Whispers in the Dark (12 page)

And then, quite unexpectedly, there came a report that he was back in Newcastle, for he had been seen there in a city-center shop one week earlier.

“He must have taken fright at the cold weather,” said Anthony. “And he would be right. This is no time of year for a boy like him to be trudging through the countryside. He has made the right decision to get back to the town.”

“But when will I see him? You said it would not be long.”

He reached across the table and took my hand.

“My dear, I fear we may have to wait for spring before he risks the road again. But don’t fret. He won’t slip through the net we’ve woven for him. Endicott has posted a fine reward in every public house and lodging this side of Newcastle. He has men scouring the city every day. Arthur won’t get far. You’ll be together again in time for Christmas. I promise you.”

That night I went to bed quite distressed, for in spite of Anthony’s reassurances, my former fears for Arthur’s safety had surfaced again. In the workhouse, I had heard people speak repeatedly about how hard winter was for the poor. Everyone had known friends and relatives who had died from cold or hunger when the temperature dropped too far or there was snow on the ground. Could Arthur, alone and without resources, survive to the spring? If he was now in the city, would Endicott be able to find him in time?

The days drifted. Winter grew more severe, there was snow at the end of November, deep enough to keep us confined to the house for almost a week. I resigned myself to the likelihood that Arthur would remain undiscovered for another few weeks at least and gave up hoping to be reunited with him by Christmas.

“Did you love your brother very much?” Antonia asked me one morning.

“Yes, of course.”

“There is no ‘of course’ in it,” she replied. “Take Anthony and myself. We are very loving, but we were not always so. When we were children, we positively hated one another. Or so it seemed at the time.”

"It cannot have been true. You are very happy together. Like a husband and wife.”

She raised her eyes from the tapestry she had been working on.

“You think so, do you?”

I nodded.

“Were your parents like that? Very loving toward one another, I mean?”

“Yes. Oh, very much indeed.”

“Then you were very lucky. It is not always so.”

I already had a good idea that such was the case, from conversations overheard in the workhouse. But I had rather thought the lack of love those women spoke of owed a great deal to poverty. The middle and upper classes, I still fondly imagined, were free of the terrible vices and unbearable pressures that split working-class families apart.

“When I grow up,” I said, “I think I would like not to marry, but to live in a house like this with Arthur.”

Antonia snapped off the thread she had been working with and tossed her needle into the basket.

“I am delighted to hear it,” she said. “Now, if you will excuse me . . .”

She stood and left the room, leaving me puzzled by the abruptness of her departure. I remained in the morning room to finish off a small piece of embroidery I had begun two weeks earlier. When it was done, I saw that more than an hour had passed. I wanted to show Antonia my completed work and therefore set off in search of her.

I could find her nowhere on the ground floor. The house was quite silent: Anthony had gone out to visit a farm on the estate, Mrs. Johnson and Hepple were preparing lunch in the kitchen. Upstairs, I headed directly for Antonia’s bedroom, a large, mirrored chamber set almost in the center of the building, with a superb view over the garden.

As I worked on the embroidery, which involved some complicated pieces of raised needle weaving and cloud-filling stitches, Antonia had regularly complimented me. I was proud of the finished article, still tightly fastened in its tambour, and now wanted to surprise her with it, for she had expected me to take another day at least over its completion.

She had left the door of the room open. Rather than call out and draw attention to my presence, I approached the door quietly, meaning to surprise her. But as I reached the opening I caught sight of her in one of the large mirrors that hung on the wall facing me. Her back was turned, and at first I could only see her partially. There was, however, something about her manner that cautioned me to be careful and, above all, not let myself be seen.

She had changed her clothes, and now, as she turned slightly, I could see that she was no longer wearing the dress she had been wearing when she left the morning room, but a wedding gown. It had once been a lovely thing of lace and satin and embroidered panels, white and delicate and soft, but was now rather faded and even tattered in places, as though it had been torn and clumsily repaired. As I watched I saw that Antonia was admiring herself in another mirror on the opposite side of the room, turning, bending, straightening, for all the world like a young bride on the morning of her wedding.

