The Haunting
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Synopsis
How can the mysterious disappearance of Anne Flint in 1816 and the drowning of a young girl in a chalk stream so long ago possibly affect the life of schoolteacher Harry Flint some two centuries later?
Having left his job and with a failed marriage behind him, Harry begins to research his ancestors. The deeper he digs, the more he realises that the past is closer than he had ever imagined.
The Haunting is a story of love and betrayal, intrigue and murder. Where people are not what they seem, and the past is no more predictable than the future....
(P)2012 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Release date: September 15, 2011
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Print pages: 352
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The Haunting
Alan Titchmarsh
Contents
1 The Streamside, Hampshire – 16 April 1816
2 St Jude’s School, Winchester – 16 April 2010
3 The Fulling Mill, Hampshire – 17 April 1816
4 The Riverbank, Hampshire – 16 April 2010
5 The Manor House, Withercombe – 17 April 1816
6 St Cross Apartments, Winchester – 17 April 2010
7 The Manor House, Withercombe – 17 April 1816
8 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 17 April 2010
9 Rakemaker’s Close, Old Alresford – 17 April 2010
10 The Bluebell Inn, Withercombe – 19 April 1816
11 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 29 May 2010
12 The Streamside, Hampshire – 16 April 1816
13 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 29 May 2010
14 Winchester Cathedral Library – 5 June 2010
15 The Fulling Mill, Hampshire – 20 April 1816
16 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 4 June 2010
17 The Streamside, Hampshire – 16 April 1816
18 St Jude’s School, Winchester – 7 June 2010
19 The Streamside, Hampshire – 16 April 1816
20 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 7 June 2010
21 The Portsmouth Road – 16 April 1816
22 The Hotel du Vin, Winchester – 12 June 2010
23 Portsmouth – 16 April 1816
24 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 13 June 2010
25 72 Godolphin Street, Portsmouth – 16 April 1816
26 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 13 June 2010
27 72 Godolphin Street, Portsmouth – 16 April 1816
28 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 19 June 2010
29 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 19 June 2010
30 72 Godolphin Street, Portsmouth – 16 April 1816
31 72 Godolphin Street, Portsmouth – 16 April 1816
32 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 19 June 2010
33 72 Godolphin Street, Portsmouth – 16 April 1816
34 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 20 June 2010
35 72 Godolphin Street, Portsmouth – 17 April 1816
36 The Streamside – 20 June 2010
37 Portsmouth – 17 April 1816
38 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 20 June 2010
39 Winchester – 17 April 1816
40 The Manor House, Withercombe – 21 April 1816
41 St Jude’s School, Winchester – 21 June 2010
42 Mill Cottage – 24 April 1816
43 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 21 June 2010
44 Hatherley – 22 April 1816
45 St Jude’s School, Winchester – 22 June 2010
46 Mill Cottage – 27 April 1816
47 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 22 June 2010
48 Hatherley – 30 April 1816
49 Winchester – 26 June 2010
50 The Manor House, Withercombe – 1 May 1816
51 Mill Cottage – Christmas Day 1816
52 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 17 July 2010
53 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 18 July 2010
Acknowledgements
1
The Streamside, Hampshire
16 April 1816
Fish say, they have their stream and pond;
But is there anything beyond?
Rupert Brooke, ‘Heaven’, 1915
It was not a day for death. For a start, the weather was all wrong. It was one of those perfect days, the sort that occur only a handful of times each year. Usually in spring. Air as clear as crystal; the sort of day when the whole world seems to sparkle and glisten – freshly laundered by a shower of rain, buffed up by the gentlest of breezes and then polished to perfection by clear sunlight. It is there only for those who are prepared to see it – the sort of people whose senses are heightened by having spent much of their time out of doors rather than having had their finer feelings dulled by decades of desk-bound toil. Those poor mortals whose eyes are forever cast downwards are likely to let the moment pass, and by the time their gaze is raised heavenward, it is to discover the source of the rain that dampens further their mood or the squall that tears at their clothing.
On this April day, at a quarter to nine in the morning, Anne Flint took advantage of her mistress’s absence in the hope of changing her life. Tentatively she lifted the latch on the heavy oak door and slipped from the great house without a backward glance.
The events that had occurred since she had risen at five o’clock had made her more determined than ever . . .
A bucketful of ashes can be quite heavy. If you are small. And slight. And slender of wrist. Anne struggled down the staircase of the Manor House as quietly as she could, slipping out of the back door and down to the vegetable garden where old Mr Moses, who used to be the groom, now tended a few desultory rows of cabbages, swedes and turnips. She emptied the bucket gradually along the path that led to his dilapidated shelter, whose coppery-coloured roof tiles slithered towards the ground in a tumbling pyramid. There would be no danger of encountering him. He did not rise until half past eight at the earliest and it was not yet half past six. The bucket emptied at last, Anne retraced her steps to the house and made to store it in its usual place in the cellar. She ducked between the dried hams that hung from the iron hooks studding the vaulted ceiling and slowly climbed back up the cellar steps. As she did so, she heard the firm footsteps of Mrs Fitzgerald walking down the passage. Anne took the precaution of picking from a stone shelf behind the door a bottle of vinegar and a box of salt.
At first she thought she might escape being seen by hiding behind the open cellar door, but that strategy was invalidated by the housekeeper herself who, thinking that the door had been left open by mistake, closed it and revealed the junior housemaid, salt and vinegar in hand, standing flat against the wall and looking sheepish.
