The Whispering House (7 page)

Chapter Twelve

Sunday

S
HE WOKE THE NEXT
morning to a bright, sunny day, with just a faint haze in the distance promising heat to come. As it was Sunday, there was no need to hurry over getting up, so she had a long, lazy bath, during which she had time to observe that several of the tiles were coming unstuck from the bathroom wall. She didn't remember noticing that before but supposed it must be the damp, steamy atmosphere that had loosened them. Or maybe they hadn't been stuck down well enough in the first place. Never mind. That was the real estate agent's problem. After soaking for a further ten minutes, she dried herself, got dressed, and went downstairs feeling relaxed and well rested.

“Morning!” she said cheerfully.

Her mother was standing over the toaster, waiting. “Morning. Sleep well?”

“Great! You?”

“Mmm. Can you get the butter out?”

As Hannah opened the refrigerator, she dislodged two or three of the magnetic letters stuck to the door and bent down to put them back. “Are you all right, Mom? You sound tired.”

“I'm okay.” She sighed. “I miss Dad, that's all.”

“Me too.” Hannah took out the butter and shut the door. Looking at her mother's pale face, she felt a stab of guilt. Lately she'd been so wrapped up in her own concerns that she'd hardly spared a thought for how Mom might be coping. Now was a good time to put that right. “Why don't we have lunch out today?” she suggested. “There's that nice pub near the cathedral—the Black Bear. I'm sure they do food on a Sunday.”

“But I bought a chicken. I was going to roast it.”

“We can have it tomorrow, can't we? Come on, Mom, it'll do us both good to get out of the house for a while.”

At last her mother smiled. “All right. Why not?”

Hannah divided the morning between her geography textbook and a list of chemical equations that needed learning. Yesterday's jitteriness had quite disappeared; her concentration was so much restored that by midday she had covered a satisfying amount of ground and felt she had earned a break.

At twelve thirty she and her mother set off, strolling unhurriedly through the quiet streets, enjoying the warm sunshine. The Black Bear was an old coaching inn on the south side of the cathedral square, popular with tourists because of its dark oak beams, crooked windows, and general air of comfortable dilapidation. Hannah and her mother had a leisurely lunch, then walked for a while by the river, watching children throwing bread to the swans.

It was nearly three o'clock by the time they got back to Cowleigh Lodge. Mom switched on the TV, and Hannah settled down to learn some history notes. After an hour or so, she noticed that a familiar shape was missing from the hearth rug.

“Mom, where's Toby?”

“What?” Her mother glanced around vaguely. “Not sure. Outside, probably.”

Hannah frowned. The cat was almost always there when they were watching TV. Come to think of it, she hadn't seen him all day. “Has he eaten his dinner?”

“I don't know. Go and look if you want to.” Mom turned back to the screen.

Hannah spent another ten minutes on her history notes, then went out to the kitchen. Toby's bowl was empty, so he must have come in through the cat flap and gone straight out again. She put the kettle on to make a cup of tea and was about to open the refrigerator to get the milk out when something caught her attention on the door. Four of the little magnetic letters stood apart from the others and were roughly grouped together.

HANA

For a few seconds she stood quite still, staring at the door. Then she remembered accidentally knocking a few of the letters onto the floor at breakfast time. She must have put them back like that without realizing. It was odd that it looked a bit like her own name, but just a coincidence. Of course, it had to be.

She took out the milk, put cups and saucers on a tray, and carried it into the other room.

Neither of them felt like eating much that evening, having had a large lunch, so later on, after heating a can of soup, Hannah did another hour's work and then went to bed. When she opened her bedroom door, she noticed that the board covering the fireplace had slightly bowed away from the wall, allowing a faint trace of soot to fall on the carpet. She couldn't be bothered to sweep it up just then, so she left it there. Just before getting into bed, she drew a pencil line through the date on the torn-off calendar page still stuck to the mirror.

June 17. Just over halfway through the month.

Chapter Thirteen

Electrical Fault

M
ONDAY MORNING DAWNED BRIGHT
and clear, and by nine thirty, warm sunshine filtered invitingly through the windows of classrooms where students sat either writing furiously or despondently chewing gel pens, depending on how much preparation they had done.

