‘I’m sure she was. Do we go past Fosse House on the way?’ Nell would quite like to see Michael’s House of Usher from the security of a car.
‘We don’t,’ he said. ‘It’s on a road to nowhere, as they say. But if you want to see it I can take a detour. Take us about fifteen minutes.’
‘Will you do that, please?’ said Nell. ‘We’re earlier than I was expecting anyway.’
‘Lonely old road, it is.’
This turned out to be an understatement; the road that led to Fosse House was very lonely indeed. There were no street lights, and the taxi’s headlights picked out trees and fields and little more. The roads were strewn with branches, which must be from the storm that had uprooted an entire tree and trapped Michael.
Nell tried to imagine living out here, especially in the depths of winter, and found it a rather depressing prospect. But these would be the lanes Hugbert and the others had walked all those years ago, spying out the terrain for their assault on Fosse House. She remembered again the sentence pronounced on Stephen Gilmore and repressed a shiver.
‘All right in the back?’ asked the taxi driver, half turning his head.
‘Fine. Are we coming to the house now?’
‘Just along here on the right,’ he said. ‘There’s a bit of a wall – see it now, can you? The gates are just coming up.’
‘Yes,’ said Nell, leaning forward. ‘Yes, I see them.’
He slowed down, and Nell peered through the windows at the gates and the clustering trees. This would be where Hugbert had stood that night in 1917, looking towards the house.
‘You can’t see the house at night, unless the lights are on in the front,’ said the driver.
‘Actually, there are lights on,’ said Nell, suddenly.
‘Are there? So there are. I thought Dr Flint was going off to the Bell?’
‘It looks as if he hasn’t left yet.’ Michael was quite likely to have become absorbed in some esoteric piece of research and not noticed the time, so Nell said, ‘Could you drive me up to the house? If Dr Flint’s there you can drop me off here, and I’ll go along to the Bell with him.’
‘OK.’ He turned off the road and drove through the gates.
The drive was quite long and rather dark. Had Hugbert crept along it, keeping to the concealment of the trees, dodging out of sight at every sound? But the lights were still glinting through the darkness. Were they Hugbert’s ghost lights? No, of course they were not.
The taxi driver pulled up in front of the house, and Nell got out. The house was all that Michael had said, and it was rather daunting to think he had been forced to spend last night here by himself.
The taxi man got Nell’s case out and hesitated.
‘I’ll see you in, shall I?’
‘It’s fine,’ said Nell. ‘I can see Michael through that window.’ She indicated the long, low window on the right of the main door. The curtains were closed, but a light shone through them, and they were certainly not ghost lights, because there was a clear silhouette of a man seated at a table or a desk, his head bent. Nell smiled, because it was such a characteristic pose for Michael; he would be lost in reading something or tracing some reference, and he would not have realized the time. It did not look as if he had even heard the taxi draw up, although the walls of Fosse House were probably thick enough to blot out noises. She reached for the heavy door knocker, while the helpful driver deposited her case at the door. He accepted his fare and the tip with thanks, then paused again, as if wanting to be sure she went safely inside.
The silhouette in the window stood up and Nell heard footsteps coming towards the door.
The taxi man heard them as well. He smiled and nodded, then got back in the taxi and drove away down the dark drive.
Twenty-One
Michael had worked in Fosse House’s library until the middle of the afternoon. He found several old newspaper articles about the Palestrina Choir and two concerts it had given in Paris in 1904 to celebrate the Entente Cordiale.
The article listed some of the music performed – mostly Vivaldi and Bach – and also several of the more notable guests. These apparently had included the Archdeacon of Lindisfarne, the Venerable Henry Hodgson, together with his young son, William.
William Hodgson, thought Michael. That’s surely W.N. Hodgson – better known as Edward Melbourne. I’m sure his father was in the church; in fact, I think he ended up as a fairly eminent bishop. He transcribed the details on to the laptop. Melbourne had not been one of the most famous of the War Poets, but he had written the deeply moving ‘Before Action’, and Michael was pleased to find this report of him listening to Vivaldi and Bach as a young boy, and perhaps being influenced by them in his later work.
Around three o’clock, the solicitor, John Pargeter, phoned to say he was very sorry, Dr Flint, but they would not be able to make the journey that day. Could they meet at the house tomorrow morning, though? Say around eleven? Most grateful – he would look forward to that.