The Dead of Winter

by Chris Priestley

  There is always a melancholy mood that lies in the wake of such festive moments and this was no exception. But my depression was added to by the realisation that, though the servants had generously accepted the idea that I might one day be their master, I still had no wish to adopt that role.

  I did not want to spend one more moment in that house than necessary. Ironically, now that Sir Stephen had made his announcement, the need for me to be at Hawton Mere was satisfied. If this was why he had brought me here, then it was done, and I could go. My fondness for Hodges and the other servants was not enough to make me want to stay. I would never want to live in that house.

  I returned to my room and looked at the portrait of Sir Stephen as a boy and tried once again to imagine him running about those rooms, playing with Charlotte, but my thoughts turned instead to his inhuman treatment at the hands of his father. How sad he looked, even then; how fearful.

  I hoped that I might marry one day and have children of my own. Why would I bring my family to Hawton Mere? Look what this house had done to Sir Stephen. It had poisoned his childhood and ruined his chance of happiness. It had killed Lady Clarendon.

  Lady Clarendon. Poor Lady Clarendon. I looked out of the window and once more I knew before I did so that she would be there. The last bubble of Christmas joy was punctured in an instant by the sight of her ghost. I had felt so relieved when Jerwood had told me that I was going to leave the day after, but what I felt now was guilt.

  Edith and Mrs Guston walked out across the bridge, heading for the village, following the rest of the servants. Lady Clarendon approached them with all the passion and despair with which she had approached our carriage on the night of my arrival, striding towards them with arms outstretched and, though she made no sound, she was clearly calling.

  But of course they could not see her. No one could see her. Only me. Mrs Guston and Edith walked on. Lady Clarendon staggered a few paces up the road after them, but eventually stopped and hung her head, her shoulders heaving with sobs. She had grown fainter, as if the effort of trying to contact the servants had exhausted her.

  How could I leave that sad creature to haunt the marshes? When I was gone, she would still be here, doomed to walk among the people she once knew, unseen, unheard and unloved. She needed me. There must be some reason why her spirit clung to this place, though she plainly feared it. Who else would discover what it was, if not me?

  I ran from my room and along the corridor and down the great staircase, causing Clarence to set up a wild barking and bound after me. I knew that I would not be allowed outside and so I was forced to sneak out. It was not difficult.

  ‘Have you your father’s courage?’ Sir Stephen had asked me. Time would tell, he said. Now was the time.

  I padded out through the courtyard and on to the bridge. Edith and Mrs Guston were only specks in the distance. No one would see me unless they looked out of a window, and that was unlikely – none of the rooms that faced this way were used during the day. Then suddenly I heard footsteps behind me and turned in panic.

  But it was Clarence. I tried to shoo him away, but he was having none of it. He had been thoroughly ignored all day and here was his chance for a frolic. We walked out into the snow-covered marsh. But there was no sign of Lady Clarendon’s ghost.

  The marsh was an inscrutable blanket of whiteness and a mist hung low across the land like immense cobwebs. The moat was thick with ice and the snow was so deep now that the house was the only recognisable feature in view, and even that had been softened by the heavy snow on its roofs and walls.

  Clarence bounded ahead, leaping from snowy hummock to snowy hummock, never putting a foot wrong, his tail wagging and sprays of snow dust rising up at every bound, answering patiently every time I blew my Christmas whistle. He would hurtle off into the distance as if chasing some invisible deer and then turn, skidding and slithering, to bound back, his face a picture of joyful abandon.

  Every time he came back to me I braced myself, expecting him to leap up at me and knock me flat on my back, but seconds before crashing into me, he would swerve with practised agility and avoid me entirely, running rings round me and jumping in the air like a puppy, so pleased was he with himself.

  After he had done this six or seven times and I had laughed and patted him warmly, he ran round me as he had done all the other times but, almost in mid-jump, he came to a halt and stared off into the distance.

  ‘What is it, boy?’ I said, following his gaze and seeing nothing there but empty snow.

  In response, the hair on his back began to stand on end and he dropped his head, sniffing the air. Then he began to growl.

  ‘Clarence, you silly dog,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing there.’

  But when I looked up again, there was Lady Clarendon, pale as the surrounding snow.

  Clarence edged forward, sniffing and growling. I thought that he might recognise his former mistress, though he could only have been a puppy then, and calm himself, but I quickly realised that he did not see her at all – he merely sensed something that had raised his hackles. He walked straight through her, his grey form sliding through Lady Clarendon’s ghost as though he had stepped through a sheet of ice.

  The effect of this encounter on the poor dog was profound, for he whimpered and then bounded away, barking forlornly as he went.

  I wanted to run too, like Clarence, back to the house and back to the living. I felt a wave of sadness and despair seep towards me through the chill air as Lady Clarendon held out her hand and beckoned me, then walked over to the moat. I followed her and we stopped at the place where I had fallen in and almost drowned. Lady Clarendon looked at me and pointed up, across the moat.

