The Silence (10 page)

Report in re: Mr Samuel Burlap.

Continuation of statement made by Mr Burlap to Dr Brodworthy, on 25th April 1900

You’ll say seeing that woman trapped in the old game larder was my imagination. But I saw her. And what made me sick and ill with revulsion was that I knew who it was. There was only one person it could be. Isobel Acton. And you may tell me Isobel Acton is long since dead – you may tell me that until hell freezes – but I know different. She’s still there.

What Isobel did all those years ago is seared into my mind – as if my father heated one of the white-hot irons in his forge and burned it straight down into my soul.

He was a blacksmith, my father, and in those days that was a good thing to be, well, it still is. But I’ve heard it said that it’s a skill that will dwindle in the future, because one day folk will travel around by means of motor cars. I see you smile, Doctor, and I agree with you, for they’re dirty noisy things, those motor cars and as for unreliable . . . Well, you might count yourself lucky to reach your journey’s end, from what I hear. But I know they’re part of what they call progress. Didn’t our fathers and mothers say electricity was dangerous, and yet how many people now have the electricity in their houses? And didn’t our grandparents scoff at the thought of lighting a house with gas, or travelling in steam-powered machines?

I learned a fair amount about my father’s work when I was young. But he was what you might call forward-looking, and when I was ten or eleven, he said, ‘Samuel, I won’t have you taught the smithy trade properly, not but what a bit of knowledge mightn’t be a good idea. But for all we can tell it might be a dying art when you’re a man. So it’s in my mind that you’ll be a builder, for you’ve an eye for a fine house, and it’s what I’d like for you. How about it?’

I said I thought I should like it.

‘Good. Even so, it won’t harm you to know a bit about smithing, so you’ll come along to the forge on Saturday afternoon and between us we’ll fashion that new wheel for Simeon Acton’s carriage.’

So I learned a fair bit about the art of the smith and my father was right to say it would be useful at times. But I learned my trade as a builder and I think I can say with truth that I’ve done well with it. I’ve built many a fine, strong house hereabouts. I’ve travelled a bit to one or two cities, as well. Manchester and Chester – a fine old place, Chester. And I built the new extension for Mr Ralph West’s factory in Derby, where he deals with the grand china he brings into the country from Holland and France. Mr West was so pleased with my work that a couple of years afterwards he gave me the job of building Stilter House.

(And I’m sorry if I’m talking too much, but if you’re wanting to make a proper record – and since I’m wanting you to know I’m not afflicted with a moonstruck madness – it’s important for you to know it and understand.)

So I knew, early on, that I wasn’t going to be a blacksmith, but I always liked going into my father’s forge. Sometimes it would be cold, the hearth just an ordinary hearth, clinkered and pitted, the welding hammers and irons stacked against the wall. But when the fires were glowing and there was the ring of the hammer on the anvil, something seemed to wake and you could believe you’d stepped into an enchanted land. I’d see it as peopled with fiery steeds wearing bridles of melted gold and harnesses of chalcedony like in the Bible, (not that I ever knew what chalcedony was). Or maybe the Beast from the Book of Revelation that was thrown into the blazing furnace for its wickednesses. Really, the Beast would only be Sir Beecham Bondley’s old piebald standing near the open forge waiting for a new shoe on account of having thrown one across Goose Green, but firelight changes things, so I’d see stallions shod with fire or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, chained and caged at last. The imagination of a child plays these tricks. Not that I ever had much imagination, not really, and now – well, dealing with hods of bricks and tubs of mortar drives out all thoughts of fiery-shod steeds.

The forge was alive on the day I’m speaking of. My father was hammering out a pair of spurs for Sir Beecham Bondley and I was helping. Sir Beecham himself had gone off to The Pheasant while it was being done, telling my father, with a sly wink, that there was a new serving wench there. I remember, as well, my father saying he knew all about the new serving wench, and I remember having the feeling that the two men had shared a joke I did not understand.

