The Emerald Comb

Some secrets are best left buried

Researching her family tree had been little more than a hobby – until Katie stepped foot onto Kingsley House’s sprawling, ivy-strewn drive. The house may be crumbling today, but it was once the intimidatingly opulent residence of the St Clairs, Katie’s ancestors. Arriving here two hundred years later, emotion stirs in Katie, a strange nostalgia for a place she’s never seen before and when Kingsley House comes up for sale, Katie is determined that her family must buy it.

Surrounded by the mysteries of the past, Katie’s past-time becomes a darker obsession, as she searches through history to trace her heritage. But these walls house secrets more terrible than she could ever have imagined and when forgotten stories and hidden betrayals come to light, the past seems more alive than Katie could ever have imagined.

Moving between the 21st and 19th centuries, The Emerald Comb is a hauntingly evocative novel, perfect for fans of Kate Morton and Rachel Hore.

The Emerald Comb

Kathleen McGurl

KATHLEEN MCGURL

lives near the sea in Bournemouth, with her husband, sons and cats. She began her writing career creating short stories, and sold dozens to women’s magazines in the UK and Australia. Then she got side-tracked onto family history research – which led eventually to writing novels with genealogy themes. She has always been fascinated by the past, and the ways in which the past can influence the present, and enjoys exploring these links in her novels.

When not writing or working at her full-time job in IT, she likes to go out running or sea-swimming, both of which she does rather slowly. She is definitely quicker at writing.

You can find out more at her website (http://kathleenmcgurl.com/) or follow her on Twitter @KathMcGurl

My heartfelt thanks to Leigh Forbes, Helen Walters, Jean Buswell, Fionn McGurl, Kate Long and Della Galton, all of whom gave me invaluable feedback on early drafts of this novel. Thanks also to my editor Victoria Oundjian whose input helped shape the final product. And to my lovely husband, Ignatius McGurl, for his general support and words of wisdom. He said he’d read anything I managed to get published – that has spurred me onwards throughout. Finally, thanks as always to the wonderful Write Women, whose support, advice and encouragement over the last ten years mean more to me than I can find words for.

For Dad, who would have loved this book

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Endpages

Copyright

“To forget one’s ancestry is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root.”

Chinese Proverb

“I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”

Abraham Lincoln

Prologue

Kingsley House

North Kingsley

Hants

November 1876

To my dearest son, Barty St Clair

This is my confession. I am the only soul still living who knows the truth. It will pain me to write this story, but write it I must, before I depart this life. I have not long to live, and I fear death – heaven will not be my final resting place. Dear Barty, when you have read this in its entirety you will understand why I know I am destined for that other, fiery place, to burn with guilt and shame for all eternity.

You must read this alone, sitting in the worn, red armchair by the fireside in the drawing room of Kingsley House. Or perhaps you will sit in my study, at my old walnut desk. Where ever you choose, have a glass of whiskey to hand to fortify yourself. You will need it.

Read this only after I am dead, after I am buried. Read this and understand why you must never sell Kingsley House. You must live in it until the end of your days, guarding its secrets, as I have.

Tell no one the contents of this confession. Not even your brother, William. Especially not your brother, William. It would grieve him, he who worshipped his mother and believed she could do no wrong, even more than it will grieve you. You will understand this when you have reached the end of my story.

Destroy this document when you have read it. You must carry the shameful secret within you, as I have done, but at least you will not also carry guilt.

There, I have written an introduction, but I must rest before I begin my story. Bear with me, my dearest son, while I recoup the strength I need to write this sorry tale.

Your ever loving, repentant father,

Bartholomew St Clair

Chapter One: Hampshire, November 2012

The weather matched my mood. A dark, low sky with a constant drizzle falling meant I needed both headlights and wipers on as I drove up the M3. Whenever I’d pictured myself making this trip I’d imagined myself singing along to the car radio beneath blue skies and sunshine. The reality, thanks to a row with my husband Simon, couldn’t have been more different. All I’d asked of him was to look after our kids for a single Saturday afternoon, while I went to take some photos of Kingsley House, where my ancestors had once lived. Not much to ask, was it? I’d planned it for weeks but of course he hadn’t listened, and had made his own plans to go to rugby training. Then when it was time for me to leave, he’d made such a fuss. I’d ended up grabbing my bag and storming out, leaving him no choice but to stay and be a parent for once, while the kids watched, wide-eyed. Perhaps that’s unfair of me. He’s a wonderful parent, and we have a strong marriage. Most of the time.