Hannah was relieved to find she could manage the first exam—geography—with a minimum of pen chewing, and after lunch she joined Sam in the playground for the usual discussion of the morning's test. After chatting for a few minutes, she glanced up and frowned. “There's that boy Henry Knight. What's happened to him this time?”

Henry was surrounded by a group of children from his own class who were clearly agitated about something, but because they surrounded him it was impossible to see what all the fuss was about. She wandered closer. “Everything okay?” she asked a girl with dark pigtails.

“No! Henry's got this massive bruise over his eye. And another one on his wrist. Looks like some-body got hold of him and punched him, but he won't admit it. Just says he walked into a lamppost. As if we'd believe that!” She rolled her eyes dramatically.

“Has he been to the nurse?”

“He won't. Says it's not serious enough. But we think it's because he just doesn't want to cause trouble for you know who!” The girl shook her head, making the pigtails quiver in sympathetic indignation.

“Who exactly do you mean?” Hannah knew the answer but was curious to discover what evidence Henry's friends had to make them so certain.

“Bruce Myers, of course! None of this started till he got here.”

“Has anyone asked him about it?”

“No way! We're all too scared of him.” She turned back to the little group around Henry, and Hannah walked thoughtfully back to Sam, who raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Well?”

She shrugged. “I honestly don't know. Those kids seem convinced that Henry Knight's being beaten up by Bruce Myers, but no one wants to tackle him about it in case they get beaten up too.”

Sam looked alarmed. “That's bad! D'you think we should tell someone?”

“I don't see how we can. Like you said before, if Henry won't say what really happened, there's nothing much anyone can do. In any case, the girl I spoke to didn't seem to have any reason for accusing Bruce beyond the fact that he's new to the school and looks scary.”

“And, right now, Mr. Unpopular,” remarked Sam, jerking his head in the direction of a lone figure standing near the fence. He glanced at his watch. “Come on. Now's our chance to show 'em how much history we don't know!”

When Hannah pushed open the door of Cowleigh Lodge that afternoon, the first thing that struck her, judging by the smell coming from the kitchen, was that they were having roast chicken for dinner. The second thing, judging by the clatter and muttered curses coming from the same place, was that her mother wasn't in a good mood. The reason for this became clear when she saw Mom on her hands and knees, sweeping up the remains of a broken pitcher.

“What happened?”

“The pitcher fell off the shelf,” returned Mom curtly. “Don't ask me how! I wasn't anywhere near it at the time.” She finished brushing the pieces into a dustpan and dropped them in the trash.

“It was here, wasn't it?” Hannah examined a shelf near the door, which wobbled slightly. “Oh, I see. The screw's come loose. I'll fix it.” She opened the cupboard under the sink, which was where she'd put her father's toolbox, found the screwdriver that Sam had used on the upstairs landing, and tightened the screw. “That should do it.”

“Thanks. I'm sorry, sweetheart, I didn't mean to snap just when you get home, but I can't tell you what a frustrating day this has been! Whatever I've tried to do, something's gone wrong. First the vacuum cleaner quit on me. Just stopped working, halfway down the stairs. So I left it and went to fetch a cloth to clean the windows. I started upstairs, and I'd just finished the ones in your bedroom when the vacuum started up again. All on its own!”

“It probably overheated before and you forgot to switch it off,” suggested Hannah.

“After half a staircase? Anyway, I finished the vacuuming and set up the board to do some ironing. So I switched on the iron and was just about to go upstairs and fetch the clothes when there was this terrific bang from behind me!”

“The iron? It's broken then?”

“Dead as a doornail. I'll have to buy a new one tomorrow.”

“Sounds like the house needs rewiring. It was probably done years ago and no one's checked it recently.”

“Maybe. This place has been pretty carefully done up otherwise, though.” Mom suddenly put her hand to her mouth. “I forgot! How were the exams?”

“Could have been worse.”

“That's good. Come on then, let's eat some of this chicken.”

Fortunately, the oven didn't seem to be suffering from any peculiar electrical disorder, and dinner put Mom in a better mood. Afterward, she sat down to listen to a radio program while Hannah loaded the dishwasher. Just before leaving the kitchen, she glanced at the door of the refrigerator, noticing that now the letters were innocently bunched together in one corner where Mom had moved them when she'd been cleaning. Yesterday's random selection had obviously been just that—random.

