Though she seemed to be the one he was addressing, the woman sped up, clearly headed for the front steps. ‘No one in the house!’ she cried. ‘I told Cornelius that. No one in the house!’
Luke dragged Harry after her. ‘Now you look here, missus! Does this one belong to Himself or not? If he don’t, I’m giving him to the childer. To hell with the consequences!’
The woman stopped at the bottom of the steps. Almost reluctant, she looked around at the two children who had come up beside Harry and Luke.
The boy bowed politely from his hip. ‘Good evening, Mama.’
‘This stick-man is very entertaining,’ the little girl informed her. ‘Ask him to fetch you a penny!’
The woman flicked a troubled glance at Harry.
Luke, meanwhile, seemed mesmerised by Tina. ‘By God, missus. What is she?’
The woman’s dark eyes slid sideways. ‘You see it too? I think she belongs to Cornelius.’
‘You … you’d best take her inside then, missus. You’d best look after her if she belongs to Himself.’
Ursula Lyndon looked uncomfortable at this. ‘Now see here,’ she murmured.
‘Miss Kelly doesn’t belong to nobody!’ cried Harry.
Tina seemed not to notice the conversation, or if she did, she seemed not to care. Her eyes roamed the fog-shrouded lake. ‘There’s something down there,’ she said. ‘Like an empty space.’
The little girl was regarding her with piercing curiosity. ‘Isn’t she pretty,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t she have pretty hair?’ She smiled across at the woman and twirled Harry’s knife. ‘Would you like me to fetch you her hair, Mama?’
With a cry, the woman spun away and shoved the pram ahead of her up the steps. Its many frills and flounces bounced violently, but no crying came from within.
Luke shook Harry by the collar. ‘What about this boy, missus?’
The woman paused on the top step. She could not seem to look directly at Harry, and only took him in with sideways glances. She was very beautiful, with her dark hair and eyes, her strong profile. Harry had no doubt in his mind that this was the famous Raquel. ‘What age are you?’ she asked. There was the faintest remnant of an accent in her words, breathy and sibilant, Spanish perhaps.
‘I’m almost seventeen, ma’am.’
This caused her to look directly at him. ‘Seventeen,’ she said. She looked him up and down, a yearning wonder in her face. ‘Yet nothing like him.’ She seemed to recollect herself at that, gave a frowning glance to the children, then nodded to Luke. ‘Allow him in.’
She crossed the porch with the bearing of a queen, her dark skirts whispering. Once she entered the house, she was lost from sight, but Harry could still hear the pram, its tyres squeaking as she travelled the rooms within.
The little boy looked puzzled. ‘Can’t we have him, then?’
‘You can’t have any of ’em,’ grumbled Luke. ‘They belong to your pap. Come on.’ He gestured that they should follow him. ‘I’ll see what I can find ye in the traps.’
The children trailed after him, sulky but obedient, the little boy still dragging his pitchfork. Before rounding the corner, Luke paused. ‘Best get yourselves into the house,’ he told Harry. ‘I’m going to release the dogs.’
As soon as the man was gone, Harry ran to Tina. ‘Come on!’ he cried. ‘Now. We gotta find Joe and go!’
Ursula Lyndon gripped his arm. ‘What about the dogs?’
Harry thought of the enormous, battle-scarred creatures in the barn, and his stomach did a little flip.
‘Young man,’ said Ursula, ‘I realise that uncouth fellow has given you a scare, but gamekeepers don’t take kindly to trespassing. Now it’s clear you are part of Lord Wolcroft’s festivities, I’m sure your troubles are over.’ She squinted at him, suddenly uncertain. ‘Did you come in the carriage? I don’t recall …’ She seemed to struggle with her thoughts, as if realising there were a lot of things she didn’t recall. ‘I … I have been invited here as an advisor to Lord Wolcroft. Miss Kelly is … is my companion. Yes. Miss Kelly and I shan’t be going anywhere, young man. Indeed, I wouldn’t advise you set off on foot. How would you ever get through the snow?’
Snow? Slowly, Harry looked around him. Where the hell was the snow?
Ursula followed his gaze. She clasped her hands. ‘What has become of the weather?’ she whispered.
‘I’m not leaving Joe,’ said Tina.
‘Do you know where he is?’ cried Harry. ‘Let’s get him!’
She was tense as a knotted fist, and she stepped back from his touch. ‘Joe … Joe’s dead.’
