The Dead of Winter

by Chris Priestley

  With that he turned and climbed the stairs, slowly at first, but with a gradually quickening step until by the top step he was almost running. Within seconds he was gone.

  I wondered how unhinged my guardian’s mind might be. I was still a little shaken. The way he loomed over me on the stairs – I could believe him to be dangerous. I looked to Charlotte, who was still gazing up towards the top of the stairs. She took a weary breath and then turned to face me. I thought she would be angry that I again seemed to have been the unwitting cause of one of Sir Stephen’s nervous attacks, but I was wrong.

  ‘Come along, Michael,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘I know for a fact that Mrs Guston has a large piece of pie left over. You will never taste a better apple pie in all England, I promise you.’

  We walked those few steps, Charlotte’s arm through mine as if we were old friends, and by the time we reached the warmth of the kitchen I was once more at my ease.

  ‘I’m afraid I have things I must attend to,’ said Charlotte. With that she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, which blushed instantly at the touch of her lips.

  She smiled at my embarrassment and, without saying another word, turned and walked away, her dress whispering quietly against the floor tiles, like children in a church.

  Mrs Guston’s apple pie was every bit as excellent as Charlotte had promised and I confirmed that to the cook herself, who stood over me, hands on hips, while I ate. She turned out to be a very friendly woman indeed, fussing about me and clapping her hands together every now and then, causing small explosions of flour.

  ‘It’s lovely to have a young lad in the house again, Master Michael,’ she said. ‘There hasn’t been a child in the house since Sir Stephen and Charlotte were youngsters. And me and Hodges along with them.’

  ‘You have been in the house since you were a child as well, Mrs Guston?’ I asked, taking a swig of milk.

  ‘Well, since I was about your age,’ she said. ‘My mother was cook then, and I worked in the kitchen. Mr Hodges was a pageboy for Sir Stephen’s father. There’s a painting of him in the morning room.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen it.’

  Mrs Guston’s tone had changed as she’d mentioned Sir Stephen’s father and her expression soured. It was plain that she hadn’t been at all fond of him and Mrs Guston did not strike me as a person who disliked people without reason. I had the same impression from Hodges. I wondered if the grimness of the house was his legacy.

  ‘We had some happy times back then,’ said Mrs Guston. ‘We still do on this side of that door.’ She nodded to the kitchen door. ‘But the house has become a sad old place, Michael. It needs children. A house needs children.’

  ‘Did Sir Stephen and Lady Clarendon not want children?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, Lady Margaret was desperate for a child, God rest her soul,’ said Mrs Guston. ‘It’s just a pity that you couldn’t have come here when she was alive. Oh, it was a different place then, Master Michael.’

  She had her back to me at this point but I saw her lift a cloth to her eyes and her voice was breaking as she spoke.

  ‘There’s not a day goes by when I don’t think of her,’ she said. ‘She was the kindest person you could ever meet. But she was too good for this house.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  Mrs Guston turned and I saw the tears twinkling in her eyes.

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ she said. ‘I’m a silly old thing.’ But then her face became serious. Her rosy cheeks seemed suddenly to dim. ‘Nothing will make me understand how she could do it.’

  ‘Do what, Mrs Guston?’ I said.

  ‘How she could –’

  ‘Mrs Guston,’ said Charlotte, coming into the kitchen. Mrs Guston jumped to attention, dropping the cloth and busying herself. ‘Could you make a pot of tea for Sir Stephen?’

  ‘Of course, ma’am,’ she said.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Charlotte asked, looking from the cook to me and then back again.

  ‘Oh, quite all right, ma’am,’ said the cook. ‘I was chopping onions, is all.’

  Charlotte smiled and left. Mrs Guston took a deep breath and smiled at me.

  ‘Never mind me, sir,’ she said. ‘I’m just a silly old so-and-so. You run along now, Master Michael.’

  Chapter Ten

  Sir Stephen did not join Charlotte and me for dinner that evening, but he certainly made an appearance in my dreams that night, looming out of shadows and scuttling up darkened stairways like a hideous insect.