My mother came to fetch me just after my father and I had eaten our dinner. I had been looking forward to getting the spurs finished, but mother said I was to go along with her to Acton House, so I put on my scarf and cap and made ready to set off along the lanes. I could help with spurs any time, but I had never been to Acton House. It would be quite an adventure; something to tell the other children at school. I wouldn’t boast, but I would certainly talk about it.

It seemed there was to be a weekend party, and there were turkey poults to be plucked for a big dinner and none too much time to do them, so mother wanted an extra pair of hands. She often did this kind of work. House parties, there’d be, with tennis on the lawn or picnics in the orchard in summer, and lavish dinners at night.

I knew the lanes around Acton House of course. A few of us would go blackberrying there in autumn and hunting for horse chestnuts. We’d pick elderflowers and rose hips in spring for jam. But I had only seen the house itself through the trees and hedges that grew thickly round it.

‘Nice enough,’ mother said once, when I asked about the house. ‘If you care for grandeur and a lot of frippery. She likes her comforts, that Isobel Acton.’

My mother did not approve of Mrs Acton. ‘Light-minded,’ she said of her. ‘More interested in wearing silk gowns from London, or playing that rubbishing music on her piano, than in running her house.’

But she did approve of Simeon Acton, which was why she always accepted any work at the house. Simeon Acton had paid for the church roof to be mended and built six almshouses for elderly people in the area who found themselves in difficult circumstances or people who had suffered hardship and were unable to work. Once it would have been Sir Beecham Bondley’s task to donate money for the church roof and build almshouses, him being the squire and living in the big house, but the Bondleys had done what was called squander their substance years since.

Simeon Acton did not squander anything on anyone, unless it might have been his wife. People said he was besotted with her and that there was no fool like an old fool, but they said it quite affectionately.

I had seen Isobel Acton once, and I had never forgotten it. Her carriage had stopped outside the forge while Mr Acton came in to arrange for some job he wanted my father to do. I went out to ask if she would step inside for it was a bitterly cold January day. She said something – I forget now what – but her voice was like no voice I had ever heard. It made me think of deep dark midnight skies and cats’ fur. I dreamed about that voice for weeks afterwards and in the dreams it was always saying all manner of nice things to me.

But I think that even within the dreams I was always a bit afraid of Isobel. Because, you see, it did not take much of a stretch to make
Isobel
into
Jezebel
. And I knew my Bible: I was a diligent attendee of Sunday School, and I knew Jezebel had been a Hebrew princess, guilty of all kinds of wickedness, and that just before she was executed by Jehu, she dressed herself up in a fine gown and painted her face. What kind of abandoned creature, demanded our Sunday school teacher, would do that half an hour before being thrown to wild dogs to be eaten?

Anyway, there I was, walking through an English spring day, to the house where a lady who was also called Jezebel (or very nearly) lived. But a lady who had that marvellous silken voice that reminded you of evening birdsong or thin spring water with sunlight shining through it. I wanted to meet her properly. I wanted her to smile at me and think good things of me.

I remember that walk vividly. The trees hummed with birdsong and the meadows were splashed with buttercups, and it was a day when marvellous things might happen.

Acton House had big elaborate iron gates, and on that day the tips glinted in the sunlight. As we pushed them open (silken smooth and silent they were, no screeching hinges for the Actons), I remember thinking – at last I’m going to see her properly. I might even speak to her again. She’s inside this house, wearing a silk gown, lying on one of the velvet couches or sitting on a cushion to sew a fine seam, like the ladies in the old rhyme. Even at twelve years of age it gave me a very strange feeling to visualize that, partly pleasurable, partly guiltily uncomfortable – and
that’s
something I’ve never told a living soul, not even Mrs Burlap, in fact, especially not Mrs Burlap, so I’ll be grateful if you’ll treat it with discretion, Doctor and miss.

We didn’t go the front door, of course. My mother would have been shocked to think of doing such a thing, and we went along a side path and around to the kitchens. But no one came in answer to her knock, and that was when I began to feel uneasy. Not frightened, exactly, but as if something was tapping against my mind – something that said,
Beware . . .
They say that once upon a time human beings had an extra sense that warned them of danger approaching, but that we’ve become so civilized we’ve lost that sense, whatever it might have been. I don’t know about that, but I do know that on that afternoon I was very uneasy.

