The Dead of Winter

by Chris Priestley

  Hawton Mere looked as massive as ever. I found myself stopping and staring up at Sir Stephen’s spire-topped tower, wondering about the man inside and just what part he had played in the tragic events at the house. Was it grief or remorse that laid him low? Was it guilt that held him prisoner here?

  I rounded the whole house, edging past the bloated part of the moat. The ground near the water became more uneven and swamp-like with the frosted and blackened leaves and seed heads of reeds and bulrushes. I was forced further out into the surrounding marsh, stepping from hummock to hummock in avoidance of the frozen bog between.

  I eventually made my way back to the bridge and walked beyond it to stand beneath the window to my room. As I did so I realised that when I saw Lady Clarendon’s ghost, she was staring up intently at a certain part of the house and I had a suspicion what that might be.

  I walked back towards the bridge a few yards until I stood where I thought she had stood and looked up. There was the stone balcony, with an arched door leading on to it – the same place I had imagined seeing something fall.

  As I stood there gazing up at it, I heard a strange noise nearby. It began with a sound like chalk on a wet slate: a squeaking and squealing as the ice in front of me began to crack. The noise was so high-pitched that it was painful to hear and I placed my hands over my ears to shut it out.

  Looking down at the moat I saw something loom up out of the filthy depths of the water and up towards the thick ice. It was just a shape at first, a darkness in among the icy grey, but then it came into focus. Lady Clarendon’s face stared up at me from beneath the ice, not with wildness or with anger, but with a look of overwhelming sadness.

  I was filled with a stupefying terror. I could do nothing but stand and gape at this pitiful creature: pitiful but dreadful all the same, her skin blue-white, her limpid eyes red-rimmed under the layer of ice.

  I had an instant to take in her terrible, pale and tragic form: her wet hair floating beside her face, her hands reaching up towards the ice above her. And then it happened …

  I heard the faintest whispering behind me, as if a snake were sliding across the snow. The pressure on my back was almost imperceptible at first. It was like a breeze that gained in power with appalling suddenness until it shoved me forward, my shoes slithering at the snowy moat’s edge and my whole body sliding, slipping, falling feet first into the ice.

  The cold hit me like a kick from a carthorse, knocking the wind from my lungs and making it difficult to breathe as I tried and failed to gain purchase on the ice, which broke away at my touch, or upon the muddy bank. My clothes were so heavy with water; it was as though an anchor had been bound to my legs, for I struggled to keep even my upturned face above the water.

  My attempts to shout for help were pitiful. The cold and the fear had squeezed my lungs dry and I suddenly felt sure that this was my death: this was how I was to die. I was wheezing painfully now, the walls of the house high above me swirling in and out of view as I flailed around in desperation.

  All struggle spent, I could no longer keep my face afloat and as I sank beneath the black and icy waters of the moat I sensed my soul was already free and swimming away from me. It was like sleep and it did not feel so terrible.

  But suddenly I felt something grab me and drag me back from that watery fate. It seemed to take an age, as if I had already sunk to unfathomable depths and was being hauled up by rope.

  And then light and sound exploded all around me. The walls of the house were there once more, then gone, then towering over me again. Then a face loomed in front of me, blurred. A voice was calling my name. A dog – Clarence! – was barking excitedly.

  I felt so cold. I was lifted to my feet but I could not feel my legs to stand, and doubled over, vomiting a copious amount of the foul-tasting moat water into the snow at my feet.

  Powerful arms lifted me off the ground and began to walk with me towards the bridge. My head lolled backwards drunkenly and standing, just faintly visible at the mist’s edge, was the ghost, watching my departure.

  I raised my head to see who my rescuer was and the unmistakable craggy profile of Hodges came into focus.

  ‘We must get you to the house, Master Michael,’ he said, ‘and get you warm.’

  He carried me with no discernable effort and I felt like a small child again. I had a strange half-memory of my father carrying me like this when I was very small and the thought of it, and the misery of my condition, brought tears to my eyes.