It was a half-hour drive from our home in Southampton to North Kingsley, a tiny village north of Winchester. Just enough time to calm myself down. Funny thing was, if I’d wanted to do something girly like go shopping or get my nails done, Simon would have happily minded the kids. But because I was indulging my hobby, my passion for genealogy, he made things difficult. I loved researching the past, finding out where my family came from. Simon’s adopted. He’s never even bothered to trace his biological parents. God, if I was adopted, I’d have done that long ago. I can’t understand why you wouldn’t want to know your ancestry. It’s what makes you who you are.

The rain had eased off; I’d calmed down and was buzzing with excitement when I finally drove up the narrow lane from the village and got my first glimpse of Kingsley House. Wet leaves lay clumped together on its mossy gravel driveway. Paint peeled from the windowsills, and the brickwork was in need of repointing. An overgrown creeper grew up one wall almost obscuring a window, and broken iron guttering hung crookedly, spoiling the house’s Georgian symmetry.

Kingsley House was definitely in need of some serious renovation. I fell instantly and overwhelmingly in love with it. It felt like home.

Gathering my courage, I approached the front door. It was dark green and panelled, with a leaded fan-light set into the brickwork above. There was no bell-push or knocker, so I rapped with my knuckles, wondering if it would be heard inside. Was there even anyone at home to hear it? There were no cars outside, and no lights shone from any window despite the deepening afternoon gloom. Maybe the house was uninhabited, left to rot until some developer got his hands on it. Or perhaps the owners were away. I’d checked the house out on Google street view before coming, and had the idea it was occupied.

I knocked again, and waited a couple of minutes. Still no response. But now that I was here, I thought I might as well get a good look at the place. After all, my ancestors had lived here for a hundred years. That gave me some sort of claim to the house, didn’t it? The windows either side of the front door had curtains drawn across. No chance of a peek inside from the front, then.

To the left of the house there was a gate in the fence. One hinge was broken so that the gate hung lopsided and partially open. I only needed to push it a tiny bit more to squeeze through. Beyond, a paved path led past a rotting wooden shed to a patio area at the back of the house. I tiptoed round. A huge beech tree dominated the garden, its auburn autumn leaves adding a splash of colour to the dull grey day.

French windows overlooked the patio, and the room beyond was in darkness. Cupping my hands around my eyes I pressed my nose to the glass. It was a formal dining room, with ornately moulded cornices and a fine-looking marble fireplace. Had my great-great-great-grandfather Bartholomew and his wife dined in this very room, back in the early Victorian era? It sent shivers down my spine as I imagined their history playing out right here, in this faded old house.

‘You there! What do you think you’re up to?’

I jumped away from the window and turned to see a gaunt old man in a floppy cardigan approaching from the other side of the building, waving his walking stick at me. Behind him was a neatly-dressed elderly lady. She was holding tightly onto his arm, more to steady him than for her own benefit. The owners were not on holiday, then. I silently cursed myself. Today was really not going according to plan. First the row with Simon and now being caught trespassing.

The man waved his stick again. ‘I said, what do you think you’re up to, snooping around the back of our house?’

‘I’m…er…I was just…’ I stuttered.

‘Just wondering if the place was empty and had anything worth stealing, I’ll bet,’ said the lady.

‘No, not at all, I was only…’

‘Vera, call the police,’ said the old man. His voice was cracked with age. His wife hesitated, as if unsure about letting go of his arm to go to the phone.

I held out my hands. ‘No, please don’t do that, let me explain.’

‘Yes, I think you had better explain yourself, young lady,’ said Vera. ‘Harold dear, sit yourself down before you topple over.’ She pulled a shabby metal garden chair across the patio and gently pushed him into it.

He held his stick in front of him like a shotgun. ‘Don’t you come any closer.’

God, the embarrassment. I felt myself redden from the chest up. They looked genuinely scared of me.

‘I’m sorry. I did knock at the door but I guess you didn’t hear.’

‘There’s a perfectly serviceable bell, if you’d only pulled on the bell-rope,’ said Vera.

Bell-rope? Presumably part of an original bell system. I shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t notice the rope.’

Vera shook her immaculate grey perm and folded her arms. ‘In any case, you had no answer, so why did you come around to the back?’

I gaped like a goldfish for a moment as I searched for the right words. I’d imagined meeting the current inhabitants of my ancestors’ house so many times, but I had never once thought it would happen like this. We really had got off on the wrong footing. I could see my chances of getting a look inside vanishing like smoke on the wind.

‘The thing is, I was interested in the house because’ – I broke off for a moment as they both glared at me, then the words all came out in a rush – ‘my ancestors used to live here. I’ve researched my family tree, you see, and found my four-greats grandfather William St Clair built this house, then his son Bartholomew inherited it and lived here after he got married, then his son, another Bartholomew but known as Barty lived here right up until –’

‘1923!’ To my utter astonishment both the old people chorused the date.

