Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling (4 page)

When we arrived back at the manor, I sent the boys inside and wandered through the wood at the back of the estate until I found the flattened patch of earth where Nanny Prum had met her end. Even with the onset of fall, it was impossible to deny the peculiar ring of dead grass and brittle, shriveled plant life that encircled the place where she had died, the center of it still stained with flakes of dried blood as dark as the shadows that cloaked the man in black's smiling, hidden lips.

CHAPTER 3

The Mistress of Everton

M
r. Darrow was not the sort of tragic figure to stay forever locked away in his study, which was itself one of the last bastions of Everton's former glory, with waxed oak-paneled walls, a tidy, ash-free hearth, and antiquities that had been collected from around the world by the master of the house and his late wife, whose adventures had been chronicled on the marble globe that stood at the center of the room, their travels marked by glittering jeweled pinpoints of color. No one ever saw Mr. Darrow tend to the cleaning of his study, but as he did not allow anyone else to do it for him, everyone supposed that that was what he did when he was alone, perhaps beating the curtains with sullen determination as he stared longingly at the portrait of his late wife that hung above his desk.

But he was not always in his study. There were a number of occasions where I went to the door, in need of additional pocket money for school supplies, or to seek his permission for a day trip to a particular castle or battlefield, and I would find the room empty. No one knew where he went, and no one could say that they saw him depart. He did not like to leave Everton, and so I imagined him haunting the shadows of the hallways or drifting into unused rooms, resting on a chair that had long ago been covered over in cloth sheets, or pausing before a clock to wonder if it had stopped with the death of his wife.

He did not usually dine with us, and so the children and I were visibly surprised when two weeks after Nanny Prum's funeral he sat down at the head of the table in the dining room, looking rather dour until Fredricks, the butler, who either was very drunk or had completely forgotten how to use his own hands, lost hold of the soup kettle and tipped it down the front of his uniform. After establishing that the liquid was not so hot as to be scalding, everyone laughed together, and even Mr. Darrow seemed to enjoy himself for a brief moment, but then he looked at the other end of the table, where the late Mrs. Darrow would have sat, and he retreated into his comfortable melancholy. I do not know why he chose that night to join us. Perhaps the reality of Nanny Prum's death had sunk in and he needed the company, or perhaps he was reminded of his children's existence and sought to comfort them with his distant, sad presence.

Soon after dessert, the grandfather clock began to chime. I took the boys upstairs to change for bed, saying good night to Mr. Darrow and leaving him alone at the table to finish off the contents of a wine bottle. I worried about his state of mind, but I was too busy adjusting to my new responsibilities with the children to think too intently on it.

In the days that followed Nanny Prum's death, it had quickly been decided that the most practical thing would be for me to take on her duties. I already spent a great deal of time with the boys as their tutor, and if I were able to control their lives beyond the schoolroom it would make life that much easier for everyone else. I would have been remiss to turn down such an offer, especially since it was accompanied by a nanny's salary in addition to my own. I understood the value of such an opportunity and was eager to please the apparent generosity of Mr. Darrow.

It was not so awkward a transition as might be imagined. As governess I had still been expected to deal with the well-being of the children at every occurrence of illness or injury, and I easily transitioned from in-class paper cuts and bleeding nostrils to bed-wetting and bad dreams.

That night after Mr. Darrow's surprising appearance at dinner, I tucked James into bed and read him a story while Paul perused some obscure volume of poetry, his back toward me. He was very much like his father, especially in the eyes—very blue, large, and thoughtful. I wondered what Mrs. Darrow had been like, if she had been as erratic and adventurous as James, or something else altogether. When James fell asleep, or at least pretended to in order to get me out of the room, I left them alone. I did not have to go far.

The nanny's room had two windows that overlooked the forest behind the house, and while the grounds of Everton seemed to respond to Roland's care better than the house itself did to Mrs. Norman's, the wood still had a wild look about it, especially at night, when the depths of the forest were hidden even from the light of the moon.