  Hodges ran up the steps and kicked the door open. Edith was dusting in the hallway and looked terrified at our approach. I was more concerned that she had seen me crying and raised my arm to shield my face.

  ‘Hold that door open and fetch Mrs Guston, girl,’ shouted Hodges, making for the kitchen.

  Edith snapped into action, running to open the door for us, then followed after, shouting for the cook as Hodges took me over to the fire. When Edith came back with Mrs Guston, the cook shrieked with horror and told Edith to get blankets.

  I had not appreciated just how cold I had become until I entered the warmth of the kitchen. My whole body was now stinging painfully as though it were studded all over with rose thorns. My skin was a pale blue; a corpse would have looked livelier.

  Mrs Guston clucked and fussed about me as if I were a small child and I was happy to acquiesce. Tears welled in my eyes as my shoes and wet britches were taken and I was wrapped in a huge blanket by the roaring fire.

  ‘Fetch the lad some hot milk, Mrs Guston,’ said Hodges. ‘And a nip of brandy wouldn’t go amiss. I’ll have a glass myself.’

  ‘What is going on?’

  Charlotte drifted in. She had changed her dress again.

  ‘Master Michael slipped while out walking, ma’am,’ said Mrs Guston. ‘Mr Hodges pulled him out of the moat –’

  ‘Heaven be praised,’ said Charlotte, rushing forward. She gathered me up in a warm embrace and when she let me go I saw there were tears in her eyes. ‘You are not to go out there again. You are to go nowhere near that moat. You could have been killed. Oh, Michael, Michael. Promise me you will stay away from that moat.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ I replied hoarsely.

  ‘Edith!’ said Hodges, making the girl jump an inch or two in the air. ‘Don’t stand there gawping, girl. There’s work to do. And that goes for all of you!’

  He clapped his hands with a crack like a rifle shot and we all started at the sound and breathed once more. Then Hodges followed Charlotte out of the kitchen.

  I looked about me at the servants but no one seemed to want catch the eye of another and so I turned to the fire and watched the dancing flames. The warmth of the fire without, and the hot milk and brandy within, slowly did their work, and I fancied Death might have to come looking for me another day.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dry clothes were brought for me and the kitchen cleared of prying eyes so that I could change with some privacy. All the same I got undressed and redressed with the greatest possible haste, horribly concerned that Edith or Mrs Guston or Charlotte would wander in as I was halfway through the exercise.

  I need not have worried however. After a goodly amount of time, there was a knock at the door and Mrs Guston’s smiling face appeared.

  ‘All done, then?’ she asked.

  I said that I was ready and she breezed in followed by Edith, who, on Mrs Guston’s instructions, picked up my soaking wet clothes and carried them off. I decided to go back to my room, a little exhausted at being quite so on display.

  Edith had banked up the fire in my bedroom and I pulled a chair in front of it and sat cherishing the heat. My bones still felt chilled and I was in no hurry to move. While I sat there toasting my feet, there was a knock at the door and Hodges walked in.

  I made as if to stand up, but he raised his hands to stop me.

  ‘You don’t get up for me,’ he said.

  ‘I never thanked you for saving my life,’ I said.

  ‘I was glad to do it,�
�� he replied. ‘Though it’s Clarence you really have to thank.’

  ‘Really?’ I said with raised eyebrows. ‘How?’

  ‘I’d never have heard you, sir,’ said Hodges. ‘These walls are so thick, you can’t hear a thing from one side of the house to the other. No – it was Clarence who heard and it was Clarence who started barking and howling and told me something was amiss. You can’t spend too long in water that cold without going under for good. A few more seconds and it would have been too late.’

  Hodges broke off here and looked into the fire and I saw him swallow dryly.

  ‘I wish to God that I could have got to Lady Clarendon as quickly.’

  ‘Lady Clarendon?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Has no one told you, Master Michael?’ said Hodges. ‘That’s how she died. She took her own life. She jumped into the moat, God bless her. What a way to go!’

  So that was why her ghost was always dripping wet and why she haunted the moat’s edge. I pictured poor Lady Clarendon’s pallid features staring up at me from under the ice.

