The Whispering House
the
whispering
house
ELIZABETH BROOKS
With love for my husband, Chris
CONTENTS
Part One
Freya: August–September 2014
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part Two
Stella: October 2009
Freya: September–October 2014
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part Three
Stella: October 2009
Freya: October–November 2014
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Stella: October 2009
Freya: January 2015
Acknowledgments
Reader’s Guide
PART ONE
FREYA
August–September 2014
1
I’d never have set eyes on the place if my cousin hadn’t held his wedding reception on the grounds. His fiancée had grown up locally, and once she’d discovered it was possible to hire a canopy in the gardens at Byrne Hall, nothing else would do. You can’t blame her. Objectively speaking, it was an idyllic spot for a wedding reception: all those lush, towering trees, the garden in full-scented flower, and the sea spread out below the cliffs like a sheet of hammered gold. If I were the kind of woman who fantasised about getting married, I’d want a wedding like that.
“You look lovely,” my father said, studying our reflections in the pond. “A real picture.”
“A picture of what, though?” I was doing my best to make light of the whole thing. “A picture of misery?”
But Dad wasn’t going to fall in with my tone. “You look very nice,” he insisted gravely.
One of the bride’s hearty uncles had told me off for having a long face—that was all. It wasn’t a big deal. “Cheer up, love,” he’d said, as we were queuing for drinks. “You’re meant to be a bridesmaid, not an undertaker’s mute.”
I don’t think he was trying to be horrible. He clapped me on the shoulder as he said it, and handed me a glass of prosecco, but Dad had overheard and steered me away, and we’d ended up here, by the pond. It wasn’t the nicest part of the garden, which is probably why it was deserted. The water flickered with midges and smelled of mud, and there was a stone fountain in the middle—a fat boy blowing on a conch shell—that had gone all black and mossy, and looked as if it hadn’t functioned in years.
“Bastard,” said my father, and I laughed despite everything, because he wasn’t one for profanities, not even mild ones. He was too scholarly sounding and well-spoken to carry it off. I took his arm and gave it a squeeze, but he still wouldn’t smile, so I decided to stop trying and accept that this day was a write-off as far as we two were concerned. I watched our silhouettes waver over the water, brownish green against the glaring sky. My dress, an “A-line, scoop-neck, floor-length chiffon bridesmaid’s gown in Pale Sage,” had looked so airy in the bridal catalogue, but I wasn’t keen on the real thing. Not on me, anyway. It seemed heavier now than it had this morning, and the skirt was damp and wilting round my legs.
“This ought to be a nice day,” I said. “It’s good to be out of London for a while.”
I didn’t mean to sound irritable, but how often did Dad and I get the chance to step out of our ordinary lives? Here we were in a garden by the sea, tipsy on wine and sunshine and flowers in bloom, and all we could think about was my dead sister. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we’d been able to discuss her in a gentle way—I miss her; she’d have loved it here; imagine if she’d been a bridesmaid too, wouldn’t we have looked a pair?—but it wasn’t possible to think, let alone talk, about my sister in that way.
I pressed Dad’s arm. “Stop worrying,” I said, addressing our watery shadows. “That Uncle Whatever-His-Name-Is: he probably doesn’t have a clue who we are. I bet he’s never even heard of Stella.”
There. I’d said her name out loud. It dropped through the space between us, with a whistle and a thunk, and we both flinched. I hated how that always happened. Sometimes I’d say her name accidentally on purpose, in the middle of a conversation, just to make us both hear it. One day, I thought, we’d get used to it, and be able to talk about her in a free and easy way, and she would belong to us again. I would be able to say “Stella” and move lightly on, instead of feeling like I’d drawn a curtain across the sun.
Dad poked me with his elbow as he patted his jacket pockets in search of cigarettes and lighter. He was usually furtive about his smoking habit because he knew I’d tell him off, but he didn’t even pretend today, and I didn’t say a word. I wouldn’t have minded one myself. I was still holding that glass of prosecco, and I took a gulp while he was lighting up.
“Byrne Hall,” he said meditatively, after he’d taken his first puff.
