Property of a Lady

I’ve had a good morning’s work – I’ve been putting out the boxes of what seem to be genuine rubbish. The builders have promised to take them away in one of the skips after the weekend. They’re finishing early today on account of it being Friday afternoon. That seems fair enough: they start quite early in the morning; in fact, when I arrive here around ten, they’ve usually put in a couple of hours’ work already and are settling down to a fry-up over the primus stove. I’m usually offered a bacon and egg sandwich. It’s all very democratic, and the bacon and egg sandwiches are delicious.

I brought a newspaper with me to read with my lunch. Today the Black Boar have given me sausage patties, which make a nice change from sandwiches. There’s also a slice of Victoria sponge, and an apple to round it off. I ate it all while reading newspaper headlines about how two warships are escorting the King and Queen to Canada, and how each ship carries several million pounds in gold for safe-keeping in that country. I don’t think there’s much doubt about the war. I think Harry would say we shouldn’t trust Adolf Hitler or Mussolini.

It was on the following page that Harriet’s writing became uncertain, and Michael put the diaries down for a moment, considering whether he should hand the rest of the pages to his colleague in the history department. But when he took the journal to the desk and switched on the table lamp, the next two pages were legible, although the writing itself was straggly and erratic. He would read as much as he could.

Harriet Anstey’s journal: concluding entries

I’m writing this by the dimmest light imaginable. I’m trapped in Charect House, and I can’t see any way that I can get out—

That’s absurd. Pure hysteria. Of course I’ll get out, either by my own efforts or because somebody will miss me and come to look.

But in case they don’t, I’m going to set down an account of what happened. I don’t know who might one day read this, so I’m making it as legible as I can. But it’s very difficult. There’s hardly any room to write. There’s hardly any light to write by.

It was half past four, and I was in the library.

I’d finally finished sorting through the boxes, and I was folding some curtains to take back to Cheshire. Beautiful material, excellent quality, and whoever had chosen it had very good taste. They would cut down very nicely for the spare room at home.

Normally, on a May evening it would still be bright sunlight, but a storm seemed to be brewing: there was that swollen, bruised look to the sky and the feeling of something pressing down from overhead. I thought – if this continues I shall end with a headache. The ticking of the clock in its corner seemed to be in exact rhythm with the slight throbbing against my temples, and I wondered whether to get up and stop the mechanism, but the builders seemed to be winding it up regularly, probably so they would know when it was time for their various breaks.

The builders had already left, driving off half an hour earlier in their rattletrap vehicles. The plasterer, they said, might come in early on Saturday morning to do the plastering in the attic. Only a couple of hours’ work, it was, then it could dry out over the weekend. I thought I knew which the plasterer was: he wandered around with large tubs of cement and whitewash, dabbing at walls with brushes, apparently at random.

I listened to the lorries go down the drive, then returned to the boxes. I was intending to work until about five o’clock: I had dispensed with the taxi driver since the work on the house commenced – shockingly expensive to have two taxis every day! – and had discovered that if I walked part-way along the lane, a little country bus came along every two hours and went all the way into Marston Lacy. Today I would catch the six thirty bus and be at the Black Boar in time for seven thirty dinner.

When footsteps walked across the room directly above me, I was startled, but not overly alarmed. I thought all the men had left, but it was possible one was still here – the electrician certainly came and went according to his own timetable, and both he and the plumber drove their own vans.