Free House of Echoes by Barbara Erskine Page B

greater than his love of history had been legendary in Joss’s staff room. Luke shivered. It was cold down here – good for the wine of course, but not for people. Reaching out towards the rack he stopped suddenly and turning looked behind him. He thought he had heard something in the corner of the cellar out of sight behind the racks. He listened, his eyes searching the shadows where the light from the single strip light failed to reach. There was no other sound.
    Uncomfortably he moved slightly. ‘Joss? Are you still up there?’ His voice sounded very hollow. There was no reply.
    He turned back to the wine rack, trying to concentrate on the bottles, but in spite of himself he was listening, glancing towards the darker corners. Grabbing two bottles at last, more or less at random, he looked round with a shiver and then turning for the stairs, raced up them two at a time. Slamming the cellar door behind him he turned the key with relief. Then he laughed out loud. ‘Clot! What did you think was down there!’ By the time he had reached the kitchen and put the bottles on the table he had recovered himself completely.
    Roy and Janet Goodyear and the Fairchilds arrived together for their first dinner party at exactly eight o’clock, trooping in through the back door and standing staring round in the kitchen with evident delight.
    ‘Well, you’ve certainly made a fine job of everything,’ Roy Goodyear commented thoughtfully when they had all returned to the kitchen after a tour of the house. ‘It all looks so nice and lived in, now.’ Joss followed his gaze. It did look good. Their china and glass unpacked, the dresser decorated with pretty plates and flowers, the long table laid and the range warming the room to a satisfactory glow. Luke had strung their Christmas cards from the bell wires and a huge bunch of mistletoe hung over the door out into the pantry.
    ‘I’m sorry we’re eating in the kitchen.’ Joss filled up Janet’s glass.
    ‘My dear, we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. You’ve got it really lovely and cosy here.’ Sally Fairchild had seated herselfat the table, her elbows spread amongst the knives and forks. Joss could see her gaze going now and then to the corn dolly which Luke had suspended from a length of fishing twine over the table.
    ‘I expect the Duncans were very formal when they lived here.’ Luke lifted the heavy casserole from the oven and carried it to the table. ‘Sit down, Roy. And you, Alan.’
    ‘They were when Philip was alive.’ Roy Goodyear levered his heavy frame into a chair next to his wife. In his late fifties he was taller by a head than Janet, his face weather-beaten to the colour of raw steak, his eyes a strangely light amber under the bushy grey brows. ‘Your father was a very formal man, Joss.’ Both couples now knew the full story of Joss’s parentage. ‘But in the sixties people from his background still did observe all the formalities. They wouldn’t have known anything else. They kept a staff here of course. Cook and housemaid and two gardeners. When we came to dinner here we always dressed. Philip had a magnificent cellar.’ He cocked an eye at Luke. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that it’s still there.’
    ‘It is, as a matter of fact.’ He glanced at Joss. He had not mentioned his hasty exit from the cellar to her, nor asked her why she had refused to go down there with him. ‘We’ve got a friend in London – Joss’s ex boss, in fact – who is a bit of a wine buff. I thought we might ask him to come down and have a look at it.’
    Roy had already glanced at the bottle and nodded contentedly. ‘Well, if he needs any help or encouragement, don’t forget your neighbours across the fields, I would very much like to see what you’ve got.’
    ‘Apart from the ghost, of course,’ Janet put in quietly.
    There was a moment’s silence. Joss glanced at her sharply. ‘I suppose there had to be a ghost.’
    ‘And not just any old ghost