White Knuckle Ride Read online

  He came back into the room, bearing a thick book. ‘You say Julia seemed to speak in a different voice, almost, describing things she had never seen, but describing them correctly …’

  ‘Yes. And, of course, killing me.’

  ‘Hmm, yes …’ Already he was off again, skimming lines of minute text. ‘How do you feel about hypnosis?’

  Surprised, I stared at him. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Do you think she’d agree to going under?’ He sat in his old chair again, book open in his lap.

  ‘She might …’ I really had no way of knowing. I did know she was deeply worried about what might be going on in her head, though I had not discussed with her my darkest, most alarming fears: that something had taken root in her brain, in a place where it would not appear to her consciousness. ‘I suppose it couldn’t hurt,’ I said.

  I invited Gordon to join us for dinner that evening.

  He laid out the evening meal for his dogs before we left. As usual, he purchased the finest cuts of beef he could afford for them, meat that would grace a table for nobility, while no doubt contemplating a strawberry jam sandwich for himself and perhaps a fortifying cup of sweet tea. It is strange when one finds oneself envying the food of dogs.

  I telephoned for Rutherford to come and fetch us, and at length, we left. Rutherford did the honours with my bicycle, gently placing it in the Bentley’s immaculate boot, where it looked small in the great space. He greeted Gordon, too, with genuine respect, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Duncombe. I trust you are well today?’

  Gordon, who came from a decidedly working class background in the English Midlands, had a difficult time dealing with the idea of servants. It never occurred to him simply to speak to them as he would to me, for example — and he had had enough trouble working out how to address me, too, in the beginning, because of the ridiculous class nonsense. He regarded them as some sort of posh automaton, to which one must speak extremely carefully for fear of the thing going on a crazed rampage of destruction. He’d been attempting to deal with this for some years now, and had, lately, decided to try a strategy of simply nodding and repeating back the main greeting. He said, ‘Afternoon, Rutherford,’ and looked relieved to have achieved this much. He climbed into the back of the Bentley, still marvelling at the space and appointments of the car, and sat a respectful distance from me. I suspected he would love to talk to Rutherford about the engineering aspects of the car, but I knew that he never would, because who knew what the Rutherford-thing might do in retaliation?

  Back home, I informed Murray that there would be another guest for dinner. I knew already that Gordon would not stay the night even if our discussions ran late. He needed to look after his dogs, who fretted, he said, if he was away from home too long. Murray nodded, said, ‘Right you are, ma’am,’ and went back to the kitchen, ready to terrorise poor Ryan, her apprentice, afresh.

  I took Gordon inside. Rutherford asked if Sir would care for a drink, and Rutherford asked for a cup of tea, three teaspoons of sugar, thank you. The same as always. Rutherford disappeared to prepare the drinks. Whilst we waited, I fetched Julia, who had been napping. Waking, seeing me, she smiled. ‘I say, what a perfectly splendid bed!’

  Ah, something that met her approval, at last, I thought. ‘Will you be joining us for dinner, Julia?’

  She perked up further. ‘What’s on the menu tonight? Your cook would not say.’

  I smiled. ‘Murray is like that, I’m afraid. I don’t know, either. Dinner is always a surprise. Murray takes these things very seriously. Dinner must be an event.’

  Julia looked nonplussed. ‘But you know how my stomach is, Ruth. There are —’

  I knew, of course. One could not help but know about Julia’s ‘delicate’ internals. I explained that I had already taken the liberty of briefing Murray on Miss Templesmith’s dietary concerns. ‘All will be well, fear not.’

  She looked happy for the first time since I had seen her. I thought this would be an opportune moment, and mentioned that I had invited my old friend Gordon Duncombe to dinner as well. Julia liked meeting new people — after all there might be a fortnight’s stay at their estates on offer at some point — and brightened considerably. Julia, at least in the old days when I knew her, spent much of the year staying at a succession of friends’ and relatives’ estates; she was hardly ever actually home. I explained that Mr Duncombe was out in the drawing room as we spoke, and that he might have some useful thoughts about her condition.