I changed into my nightgown and slid into bed, trying not to think of anything. Not of Nanny Prum and the dead circle of undergrowth that marked her demise behind the house, or of poor Mr. Darrow, probably still drinking himself into oblivion. But then the very act of not thinking about something is rather self-defeating, since one must think about the things one wants to avoid before nothing can be thought of. With that last tangled thought, my attention drifted inadvertently to Mr. Darrow.

It did not escape me that my new position had effectively made me into a mother of two. I was, for all intents and purposes, their guardian. I saw to it that the boys were fed, bathed, schooled, and looked after. I was the closest thing to a mistress of Everton since Mrs. Darrow's passing. I cannot deny that this pleased me, or that I did not spend those last moments before sleep thinking about my time with Mr. Darrow in the music room, hands beside one another, almost touching, and what would happen should one of us decide to cross that fraction of space . . .

I drifted off and dreamt of my childhood in India, of temples and jungles and crumbling, many-armed statues, tigers and cobras and monkeys, and of our home in the colonial residency of Lucknow. It was a familiar scene, the same one that ended every dream about my youth: my mother's room, with the lights dimmed as she lay in bed with cholera, her body slowly drying out and withering into the shape of a child, gasping desperately for air, each moment a struggle until death. My father was nowhere to be found, and the servants avoided coming into the room. This part of the dream always ended the same way, would only end if I crawled into the bed to be with her, over sheets and pillows and shawls, unable to find her until at last I reached the center of the bed and realized that I must enact her death, live through it in order to wake. I would feel someone standing over the bed and observing me writhing in the damp sheets, a man dressed all in black. I struggled to see his face, but it was dark, and despite the fact that it was a dream, I could not will the face into existence. It was as if it were separate from my mind and from the dream of India. I tried to sit up from the bed, but instead sank down deeper into the mattress. However, unlike in the other occurrences of the dream, this time the figure whispered to me:

“Children need their mothers.”

It was a woman's voice, and as she retreated to the other side of the room I died on the bed, choking for air with long, unbearable pauses between each breath until I was back at Everton, gasping as sweat trickled down my chest and face. I threw the blankets off the bed so as not to get them damp, and was about to change when there was a knock on the door to the nursery.

“Charlotte?”

James opened it without waiting for me to respond. He had been crying, his face as wet with tears as mine was from perspiration. Both of the boys seemed to have unique problems with nightmares. Being the more courageous of the two, James often dreamt himself into outlandish adventures featuring ghouls, mummies, and spider women, just to name a few from his well-populated menagerie of monsters. Occasionally, the capacity of his imagination to invent horrors would outpace his actual ability to tolerate them, and he would wake up in the middle of the night absolutely convinced that the spider on the windowsill was an agent of the malevolent Spider Queen, intent upon making him pay for the theft of her enchanted silver webbing.

Paul was another matter altogether. Quite often he would already be awake when I entered their room to take care of his brother, angry that he had been aroused from a most wonderful nightmare, as he was that night when I took James back to his bed.

“I was at a ball,” he said as James nestled his head against my chest. “And Mother was there. She was young and beautiful. I tried to move across the dance floor to speak to her, but it was too crowded. Every person in the ballroom was dancing with something inhuman, and Mother took the hand of a creature who only pretended to look like a man. She waved to me from across the room, and I was about to go save her, but then James started screaming about the stupid Spider Queen.” He shot his brother a spiteful look.

“She's not stupid!” James lunged out of the bed, his tear-streaked face furrowed in rage, but because he was in my arms and only five years old, I was able to hold him back without much effort.

“It's nothing to me if you want to kill one another,” I told them. “I imagine that it would be much easier to care for one child as opposed to two. But I daresay your father would be furious with whichever one of you murders the other. If violence and murder are the methods you choose to use when dealing with family, then we can only surmise the tactics you might use when dealing with your peers would be that much worse. We would be forced to lock you away in the attic for the good of the village. I don't believe that such an existence would be a very pleasant one, but then it's not up to me to make your decisions for you.”

