The Vanishment (22 page)

I paused and, as if on cue, took another mouthful from my glass.

"One night I had a pile of essays to mark for a class early the next morning. I was marking them in the kitchen with Catherine. They were full of the usual stupid mistakes. As usual, I was drinking. I suppose I was drunk, I can't remember. I'm not certain what happened next. There was a pot of. . . red paint. . . . Catherine had little pots of them. She . . . spilled it over the essays. I. . . lost my temper. Hit her. I didn't mean to, not like that. Not so hard. The blow sent her backward into a glass door. We'd always told her to be careful of that door. I remember thinking at first that she'd spilled more paint, that I would have to hit her again. And then I realized what I'd done."

I looked across at her. She was so achingly beautiful, and what I was telling her was so ugly.

"I'd like to stop talking about this. It brings back memories. I. . ."

"Don't get upset. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

We fell silent. A shadow had come between us. I saw Susannah glancing from me to Rachel and back again. Rachel looked up. She had grown tired of drawing. "Can we watch a video?" she asked.

"We don't have a machine here," I said. "And in any case, you're getting tired, young lady. I think it's time for bed."

Having Susannah there made the thought of returning up those stairs a little less daunting. I turned to her.

"I think we should all go up. Rachel can't stay here on her own. You can have the bed in the room we were in last night. It's quite comfortable." I glanced at Rachel. "Rachel, you won't mind if Susannah spends the night with you, will you?"

She shook her head, yawning, not really interested.

"What about you?" Susannah asked.

"I'll be all right. There's a bed in the room next door." I was not thinking of the room in which I had seen that thing the previous night, but one on the other side, where a lot of old furniture was kept.

"If you're sure."

"I can always shout if anything happens. It's not myself I'm worried about. It's Rachel. She's at the center of all this."

Susannah carried Rachel upstairs and undressed her for bed while I busied myself with the quilts. Mr. Belkins had not put in a reappearance. I glanced under the larger bed: the doll was no longer there. Someone was playing games.

"There are flashlights and batteries here," I said, showing my treasures to Susannah. "We had a failure last night, so there's a chance you'll need them."

"I don't mind if you stay in here," she said. "It's not as if . . ."

I smiled and thanked her.

"I'd sooner not. I might be unable to stop myself making a pass at you. And then where would we be?"

She laughed, rather awkwardly I thought. As if she was not altogether accustomed to the idea of men making passes at her.

I said good night to both of them and went off to my room, carrying a box of flashlights in my arms, like a small boy off to his first scout camp, frightened of the dark.

The first thing I did after lighting the gas fire was to pour myself another glass of whiskey. My box had contained more than flashlights and batteries. Well, why not? It was going to be a long night, and I was badly in need of some Dutch courage.

Apart from the bed, the room contained a heavy oak wardrobe, a small table with a bowl and pitcher, both empty and covered in dust, a desk, and a bedside table.

Sitting near the fire with my whiskey in one hand, I kept my eye on the door. I expected that awful banging to start at any moment, and to see the door thrown open and slammed shut again a dozen times or more. I was bracing myself for it. But the house remained obstinately still. As though it, too, was waiting.

From time to time my eyes strayed to the wardrobe. It had a faintly malevolent air, and I could not keep myself from imagining that something unpleasant lurked inside it. It was not long before the thought of the wardrobe and what it might contain started to prey on my mind almost more heavily than any horror occasioned by the door.

In the end, I could stand it no longer. Downing two fingers of whiskey to stiffen my resolve, I got to my feet and yanked open the wardrobe door.

It was empty, save for a couple of old wooden hangers swinging from a central rail. As I made to close the door again I noticed that, after all, there was something there. Almost out of sight, a cardboard box had been pushed back along a shelf in the upper right corner.

I lifted it down and carried it across to the desk. It seemed to be an old hatbox, and for all I knew, it contained nothing but an old hat. It was not very heavy. I lifted off the lid.