‘What are you doing there?’
‘Just coming out of the cellar, Mrs Fitzgerald.’
‘You are out of the cellar. Why is there any need to stand behind the door like a shadow?’
‘I was just—’
‘Idling. Again.’
‘No, ma’am. I was . . .’ Anne held up the box and the bottle to show the fruits of her mission.
‘They are doing no good at all in your hand. They need to be applied to the brass.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Off you go. Get your bowl and your cloth. There’s plenty to clean before breakfast.’
Anne cast her eyes downwards, partly out of shame, and partly weariness. Her bones ached, her fingers were sore and her spirits low. There seemed no respite from this daily round. The sooner you had completed one chore, there was another in its place. Oh, she knew she was lucky to have work at all, and she was not shy of it. It was just that this was not the sort of work she wanted to do. Not now.
Mrs Fitzgerald, of robust constitution, four feet eight inches of rough black linen and a collar of starched white cotton, read the situation. ‘And there is no earthly point in you dreaming about being a lady’s maid when you cannot even polish the brass or lay a fire.’
‘But I can, ma’am. I do.’
‘To your own satisfaction, perhaps, but not to mine.’
Anne bowed her head. ‘No, ma’am.’
‘Now off you go. Bowl and cloth from the cupboard, the salt and vinegar you have.’
‘Mrs Fitzgerald, do you think I might—?’ She did not have time to complete the question.
‘If you are asking to be let out of the house again, the answer is no. I have never objected to you taking a few minutes off from time to time. You know that. But you were gone for two hours yesterday, and such an abuse of privilege is not to be countenanced. You will work through.’
‘But—’
‘Enough. Bowl. Cloth. Salt. Vinegar. Go!’ And with that the housekeeper turned on her heel and headed off down the passage in the direction of her linen cupboard. Anne leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. When would it ever end?
For two whole hours she rubbed at the door handles and finger plates, the brass and irons and fenders and anything that looked as though it should have glinted. She rubbed until her fingers ached; the vinegar was merciless at discovering cuts which then stung as though attacked by a wasp.
The longcase clock in the hall struck the half-hour. She glanced up at the black hands on the dial far above her head. Half past eight o’clock. Anne could bear it no more. Silently she walked along the passage that led to the linen cupboard and the pantry. There was no sign of Mrs Fitzgerald in either. She walked back and put her head round the doors of the kitchen and the scullery. The housekeeper was nowhere to be seen.
Swiftly Anne opened the cellar door and tripped down the steps, replacing the salt and the vinegar. She rinsed her hands in a bowl of water that stood on the stone sink under the cellar window and dried them on the ragged hank of cloth that hung from the nail to one side.
Wearily she mounted the cellar steps and closed the door behind her. Along the passage she went, listening at the foot of the stairs for voices. They were faint – somewhere upstairs Sir Thomas was talking to Mrs Fitzgerald. She could make out no words but instinctively knew the tone of each voice in the household. Sir Thomas’s was deep and rumbling, Lady Carew’s gentle and soft, Mrs Fitzgerald’s had an Irish lilt and a hard edge to it. The two sons, when they came home, were hard to distinguish from one another, but neither of them was in residence at the moment – Master Edward was away with the militia, and Master Frederick in London at his uncle’s chambers. She liked Master Frederick. He was kind to her. But she had no time to think of them now. In a few minutes Mrs Fitzgerald would come downstairs. If Anne was to leave and make her assignation it must be now or not at all. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest at the prospect and she found it difficult to breathe. How foolish would it be to disobey Mrs Fitzgerald’s orders? Supposing no one came? What then? She looked again at her hands: reddened and cracked, two of her nails were badly torn. Several of her fingers had chilblains. These were not the hands of a lady’s maid; they were the hands of a labourer. And now that she had stopped for a moment it seemed that her whole body ached.
She took a woollen shawl from the hook in the kitchen, threw it around her shoulders and slipped out of the door. Mr Moses saw her go but did nothing more than knock out the contents of his clay pipe on his gaiters and carry on hoeing between his turnips. What a housemaid did was none of his business. He liked a quiet life and would not be drawn into gossip and speculation.
Beyond the wrought-iron gate in the high wall of mellow brick to the side of the house lay a narrow path of bare earth that snaked its way beneath the overhanging branches of hazel and quickthorn. Anne gathered up her skirts and brushed her way between the towering stems of cow parsley and campion, pulling at a stem of grass which she popped into her mouth and chewed. It tasted of spring: fresh, green, full of promise.
Slowly she walked now, listening to the birds that sang from the branches above, their notes carrying for miles around on the still, sharp air. The sound of horses’ hooves and the ring of the wheels on a distant farm cart died away, until she was aware of nothing but the sound of finches and sparrows in early morning reverie and the rustle of her dress through the undergrowth. A long stem of goosegrass caught at her shawl. She pulled at it as it wound its way around her arm, eager for company and unwilling to be cast aside. ‘Get away you! I aint for ’oldin’ back. Not today . . .’