  I saw the balcony with the door above us. The thick walls sparkled with frost and icicles hung from beneath. But I already knew that she had fallen from the balcony.

  Then, to my astonishment, I saw another Lady Clarendon appear above the low parapet – the lovely, healthy and living Lady Clarendon of the portrait. I realised straight away that I was about to witness her death. But why?

  The living Lady Clarendon leaned forward on the balcony, her face a picture of joy. The cold air gave her cheeks a rosy glow and though this glimpse of the past, like the ghost herself, was silent, I could tell that Lady Clarendon was calling out across the marshes, as if announcing great news to the world.

  But as she raised high her arms, something rushed at her – a dark shape that surged forward from the shadows of the room behind her. With horrible suddenness, Lady Clarendon was toppled from the balcony. I saw nothing of her attacker save for the pale hands that pushed her.

  The body seemed to take an age to hit the ice but it was terrible when it did. The silence was worse somehow. She disappeared from sight, leaving a gaping black wound in the frozen surface. More horrible still, she floated up, her wide-eyed, pitiful face just visible through the translucent ice.

  The bubbles had long since ceased to emerge from her open mouth when Sir Stephen and Hodges came silently running over the bridge. Pausing beside us only long enough to let out a long silent animal moan, Sir Stephen leapt headlong into the moat, with Hodges mouthing his name.

  Jerwood arrived as the flailing Sir Stephen managed to drag the body of his wife to the side. He allowed himself to be pulled out by Jerwood while Hodges carried the lifeless form of Lady Clarendon back to the house.

  I stood and watched as Jerwood helped his old friend to follow behind, Sir Stephen bellowing his wife’s name and screaming with despair.

  I looked back to the ghost of Lady Clarendon, but she was gone. Then, so too was the world she had shown me. Jerwood, Sir Stephen, Hodges, the body of poor Lady Clarendon: all gone. I was alone again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I had to speak to Jerwood and tell him what I had seen. He alone of all the people I knew might believe me and know best what to do to apprehend the murderer.

  For that was why Lady Clarendon haunted this place. It was not simply that she had had a tr
oubled life; it was that her life had been cruelly taken from her and made to look like suicide. There was a wrong to be righted: a murderer to be unmasked.

  And I was in no doubt who that murderer must be. Though I had not seen the attacker, I had seen Sir Stephen enough times to feel certain he alone was capable of such a thing. He was given to bouts of wild – even violent – behaviour, and now I was sure that it was guilt that was adding to the torments of his mind. I remembered him urging me to leap from the tower and thought of poor Lady Clarendon tumbling into that moat.

  I knew that Jerwood was with Sir Stephen in Sir Stephen’s study. I would have preferred to wait until I could find Jerwood alone but I could not keep this to myself for a moment longer. Perhaps, I thought, it would be better to confront him in front of his old friend and see what happened.

  I ran into the house, ignoring the barking of Clarence in the courtyard. I ran up the stairs and through the door that led to the tower. I ran up the twisting spiral staircase, round and round, until I arrived dizzy and out of breath at the study door, which I opened without knocking.

  Having burst in so dramatically, I was taken aback to find that the study was empty. I ran up the stairs to the roof of the tower, but that too was deserted. I climbed back down and returned to the main part of the house, trying to think where Jerwood might be.

  I decided that I would head to the kitchen. At least then I might find Hodges, who would surely know what to do. But I had barely set out on my way down the passageway when I noticed that the door to Lady Clarendon’s room was ajar. I peered inside and saw Charlotte standing by the door leading to the balcony.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said and made to leave.

  ‘Michael,’ she said, turning. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I was looking for Mr Jerwood,’ I replied.

  Charlotte smiled. She tapped at the door frame with her long fingernails. She was wearing a black velvet dress that made her pale skin look as white as the winter sky behind her. I wondered what she was doing in that room, but I had more immediate concerns.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter, Michael?’ she asked. ‘You look upset. Can I help?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘It’s something that concerns Sir Stephen.’

  ‘Then it concerns me,’ she said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. But I think I want to speak to Mr Jerwood first.’

  ‘I am Sir Stephen’s sister, Michael,’ said Charlotte. ‘Surely anything you have to say about my brother, you can say to me?’

  I didn’t know what to reply. I felt very strongly that it was Jerwood who should first receive this news, but there was no polite way to tell her this.

  ‘Won’t you join me on the balcony?’ she said, stepping out through the door. I had no desire to go out on to that place, knowing what had happened there, but I edged towards it nonetheless.

  ‘I really must find Mr Jerwood,’ I said again. I did not want to be openly rude to Charlotte but I knew that her instinct would be to excuse and protect her brother and so there seemed little point in discussing my feelings with her.

  ‘Oh nonsense, Michael,’ she said. ‘I’m sure Mr Jerwood can wait – whatever this mysterious business you have with him is. Come along. The view is marvellous.’