  It was starting to feel as though some monstrous joke was being played on me: to have the benefit of a wealthy benefactor, but to find that benefactor seemingly a step away from the madhouse. What good was a guardian who was so deranged? What crazy purpose did he have for me at that house and how long must I wait to discover it?

  I breakfasted alone the following morning. Clarence waited for me in the hall now, expecting to be patted before I went into the dining room. I was happy to oblige.

  I returned to my room and spent the next few hours leafing through some books I had brought there from the library. I was particularly taken with a book by the famous artist and travel writer Arthur Weybridge, about his adventures in Asia Minor. It was dedicated to his son, Francis, who had died in tragic circumstances on the expedition.

  But Francis’s fate notwithstanding, I was enchanted with the wonderful drawings of those exotic locations and the descriptions of what he found there. The Turkish heat seemed to shimmer before my eyes. What a contrast with cold, damp Hawton Mere. It made me yearn to travel.

  Eventually I made my way towards the dining room for lunch, hurrying past the door that led to Sir Stephen’s tower. As I did so, it occurred to me that, since the tower had loomed above it, I must be near the room that led on to the stone balcony from which I had seen something fall the day before.

  Sure enough there was a doorway not far from where I stood, which must, I reasoned, be the one, but when I tried the door I found it locked. I gave up and carried on my way.

  At the top of the stairs that took me down to the hall, I paused to look at the curious grandfather clock with its image of a smiling sun above the left side of the face, and of a sad-looking moon and stars on the right. The moon reminded me a little of Hodges and I smiled to myself at the thought.

  I was standing admiring it when I heard a noise below and walked down the stairs thinking I might find Clarence the wolfhound. But when I got there, I could see nothing but my reflection in the big old mirror that lived in the perpetual shade of the staircase. I was about to walk on when I saw a shape move in the glass behind me.

  I turned but there was no one there. I stepped round the staircase to check the hall, but it was deserted. I went back to the mirror and looked at it once more. To my amazement, the shadowy figure was there again. It was clearer now, although still dark and still stretching and twisting. Distorted or not, as I approached the glass I could tell the shape was that of a boy, though utterly malevolent and pent up with a kind of poorly suppressed rage that almost bent his body in two and turned his hands to claws.

  One moment it appeared as no more than a shadowy boy, the next it was barely human. No matter how hard I tried to focus on its features, the shadowed reflection was forever blurred and indistinct, as if it were liquid constantly on the verge of dissolving into the blackness around it.

  Suddenly the reflected boy-creature lurched forward and my heart skipped a beat. The glass bent and bubbled, flexed and juddered, as though it could not bear the task of mirroring that thing, and before I could step away, with a great crack it shattered as if struck by a hammer.

  The noise brought Hodges running from the courtyard and Charlotte from the morning room. They found me, arms raised in front my face, standing stunned in the aftermath of the mirror’s destruction, shards of glass still tinkling at my feet.

  ‘What on earth has happened here?’ said Charlotte, looking at the mirror and then at me. ‘What have you done, M
ichael?’

  ‘Me?’ I said, lowering my arms. ‘I’ve done nothing, I promise you.’

  ‘Did the glass break itself then?’ she said. ‘Really. Is this how you repay Sir Stephen’s kindness? That frightful nonsense yesterday and now this. I am surprised at you, Michael.’

  ‘I didn’t break the glass,’ I said.

  ‘Then who did?’ she asked.

  I looked at Charlotte and back to the glass strewn at my feet. I did not know what to say. I wasn’t sure what I had seen. The anxiety induced by the reflection was still with me.

  ‘There was something in the mirror,’ I said. ‘A boy.’

  ‘A boy? A boy?’ said Charlotte angrily. ‘What silliness is this? The only boy in this house is you.’

  ‘I did see him,’ was all I could say.

  ‘He’s hurt, miss,’ said Hodges, stepping forward.

  It was then I noticed that blood was trickling down my face. One of the pieces of glass must have hit me when the mirror smashed.