  ‘Is he a medical man?’ she asked, climbing out of bed and searching for decent clothing — which Vicky had left folded on the chair.

  ‘Mr Duncombe is something of a Renaissance man, if you will.’

  ‘I see,’ she said, washing her face and hands. ‘Known him long, have you?’

  ‘We met shortly after I settled here. And no, we’re not “like that”. Gordon is a very good friend. He’s also an inventor of things, I might add, and he dabbles a little in magic.’

  She looked at me in the mirror. ‘Magic? Rabbits out of the hat stuff, then?’

  ‘Not as such. I mean he dabbles a little in what one might call “real” magic. As well as his inventions.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ she said. ‘These days, I gather, most true magicians work for the government or conduct research at universities.’

  I was surprised to hear this. I had never known.

  ‘So your Mr Duncombe. He builds things, and dabbles in the other as well? How remarkable! Can he fly?’

  I smiled. ‘Not with magic, no. He is attempting to build a time machine, though.’

  ‘I say. He could scarcely be more colourful, could he?’ she said, amused.

  A few minutes later, I had made the introductions. Rutherford hovered nearby offering to fetch things as required. I asked him what time dinner would be tonight. ‘I believe dinner service will commence at half past six. And no, I do not know what Murray has planned. Discreet study of her shopping lists and ingredients would suggest, perhaps, a roast, but this could merely be one of her ruses.’

  Gordon was talking to Aunt Julia. ‘Ruth has told me a great deal about you, Miss Templesmith, if you’ll pardon my saying so.’

  Julia looked amused. ‘Pardon me for asking, but is that a West Yorkshire accent, Mr Duncombe?’

  ‘Fourth generation, born and bred, as they say. Whereabouts in England are you from, if I might ask?’

  I rolled my eyes. Gordon had just opened the Box of Doom. Julia started in, probably unable to believe her luck. ‘Well, and this is a fascinating question, one on which I have spent quite a considerable sum these many years, though I must first preface my remarks by saying that the Templesmith country seat —’

  I interrupted. ‘How’s your tea, Gordon? Need a refill?’ I glared at Julia, who smirked.

  He glanced across at me like a man suddenly aware he is in deep waters without a life preserver. ‘Yes, please. Thank you.’ Rutherford provided the fresh cup almost as soon as Gordon had placed the request.

  Aunt Julia wisely adjusted her approach. ‘Ruth tells me you are building a time machine, Mr Duncombe?’

  He looked up from his tea, face slightly flushed. ‘Ah, well. Yes, or rather, trying to, at any rate,’ he said. ‘There have been some technical, and possibly conceptual problems, at least so far —’

  ‘Tell Julia how you destroyed your own barn — twice!’ I said, teasing gently. Gordon did his best not to be flustered.

  ‘It was the wrong voltage, and in any case, I had no way to know the capacitors were full, now, did I?’

  Julia was quite taken by the thought of travelling through time. ‘I’ve read Mr Wells’ marvellous book, many times. It’s one of my favourites. I do admire those hard-working Morlocks, don’t you, Mr Duncombe?’

  Gordon, looking pleased to find a like-minded soul at last, leaned forward in his seat. ‘Speaking strictly confidentially, I can let you know that I am in occasional contact with Mr Wells, through the post. He assures me that the book is a carefully di
sguised memoir.’

  ‘You are pulling my leg!’ she said, amused, watching him over her teacup.

  ‘I should think not, Miss Templesmith,’ he said, a little nettled.

  It was time to intercede. ‘Julia, I believe Gordon might be able to help with your condition, somewhat.’

  She looked up, blinking, surprised, at me. ‘Oh yes. Yes, of course. Mr Duncombe, you are also a medical man?’

  Gordon looked concerned, frowning a little, and he took a long draught of his tea. ‘I have been something of a dilettante in my reading over time, but I could not claim to have studied medicine formally.’

  ‘My niece informs me that you are also versed in the …’ She looked like she felt awkward about using the term. ‘In the magical arts. That you “dabble”, as Ruth put it. Is that quite safe?’

