Whispers in the Dark (11 page)

“Capital,” shouted Anthony, “capital. That was another of my favorites. Yes, Johnson, you must make some bread-and-butter pud.”

“Very well, sir. Miss Charlotte. Bread-and-butter pudding it shall be.”

We retired to the little drawing room, the antechamber in which we had been the night before. Mrs. Johnson brought coffee for Antonia and a cup of cocoa for me. Anthony poured himself a glass of brandy from a large decanter. Balancing it carefully on the broad arm of his chair, he again slipped on his spectacles. They gave him a schoolmasterly air, a little pedantic and fussy. Taking a small notebook from his pocket, he turned to me.

“Now, Charlotte, you must tell me all you know about your brother and his movements. Omit nothing that may be of the slightest assistance to the diligent Mr. Endicott.”

I told him what I could, which was not, in reality, very much.

“No matter,” he said, putting his pencil and notebook away. “He has no money, so he will not have traveled far. You will Find that he has taken employment between Newcastle and here, with a farmer perhaps. Put your mind at ease, he will turn up.”

Antonia glanced at the clock.

“It is almost ten o’clock, Charlotte. I’m afraid I have tired you today with our walks. Tomorrow shall be less strenuous, I promise. But now I think it is time for you to get some sleep. Do you think you know your way to your bedroom now?”

I nodded, but I had really hoped that someone might take me there. The thought of negotiating those long, dark passages alone was daunting.

“I’m sure you will not get lost. You’re not a child, after all. Take that lamp in the corner, I believe it’s full.” I picked up a tall oil lamp. Anthony kindly rose from his seat in order to light it for me. He kissed me on the forehead and bade me good night. Antonia also rose. She kissed me lightly on the lips.

“Good night, Charlotte. I know we shall be very happy here together. Anthony and I are so pleased that you have come.”

It was a long way to my room. I wanted to walk quickly, but I feared getting lost and was obliged to pause every so often in order to ascertain my precise whereabouts. By night, the house was quite a different place than what I remembered from my tour that afternoon. What had appeared quite a simple route now showed itself a maze of interlacing corridors and tangled shadows. The sound of my dress rustling in the silence alarmed me. My own footsteps echoed on the stone and wooden floors over which I passed.

Seen by night, the west wing appeared desolate. I prayed that it would not be long before a room could be made ready for me in the main part of the house. Last night, I had been too tired and bewildered to give it much thought; but tonight, I found the idea of sleeping so far from the rest of the household disturbing.

I reached my room at last, and slipped inside. The warmth of the Tire was welcome after the bitter cold of the passages. I undressed quickly and slipped in between the warm sheets, resting my feet on the stone bottle, yet another luxury I had almost forgotten. I blew out the oil lamp, but left a candle burning.

Lying there, I thought of Annie, still in the maid’s room at the Lincotts’. She had no fire or hot-water jar, no silk dresses, no puddings topped with custard. I determined then and there that as soon as I was securely established here, I would ask Antonia to help do something for her. She had, after all, rescued me from the slavery of working for the Lincotts and had sent me on my way here with money she could ill afford to spare. I owed her everything. I fell asleep thinking happy thoughts of how we would meet again, become best friends, and spend the rest of our lives together.

Days passed. The frost lifted for a time, then came down harder than ever. The grass was white most days, the sky clouded over and stayed cloudy. Every morning Antonia and I would walk in the gardens, wrapped up against the ever-deepening cold. We wore hooded capes and our hands were encased in thick muffs of expensive fur. Mrs. Johnson had worked hard to remake several of the dresses to fit me more comfortably, and I was able to change into a different one most days.

Sometimes I tried to imagine how we looked, Antonia and I, two women walking in long dresses through a frosted garden. There was something old-fashioned about the scene, as though time had stood still. I remembered the bustle of Newcastle: trams and motorcars on the roads, steamships on the river, trains hurrying in and out of Central Station. Where was all that now? It was as if it had never existed, as though there had never been anything but this quiet place among winter trees. I could have believed that time itself had slipped under a coat of frost and become perfectly still.

