This House is Haunted by John Boyne Read Free Book Online Page B

as we began our journey and I wondered how he could see well enough to navigate accurately the roads that would eventuallylead us to our destination, a few miles to the west of the Norfolk Broads. “Mr. Heckling?” I said, when he showed no sign of offering a response, and this time I was sure I could make out a certain stiffening in his shoulders. “I asked whether the mist is always this heavy.”
    He turned his head slightly and rotated his jaw in a rather unpleasant fashion, as if he was chewing on something, before shrugging and turning back to the road.
    “Always been this thick, I s’pose,” he offered. “Long as I can remember anyway. Summertime, it’s not so bad. But now, aye.” He considered this and nodded his head. “We make do.”
    “You’re Norfolk born and bred, I expect?” I asked.
    “Aye.”
    “You must like it here then.”
    “Must I?” he muttered, his voice deep and filled with a mixture of boredom and irritation. “Aye, I expect I must. If you say so, that is.”
    I sighed and sat back in the seat, unwilling to engage with him if he was going to be so cantankerous. Father, in addition to his dislike of Americans, the French and the Italians, had not cared greatly for the people of Norfolk and I knew that Heckling, who was certainly no Barkis and was proving himself entirely unwilling, would have irritated him greatly. During his time at the Norwich museum he had found them suspicious and discourteous, although it was possible that they simply did not care for the idea of a young Londoner arriving in their town to do something that a local boy could perhaps have done just as well. It was a coincidence that we should both spend time working in this county and I wondered whether I might have a chance to visit the museum that he and Mr. Kirby had established together, little more than fifty miles away.
    Sitting back now, I watched as the scenery, what little I could see of it anyway, passed by. The carriage was rather comfortable and I was glad of that. A thick blanket had been left on the seat and I laid it across my lap, settling my hands atop and feeling quite contented. As the roads over which we passed were rather bumpy it would have been a much more difficult journey had not the seating been so exquisite, which gave me every reason to believe that my employer was a man of substantial means. I fell to thinking about H. Bennet and the life that I was going towards. I prayed that the home would be a happy one, that the Bennets would be a loving couple and that their children, however many there might be, would be kind and welcoming. I had no home of my own now, after all, and assuming that the employment worked out and they took to me as I hoped to take to them, then Gaudlin Hall might be where I resided for many years to come.
    In my mind, I pictured a large house with many rooms, something rather palatial, with a spiralling driveway and lawns that went on as far as the eye could see. I think I based this entirely on the fact that my host’s name was Bennet and I associated this with the young lady at the heart of Pride and Prejudice . Her story had resolved itself in an extraordinary mansion, Mr. Darcy’s home at Pemberley. Perhaps these Bennets would have earned similar good fortune? Although of course Elizabeth and her sisters were part of a fiction and this, the house that I was travelling towards, was not. Still, as I reached out and ran my hand against the thick fabric of the carriage seat, it did pass through my mind that they must be moneyed at least, and that should mean that Gaudlin was something special.
    “Mr. Bennet,” I said, leaning forward again and wiping my face, for a thin drizzle of rain had begun to fall. “He is in business, I suppose?”
    “Who?” asked Heckling, holding fast to his reins, keeping a close eye on the dark road ahead.
    “Mr. Bennet,” I repeated. “My new employer. I wondered what he does for a living. Is he in business perhaps? Or …” I