I reach for the paper and then stop. Something about it sitting there in the middle of the glossy wood makes it seem vulnerable, fragile. I hesitate, my hand hovering just above it, remembering how carefully he’d handled it. He smiles.
“It’s only a photocopy – it’s all right. You can pick it up.”
The page has been folded and refolded so many times that the paper feels soft. The corners are bashed-up and crumpled, and there are scuff marks and rubbed-out pencil scribbles all around the edges.
Hal watches me examine it. “I’m trying to figure out where somebody came from. A soldier in the First World War. I guess, to start with, I’m trying to work out whether he even existed. I don’t exactly have much to go on, just an old story…and this.”
“What is it?” I peer at the sheet. The copy’s not great – the original can’t have been very clear, because this isn’t much more than a ghost, all muddy shades of grey. It’s a handwritten letter, I realize, but all I can make out is a line in the middle.
I will not conspire in your ruin, nor in deceiving a family of such good standing.
He doesn’t give me a chance to ask more questions. He’s too excited about it, the words tumbling from his lips. “It’s from a woman – Jane, she signs it – to someone. I’ve been trying to pick out the address she sent it to. Look.” He leans a little closer and plants a fingertip next to a particularly smudgy bit near the top. There’s an H, and then a little further along, a D – but the rest of it is too blurry to read. “It’s like that in the original,” he adds.
I squint at it. He’s standing so close. I try to ignore how small the space between our shoulders is and focus on the writing. It’s too blurred to be sure of the word.
“If that letter was sent here, then it means I’m in the right place. Finally.”
“Finally?”
Hal steps away from me with a shrug. “I’ve been trying to find this house for a while now,” he says, turning away. “It’s important.”
“Important?” If I did something like this, Sanjay would give me one of his long, hard looks and ask if I was manic again – and it would be checklist central.
“Personal, then. It’s personal.”
“A First World War soldier?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He closes the folder he’s been flicking through with a slap. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“I guess not.” I shrug and slide the photocopied letter back onto the table. “So how does this fit in?”
“It was with some of the other papers I’ve found while I’ve been researching. It’s the best lead I’ve got.”
“It’s not exactly a good one. You said there was a story. Can that help?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?” He pulls a chair out for himself and then another one for me, gesturing to it. Nobody’s ever done that before, actually pulling a chair out for me.
We both sit.
It’s weird.
But…nicely weird.
Perhaps he doesn’t think I’m so crazy? Or maybe he’s just really good at hiding it. Better than most people, anyway.
He doesn’t know the half of it, though, does he? He wouldn’t be able to hide it then. Nobody else can.
He’s lost in his own thoughts for a moment. “There was a soldier,” he says quietly. “He was the only heir to an estate – a big country house, land, the works.”
“Like on Downton Abbey?” It makes me die a little inside to admit I know Downton, but I do. It’s one of Felix’s favourite things ever. He has the box sets. All of them.
This actually gets a smile. “Like on Downton. Except this soldier was killed fighting in the war. When he died, there was no one to take over the estate and the family sold it.”
“But in Downton…”
“There was another bit of the family who could inherit it, yes – I know. Maybe there wasn’t for this estate, or maybe the family couldn’t afford to keep it running or…whatever. This one got sold and I want to find it.” He drums his fingers on the table. “There were a lot of big houses sold just after the war, either because there was no money left or no more owners.”
“And you’ve been to them all?”
“Some.”
“Why?”
“Because.” He shrugs.
“It’s not much to go on.”
Hal looks defensive. “It’s brought me this far.” He blinks at me from under his fringe. “Look, I have to know.”
I stare at the list of bullet points on the Hopwood Home notepad I’ve “borrowed” from the writing desk in the corner of the library. It’s still very short.
As in, it’s two points long, even after a couple of hours of Hal sifting through the first stack of papers, looking up every now and again to frown at the wall or mutter something to himself.
I’m not even sure two points counts as a list.
All this effort, all this trouble and expense, with so little to guide him. I know he said it was personal, but this? It’s more heart than head, more soul than sense.
But something about it tugs at me, deep inside. There’s a puzzle here waiting to be solved. I can feel it – just enough of it anyway.
Glancing up from the notepad, I try to sneak a look at him. He’s staring out of the window. From where I’m sitting, all I can see is the silhouette of his face against the bright light outside. He’s so still, it’s like watching a statue. One with a straight nose and a high forehead and – I suppose, from this angle – some pretty good cheekbones.
Maybe he feels me watching him, or maybe I have really bad timing – either way, he glances around and his eyes meet mine and hold them. But I can’t make out a single thing from his expression. Nothing. I can’t tell if he’s angry or sad or happy or embarrassed. It’s like trying to read stone.
“There has to be more to this.” I pick up the pad and balance it on my lap, pushing my chair back from the table. “Tell me the whole story. All of it.”
“I already told you. Soldier. War. Died.”
“That isn’t all of it, though, is it?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again, narrowing his eyes. “What?”
“Look.” I tap my pencil against my pad. “I don’t know you and this is really none of my business. But you’re saying you’ve been all over the place looking for one house that used to belong to one soldier’s family – based on this?” I point at the letter. “I think there’s more, and if you don’t tell me everything, I can’t help you.”
He takes a deep breath and nods. “That story. It’s something my grandfather used to tell me when I was growing up – a story his grandfather used to tell him, about a soldier he knew in the war. There was a big country house. Wealthy family, servants…you know, the works. And the heir to the house, this solider, had fallen in love with one of the housemaids.”
However much I’ve tried to avoid it, I have apparently still seen enough Downton to know how that goes. “I bet that went down well with the family.”