We looked up the tiered lawns to the pale, pillared house. Wedding guests weren’t allowed inside—we were under strict instructions not to stray beyond the gardens—but it made a beautiful backdrop, especially on a hot summer day like today. It was rather austere, with its three identical rows of windows and the severe symmetry of its columns and chimneys, but the framing trees and sunlight served to soften the effect. I couldn’t have told you what style or era it belonged to, except that it put me in mind of Jane Austen TV adaptations; later I discovered it was three hundred years old and built in the Queen Anne style. I thought about the person I’d be if this were my home—the expansive way in which I’d live, and move, and think; the poetry I’d write; the light and freshness that would saturate my soul.
“I remember that house,” said Dad. “I remember seeing it in the distance, when they took me to the cliffs in the coastguard boat, and one of the policemen said, ‘That’s Byrne Hall, that is; our local stately home,’ and I said, ‘Oh yes? Nice place!’”
I smiled guardedly and Dad took a vigorous pull on the cigarette, as if it quenched a thirst.
“Funny, isn’t it?” he went on. “Having such an ordinary conversation at a moment like that?”
I shook my head and drained the prosecco to the last drop. It wasn’t my first drink of the afternoon, which was probably why the ripples of reflected light in the pond were starting to look psychedelic. I took hold of my father’s arm again, as much to keep my balance as to make him stop talking.
“You’d think they would have hesitated, wouldn’t you,” he went on, “before they booked it as a wedding venue? You’d think they’d have had the odd scruple. Or did they just forget?” A cigarette usually mellowed him, but he sounded bitter now.
“I’m sure they didn’t mean anything by it. They’re only second cousins, after all; they’ve probably forgotten it happened here—if they even knew in the first place. Anyway, it’s not the house’s fault that Stella died nearby, and it’s a good few miles from—where they found her.”
“It’s barely a mile.” Dad flicked his cigarette end away. It landed on the surface of the pond with a hiss and floated motionless, like a dead creature. I watched the last grains of smoke dissolve in the hot air and tried to concentrate on not falling over.
“Litterbug,” I said with a nudge, still trying for a lighthearted tone. He made no answer, so I turned away.
One of the guests was emerging into the garden from the cliff path, his hair plastered to his head. He must have been swimming in the sea, and the whiff of saltwater on his clothes made me sit on the low stone wall.
“The sea,” I muttered into my empty glass, feeling hot and sick. I shut my eyes and imagined ice-cold waves lapping at my stomach, darkening my vision, roaring in my ears. There’d been some talk on the coach about skinny-dipping, but I assumed they’d be doing it later, in the drunken darkness, once the formalities were over.
When I opened my eyes, the man was standing at the top of the path, looking back the way he’d come. Nobody else appeared. Perhaps he didn’t belong to the wedding party? He seemed hesitant when one of the waiters approached with a tray of prosecco, and although he took a glass, he just held on to it unhappily and didn’t drink. I wondered whether he’d lost something down on the sand. His feet were bare, so perhaps he’d mislaid his shoes.
The man turned and caught me looking, so I pretended to fiddle with the clasp on my bracelet. He stared at me for a long time before draining his glass and walking away.
“Who was that?” Dad appeared at my elbow and I shrugged. The best man came to the top of the steps and waved his arms at us: the wedding dinner was about to be served, and would we please make our way to the canopy? I waved back. Dad thrust his hands in his pockets and made a little moaning noise, like a child on the verge of tears. He began rustling through the cigarette packet for a second cigarette. If I didn’t drag him off he’d stand by the pond all evening, hollowing out his lungs and experimenting with swear words.
“Come on,” I sighed. “Brave face.”
We skirted the pond and joined the stream of people meandering toward the canopy. I looked up at the house. The frontage had been a creamy white when we arrived from the church around three o’clock, but it was yellow now, in the early evening sun. The blinds were lowered in all the windows and there was no sign of life, unless you counted the fact that the front door was slightly ajar. It must have been cool and quiet in those high-ceilinged rooms, with just a few slivers of light reaching in round the blinds. I wondered if Stella had gone past it too, on her way to the cliffs, and if so whether she’d had room in her head for incongruous thoughts like nice house. Probably not. I wondered whether her last thoughts had touched on me—but I was always wondering that.
“Hey, watch it!” The woman I’d bumped into ran a worried hand over the back of her dress.
“Sorry.”
Everyone was walking slowly, lingeringly. Sometimes people stopped and took in the view.
