The House of Footsteps by Mathew West

Author:Mathew West
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2021-11-28T14:36:34+00:00

12.

The clock on the Cobsfoot town hall told me that the hour was not yet four, and I had some time to occupy myself before I could hope to locate Mrs Pugh and discover what information she might be willing to share that might help me to unpick the mess I had found myself in. I thought it wiser to try to speak to her beyond the confines of Thistlecrook House; here in Cobsfoot, and outwith her waged hours, she might be willing to discuss her employer more freely, I hoped.

My restless thoughts made for restless feet, and I decided to use my free time to take a walk about the town. I set off with the high steeple of the distant church as my arbitrary goal. After I had covered about half the ground from the town square to the house of worship, a peal of bells sounded from the direction of my destination: a pleasingly irregular, clanging din – the bellringers must be at practice. The sound seemed to stir something inside me, a distant memory of childhood, and I fancied that I had not heard the chiming of church bells for a longer time than I could remember.

I found the church itself a lumpen, aged building, well-weathered but apparently attentively cared for. I walked around the structure admiring its history and fortitude – I would have wagered it had outlasted any other building within the town. An elderly lady stood skulking outside the church doors, watching me. I smiled and waved, but she did not react. I entered the small churchyard and walked among the graves there, reading the names and dates from times long distant, and trying to imagine the faces they had once belonged to, their manners and their dress, their accents and attitudes from long ago – living, breathing wives, husbands, fathers and mothers, now nothing but carved names in stone. Some grave markers were so ancient and weather-beaten that the names had disappeared completely; some lay in collapsed heaps overgrown with thick, green moss. The sight made me unaccountably sad.

After walking solemnly among the stones for a while, I noticed that the old lady was still watching me, having followed me around the church building so that she could spy on me over the graveyard wall. I left the yard by a route that deliberately took me past her, offering a bright ‘Hello,’ as I drew near. She muttered some vague words that I could not interpret, but by their tone I thought I could recognize a grudgingly returned greeting.

Up close, the small elderly lady looked as ancient and decrepit as the church she seemed to be protecting. On a sudden impulse, I asked her, ‘Have you lived in Cobsfoot all your life?’

My unexpected address seemed to startle her more than I could have anticipated. Her ancient, rheumy eyes opened in shock and her lips trembled for a moment, and then she nodded in affirmation.

‘Did Mr Mordrake ever have a wife, and did

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