Whispers in the Dark (16 page)

I stopped reading, arrested by the reference to someone called Anthony. I assumed this must be my cousin. No one had ever mentioned a niece to me. In fact, I realized that apart from their mother and my father, both of whom were now dead, not a word had been said to me about the rest of Anthony and Antonia’s family. Nor, for that matter, of the breach that had come between them and my father. The diary entry was almost exactly ten years old. I calculated that if its writer had then been around my age, she must be in her midtwenties by now. I read on.

Entry followed entry, one for almost every day to the end of November. My predecessor’s life seemed very like the one I lived: art and music lessons with her mother, walks in the garden or the woods, whole afternoons reading in the library. She had a pony called Oliver, however, and whenever the weather permitted, she would take him for long rides, often venturing onto the moors, although her mother had strictly forbidden this. Sometimes she had visits from cousins who lived in Elsdon, but it seems they were rather younger than she was and not ideal company. She seemed content enough with the way things were, but at times a terrible sadness would reveal itself. One passage dated late November particularly struck me.

How I wish I had a friend here, someone I could share my thoughts with. Mother is no good, all she wants to do is bury herself in this place and write letters to friends who never come. She says I am to be “brought out” when I am eighteen. But that is three years away, or will be on my birthday next month. In the meantime, what am I to do?Everyone here is so much older than I, and in any case, the servants are no use. I need someone my own age. There are so many things I can never talk about.

Sometimes I read a sad story and end up in floods of tears. Mother would not understand, and Anthony would only laugh. Or I come back from a ride on Oliver, and I’ve seen something new that I want to tell them about, but they all act bored because they’ve seen it before and it isn't new or exciting to them. And I'm frightened that when it’s time for me to go to balls and such things, I’ll be so old and wizened inside that even if I met the most handsome man in the world, I wouldn't know if I was in love or if he loved me back. I’d give anything to leave Barras Hall right now, tomorrow, as soon as there’s a chance. But I know there won’t be a chance and that I’ll just have to stay here forever. Nobody will want to marry me, just like Mother.

It felt cold. I went back to the window, thinking there was still a draft, but the sash was tightly closed and the curtains drawn fast. Back at the fire, I could still feel it, cool against my throat. I shivered and continued reading.

20 November. We went into Morpeth today for the fitting of the first dresses by Madame Doubtfire. Mother and I, that is. For some reason, Madame D. refuses to come to the hall. Mother says she had a little set-to with Grandmama, when she lived here. It’s a pity, because the journey was terribly muddy and slow, and once we almost went off the road. Hutton drives the horses too hard. I’ve spoken to him about it, but he pays no attention. He won’t whip them in my presence, though, he knows better than that. He drowned three kittens last week.

I only found out yesterday, much too late to do anything about it. I can’t bear the thought of the poor little things in a sack tossed into that cold water. How can people be so cruel? Mother says it’s just the way of the countryfolk, but I don 7 think that's any excuse.

After the fitting, Mother went again to Mrs. Manners in Copper Chase, leaving me at the Queen’s Head with Hutton, which I hated. Mother says it relieves her mind to see that woman, but I wish she did not go. They say she holds seances to bring back the dead. Mother calls her a medium, and says she gives her messages from the departed. I don’t like the idea at all. It makes me shudder to think of such things, though Mother says it is harmless and can only do good as consolation for the bereaved.

The dresses are lovely. My favorite is a long gray dress with black beading, ail in pure silk. It has a beautiful lavender panel set into the front, Madame Doubtfire says the materials were sent specially from Paris.

I halted in confusion. A gray dress with a lavender panel and black beading! Surely that was the very dress I had been wearing two days ago, one of the collection I had been given on my arrival at the hall. Of course: the writer of the diary would have grown out of them and left them behind when she was finally “brought out,” No doubt she had married soon after that and gone away to live with her husband, leaving all her childhood possessions behind. I so hoped so; I hoped she had escaped from the dullness of her life on the moors.