She knew exactly where she would go. Following the path until it forked beneath a sturdy oak that had seen the births and deaths of ten kings and three queens, she took the turning to the left that led down a grassy bank. At the bottom of it ran a stream, bordered by swords of sweet flag and youthful meadowsweet, yet to send up its foaming froth of creamy flowers. The stream was not a river. Not yet. That distinction it could lay claim to just a couple of miles down the narrow valley, when it would join other juveniles that would add to its breadth and depth. Now it was barely six feet across and ankle deep, shimmering as it ran in whispering eddies over the smooth pebble bed. At the girl’s approach, minnows darted into the shadows.
Anne flopped down on the bank and squinted as the sun, slanting through the osiers, caught her in the eye. She threw back her head and felt the warmth on her cheeks and forehead.
For a few minutes she did nothing more than breathe; filling her young lungs with the freshest of air; not that stale, indoor kind, laden with dust and the acrid tang of polish. Then, pulling her feet up close, she undid the long laces and slipped off first one boot, then the other, before reaching up under two layers of calico to find the ribbons that secured her stockings. She slid them from her legs and lowered her slender white feet into the clear water below. They were pretty feet – not the sort to be found on older housemaids.
She gasped at the coldness of the water, then smiled to herself as a pleasing numbness crept through the feet that for most of their days were encased in the black boots and thick stockings that were part of her daily uniform.
How wonderful it was to be free of them. To be free of everything. To be herself, her own person. Maybe it would be half an hour before anyone missed her. Wondered where she had gone. Asked ‘Has anyone seen Anne? Where is that girl?’ Maybe, just maybe, today would be the day that she did not go back. That she would finally make her escape from the drudgery that was her lot, day in, day out.
The prospect was too exciting to contemplate. She would take her mind off it. As she dangled her feet in the water and swished them backwards and forwards, the better to wash away the wearying aches of her domestic life, she reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a small book. A piece of purple ribbon marked her place. It had been too short to be of any use for tying hair or stockings, so had been tossed aside. Anne found it in one of the bedroom fire grates early one morning.
There was very little of it, but she liked the feel of it: the smoothness of its texture as she ran it through her fingers, the strength it exhibited when she snapped it taut between the thumb and forefinger of each hand. With a small pair of scissors borrowed from her mistress’s dressing case, she cut the ends into neat chevrons and used it as a bookmark. She had not got very far with the book, but her reading was improving daily and, unless she persisted, admonished Mrs Fitzgerald, she would never make anything of herself. Anne wondered what there was to make.
She had never had what Mrs Fitzgerald referred to as ‘an heducation’. That was for children of families with fathers and mothers who could make sure they were sent to dame schools, or else arrange for instruction at home. Anne had no family. At least, none that she knew of. She had begun to read at the orphanage, encouraged by a kindly beadle. They were rare, by all accounts, but she did find Mr Hawkins kindly. At first.
He would sit beside her and take her through her alphabet, would read with her for a while each day – from the Book of Common Prayer, whose words were mysterious and confusing but which, nevertheless, accustomed her to putting sounds to those often long and strange-sounding words. She did not mind too much that he sat so close to her, even though he smelled rather stale – a mixture of old ale and pipe tobacco. Only when he began to touch her did she suspect he was not the kind man she had at first imagined him to be.
It began innocently enough – an encouraging pat, a hand on her shoulder, then her knee; but soon he began to touch her where she knew he should not have touched. It frightened her.
From then on she tried to avoid meeting him; certainly made sure she was never left alone with him. Then he stopped teaching her. Would not even look at her. It was only a few months later that she was sent into service. Now she would have to manage for herself. And she would. She might be alone, but she was determined that would not always be her situation. One day she would meet a handsome young man and fall in love. Those were the sort of stories she liked to read now. She had found one while cleaning the attic in the big house; took great care to ask if she might borrow it. Mrs Fitzgerald had looked at the faded title on the dusty spine and frowned. ‘Romantic. Well, if you must. At least it might encourage you in your hendeavours. But do remember that it is just a story. Life is seldom quite so hexciting.’
But Anne liked the story. It took her several months to read, and then she was allowed to borrow another and another and her reading became more assured. She could read a book a week now. The one she carried with her on this April day told of a highwayman and a young girl. How he came and swept her off her feet. She was not at all sure that she wanted to be swept away by a highwayman – by all accounts they were rough, unwashed brutes – but it excited her to imagine what it might be like to live a little dangerously. Her heart missed a beat at the prospect.
Reality soon reinstated itself. No one at all looked like sweeping her off her feet. She was fifteen now, not bad looking, with her red-brown hair and fair complexion. At least Sam told her that. Said that she was ‘very presentable’. But what did he know? Sam would never get anybody. Certainly not her. Sam was the yard boy in the stables. He could read and write, it was true, but it would take someone special to win her hand. Not someone like Sam with his warts and his big feet.
She sighed heavily. What hope was there? Who could possibly want to win her hand? She picked up the book and read: ‘The wheels of the coach rattled across the cobbles of the courtyard until the p-o-r-t-c-u-l-l-i-s of the castle was reached.’ She wondered what a portcullis could be. Perhaps it was some sort of doorway.
She made to read on, but it was too fair a day to be engrossed in a book. This was her moment of freedom; her escape from the things she was made to do into a world of her imagination. Carefully she laid the purple ribbon between the pages of the book and slipped it back into her pocket, glancing round to see if she was still alone.
