Chapter 4
Jake and Alex are in the sitting room watching the TV. The room smells of fresh paint and there are specks in Alex’s hair. A bottle of wine is open on the table between them. Jake hears knocking at the door. He frowns and looks at his watch, and then looks over at Alex.
“Expecting someone?”
She looks up. ”No. Did you hear the door? I didn’t hear anything. I don’t know who’d call at this time.”
Jake shrugs and goes across the hall to open the front door. It is the beginning of September, cool, and just starting to get dark. He looks out into the gloom, but there’s no sign of anyone on the step. He goes outside onto the drive and looks about. “Hello?” But no one answers. He goes back, closing the door. Then he opens it again and tries the doorbell, which rings clearly through the house. Shaking his head he goes back inside.
As he crosses the hall he hears knocking again, but it’s a different sound, as someone is using his knuckles this time, and from different direction, the other side of the house. Perhaps the kitchen door? And it is louder, more insistent.
“It sounds as if it is coming from the terrace,” says Jake. “Can’t you hear it?” Alex doesn’t respond and he crosses to the window and looks outside.
“I’ll have a look”.
Jake can hear the knocking clearly, but when he looks out on the terrace again there is no one there. Motion-sensitive lights come on as he steps outside, lighting up the terrace and the garden beyond, and creating pools of darkness; and he spends a few minutes listening, looking. “Hello,” he calls, but no one answers. He can sense that there is someone there in the shadows. There is no sound, but it feels to him as if someone’s heart is beating fast, he can sense that they are anxious; looking for something or someone; waiting.
A noise from some bushes startles him, but it’s just an animal, there’s no space for anyone to be concealed there. He turns on the torch on his phone, and stops and listens again. His own heart is beating fast now, reacting to the other person’s anxiety. He can feel tiredness; physical and emotional tiredness; his legs and back feeling someone else’s soreness. There is knocking again, the sound of knuckles against wood, and then it quickly stops, and someone is waiting and listening. He feels, rather than hears, someone turn a door handle, but the door is locked.
Jake is sweating now, looking about, jumpy, trying to see the person who he is sure is there. “Who is it,” he calls. “What do you want?” But nobody responds; and gradually the sense of someone’s presence fades. It seems to Jake as if there are walking away.
He turns and Alex is standing by the open kitchen door. “Are you OK?”
”I’m sure that there was someone here,” says Jake.” I could feel them,” he pauses “they were looking for someone. Worried about someone.”
He pauses again, and walks up to her, speaking slowly. “I think they were looking for you. But they didn’t find you. They found no one here, and they’ve gone.”
“You’re not making any sense. I was here, you opened the door. You’re imagining things.”
“I’m just telling you what it felt like.” He shivers. “Come on, it’s cold. Let’s go in.”
Later that night Jake lies awake, feeling anxious. He is drifting off to sleep and he can hear in his head the sound of someone playing the cello. He half wakes, turns and tries to settle again. He can still hear music in his head, and it feels as if he is playing it, it is coming from within himself.
The following day Alex is teaching at school and Jake is working from home. In the afternoon when Alex gets back the sun is shining on the rich autumn colours and they walk up to the chapel to catch the view across the valley.
“Are you OK?” Alex asks as they set off.” You look pale, and you are walking as if you are an old man.”
“Just a busy day,” he says,” I guess I’m tired,” and he picks up his pace. As they walk Jake hears a third person walking just behind them. He glances over his shoulder. No one is there, but Jake can feel that it is a man next to them, can smell his sweat. It is the same person who was on the terrace last night. Although the man is still anxious, Jake has also a feeling of comfort. He knows that the other man is reassured by Jake’s presence, as if he is unburdening himself onto Jake. As they approach the chapel the man moves away towards the graveyard.
“I was so sure someone was there last night,” Jake says, “ a man I think. I had a look around this morning. I’m not sure what I was looking for, but there were no signs, no footprints. But I have this feeling of someone shadowing me. He was here again just now.”
“Perhaps we should get a guard dog,” says Alex. “Perhaps the house is haunted.”
Jake doesn’t answer. They round the side of the hill and the chapel is in front of them. The main door is open and a man in his 40s dressed in jeans and a fleece is pinning a notice on the board just inside.
“Hello,” says Alex, and he looks up.
“Oh, hello. You must be the couple who have moved into the old Headmasters House,” he says.
“That’s right; hi. I’m Jake. This is Alex. Are you the vicar?”
