Whispers in the Dark (26 page)

I had no more strength in me to defy him, for all that my fears were not of bodily pain. My only hope now, and such a faint one, was that the Reverend Watkins should have my letter very soon, perhaps tomorrow, and that knowing what he did, he would come to me at once. Anthony had said he was now attached to the cathedral at Durham. Surely not even the Ayrtons could defy the church, however old and steeped in tradition they might be.

With my eyes closed, I put the glass to my lips and drank the concoction. It tasted foul, but I forced myself to swallow it down.

“I’d like to go to my room now, please.” “Certainly, my dear. Let me take you.”

Antonia rose and helped me to my feet. She kissed her brother good night and. taking my arm tightly in her hand, steered me to the door.

“Say good night to your cousin Anthony,” she said. “Good night, Anthony,” I parroted.

“Good night, Charlotte. Sleep well.”

We were just climbing the stairs to the first floor when I felt a wave of nausea come over me, followed by the most terrible giddiness.

“You’ve . . . poisoned . . . me,” I said.

“Nonsense, Charlotte. It’s just to help you sleep. You’ll see.”

I could see Antonia bending over me, her face wavering in the light of the candle she carried. My legs felt weak, and suddenly I felt them give way, toppling me to the floor. Desperate to stay conscious as long as possible, I fought to keep my eyes open. I saw Antonia leaning down and heard her voice as though from a very long way away, booming at me. Then I twisted as a tight pain gripped my stomach. I turned, looking up to the top of the stairs. The last thing I saw before losing consciousness was a figure standing at the top of the staircase. The tall figure of an old man dressed in black and wearing a long black veil that stretched from his head almost to his feet.

It was the afternoon of the next day when I woke. My limbs felt sore and heavy, and for a long time I could not clear my head. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I had difficulty finding my balance. Each time I tried to open my eyes, the light stung them so intolerably that I was forced to press them shut again. My head pounded with a dull ache. I had fleeting memories of terrible dreams, as though I had just spent days in a nightmare.

At last I began to come to. The pounding in my head subsided to a lower level. I was able to move my arms and legs more easily. I opened my eyes tentatively, then looked around.

I was not in my old bedroom. For a moment I could not say where I was, except that it was not there. But then I saw the bars on the window and realized where I had been taken.

I staggered to the door only to find it firmly locked. In desperation, I cast my eyes around the room. The only furnishing was the old truckle bed on which I had been sleeping, covered with a couple of thin blankets. There was no fire, no chair, no mirror. The only ornamentation was the bars.

Returning to the door, I hammered on it loudly, shouting for attention. Eventually my hands grew sore and my voice tired, and I sank down against the wall with my head in my hands, weeping. Time passed. My tears subsided, leaving me drained and frightened. I was conscious of hunger pangs and, more urgently, a growing need to use the toilet. Searching beneath the bed, I found a chamber pot. When I had used it, I covered it with one of the blankets from the bed and put it to one side.

Going to the window, I had to stand on tiptoe in order to see out. Below me was a drab yard backed by outhouses, the whole covered in a thick pall of white. It was still snowing heavily. If this kept up, Barras Hall would be quite cut off. I felt quite panicky at the thought, for it might prevent the Reverend Watkins from getting here in time.

“In time.” For some reason, I had fixed on my birthday as the most critical juncture. Something was planned for that date, and I was increasingly certain that it involved my death, just as the same day ten years earlier had involved Caroline’s.

I went back to the bed and sat down, utterly miserable and dispirited. I had tried my best to escape, and it had come to this. Whatever happened now, it was no longer in my hands to influence events.

I froze as footsteps sounded in the passage outside. There was a rattling of a key in the lock, then Mrs. Johnson appeared, carrying a tray. On it were a covered dish, a carafe of water, and a glass. She closed the door without a word, set the tray down on the floor, and came to the bed.

“Have you used the chamber, Miss Charlotte?”

“Yes.”

She found it and, removing the blanket, covered it with a thick cloth she had brought over her arm.

“Your food’s on the tray,” she said. “You’ll have no more until tomorrow, so make the most of it.”

