Whispers in the Dark (9 page)

I hesitated to say what was in my mind.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for saying you will find Arthur. And for all this.” I indicated the clothes in which I had been newly dressed. “But I . . . What is to happen to me while Arthur is being looked for?” Antonia looked at me in surprise.

“Happen? Why, my dear Charlotte, nothing is to happen. You are to stay here with us. Surely you cannot have thought otherwise. After all that has taken place. Anthony and I have already spoken about it. You are to live with us. Here at Barras Hall. I take it the house meets your requirements.”

I opened my mouth wide. For though I had hoped and prayed for just such an outcome, I had every reason to distrust my fate. I must have looked very foolish, for Antonia laughed, then reached out and drew me into another embrace.

When I drew away at last, I saw Anthony still standing by the fireplace, watching us both with a curious expression in his eyes. Seeing me catch his gaze, he smiled.

“I am very moved,” he whispered. “Yes, very moved. I wish Mother had lived to see this. Is that not so, Antonia?”

She parted from me, nodding gently. I remembered my own mother’s visit to Morpeth, how she had been sent away in disgrace, but I said nothing. Would it have made any difference if I had?

“And now that that is settled,” said Antonia, “we must get you to bed. You seem extremely tired.”

Her brother tugged a bellpull next to the mantelpiece, and a few moments later Mrs. Johnson appeared, as though she had been waiting to be summoned.

“You shall have your own bedroom in due course,” Antonia said. “But for the moment you may sleep in the west wing. There is a room there entirely suitable for a girl of your age. And such a pretty girl at that. Isn’t she, Anthony? Isn’t she pretty?”

“She is indeed, my dear. Very pretty indeed. I have no doubt she will grow to be a beauty like you.”

“He is such a flatterer, Charlotte. You will find that out in time. Believe only half of what he tells you. But I know he is telling the truth when he remarks on your fine looks.”

She paused.

“Johnson,” she said, “Miss Charlotte is to remain with us. She is to be one of the family, for she is, indeed, our cousin. Is the pink bedroom ready yet?”

Johnson nodded. In my newfound security, I was less in awe of her and able to examine her more closely. She wore her hair tied back severely In a bun. I would have guessed her to be around fifty, but she had the appearance of someone who had always looked that age. There was an unchangeableness about her. It was almost as though she had always been there and always would be. Her lips were very thin, her cheeks drawn, her eyes sleepy, yet capable of coming instantly alert, like the eyes of a cat.

“Yes, my lady. I’ve given the room an airing, and the bed as well. They’re still a little damp, but I’ve got a good fire going. I’m sure Miss Charlotte will be very comfortable.”

I was a little puzzled that Mrs. Johnson should have undertaken all these tasks herself, but I soon enough learned that she and the man Hutton were almost the only servants in the house. Hutton carried out all the heavy and unpleasant tasks, but most of the housework was done by Johnson, aided by an older woman by the name of Hepple, who seemed to live in the depths of the house and to venture very seldom aboveground. At that time I put all this down to the remoteness of the place and the difficulty that must create for finding staff.

We said our good nights, arranging to meet again at breakfast, and Johnson led me out, her candle held aloft as before. Ahead of us stretched the corridor with windows, in darkness now save for small pools of candlelight at regular intervals. I shivered, finding the cold more bitter after the very considerable warmth of the drawing room.

“You need to wrap up warmly here of nights, miss,” said Johnson. “I’ll search out a wrap for you. You’ll have it in the morning.”

There was so much darkness, I could make little sense of where I was led, only that I passed through long, empty corridors, up and down little flights of stairs, past the doors of silent rooms. What light there was came from oil lamps or candles in brackets. I had been brought up in a world of gas and electric light, and though I had worked by candlelight often enough, it had never been in a place so vast or so full of lurking shadows.

