Free The Empty Frame by Ann Pilling Page A

her secateurs and set it to rights in no time but Sam, who had some experience of old ladies, worked out that this Miss Adeline would have her own views. Not that he intended to come visiting. He had other plans.
    The old cottage presented a sharp contrast to the swimming pool building which resembled a mini aircraft hangar and was built of ugly yellow brick. “It’s a good thing most of it’s hidden under the trees,” said Floss. “How could Colonel Stickley have put up such a monstrosity? It’s hideous.”
    â€œI expect he was saving money,” Sam said.
    The main door of the building was open and admitted them into a cool tiled entrance hall filled with bedraggled-looking pot plants. The windows were smeary, there was a stale, musty smell and a definite feeling that nobody used the place much. But it was a swimming pool, and it was a large one, a serious rectangular pool, not silly, in the shape of a piano or awhale, and through glazed inner doors they could see gently-moving waters of a bright Mediterranean blue. There was nobody swimming, it was all theirs. Sam’s heart rose. He adored being the first in. “Let’s go,” he said.
    But when he pressed the handle down he found that the inner door was firmly locked. He rattled it in frustration yelling, “Damn! This was the only thing I wanted, and now it’s locked!”
    Floss tried the door too, and banged on the glass. She quite wanted a swim herself. She’d improved recently and she reckoned her front crawl might be faster than Sam’s.
    â€œNo good trying to break the door down,” Magnus told them sententiously. Secretly, he was much relieved. He’d been dreading this moment, being exposed as a poor swimmer in front of the others. He’d been planning to slip down to the pool on his own some time, and practise in secret. “Wilf probably knows about the pool,” he said. “Why don’t you ask him when it’s open?”
    â€œI’m going to. I’m going to do it right now,” Sam answered, giving the locked door a final kick before turning away.
    â€œWait for me,” Floss said. “Come on, Mags.”
    Magnus watched them running off down the drive. Then something made him turn and look back, somephysical thing, some force that seemed to be drawing him like a magnet towards the bright blue water which shimmered at him through the locked glazed doors. And she was there again, the woman in the white dress, moving over the surface of the bright blue panelled water, in a kind of soft-edged haze.
    This time Magnus found that he wanted to hold his ground. He felt no fear. If asked why, he would have answered that there was nothing to be afraid of, because he could clearly see the woman’s face. This was because the apparition was scarcely moving, rather hovering over the pool, anxiously twisting the little white gloves in her thin fingers, reducing them to a crumpled ball. And the face was not a face to instil terror.
    It was certainly the face of the portrait in the Great Hall and, like the painting, it was proud and haughty. But round the mouth there was something else, less of certainty, more of regret. Some grievous memory was softening what he’d thought was a harsh face. The apparition’s eyes, as in the painting, were blue, a colour he’d always thought of as hard and cold. But now, momentarily, the woman stopped moving, turned her head and looked at him and he saw two tears roll slowly down her cheeks.
    He cried out, “Speak to me.” But the apparition merely stared down at him, taking in, he thought, hisheight and age, registering the fact that she was looking at a mere child who could be no use to her, she who had walked with a queen.
    Then the figure opened its mouth but Magnus could hear nothing through the thick glass criss-crossed with its web of fine wires. In desperation he hammered on the window. “Come to me!” he