Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [23]
‘That’s right, a walk,’ she was saying as I recovered my senses and pushed back as far as I could into the space between the curtains and the wall, away from the door. ‘Alone,’ she added forcefully, her hand and arm snaking behind the curtains in search of the handle of the French window.
Then in a moment she was gone. The door closed again behind her and the curtain blew slightly in the draught. She had stepped straight out into the night. She had not looked behind the curtain or she would have seen my shrinking form pressed away from her.
As the curtain flapped open again for a moment, I caught sight of the group of people in the room beyond. They seemed to be busily talking amongst themselves, oblivious of the conversation by the curtain (and, I hoped, to my extended absence). Richard Harries was staring after his former fiancée – surprise, anger and concern all caught on his face in that split second. He did not see me in my dark hiding space.
I gave him a few seconds to move away, then sidled along to the far edge of the curtain and stepped confidently out into the corner of the room. I paused to straighten the curtain, as if I had just noticed it askew, then picked up the empty glass I had left on a nearby table and walked over to the fire, conscious of the fact that my hand was shaking slightly – both from the cold and from having been so nearly discovered eavesdropping, albeit unintentionally. I was looking up at the plaque above the mantel when George came over to join me. My mind was elsewhere, wandering over the last few minutes, unable to snap away.
‘There used to be one in the study as well,’ he said.
For a moment I was thrown, then I realised that he was referring to the inscribed plaque.
‘It was a different passage, but still Banquo,’ he continued.
‘How odd,’ I replied, not quite sure what else to say. Had George noticed my absence, or seen me re-emerge from behind the curtains? Apparently not, for he continued without any hint of it.
‘Not really. This is Banquo Manor, remember.’
Somehow, despite the inscription, I had always assumed that Banquo had been the builder or architect rather than the Shakespearean character. The plaque I had considered to be a light-hearted afterthought, although the choice of speech did seem to somewhat undermine the humour.
‘There was a sixteenth-century architect called Roland Banquo or something, I believe,’ George said when I displayed my ignorance. ‘But he had nothing to do with this house. He died considerably before it was built.’
‘Then why the name?’
George had obviously told the story many times before, although never to me, and settled easily into his narrative.
‘Well, in 1793 Robert Dodds inherited a substantial amount of money from his aunt and commissioned the Adam brothers to build him a house. This house. That’s Dodds up there.’ Wallace interrupted his polished flow and pointed up at the portrait opposite. The dead eyes stared back at us implacably. Were they amused or frightened? There was something, deep behind them.
‘Having got the house, Dodds had to find a name for it.’
‘Yes, but why “Banquo"?’ I asked, glancing furtively back at the pale face on the canvass. It was fear, I was sure. ‘Did he see a ghost or something?’
‘No,’ replied George slowly. ‘But it’s odd that you should say that.’
‘Oh?’
‘The villagers say that Dodds murdered his aunt for the legacy, then built the house as a sort of penance. Like Macbeth, his conscience got the better of him.’
‘Seems a funny way to go about it.’
I ran my fingers over the words cut into the brass; somehow they did now seem appropriate. Dodds had fallen down through not foreseeing what would happen. However, George’s next words dispelled any sense of justification.
‘There’s absolutely no truth in it of course,’ he chuckled, taking a sip of his drink. ‘His aunt died of old age really,