But, though the shadows unsettled me a little at first, they did not awaken real fears, so full was I with the sheer happiness I felt boiling up inside me. I had never known such happiness, not even in my years at home with my mother and father. For then I had known nothing else, I had no standards of comparison, no grief or dismay to set against the cosseted life I led. Now the only thing that marred my joy was the knowledge that Arthur was not here to share it with me. But even that weight was much lifted from my shoulders. The thought that a team of trained men—from London, no less— might soon set about searching for Arthur relieved me of my anxiety more thoroughly than I had thought possible. I believed it only a matter of time, of very little time, before I should see him again. I vowed then that once we were reunited, nothing—not marriage, not a career, not children—should ever keep us apart again.

We arrived finally at a low door near the end of a corridor with a curious ceiling, a ceiling painted with angels, their wings just visible in the dim light. Mrs. Johnson opened the door and stood aside to let me pass.

“You’ll sleep here tonight, miss. Until we can Fix up another room.”

I stepped inside. As I did so, for just a moment, I felt a shiver pass straight through me. I put it down to the temperature, yet it seemed strange, for I had stepped from a cold corridor into a room where a warm fire was burning brightly.

Thinking back, I find it hard to separate my first impressions of the room from those I finally took away with me. The walls were covered in a delicate paper depicting a trellis bearing climbing roses and peonies. The bed took my breath away. It was set high off the floor on fluted legs, and over it lay a cloth of rich brocade, embroidered in a Persian pattern. High above it a circular canopy was suspended from the ceiling, and from this two long curtains, tied back at their ends, hung near its head.

Someone had laid a nightgown on top of the bed and drawn the sheets back.

“I told Hepple to put a jar in. You can leave the fire to burn down: it’ll help keep off the damp. Breakfast is at seven o’clock, but Miss Ayrton says you’re to be allowed to sleep on if you wish. Just ring for me when you wake up. There’s a bellpull beside the bed.”

I thanked her and stood indecisively in the center of the room. As she reached the door I stepped forward tentatively.

“Mrs. Johnson . .

She turned. There was no emotion in her face. "Yes, Miss Charlotte?”

“I . . . just wanted to thank you.”

“You have just thanked me.”

“No . . . I meant, for believing me. When I came to the door, you were going to turn me away. But you didn’t. You went to my cousin Antonia and told her who I was. If it hadn’t been for that—”

“I’m sure we’re all very happy things have worked out for the best, miss. God looks after us. In His way.” When she was gone, I found a chair and drew it up to the fire. I sat for a long time, watching the flames flicker, watching sparks chase one another up the chimney. Outside, I could hear the wind passing through the tall trees. From time to time the window rattled. But I felt secure and at peace, for I knew no wind could reach me here. No wind, no cold, no hunger. I fell asleep in the chair, thinking I was back in my nursery at home.

I woke the following morning to find Antonia bending over me.

“My dear Charlotte, I am so sorry. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

I rubbed my eyes and made to raise myself. I was still in the chair where I had fallen asleep.

“Here, let me help you. You must be a mass of aches after a night in that chair.” She smiled. “I merely came to reassure myself that you were all right. It is very late, and I know you would not wish to miss so much of the day.”

Blinking, I stared at her, then slowly around the room. Someone had pulled back the curtains. It seemed impossible that this could be true, that I had not been dreaming. At the thought of dreams, I recollected something that slipped as quickly away from me again. There had been something in my dreams, something important, something I wanted to remember, but could not.

“Johnson will be here shortly to help you change into fresh clothes. You must not be afraid of her. She has been with us so long, we are quite used to her, but I know she can appear quite alarming at times to those who do not know her.”

She reached out a hand and straightened a lock of my hair, which had fallen over my face.

“When you are up and dressed, Charlotte, ask Johnson to show you the way to the morning room. Breakfast finished some time ago, but I’m sure we can find something for you. I’ll see to it myself. I’ll be waiting for you there.”

“What time is it, please?”

“Why, after ten o’clock, my dear. I trust you will not prove to be a sleepyhead.”

I shook my head.

“Well, we must find you a clock. This house is quite full of them, though I confess they do not all keep good time.”

With that, she smiled once more and glided from the room. It was chilly without a fire, but I was well accustomed to rising before dawn in the cold. Johnson appeared soon after, carrying over her arm a selection of dresses, one of which she said I might choose to wear.

I selected a bright yellow satin dress edged with silk.