‘This is strange,’ said my mother. ‘No one seems to be here. But I’m expected, that I do know.’ She frowned, then reached for the door latch and turned it, calling out to Miss Stump, who was the person who sent a message when mother was needed to help out.

But there was still no response. My mother was clearly puzzled, but in a brisk voice, she said, ‘Well, they can’t be far away, because the kitchen door was unlocked. I dare say that Eliza Stump is off somewhere with young Poulson from The Pheasant again, though, the giddy creature.’ She made a tutting sound, which meant she disapproved. ‘We’ll try the front.’

We retraced our steps along the side garden path and through the gardens. The front of the house was framed by trees and bushes, and to me it seemed like a palace. It was a large building – there were what I now know to be gables with painted trims. The walls were red brick, which was unusual in itself. Most houses in Caudle Moor were – still are – built of the local stone. I remember I stared up at those walls entranced, and I thought: I’d like to make houses like this.

We had to walk past two windows to get to the front door. Small windows they were, with thick, slightly wavy glass, criss-crossed with lead strips. I knew, of course, that you did not look through people’s windows. Very ill mannered, mother always said. But this was Acton House – it was a big, grand place, not as big or as grand as Bondley Manor, but nearly so. And it was where
she
lived. So, greatly daring, I looked through one of the windows.

At first the room seemed entirely ordinary and the two people in it seemed to be doing ordinary things. The only thing unfamiliar to me was the piano – a glossily black instrument standing at the far end. I had never seen a house that had a piano.

Isobel Acton was sitting on a button-back sofa, very upright, very composed. She was wearing a soft fine gown, pale green silk, exactly as I had pictured her, and her hair, which was dark and glossy, was scooped on top of her head. I wanted to stay there and watch her for ever.

She was embroidering, which I knew was what ladies did. People like my mother hadn’t the time for such frippery stuff; if they sewed anything it was mending of socks and shirts.

A tray of cups and saucers stood on a low table in front of Isobel, together with what I took to be a thin, tall teapot. I know now that it was a coffee pot, but I had never seen one then.

Simeon Acton was seated on the other side of the fireplace. He had been reading, but he had put the book down, and he was watching his wife with a look of deep love and pride – I had never seen anyone look like that, but I knew the expression for what it was.

Neither of them saw me, but after a moment Isobel put down her sewing, and leaned over the small table to pour coffee into a cup. She glanced over her shoulder, then tipped something into the cup – white powder it looked like and it could have been sugar. She stirred it in, then carried the cup to her husband. He smiled up at her as he took it, and drank. Then he stopped and frowned. His hand went to his throat as if something had clutched it, and he started up from his chair, his face turning a dull ugly crimson.

Isobel had stepped back and she was standing on the pale rug, watching her husband. She stood very still, not speaking and I waited for her to call for help, to go to him, but she did not. As God is my judge, Isobel Acton, that beautiful silken creature with that midnight velvet voice that had spun an enchantment through my nights, turned her back on the man writhing in agony on the floor. With apparent unconcern, she walked to the piano standing in the big bay window, sat down and began to play. Light, cool music, cold and fragile as icicles, drifted across the room, and whether or not she was doing it to mask the sounds of her husband’s struggles, or for some other cause altogether, I have no more idea now than I had then. But it was as if white painful light was spiking into my mind.

Acton had fallen to the floor and he was writhing and gasping, clutching his stomach. His lips had taken on a bluish tinge, and his eyes were almost starting from his head. He made a dreadful bubbling sound in his throat, and then vomited wetly on the pale rug. I felt my own stomach lift in nausea and for a moment I thought I, too, would be sick, there against the beautiful red-brick wall. I bent over, but nothing came up, and after a moment I was able to straighten up again and look back into the room.

I thought: surely she will have gone to him now, but she had not. Simeon twisted and turned on the ground, arching his back as if trying to escape the pain, and horridly and incredibly his gasps were in exact time with the soft chords coming from the piano. As if the pianist was playing her music to coincide with his agony.