The meadow was quite empty as far as she could see. The person she hoped to meet was nowhere to be seen, but neither was there here anyone to chastise or to scold her. She allowed herself to dream for a while. In spite of Mrs Fitzgerald’s opinion to the contrary, she liked to believe that exciting things could happen, even to her. Especially now. She tied the laces of the two boots together, slipped a stocking into each of them and hung them around her neck. She withdrew her tingling feet from the water and rubbed them on the soft grass to dry them. Already she felt better than she had when she left the house. She had always felt most at ease out of doors, but there were no jobs for girls in the open air; no jobs worth having, anyway. Not for someone who might one day soon be a lady’s maid, and certainly not in winter when the wind whipped at your ears and the rain soaked through to your drawers.
Slowly her dreams began to fade. The sun rose in the sky. It seemed as though this would be a day just like all the others. She had better return and face the music. She would stick at her job for as long as it took, and one day she would be able to leave service and bring up a family of her own. One day. Today she would have to settle for what few moments she had left to let the sun caress her pale skin and the scent of May blossom fill her head with dreams. Perhaps that was all they would ever be, after all. It seemed as though the day that had promised so much would not be quite so special after all.
As she clambered up the steep bank from the stream, she did not see the figure by the oak tree. It blended into the shadows . . .
2
St Jude’s School, Winchester
16 April 2010
Happy is the country which has no history.
Early nineteenth-century proverb
‘It’s boring, sir.’
Harry Flint looked over the top of his glasses, the better to see the youth who was addressing him. ‘What do you mean, boring?’
The boy shrugged. He was not one of the brightest in the class, but then neither was he a total no-hoper, nor one of the tiresome troublemakers who did their best to interrupt every lesson.
‘Just . . . well . . . what has it got to do with us? It’s history.’
Harry took off his glasses, slid from the desk on which he had been sitting and walked across to the window. He looked out across the school yard to the fields and meadows beyond. It was one of those perfect days, the sort that occur only a handful of times each year. Usually in spring. Air as clear as crystal; the sort of day when the whole world seems to sparkle and glisten – freshly laundered by a shower of rain, buffed up by the gentlest of breezes and then polished to perfection by clear sunlight.
‘What’s it got to do with you?’ He asked the question softly, rhetorically. But he nevertheless received a reply.
‘It all happened ages ago. All this stuff about kings and queens. It doesn’t make any difference to us.’
The boy’s words hung in the air. Harry repeated them slowly. ‘It . . . doesn’t . . . make . . . any . . . difference . . . to . . . us.’
He turned to face the boy and the rest of the class. A sea of wary faces gazed at him. They could sense his mood was changing. Better to sit quietly and wait until the moment passed; until things blew over.
The questioning boy glanced at the clock, hopeful of being saved by the bell. No chance. There were still five minutes to go before they would be released from Flinty’s grasp and could hurtle out into the playground to hit one another.
‘Just because something happened a long time ago – in this case around two hundred years ago, Stephens, it does not mean that it does not affect you today, or that it is unimportant. The past . . .’ Harry glanced about the room, searching for a face that might offer him a crumb of encouragement . . . ‘Wilson, what does the past do?’ he asked of a studious lad who might hopefully come to his aid.
‘It informs the present, sir.’
The rest of the class let out a low moan and the boy Wilson looked suitably abashed.
‘It informs the present and enables us to place our lives in context.’
Feet shuffled under desks.
Harry sighed heavily. ‘The reign of George the Third, while from your point of view as far away from your own lives as . . .’ he sought for a suitable analogy . . . ‘as Harry Potter or Spiderman, is nevertheless a part of your history. Not everything that happened all those years ago is dull, or unimportant or irrelevant.’
He scanned the room once more, hopeful of a glimmer of interest or a spark of enthusiasm. None came.
‘Here was a king who lost America, who is remembered as being mad – which is far from the truth; whose grasp of agriculture and encouragement of architecture and the arts was matchless; who was subjected to the most fiendish treatment at the hand of doctors to cure him of ailments they didn’t fully understand, and who died blind and deaf, handing over his kingdom to a self-indulgent son who squandered his own talents and gave us the Brighton Pavilion.’
A hand went up halfway back in the classroom.
‘Yes, Palmer?’
‘Sir, can we go to Brighton?’
Before Harry could answer, the air was riven by a metallic clanging. The boys began to clear their desks of books.
‘Bloody philistines,’ murmured Harry. He raised his voice. ‘We’ll continue this fascinating discussion on the fate of King George the Third on Monday and look at the relationship between the Prince Regent and his subjects in greater detail. ‘Thank you gentlemen.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ The answer emerged through the mixture of chairs scraping against the wooden floor, books being dropped and feet clattering out of the classroom.
Harry sank down into the chair behind his desk, looking across the room towards the window and thinking that they had a point. He wasn’t a bad teacher, he thought. Most of the time. It was just that every now and again he got carried away and assumed that every last one of them was as excited about history as he was. Well, had been. The repetition of facts over the years had wearied him. Maybe they had a point. Maybe it wasn’t relevant any more. Who cared whether George the Third was married to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz or Caroline of Brunswick? What difference did it make to a bunch of lads who were more interested in their MP3 than George III?
Perhaps he had been doing the job too long. Well, it wouldn’t be much longer now. This would be his last term. When the summer holidays came they could say goodbye to Flinty – and George the Third, too, for that matter. And what then?
If only he knew. That was the thing about the future: it was all so uncertain. So uncomfortable. Not like the past. You knew where you were with the past. Things slotted into place perfectly. Neatly. He liked neatness. Orderliness. That was his problem. That was why he was on his own now . . .
