The Locket of Dreams

by Belinda Murrell

  Sophie woke with an aching head, her pillow wet with tears. She took the locket off and held it in her hand, feeling its weight. Should she put the locket away in its oak box? Did she really want to know the rest of Charlotte’s story?

  But could she bear not to know? Could she bear never to go back to the past?

  Sophie thought of her own family’s problems. She had tried to ignore these for months but learning about Charlotte’s family dramas had made her realise her own troubles were not going to go away.

  Her dad, Jack, had lost his marketing job six months ago, when his company had gone bankrupt. At first he had been cheery and optimistic, telling the girls that it would not take him long to find another job. He had dressed in his suit every day and read the newspaper, circling all the jobs he would apply for.

  He had visited headhunters (apparently these were people who helped you find jobs, not cannibals) and made hundreds of phone calls. He had attended interview after interview, only to be told he was over-qualified for the job and the economy was depressed.

  Sophie’s mum, Karen, had worked part-time as a graphic artist, but was now working full-time to pay the mortgage and bills and buy the groceries. There was not enough money to pay for everything, so the family had to economise. First went the ballet and piano lessons, then over time, more and more changes had to be made.

  Karen made lots of different meals with cheap mince, and one Sophie and Jess jokingly called ‘dead vegetable soup’, made from the weekly leftovers. There was no money for treats such as going to the movies, buying new clothes or books or even takeaway.

  As the months sped by, Jack had fallen into a deep depression. He spent half the day in his pyjamas and had taken to reading the sport and comics in the newspaper, instead of the business and jobs pages. The highlight of his day was watching mindless programs on television and he had started to yell at the children, making everyone feel miserable.

  The decision had been made that after the holidays, Sophie and Jess would have to leave their expensive private school and go to the local public school, leaving all their friends. Sophie’s stomach filled with butterflies whenever she thought about it. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  Last week she had heard her parents fighting over the credit card bills. Her mother suggested they should sell their home and rent somewhere cheaper until Jack found another job. Jack had shouted back, then stormed out of the house. He had returned hours later, quiet and withdrawn.

  Karen had decided it might be nicer for the girls to stay with Nonnie for two weeks, to give them all a break. Sophie was scared of what was happening at home. She worried they might lose their home; she worried her parents might break up; she worried her dad was so sick and sad that her old cheerful, happy dad would never come back.

  Sophie put the locket back on, pulled the covers over her head and thought of Charlotte losing her father, Alexander Mackenzie.

  When Sophie returned, it was five days after Alexander’s death. His brother, Roderick, and sister-in-law, Arabella, had come to stay for the funeral.

  Eliza had washed and dressed her husband’s body in a white sleeping gown and he lay in the drawing room. For five days, Eliza had sat with her husband, keeping a vigil. Around her the servants crept anxiously, attending to all the many duties of a house in mourning.

  There were letters to write, cards of condolence to open, messages to be sent to the far corners of Britain, the funeral to organise, mourning clothes to be ordered.

  At last Eliza left her husband’s side. She wandered down the hall into Alexander’s study, to find Roderick rifling through the papers on the desk. Eliza froze with indignation.

  ‘Ah, Eliza,’ Roderick said, quickly covering up a letter he had been reading. ‘How are you, my dear?’

  ‘Roderick, I would greatly appreciate it if you could try to keep your long nose out of my husband’s private papers,’ snapped Eliza.

  ‘My dear Eliza, I’m only trying to help,’ retorted Roderick. ‘At a time like this you need all the support you can get, and of course it’s too much to expect you to grasp Alexander’s complex business affairs.’

  ‘Why? Because I am a woman?’ asked Eliza, dangerously polite.

  ‘Well, yes, of course,’ replied Roderick smugly. ‘It’s much too complicated for your delicate sensibilities at this time.’

  ‘It is too much for my delicate sensibilities to have you pawing through my dead husband’s things, so I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave me alone for a few moments.’

  Roderick could do nothing but agree, albeit with bad grace, and leave the room.

  Eliza picked up the paper Roderick had been reading. It was one of the crofter’s tenancy contracts. Next time Roderick surreptitiously tried the study door, he found it firmly locked.