“I wonder who owns this place?” someone said.
“A couple, I believe,” another replied. “Mr. and Mrs. Byrne? Or it may even be Lord and Lady . . .”
“I’d heard it was a widow, living on her own.”
“Really? Oh well, you may be right. Blue bloods, anyway.”
There was a notice in front of the porch, which read STRICTLY PRIVATE. The letters were black on a white background, large and unmissable.
“Whoever they are, they obviously don’t want the riffraff in.”
Most people laughed at this remark, though some of the effortfully dressed did not.
A tray of filled flutes stood untouched on a trestle table, so I swapped one for my empty glass as we went past. The wine was flat and warm, and even before I’d lifted it to my mouth I knew I didn’t want it, but I drank it anyway.
Dad and I had already studied the seating plan, before the incident with the hearty uncle. I was with the other bridesmaids on the top table, and Dad was miles away, on table five. He didn’t exactly complain as we parted inside the canopy; he just tightened his jaw and loosened his tie, as if he were psyching himself up for a confrontation.
The heat felt much heavier under the canvas, and it seemed to absorb and intensify all the sweaty, fumy, floral scents that a wedding party gives off. People were complaining, under their breath, that the canopy was too small, the long tables packed too closely—and they had a point, though they might have kept their voices down within earshot of the bride. Once I’d managed to squeeze myself into my seat I was effectively trapped, the tabletop digging into my ribs and my elbows pinned to my sides.
The starters were already in place, but once we were seated there was no room for the caterers to move between the tables, so everything—dirty plates and new plates, wine bottles and water jugs—had to be passed along, hand to hand. I could have done with a drink of water, but the jug disappeared to the other end of the table before I could get to it, and when it came back it was empty, except for a curl of lemon peel. A hand kept snaking round my shoulders with a bottle of red and topping up my wineglass, so I drank that instead.
I didn’t know the people sitting on either side of me, because they were both from the bride’s family. The one on my left remained with her back to me, busily chatting to someone else. The one on my right kept up a constant, cryptic murmuring, which may have been addressed to me, and to which I responded with the occasional “Hmm” and a few vague nods. I kept thinking I heard voices behind me—Stella Lyell . . . suicide . . . that’s her younger sister over there—but when I glanced round, the people at the next table appeared easy and unconstrained. I couldn’t see Dad at all.
Here we go again, I remember thinking. Elbows in, eyes down, do what everyone else is doing. Don’t think too hard or wish too hard. Don’t listen to their gossip.
“Lamb Provençal,” said one of the other bridesmaids with relish, reading off the menu card, as the main courses began to arrive. A plate was set in front of me, and the heat and noise seemed to swell up inside the tent, and the stench of close-packed bodies was indistinguishable from the smell of garlicky meat. I gripped the edge of the table and felt myself sway. There was still no sign of a replenished water jug, but at least the flaps of the canopy had been tied back on one side, and I could drink the green shadows of the garden with my eyes if I leaned forward and pressed against my neighbour’s arm. My gaze meandered upward, through a veil of trees, to Byrne Hall. The front door was still open, and a cold darkness seemed to seep out of it, like water from a stone jar.
“Beans?” said my neighbour shortly, shifting her chair as best she could so that our arms were no longer touching. I helped myself to French beans, before handing the dish on and feeling for my knife and fork. The lamb cutlet was covered in gritty pepper, and when I pressed it with the flat of my knife it bled like a grazed knee. On the other side of the table the two littlest bridesmaids were getting red-faced and wriggly. One of them threw her fork on the floor and the other one started to wail, and nobody tried to stop them when they slid under the table and crawled over our feet. I turned to my plate again, and the air around me staled and thickened. Outside, a breath of wind touched the lime trees, and their leaves flashed in the sun, like tumbling emeralds.
“Could you possibly cut up my lamb for me?” asked the woman on my right, with a wave of her bandaged wrist. “I’ve only got one hand here.” From the testy way she said it, I guessed this wasn’t the first time she’d asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Sorry. Of course.”
I pulled her plate toward me and began to saw, yanking the chunk of meat from its bow-shaped bone. Blood pooled over the plate and my stomach seemed to rise and fall in time with my breathing. The woman said something, but I couldn’t hear her properly over the buzzing in my ears. I set the cutlery down carefully.