It was no time to brood. The rest of the afternoon was clear – free periods. And it was Friday. Thank God for that. He would go out. Leave the classroom behind and shake off the grey mood brought on by an ungrateful bunch of twelve-year-olds. . .
1 The Streamside, Hampshire – 16 April 1816
2 St Jude’s School, Winchester – 16 April 2010
3 The Fulling Mill, Hampshire – 17 April 1816
4 The Riverbank, Hampshire – 16 April 2010
5 The Manor House, Withercombe – 17 April 1816
6 St Cross Apartments, Winchester – 17 April 2010
7 The Manor House, Withercombe – 17 April 1816
8 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 17 April 2010
9 Rakemaker’s Close, Old Alresford – 17 April 2010
10 The Bluebell Inn, Withercombe – 19 April 1816
11 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 29 May 2010
12 The Streamside, Hampshire – 16 April 1816
13 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 29 May 2010
14 Winchester Cathedral Library – 5 June 2010
15 The Fulling Mill, Hampshire – 20 April 1816
16 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 4 June 2010
17 The Streamside, Hampshire – 16 April 1816
18 St Jude’s School, Winchester – 7 June 2010
19 The Streamside, Hampshire – 16 April 1816
20 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 7 June 2010
21 The Portsmouth Road – 16 April 1816
22 The Hotel du Vin, Winchester – 12 June 2010
23 Portsmouth – 16 April 1816
24 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 13 June 2010
25 72 Godolphin Street, Portsmouth – 16 April 1816
26 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 13 June 2010
27 72 Godolphin Street, Portsmouth – 16 April 1816
28 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 19 June 2010
29 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 19 June 2010
30 72 Godolphin Street, Portsmouth – 16 April 1816
31 72 Godolphin Street, Portsmouth – 16 April 1816
32 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 19 June 2010
33 72 Godolphin Street, Portsmouth – 16 April 1816
34 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 20 June 2010
35 72 Godolphin Street, Portsmouth – 17 April 1816
36 The Streamside – 20 June 2010
37 Portsmouth – 17 April 1816
38 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 20 June 2010
39 Winchester – 17 April 1816
40 The Manor House, Withercombe – 21 April 1816
41 St Jude’s School, Winchester – 21 June 2010
42 Mill Cottage – 24 April 1816
43 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 21 June 2010
44 Hatherley – 22 April 1816
45 St Jude’s School, Winchester – 22 June 2010
46 Mill Cottage – 27 April 1816
47 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 22 June 2010
48 Hatherley – 30 April 1816
49 Winchester – 26 June 2010
50 The Manor House, Withercombe – 1 May 1816
51 Mill Cottage – Christmas Day 1816
52 Mill Cottage, Itchen Parva – 17 July 2010
53 The Old Mill, Itchen Parva – 18 July 2010
Acknowledgements
1
The Streamside, Hampshire
16 April 1816
Fish say, they have their stream and pond;
But is there anything beyond?
Rupert Brooke, ‘Heaven’, 1915
It was not a day for death. For a start, the weather was all wrong. It was one of those perfect days, the sort that occur only a handful of times each year. Usually in spring. Air as clear as crystal; the sort of day when the whole world seems to sparkle and glisten – freshly laundered by a shower of rain, buffed up by the gentlest of breezes and then polished to perfection by clear sunlight. It is there only for those who are prepared to see it – the sort of people whose senses are heightened by having spent much of their time out of doors rather than having had their finer feelings dulled by decades of desk-bound toil. Those poor mortals whose eyes are forever cast downwards are likely to let the moment pass, and by the time their gaze is raised heavenward, it is to discover the source of the rain that dampens further their mood or the squall that tears at their clothing.
On this April day, at a quarter to nine in the morning, Anne Flint took advantage of her mistress’s absence in the hope of changing her life. Tentatively she lifted the latch on the heavy oak door and slipped from the great house without a backward glance.
The events that had occurred since she had risen at five o’clock had made her more determined than ever . . .
A bucketful of ashes can be quite heavy. If you are small. And slight. And slender of wrist. Anne struggled down the staircase of the Manor House as quietly as she could, slipping out of the back door and down to the vegetable garden where old Mr Moses, who used to be the groom, now tended a few desultory rows of cabbages, swedes and turnips. She emptied the bucket gradually along the path that led to his dilapidated shelter, whose coppery-coloured roof tiles slithered towards the ground in a tumbling pyramid. There would be no danger of encountering him. He did not rise until half past eight at the earliest and it was not yet half past six. The bucket emptied at last, Anne retraced her steps to the house and made to store it in its usual place in the cellar. She ducked between the dried hams that hung from the iron hooks studding the vaulted ceiling and slowly climbed back up the cellar steps. As she did so, she heard the firm footsteps of Mrs Fitzgerald walking down the passage. Anne took the precaution of picking from a stone shelf behind the door a bottle of vinegar and a box of salt.
At first she thought she might escape being seen by hiding behind the open cellar door, but that strategy was invalidated by the housekeeper herself who, thinking that the door had been left open by mistake, closed it and revealed the junior housemaid, salt and vinegar in hand, standing flat against the wall and looking sheepish.
‘What are you doing there?’
‘Just coming out of the cellar, Mrs Fitzgerald.’
‘You are out of the cellar. Why is there any need to stand behind the door like a shadow?’