  ‘Why in heaven’s name would you do such a thing, Michael?’ said Charlotte, grabbing my arm tightly. ‘I simply do not understand it. What am I to say to Sir Stephen?’

  ‘Master Michael is hurt,’ said Hodges more forcefully, pulling me away until she loosened her grip and stood looking dazed. ‘I’ll take him to the kitchen.’

  Charlotte seemed to calm herself at Hodges’ intervention.

  ‘Very well,’ she consented. ‘Very well. See to him, Hodges.’ Then, addressing me again, she said, ‘Sir Stephen will be very disappointed.’ With a slight quiver in her voice, she added, ‘I am very disappointed.’

  With these words Charlotte straightened the folds of her dress, before turning on the spot and drifting off. Blood trickled into my eye, making her blur and shudder as she disappeared.

  Hodges took me to the kitchen and Mrs Guston clapped her hands against her bosom, producing a cloud of flour behind which she all but disappeared.

  ‘Lord above,’ she gasped, coming towards us. ‘Whatever has happened now? I heard such a terrible crash.’

  ‘The mirror in the hall has smashed,’ said Hodges matter-of-factly. ‘Master Michael has a cut to his face. It is nothing serious, Mrs Guston. I know it isn’t your area, but could I ask you to organise the tidying up of the glass while I see to Master Michael?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, waving her hands in the air to reveal two large white handprints on her chest. ‘Of course. Edith! Edith!’

  With that, Mrs Guston took off to marshal the servants. Hodges soaked a piece of muslin in something from a brown bottle and held it to my forehead, making me wince.

  ‘I should have mentioned that might sting, sir,’ he said with a smile.

  I smiled back.

  ‘It’s only a scratch,’ he said. ‘You’ll be fine, sir. Hold that tight till it stops leaking.’

  I sat by the fire and took hold of the swab of muslin and did as I was bidden. Hodges came and sat next to me. He poked at the coals for a few moments.

  ‘What happened with the mirror, Master Michael?’ Hodges asked. ‘I know you didn’t break it. What did you mean when you said there was a boy?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. Sure as I was of what I had seen, I knew how implausible it sounded.

  Hodges looked at the floor and interlaced his fingers.

  ‘Come now, Master Michael,’ he said in a whisper. ‘There’s something happening here. I don’t claim to know what it is, but there is certainly something. Jerwood told me that you heard banging behind the panelling of the priest hole. Is that why you went back there yesterday?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, frowning. ‘Not that anyone would believe me.’

  Hodges gave me a long hard look.

  ‘Sir Stephen hears banging,’ he said. ‘It’s part of his condition, the doctor says.’ He leaned a little more towards me. ‘But how can that be if you can hear it too?’

  I didn’t know how to respond to that.

  Hodges shook his head.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me exactly what you saw in that mirror?’

  I had been reluctant to agree at first, knowing how unbelievable it sounded. I had trouble believing it myself. But I now knew I was not alone in my experiences, and besides, there was relief to be had from sharing this burden, so I took it.

  ‘I thought I saw a boy, but the mirror seemed to be twisting the reflection.’ I frowned, trying to remember. ‘No – only that part of it was twisted. There was a boy and then it was something else, something like a creature …’

  ‘A creature?’ said Hodges. ‘What sort of creature?’

  ‘I can’t say. Some strange thing,’ I said. ‘I … I don’t know what it was. It … It climbed the wall like a great spider.’

  Hodges looked as troubled by this account as though he had seen it with his own eyes.

  ‘Sweet Jesus,’ he muttered.

  ‘So you believe me, Hodges?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know what to believe, Master Michael,’ he replied, grimacing. ‘But I think I know a person’s character well enough and I don’t see you as a liar or a fool. And I know – we all do – that something is not right in this house.’

  ‘Mr Jerwood said the priest hole had a special significance to Sir Stephen,’ I said. ‘What did he mean?’

  I saw Hodges take a furtive glance towards Mrs Guston, who had just walked within earshot of our conversation. I saw too that she nodded in reply to his unspoken question.