  ‘I was too late for her, sir,’ he continued. ‘She was already dead when I pulled her out.’

  The memory of fighting for purchase on those floating fragments of ice and the terrible blackness of the water came back to me in a surge and I shivered.

  ‘It’s a strange thing, sir,’ said Hodges, as if he were talking to the fire.

  ‘What is, Hodges?’ I said.

  He looked at me with great earnestness.

  ‘The place you fell, sir,’ he said. ‘That was the self-same place Her Ladyship came down into the moat. The self-same place.’

  I thought of the balcony and realised that it must have been from there that Lady Clarendon had jumped. Hodges looked at me with intense scrutiny.

  ‘I saw her, Hodges,’ I said. ‘I saw her under the ice before I fell.’

  Hodges’ eyes brimmed full of tears and it was such a tragic sight in a man so rugged that I felt tears sting my eyes too.

  I paused here, not quite knowing how to tell him about the other times without adding to his grief, but I felt he had to know the truth. When I had finished describing what I had seen, how I now knew it was Lady Clarendon I had seen on the road to Hawton Mere that first night, he hung his head and sobbed like a child.

  After a few moments he took a deep breath and stood up, wiping his tears with the back of his hand.

  ‘Is there anything you require, Master Michael?’ he said, returning in an instant to his usual role.

  ‘No thank you, Hodges,’ I said.

  ‘Then I will be on my way, sir,’ he said with a small bow. ‘Edith will come by from time to time to check on you. Good day, sir.’

  ‘Thank you again, Hodges,’ I said. ‘For saving my life.’

  He paused at the door and looked back at me. ‘What does she want, Master Michael?’ he asked.

  It was a question I had already pondered myself.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied.

  And then he was gone.

  Edith did indeed look in on me at regular intervals – possibly more regularly than strictly necessary – and though Charlotte had the doctor come and see me as he was at the house on one of his regular visits to Sir Stephen, I was not really in need of his services.

  ‘You are a very lucky young man,’ said the doctor in a strong accent, patting my shoulder after he had examined me. ‘A very lucky young man indeed.’

  ‘Are you French, sir?’ I asked, knowing the answer already but feeling the need to have some conversation with the man.

  ‘Oui,’ he replied as he picked up his bag. ‘Claude Ducharme at your service.’

  ‘You’re treating Sir Stephen?’

  ‘Oui,’ he said. ‘I do my best.’

  ‘How is he?’ I asked.

  Ducharme tapped his finger against his rather impressive nose. ‘A doctor cannot talk of one patient with another, mon ami. All is private. All is secret.’

  I nodded, assuming that would be the end of it, but Ducharme had not finished.

  ‘In truth there is nothing wrong with the body,’ he said. ‘But some things are outside my expertise.’

  ‘The mind, you mean?’ I said.

  ‘No, no,’ replied Ducharme, slapping his hand against his heart. ‘The soul, my young friend, the soul.’

  Dr Ducharme walked towards the door and opened it. He turned and gave me a generous smile.

  ‘For you, I prescribe that you stay near to a fire and stay warm – at least for the rest of the day. No more swimming!’

  On that note, and clearly very pleased with his joke, Dr Ducharme left, closing the door behind him.

  I followed his instructions to the letter, staying in my room near the fire and reading. Mrs Guston had some warm broth brought up to me and by the time I had finished it I was happy to go to my bed. The business of cheating Death was obviously more exhausting than I had thought and I was soon ready for sleep.

  Once again I decided to leave my lamp lit and suffer the embarrassment should Edith notice again. But this time I did not sleep through until morning; I woke instead in the dead of night.

  I awoke in an instant, my whole body tensed to a danger I could not identify but knew to be present. The lamp left lit was now extinguished. The dark was impenetrable, as thick and black as ink. There was someone in the room. I held my breath and kept as still as possible.

  In fact as I lay there, my heart pounding, I felt sure that I could sense someone standing beside my bed. Were they leaning towards me now? Was that their breath on my face?