Madame Doubtfire is such a funny little woman. She reminds me of that character in Dickens, Uriah Heep. Always running about after her clients, “her ladies, ” as she calls them, simpering and dropping little curtsies at the slightest opportunity. “Is that to your satisfaction, Miss Caroline?” Or “Such a slim figure, Miss Caroline. You will be such a beauty at your first ball. ”

Mind you, I get the feeling she’s afraid of Mother. It's funny that, thinking of people being afraid of her. I’m often sorry for her, and I know there is some sort of embarrassment because I don t have a father; but I've never thought of her as frightening. Grandmama is frightening, but she no longer lives with us, thank God. Not since Grandfather died. But old Doubtfire really scoots around Mother as though she were about to eat her up. “I’m sorry, Miss Antonia, ” or “Whatever can I have been thinking of, Miss Antonia?”

I almost let the book fall from my hands. “Miss Antonia”? Did that mean . . . ? Surely it could not mean that Antonia had a daughter. She was not married. I had seen her wear a wedding dress, but she . . . A very different sort of chill stabbed at my heart. Antonia had a daughter ten years older than I, a daughter of whom she never spoke. I knew enough to understand a little of what this meant. Caroline had been illegitimate.

I glanced up in alarm, thinking I had heard something, a cough or snarl in the room behind me. There was nothing there. The curtain seemed to move. I decided not to go to the window: if there was a draft, Mrs. Johnson would see to it. I would tell her at dinner. I started reading again.

22 November. Nothing in my diary yesterday. It was rather a peculiar day. Mother was tired after her drive to Morpeth the day before. Anthony said he had to do some work on the estate. He wants to bring friends here to shoot next season. I don 't even ask him about it. Why can ’t they leave the poor birds alone? The weather had picked up a bit. I took Oliver for a long canter out on Todcrag Moss. On our way back, I passed by the old folly. It always gives me the creeps, but it is the shortest way through the woods from the Harwood side, and Oliver was tired. I was walking him, stretching my legs a bit, and we were going rather slowly.

What happened next was rather queer, but I know I didn’t imagine it. Just as I passed near the folly Oliver reared up and broke away. He seemed terrified of something, behavior I’ve never seen in him before. He’s usually such a placid old thing. He knocked me to the ground and ran off in the direction of the hall, keeping to the path, thank God. I was quite winded at first. By the time I got to my feet, he was out of sight. I prayed he wouldn’t go far.

I couldn’t guess what had spooked him. There hadn’t been a sound, and I had not noticed anything running across his path. Well, I thought, it must have been a squirrel. Horses will do that sometimes, though it’s odd. But then I did hear something. The woods were very quiet, and I couldn't have been mistaken. I heard. .. Well, I’m not quite certain, but it sounded like somebody singing. Several people, actually, as though a little band of children were near me. I thought for a moment that it must be some village children, practicing their Christmas carols perhaps. But that was silly, they never come near here, they pretend there’s a “curse" on the hall.

Actually I thought the sound came from inside the folly. It went on for half a minute or so, then stopped. It stopped dead, just like that, and it was quiet again. I've never liked the folly much, and never been inside, but I went up to the door and tried it. It was locked as usual, so nobody can have sneaked in. I couldn't stand round listening, not while Oliver was straying, so I set off after him. He wasn’t far away after all. I caught him munching some grass just off the path. He seemed right as rain, but I scolded him for giving me such a fright. Mind you, I wonder if he hadn't heard those voices before I did. They were a little spooky, and it could have frightened him.

Dear God, I felt as cold as ice. I had no need of drafts to chill me. She had heard them, too. Ten years ago. They had frightened her horse as they had frightened my dog. She had heard them in the same place and for the same length of time. It was no coincidence.

At that moment the weeping started again.

“Please,” I whispered, “please stop crying. Please, I can’t bear it.”