In the afternoons and sometimes after dinner, I would read to Antonia for an hour or more at a time. She was an attentive and indefatigable listener. We finished
Jane Eyre
and moved on to
Pride and Prejudice
. She often corrected my reading of a word, my pronunciation or intonation, and frequently she was obliged to explain something for me, an allusion or historical reference. I thought her quite clever then, though on reflection I think hers was a superficial knowledge, having no other purpose but to impress. I do not mean she affected learning in order to seem superior, as many people do nowadays. She was wholly free of that sort of vice, believing as she did in an innate superiority of breeding that needed no outward show to bolster it. The display of knowledge was merely part of being an accomplished person, someone capable of joining in conversations at dinner without appearing wholly vacuous. There was nothing in her of the game-show contestant or the autodidact desperate for praise.

Her tutoring of me rested on the same assumptions. She was at first assiduous, embarking straight after breakfast on the first of the day’s allotted tasks, dreamed up by her the night before. In the first few weeks, I learned some basic Italian and brushed up the little French I had learned years before and now almost wholly forgotten. From the library, Antonia brought massive volumes on the history of art, stuffed with sepia reproductions of works by the great masters, accompanied by dreary commentaries that she quickly discarded in favor of her own lighter remarks, remarks I now perceive to have been deeply misinformed.

We found an old harpsichord, rather out of tune, under a dust sheet in a long-unused music room on the first floor. For half an hour each day she and I would sit facing this instrument while I, with clumsy fingers, attempted pieces by Bach and Mozart. Antonia herself played tolerably well, but without feeling. At intervals, she would instruct me in the names of exotic dishes, the vintages of wines, or the latest Parisian fashions, all without any apparent guiding principles.

For languages, music, deportment, and all the rest were, I soon discovered, a cause of infinite ennui to my cousin. Often in the middle of a session, or as I was finishing a sonata, she would drift into a little reverie, out of which I feared to rouse her; or talk about her childhood and early youth; or suggest that we take a walk about the grounds, hand in hand over frosted grass.

The one thing she did enjoy was horse riding, and she was determined to make a good horsewoman of me. She herself rode a sorrel gelding called Coriolanus, while I was presented with a two-year-old by the name of Petrarch. It cannot have been much fun for Antonia, for what she wanted was a riding companion with whom she could gallop for miles through the open fields, whereas I, wholly untrained, could barely keep a saddle. She persevered, however, and in a week or two I had at least learned how to sit up straight without tumbling to the ground.

There were, of course, frequent intervals in which I was free to explore the house and grounds alone. I never walked far, never out of sight of the hall.

A large stream ran through the estate for over a mile. Anthony explained that it was a tributary of the River Coquet and that its name was the Hartwell. The folly Antonia had told me about stood on a low hill overlooking the stream across a short grass sward. It was a small Greek temple, complete with Doric columns. A small door behind the portico formed the only entrance, but when I first went there, I found it locked. I thought briefly of asking Antonia for a key, but in the end thought better of it. The little temple repelled me somehow. There was a sinister feeling about it and the area for some distance around.

Returning from it the first time, I asked Antonia who had built it. She seemed almost reluctant to answer, then smiled her very best smile and sat me down beside her.

“It’s almost as old as the house, my dear. One of our Ayrton ancestors had it built, a man called Sir James Ayrton. It was his father, William, who built Barras Hall. William was a Whig who stayed loyal to the Earl of Sunderland after his fall in 1710. It’s a thing our family has always prided itself on—its loyalty, its consistency. William’s faithfulness brought him a rich reward. Sunderland became first lord of the treasury eight years later, and he did not forget the Ayrtons. When the hall was completed, the earl himself gave Sir William many books out of his own collection, and in time a great library was created here.”

“Is that the same library I like to read in?”

A wistful look crossed her face.

“No, my dear. I’m afraid it’s no longer what it was. Our grandfather incurred debts—gambling debts, if you want to know the truth—and to pay them off he sold over half the volumes. Most of the really valuable books have gone.”

“And what about the folly?”

“The folly? Oh, yes, of course. Well, James Ayrton, Sir William’s son, built the west wing, where you sleep. He was widely traveled. I believe he got as far as India, and afterward he was the British ambassador in Constantinople for a time. Later I’ll show you some of the treasures he brought back from his travels. He built the folly in 1740 as a place to hold parties. That was all the rage in his day.”

