The Unquiet House (28 page)

Then her mother bustled towards her. ‘
There
you are, Ag,’ she said. ‘Where on earth have you been?’

‘I was—’ Aggie sighed. ‘I was talking to the children.’ It wasn’t an untruth; there was no need to tell her she’d been wandering into the bedrooms.

‘Oh. You saw the nephews, then?’ Her mother was tight-lipped.

‘I saw one. Arthur, isn’t it? Arthur Hollingworth, I suppose.’

‘Arthur
Dean
. It’s her sister’s child. I don’t suppose you saw t’ other, then.’

‘What other?’

‘Clarence. I ’eard Mr Ackroyd askin’ Mr Hollingworth about it, an’ he said his first wife’s nephew’s come too, ’er sister’s child – Clarence Mitchell, it is – with ’im still bein’ Mr ’Ollingworth’s relation, an’ needin’ to get out o’ London an’ all. An’ then I saw t’ look his second wife gave ’im when ’e talked about ’im. I dun’t suppose that ’un’s ’avin’ any kind o’ time of it.’ She looked around, twisting her lip. The music was spinning to a close and she straightened and grasped Aggie’s arm.

Aggie thought about the tight look on Clarence’s face, his head shaved just like the children who were no relation at all, and she thought,
No, I don’t suppose he is
. She almost missed her mother’s next words. ‘It’s time we were going.’

‘Oh – do we have to?’

‘Never mind
do we ’ave to
. You’ve to be up early tomorrer to feed t’ critters, remember? Now say thank you to Mrs Hollingworth.’

‘It’s quite all right,’ their hostess said. She had appeared close by her mother’s shoulder; Aggie wasn’t sure when. ‘A jolly good thing you have your keys,’ she added, and Aggie’s mother stared at her back as she led the way into the hall, the palms of her hands already brushing at each other as they went.

Aggie was in Mire House again, but she knew that she was dreaming because the new Mrs Hollingworth was standing in the hallway, talking and talking, all fur stole and ostrich feathers, but she couldn’t hear a sound. The woman didn’t even appear to see her as she went to the stairs and started up them. Her steps made no sound either, as if she didn’t have any weight. When she put her hand on the rail, running it along the polished wood, she felt nothing under her fingers. It was as if she were made of air.

When she’d started to ascend it had been light in the house but as she climbed night was falling, quick and sudden. There was something wrong about the shadows but somehow she didn’t feel afraid and that was wrong too, as if something was numbing her, stopping her from feeling. But then it occurred to her that if she
could
feel, if she could only
see
, she would not be here; she would turn and run away, as far and as fast as she could.

Now she couldn’t go back. She had to find the boy. She hadn’t seen him but she knew he was here and that any moment she would turn a corner and see a flash of his golden hair.

There were many doors but she knew the one she had to take and she knew before opening it the room inside would be dark.
The window was lined with black paper, as if the daylight was something that needed to be kept out. She squinted, allowing her eyes to adjust. There was a dresser that hadn’t been here before. She stepped forward and saw a picture sitting on it, a pretty young woman in a lacy dress, smiling a broad smile.

She heard a soft rustling and turned to the cupboard set into the wall. In another moment she was standing in front of it and the door was open in front of her. She couldn’t see what lay inside. It was darker than anything she’d known, even the expression on the woman’s face when she’d grasped her hands in her cold dead fingers—

No
. She stepped forward into the space and when she was inside she quickly turned and closed the door. The dark remained but now there was a sound too: the soft breathiness of a child. She waited, but he did not jump out at her. ‘I found you, Tom,’ she said. ‘I know you’re there.’

The darkness had a presence. It ate her words. She pressed her lips together. What she wanted to do was run, but she no longer felt sure there was a door behind her. If she turned and put out a hand and felt only a solid wall beneath her fingers she knew she would lose her mind. She closed her eyes and found it didn’t make any difference.
Better to wait
, she thought.
Better not to know
, and she wasn’t entirely sure why.

Then he spoke. ‘She didn’t have a baby,’ he said, quite clearly, and then silence filled the space once more.

‘Tom, is that you? What do you mean?’ Aggie swallowed. Her throat was dry. She shuffled forward, expecting to find boxes or clothes, but there was nothing. Then she flailed and brushed past something after all; there was a bowl or a dish and it upset when she touched it, setting up a loud clatter. The
smell grew stronger, chemical and nasty, and there was something cold and wet on her fingers. She snatched them back.

