by John Harwood
Her intellect ordered her to retreat; but her feet carried her along the gravel to the left, around the side of the house, barely noticing an expanse of lawn and shrubbery, onto a flagged path which took her around a conservatory and back towards the rear of the house, where there was indeed a red brick wall, lower than in the dream, partly enclosing a kitchen garden. This garden was quite neat, and not at all rank or overgrown; yet there was a path leading diagonally from a door at the back of the house, through the garden beds towards the far corner of the brick wall, and her feet were again compelled along it until she could see clearly that there were no graves or tombstones anywhere here. Rosalind stopped, confused, and began to retreat. As she did so, the smell of newly turned earth floated up to her from a nearby bed; and something caught at her dress. She glanced down. It was a cucumber frame, and on the corner nearest the path was caught a long thin strip of material; not from the blue travelling cloak she was wearing, but a drab, rusty black. In the same instant she became aware that she was not alone.
At the edge of her vision-for she dared not move-she saw Denton Margrave standing exactly where he had stood in the dream, and for an instant it seemed to her that the sky darkened over. She waited for the ground to open into a pit; the dream rushed back at her with such appalling vividness that she saw the blue light crackle about him, heard the rustle of unfurling wings, and then… it was like looking out of a fast-moving train which had swiftly and silently reversed its direction: the Margrave-figure shrank back into itself; she seemed to be drawn backwards through the entirety of the dream, all in perfect detail but at such speed that she had not drawn breath before she was back in the sunlit pavilion with the woman showing her the tide page of her book, hearing simultaneously the voice of Caroline's mother at the dinner table, and understanding, at last, what Christina Temple had come back to tell her.
The vision faded; the paralysis ceased; Rosalind's heart gave one dreadful jolt as she turned to face her pursuer, until she saw that he was not Margrave at all, but an elderly man in a frayed, grimy, threadbare suit of black and heavy workman's boots, leaning upon a hoe and regarding her with some bewilderment. They remained silently facing one another until Rosalind had recovered sufficiently to say, somewhat breathlessly but with a composure which amazed her: "Pray excuse me; I have come to the wrong house."
STARING OUT ACROSS THE SOMBRE FIELDS AS THE TRAIN carried her back to London, Rosalind found her thoughts running beyond the impending scene with her mother, Yorkshire would be a kind of exile for her, as well, but she would have work to do. She had her tale to tell, and would find the right way of telling it. Much black ink would have to be spilt; the angel's pure white radiance might never be quite recovered; but she would remain Rosalind Forster, and would one day earn enough to set her mother up in London with a companion, and be free to return to Caroline and Staplefield. So she promised herself, imagining the pavilion restored and glowing with fresh paint and varnish, floating in sunlit air.
PART THREE
I SAT IN THE WRECK OF THE PAVILION WITH EVEN STAPLEfield was a lie and Alice will be so disappointed looping through my head. But my mother hadn't lied, not exactly: Ferrier's Close was Staplefield. And Ashbourn House; and others, perhaps, I didn't yet know about. So why had she brought me up on the story-book version-in the most literal sense-of her childhood?
Because she couldn't bear to let go of Viola altogether, said the Alice-voice in my head.
Then what did she do here that was so terrible?
The voice did not reply. From here, the house was invisible; the path curved away into the encircling nettles. When I first saw it, the ruined pavilion had had a certain romantic charm. Now it looked utterly despoiled. Rusting, twisted sections of the cupola roof littered the trampled clearing. The desolation was suddenly unbearable.
You're just angry, I told myself as I walked back to the house; angry she lied to you. She chose the story-book version because she'd been disinherited, not because she murdered Anne.
The anger carried me on up the stairs to the second floor and another search of the bedrooms. This time I made as much of a racket as I could, banging doors, slamming drawers, stomping across like a poltergeist. My noisy progress reminded me of something a colleague at the library had told me years ago, about a troubled boarding school, iron bedsteads flung across an empty dormitory. I looked again at the deep gouges in the floor of the cupboard above Phyllis's bed; they looked unpleasantly like the marks of paired claws. But I found nothing new.
I returned to the library, intending to begin a systematic search for papers, but instead was overcome by another wave of black fatigue, lay down on the chesterfield, and fell instantly asleep.
I WOKE-AS IT SEEMED-AT DUSK. THE SKY THROUGH THE upper windows was still relatively bright. High above, the ceiling floated in a vault of gloom. My gaze drifted down rows of shelves towards the false bookcase at the end of the mezzanine gallery.
Only I couldn't see the false bookcase, because someone was standing motionless in front of it. A woman-for a horrible moment a headless woman, until I saw that she was veiled in black. And wearing an elaborate gown in some heavy material; I could see the flare of her skirt through the vertical bars below the railing. A dark green gown, gathered at the shoulders.
I thought, 'Viola', and then, 'Imogen de Vere', and then, 'This is one of those dreams where you dream you can see through your eyelids.' Usually I wake the instant I realise I'm asleep, a little disappointed to find that I can't see with my eyes closed, any more than I can fly. But the figure didn't vanish. Instead it appeared to shrink, receding into the shadow of the end wall. I closed my eyes resolutely, counted to three. The false bookcase had reappeared. There was no one on the gallery.