Dead? No! ‘When?’ cried Harry. ‘Where?’
But Tina didn’t seem to hear him at all. ‘Joe’s dead,’ she repeated softly. ‘I’m not leaving him. You should go, though. Don’t … don’t go to the village. I think the people there are … Take Miss Ursula.’
She turned away. Walking careful as a drunk, she made her way up the steps. Harry watched her enter the house, his mind reeling.
‘Young man?’ Miss Ursula tapped his arm. ‘Young man, what on earth is happening? Why is everyone behaving so peculiarly?’
‘We need to go!’ cried Harry. ‘Tina!’ He ran up the steps, then paused, turning to Miss Ursula. ‘Wait here, okay, lady? Holler if anyone comes back.’
‘Holler?’
‘If someone comes, try not to listen to them. Just holler a warning, then block your ears and run.’
‘Run?’ she cried, as he entered the house. ‘Are you deranged?’
THE RECEPTION HALL was dominated by a stuffed horse. The huge creature had been mounted on a wooden platform facing the entrance, its dusty eyes fixed on the landscape outside, its powerful body poised as if contemplating a trot around the lake. Harry skirted it warily, following the click of Tina’s heels to the corridor beyond.
The hallway was muted with shadow, its walls lined with display cabinets. Stuffed birds and animals crowded the glass shelves, their bodies permanently twisted in frozen imitation of life. Beneath the scrutiny of so many tiny gazes, within the silence of the house, Harry found himself unwilling to call out. He passed through blocks of mote-filled sunlight falling through open doors. There was no stir of life in the revealed rooms.
He found Tina in the ticking quiet of a library. Through the high French doors he recognised the terrace across which Luke had dragged him and, beyond that, the sunken rose garden. The clock-tower of the stable block was just visible above the trees.
‘Tina,’ he whispered. ‘You can’t stay here.’
She paced the bookshelves, her hands opening and closing. ‘It’s here,’ she whispered. ‘It’s here.’
‘Tina!’
She turned to him, regarding him with hectic eyes.
‘We have to go,’ he said.
She shook her head, her gaze once again roaming the crowded walls. ‘Joe.’
Oh God, Joe. ‘Are you sure he’s dead? Did … did you see a body?’
‘I saw him. Oh, Harry, I saw him. He was all alone. His eyes were full of snow.’ She pressed her fists to her temples and gasped. ‘But he’s here. He’s right here! I can’t leave him …’
‘But where did you see him? What—’
‘Stop talking, Harry! You’re making it worse. There’s so much noise. All the singing. All the lights! If you just let me think! If you just let me listen …’ She trailed off, her entire body abruptly relaxing. ‘Oh,’ she whispered. ‘It stopped singing.’
The room seemed very still now that she had stopped pacing. Harry was almost afraid to move, in case he set her off again. There was a small movement in the hall, and Harry spun to find Raquel standing on the threshold of the library. She cradled a baby doll in her arms, and her dark eyes were fixed on Tina.
Suddenly Harry had had enough. ‘What did your goddamned friends do to Tina? Look at her! She’s out of her mind!’
Raquel dismissed him with a glance.
‘They’re coming,’ Tina whispered. ‘Up from below gro
und.’
Raquel nodded. ‘Vicente fetches him up for me sometimes.’
There were rapid footsteps in the hall and Ursula Lyndon appeared, wide-eyed and breathless. ‘There are dogs, you know! They’re enormous.’
At the sight of the old woman, Raquel sidled into the room, the doll raised as if to shield her. ‘Not in my house!’ she cried.
‘I … I am sure they won’t come in,’ soothed Ursula. Her eyes flitted to Tina, whose attention was still focused on the bookshelves.
‘In my house,’ insisted Raquel, ‘the old ones are upstairs. We don’t have to see them.’
These people are nuts, thought Harry. Full-blown, howl-at-the-moon nuts. His gaze met Ursula’s, and he saw the same understanding in her eyes.
Tina breathed out suddenly, a sound of discovery and satisfaction. ‘Ah, I knew it!’
At the exact spot where she had been staring, there came the sound of a key in a lock. A latch clicked within the wall of shelves, and a false front, complete with books, swung outwards. The space within was so dark that it seemed to swallow light. The man it contained was invisible until he stepped forward.
‘Cornelius,’ said Raquel, her expression warming with relief and joy.