She took another step and felt for the boy, up high, and then lower, where he might be crouching in the dark, his head bent, not covered in golden curls but shorn and bald and with lice crawling all over it …

There was nothing there. Nothing there at all except the dark that was waiting, and she jerked awake and she bit her lip to smother her cry.

The boys looked entirely different in daylight. It wasn’t their clothes – it was even more obvious now that Hal and Tom had never had a first-hand coat in their lives – but their faces. Their expressions were bright, no anxiety or trouble in them, and Tom was even smiling. It had been several days since the party and their hair was starting to grow back. Soon Arthur might not stand out so much any longer. Tom’s looked like straw beginning to emerge from the ground and she reached out and rubbed it, feeling the soft prickle on her fingers. For a moment she remembered her dream and she almost expected him to disappear, but he turned to her and grinned.

‘Where’re we off to, then?’ he said, and they all waited for her answer. She was suddenly glad she had called for them at Mire House. Inside it had been all shadows and harsh perfume and brittle manners; now they were standing in the lane, swallowing the cold air, all grins and teeth. Even Arthur looked relieved to be outside.

She carried three small wicker baskets and two of the bags she had sewn. She had taken them from the pile that was waiting to be finished; they didn’t yet have the patches of paper sewn on that would bear a soldier’s name. She passed them around.

‘We’re off nutting,’ she said. She pointed towards the opening that let onto the river path, away to the side of the garden. ‘There are hazels in that hedge. We’re off to pick ’em.’

Hal spoke. ‘I dun’t know what they look like.’

‘That’s all right. I’ll show you what’s to do.’

Tom’s face was threatening to crease into a frown: he evidently didn’t think her plan very exciting. But then he looked back towards the house before turning to her and smiling.

She led the way towards the path and as soon as they reached it, it was as if they had escaped. They ran ahead of her, swiping at nettles with their hands, some kind of show of bravado, until Arthur yelped and gripped his palm.

‘Well, don’t touch them then,’ Aggie said. She bent and showed him the leathery dock leaves growing beneath. ‘Scrunch this up and rub it on. It’ll make it better.’ He pulled a face but rubbed on the sap anyway, scrubbing as if he could scrape away the bumps.

‘He’s an idiot,’ a voice said at her ear and she looked around to see Clarence. The boy’s face was screwed up with scorn.

‘Now that’s not nice.’

Arthur shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes, it does,’ Aggie said. ‘I’ll not ’ave things o’ that kind said in my ’earing, understand? ’Specially not between family.’ She knew at once she’d said the wrong thing. Arthur’s eyes narrowed while Clarence gawped.

‘He’s
not
my family,’ Clarence said.

Arthur did not reply.

‘But your uncle is his uncle, so—’

‘He’ll
never
be family. My uncle should never have got married again. If he had been nicer to my aunt instead—’

Aggie blinked. ‘Whatever makes you say that?’

‘They won’t get away with it,’ the boy said, not looking at her. He was staring over the wall.

‘Clarence?’

‘It’s all right,’ Arthur said in a low voice. ‘Please can we go now? The others are getting ahead.’

She saw that he was right. ‘Let’s go on a bit, up towards t’ river. That’s where t’ nuts are.’

Clarence didn’t move at first, but as she started to walk she heard him trailing behind her. He was kicking at the grass. Arthur was ahead of her and she couldn’t see his face, only his hair.

Then he half-turned and she heard his voice, little more than a whisper. ‘Sorry. He doesn’t like my aunt, that’s all. She – well, she isn’t very nice to him.’ He paused. ‘She calls him “that awful child”. I don’t think she especially likes children. I wanted to go to Aunt Lizzie’s, but she just got married and my mother didn’t think much of it – I heard her say she’d married low. She thought I’d be better off with Aunt Antonia.’ He pulled a face.

Aggie frowned. It didn’t seem likely that Antonia Hollingworth was particularly motherly, but all the same, she couldn’t get Clarence’s look out of her mind; not so much his fixed expression, but the way he had stared out over the wall and across at the slope rising away in that particular direction; as if he had been looking directly at the graveyard.