  ‘It’s not right to speak ill of the dead, but Sir Stephen’s father was a cruel man,’ said Hodges. ‘He was hard and brutal. He felt that his wife treated Miss Charlotte and Sir Stephen – and particularly Sir Stephen – with too much tenderness. He was obsessed with instilling some kind of toughness in him.

  ‘But rather than making Sir Stephen tougher, he broke something in him: something that has never ever truly repaired itself.’

  Hodges was lost in his memories for a moment.

  ‘Tell the boy about what happened that Christmas,’ said Mrs Guston, walking towards us.

  ‘I was getting to that in my way, thank you, Mrs Guston,’ said Hodges. ‘And is that meant to be burning?’

  Mrs Guston let out a shriek when she saw smoke drifting up from the oven and Hodges allowed himself a not unfriendly grin.

  ‘As I was about to say, Michael,’ said Hodges, ‘it all came to a head one Christmas. Sir Stephen would have been your age. He’d been having a terrible time from his father. He used to lie in his room, sobbing, poor thing.

  ‘I wasn’t much older than him myself and I felt awfully sorry for him. My father was a good man, and kind. I couldn’t understand how a father could treat his own son so badly.

  ‘Then, that Christmas, it must have all become too much for him, because Sir Stephen’s father walked into his study to find the whole place in a terrible state. Old Sir Stephen had been working on a history of his family and all his notes were strewn about the place and ripped into pieces. His books had been torn and spoiled.

  ‘The young master made no attempt to hide the fact that he had done it and, for the first time anyone could remember, he stood up to his father and showed some courage.

  ‘His father was furious. He dragged little Stephen kicking and screaming to the priest hole and threw him inside while his mother cried and begged her husband to be merciful.’

  Hodges paused here and shook his head at the memory. When he looked back at me I was surprised to see tears in his eyes.

  ‘Everyone at Hawton Mere knows the story of the priest hole, but it was only a little before this time that Sir Stephen’s father had unearthed it while researching his book. The priest hole had been sealed and painted over and forgotten about for centuries. It would have been a mercy for everyone if it had stayed that way.

  ‘It turned out that a Jesuit priest had hidden there when this house had been a Catholic stronghold. Queen Elizabeth’s soldiers had come and taken the family into custody, but though they searched the house, they n
ever did find the priest hole or the priest.

  ‘No one knows why the priest didn’t leave his hiding place. Maybe he was too scared. Maybe his mind had become unhinged. Whatever the reason, it was not until the family returned over a month later that the priest’s body was found. They say his face was frozen in a look of terror, his fingernails broken as he had tried to claw his way free.

  ‘In any event, Old Sir Stephen locked the young master in the priest hole and forbade anyone to go near the place. It was in the late afternoon and he did not allow his wife to release him until the following morning. Young Stephen hammered on those panels all night, poor little fellow.

  ‘When his mother opened the priest hole, he came rushing out like a wild animal. She tried to comfort him and he attacked her. He scratched her face and knocked her to the floor. It took my father and two other servants to hold him still. And all the time he stared back towards the priest hole.’

  I remembered my terror at being in that place – and that without knowing the terrible history of it – and had no difficulty understanding how Sir Stephen must have felt. I couldn’t help but have some sympathy for him.

  ‘Sir Stephen was never the same boy as he was before going in,’ said Hodges. ‘He has never been the same since. Father and son hardly exchanged a word after that and Sir Stephen took himself off into the army as soon as he could. He only came back for his father’s funeral.’

  Hodges swallowed as though tasting something particularly unpleasant.

  ‘What kind of a man would do that to his own son? I remember it like it was yesterday, Master Michael. A thing like that etches itself on to your brain.’

  He sighed and looked away towards the kitchen door.

  ‘I think the evil of it has etched into the very stones of this house.

  So it was with a heavy heart and with a goodly amount of trepidation that I made my way to the dining room that evening. But when I arrived I was relieved to find there was no sign of Sir Stephen, and at the end of the long table in that cavernous room was only one place setting, illuminated by a single candelabrum placed nearby.