And then, abruptly, her hands flew to her face. As though stricken, she stood thus for a few moments before sinking onto the bed behind her, sobbing like a child. Embarrassed now and frightened, I turned and sneaked away along the corridor and down the stairs.

All during lunch, Antonia seemed very strained, and if I looked closely, I could see the redness in her eyes. She admired my embroidery without real enthusiasm and ate distractedly. Returning to the subject of the morning, she inquired more closely about Arthur: what he had been like, what things he took pleasure in, what he found distasteful, what he most liked to eat, and so on—no end of trivialities, to which I offered the best answers I could.

The afternoon I spent alone in the library at Antonia's suggestion, reading a novel called
Ardath
by Marie Corelli. She was at the height of her fame in those days, though I fancy even you, Doctor, have never heard of her. And very lucky you are, too, for she was a dreadful prig and a worse writer, and she deserved none of the success that public opinion of the time heaped upon her.

Anthony spent almost the whole of dinner regaling us both with stories of the tenant farmers and the extra work they had to put in when it snowed. One man had already lost three sheep in snowdrifts. Another farm was wholly out of reach, even on horseback. Antonia listened politely while her brother spoke, but I saw that she was still out of sorts, pale, and thinking of other matters, matters whose nature I could only vaguely guess.

I reached my bedroom a little early to find Johnson turning down the sheets. She seemed a bit startled by my sudden arrival. I asked her if she thought Antonia was ill, for she did not seem to be herself.

“She’s not ill, miss, no. It’s just that sometimes

“Sometimes what?”

“Nothing, miss. When you’re older, you’ll understand better. You have to be kind to Miss Antonia. She hasn’t had an easy life. In spite of appearances.”

She turned to go, then, pausing, looked back at me.

“Be sure to keep your door locked tonight, miss. Once I’ve gone.”

“Locked? Whatever for?”

She looked steadily at me.

“This is an old house, miss. The doors are old. Sometimes a wind blows on the moors. The corridor can be drafty, and these doors don’t hold as fast as they used to. Best to keep it locked. I have a key. I can let myself in when I bring your hot water in the morning.”

I must have fallen into a deep sleep. I had sat up reading and must have dozed off in my chair. When I woke, I felt stiff and awkward. The fire had died down almost to nothing. My candle was still alight, but it had burned down low. Something must have wakened me. As I sat there the first thing I heard was the wind. And then, above it, another sound. The sound of footsteps coming along the passage outside my room.

I sat stock-still, straining my ears. The footsteps continued. They reached my door and stopped. With a shock, I realized that I had forgotten to lock the door as Mrs. Johnson had instructed. The key was in the lock. My heart beating, I rose and tiptoed across the room, fearful that at any moment someone would open the door. My finger reached the key and turned it softly. I fancied I could hear breathing, but could not be sure it was not my own.

And then I heard the footsteps again, moving away this time. When they had quite faded away, I could hear nothing but the wind in the branches.

Antonia seemed in better spirits the next morning, as though recovered from her preoccupations of the day before. When I came down for breakfast, she greeted me warmly.

“I’m sorry I was such poor company yesterday,” she said. “I had a sick headache. They afflict me from time to time.”

I sympathized with her and asked if she had slept well.

“I did. And you?”

“Did you . . . pass my room in the night?” I asked.

“Pass your room? Why, whatever for?”

“I . . . thought I heard footsteps at my door.”

A slight frown ran over her face, then she smiled reassuringly.

“You must have dreamed it, my dear. Everything here is still strange to you, you are not yet familiar with the sights and sounds of the house. But I assure you no one would go down there to disturb you.”

“Yes,” I said, “it must have been a dream.”

But the memory was too clear. Was it possible that things could happen here without my cousin’s knowledge?

It was sunny for a change, and after breakfast we went out for our first walk in over a week. The gardens were still deep in snow, but Hutton had cleared some of the paths sufficiently for us to take our “constitutional” without having to trudge through drifts.