“Mrs. Johnson, why are you helping them keep me a prisoner? I thought you were my friend. You came to me in the graveyard that time. I thought you wanted to help me.”

She seemed about to speak, then thought better of it, and turned away. As she reached the door she said, “I’ll bring the chamber back when I come for the tray. Eat your food quickly, before it gets cold.” When she left, I heard the key turn in the lock.

The meal was substantial enough: evidently they were not going to starve me. I was suspicious of it, remembering what they had given me the night before, but my hunger got the better of me in the end, and I gulped it down. My only item of cutlery was a spoon. Did they fear I might use a knife or fork to attempt another escape? Or that I might attempt violence on myself?

Mrs. Johnson returned about half an hour afterward. I tried again to engage her in conversation, but she ignored me pointedly and hurried out. This time she did not lock the door. A few moments after she had left, it was opened again.

Anthony entered, smiling gently, and shut the door hard behind him. He was dressed in his riding clothes and seemed to have come straight in from outdoors. His face was flushed with cold and he was a little out of breath. He stood before me for a while, saying nothing.

When he did finally speak, it was in a quiet, gently teasing voice.

“Well, miss, how do you like your new quarters? I venture you wish now you’d stayed put where you were. Well, you’re not the first, you may take some comfort in that. You may very well meet some of the others before long. Mind you speak politely to them: some don’t like to be angered.”

He stepped around the bed and crossed to the window.

“The nights are still drawing in,” he said. “Midwinter’s day is not so very far away. A pity you will not see it. They won’t wait, you see. I entreat them, but they won’t wait. They are hungry. Hungrier each time. But I shall keep them till your birthday, that things may be done properly. Propriety is important. There are traditions to be preserved.”

“What have I done,” I asked, “to be treated like this?”

“Done?” He turned. “You have done nothing. It was never your destiny to do anything.”

“My destiny? What destiny?”

“You shall see very soon.”

He strode toward the door, and then, just as he reached it, as though by some afterthought, he reached inside his pocket and drew something from it. A piece of paper. He tossed it carelessly onto the floor.

“This is yours, I think.”

With that, he passed through the door, locking it behind him. I bent down and picked up the paper he had thrown at me. It was my letter to the vicar of Kirkwhelpington, crumpled and soiled, and still containing my appeal to his predecessor, torn into tiny shreds.

* * *

There was no drug in my food. And that night sleep did not come, for all that I would have given anything to find it. Sleep or unconsciousness or even death. As the light faded, so the room began to fill with uneasy shadows. Darkness gave only momentary respite. I lay in my bed, huddled in my blankets, and heard the shadows coming to life all around me. In desperation, I tried clasping my hands over my ears, but that was almost worse, for what I could not hear I imagined.

She started weeping soon after it grew dark. I knew she was there, near me, crouching on the floor unseen. Sometimes her crying would stop, and when it did, the rustling started. More than ever I found it ugly and unsettling. Several times footsteps passed by outside my door. On each occasion the weeping would subside into a terrified whimpering.

Somewhere about the middle of that long night, all the noises stopped. The room became very quiet. And I could hear, very faintly in the distance, a soft, slithering sound, very slow and muffled and unpleasant, as though something shapeless and very old was fumbling its way through the house. The noise continued for a long time, but finally it faded away into the distance until I could hear it no more.

When it ended, there was a blissful silence for a while, then voices in the corridor not far from my room, as though several people were arguing. I did not recognize any of them. Certainly neither Anthony nor Antonia appeared to be among them.

Light reached my window very slowly and very late. I remained on my bed, watching the darkness melt and become a patchwork of shadows. At first, I could discern nothing out of the ordinary. But at a certain point, as the light gained in strength and individual features could be discerned, I noticed a gray shape crouching by the door. I could not take my eyes off it. As the light grew I saw that it was a girl my age, wearing a gray dress. Her skin was unnaturally pale, and her eyes were bright red as though she had been crying. She was sitting, just sitting, staring at me.

“Caroline?” I whispered. “Are you Caroline?”

She did not respond. The light continued to strengthen, but she did not move, as though she were an image from a magic lantern cast against the wall.

