Weird Sister (35 page)

It is a moonless night. The rain is light but piercingly cold, it burns as it lands on her face. Elizabeth stands in the garden and looks back at the house. Upstairs the rooms are dark and, for a moment, she sees a face. Jenny. Now she is gone. Elizabeth shakes her head, I’m seeing things. There is no point in becoming too afraid.

The grass is slick, slippery, the earth is soft and muddy. Elizabeth makes her way across the garden as fast as she can, toward the rose arbour at the bottom. There is a low stone bench next to an old brick wall. It is empty. Elizabeth blinks. Agnes is sitting on it.

‘Come and sit beside me,’ she says pleasantly.

Elizabeth obeys. She feels very cold and searches her pocket, hoping for gloves that aren’t there. The stone bench sends a chill up her spine. Agnes isn’t wearing her coat either, she sits as calm and relaxed as earlier.

‘These Throckmorton men,’ she says with a laugh, ‘so dramatic.’

‘It hasn’t always been that way.’

‘No?’ Agnes raises her eyebrows. ‘Do you mean to say that Robert and Graeme got along before I showed up?’

Elizabeth considers. ‘No.’

‘And Graeme and Karen had the perfect marriage?’

‘No.’

‘And Jenny wasn’t a fucked up depressed motherless teenager?’

‘No, I –’

‘See what I mean? I haven’t done anything. They were already doing it to themselves.’

‘So what are you doing?’ Elizabeth asks.

‘What do you think?’

‘You came to Warboys to –’

Agnes interrupts. ‘Oh look,’ she says, pointing across the field, ‘there goes Robert. I’m sure I saw Graeme heading that way a few minutes ago. Let’s follow, shall we?’ Agnes tries to stand, Elizabeth grabs her wrist and pulls her back down to the bench. She is surprised by her own audacity.

‘I want to know why you are here.’ She speaks quickly, as if she hopes her very tone will make Agnes respond.

Agnes looks at Elizabeth unmoved, as though it is natural to be sitting on this bench in the night, in the rain. ‘Does anyone know the answer to that question?’ She smiles.

Elizabeth persists. ‘Do you love Robert? Did you ever love Robert?’

Agnes gives her a pitying look. She tries to stand, Elizabeth pulls her down again. She can see that Agnes is getting angry.

‘I’m not here to answer your questions. That’s one thing you can be sure of.’

‘I want you to tell me if you love him. He deserves your love. He’s got nothing to do with that other Robert Throckmorton, all those years ago.’

Agnes twists her arm away abruptly. She catches Elizabeth off balance and sends her hurtling off the bench, into the roses. By the time Elizabeth recovers, Agnes is gone. But her voice returns through the dark: ‘You don’t know anything about love Elizabeth; you don’t know anything.’

‘You’re wrong Agnes Samuel,’ Elizabeth answers. ‘You’re wrong. You wait. You’ll see.’

Graeme loves Agnes

Graeme lurches through the grounds of the estate. He does not have his cane, and the metal of the gunbarrel rubs against his tailbone where he has shoved it into his trousers. He sees Agnes ahead of him flickering through the trees. She enters one of the holiday cottages. He labours in that direction, too aware of how heavily he is breathing, his feet uncertain on the wet and treacherous ground. Without his cane his leg may betray him.

She has left the door of the cottage ajar. Graeme stands on the threshold, swaying. This is the cottage in which he has been living and it smells bad. There are dirty dishes, open boxes of cereal, cans of drink, piled on the floor around the heap of clothes in which he has been sleeping.

She is sitting on the bare stripped bed, composed, seductive. She smiles and he feels as though her smile is melting him, melting his hard heart. At that moment he knows he could love her again. She speaks. ‘Have you come to kill me?’ and she laughs. She pats the bed, uncrossing her legs. She knows he wants to kill her and fuck her, he wants both these things. ‘You know Graeme, you’re not bad-looking,’ she says, ‘for a cripple.’

Graeme dives toward her, pushing her down on the bed. He pulls his gun out of his trousers and when she sees it Agnes laughs once again. He throws himself on top of her and they grapple. She’s right, he thinks, I do want to kill her. I do want to fuck her.

Agnes stops struggling. ‘We don’t have to do this,’ she says. ‘We don’t have to fight.’