  I could restrain myself no longer and jumped up in the bed, recoiling.

  As I sat hunched up, shivering, I began to wonder if I’d been mistaken, for there seemed to be no other sound in the room than my rapid breathing and shifting among the sheets and blankets. But then I heard it.

  Across the other side of the room, there was a low and sorry sobbing. And it was clearly the sobbing of a child and, more precisely, of a boy, I was certain. There was something so plaintive and sad about the sound that all fear drained from me and I felt only compassion.

  ‘Hello?’ I said at last. ‘Who’s there?’

  There was no response save that the sobbing died away for a few moments before restarting with even more heartbroken fervour.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. ‘Please. Say something.’

  The sobbing slowed and became more stifled and eventually reduced to a shallow breathing sound, interrupted now and then by sniffing and sighing that, in its turn, gave way to a rattling growl.

  I think I knew then that I would receive no reply. For now I was certain the sound did not come from a person – a living person. While my own voice was perfectly normal, the other was hollow and echoed as if in a dungeon rather than my bedchamber.

  I edged towards the glow of the fire – indeed it was the only light in the room, and so dim that at first I had not even registered it. I knew there were tapers in the hearth and, fumbling around, I found one, lit it on the embers and used its gentle illumination to light my way to the lamp at my bedside.

  Oh, what a wonderful thing light is and how our ancestors must have cherished it. I felt something of their awe and wonder at the lift it gave my soul. There was a sudden commotion as soon as I moved the light and a shadow scurried across the room. The door opened at its touch and it fled.

  I followed with my lamp turned high and bright and held it in front of me to light the passageway, yet I saw nothing to the right or to the left.

  I took some tentative steps along the corridor, the better to further my view, and all at once the very walls seemed to distort and bend outwards and a wind blew down the passageway – a warm wind like the fetid breath from some immense, vile invisible mouth. The lamp at once was snuffed out.

  Pitiless darkness leapt upon me – and fear likewise. I could see nothing at all, and though I knew I was only inches from my door, my fumbling hands could
not find it. I heard footsteps running towards me and I scratched at the wall in panic, finally laying hands on the door handle, leaping into my room and slamming the door behind me.

  I stayed there for some time before I could move, the only sounds being my panting breath and pounding heart. Eventually I found the strength to lock the door, relight my lamp and climb into bed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Edith came in and wished me ‘Merry Christmas’ with a blush, but I could barely register her visit I was so exhausted.

  Merry Christmas! How many children would hear those words today and spring joyfully from their beds? Was it really Christmas Day? How normal it sounded.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Edith,’ I said quietly and she looked at me tenderly.

  ‘Surely we can raise a smile from you on Christmas Day, sir?’ she said cheerfully.

  I smiled weakly back at her and she put down the jug of hot water and busied herself with the fire, coaxing flames from the embers.

  When she had left, I swung my legs round to put my feet on the floor. My legs felt shaky, as though I had run for miles and had fallen into bed exhausted.

  I tottered over to the window and looked out at a world of snowy whiteness and, once again, the sight succeeded in lifting my spirits. I needed some fresh air.

  I eagerly dressed, Edith having kindly lain my clothes before the fire, and ran downstairs, finding Hodges in the hall.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Hodges,’ I said, heading for my coat and boots.

  ‘Breakfast first, young sir,’ he said with a wry smile.

  ‘I promise I will go nowhere near the moat,’ I said. ‘But I just want to get out into the snow and –’

  ‘The snow will be there when you’ve finished.’

  I rocked back and forth from heel to toe and looked at him pleadingly, but all he did was turn me round and point me towards the kitchen door.

  I trudged across the hall. Hodges had not even seen the need to wish me a merry Christmas, I thought to myself, and was surprised at how much that hurt.

  I must have looked a forlorn figure indeed as I opened the kitchen door, so unreservedly had I cast my soul down into a pit of self-pity. So the effect was all the more marked when I was met not only with a blast of heat as ferocious as a furnace, but also with a loud and hearty hail of greetings.