“We’ll have these taken in for you, miss, if you’ll have the patience to wear just a couple of them while I see to the others. I’m sorry they’re not more fashionable.”

They could have been a hundred years and more out of date for all I cared. She helped me out of the blue dress, badly crumpled from my night in the chair, and helped me on with the yellow. When that was done, she sat me down at the dressing table and brushed my hair.

It was growing long again, and I could scarcely believe that the face I saw in the mirror was the same one that had stared back at me, hollow-cheeked, from the shining pots and pans of the Lincotts' kitchen not so many days before.

When I had finished dressing, I crossed to the window and, leaning across the seat set into its bay, looked out for the first time. There were no clouds. Bright sunshine fell on the winter grass and the naked branches of the trees, slanting sideways out of an open sky. A large, formal garden, poorly tended and blighted now by winter, stretched away toward a thick coppice of denuded trees. Around a central lawn stood statues of some sort, their outlines blurred and indistinguishable from where I stood. At the center of the lawn was an ornate fountain, and farther back I could make out what seemed to be the edge of a large maze.

“You’d better hurry along, miss. Miss Antonia will be waiting downstairs.”

As we left the room I had my first glimpse of old Hepple. She came shuffling in, carrying a heavy bucket of coals and some kindling, dressed in a dirty apron, and wearing on her head a mobcap that had seen better days. I smiled at her, thinking sympathetically of my own condition in Mrs. Lincott’s house, but she looked away and scurried off.

Antonia was waiting for me in the morning room, as promised. Now, looking back across the years, I can still see that room clearly, as it first impressed itself upon my gaze. A room of mirrors and artifice, I had almost said deceit. Paintings of fruit and flowers decorated the walls and ceilings. A large mirror at one end gave the impression of endless space. Gilded furniture shimmered in the sunlight. Antonia sat on a low divan, smoothing the folds of her wedding dress.

She had prepared a small spread of cold meat, eggs, honey, preserves, and freshly baked brioche, all laid out on a white damask cloth over a low table, on the most exquisite plates I had ever set eyes on. They were Sevres porcelain, fragile and delicately patterned. Steam wafted from a hole in the lid of a silver chocolatiere. When I had seated myself, she poured chocolate into my cup and offered it to me with a smile.

I felt all my former awkwardness, my diffidence and self-consciousness, rush over me again. As I took the saucer my hand shook, toppling the cup, sending a stream of hot brown liquid across the cloth. The cup struck the floor and smashed into a hundred fragments. For a second something like anger flashed through Antonia’s eyes, then she was on her feet, mopping the table with a large napkin.

“Leave it, leave it,” she murmured. “It doesn’t matter, really it doesn’t. It was only a cup.”

I stood, looked round me, saw myself reflected in twenty mirrors, and burst into tears.

“I should . . . never . . . have come here,” I blubbered. “It’s only . . . taking advantage . . . of your kindness. All . . . I wanted . . . was a place . . . here. I can . . . work as a maid. Really . . . That’s what I am. I’ve . . . no right. . . to be . . . in here with you.”

Making soothing noises, Antonia dropped the napkin and took me in her arms and kissed me.

“What is all this nonsense about? You are my cousin, my long-lost cousin. Never let me hear you speak of such things again. You are not a servant, Charlotte, you are a young lady of breeding who has passed through a time of difficulty, that is all. Thankfully your difficulties are at an end. From now on you are to live here with Anthony and myself as one of our family. It is your destiny, Charlotte. Your destiny. You are to be the younger sister I never had.

“So let me hear no more talk of your unworthiness. Come, dry your tears and eat your breakfast, or it will soon be time for lunch. I’ll set a fresh place for you.”

Laughing lightly, she embraced me once more, then sat me at the other side of the table, moving my plate and bringing a cup from a little dresser. It was to become a ritual before long, our taking breakfast together in the morning room, just the two of us.

“I do not expect Anthony back until this evening,” she said. “He has gone into Morpeth on business. Business which includes a visit to his solicitors. He intends to instruct them to hire men in London to carry out the search for your dear brother Arthur. They are to set about their task at once. No expense is to be spared. You must put all worries out of your mind now. He will be found. You may rest easy about that.”