Lord Wolcroft smiled at her. Harry thought he was transformed; his face younger, his bearing infinitely more graceful than before. ‘Dearest,’ he murmured, advancing to kiss Raquel’s hand. He chucked the doll beneath its chin. ‘Sophie,’ he said, as if in greeting. ‘Have you been good for your mama while I was away?’
His jacket and trousers were stained with damp, his waistcoat spattered with what looked suspiciously like blood. Raquel noticed this with a frown, and Wolcroft tilted his head to acknowledge her disapproval.
‘I am a touch dishevelled,’ he agreed. ‘For which I apologise.’ His cool grey eyes took in the occupants of the room. ‘You’ll have met our lovely—’
At the sight of Harry, his face froze into sudden lethal coldness. His hand darted beneath his jacket.
A rich voice paused him in the act of withdrawing a knife. ‘The boy is mine, cully. Lay aside your blade.’
The carriage driver appeared in the secret doorway. Breathless, as if he had been climbing steps, and a little grey in the face, he met Harry’s eye, a dangerous edge to his smile.
‘Well, conjurer,’ he said. ‘You must be very keen for another audition. Stowed yourself in the luggage, did you?’
Harry said nothing. The driver’s voice sounded in his mind. You keep your mouth shut about our mutual friend, boy, and I promise not to make you cut out your own tongue. Harry glanced around the room, awaiting the others’ reaction to this threat. The driver’s smile widened. Only those we wish to hear hear, boy. So you’d best heed when I choose to speak.
‘Vicente,’ said Raquel. Smiling, she went to the driver where he still stood, framed within the darkness of the doorway. He took her doll and laid it on a table, with no sign that it meant anything more to him than a toy.
‘Are you well?’ he asked.
‘Except that I have missed you.’
‘As I have you.’
They put their arms around each other, and Harry’s mouth fell open and Ursula Lyndon gasped as the couple indulged in the most intimate of kisses. Wolcroft chuckled at his guests’ reaction and, as his friends continued their embrace, crossed the room to sit on a sofa by the windows, the very picture of contented élan.
‘My,’ breathed Raquel at the kiss’s ending. She seemed pleased but, Harry thought, a touch surprised. ‘Such passion,’ she said.
The driver, half-smiling, smoothed the heavy coils of her hair. ‘The journey has refreshed me.’
She frowned. ‘You do not look refreshed, querido. On the contrary, you look quite ragged.’
His dark eyes lifted to Tina. ‘That shall change.’
Raquel turned within the compass of his embrace. Pressing back against his chest, she examined the young woman before her.
Tina did not take her eyes from the driver, who she was regarding with fury. Seemingly amused at her rage, he murmured into Raquel’s ear, ‘Isn’t she luminous?’
‘She is like a candle.’
‘Cornelius found her.’
Harry felt another blaze of anger at this horrible reduction of Tina to nothing but a thing – but before he could protest, Ursula Lyndon swept ahead of him. ‘Oh, but Miss Kelly is just my companion,’ she said. ‘I am Lord Wolcroft’s guest.’ She advanced on Raquel, offering her hand. ‘Miss Ursula Lyndon,’ she said.
Raquel retreated with a grimace of almost fear. ‘What did you bring that here for?’
‘Raquel,’ tutted the carriage driver as he shut the secret door, ‘be polite.’ He gave Ursula a wry look. ‘Try not to take offence, ma’am. Raquel is not keen on contact with the elderly.’ He offered his own very dark hand. ‘I, however, should be quite happy to take an introduction.’
Ursula’s gloved fingers curled in on themselves. Harry was sure she was about to withdraw, but she stepped forward, her chin up. ‘I seem to have been mistaken as to your identity, sir,’ she said, as she and the driver shook hands. ‘I had taken you for a servant – it would appear that I was wrong?’
‘You would refuse my hand were I a servant?’ he asked.
‘I … I do not think you would have offered it, were you so.’
‘Because I would have known my place? Yet you offer me your hand. What is your place, then? Do you consider yourself more than a servant? My equal, perhaps?’
Ursula’s cheeks flared red. Her mouth formed around unspoken words.
‘Let her go,’ whispered Tina. ‘You don’t need her now you have me.’