  That evening at dinner, Eliza toyed with her food, hardly eating anything. Arabella chatted cheerily, ostentatiously flaunting the brand-new black of her mourning gown. The black silk dramatically emphasised her pale skin, black hair and slim figure.

  Sophie floated restlessly around the dining room, causing the candles to flicker and gutter.

  ‘There seems to be a terrible draught in this room, Eliza,’ complained Arabella. ‘I do not know how you can bear it.’

  Eliza also wore head-to-toe dull black, as was expected of a widow. The dressmaker and her assistants had spent days and nights sewing the required mourning gowns for Eliza, Charlotte and Nell. While adults wore black for mourning, children usually wore white.

  The girls sat quietly, joining the adults for dinner but saying very little.

  ‘I wonder, my dear Eliza, what you will do now with the girls,’ quizzed Arabella, her black feather headdress bobbing. ‘I suppose you will be sending them to boarding school. I know an excellent boarding school in Edinburgh that is marvellous for teaching dancing and deportment.

  ‘Goodness knows, Charlotte and Nell could do with some help there,’ she continued. ‘They will never find a husband unless they learn to walk like ladies.’ She trilled with laughter.

  Eliza flushed with mortification. One of the candles on the mantelpiece flickered and went out.

  ‘No thank you, Arabella,’ replied Eliza with difficulty. ‘Charlotte and Nell will stay here at home with me.’

  ‘Oh, I wonder if you do not die of boredom, here in the middle of nowhere,’ Arabella said. ‘Well, of course, as a widow you will not be able to go to parties or balls for a year.

  ‘I suppose you will want to move to Glasgow or Edinburgh. You may meet some eligible older gentlemen there. After all, you are not so very old now, and I am sure you would wish to remarry in time.’

  Charlotte clenched her fists under the table with fury and Nell gasped with shock, tears welling. Sophie floated behind Charlotte and Nell, stunned by how insensitive and insufferable Arabella was. She longed to touch the girls on the shoulder or the back to comfort them.

  ‘Thank you, Arabella, for thinking of me,’ answered Eliza through clenched teeth. ‘But as my husband has only just died and is not yet buried, I had not planned so far ahead quite yet.’

  Arabella blushed at the rebuke and fell silent.

  ‘I have been meaning to talk to you, Eliza,’ began Roderick, his fork picking over his fish.

  ‘Yes, Roderick?’

  ‘It is about the Dungorm jewels,’ Roderick continued. ‘Of course, as a widow you will not wear any jewels for a very long time, and I believe they would be much safer stored away in a bank vault. I know an excellent bank in Edinburgh and could happily arrange their safekeeping there.’

  Arabella nearly purred with pleasure. Eliza’s head jerked up in shock.

  ‘Of course, you could always send for them when you are ready to start wearing them again,’ added Roderick hurriedly.

  Eliza breathed deeply and evenly before replying. Sophie hovered behind Eliza’s chair wondering how Eliza would react.

  ‘My husband brought me my jewels as a wedding present.’

&
nbsp; ‘Exactly,’ Roderick replied. ‘Which is why we want to keep them safely in the bank.’

  ‘I do not want …’ Eliza paused, took a breath and then continued. ‘I do not want the jewels my husband gave me as a gift of his love to moulder away in a bank vault, nor to be worn by your wife to fancy Edinburgh soirees.

  ‘I am quite happy to keep them here where they belong, so at least if I cannot wear them, I can be delighted by their beauty to remind me of what once was.’

  ‘Quite,’ Roderick responded. Arabella deflated rapidly, shooting a poisonous look at her husband.

  Eliza rose to her feet, her napkin dropping to the floor.

  ‘If you will excuse me, Charlotte and Nell, I find I have a migraine coming on.’

  Charlotte and Nell glanced at each other in concern. Their mother never had migraines.

  Sophie smiled to herself. She felt Eliza had come out the best from her encounters with Roderick and Arabella Mackenzie. Sophie felt a moment of wickedness come over her, and she carefully tugged gently at the plate of salmon placed in front of Arabella.

