The Knotted House

  About the author

  Ruth Skrine has been writing fiction for the last fifteen years after a professional life as a doctor. She worked in general practice, family planning and psychosexual medicine and is concerned with the effects of early experiences on adult relationships and sexual difficulties.

  Her interest in genealogy was sparked by reading old diaries written by her husband’s forebears.

  Although she is a passionate believer in the scientific method, she thinks that some truths are felt more keenly, and glimpsed more clearly, within the freedoms of a fictional story.

  Also by Ruth Skrine

  Blocks and Freedoms in Sexual Life (for the medical and allied professions) Radcliffe Medical Press 1997

  Parallel Journeys (a novel) Hallmark Press 2008

  Growing into Medicine (a memoir) Book Guild Publishing 2014

  A Step Too Far (a novel) Vanguard Press 2017

  Ruth Skrine

  The Knotted House

  Vanguard Press

  VANGUARD E-book

  © Copyright 2018

  Ruth Skrine

  The right of Ruth Skrine to be identified as author of

  this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All Rights Reserved

  No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication

  may be made without written permission.

  No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,

  copied or transmitted save with the written permission of the publisher, or in accordance with the provisions

  of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to

  this publication may be liable to criminal

  prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is

  available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 784653 16 3 (paperback)

  Vanguard Press is an imprint of

  Pegasus Elliot MacKenzie Publishers Ltd.

  www.pegasuspublishers.com

  First Published in 2018

  Vanguard Press

  Sheraton House Castle Park

  Cambridge England

  Dedication

  For my friends and colleagues in the Institute of Psychosexual Medicine, who helped me to listen more acutely with my ears, eyes and intellect.

  I offer my apologies to my husband’s forebears. I have used parts of their diaries for my own narrative purposes. But I must assure any Skrine descendants, and my former patients, that the characters and events of this story are entirely fictional.

  Prologue

  ‘Come on, Meena. You can do it.’

  I can’t, even for Daddy. ‘It’s cold.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it.’

  I put my foot in again and then the other one. I want him to be proud of me. The water reaches almost to my knees.

  ‘That’s it. You’re my brave girl.’

  I take a step. The cliff of water falls steeply away so near my feet. I shut my eyes, then open them again. White globs of foam bob on the choppy water below the weir before disappearing round the corner, past the steps where Daddy says the ferry went across in the old days. He turns to give me his widest smile, the one that crinkles his eyes. The sleeves of his blue check shirt are rolled up so I can see the hairs on his arms. How thin they are. His lips move but the water crashes too loudly. The sound has two layers, a high pitched swishing and a deep roar.

  The other side is so far away. I force myself on over the stones covered with green weed. My toes curl as I try to get a better grip. Briony could never do this; she is too little. We are level with the island now. Beneath the willow tree I can see the tall pink and white flowers that Mummy calls Balsam, like the brown stuff she puts on a hanky when I have a cold.

  Daddy waves his free hand at a moorhen flicking its white tail. It leaves ripples on the smooth water above the weir. I look back but can’t see our shoes under the bush, which is too far away. At any moment the water will carry me over the edge. My feet stop moving. Clinging to Daddy’s hand I am bent over till my tummy nearly touches the water. ‘Stop.’

  He turns and leans down to shout in my ear. ‘We’re doing fine, nearly halfway across.’ Unlatching one of my hands he shows me how to wave it up and down for balance. ‘OK now?’

  Nodding, I clench my teeth.

  ‘Fix your eyes on the other side.’

  I look at the bushes along the bank, and then at the tall trees in the field and the black and white cows standing underneath. That is my magical place, the one I have always wanted to reach. The ducks that are lazing in front of us make a sudden splash as they fly off upstream. I start and nearly fall. Daddy takes a stronger hold on my hand but doesn’t stop. I have to follow. The smell of mud and something clean like the room where he makes coloured medicines and takes out splinters, makes me want to sneeze.

  The other side creeps nearer. An excited feeling jumps in my tummy as I suck my tongue between my lips. The tops of my legs feel cold. I can’t see the stones through the water that reaches my bum so that my knickers stick to my skin. But we are nearly there – one, two, three – Daddy climbs out, pulling me after him. The firm feel of the ground spreads from my feet right up to my head.

  ‘I did it. I did it.’

  ‘Well done.’ His hands go under my arms and he lifts me high and twists round and round so that my legs fly out behind. When he puts me down I run in circles, the rough grass scratchy under my feet. Laughing, he catches me into a big hug. We sit on the bank under the branches of a tree.

  ‘Look, look, a kingfisher.’

  ‘You have good eyes, Meena.’

  I find a caterpillar on a blade of grass and let it crawl onto my finger. By holding my hand against Daddy’s bare knee I make a bridge for it to climb onto him, arching its body.

  ‘Look at its tiny feet,’ he says, ‘working in perfect harmony.’ He lets his knee fall to the side so that the creature can escape back onto the grass. ‘My grandfather, Duncan, loved butterflies,’ he says, snuggling me closer to him.

