Encounters Read Free Page B

rattling the handle. It seemed to have locked itself.
    ‘Here. Let me.’ Robert shook it hard. ‘You are sure it was unlocked?’
    ‘Of course I’m sure. It must have latched.’ He could hear the rising panic in her voice again.
    ‘Never mind, Victoria darling, it doesn’t matter.’ He put his arm round her, pulling her to him. ‘We can walk round the outside before we go.’
    Victoria moved away sharply from his strangely alien embrace and with a little sob she turned and ran down the passage.
    Robert stared after her in astonishment and fear, then slowly he followed her.
    William was waiting for them in the main entrance hall. ‘Ready to go upstairs?’ He glanced at them surreptitiously. They both looked agitated; uneasy.
    ‘Why not?’ Robert followed him towards the staircase.
    ‘What did you think of the west wing?’
    ‘Not a lot,’ Robert smiled tightly. ‘What on earth happened to it?’
    ‘The house was used as a nursing home during the first war and they used that wing for the operating theatre and wards for the worst injured men.’ William glanced at Victoria who had gone white. ‘When the family moved back in about 1920 they left it as it was. Just closed the door and pretended it wasn’t there until they forgot about it. And I think each successive generation has done the same since. Did you see the stretcher poles? They always give me the creeps.’
    ‘So that’s what they were.’ Robert shuddered. ‘Something I know a bit about.’
    ‘It’s an unhappy place,’ Victoria put in quietly.
    William nodded. ‘I suspect a lot of young men died here. Luckily the rest of the house seems unaffected. I wouldn’t let it worry you.’ He didn’t give them time to react. Turning, he led the way up the broad unlit sweep of stairs. Halfway up he stopped. ‘Mrs Holland?’
    Victoria was standing where they had left her. Her face was drained of colour.
    ‘The nurse. Stephen’s nurse. She was wearing some sort of big white head dress …’
    ‘No, Victoria.’ Robert limped back down the stairs towards her. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Just stop it. What you saw was a real nurse. A modern nurse. She probably saw me in the distance and decided to go back downstairs.’
    William was frowning at them from the staircase. He felt a shiver touch his spine. What had she seen? One of his colleagues from the firm had seen something when she had stayed to lock up after showing some people around a few days before. That was why she had refused to come this morning. ‘You can deal with that place,’ she had said. ‘I’m not going there again!’
    He glanced at Victoria. ‘What happened?’ he asked cautiously.
    ‘I met someone in the garden, that’s all.’ Victoria said. ‘A house guest of Lady Penelope’s. He’s been in some sort of accident and he has a nurse to look after him. I thought I saw her in the window upstairs, that’s all.’
    ‘Lady Penelope said the house would be empty.’ William swallowed hard.
    ‘Well obviously it isn’t.’ Suddenly Robert was impatient. ‘Let’s look round upstairs, quickly, then I think we should go.’
    Hastily they trailed through the main bedrooms of the house, through the bathrooms and the guest rooms. The only one showing any sign of occupation was Lady Penelope’s own. There there were piles of books by the bed, a bottle of aspirins and some spare reading glasses. The other rooms were all neat and impersonal and unused. There was no room obviously allocated to Stephen. Or his nurse. Victoria felt a pang of disappointment. His face, his voice were still with her. It was as if for a few short moments he had been a part of her.
    ‘So. That just leaves the gardens.’ William had escorted them finally back to the kitchen via the second staircase. Checking the door into the west wing, he noted that the bolts were all firmly closed. ‘As you probably noticed when you came in they were once very beautiful. With some care and attention they could