Hannah went back into the living room and settled in an armchair to look over her science notes for tomorrow. Again, the hearth rug was empty.

“Mom,” she said, puzzled. “What's wrong with Toby? I haven't seen him for a couple of days now.”

“Don't ask me! I've hardly seen him either. If he didn't come in to eat, I'd suspect someone else was feeding him, but he just comes in for long enough to wolf down his food, then goes straight out again.”

Frowning, Hannah considered this. Then she shook her head and went back to her notes. Cats were funny creatures—there was no point trying to figure out what went on in those furry little heads.

At ten o'clock she packed away her books, kissed her mother good night, and went upstairs. As she got undressed, she noticed that the decoration in her room was showing a few signs of wear: The layers of paint and paper curled up very slightly where they met the mantelpiece, and there was another small patch where they had come unstuck near the window. Probably, she thought, the house had been repainted quickly, without too much care about surface preparation. Dad was always saying that was the key to good decorating. Yawning, she crossed off another day on the calendar and got into bed.

She had almost dropped off when the sound of distant laughter seemed to come from somewhere. Upstairs, maybe, but of course it couldn't be upstairs, she thought drowsily. It must be the radio. She should go and ask Mom to turn it down, but she really couldn't be bothered. Not now.

Chapter Fourteen

Disturbances

T
UESDAY'S WEATHER WAS HOTTER.
At school, a light breeze blew through the open classroom window, gently ruffling exam papers and making the big hanging map of the world skitter against the wall. Hannah's class was being tested on science both morning and afternoon, and after a day battling with questions on fractional distillation and parallel circuits, she got back to Cowleigh Lodge feeling she'd earned a rest.

But as soon as she'd let herself in, one look at her mother's face told her that all was not well.

“Come and look at this.” Mom's voice sounded tight, ominously controlled. She led Hannah upstairs to the bedroom at the front of the house, which she and Dad had taken over. Pushing open the door, she pointed to the top of the wall. All along the side nearest the window, the layers of paint and paper had come loose from the plaster and curled outward stiffly for a distance of about half an inch.

“Now look at the curtains,” said Mom, before Hannah could comment on the wallpaper.

The window was open and the curtains were blowing lightly, with one hanging noticeably lower than the other.

“What happened to this?”

“The screw holding the rail's come out of the wall.”

“Oh. That's a nuisance. But we can put it back, can't we?”

“And now take a look at the radiator.”

Hannah cast an anxious glance at her mother's face before going over to the other side of the room, where it was plain what the problem was this time. The radiator was one of the old-fashioned kind that was designed to be screwed into the wall, but now one of the brackets that were meant to secure it at the top had sheared off, so although it was still joined to the pipe at the bottom, it wobbled freely at one end.

“We . . . we're not using the central heating at the moment, are we?” she said, still hoping to put an optimistic slant on things.

“No, we're not,” replied her mother with a brittle smile. “I was, however, still hoping to use this.” She walked over to the side of the bed and switched on the reading lamp. Nothing happened.

“Bulb gone?”

“I've changed it.”

“Fuse?”

“I've changed that too.”

“Maybe we're having a power outage,” suggested Hannah, but not very hopefully.

“Then why is the television working? The refrigerator?”

“I don't know, Mom. Perhaps they're on a different circuit or something. Does the main light work?” She moved to the door and pressed the switch. The light came on. “There you are. At least you don't have to go to bed in the dark.” She gave an encouraging smile.

But her mother refused to be consoled. “That's not all.” She walked over to the window and pointed to the floor. “Look. Over here the carpet's come untacked underneath the window. And have you seen the tiles in the bathroom? The paper in your bedroom? Steph brought Billie around for coffee this morning, and she was horrified!”

“Steph has the kind of house that gets photographed for glossy magazines. She practically faints at the sight of dust,” Hannah reminded her patiently. Mom's closest friend, mother of six-year-old Billie, was famously proud of her housekeeping. “Why wasn't Billie in school, anyway?”

“Some bug or other. He seemed lively enough to me.” Her mother shrugged. Then she shook her head, frowning. “I just don't get it! How can a house deteriorate so fast?”