‘I was just—’
‘Idling. Again.’
‘No, ma’am. I was . . .’ Anne held up the box and the bottle to show the fruits of her mission.
‘They are doing no good at all in your hand. They need to be applied to the brass.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Off you go. Get your bowl and your cloth. There’s plenty to clean before breakfast.’
Anne cast her eyes downwards, partly out of shame, and partly weariness. Her bones ached, her fingers were sore and her spirits low. There seemed no respite from this daily round. The sooner you had completed one chore, there was another in its place. Oh, she knew she was lucky to have work at all, and she was not shy of it. It was just that this was not the sort of work she wanted to do. Not now.
Mrs Fitzgerald, of robust constitution, four feet eight inches of rough black linen and a collar of starched white cotton, read the situation. ‘And there is no earthly point in you dreaming about being a lady’s maid when you cannot even polish the brass or lay a fire.’
‘But I can, ma’am. I do.’
‘To your own satisfaction, perhaps, but not to mine.’
Anne bowed her head. ‘No, ma’am.’
‘Now off you go. Bowl and cloth from the cupboard, the salt and vinegar you have.’
‘Mrs Fitzgerald, do you think I might—?’ She did not have time to complete the question.
‘If you are asking to be let out of the house again, the answer is no. I have never objected to you taking a few minutes off from time to time. You know that. But you were gone for two hours yesterday, and such an abuse of privilege is not to be countenanced. You will work through.’
‘But—’
‘Enough. Bowl. Cloth. Salt. Vinegar. Go!’ And with that the housekeeper turned on her heel and headed off down the passage in the direction of her linen cupboard. Anne leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. When would it ever end?
For two whole hours she rubbed at the door handles and finger plates, the brass and irons and fenders and anything that looked as though it should have glinted. She rubbed until her fingers ached; the vinegar was merciless at discovering cuts which then stung as though attacked by a wasp.
The longcase clock in the hall struck the half-hour. She glanced up at the black hands on the dial far above her head. Half past eight o’clock. Anne could bear it no more. Silently she walked along the passage that led to the linen cupboard and the pantry. There was no sign of Mrs Fitzgerald in either. She walked back and put her head round the doors of the kitchen and the scullery. The housekeeper was nowhere to be seen.
Swiftly Anne opened the cellar door and tripped down the steps, replacing the salt and the vinegar. She rinsed her hands in a bowl of water that stood on the stone sink under the cellar window and dried them on the ragged hank of cloth that hung from the nail to one side.
Wearily she mounted the cellar steps and closed the door behind her. Along the passage she went, listening at the foot of the stairs for voices. They were faint – somewhere upstairs Sir Thomas was talking to Mrs Fitzgerald. She could make out no words but instinctively knew the tone of each voice in the household. Sir Thomas’s was deep and rumbling, Lady Carew’s gentle and soft, Mrs Fitzgerald’s had an Irish lilt and a hard edge to it. The two sons, when they came home, were hard to distinguish from one another, but neither of them was in residence at the moment – Master Edward was away with the militia, and Master Frederick in London at his uncle’s chambers. She liked Master Frederick. He was kind to her. But she had no time to think of them now. In a few minutes Mrs Fitzgerald would come downstairs. If Anne was to leave and make her assignation it must be now or not at all. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest at the prospect and she found it difficult to breathe. How foolish would it be to disobey Mrs Fitzgerald’s orders? Supposing no one came? What then? She looked again at her hands: reddened and cracked, two of her nails were badly torn. Several of her fingers had chilblains. These were not the hands of a lady’s maid; they were the hands of a labourer. And now that she had stopped for a moment it seemed that her whole body ached.
She took a woollen shawl from the hook in the kitchen, threw it around her shoulders and slipped out of the door. Mr Moses saw her go but did nothing more than knock out the contents of his clay pipe on his gaiters and carry on hoeing between his turnips. What a housemaid did was none of his business. He liked a quiet life and would not be drawn into gossip and speculation.
Beyond the wrought-iron gate in the high wall of mellow brick to the side of the house lay a narrow path of bare earth that snaked its way beneath the overhanging branches of hazel and quickthorn. Anne gathered up her skirts and brushed her way between the towering stems of cow parsley and campion, pulling at a stem of grass which she popped into her mouth and chewed. It tasted of spring: fresh, green, full of promise.
Slowly she walked now, listening to the birds that sang from the branches above, their notes carrying for miles around on the still, sharp air. The sound of horses’ hooves and the ring of the wheels on a distant farm cart died away, until she was aware of nothing but the sound of finches and sparrows in early morning reverie and the rustle of her dress through the undergrowth. A long stem of goosegrass caught at her shawl. She pulled at it as it wound its way around her arm, eager for company and unwilling to be cast aside. ‘Get away you! I aint for ’oldin’ back. Not today . . .’
She knew exactly where she would go. Following the path until it forked beneath a sturdy oak that had seen the births and deaths of ten kings and three queens, she took the turning to the left that led down a grassy bank. At the bottom of it ran a stream, bordered by swords of sweet flag and youthful meadowsweet, yet to send up its foaming froth of creamy flowers. The stream was not a river. Not yet. That distinction it could lay claim to just a couple of miles down the narrow valley, when it would join other juveniles that would add to its breadth and depth. Now it was barely six feet across and ankle deep, shimmering as it ran in whispering eddies over the smooth pebble bed. At the girl’s approach, minnows darted into the shadows.
