1.1

So this was the ghost of Christoph von Tilsbach: an elegant, ethereal figure in a white linen suit and broad-brimmed panama hat.  Emily was not sure that she recalled the circular spectacles or the clipped moustache; but even at this distance she recognised the duelling-scar, pink and puckered like a maggot stuck to the Baron’s left cheek.  The walking-cane she recognised, too: it was of ebony, silver-tipped, with a silver handle in the shape of a swan’s head.  The Baron had used it once as a putting-stick, holding it upside down to tap – what was it now?  A marble egg?  A paperweight? – across an expanse of Persian carpet somewhere in Heidelberg. The aim of the exercise had been to get the egg, or paperweight, or whatever it was, to land on a small sky-blue lozenge in the centre of the rug.  Frustrated after many attempts, the Baron had finally prostrated himself on the carpet, reversed his grip on the cane, and employed it as a billiard cue.  But perhaps this was just one of her elder brother William’s stories, or one of her own imaginings.
         

She had imagined him dead. One the last letters her second brother Henry had written from the Somme had contained a reference to his death: shot down over Flanders by a former schoolmate of Henry’s in the RFC.  And then towards the end of the War, she had chanced across an old Cambridge friend of William’s who now worked in Intelligence.  During the course of an otherwise awkward exchange – they were in Trafalgar Square, it was pouring with rain, Father’s death in Picardy had just been reported – Henry’s friend had mentioned that Christoph von Tilsbach had been killed on the Eastern Front.  He even named the town in Russia where it had happened – something beginning with a K.  Yet here the Baron was on 16th June 1921, risen from the mud of Flanders or the snows of the steppe, his English as impeccable and his manner as courteous as ever.  Jethro Stubbs, the stable-lad, was showing him the horses, and von Tilsbach was taking evident pleasure in learning their names – Major, Troy, Finnegan.          

‘Finnegan,’ repeated von Tilsbach, admiring the strawberry roan in the end box; ‘an Irish name.’

Jethro wasn’t sure about this.  ‘He’s from Lower Wootton,’ he said, adding as an afterthought: ‘New Malden Farm.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said von Tilsbach, as if the name spoke volumes to him.  Slowly extending a hand, he rubbed the knuckle of his index finger around the velvety rim of the horse’s nostril. ‘Na komm schon,’ he murmured, as the horse showed him the white of its eye. ‘Komm schon.’ The look melted.  ‘So ist brav,’ he continued, stroking the horse’s muzzle: ‘So ist lieb.’

‘He don’t understand that,’ said Jethro, disconcerted by the alien syllables issuing from the stranger’s mouth. ‘You got to speak proper to him.’

‘Then I shall speak – proper, as you say,’ responded the German, with a smile.  ‘You are an extremely nice horse,’ he announced, running his hand down the roan’s neck as he spoke, ‘and I like you very much.’

‘See his ears go forward?’ exclaimed Jethro, tugging at his neckerchief. ‘That horse understands every word you say to him.  Don’t you, my lad?’  He gave Finnegan a lump of sugar from his waistcoat pocket.  ‘Why, I remember one Sunday not long before Easter when Miss Emily almost come a cropper on him.  She were cantering him up this field, when – ’

‘Jethro!’ Emily intervened.  The memory of that near-accident flooded her vision in a sickening rush of sky and grass and trees as she stepped forward into the stable-yard.

Jethro span round, his face reddening. ‘Yes, Miss Emily!’ he said, pulling down the points of his waistcoat and straightening his neckerchief.

‘Not too much sugar for Finnegan, please,’ said Emily, trying to give an impression of composure.  ‘We don’t want him to start begging again.’  The sight of von Tilsbach was unnerving, and her heart was racing.  Her voice seemed high-pitched and girlish.

‘Very well, Miss Emily.’

Jethro made no sign of moving, curious to witness what would happen next.

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