  At first nothing happened. Sophie tried harder. The plate teetered for a moment on the edge of the table. Sophie concentrated really hard and smash, the plate tumbled into Arabella’s lap, basting her in dripping fish juices and lumps of flesh.

  ‘Something touched me!’ Arabella shrieked loudly. ‘Something knocked my plate down. Oh, my gown!’

  Sophie swooped in glee and floated up to the ceiling. Charlotte and Nell giggled audibly then coughed loudly into their napkins. They had not smiled for what seemed a very long time.

  ‘There now, Arabella,’ soothed her husband. ‘I think you are a little overwrought. Why don’t you go upstairs and have a rest?’

  Sophie knew that if she fell asleep wearing the gold locket in her own world, she fell down through a tunnel of sleep into Charlotte’s world. In the past she had simply swooped up again, like flying in a dream, through the tunnel and back to her own bed.

  But several nights had gone by and Sophie sensed that there was much more to Charlotte’s story. Sophie decided she would try not to go home to the future, to Australia, to Nonnie’s apartment. Instead she would see how long she could stay in Charlotte’s world, in nineteenth-century Scotland.

  Time seemed to run differently in the different worlds. The first night, her visit had been very short, perhaps an hour or so. Her later visits had been progressively longer.

  With each visit she had seemed to grow more substantial in the past world. Instead of merely being a misty onlooker, now she could actually make things happen if she concentrated hard enough.

  She had saved Eliza from falling down the stairs and tipped Arabella’s dinner in her lap. Perhaps, if she tried through force of will, she could stay longer in the past and learn all there was to learn about Charlotte Mackenzie of Dungorm.

  The next day was the hardest of all: the funeral.

  Once more the day dawned grey and drizzly, as most days did in Scotland in late autumn. All was black and grey. It was hard to believe that it was only a little less than a week since Alexander had been alive and well and making jokes at the breakfast table.

  The carriage came around to the front door, its black paintwork gleaming and speckled with raindrops. Two other wagons stood ready, both draped in black crepe.

  All the horses had been brushed until they shone, with black ribbon plaited into their manes and tails, and long black feather plumes attached to their bridles. The drivers, dressed in frockcoats and top hats, stood at the horses’ heads, soothing them.

  The servants, dressed in black, lined the steps, forming a guard of honour. Four servants carried the timber coffin out of the house and down the stairs, and carefully arranged it on the back of the first wagon. Uncle Roderick followed and climbed into the carriage behind.

  As was custom, the women did not attend the funeral ceremony but stayed at home to grieve in private. Charlotte watched the sombre cavalcade from the window of her mother’s bedroom, tears rolling down her face. Eliza stood beside Charlotte, twisting her handkerchief into sodden knots.

  Nell sat in a chair, staring into the fire, her face swollen and tear stained. She could not bear to watch the coffin being taken away.

  Sophie hovered anxiously, helpless to do anything to alleviate the overwhelming grief of the family. Charlotte turned suddenly and glanced sharply at the space where Sophie was, but, seeing nothing, turned her eyes back to the window, to watch the servants outside file over to the last wagon and climb up.

  The cavalcade set off, clopping sedately down the gravel drive. Sophie decided to follow it, to escape into the fresh air and see what happened.

  Sophie slipped out through the wall and flew over the iron-grey loch, whipped by the wind into small white-capped waves. She saw the majestic ruins of Castle Dungorm on its tiny island, seabirds swooping around its shattered keep and tumbled stones.

  The carriage trundled on past the rolling green pastures, dotted with black-faced sheep huddled against the cold, and the hills where Nell and Charlotte had raced their ponies last spring.

  The horses clopped further, their heads bobbing up and down, through a set of ornate wrought-iron gates flanked by tall sandstone pillars, with a small gatehouse on the left. Sophie floated behind.

  The road twisted to the right towards the village, but the cavalcade stopped at the small stone kirk, with its ancient stained-glass windows and higgledy-piggledy graveyard.

  Despite the steadily falling rain, the kirkyard was filled with local villagers, fishermen, crofters and tradesmen, all dressed in their Sunday best. A number of carriages and horses were tethered in the meadow across the road, indicating that more people were inside the building.