Ever since my arrival at Barras Hall, something had been niggling at the back of my mind, and that morning I realized for the first time just what it was.

“Antonia,” I said, “can you tell me why it is there are no birds in the garden?”

“No birds?”

“Not here, not in the woods, not anywhere on the estate so far as I can tell.”

“But, my dear, they’ve all gone south for the winter—surely you know that. It’s called migration.”

“Of course, I was taught about it at school. But our teacher said that a few birds stay on, even in winter. Robins and suchlike. But I can’t see any of them.” Antonia glanced at me uneasily and smiled. It was a forced smile, one she kept in reserve for situations like this. I had begun to find my cousin a little false.

“Well, my dear, they must be there if you say they should be. But I am sure they keep to their nests in weather such as this. They’ll venture out in due course. You’ll see.”

I nodded, unconvinced, but in no position to argue. I was a city girl, I had no understanding of the ways of the countryside. Perhaps Antonia was right, perhaps even the robins kept to their homes in colder weather.

But surely there had been no birds even before that, before the snow fell or the ice froze on the ponds. I could not wholly dispel a growing fear that there was something unnatural about Barras Hall and its grounds.

That night I locked my door as soon as I got to my room. I sat up reading again, but this time I did not fall asleep, and I heard no footsteps in the passage. Eventually I went to bed as usual and fell asleep almost at once.

It must have been very late when I woke. My candle had burned out, and it was pitch-dark. For a moment I thought there must be footsteps again, but though I strained, I could hear nothing. And then, just for a moment, there was something. Like a child’s laugh, cut short.

I sat up. It was very cold, and I was frightened.

“Is someone there?” I whispered. But there was only silence. Fearfully I reached out for the box of matches I had left on my bedside table. I struck one, holding it up as it flared into flame. The room was empty. The match burned down and went out.

The next moment I heard something else. I could not tell at first what it was. A scratching sound. Very faint. I listened intently, trying to determine from what direction it might be coming. It must be a mouse, I thought with relief. And that other noise must have been it squeaking. I was not afraid of mice, I had seen plenty in the Lincotts’ scullery after dark.

The scratching continued. After a few minutes I had to admit that it was no mouse. It was too regular, too deliberate for that. And I now knew from which direction it was coming. From the window. I remembered the dream I had had, the dream in which I had seen Arthur at a window, first outside, then within, scratching on the pane. I had thought that just a dream. But now I was wide-awake, listening to the same sound. For the first time, I do not know why, the thought passed through my mind that Arthur might be dead. It was such a silly, disturbing notion, I dismissed it instantly.

The scratching still continued. I could not bear to lie there any longer, just listening to it. I struck another match and got out of bed. Using a third match, I lit the oil lamp. Its more powerful flame cheered me instantly. I hesitated only a moment before crossing to the curtains and pulling them aside.

As I did so the scratching stopped. I saw myself reflected in the windowpanes, a ghostlike figure in a white nightgown that trailed around my feet, a light held aloft in one hand. Putting the lamp on my dressing table, I returned to the window and pressed my face to the glass.

There was a little moonlight. I could see the garden below, stark and still, frost thinly laid across its surface, trees in the distance, visible only as shadow. I caught sight of something moving, very slowly and deliberately, across the grass, a little in front of the fountain. My breath clouded the glass, and I rubbed it. I looked out again, at the spot where I had seen the movement. All was stillness. There was nothing there.

I said nothing at breakfast of what I heard and seen. For, indeed, by the time morning came I could no longer be sure I had actually seen or heard something. The shadow on the lawn might have been anything—a fox or a squirrel: the countryside was full of things about which I knew next to nothing.

The cold weather had returned, and with it fine rain and a threat of storms. We stayed indoors, Anthony in his study, Antonia and I in the drawing room, where we painted insipid watercolors of wildflowers copied from books. Rain shone on the windows, the fire crackled and blazed, a tall clock ticked on the mantelpiece and another by the door, the world around me seemed at peace at last, and I put all disquieting thoughts out of my head. If only Arthur were here, my happiness would be complete, I thought.