She reaches up and gives him a kiss on the lips. He responds to her, he can’t help it.

‘Kiss me again,’ he says.

She reaches up as though to embrace him and then knocks his arm away. He loses his balance. The gun spins out of his hand and drops to the floor, skittering out of sight. They both roll off the bed, searching for the weapon on their hands and knees. Graeme sees his chance, he pushes the television off the table; it misses Agnes narrowly, knocking over a lamp. The lamp smashes, wires fuse, sparks discharge, and the lights in the cottage fail. At the power point an electrical fire ignites, it runs up the power leads and leaps on to the curtains. Agnes lies on the floor laughing. Graeme crawls toward her.

Robert is crossing the field, drawing near to the cottage. He knows Graeme and Agnes are there, he can hear shouting, crashing. He’s got to get to Agnes, he can’t think of anything else. He’s got to get to her, he’s got to save her. Without her his life is worth nothing; without her he can’t live.

Robert flings himself through the door. He jumps onto Graeme’s back, flattening him to the floor. Agnes rolls under the bed, she retrieves the gun. The cottage is burning, flames running up the wallpaper, along the carpet. Agnes stands over the men, pointing the gun, laughing as Graeme attempts to get out from under Robert. The brothers haul themselves to their feet. She hands the gun to Robert as Graeme screams and lunges at her, grabbing at her throat.

‘I’ll kill you,’ he shouts, ‘I’ll kill you,’ and he squeezes hard, his hands closing around her neck.

Agnes cannot breathe. Her face is pink and her eyes bulge slightly. She cannot make a sound. She stares past Graeme, into Robert’s eyes.

‘Let her go,’ says Robert.

Graeme tightens his grip.

‘Let her go Graeme.’

Graeme looks at Robert, shaking his head. ‘I’ll kill her,’ he says.

Agnes makes a little sound, her pupils dilate.

‘Let her go, Graeme,’ Robert says slowly.

‘No,’ replies Graeme.

Robert shoots his brother in the head.

Robert shoots his brother in the head

Robert shoots his brother in the head. The bullet enters his left temple and exits through the other side, spewing gore. Neither Agnes nor Robert makes a sound. Graeme lets forth a kind of whistle, a tiny squeak, then slumps forward into Robert’s arms. Agnes steps back. Robert drops the gun.

The cottage explodes into flames, roaring.

Out on the lawn, Elizabeth arrives. She is unable to get close enough to do anything, driven back by the heat.

Inside the cottage, Robert is frantic, looking for Agnes. He can’t find her. He can’t see her through the smoke and the flames. He has got to get out of the cottage.

Robert bursts through the front door and rolls on the ground, his clothes on fire. Elizabeth throws herself onto him, smothering the flames with her body.

‘She’s inside,’ he screams, ‘she’s inside there.’

‘There’s nothing you can do,’ Elizabeth shouts. ‘Nothing.’

The cottage burns for a long time.

Robert can’t leave

Elizabeth helps Robert up off the ground. His face is blackened with soot. He stands in front of the burning building. He thinks everything he loves is inside that cottage. Elizabeth tries to pull him away. No, he says, he can’t leave. She should go and ring the fire brigade. She tries to get him to come with her, he needs to keep warm. But he won’t go. He’ll stand guard over the pyre. It’s like Bonfire Night, he thinks. He needs to stand guard over the fire.

In the end, when it is clear that there will be nothing left except a smoking watery hole, no survivors, it is the Fire Chief who persuades Robert to come away. An ambulance transports him over the field. He takes one look at the big house, unchanged, unscathed, and begins to weep.

Elizabeth

I knew she was gone for good. As I held Robert in my arms I knew it was over. I felt a cheap sense of victory. Robert looked up at me, bewildered and frightened, but also, I think, relieved.

The cottage burned to the ground. They found Graeme in the charcoal and debris. Robert told me he had shot him, he whispered it to me in the kitchen while the doctor and the firemen milled around making cups of tea. For a few days I was worried that they would find out, but Graeme’s body was so charred that the coroner did not determine that he had been shot before he was consumed by flames.

When I got to the house to ring the fire brigade, I found Martin lying on the floor. God knows how he got there, I can only assume Agnes pushed him. He was cold and bruised but, as far as the doctor could tell, basically all right. Like me, like Robert; I knew then we would be all right.