  A villager dressed in a kilt and tam-o’-shanter stood to the side of the kirk door playing a lament on the bagpipes. The haunting, mournful music wafted out over the kirkyard, through the rain and up over the hills, sending shivers up Sophie’s spine.

  The coffin was ceremoniously carried into the kirk, followed by Roderick Mackenzie. Once he was seated, the villagers came crowding in to stand at the back and sides of the small kirk. Sophie gazed about her intently, trying to guess the occupations of the locals by their dress and demeanour.

  The service was long and wordy, punctuated by muffled coughs and sniffs. Then it was over and the coffin was carried out once more, followed by the subdued congregation.

  At the end of the kirkyard, under a huge old oak tree, a marble crypt had been built. The piper played a sombre tune as Alexander’s coffin was carried into the crypt and laid to rest on a stone plinth.

  An ornate headstone behind the coffin had words freshly carved into one half of the stone.

  Alexander James Mackenzie, Laird of Dungorm

  Born 2.8.1816

  Died 7.10.1857

  Beloved husband of Eliza Mackenzie

  Beloved father of Charlotte and Eleanor

  But boundless oceans, roaring wide,

  Between my love and me,

  They never, never can divide

  My heart and soul from thee.

  Luceo non Uro

  A stone carving of an angel guarded the grave, her wings spread protectively behind her back.

  The other half of the stone was chillingly bare, and below it was the empty half of the plinth, waiting for another coffin to fill it. Sophie shivered in the cold, dark air of the crypt. She flew outside to escape the last of the service, followed by the haunting song of the bagpipe, and swiftly soared back to Charlotte and Dungorm.

  Charlotte was woken by a scream, which was quickly cut short. It clawed through the exhausted, miserable fug of her brain and brought her to instant wakefulness. She slithered out of bed, pulled a shawl around her white nightdress and slipped her feet into the slippers by her bed.

  Sophie was instantly alert, her heart pounding.

  Charlotte tiptoed out of their room, careful not to wake the still-sleeping Nell, and down the brightly lit hallway.
A muffled cry came from a room further down the hall.

  Charlotte crept down the hallway, past several closed doors, paintings and portraits and the top of the sweeping staircase. Unbeknownst to Charlotte, Sophie followed right behind her, her bare feet nearly skimming the carpet.

  Her heart like a stone at the bottom of her stomach, Charlotte paused outside her mother’s room and listened at the door. She could hear odd, muffled noises and a small cry of distress. She turned the knob and flung the door open, almost falling in her haste.

  Eliza was in bed, in her long nightgown, the covers tumbled and knotted. Her hair was tangled and her face shone with moisture. Nanny sat beside the bed, bathing Eliza’s face with a damp cloth and murmuring soothing words.

  Eliza clutched Nanny’s left hand so tightly both their fingers were bloodless and white.

  ‘I will ring for the surgeon –’ Nanny began.

  ‘No,’ Eliza retorted forcefully. Then she let go of Nanny’s hand, collapsing back against the pillows.

  Charlotte sprang forward with a cry of horror, Sophie beside her.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ panted Eliza breathlessly. ‘Do not worry. Mama is not feeling very well but Nanny is looking after me, so you can go back to sleep. I am sure I will be much better in the morning.’

  Charlotte looked at Nanny for confirmation. Nanny nodded, but swiftly glanced away.

  ‘Give me a kiss, darling, and go back to bed,’ Eliza continued. She gave Charlotte a strained smile as Charlotte kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘I love you, darling,’ Eliza said. ‘Do not worry; everything will be fine.’

  Charlotte stepped away from the bed, looking back uncertainly at her mother. Nanny stood up and followed her to the door, shooing her out gently. Nanny and Sophie followed Charlotte into the hall.

  ‘Miss Charlotte, dear,’ Nanny whispered, ‘I wonder if ye could do me a wee favour and ring the bell for Wilson. I want ye to ask him to send one o’ the lads riding at once to the mainland for the surgeon. Lady Dungorm is no’ well, and I am thinking it would be best if the surgeon came quickly.’