The boys had no idea which one of them I was talking to, and as they tried to sort out what I had said, their anger abated. I tucked them into bed so tightly that it was difficult for them to move about, even Paul, who was completely horrified that I had the gall to treat him like his younger brother. Rather than struggle against it, they both gave in to the hour of the night and fell asleep. I watched them for a while to make sure there was no relapse of flared tempers, and when I was satisfied that they were truly asleep, I retired to my room. By then the notion of sleep had left me completely, so I changed into a fresh nightgown, combed my hair, read for a bit, and finally decided to make myself a cup of tea.

I always preferred Everton at night. It was not a noisy house, the sort of place that creaked or groaned a whole symphony of innocuous sounds that, when taken together, could twist a shadow into something tangible and dangerous. It was simply dark and quiet without any pretense, with the kind of rich, musty smell that only comes with age.

Mr. Darrow was still in the dining room. He was startled when he saw me, but not drunk. The wine bottle was gone and had been replaced by a full afternoon tea spread, despite the fact that it was well past two in the morning. There was a large pot of black tea, still steaming, the usual cream and sugar, as well as tea sandwiches, scones with clotted cream, and a chocolate tea cake that sat on his plate, conspicuously untouched. He invited me to join him, and though there were many chairs to choose from, I sat down beside him rather impulsively and felt my face flush. He was a very handsome man, and the dining room was not the private refuge of the music room.

“Good evening, Mr. Darrow.”

“Trouble sleeping?”

“James had a nightmare.” He looked concerned, and half rose from his chair, but I touched his arm and he sat once more, his eyes lingering where I had touched him. He gaped for a moment until I reassured him. “It's all right. He's asleep again.”

Mr. Darrow regained his composure. “And now you're not.”

“An occupational hazard, I'm afraid. May I?” I reached for a teacup, but he grabbed it before I could and filled it with the black, aromatic contents of the teapot.

“Darjeeling.”

“Wonderful.”

“Scone?”

“Please. Mrs. Mulbus has truly outdone herself, considering the hour.”

“You underestimate my cowardice, Mrs. Markham. I would never approach dear Mrs. Mulbus's door at this time of night demanding food and drink. There is a specter of death that seems to hover over Everton, and I do not wish to tempt it.” There was a weariness in his gaze, his blue eyes peering over the lip of his cup, framed by strands of his dark blond hair, fixated once more on the other end of the table, as empty and silent as the rest of the house. But then he smiled and reached for a scone. “Besides, I'm not completely incapable.”

“Of course not.”

“I mean, why must one wait until the afternoon to have afternoon tea? That part of the day is so busy that one can rarely enjoy it.”

“I quite agree.”

“But I must say that it is nice to have your company outside of the music room.”

I tipped my cup toward him, and he returned the gesture. We sipped our tea in silence.

“You know, Mr. Darrow”—I finished my cup and set it in the saucer, carefully choosing my words—“if you require company during the daylight hours, I'm sure I could make the children available.”

He nodded thoughtfully and refilled my cup. “Yes, what must you think of me? Locked away in my study or wandering the halls of the house. I only seem to reclaim some semblance of my old life after everyone's gone to sleep. I'm afraid I've become something of a ghoul. It's rather pathetic.”

“That's not how I meant it.”

“But it is. Lily's been dead for . . . God, has it nearly been a year? And now Nanny Prum. How did you recover from the loss of your husband?”

“I'm not sure one ever does. It still hurts for me to think of him. I miss him so.” I relaxed as I said aloud what I always felt: his absence. I could tell that I was beaming as I thought of him. I dabbed my lips with a napkin. “But there is something fortifying about the pain. It reminds me of how much I loved him, and my love is equal to the pain. It protects me, and it grows stronger the more I think of him. I'm sure that someday it will be the same for you and Mrs. Darrow.”

“Perhaps, but then again . . .” His brow contracted into an expression of anxiety as he finished eating a cucumber sandwich. “Mrs. Norman will be up soon, and I like to avoid her when possible.” He smiled weakly at me and stood from the table.

“Mr. Darrow, before you go. About Nanny Prum.”

“Yes?”