  He ran a hand through his thinning hair. ‘Oh, well, yes, ah, yes. Absolutely. You take all the right precautions, and do everything according to standardised procedures. It’s no more dangerous than working in any of the physical sciences, I should say.’

  I interrupted again. ‘My Aunt Julia, Gordon, is neglecting to mention her own abilities beyond what one might call the strictly empirical. Isn’t that right, Julia?’

  She quickly smoothed over any appearance that she was miffed to have her sport spoiled, and said to Gordon, ‘Since I was a girl, I have been able to see other parts of reality, Mr Duncombe. Parts not readily apparent to other people.’

  ‘Indeed?’ he said. ‘What do you see?’

  Julia, surprised out of her wits, stopped and stared at him. All her life she had been accustomed to either lack of interest or outright scepticism or condescending comments of ‘Of course you do, dear …’ No-one in her life had simply asked her, straight out, what she could see. At length, I saw she looked very different. She looked, for her, vulnerable. When she spoke, her voice lacked its usual brisk humorous tone. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I see all sorts of things. I …’

  Since she had been surprised into speechlessness, I prompted her. ‘Tell Gordon about your dreams.’

  ‘Ah, yes, yes of course,’ she said, looking at me with relief. To Gordon she explained about how, shortly before she embarked on her epic journey out to Australia, she had begun having dreams ‘qualitatively different’ from the colourful dreams that were her normal experience. And when Gordon gently prompted her to describe these dreams, he saw, as I had in the hospital, the change stealing over her. She sat differently. Her voice dropped into a flat, deep — and very sad — monotone. Her eyes stared at things only visible from inside her mind. Gordon listened, transfixed, to the narrative as the voice described entering my house without difficulty, without alerting either Rutherford or Young Ryan, and then the business-like search through my post, my modest collection of heirlooms, and then into my study upstairs where the voice described a thorough, professional investigation of my desk’s contents without any interest in the stack of manuscript pages piled next to my faithful Imperial typewriter. At last, the intruder made his way, without hesitation or searching, to my bedroom, where he negotiated the door without effort, and then …

  I interrupted, shaking Julia’s shoulder vigorously. She seemed to wake as if from a deep sleep and glanced about at our horrified faces. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, upset, ‘it happened again, didn’t it?’

  ‘How is your head feeling now?’ Gordon asked, without any of his usual politeness.

  She touched her head delicately. ‘It’s rather sore, I must say. I feel somewhat … weak, I’m dreadfully sorry. Perhaps I should go and lie down.’

  I did my best to reassure her that all was well, despite her insistence that things were clearly not. I asked Rutherford to fetch a stiff drink for her, and she did not, unusually for her, protest.

  ‘Gordon, any thoughts?’ I asked.

  After Rutherford retreated, Gordon looked concerned, but also confused. ‘There are many worrying aspects, I must say. The ability of whoever it is to move through the house — and it’s clearly this house, no question — without making a sound is most troubling. Particularly since the outer doors are locked, as a matter of course …’

  Julia was surprised. ‘You lock your doors?’ Back home, village life was still such that locks were rarely needed. Here, things were different.

  I said, ‘Julia, listen to him. He has an idea.’

  Gordon explained his notion of hypnosis. This wasn’t a form of any kind of magic. Indeed, he had only learned about it after reading Sigmund Freud’s texts on psychoanalysis; Freud employed the technique extensively in order to access areas of the mind not readily available to one’s conscious perception. It was a controversial technique. The medical establishment, most particularly the neurologists, argued that Freud was a fraud, and that he was making up his findings as he went along, and quite possibly harming as many patients as he claimed to help. Nonetheless, the technique of hypnosis had been with us for many years. Julia had heard of it, but only in the carnival sideshow realm of things.

  ‘Are you sure it’s quite safe?’ she asked Gordon. He said he believed so, if one went about it with the right precautions and minimised the time in which the hypnotic subject was ‘under’.

  ‘I must confess,’ he went on. ‘I do not have a great deal of practical experience with it. But I think, if we —’

  ‘Ruth, dear. What do you think?’ Julia asked me.