  ‘He’s the happy one in the pink hunting jacket, isn’t he?’ I am trying hard to remember the pictures on the stairs so he won’t be disappointed in me.

  ‘That’s right. Do you remember the name of the man beside him?’

  ‘That’s easy, he is Henry, Duncan’s grandfather.’ I must add three “greats” to my grandfather. The thought makes my head woozy but I remember he founded our dynasty. I like the word, it sounds important.

  ‘Duncan was great friends with the ferryman who taught him how to fish.’

  ‘Have you ever fished?’

  ‘When I was a boy. I’ll show you so you can carry on the family tradition when I’m gone.’

  He likes traditions, but I remember seeing a fish gasping on the bank by the side of one of the men who sometimes come to our river. The silver sides were heaving and its eyes went dim as I watched. ‘I don’t like to see the fish fighting for breath.’

  ‘They don’t have to suffer. You must hit them on the head, hard and accurately so they die at once.’

  ‘I don’t think I could do that.’

  ‘You’re a brave girl, look how you walked the weir. Sometimes you have to face difficult things.’

  ‘Don’t go back to the war, Daddy.’

  ‘The war is over, child.’

  I know that. I am not stupid. But Daddy is a doctor who helps people and there could be another war. I turn to look at him. He is staring at our house on the hill with a funny look on his face. I put my hand into the bend of his arm.

  He squeezes my fingers. ‘Now you’re such a
big girl you must help Mummy and Granny all you can.’

  His voice is different, all cold like a stranger. A pain shoots into my foot. There is blood on my heel. Daddy says it’s just a scratch, he’ll put a plaster on when we get home.

  ‘I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here with you for ever and ever.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Meena. You know you can’t do that.’ He gets to his feet. ‘Anyway I’m tired, even if you’re not.’

  I shiver. The sun has disappeared and my magic place is just a nasty old field.

  Chapter 1

  Thirty years later I stand on the terrace, my hand on the stone balustrade. The first tints of autumn are showing on the leaves that hide the weir from view. As I turn to go in, my joints are stiff from more than the seasonal chill. The death of my mother has left me dry-eyed but clumsy.

  Susan says I am in denial and that I should let myself cry. She learnt about the stages of grief on her counselling course. Although she is only nine years older than I am she sometimes talks as if she were my mother. If I explain that my dazed state is as much due to the unaccustomed freedom as it is to any grief, she will be shocked.

  In the unnatural silence I start up the stairs towards the drawing room. As Briony and I were growing up, the place was full of women: my grandmother, my mother and the two of us. Now I am left with no one but the ancestors for company. Susan does not count, she just lives next door, in the part of the house we sold to her before her husband deserted her.

  Stopping in front of the portraits I see that Duncan has his usual twinkle, but Henry looks more solemn than ever. He seems to be demanding something from me. I am the last in the line he founded. I have already let him down by producing no heir, not even a daughter. When the house is sold my betrayal of the family will be complete.

  I give myself a shake. I have to face the menace that lurks in the loft. The family papers hold some threat that I don’t understand. Once, after my father died, I climbed up to look but had only just started to sort through the jumble when my mother’s furious face poked through the hole in the loft floor. ‘Leave those things alone. That trunk is none of your business.’

  The wooden ladder creaks as I climb up, reminding me of the excitement all those years before. I have no mother now to forbid me anything.

  I kneel down. The trunk is circled by wooden bands, parched in the dry warmth of the loft, where cobwebs hang in loops and the clutter of the years spreads out under the eaves. The metal latch clicks open easily. Inside a jumble of envelopes and folders are muddled with diaries and photo albums. The faded faces of long dead people stare out at me, some with their names written underneath. Copies of old wills and inventories list belongings I don’t recognise. They must have been sold years ago.

  One of the folders holds carbon copies of my grandfather’s correspondence. He died before I was born. Routine letters making appointments and ordering fresh supplies of ink and wine are interspersed with an acrimonious correspondence about the ownership of various chattels. I put the volume on the boards beside me. The petty fights of my father’s father fill me with musty sadness. Three or four stiff backed notebooks look more promising, but they are hand-written and difficult to read. Then I see a home-made cardboard cover, the typed pages held by frayed string. A jolt of recognition tells me I have found what I am looking for. On the outside, in pencil, are the words: “The writings of D W H Smedley.”, Here is Duncan’s memoir.

  I bundle the rest of the contents back into the trunk and carry the folder down to the drawing room. My heart is beating hard enough for me to feel it in my chest. I move one of the smaller chairs to sit in a shaft of sunlight just catching the wall by the window. I look forward to the warmth that will flood the room once the sun moves round.

  I start to read. The beginning is familiar. Duncan’s first memory was of being bitten on the heel by the dog Fan. He was put into a high chair and sternly rebuked for irritating the dog. I am surprised he can remember so far back. At the bottom of the page is a reference to him having suffered from brain fever as a baby, and not being allowed to eat meat. My diet was a singularly unappetising batter pudding. On grand occasions a hole was excavated in this delicacy and a spoonful of gravy was poured in.