Anne flopped down on the bank and squinted as the sun, slanting through the osiers, caught her in the eye. She threw back her head and felt the warmth on her cheeks and forehead.
For a few minutes she did nothing more than breathe; filling her young lungs with the freshest of air; not that stale, indoor kind, laden with dust and the acrid tang of polish. Then, pulling her feet up close, she undid the long laces and slipped off first one boot, then the other, before reaching up under two layers of calico to find the ribbons that secured her stockings. She slid them from her legs and lowered her slender white feet into the clear water below. They were pretty feet – not the sort to be found on older housemaids.
She gasped at the coldness of the water, then smiled to herself as a pleasing numbness crept through the feet that for most of their days were encased in the black boots and thick stockings that were part of her daily uniform.
How wonderful it was to be free of them. To be free of everything. To be herself, her own person. Maybe it would be half an hour before anyone missed her. Wondered where she had gone. Asked ‘Has anyone seen Anne? Where is that girl?’ Maybe, just maybe, today would be the day that she did not go back. That she would finally make her escape from the drudgery that was her lot, day in, day out.
The prospect was too exciting to contemplate. She would take her mind off it. As she dangled her feet in the water and swished them backwards and forwards, the better to wash away the wearying aches of her domestic life, she reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a small book. A piece of purple ribbon marked her place. It had been too short to be of any use for tying hair or stockings, so had been tossed aside. Anne found it in one of the bedroom fire grates early one morning.
There was very little of it, but she liked the feel of it: the smoothness of its texture as she ran it through her fingers, the strength it exhibited when she snapped it taut between the thumb and forefinger of each hand. With a small pair of scissors borrowed from her mistress’s dressing case, she cut the ends into neat chevrons and used it as a bookmark. She had not got very far with the book, but her reading was improving daily and, unless she persisted, admonished Mrs Fitzgerald, she would never make anything of herself. Anne wondered what there was to make.
She had never had what Mrs Fitzgerald referred to as ‘an heducation’. That was for children of families with fathers and mothers who could make sure they were sent to dame schools, or else arrange for instruction at home. Anne had no family. At least, none that she knew of. She had begun to read at the orphanage, encouraged by a kindly beadle. They were rare, by all accounts, but she did find Mr Hawkins kindly. At first.
He would sit beside her and take her through her alphabet, would read with her for a while each day – from the Book of Common Prayer, whose words were mysterious and confusing but which, nevertheless, accustomed her to putting sounds to those often long and strange-sounding words. She did not mind too much that he sat so close to her, even though he smelled rather stale – a mixture of old ale and pipe tobacco. Only when he began to touch her did she suspect he was not the kind man she had at first imagined him to be.
It began innocently enough – an encouraging pat, a hand on her shoulder, then her knee; but soon he began to touch her where she knew he should not have touched. It frightened her.
From then on she tried to avoid meeting him; certainly made sure she was never left alone with him. Then he stopped teaching her. Would not even look at her. It was only a few months later that she was sent into service. Now she would have to manage for herself. And she would. She might be alone, but she was determined that would not always be her situation. One day she would meet a handsome young man and fall in love. Those were the sort of stories she liked to read now. She had found one while cleaning the attic in the big house; took great care to ask if she might borrow it. Mrs Fitzgerald had looked at the faded title on the dusty spine and frowned. ‘Romantic. Well, if you must. At least it might encourage you in your hendeavours. But do remember that it is just a story. Life is seldom quite so hexciting.’
But Anne liked the story. It took her several months to read, and then she was allowed to borrow another and another and her reading became more assured. She could read a book a week now. The one she carried with her on this April day told of a highwayman and a young girl. How he came and swept her off her feet. She was not at all sure that she wanted to be swept away by a highwayman – by all accounts they were rough, unwashed brutes – but it excited her to imagine what it might be like to live a little dangerously. Her heart missed a beat at the prospect.
Reality soon reinstated itself. No one at all looked like sweeping her off her feet. She was fifteen now, not bad looking, with her red-brown hair and fair complexion. At least Sam told her that. Said that she was ‘very presentable’. But what did he know? Sam would never get anybody. Certainly not her. Sam was the yard boy in the stables. He could read and write, it was true, but it would take someone special to win her hand. Not someone like Sam with his warts and his big feet.
She sighed heavily. What hope was there? Who could possibly want to win her hand? She picked up the book and read: ‘The wheels of the coach rattled across the cobbles of the courtyard until the p-o-r-t-c-u-l-l-i-s of the castle was reached.’ She wondered what a portcullis could be. Perhaps it was some sort of doorway.
She made to read on, but it was too fair a day to be engrossed in a book. This was her moment of freedom; her escape from the things she was made to do into a world of her imagination. Carefully she laid the purple ribbon between the pages of the book and slipped it back into her pocket, glancing round to see if she was still alone.
The meadow was quite empty as far as she could see. The person she hoped to meet was nowhere to be seen, but neither was there here anyone to chastise or to scold her. She allowed herself to dream for a while. In spite of Mrs Fitzgerald’s opinion to the contrary, she liked to believe that exciting things could happen, even to her. Especially now. She tied the laces of the two boots together, slipped a stocking into each of them and hung them around her neck. She withdrew her tingling feet from the water and rubbed them on the soft grass to dry them. Already she felt better than she had when she left the house. She had always felt most at ease out of doors, but there were no jobs for girls in the open air; no jobs worth having, anyway. Not for someone who might one day soon be a lady’s maid, and certainly not in winter when the wind whipped at your ears and the rain soaked through to your drawers.