  ‘I think it might help. But it is of course up to you.’

  ‘Will you be quite gentle, Mr Duncombe?’ she said, and allowed herself the tiniest of mischievous smiles.

  Gordon, noticing, blushed. He gathered himself. ‘I will do my very best for you, Miss Templesmith.’

  ‘Then let’s have a try,’ she said.

  Dinner that night was a grand construction featuring roast duck at its centre. Another triumph for Murray. Julia, who put aside her anxiety about her dreams long enough to enjoy seconds, sat after each of four courses, exclaiming, ‘I could not possibly eat another bite!’ while Gordon, another healthy eater if someone else was going to all the trouble, leaned back and complained, ‘It’s that after-Christmas-dinner feeling all over again!’ As Ryan and Vicky cleared away the clutter, I excused myself from the long table and nipped back to the hot and aromatic kitchen where I congratulated an exhausted, damp-faced Murray on another excellent meal. For her part, she only nodded, and pointed out how it could have been so much better, and ‘bloody Rutherford’ had not helped by spying on her in order to find out what was on the menu. ‘You’ll need to have a word with him, ma’am. If you don’t, I will!’ She was serious. She was always like this. No wonderful effort was ever good enough for her. She always apologised for various parts of the creation. It was like God apologising for cloudless sunsets.

  Much later, Gordon, Julia and I sat in the drawing room, close to the fire, enjoying a brandy. Gordon took forever over his brandy, as always. He was not accustomed to such things. He wanted to make it last as long as possible, without looking impolite about it. Julia, by contrast, finished hers quickly and asked Rutherford for another. He lifted an eyebrow, but I allowed it. Julia, full of dinner and wine, was talkative, perhaps more even than usual. She was telling Gordon about her childhood in the draughty, crumbling Braethorn House, where she could escape from nannies and governesses and even her mother for hours at a time, exploring secret passages and huge, long-abandoned rooms where the furniture was draped with dusty sheets and you could still hear, when the weather was right, the ancient house settling into its foundations, even after so many centuries. She told Gordon about her encounters with ghosts (‘Most of them terribly sad people,’) and fey wraiths of no discernible character (‘Creatures of pure feeling, one might say,’) and, once, an outlaw thief hiding in an abandoned wine cellar (‘He stayed three weeks, and I brought him food, but I had to be so careful, Mother and Father suspected something was not right and their kitchen staff were reporting that food was going missing …’)

  ‘Did you get caught?’ Gordon
asked, intrigued.

  She smiled. ‘Yes, of course. I was only a silly girl. I was no match for a house full of suspicious relatives and servants.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘As it happened, they packed me off to a boarding school for nine years.’

  ‘That seems harsh.’

  ‘The outlaw I was helping had, apparently, also murdered a family of four. He hadn’t told me that part.’

  ‘Careless of him,’ I said.

  Boarding school, for Julia, was a miserable experience. She hated the regimentation, the constant press of other students, the lack of privacy, the punishing study routines, the pecking order. Indeed, she ran away three times, but was always caught. And one time she almost set fire to her dormitory, but a nervous confederate confided to the staff before it could happen. The one thing Julia had liked about Ashling School for Girls was that it, like the old family estate, was teeming with ghosts. She got on well with them, since the great majority of ghosts were deceased schoolgirls who had come to bad ends, some by their own hand. Julia understood how this might happen in such a hideous place.

  The old clock on the mantel was chiming midnight.

  Gordon looked up. ‘Is it that late?’

  I nodded, politely swallowing a yawn. Julia said, ‘Oh dear, I’ve been prattling along for hours! Ruth, dear, you should have told me to put a sock in it long ago.’

  ‘I did try,’ I said, smiling.

  ‘Mr Duncombe,’ she said, ‘exactly when shall we conduct this hypnosis business? Right now would seem an opportune moment. There’s nothing like midnight, if you ask me, for venturing into the hidden realms of things?’ She smiled at him, her eyes alive in the firelight.

  ‘Gordon?’ I looked at him, wondering how he felt. He would be thinking about his dogs.