  Despite the rather bleak contents he writes cheerfully, like the happy Duncan I know so well from the portrait. I have found nothing so far to account for my disquiet. Resting the folder on my knee I look out of the window. A red admiral is fluttering against the closed pane. As I let it out I remember the one that hatched in my classroom last year. In the spring I will search the garden for specimens to take into school, if I still have a garden. The tiny creatures, beetles and dragonflies, snails and woodlice, each little body made so perfectly and adapted to fit into its own niche in the world, fill me with joy.

  I read on. Several pages of the memoir are taken up to describe the various nurses and tutors who came and went; Duncan doesn’t seem to like them much. He is fond of the outdoor staff though. Then, without warning, in the middle of a paragraph, it is on me, I was with the butler in the silver pantry. Mr Stokes was his name. He was a great ally of mine. I shall never forget the white face of the handyman, David Gardiner, who rushed in and told us that the groom had been murdered. I grip the arm of the chair.

  A murder in our house! No wonder my mother called me away so sharply. I don’t know where the silver pantry was. It could have been in what is now the glory hole, on the way to the old surgeries where the new tenant lives. I glance round but there are no shades invading the room. Specks of dust are the only things dancing in the band of sunlight. But as I watch them the day darkens. Usually this is the sunniest of rooms for it faces due south. Our land used to stretch all the way up the valley, but my mother’s job as a nurse did not bring in enough to keep it all going. Most of the oak trees have been felled as the city gradually engulfed us on three sides. At least we still have the view over the field, down to the river and up to the church tower of Lower Ditchley where the graves of my ancestors stand in rows. Is there a murderer among them?

  I go back to reading, my hand pressed to my chest where the thumping has started again. Does a murderer’s blood flow in my veins? I ignore the first tentative sound of the bell. I can’t cope with Susan at this moment. But when the rings become more insistent I struggle down the stairs. A strange man is standing on the doorstep.

  ‘I saw your car, I’ve been trying to catch you. Are you all right?’ He is looking at me in a concerned but distant way. ‘I’m your tenant, Quentin Lovelace. I’ve come to say how sorry I am about your mother, and to pay my rent.’

  My mother had arranged the let before she died but he had wanted to move in during her funeral. So Susan sacrificed herself to stay at home to welcome him.

  ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’

  ‘It’s not you.’ I lead the way up to the drawing room and motion him to sit.

  He watches as I steady myself on the back of one of the big armchairs, then moves to my side. ‘Can I get you anything? A glass of water?’

  ‘Thanks. The kitchen’s downstairs.’

  He disappears. I sit in the chair, trying to collect myself. The folder is lying on the floor, its pages leaking out at odd angles. A step makes me look up to take the glass.

  ‘Thanks, Mr Lovelace.’

  ‘Please call me Quentin.’ He settles in the chair opposite me.

  I have to make an effort. ‘Quentin. That sounds a bit old fashioned.’

  ‘It’s a family name. My mother is American.’

  ‘Oh… families. I’ve just been reading a family record. It gave me quite a shock.’ He looks across the room to the folder and back to my face, raising his eyebrows. I can’t stop myself blurting out, ‘There was a murder in this house.’

  ‘Good God. When?’

  ‘My great grandfather was a small boy. It must have been somewhere in the eighteen fifties. Ages ago really, I don’t know why I’m so upset.’

  He hesitates. ‘Who was
murdered?’

  ‘The groom.’

  ‘Not one of your family, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you just read about it?’ he is looking at the memoir again.

  I nod.

  ‘And you never knew?’

  I frown. Perhaps I had caught a glimpse of the word, “murder”, and pushed it out of my mind. ‘I’m not sure. I found the diary when I was a girl but my mother didn’t let me read much of it.’

  ‘Does it say who murdered him?’ Quentin looks relaxed as he sits opposite me, handsome and solid. My mother told me he was a physiotherapist. I can see him coaxing damaged limbs to move again, supporting their frailty with his strength.

  ‘The cowman murdered him. He was mad. At the trial he was found insane and committed to Broadmoor. That’s all I’ve read so far.’

  ‘What an intriguing tale.’

  He may be right. Perhaps it is just an old story with no connection to me, apart from an accident of geography. He is searching my face as if to try and understand my concern. ‘No member of your family was involved in any way, then?’

  ‘I suppose not but it was different in those days. Duncan makes me feel as if the staff meant more to him than his parents.’

  ‘Duncan?’

  ‘Sorry, he’s the author of the diary. He’s the one in hunting pink on the stairs. You may have noticed him as you came up.’ I pause, trying to put my unease into words. ‘Although each person had his appointed place I get a feeling they were all linked, a small community dependent on one another. Even if the murderer wasn’t related there could have been connections.’ I jump up and go to look out of the window, hardly aware that I am still talking aloud. ‘Why did they hire him? How long had he been on the estate? Had one of my relatives tipped him over the edge?’