To my astonishment, the crying did stop, as though I had been heard. But in the very instant that it did so, I knew something else was wrong. Even now, I cannot think of the sensation I experienced without feeling acutely nervous. I was certain, mortally certain, that someone was standing behind me, someone who did not wish me well. They were watching me with a look of intense malice, unwavering and unblinking. I felt the skin crawl on the back of my neck. That is the sort of thing you read in books, it has become utterly hackneyed, even risible; but if you have ever felt it, ever really felt it under circumstances like those, you will know how incredibly horrible it is.

I can’t say how long I sat there, feeling that terrible staring presence behind me, frozen to the spot. It cannot have been more than a minute, two at the outside, for I am certain I could not have borne it longer than that. But it felt like an age, with every second stretched out unnaturally. I remember gripping the arms of my chair and forcing myself, against every instinct, to turn and confront whoever or whatever was watching me.

And I did turn. I turned, expecting some tremendous horror, and saw nothing. There was absolutely nothing there.

“Oh, God,” I remember praying, “please, please help me. I don’t understand what’s happening here, but I need Your help.”

The silence that followed left me feeling more uncomfortable than I had before. My gentle God was elsewhere evidently, tending other sheep. Deep inside, I think I understood that He would not accept my invitation to step into the nightmare I could feel closing around me. But I have never forgiven Him for abandoning me so thoughtlessly in my hour of need.

I was still sitting there when I heard footsteps, then a knock on the door.

“It’s time for dinner, miss. Miss Antonia says you’re to get a move on.”

Johnson’s voice brought such a sense of normality with it that for a moment I forgot her involvement with the events in the locked room. I hurried to my feet and unlocked the door. She was standing in the dark corridor holding a single candle. My fear must still have been visible, for the moment she caught sight of me, a look of concern crossed her features.

“Are you all right, miss? Nothing’s happened, has it?”

I shook my head hastily. I could not trust her and feared to take her into my confidence.

“No,” I lied, “nothing at all. I’m perfectly all right. Just a little tired. I’ve been asleep in my chair.”

She continued to scrutinize my face, but said nothing further.

“Wait there,” I said. “I’ll get the lamp."

I closed the door. Crossing to the dressing table, I stopped to take Caroline’s diary from the chair. I thought it best that no one learn of my discovery. Hurriedly I slid it to the back of one of the dressing-table drawers and shut it.

Mrs. Johnson was still waiting for me.

“Why was your door locked so early, miss?” she asked pointedly. “It’s more a bedtime matter, surely.” “I felt tired after my walk, and I was afraid of it being open if I should fall asleep.”

She paused and turned to me.

“You must try not to worry, miss. If you hear things. Or . . . see things.”

“Hear things? What do you mean, Johnson?”

“I think you already know very well, miss.”

She seemed very nervous, again on the verge of saying more than she ought.

“Please, miss, go on doing as I told you and keep your door firmly locked.”

“Whatever good will that do? It won’t stop me hearing things, will it?”

“No matter, miss, just you do it. And take this. Take it and wear it.”

She slipped from around her neck a small silver cross on a fine chain. I was unused to such things, and greatly surprised that Mrs. Johnson wore one, for it was something I associated with Catholics. She sensed my hesitation, but reached out and looped the chain over my neck.

“Tuck it into your dress, miss—where it’s out of sight, but where you'll know it’s there. In case of need.”

“What sort of need?”

But she only looked at me sharply and continued walking.

Antonia was waiting impatiently at the table.

“Charlotte, I expected you down fifteen minutes ago. That’s twice today you’ve kept me waiting.”

“I’m sorry, Antonia. I fell asleep at the fire. It was such a long walk today. I promise it won’t happen again.”

She looked scarcely mollified, but, rising, ushered me to my seat. Moments later Mrs. Johnson appeared with our soup on a tray, and dinner began.

The atmosphere was strained. All through the meal,

I felt a terrible urge to ask about Caroline, Antonia’s daughter.

“What did you do before I came?” I asked. “Whenever Anthony went away.”

“I dined alone,” she said.