***
I SLEPT BADLY THAT NIGHT FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE MY arrival, spinning through interminable dreams of Ferrier's Close, stepping up to the front door over and over again, struggling half awake, then repeatedly demolishing sections of the pavilion, appalled at the damage I was doing but compelled to continue, round and round in a series of endless loops, up and down the empty passages and staircases until I was wide awake at dawn, watching the grey light slowly brighten across the miles of rooftops.
Of course the veiled woman had been a dream. I made myself a cup of tea and returned to the window. 4.37 a.m. I knew I wouldn't sleep again, and I didn't feel like reading. Breakfast wasn't until seven. I looked at the heavy bunch of keys beside my laptop. No one had said anything about keeping office hours-or any hours-at Ferrier's Close. I could sit here brooding for the next two and a half hours.
Or take a taxi up to the house and try to open the locked door on the second-floor landing.
The sky was brightening as I paid the driver at the entrance to the Vale of Health, but beneath the overhanging trees the lane was in deep shadow, and when the gate closed behind me it was so dark that I could not see the front door. I had a book of paper matches from the café I'd eaten in the evening before, but I didn't dare light one here; the whole thing might go up like a bonfire if the head of a match flew off. Remember, remember, Miss Hamish is your friend. The words came floating into my head and I started chanting them under my breath in a staccato rhythm that got my feet moving along the flagstones and helped mask the stirrings and rustlings and tickings that accompanied me all the way to the porch, where I used more than half the matches getting the front door open.
Floorboards popped and cracked as I passed through the drawing and dining rooms in near-darkness, and out into the comparative brightness of the landing above the back door. The whole staircase creaked when I set foot on it, as if the house were stirring in its sleep. Houses creak more at dawn and dusk, I told myself, climbing towards the second floor where the first rays of sunlight were angling in through the high windows, on to the ghost-shapes of vanished pictures and the locked door beyond the banister.
The smallest of the four household keys on the ring was the only possibility. It turned easily enough. I eased
the door open, and a familiar blend of odours wafted out of the gloom. The same dusty-sweet smell as the library downstairs. A perfectly ordinary study. With a desk below the window: a walnut writing-desk, I saw as I drew back the heavy bronze-coloured curtains. Before the trees had grown up, there would have been a clear view eastwards to the wooded skyline on the higher ground beyond the Vale.
A covered portable typewriter sat on the writing-desk: an ancient Remington, with circular keys and a black, skeletal frame, worn to bare metal in places. There was a small fireplace in the centre of the wall opposite the window, with bookcases on either side of it. A low armchair, upholstered in faded green leather, in the corner behind the door. And to the left of the desk, a cedar cabinet like a half-size map chest.
The top of the cabinet was bare except for a single photograph. A head-and-shoulders portrait of a young woman in a dark velvet dress, with shoulders gathered like the wings of angels. The same as the one I had brought with me from Mawson.
This proves it, I thought: she can only be Viola. Put here as a memento, after she died. But then I remembered the inscription on the back of my copy. 'Greensleeves', and a date in 1949… the 10th of March. I picked up the frame and removed the cardboard, but the back of this one was blank.
I looked through the trays in the cabinet: all empty. So were the drawers in the writing-desk, but when I closed the lowest one I heard a faint crackle of paper. I knelt down to look; the dusty, doggy smell of the carpet brought back a flash of Mawson on a hot January afternoon. I took the drawer right out of the desk and saw that several sheets of paper had been crushed into the space behind. A handwritten note to Viola from 'Edie', evidently returning some letters after the death of a friend. A few pages, presumably from those letters, in a small, spiky hand with a hint of italic, signed V. A length of rusty black ribbon. And a single page of typescript, evidently from the missing part of 'The Revenant'.
'The Briars'
Church Lane,
Cranleigh,
Surrey
Friday 26 Nov.
Dearest Viola,
I found these in the drawer of Mamas bedside table. I know you said to burn everything of yours but I couldn't bring myself to do it-hope you don't mind. I can't write any more now but I do so look forward to seeing you, soon I hope.
With all my love,
Edie
***
with Eva and Hubert to see The Cherry Orchard at the Lyric last Wed. It seems obligatory to admire Tchekov these days but I found it tedious and said so, which rather shocked H. I think. Then Wagner at Covent Gdn-the Valkyrie in German-I prefer opera when I don't understand exactly what they're singing, but I liked him more when I was younger. Before the war, I suppose I mean. I found myself thinking of Zeppelins, and that of course reminded me of George. Poor boy-charming as ever, though we see very little of him these days. I live in hope that he will settle to something.
Next week we go to the Fletchers (the Holland Park lot) at Hythe-C. becomes more tedious every year but I am very fond of Lettie-If the weather holds we shall get in some good walks.
