something more.’ The ghost pointed with a pale, long-fingered hand that in life had been nimble with a shuttle. ‘Here you are—proof that my job was not done. You are less than you should be. You are certainly less than you must be. That is why you must tear out what you have done. Tear out the work and start again, while you are able. It is not too late to go back. Find the mistake and fix it. Start again, before tomorrow night, or face another visitor.’
‘I have no intention of destroying the work of a lifetime to please some niggling voice in my own mind that will be gone in the morning.’ He pulled up the coverlet and waved a hand. ‘Now, go, sir. Come again as some more interesting dream. You do not frighten me, though I will be glad to see you gone. Bring the girl instead.’
He smiled at the thought. If he could choose a bedtime fantasy, she was better than most. Then he pulled the sheet over his head and rolled away from the figure, trying to ignore the strange green glow that seemed to seep through his closed eyelids. What sort of dream remained even after one ceased to look at it?
One that could still speak, apparently. His father’s voice came from just above him, unbothered by his ignoring of it. It was louder now, and Joseph had his first moment’s fright, thinking if he pulled the blankets away he might find himself inches away from a corpse—close enough to choke on the smell of rotting flesh and see the waxy vacancy of a dead man’s eyes.
‘Very well, then. It is as was feared. You will not listen to me. Be warned, boy. If you have a brain, you will heed before Christmas Eve. From here, I can see what is coming, and I would not wish that—even on you.’
‘Thank you so much, Father, for such a cold comfort.’ Joseph snuggled down into the pillow.
‘There will be three before Christmas. Look for the first when the clock chimes one tomorrow. If you have any sense you will heed them, before it is too late.’
Joseph laughed into the bedclothes. ‘You mean to ruin my sleep between here and Christmas, I suppose? And destroy every last pleasure I take in this holiday. Only you would be trying to visit me with dire predictions on this of all weeks. Come back after Twelfth Night and perhaps I shall care.’
‘Sir?’
The voice was not that of his father but of his valet, who sounded rather worried. ‘Were you speaking to me, Mr Stratford? For I did not quite catch … ‘
When he pulled back the covers the candles were still lit and there was no sign of the eldritch glow he had been trying to shut out, nor the figure that had cast it. ‘No, Hobson. It was only a dream. I was talking in my sleep, I think.’ It must have been that. He had come back to his room and dozed, spinning a wild fancy without even bothering to blow out the light.
His valet was standing in a litter of clothes, looking around him with disapproval. ‘If you were tired, you had but to ring and I would have come immediately to assist you.’ Hobson picked the jacquard waistcoat from off the floor, smoothing the wrinkles from it and hanging it in the wardrobe.
‘I was not tired,’ Joseph insisted. Although he must have been. Why had he been dreaming? Though he could remember each piece of clothing as he’d dropped it on the floor, he could not seem to manage to remember falling asleep at any point—dressed or otherwise.
‘Then might I bring you a warm drink before bed? A brandy? A posset? In keeping with the season, Cook has mulled some wine.’
‘No, thank you. No spirits before bed, I think.’ At least not like the one he’d had already.
There will be three.
He looked to the valet. ‘Did you say something just now?’
‘I offered wine … ‘ The man was looking at him as though he was drunk.
‘Because I thought I heard … ‘ Of course he was sure that he had not heard Hobson speak. It had been his father’s voice for certain, come back to repeat his warning. Although, looking around the room, he could see no sign of a spectre. ‘Did you hear a voice?’
The valet was looking behind him, about the empty room. Then he looked back at his master, struggling to keep the worry from his face. ‘No, sir. Just the two of us conversing.’
Joseph gave a laugh to mask the awkward moment. ‘I must be more tired than I thought. Pay me no mind. And no wine tonight, please. A few hours’ untroubled rest is all I need.’
But if there were to be another evening such as this one he doubted that serenity would be a quality it possessed.