It’s a cliché of village life to think that every family who lives there has been there for centuries, a cliché that no longer holds much truth; Agnes’s presence in Warboys demonstrated that. In our village there were very few people whose families had been resident for more than one generation. The Throckmortons, of course. I think Geoff Henderson’s lot had been around for quite a while, and Geraldine Andley, the woman Jim Drury liked to refer to as the village tart. The rest of us, Jim and Lolita included, were transplants. Old and established transplants in most cases, but incomers all the same. I’m sure there were other old families in the region, the fens are known for their isolation, their flat wet ancientness, their inbreeding. But it was the character of Warboys to be characterless. It was part of the reason why we had no collective memory. Why Agnes Samuel moved among us, unrecognized. And I think that we had no memory precisely because of what happened; our past was too shameful to look on and that was why so many people had drifted away. The guilt that lay buried beneath our cobbled streets made us easy prey.

I gave up working for the Trevelyans so I could take care of Andrew and Francis and Martin, full-time. With the insurance money and revenue raised from the sale of my parents’ house, we rebuilt the cottage. Since then we have added three more cottages and expanded the estate’s holiday facilities considerably. With the help and advice of the National Trust we have finished fixing up the house, including the magnificent carved plaster ceiling in the Elizabethan ballroom. It hangs over our heads like gorgeous sculpted ice cream. The public can make appointments to visit. And we offer accommodation in the old wing of the house, upmarket bed-and-breakfast. Occasionally we have guests who are interested in the strange history of the witches of Warboys, Mother Samuel, Father Samuel, and their daughter Agnes, but we do not encourage them.

The painting still hangs in the entrance hall. I’ve never told Robert that Agnes said the portrait is of his sixteenth-century namesake; as far as he’s concerned it’s some crusty old relative, of no relevance to today’s Throckmorton family. There can’t be too many people in this world who can say they are proud of the past, no matter how distant or recent. We all have secrets, we all have mysteries.

I think about that little book from time to time. The story it tells is grim, but if you read between the lines, it’s much worse. The Samuels were beholden to their neighbours the Throckmortons, the power the wealthy family had over their lives was absolute. Disease and illness were feared, there was no cosy NHS surgery down the street. Infant mortality was very high; the Samuels had only one child, Agnes, in their old age – there must have been other children, what was their fate? Agnes’s father, John Samuel, was a brutal man and he fought hard against the allegations of witchcraft, but he could not stop the Throckmortons from making their case. And those confessions came after years of sickness and blame and terror, and we all know how unreliable confessions can be. When you read between the lines that book tells a different story, one that’s not hard to discern from the vantage point of our shiny new century.

I’m not ashamed to say that we are doing well. The boys are tall and straight-backed and thriving. Andrew excels in school. Francis has started school himself now, and he’s very lively. Sometimes he tells little lies, but children do, don’t they? One day he told me he saw Agnes at school, that she was outside the classroom looking in through the window. When I asked him to explain all he did was giggle. I’m sure he was making it up and I tried not to make an issue out of it; that’s what the childcare books advise.

Robert and I are considering having our own child, before it’s too late. He is a quiet man, he doesn’t say much, but I think he is content.

We are cautious. We keep to ourselves. Agnes came to Warboys to destroy the Throckmortons and, although she went a long way toward succeeding, ultimately she failed. We don’t want to tempt fate. We don’t want to appear too good, too happy. I felt dead for a long time, and now I feel alive.

Robert

I murdered my brother. I killed my own brother. Graeme killed Karen. Jenny killed herself. And I shot Graeme. I have to live with it, I have to live with this fact. It breathes when I breathe, it sleeps where I sleep; it’s not going to go away.

And I still don’t believe that Agnes and Graeme were unfaithful to me. Even if I had seen it, seen them, together, I don’t think I would have believed it was happening. I would have thought it was a trick, my eyes were deceiving me. Elizabeth tells me that it has to have been true, she reminds me that both Karen and Jenny made the same allegation. But I don’t know, I still find it hard to register. And I suppose in a way it doesn’t matter, I don’t have to believe it, even if it is the truth. There are bigger truths out there, truths more difficult to face.

And Agnes disappeared. She left me behind. She left me to get on with my life.