"What does the inscription mean?”

“Inscription?”

“Over the doorway. 'They shall inherit it forever.’” For a moment she seemed uneasy, as though the words had carried uncomfortable associations for her. Then she smiled and nodded.

“Oh, you mean our family motto. It’s a verse from the book of Exodus: I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.’ Well, perhaps so, but the old folly has seen its best days, I’m afraid. We’ve not had much use for it since Sir James’s time. It’s cold and damp inside. Anthony talks of having it knocked down before it gets to be an eyesore. It’s not in good repair. Hutton thinks it may be dangerous. I’d stay away from it if I were you.”

There was a steeliness in her voice that startled me. As though she were afraid I might go to the folly, afraid I might see something she did not want me to see. She changed the subject then, and I said no more of it.

There was another part of the grounds Antonia wished me to avoid. Not far from the folly, a steep path wound its way down through thick undergrowth toward the river. Passing it once, I asked Antonia if it led anywhere interesting.

“Why, no. . .” She faltered. “There are. . . some very dull ruins. An old church used to stand there. But it was too far from the house for comfort, and my grandfather had it pulled down. You'll find nothing there now but a few old stones. But I would rather you stayed away from the place, Charlotte. The path is muddy and treacherous, even dangerous in parts, and you might very easily slip and break a leg, or worse. We might not find you for days.”

I agreed, but mentally reserved the possibility of an exploratory visit in the spring or summer, when the mud would have dried up. The thought of old ruins, however sparse, thrilled me.

I spent more and more time in the library. Sir William Ayrton’s original library had been shut up and the books removed to a gloomy chamber on the first floor, a place full of shadows, little visited, dusty, and ill lit. The books had been left to fall, as it were, into a dust-induced slumber, seldom disturbed, unread, unloved. I came to believe it was my mission to wake them up and bring some sort of light back into their existence. Whenever I got the chance, I would go to the library to browse or read until the cold forced me to leave again. Finally Antonia said she would ask Hepple to light a fire there for me in the afternoons. It became part of her educational project for me.

Yet her manner was changing almost imperceptibly. I would often find her preoccupied. Sometimes, in the middle of a passage, she would stand and tell me to stop reading. Very often, she would go to the window and stand staring out into the garden, almost as though expecting to see someone appear there and come toward her. Once, as I watched, I saw her start, but when I asked if she was all right, she assured me that she was perfectly well. And yet, when she turned, I saw that her face had gone quite pale and that she was trembling.

At certain times this nervousness became more marked. On two further occasions it grew cold during dinner, as it had done soon after my arrival. Each time Antonia turned noticeably pale and looked at her brother anxiously. From the corridor leading to my room a small branch passage broke off. At its end, only yards from the main corridor, a short flight of stairs led up to a low wooden door, drab and untended in appearance, as though the room to which it belonged had been long neglected. During our first tour of the house, Antonia had told me that the door was kept locked, that the room was used for storage and never entered. Yet I could not repress a faint shudder every time I passed the opening that led to it, for it seemed darker than the rest of the house, and very sad, as though it had once been the scene of an unhappy or terrible event. I observed that whenever she passed that way, Antonia very deliberately kept her gaze Fixed in front of her, quickening her pace a little, and biting her lip.

I saw little of Anthony. He was often away during the day, but it was never made entirely clear to me what business took him from Barras Hall. We dined together most evenings, and every night I would ask what progress had been made in the search for my brother. Generally Anthony would reply that there was no fresh news; but from time to time he would pull from his pocket a letter from Endicott, detailing the progress of the investigation. So far they had traced Arthur to two lodging houses in the west of Newcastle, then to a jobbing carpenter’s shop in Fleece Court and a farm on the outskirts of the city, at Kenton. There was a possibility that he had been seen a little farther north than that, at Ponteland, through which I had myself passed on my way to Barras Hall. It seemed that he was on his way here, and I began to think he would arrive at the front door in person, as I myself had done, long before Endicott and his men could track him down.