Hannah sat down on the bed and looked thoughtfully at her mother. “We've had all the windows open a lot recently, haven't we?”

“Of course. It's been hot outside.”

“But before we moved in, they would have been closed. According to the woman in the shop, this house has been hard to rent, so they could have been closed for a long time—don't forget, you said yourself that it felt damp at first. Supposing all this fresh air we're letting in suddenly is drying the house out. Mightn't that make the wallpaper come unstuck, loosen the screws?”

“Maybe.”

“What's wrong?”

“Oh, I don't know. There's probably a perfectly good explanation, but for some reason I can't even persuade Toby to come into the house these days. I've had to start leaving his dinner outside the back door.”

“Perhaps he still feels unsettled here. He knows it's not his real home.”

“Then why was he fine when we first moved in? I don't understand it. Ever since last weekend, he's avoided the house like it had a dog in it!”

Hannah sighed. She felt she'd had enough of trying to solve baffling problems for one day. “Don't worry, Mom, he'll come back when he's ready. But right now, can we have something to eat?”

“Of course. I'm sorry.” Mom smiled, and they went downstairs.

Dinner was cold chicken and salad, which they ate at the kitchen table. Afterward, Hannah took her schoolbag up to her bedroom and tipped the books onto the bed. She noticed that more soot had escaped from underneath the boarded-up fireplace, and that the paper above the mantelpiece seemed to have come a little farther away from the wall, but the explanation she had given Mom now felt like the most probable one, and she settled down to concentrate on learning French verbs.

She had been at it for about an hour when a sudden crash from the floor below made her jump. She got up and stuck her head through the doorway. “Mom? Are you okay?”

There was no reply. Quickly she ran downstairs and, having glanced in and seen that her mother wasn't in the living room, discovered her standing in the kitchen, staring down at the smashed remains of a jar of peanut butter.

“Bad luck,” said Hannah sympathetically. “Did you drop it?”

“I didn't touch it. It fell out of that cupboard over there.” Mom looked shaken. “I suppose I can't have put it back properly after I fixed Billie a snack this morning.”

“Look, you go and sit down. I'll take care of this.” Hannah shooed her mother out of the kitchen and set to work with the dustpan and brush. After dropping the broken glass in the bin and wiping the floor with a cloth, she straightened up and looked at the cupboard. It was easy to see what had happened this time. Here the shelves weren't screwed in but rested on wooden supports, two of which had shifted slightly, causing the shelf to tip forward. Having pushed the jars and bottles firmly to the back of the shelf, she went to the refrigerator to get a glass of milk. But as she was about to open the door, her attention was held by something on the front of it. For a moment, she froze, her heart thudding. Then she turned round and walked quickly into the living room.

“Mom, when you and Steph were having coffee this morning, where did you sit?”

Her mother looked up, surprised. “In here. Why?”

“Where was Billie?”

“In here too, most of the time.”

“Could he have gone into the kitchen on his own?”

“Probably. We were talking. I didn't really notice. He couldn't have reached that peanut butter jar, if that's what you're thinking.”

“No. It doesn't matter.”

She returned to the kitchen and leaned heavily against the wall. It had been Billie, of course, bored with listening to grown-up talk, looking for something to do. Six-year-old Billie, who was just learning to write.

Who else would have moved the magnetic letters so that they spelled

HELP ME

After a few moments she stepped forward, roughly shuffled the letters into the rest of the collection, and left the kitchen, closing the door firmly behind her. Then she went back upstairs. At nine thirty, she packed her schoolbag and took it down to the hall, leaving it by the front door ready for the morning.

It was when she was in the bathroom brushing her teeth that she noticed the tiles above the bath. They were now so loose that one of them had almost come away from the wall altogether, revealing the yellowish, hardened glue behind. But in one spot there was no glue, and when Hannah peered closer, she could just make out a very faint trace of something else. A pale blue stripe.

She remembered Mrs. Wilson's words.
“Don't forget you've got a bathroom now. That would have been a bedroom in those days.”

There was no reason why the memory of those words should have made her shiver suddenly, any more than the sight of that tiny patch of wallpaper, no bigger than a small coin. Except that for a moment, she felt as though she had been caught guiltily spying through a keyhole. A keyhole into another world.

Quickly she finished brushing her teeth and went to bed.