Inside were dozens of photographs, most of them pasted to stiff backing cards, many of them the product of a studio in St. Ives in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Had they been left here by the late Agnes Trevorrow? It seemed the most likely explanation for their presence here.

I started to go through them. Right away I noticed that someone had written on their backs in a fine copperplate hand, giving the names of those portrayed with the date of the sittings in most cases. They were in no particular order.

Here was a stiff studio portrait of Jeremiah Trevorrow, dressed in his best clothes and looking decidedly ill at ease:
My father, Jeremiah, aged 45. Taken in 1875 by Mr. Barilari at St. Ives.
My guess was right, then: these had belonged to Agnes. Beneath the photograph of her father lay one of an attractive young woman in a high-necked dress. The inscription on the back read:
The whore Susannah's mother, Esther, may she rot. Taken in her last year, 1880.

Many of the inscriptions were like that, full of unspent rancor. The sitters seemed to stare at me out of the past, trapped little creatures making mute appeals for help. I lifted them from the box one by one. They were musty and unpleasant to the touch.

Suddenly there was a piercing shriek. A child started to cry somewhere outside my room. I got up, scattering the photographs, and made for the door.

Susannah was already at the door of the main bedroom. She was wearing a white nightgown. I rushed up to her.

"What's going on?" I asked. "Is Rachel all right?"

"She's fine. She's still sleeping. The noise hasn't woken her, thank God."

"But I thought. . ."

She did not answer. As we both listened it became clear that the crying was coming not from the bedroom as I had at first thought, but from somewhere higher up—somewhere on the next floor. And I realized where I had heard it before: on a tape in the police station in St. Ives.

Suddenly the crying stopped. There was a sound of feet pattering on the stairs, a child's feet. A woman's voice called out: "Catherine. Catherine." But we could see no one. The house began to fill with silence again.

Shaken, I returned to the bedroom with Susannah.

Rachel was still asleep, but tossing from side to side now, as though in considerable distress.

"Shouldn't we waken her?" Susannah asked.

But even as she spoke Rachel grew calm and began to settle down again. Within moments her breathing became more regular, her movements less violent. Soon she was quiet again—the perfect image of a sleeping child. Susannah bent down and stroked her forehead. Rachel did not stir.

"I have something to show you," I said.

She looked up at me curiously.

"It's next door," I said. 'You stay here and keep an eye on Rachel. Call me if she seems distressed. But I won't be long anyway."

The photographs were lying on the floor where they had fallen. I bent down and started picking them up in small bundles, putting them back into the box at random. There did not seem to have been order to them in the first place.

As I did so one photograph drew my attention. It was a studio portrait of a young couple. The man was dressed in the garb of a late Victorian ecclesiastic. He seemed rather smug and self-righteous to me. His posture was redolent of rectitude and the virtues of the cloth. But it was less the man than the woman who had drawn me.

She had on a long plain dress and a small bonnet without lace. Her eyes stared straight into mine, almost with a look of recognition. There was a shadow across one cheek, the indistinct pattern of a port-wine mark, marring her face. But the face—apart from the stain—was quite lovely. Lovely and familiar. It was Susannah Adderstone's face: her eyes, her nose, her mouth—the face of the woman I had been speaking to only moments earlier.

I felt my hands tremble as I turned the photograph over.
Rev. Sowerby and myself on the day of our engagement, 10 June 1883
.

He must have known. Her father. My meek-mannered Mr. Adderstone must have seen more than one photograph of his aunt as a young woman. I wondered when it had first struck him. When Susannah was twelve? Fourteen? Sixteen? When had the moment of recognition come? Or had he guessed from the start? Was that why he had called her Susannah, in a vain attempt to ward off what must have seemed to him like a curse?
My aunt, Mr. Clare, was the most evil human being I have ever known.
I could hear his voice, saying the words over and over again. And Rachel's voice the night before:
She's here. She's here in the house.

