The Whispering: A Haunted House Mystery
Sarah Rayne
One
Memo from: Director of Music, Oriel College, Oxford
To: Dr Michael Flint, English Literature/Language Faculty
October 201—
Michael,
A note to wish you well on your journey into the deepest Fens. Fosse House is apparently in rather a remote spot, but I’m sure you’ll be all right, once you actually get there. It’s a pity Luisa Gilmore didn’t feel able to put you up at the house for a couple of nights, but I expect you’ll fare well and forage sufficiently at the local pub. I’ve never met Miss Gilmore, but she’s always been very helpful in our exchange of letters. She’s a bit of a recluse, I suspect, and possibly a touch eccentric, but at seventy-odd years of age anyone is allowed a bit of eccentricity, I should hope. She’s never married, and she’s lived in the house all her life. But what’s more to the point is that one of her ancestors was part of the ill-fated Palestrina Choir – actually inside the Liège convent when it was destroyed – so there could be a wealth of primary source material in the house.
The OUP are keen on our idea for a book focusing on the musical influences on the work of the Great War poets. They’re also what they term ‘pleasantly surprised’ at the level of sales for our joint book on the influence of music on the Romantic Poets last year, and they even mentioned receiving an email from a TV company about making a documentary based on it. I dare say it won’t come to anything, and I expect it’s all a flea bite compared to your Wilberforce books (incidentally my small niece is an avid reader of them), but I do feel we’ve made a modest contribution to the field, and this new oeuvre should add to that.
I’m looking forward to the results of your sojourn at Fosse House, but do try to stay clear of any peculiar happenings while you’re there. You seem to attract such odd occurrences. We heard snippets of rather intriguing gossip about your exploits in Derbyshire last year, and if Owen Bracegirdle in the History Faculty can be believed, there were some extraordinary shenanigans in Ireland a couple of years before that. (Dr Bracegirdle is given to exaggeration, however, not to say outright flippancy).
Kind regards,
J.B.
Email from: Owen Bracegirdle, History Faculty, Oriel College, Oxford
To: Michael Flint, English Literature/Language Faculty
Michael –
I know you’ll have had a note from J.B. about his new book, and I expect you’re smiling with pleased anticipation at the prospect of getting to grips with all that romantic, tragic poetry forged by the Great War.
J.B. asked me if I thought you could cope with the extra workload, to which I said certainly you could, you were equal to anything. You might look like Keats or Shelley in the latter stages of a romantic consumption, and your poor deluded female students might yearn, and even occasionally write a sonnet to you on their own account (listen, I know for a fact that one of them did that), but actually you’re as tough as old boots.
Anyway, the old boy seemed more worried about how you’d cope with Luisa Gilmore. He seems to find her rather daunting, and anyone who makes J.B. jittery has to be formidable.
J.B. has invited me to contribute to the book. I think it’s on the strength of my treatise The Great War: Causes and Conflicts, which is required reading for all sixth form history students, and if it isn’t, it ought to be. I’ve accepted with becoming modesty, but I have to say I’ll enjoy having a hand in the mix. I’ll also enjoy any fiscal rewards that might be forthcoming. There’s an ancient curse, isn’t there, (Ovid?) that says: ‘May your debts torment you.’ Well, they do. The spectre of bailiffs camping out in the august halls of Oriel College is looming, although I shouldn’t think it would be the first time College has seen tipstaffs.
Owen
Michael Flint, reading these two missives, thought it was impossible to know where truth ended and dramatic license took over with Owen Bracegirdle. But it would be good to have Owen’s input for the book.
As for the Director of Music, it had to be said that he had honed the art of dropping subtle hints to perfection. Reading between the lines it sounded as if the reclusive Luisa Gilmore could be anything from a modern-day Miss Havisham draped in fossilizing wedding finery, to Madeline Usher falling into deathlike trances and being entombed alive by mistake, or even a contemporary version of Morticia Addams, vampiric as to nature and floury as to complexion.
But Michael was keen on the project, which would focus on the musical influences of the poets from the Great War, and flattered to be approached for help.
‘Although,’ he said to Nell over supper in his rooms that evening, ‘the prospect of driving into the fens in October isn’t very appealing. Particularly if Madeline Usher’s hosting the party.’
‘Yes, but you’ll like burrowing among old papers and journals and whatnot,’ said Nell, who was inclined to regard Ushers and Addamses as frivolous distractions. ‘And you’ll like working on the book. Plus, if there’s been a serious TV approach about that first one, you need to bash out another as soon as possible.’
Michael pointed out that books of this kind did not lend themselves to being bashed out overnight, that Michaelmas term was apt to be crowded, and also that he was committed to produce a new Wilberforce the Cat adventure for Christmas. As if on cue, the real Wilberforce padded into the room and sat down on a sheaf of proofs cataloguing his latest exploits, which Michael had been trying to read for his editor.