‘You’re a St Clair then, are you?’ said Vera, looking less fierce but still a little suspicious.

‘I was Catherine St Clair before I got married. Plain old Katie Smith now.’

I put out my hand and thankfully she took a tentative step forward and shook it. The atmosphere instantly felt less frosty.

‘Vera Delamere. And this is my husband, Harold.’

I shook his gnarled and liver-spotted hand too, while he stayed sitting in his chair. ‘I’m so sorry to have frightened you. I shouldn’t have come around the back. I was just so desperate for a glimpse inside. And I wasn’t even sure if the house was occupied at all…’ Oops, was I implying it looked derelict? I felt myself blushing again. I thought quickly, and changed the subject. ‘You know about the St Clairs?’

‘Not all of them, but we’ve heard of Barty St Clair,’ said Harold. ‘When we moved here in 1959 a lot of people hereabouts remembered him still. He was quite a character, by all accounts.’

‘Really? What do you know about him? He was my great-great-great-uncle, I think.’ I counted off the ‘greats’ on my fingers.

Vera sat down beside Harold and gestured to me to take a seat as well. ‘I remember old Mrs Hodgkins from the Post Office telling me about him. Apparently he wouldn’t ever let anyone in the house or garden. He wasn’t a recluse – he’d go out and about in the village every day and was a regular in the pub every night. But he had this great big house and let not a soul over the threshold – no cook or cleaner, no gardener, no tradesmen. Mrs Hodgkins thought he must have had something to hide.’

‘Ooh, intriguing!’ I said. ‘Perhaps he had a mad wife in the attic or something like that.’

Vera laughed. I smiled. Thank goodness we’d broken the ice now. ‘Well, by the time we moved in there was no evidence of any secrets. Mind you, that was many years after Barty St Clair’s day. It was a probate sale when we bought it. It had been empty for a few years and was in dire need of modernising.’ She sighed, and gazed at the peeling paint on the patio doors. ‘And now it’s in dire need of modernising again, but we don’t have the energy to do it.’

She stood up, suddenly. ‘Why are we sitting out here in the damp? Come on. Let’s go inside. I’ll make us all a cup of tea, and then give you a tour, Katie.’

Harold chuckled. ‘Then you’ll see for certain we have nothing worth stealing, young lady.’

I grinned as I watched Vera help him to his feet, then followed them around to the kitchen door on the side of the house. I felt a tingle of excitement. Whatever secrets the house still held, I longed to discover them.

Chapter Two: Hampshire, November 1876

Kingsley House, November 1876

My dear Barty

I have rested for a day or so, filled my ink-well, replenished my paper store and summoned the courage I need to begin my confession. And begin it I must, for the date of my death grows ever nearer.

Barty, I shall write this confession as though it were a story, about some other man. I will write ‘he did this’, and ‘he said that’, rather than ‘I did’, and ‘I said’. At times I will even write as if in the heads of other characters, as though I know their thoughts and am privy to their memories of those times. It is from conversations since then, and from my own conjectures, that I am able to do this, and I believe it is the best way to tell what will undoubtedly become a long and complex tale. It is only by distancing myself in this way, and telling the tale as though it were a novel, that I will be able to tell the full truth. And you deserve the full truth, my true, best-loved son.

We shall begin on a cold, snowy evening nearly forty years ago, when I first set eyes upon the woman who was to become my wife.

Brighton, January 1838

Bartholomew St Clair leaned against a classical pillar in the ballroom of the Assembly Rooms, watching the dancers whirl around. There was a good turnout for this New Year’s ball. He ran his fingers around the inside of his collar. The room was warm, despite the freezing temperatures outside. He could feel his face flushing red with the heat, or maybe that was due to the volume of whiskey and port he’d consumed since dinner.

He scanned the room – the dancing couples twirling past him, the groups of young ladies with their chaperones at the sides of the room, the parties of men more interested in the drink than the dancing. He was looking for one person in particular. If his sources were correct, the young Holland heiress would be at this ball – her first since she came out of mourning. It could be worth his while obtaining an introduction to her. Rumour had it she was very pretty, but more than that, rich enough to get him out of debt. A couple of bad investments had left him in a precarious position, which only a swift injection of capital would resolve.

He watched as a pretty young girl in a black silk gown spun past him, on the arm of a portly man in military uniform. Her white-blonde hair was in striking contrast to her dress, piled high on top, with soft ringlets framing her face. She was smiling, but something about the way she held herself, as distant from her dancing partner as she could, told Bartholomew she was not enjoying herself very much. He recalled that the Holland girl was currently residing with her uncle, an army captain. This could be her.