Am reading The Sacred Fount again-don't quite know why-a perverse fascination. Sometimes I think HJ is simply Marie Corelli in fancy dress (you know what I mean), but then I remember the tales-The Way it Came, The Jolly Corner, The Altar of the Dead-no one else could have written those, let alone The Turn of the Screw-
yrs ever
V.
***
Ferrier's Close
25th July 1934
Dear Madeleine,
Relieved to hear you won't need another extraction. Teeth are the root of all evil (forgive the pun)-or so I feel whenever I have to face the dentist. I don't know why they call it laughing gas; I have never felt the slightest impulse to chortle whilst having my jawbone scraped. Enough of this.
The girls are doing well. Anne has got the whole of 'La Belle Dame' by heart (Iris thinks it unsuitable for a child of six, but I really don't see why). Miss Drayton is very good with them-they both adore her and I only hope she'll stay on. Yesterday we took them all the way to Parliament Hill-a long walk for Phyllis but she didn't complain. We met Captain Anstruther on the way home & he made a great fuss of them as usual.
Anne has been asking a good deal about the accident lately, but I don't see any sign that either of them feels orphaned or deprived or anything of that sort. If only people (mostly adults who ought to know better) wouldn't treat them as if they ought to be unhappy-the sad truth is that they have a better life with us than they would have had if George and Muriel had lived. I doubt the marriage would have lasted. Poor George… shell shock is such a ghastly thing. Though as he once pointed out to me, if he'd been a corporal instead of a lieutenant he'd have been shot for cowardice rather than invalided home. That actually happened to a man in his regiment and it preyed dreadfully on his mind. He said the humiliation of losing his nerve (that was how he saw it, no matter what the doctors said) was worse than the worst nightmares.
I don't think I shall be going to Scotland in August after all, so if you
***
for certain, but next week, if this wonderful weather keeps up, I shall go down to Devon to stay with Hilda.
You asked me what became of Alfred's 'infernal machine'-I kept it as a memento mori. I shall never forget, that day at the Crystal Palace: I think of it whenever I read 'The Relic'. It destroyed the illusion of immortality, the feeling of infinite time that one enjoys when young. Alfred was obsessed-he had to have one. But it seemed to me pure, evil, a thing of darkness. I think that was when I knew, irrevocably, that I'd married a stranger. (Though I suppose the obvious riposte is: who doesn't?)
Foolish youth-illusions perdues, indeed. But yes, I suppose it does fascinate me in a perverse sort of way. A few years after the War-I don't think I've ever told you this-I used it in a novella. All those years I didn't write-I seemed to have lost the impulse-and then the idea came to me, and went on nagging until I wrote it all down. Then a year or two later-it can't have been much more-George got married out of the blue. Though as everyone must have realised, he can't have had much choice: Anne was far too big to be a seven months' child. And then that dreadful smash. Sheer coincidence of course-literature is full of orphaned girls brought up by relatives-but there was something unheimlich about it. I felt that some sort of prognostic gift had been thrust upon me, and I didn't like it. So I put the manuscript away; I could never quite bring myself to destroy it.
Odd how one can write what one wouldn't say. I do hope Edie is quite recovered.
Yrs ever
V.
***
Harry flung up one arm as if to ward off an assailant. Beatrice cried out in fear, which turned to fury as she recognised her sister.
"What are you doing, hiding there?" she cried, advancing on Cordelia.
"I was on my way to meet Harry-"
"No you weren't, you were spying on me. You're so jealous, I cant even walk with him from the station, why do you think I never speak to him when you're around? Because you cant bear it, I only have to look at him to have you sneaking off to Uncle…"
"-I say, steady on," said Harry nervously.
"-I am not jealous," said Cordelia, backing away from her sister's tirade.
"Then why were you spying?"
"I wasn't-"
"Yes you were, or you would have waved as soon as you saw us."
Beatrice would not concede an inch of her ground, and soon Cordelia found herself apologising while Harry stood feebly by, leaving her no choice but to retreat. She did not stop at the house, but kept on until she reached the riverbank, hot, humiliated, and confused. Being in love, she thought, has not made me a better person as it is said to do in novels. Beatrice is right; I am jealous, and distrustful, and clutching, and thoroughly miserable, and I hate myself… and if he does not follow I will break our engagement. The light was fading rapidly. A few moments later the still surface of the rock pool was broken by a large raindrop, then anothe
r, and then the heavens opened with a flash and a deafening thunderclap.
***
I read and re-read these pages sitting in Viola's armchair, distracted once or twice by the sensation, rather than the actual sound, of the faint rhythmic scraping or rustling I had heard the day before. The novella she mentioned could only have been 'The Revenant': the typed page in my hand was numbered '82', and the typescript back in my hotel room broke off at 81. So… I stared at the photograph, trying to imagine what must have happened: Phyllis running in here, perhaps, as she was packing to leave after the quarrel with Iris, wrenching the desk drawer open and snatching the typescript… which must, presumably, have been kept with the bundle of letters for these pages to be caught up together. But not the photograph… she must have had her own copy… well, obviously. Perhaps it really was Viola and the inscription had nothing to do with the picture at all.