My whiskey glass was still on the desk. I lifted it and gulped down a mouthful. I don't think I have ever needed a drink so badly in my life. I tilted the bottle and refilled the glass. With a hand that still trembled, I turned the photograph over again. How she had fooled me all the time. The plain, the deformed Agnes Trevorrow: who would have seen her face in the beautiful features of Susannah Adderstone?

A long time passed, I don't know how long. I sat there, staring at the photograph and sipping whiskey. I had opened the door. I had let her in: Susannah . . . Agnes. My mind was reeling, I was growing more and more confused.

I heard a noise outside the door. Footsteps. I turned. Fear was making me sober again. I remembered that Rachel was next door, alone with Susannah.

Cursing my stupidity for letting so much time pass, I flung the door open and dashed into the corridor. It was empty. I ran to the next room. The door was wide open. I ran in, but there was no one there. Susannah and Rachel had both gone.

I hurried back down the passage to the head of the stairs. Something made me look up, just in time to catch sight of them as they reached the next landing and disappeared around the corner. I lunged for the stairs, but as I did so the lights blacked out and I fell headlong across the bottom steps, winding myself.

By the time I recovered and switched on the flashlight which I carried on a cord around my neck, Susannah and Rachel were well out of sight. Frantically, I staggered up the stairs. As I did so the doors started to crash shut.
Bang, bang, bang, bang.
They began at the bottom and followed me up the stairs.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
She was here, I could feel her and hear her moving through the dark house.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

I reached the top landing. Flashing the light down the passage, I could see no one. They must have gone into one of the rooms. I did not have to guess which one. In a state of growing panic, I ran down to the last room and grabbed the door handle, pushing inward as I did so.

The door did not move. It was as solid as a rock. I tried again, much harder this time, twisting and turning the handle, but it remained firmly locked against me. Stepping back, I played the light across the surface of the door. At the top and bottom, it had been bolted and padlocked shut.

Someone laughed softly, just to my left. I swung around, throwing the beam of the flashlight in that direction. She was there, standing triumphantly a few feet away, a sneering smile on her wrinkled face.
My aunt, Mr. Clare, was the most evil human being I have ever known.

Something told me she would not try to stop me. She was done with me, or so she thought. With a cry, I ran at her. I felt nothing as I passed through, hurtling for the head of the stairs. I could hear nothing but the sound of my own feet pounding as I dashed down, taking the stairs two and three at a time. I fell twice, all but breaking my neck. With so much whiskey in my veins, it is a wonder that I did not.

There was a cupboard in the kitchen that held some tools. I found what I had come for: the ax that had been set aside for chopping firewood. I would not let her defeat me, not so easily.

Panting, I hared back up the dark stairs with all the speed I could muster. I didn't know how much she could see or hear, or whether she was even interested. All I did know was that I had to get to Rachel before something irreparable happened—if it had not done so already. This had not been how I had planned things. Everything was sliding out of control.

The house shook. I don't know how else to describe it. It was as though an earthquake had tossed it around for half a second. The force of the convulsion threw me full against the stairs, winding me. No sooner had I gotten to my feet than there was a second shudder. This time I was ready for it. A third and a fourth blow followed as I went on climbing, then the house suddenly grew still again.

I reached the door. It was locked as before. Taking a deep breath, I crashed the ax into the wood, just above the bottom bolt. The sound rang through the house. I swung the ax and struck hard again. The wood cracked and splintered, groaning under the shock of the blows I dealt it, but it would not give way. The locks held to the very last.

Abruptly, a final blow sent the door swinging crazily on its hinges. I stood, ax in hand, on the threshold of a half-dark room.

* * *

I stepped inside. The room had changed since I had last set foot in it. An oil lamp stood on the mantelpiece among framed photographs and little ornaments. On the papered walls hung little prints and a text,
Thou, Lord, Seest Me
. A large bed stood against one wall. On it lay Rachel in her pajamas. Beside her on a low chair sat Susannah, staring straight ahead, but seeing nothing. Or perhaps seeing things I could not see.

I knew I had to get Rachel out of there. I started forward, but as I did so I realized that I had come too late.