Chuckling, Vincent put his arm around Miss Ursula. The old woman made an uncertain noise but allowed it. ‘Oh, but she is necessary.’ Vincent grinned at Raquel. ‘We are to have a séance, meu amor. Miss Lyndon has proved quite the expert with the spirit board.’
Raquel huffed. ‘Spirits. Did we not have our fill of those during Cornelius’ witchcraft years?’
‘Raquel,’ protested Wolcroft mildly. ‘Witchcraft indeed.’
‘A sliver of wood pushed about a table shall hardly provide the answer to our decline! Sorcery never yielded reward before, why should it now?’
‘Because,’ said Vincent, ‘Cornelius has found himself a seer.’
Raquel’s eyes widened, and she turned to Tina. ‘Oh,’ she breathed. ‘Is that what she is?’
Ursula Lyndon followed her bright-eyed gaze. ‘But …’ she said, looking Tina up and down. ‘She …’
Vincent swung the old woman towards the door. ‘Go and get your things,’ he urged. ‘Set up the board. Let us discover what the girl can see.’
‘Now?’ whispered Ursula.
‘When else?’
‘Well …’ She seemed to gather her dignity. ‘Might one be offered a cup of tea? A morsel to eat?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Raquel.
‘But we’ve been travelling for days!’ cried Harry.
‘Come now,’ said Wolcroft, still sprawled on the sofa. ‘It has been a long journey. Our guests are fragile. Surely we can offer them a bite to eat?’ At Raquel’s silence, he lost his smile. ‘Raquel, I messaged in advance. You knew full well—’
Raquel occupied herself with smoothing the doll’s petticoats. ‘Rats got into the pantry,’ she said. ‘They ate it all.’
Wolcroft leapt to his feet. ‘We cannot just let them starve! That would be intolerably cruel!’
The carriage driver held a hand up to calm him. ‘Peadar will send to the big town, cully. There shall be supplies here within two days – unless the snow hems us in.’
‘Two days? Captain, you know what outsiders are like! They cannot wait that long. I messaged you to order food, Raquel! I asked that you order in firewood! Tell me you at least have their rooms made up!’
Raquel refused to meet his eye. ‘You said not in the house. That is what you said.’
Wolcroft spun to the driver as if s
eeking support, and the dark-skinned man sighed. ‘Oh, very well. You go and find them rooms, cully. Let them rest awhile. I will speak with Luke. Perhaps he can come up with something in the way of vitals for them.’
Raquel looked from under her eyelashes. ‘Put the crone upstairs,’ she said. ‘Where she belongs.’
Harry did not like her expression. Without thinking, he took Ursula Lyndon’s hand. The old woman didn’t object. ‘Where Miss Lyndon goes, we go. Right, Tina?’ He glanced at Tina, who all this time had not taken her eyes from the carriage driver. ‘Right?’ he said. She finally turned her attention to him. ‘We’re going with Miss Lyndon, right?’
She nodded, slow and careful, and made her way to his side.
‘We stay with Miss U,’ she whispered.
WOLCROFT LED THE way upstairs. He took each step lightly and with grace, no longer seeming to need his cane, but the hem of his elegant morning coat was filthy, his shoulders smeared with green as if he had been flung against a mossy wall.
The walls of the stairwell were lined with paintings: Wolcroft, Raquel, Vincent and the children, their portraits repeated over and over, a multitude of faces gazing down. Even the man called Luke had his own assortment of images. There was another face, too, repeated on the walls: a young man of perhaps seventeen, darkish-blond hair, wryly smiling eyes, the same amused warmth shining from each painting.
Could this be Matthew? wondered Harry. There was no resemblance between poor Joe and the boy in these paintings, but looking around the walls, Harry couldn’t imagine who else the chap might be.
The family seemed to have a penchant for theatrics, especially the adults. Vincent and Cornelius in particular seemed to have gone through quite a phase of dressing themselves in old-time costumes, like Shakespearian actors. Harry passed a portrait of Vincent grinning, a cutlass resting across his knee, a pearl earring dangling from one ear. The name of the artist and the date had been scratched from the corner.
Harry slowed. His eyes leapt from painting to painting: none were dated. He turned to look at the portraits on the opposite wall. He looked back down the way he had come. He must have passed at least a dozen paintings of each person on the way up: a dozen Raquels, a dozen Vincents, at least a dozen Wolcrofts. Yet they all seemed the same age as now. Surely they hadn’t had all these portraits done at the same time?
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