And so it was to Belgium that I went.
Michael had translated with reasonable ease to this point, but from a cursory glance at the next couple of pages it looked as if ‘Alexei Iskander’ had merely been making background notes about the opening moves of the war. The page was spattered with the names of Prussia and Austria, together with mention of the German Chancellor Bismarck and also the German Army Chief of Staff, along with a few references to the Habsburg Archdukes and Duchesses. It seemed safe to assume that most of these references were detrimental.
He was just thinking he would try to translate at least another couple of paragraphs in the hope of getting to Iskander’s arrival in Belgium and his meeting with Leonora, when he was pulled out of Iskander’s insouciant world by the realization that footsteps were coming up the steps from the underground room.
He went cautiously to the door and peered out. Luisa was emerging from the underground room, her eyes still with the same unfocused look, and her movements still disconcertingly puppet-like. She closed the door in the panelling, locked it, and returned the key to the drawer in the small bureau. Michael watched her ascend the stairs and waited until he heard her walk across the landing and open and close her bedroom door. It was just on two a.m. He closed Iskander’s journal, switched off the laptop, and went determinedly up to his own room, undressed and got into bed.
Surprisingly, he slept extremely well. He had expected the images conjured up by Iskander, as well as the trip to the underground room, to keep him awake, but the old bed was comfortable, and he did not wake until the soft bleeping of his travel alarm at half-past seven. It was a good feeling to realize the night had passed and he would not need to spend another one inside Fosse House.
Seen by day, the house was no longer the brooding mansion of fiction, and the storm had blown itself out. Thin sunshine slanted in through the old windows and painted a pale gold haze across wood and glass and silk. The silk was frayed, the wood dull and the glass grubby, but seen like this the house had a dim charm of its own, and Michael could sympathize with Stephen Gilmore’s longing to come home and to see the lamps glowing in the windows as he walked along the drive.
Last night, when Luisa had murmured about breakfast, Michael had at once said he would forage for himself, then make an early start in the library. Accordingly, he went along to the kitchen, where he made toast and ate a bowl of cereal. After this, he took himself and a second cup of coffee along to the library.
When he opened the curtains a faint mist lay over the gardens. The library windows looked across to an old walled garden, with a wrought-iron gate. Michael wondered if he could go out there to take a look later on. There was something intriguing about walled gardens – they were the kind of green and darkling places where secrets might linger, and where the enquirer was warned not to trespass, not to speak or even whisper, in case, in the words of the de la Mare poem, ‘perchance upon its darkening air, the unseen ghosts of children fare’. Seen at this hour, Fosse House’s walled garden looked as if ghosts of any age might congregate there.
Somewhere in the house a clock chimed eight o’clock, and, as if answering, from beyond the house came a deeper chime of some distant church tower. A bird flew out of a tree and twitteringly dive-bombed the lawn for its own breakfast, and the spell of the old garden splintered. The chimes died away, and Michael forgot about ghosts and sat down at the big leather-topped table, to step into the past.
Six
Nell was having a good morning.
Before opening the shop at ten, she had arranged for a longer loan of the books borrowed for Owen Bracegirdle which Owen, the previous evening, had thought might be very helpful, and would almost certainly buy. The bookseller in Quire Court, learning who the potential customer was, expressed himself as perfectly happy to grant an extension. He observed that since Dr Bracegirdle, whom he knew slightly, was accustomed to the jealously-guarded treasures of the Bodleian and on page-flipping terms with assorted incunabula, it was unlikely in the extreme that he would tear the dust jackets or spill gin on the pages. Appealed to for help, he thought he did have one or two volumes about WWI POW camps and vanished artefacts from that war, and proceeded to scurry along his shelves like an energetic grasshopper.
‘Did you say Holzminden? Where exactly is it?’
‘Lower Saxony.’ Nell, feeling it incumbent on her to help with the search, followed him along the shelves, navigating around the piles of books on the floor which the bookseller had not got around to cataloguing. ‘I looked it up. It’s one of those places dating back to the eighth or ninth century. Princes of the Wolfenbuttel line dodging in and out of its ownership, and various monastic settlements, and a royal charter in eleven-or-twelve hundred.’
‘I haven’t heard of the place,’ said the bookseller, ‘but I’m sure I’ve got— Ha! Here it is.’ He extracted a large tome from the end of a shelf, blew dust off its leaves, and presented it beamingly. ‘There are several chapters in this about internment camps in that war. He’s something of an authority, the author. There might be a reference to Holzminden. Oh, and this one as well.’ He darted at another section of shelf and seized an even heavier book. ‘You’re more than welcome to borrow both of them for the afternoon.’
‘Thank you, Godfrey. I won’t tear the dust jackets or spill gin on them, either,’ said Nell.