“We don’t always dress the part,” he says, grinning. “I’m Andrew. I won’t shake hands,” he looks down at his hands. “I’ve been cleaning. Come over, let’s sit in the sun. Have you settled in all right? It must be a couple of months ago now. I’ve been meaning to visit.”
“Oh, you’re welcome to come at any time,” says Alex. “There’s usually someone in. Jake is mainly working from home at the moment, and I’m teaching”
They talk about the move and the house.
“We’ve been trying to find out a bit more about the history of the place,” says Alex. “The school business manager is looking out what she can for us. I think we will have to find another name for the house. We can’t go on calling it the ‘Headmasters house’.”
“Yes, I wondered if you would. I’ll tell you what I can about the place, but it won’t be very much. Since I’ve been in the town the house been occupied by schoolmasters. The school still comes to this chapel a couple of times each term, but there is no formal link between the chapel and the school any more. I’m usually based at St Thomas’s. The original headmaster is buried here, you can see his grave over on that side,” he gestures to one side of the churchyard. “I think he was Edward Price, but I lose track of the names.”
“Did you ever hear about the house being haunted?” says Alex.
The vicar looks at her and smiles. “What makes you ask that? I’ve never heard anything.”
“Oh, nothing really. Jake’s been hearing things, knocking, and a sense of someone moving around when there was no one there.”
She pauses and looks at Jake, who adds, “and I heard the sound of someone playing a cello.”
The vicar frowns, and looks at him more closely. “A cello?”
“Yes,” says Jake. “Playing beautifully. I’ve heard it several times now, in the house, and in my sleep.”
“I’ve never heard anything, or any stories from anyone else. But when I arrived here, about twenty years ago, I found a cello in the vestry. I think it’s still there.”
He leads them through the chapel to a door on one side of the alter opening onto a small vestry. It is cluttered with hymn books and prayer books and there’s a rack of vestments and other clothing. Most of one wall is taken up by a large cupboard and inside at the back it is an old dusty cello case.
“Yes, it’s still here. I don’t know where it came from. No one ever plays it.”
Alex reaches in and takes out the cello case. There are a couple of clamps on the side, but they are not locked and although stiff they spring open when she pushes them. Inside is a cello and a bow, and small selection of sheet music. The cello has no strings, and there are scratches on the woodwork, but there’s a glow in the wood and it feels warm and smooth when she touches it. The bow is tucked in next to it, but when she takes it out she realises that there is no bowstring, just the wooden frame.
She puts them back and takes out the music. A book of exercises and studies for grade VIII cello, and the couple of printed cello solo pieces. And with them two sheets of handwritten manuscript with ‘Danny Boy’ printed neatly across the top. Jake reaches across and takes the pages from her. He can read enough music to recognise the opening bars, but it is more than just the melody. In some places there are two notes marked, to be played on two strings at the same time, and there are arpeggios and extra notes, and some markings he doesn’t recognise. An arrangement for an accomplished player. ‘Slowly’ is written across the top. Is this what he has been hearing in the house? At the end is written, in the same hand, ‘To Danny from Lizzie. Think of me when you play this’; and a date: 3 July 1914.
“Alex, have a look at this. I think this is what I’ve been hearing. Danny Boy. It can’t be a coincidence. Who were Danny and Lizzie?” He looks up at the vicar. “Do the names mean anything to you?”
“No, I don’t think so. Danny. Daniel perhaps. I can’t think of anyone I’ve come across with that name. But Lizzie – presumably short for Elizabeth – is much more common. I’ve seen a few in the church, and in the graveyard.”
Jake suddenly interrupts. “That’s it, the graveyard. That’s where he was going.”
“Where who was going?”
“The guy who was following us up here. The guy from last night.”
The vicar and Alex look blankly at him. “The guy from last night?” She says. “But there wasn’t anyone there last night.”
“There was. I felt someone there, and again this morning, following us. He went into the graveyard”. Jake has jumped up and is already walking back through the chapel. “We are looking for an Elizabeth.”
“Slow down, you’re not making any sense,” says Alex.
“No, I remember an Elizabeth,” says the vicar. “Next to Price’s grave I think.”
“That must be it,” says Jake. “The Price family, don’t you see? It must be the connection – the connection with the house.”
“This way,” says the vicar, and they follow him across to one side of the graveyard. There are two graves together just off the main path at one side of the graveyard, both with large, weathered tombstones, one leaning at an angle. One, larger and more recent, marks the grave of Edward Price, 1845 to 1935, Headmaster of Barnstead Oak School. The other, older and harder to make out the engraving, for Elizabeth Price, 1890 to 1919. Next to the inscription a couple of musical notes have been carved into the tombstone.