The dance ended, and now the band struck up a Viennese waltz. Bartholomew kept his eyes fixed on the girl as she curtsied to her partner, shook her head slightly and made her way across the room towards the entrance hall. He straightened his collar, smoothed his stubbornly curly hair and pushed through the crowds, to intercept her near the door.

‘You look hot,’ he said. ‘May I get you some refreshments?’

She blushed slightly, and smiled. ‘I confess I am a little warm. Perhaps some wine would revive me.’

He took a glass from a tray held by a passing waiter, and gave it to her with a small bow. ‘I am sorry, I have not even introduced myself. Bartholomew St Clair, at your service.’

She held out her hand. ‘Georgia Holland. I am pleased to meet you.’

So it was her. She was even prettier viewed close up, in a girlish, unformed kind of way, than she was at a distance. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. Her skin was soft and smooth. ‘Would you like to sit down to rest? Your dancing appears to have exhausted you.’

‘It has, rather,’ she replied, as he led her towards some empty chairs at the side of the room. ‘I am unused to dancing so much. This is my first ball since…’ She bit her lip.

‘Since…a bereavement?’ he asked, gently. Sadness somehow suited her.

‘My father,’ Georgia whispered. She looked even prettier with tears threatening to fall. ‘He died a year ago. I have only just begun to rejoin Society.’

‘My condolences, Miss Holland. Are you all right? Would you like me to fetch someone for you?’

She shook her head. ‘I am quite well, thank you. You are very kind.’ She took a sip of her wine, then placed it on a small table beside her chair. She stood, and held out her hand. ‘It has been a pleasure meeting you, Mr St Clair. But I think I must take my leave now. My uncle is here somewhere. Perhaps he will call a cab to take me home.’

Bartholomew jumped to his feet. ‘I shall find your uncle for you. Though I could fetch you a cab myself.’ And accompany you home in it, he hoped, though it would not be the normal course of behaviour.

‘My uncle is my guardian,’ she said. ‘I live with him. So I must at least inform him that I wish to leave.’ She scanned the room.

‘Ah, there he is.’ She indicated the portly man in a captain’s uniform with whom he’d first seen her dancing.

So that was the person he needed to impress. From the way she’d held herself when dancing with him, it seemed there was no love lost between them, on her side at least. Interesting. Bartholomew took her arm, and led her through the crowds towards the captain, who was talking with a group of people in a corner of the room. She seemed tiny at his side – her slightness contrasting with his fine, strongly-built figure.

‘Uncle, this is Mr St Clair. He has very kindly been looking after me, when I felt a little unwell after our last dance.’

Bartholomew bowed, and shook the captain’s plump, sweaty hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’

‘Charles Holland. Obliged to you for taking care of the girl.’

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Bartholomew. He took a step forward and spoke quietly. ‘Your niece wishes to return home. With your permission, I shall call a cab for her.’

Holland turned to regard him carefully. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘You wish to continue taking care of my niece. You may do so. She has money, as you are no doubt already aware.’

‘Sir, I assure you, your niece’s fortune is not of interest…’

Holland waved his hand dismissively. ‘Of course it is, man. It’s time she married and became someone else’s responsibility. You look as likely a suitor as anyone else, and perhaps a better match than some of the young pups who’ve been sniffing around. You may take her home.’ He nodded curtly and turned back to his companions.

Bartholomew opened his mouth to say something more, but thought better of it. What rudeness! But if Charles Holland didn’t much care who courted his niece or how, at least it made things easier. He glanced at her. She was standing, hands clasped and eyes down, a few feet away. Probably too far to have heard the exchange between himself and her uncle. He took her arm and led her towards the cloakroom and the exit.

Outside, a thin covering of an inch or two of snow lay on everything, muting sound and reflecting the hazy moonlight so that the world appeared shimmering and silver. Georgia shivered and pulled her cloak more tightly around her.

‘Come, there should be a cab stand along Ship Street,’ Bartholomew said, steadying her as she descended the steps to the street. He grimaced as he noticed her shoes – fine silk dancing slippers, no use at all for walking in the snow.

‘It’s a beautiful night,’ she said. ‘I should like to see the beach, covered in snow. It always seems so wrong, somehow, to have the sea lapping at snow. Can we walk a little, just as far as the promenade, perhaps?’

‘But your shoes! You will get a chill in your feet, I fear.’

‘Nonsense. They will get a little cold but the snow is not deep. And the night air has quite revived me. I feel alive, Mr St Clair! Out of that stuffy ballroom, I feel I want to run and skip and – oh!’