Slowly her dreams began to fade. The sun rose in the sky. It seemed as though this would be a day just like all the others. She had better return and face the music. She would stick at her job for as long as it took, and one day she would be able to leave service and bring up a family of her own. One day. Today she would have to settle for what few moments she had left to let the sun caress her pale skin and the scent of May blossom fill her head with dreams. Perhaps that was all they would ever be, after all. It seemed as though the day that had promised so much would not be quite so special after all.
As she clambered up the steep bank from the stream, she did not see the figure by the oak tree. It blended into the shadows . . .
2
St Jude’s School, Winchester
16 April 2010
Happy is the country which has no history.
Early nineteenth-century proverb
‘It’s boring, sir.’
Harry Flint looked over the top of his glasses, the better to see the youth who was addressing him. ‘What do you mean, boring?’
The boy shrugged. He was not one of the brightest in the class, but then neither was he a total no-hoper, nor one of the tiresome troublemakers who did their best to interrupt every lesson.
‘Just . . . well . . . what has it got to do with us? It’s history.’
Harry took off his glasses, slid from the desk on which he had been sitting and walked across to the window. He looked out across the school yard to the fields and meadows beyond. It was one of those perfect days, the sort that occur only a handful of times each year. Usually in spring. Air as clear as crystal; the sort of day when the whole world seems to sparkle and glisten – freshly laundered by a shower of rain, buffed up by the gentlest of breezes and then polished to perfection by clear sunlight.
‘What’s it got to do with you?’ He asked the question softly, rhetorically. But he nevertheless received a reply.
‘It all happened ages ago. All this stuff about kings and queens. It doesn’t make any difference to us.’
The boy’s words hung in the air. Harry repeated them slowly. ‘It . . . doesn’t . . . make . . . any . . . difference . . . to . . . us.’
He turned to face the boy and the rest of the class. A sea of wary faces gazed at him. They could sense his mood was changing. Better to sit quietly and wait until the moment passed; until things blew over.
The questioning boy glanced at the clock, hopeful of being saved by the bell. No chance. There were still five minutes to go before they would be released from Flinty’s grasp and could hurtle out into the playground to hit one another.
‘Just because something happened a long time ago – in this case around two hundred years ago, Stephens, it does not mean that it does not affect you today, or that it is unimportant. The past . . .’ Harry glanced about the room, searching for a face that might offer him a crumb of encouragement . . . ‘Wilson, what does the past do?’ he asked of a studious lad who might hopefully come to his aid.
‘It informs the present, sir.’
The rest of the class let out a low moan and the boy Wilson looked suitably abashed.
‘It informs the present and enables us to place our lives in context.’
Feet shuffled under desks.
Harry sighed heavily. ‘The reign of George the Third, while from your point of view as far away from your own lives as . . .’ he sought for a suitable analogy . . . ‘as Harry Potter or Spiderman, is nevertheless a part of your history. Not everything that happened all those years ago is dull, or unimportant or irrelevant.’
He scanned the room once more, hopeful of a glimmer of interest or a spark of enthusiasm. None came.
‘Here was a king who lost America, who is remembered as being mad – which is far from the truth; whose grasp of agriculture and encouragement of architecture and the arts was matchless; who was subjected to the most fiendish treatment at the hand of doctors to cure him of ailments they didn’t fully understand, and who died blind and deaf, handing over his kingdom to a self-indulgent son who squandered his own talents and gave us the Brighton Pavilion.’
A hand went up halfway back in the classroom.
‘Yes, Palmer?’
‘Sir, can we go to Brighton?’
Before Harry could answer, the air was riven by a metallic clanging. The boys began to clear their desks of books.
‘Bloody philistines,’ murmured Harry. He raised his voice. ‘We’ll continue this fascinating discussion on the fate of King George the Third on Monday and look at the relationship between the Prince Regent and his subjects in greater detail. ‘Thank you gentlemen.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ The answer emerged through the mixture of chairs scraping against the wooden floor, books being dropped and feet clattering out of the classroom.
Harry sank down into the chair behind his desk, looking across the room towards the window and thinking that they had a point. He wasn’t a bad teacher, he thought. Most of the time. It was just that every now and again he got carried away and assumed that every last one of them was as excited about history as he was. Well, had been. The repetition of facts over the years had wearied him. Maybe they had a point. Maybe it wasn’t relevant any more. Who cared whether George the Third was married to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz or Caroline of Brunswick? What difference did it make to a bunch of lads who were more interested in their MP3 than George III?
Perhaps he had been doing the job too long. Well, it wouldn’t be much longer now. This would be his last term. When the summer holidays came they could say goodbye to Flinty – and George the Third, too, for that matter. And what then?
If only he knew. That was the thing about the future: it was all so uncertain. So uncomfortable. Not like the past. You knew where you were with the past. Things slotted into place perfectly. Neatly. He liked neatness. Orderliness. That was his problem. That was why he was on his own now . . .
It was no time to brood. The rest of the afternoon was clear – free periods. And it was Friday. Thank God for that. He would go out. Leave the classroom behind and shake off the grey mood brought on by an ungrateful bunch of twelve-year-olds. . .
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