"Caroline,” I pleaded with her. “You know what’s happening. Won’t you help me? Won’t you tell me what they’re going to do?”

At first, I thought she would not answer. Then, slowly, as though painfully, she unbuttoned the left sleeve of her dress and began to roll it up her arm. When it was a little above her elbow, she turned her arm and showed it to me. The front of her forearm was lined with deep, bloodless gashes from wrist to elbow.

I think I must have fainted. When I came to again, Mrs. Johnson was in the room, and there was no sign of Caroline anywhere.

Mrs. Johnson brought with her a new dress, a bright red dress that had been made specially for me, she said.

“It’s for tonight, Miss Charlotte. For your birthday evening. I'll come back later to help you put it on. Miss Antonia wants you to look your best.”

“But I haven’t got a mirror,” I said. “There isn’t even a basin for me to wash in.”

“I’ll bring those later," she said. “And you’ll need to have your hair done up. Miss Antonia wants you pretty as a picture.”

“Was Caroline pretty?”

She looked startled.

“I asked if Caroline was pretty.”

“I don’t know who you mean, miss.” She had recovered a little of her composure.

“Antonia’s daughter,” I said bluntly. “She died here ten years ago. You know exactly who I mean.”

She backed away, fumbling with the cloth covering the chamber pot.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about, miss. I’m sure there’s never been anyone here by that name.”

“I saw her this morning, Johnson. You’ve seen her here yourself, haven’t you. Why is she so pale? What did they do to her? What did Anthony and Antonia do?”

She made no further attempt to answer me. I watched her go, knowing she had the key to the truth, that she could tell me everything if she wanted to. What was she afraid of? Precisely how were my cousins controlling her?

I was left alone until early evening, when it began to grow dark. Mrs. Johnson returned with the things she had promised: a basin and a jug of hot water, together with a towel, some soap, a comb and brush, and a small ivory mirror. She seemed particularly awkward.

“Miss Antonia will visit you later,” she said. “Just to see you’re all right. Take your dress off, and I’ll give you a hand with your hair.”

I slipped my dress over my head and laid it on the bed beside the new one. Mrs. Johnson half Riled the basin and, while I bent over it, wet my hair thoroughly before rubbing in plenty of soap.

“Miss Charlotte,” she said. “I shouldn’t be saying this, but you’ve been good to me, and I can’t leave you without a kind word. You . . . you’ve got to be brave tonight. Whatever you do, don’t let them see you’re frightened: it will only serve to make things worse. Sir Anthony will come for you very late. You’re to be taken down to the old temple in the woods. That’s where it always happens. Do you understand?”

She started rinsing my hair, pouring water slowly from the jug.

“I’ll leave a candle with you. It’s as well for you not to be in the dark tonight.”

“Can’t you do anything? If I could get out of here, I’d be able to escape.”

“No, miss, there’s nothing I can do. I tried to help Miss Caroline, and I lost my own boy as a result. Don’t think of trying to get away: they’ll be sure to find you, and they’ll make it worse for you if you put them to any trouble. Just try to be brave.” She hesitated. “Have you still got that cross I gave you?”

I nodded.

“Keep it by you, miss. It may be some comfort.” She dried and combed my hair, then helped me into the red dress.

“I have to go,” she said. “They’ll get suspicious if I stay too long. Finish yourself off. I’ll take these things with me later.”

She turned and took me in her arms. There were tears in her eyes.

“God bless you, miss. I wish there was something I could do. I really do.”

I thanked her. She took my old dress and left without another word, locking the door behind her.

It was dark by now, and with the candle lit the room seemed full of other darknesses. The house was still, expectant, as silent as James Ayrton’s tomb on the other side of the woods. The only thing moving was time: I imagined it somewhere, personified, solid, a huge clock ticking my life away. A condemned woman knows what is waiting for her on the other side of the prison door. She pictures a rope and a long drop. I knew nothing at all.

I set the candle on the narrow mantelpiece and washed my face and neck and hands in its light. My shoes were the same old pair I had been wearing since I arrived at the hall: skirts were so long in those days, women never bothered much about their footwear. With the help of the mirror, I combed my hair into shape again, wishing I had a brush to give it more body.