As she walked, she let her misgivings melt away. The path was still vibrantly green even though summer had passed, and the hazels were there, their generous leaves looking almost as if they were tumbling down the plant instead of growing upwards. She pushed the greenery aside and examined the nuts. She shook
the tree, setting up a fine rustle, and the boys peered in, three heads close together, one a short distance away. She ignored the thought of lice and pointed. ‘See, they’re best when they’re falling off.’ She picked some up and put them in her bag. ‘We’ll pickle ’em. You can give some to— You can take some back to the ’ouse, when they’re done.’

Tom giggled. ‘I bet I can get more n’ you. Bet I can get more n’ anyone.’ He set to work, yanking away the nuts and twigs all together and stuffing them into his bag. He separated one, peering dubiously at the green husk before putting it to his lips, then he changed his mind and dropped that into the bag, then grinned at her. She laughed. They stood in a wide-spaced line, working at the small trees. The boys were pale but the sun was in their faces and the air freshened their cheeks. They didn’t appear to be thinking about being so far from home, or about Mire House or families or anything at all.

Tom was the nearest. He turned to her. ‘She in’t watchin us today,’ he said.

‘Who?’

He grasped the plant by two sturdy branches and leaned back, swinging on them. Then he straightened and looked out over the top of the wall. They could still see right across the grounds of Mire House to the slope opposite where a yew tree stood, louring and dark. She could see under its branches, well enough to know that the bench was empty.
Good
, she thought.

‘She din’t ’ave a baby,’ he murmured.

‘What did you say?’

He yanked a hazelnut from the tree as Aggie shook off the sudden chill. It must be gossip, something he’d picked up from
Clarence or Arthur, or maybe both of them. She picked a nut too, and stared at it for a moment before letting it fall into her bag, thinking of swallowing the dry, cloying thing.

‘She were watchin’, before.’

‘What do you mean?’

He kept his eyes fixed on the tree as he plucked at the foliage with his fingers. The others had drifted away. Hal and Arthur were bunched together, their shoulders shaking; she heard stifled laughter.

‘I saw ’er out o’ t’ window.’

‘What window?’ It sounded like an accusation and she tried to soften it with a smile. Time stretched out, suspended between them.

‘Saw ’er a few times. Seen ’er talkin’ to ’
im
.’ He gestured towards Clarence, who was bent close to the tree. His cheeks were pink and he looked as if he was trying to give the impression he was engaged on his task, while the others laughed. ‘Dunno what she said. ’E wouldn’t tell me.’

Aggie froze.

Then he said, ‘She ’ad a soldier wiv ’er, last time.’

Everything stopped. Aggie’s eyes widened, looking out at the yew tree’s darkness. Then she grabbed the boy’s shoulder and pulled him around to face her. His mouth clamped into a surly line. He met her gaze and she tried to see what was hiding in his eyes: amusement, perhaps, or cruelty, or childish glee. She couldn’t make it out, and then she did: it was fear.

She took a step back and let her hands fall to her side. The bag slipped from her fingers and nuts spilled from it, rolling across the path.

‘It’s all right. I don’t think ’e was real. I think ’e were like ’
er
.’

‘You
didn’t
see anyone,’ she said. ‘You didn’t see anyone because she in’t real. And if you din’t see ’er, you din’t see no soldier either.’ She leaned in close. The others had stopped what they were doing and even Clarence’s eyes were fixed on her. She took a deep breath. ‘There in’t any lady,’ she said. ‘She in’t there. An’ there in’t a soldier either, not round ’ere. They’re all gone.’ She immediately regretted her choice of words.

‘She
is
real. I saw ’er. Ower there.’ He pointed towards the graveyard. ‘An she
did ’
ave someone wiv ’er. She ’ad ’er ’and on ’is shoulder, an’ then she went away an’ ’e did too.’

She couldn’t speak. She looked away from him, forcing herself to take deep breaths. She opened her mouth to deny his words once more –
you saw nothing
– but instead she found herself asking, ‘What uniform?’

‘Eh?’

She was suddenly blinking away tears, furious at herself for allowing them to come, to let herself be taken in. He was a liar, a nasty little liar, and that was all. But it didn’t stop her from repeating the words: ‘I said, what uniform was ’e wearing?’ She said it in a low voice, so that the others couldn’t hear. They would only laugh at her. That was probably their whole purpose, to laugh – they must have dreamed this up between them, nothing but silly playacting, a fine joke, and she had fallen for it like the fool she was.