  I stood reluctantly in the doorway but Charlotte grabbed my arm and pulled me on to the balcony to stand alongside her. She was right: the view was indeed marvellous. So long as I did not look down.

  Charlotte proceeded to point out various landmarks with her long fingers and it was then that I saw it, and all at once the truth dazzled in my eyes.

  For something green twinkled in the sunlight – and in my memory.

  ‘It was you!’ I gasped. I had seen that same green sparkle blinking brightly on the hand that had pushed Lady Clarendon. Sir Stephen wore no jewellery at all. It had not been his hand I saw. It had been Charlotte’s.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Michael,’ she said.

  ‘Poor Lady Clarendon,’ I said, noticing that Charlotte had now moved behind me, blocking the exit from the balcony. ‘She didn’t kill herself. You murdered her.’

  Charlotte frowned and squinted at me as if she were a scientist presented with a curious new bug. A flurry of expressions flickered across her face. She took a step towards me and I backed away, stumbling. Charlotte chuckled like a little girl.

  ‘What an odd creature you are, Michael. Now why would you think such a thing?’ She gave me a mischievous, though contemptuous, look. ‘This is her room,’ she said. ‘Stephen keeps it as a shrine. Isn’t that ridiculous? It is just as it was that day she jumped.’

  ‘She didn’t jump,’ I said. ‘You pushed her. Why?’ I looked backwards for a moment, and saw a dizzying glimpse of the frozen moat below. ‘Why would you kill your brother’s wife?’

  Charlotte sighed and turned her back to me.

  ‘Because she was weak, Michael,’ she said as if she found the question infuriating. ‘I cannot abide weakness. Stephen is weak – weak-minded – but he is my brother and what am I to do? I have looked after him as best as I could, but Hawton Mere must be protected. This house comes first, Michael. Always. If you truly belonged here, you would understand.’

  ‘You’ve helped to make him like that!’ I said.

  Charlotte stared back at me from the doorway and then grinned. She picked up something I couldn’t see from a dressing table just inside the room.

  ‘Margaret was a silly woman,’ she said after a pause. ‘Stephen would insist on marrying her, but she was not good enough for him. She was not good enough for Hawton Mere. She was pretty and kind, of course, but strength is what this house needs. My father understood that.’

  Charlotte looked towards me again and sighed.

  ‘What sort of a child would they have had together, Michael? To think that if it had been a boy it would inherit this house – this house I have given my life to. No! She drove me to it. She was to blame, not I.’

  ‘You mean she was going to have a child?’ I cried. I remembered the joyful expression on the living Lady Clarendon’s face before she was pushed. ‘What kind of monster are you?’

  I regretted the harshness of my tone, as Charlotte turned to me and I saw a large pair of scissors gripped tightly in her hand.

  ‘But how is it that you have discovered this?’ she said. ‘Who has filled your head with this nonsense? Hodges, no doubt!’ Charlotte came closer, examining my face. There was nothing to be gained now by lying to her.

  ‘It was Lady Clarendon herself,’ I said. ‘Her spirit took me back in time. I saw you push her from the balcony with my own eyes.’

  Charlotte stared at me for a moment, taking in what I had told her. Then she collapsed into laughter. But it was a dry and mirthless laughter.

  ‘Listen to yourself, you silly, silly boy,’ she said.

  ‘But you have already admitted it’s true!’

  ‘Have I? If I have it is only to you. And you already have rather a reputation for fantasy, do you not? In any case, I fear you may be about to have another unfortunate accident.’

  I turned away, unable to bear looking at her. She moved closer and her dress made a swish I now recognised as the whispering sound I heard behind me that day in the snow.

  ‘You pushed me into the moat!’

  ‘But Michael,’ said Charlotte with a smile, ‘you fell in the moat. It was an accident. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘I do remember,’ I said. ‘I remember that whispering sound and I remember feeling something on my back just before I slipped. And you changed your dress. You changed your dress because it was wet from the snow.’

  Charlotte sighed.

  ‘Did you seriously think that I would stand idly by and watch you – you! – inherit Hawton Mere? I’ll die first!’

  ‘It’s not for you to say!’ I shouted. ‘Sir Stephen has –’

  ‘Pah!’ snorted Charlotte. ‘Stephen is a madman and there are a hundred witnesses to the fact.’

 
; ‘He was locked up in that terrible place by your father. It’s no wonder,’ I said.

  Charlotte giggled. ‘Oh, you know about that, do you?’

  She smiled coquettishly, twirling the scissors as if they were a fan. I glanced past her to the door across the room. It was still slightly open. Perhaps I might reach it if I could just get past Charlotte. But I would have to be fast.

  ‘Shall I tell you a secret?’ she whispered. I made no reply. ‘It wasn’t Stephen who did that to my father’s study …’ She edged a little closer. ‘It was me.’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘So … So Sir Stephen owned up to save you from a thrashing?’

  ‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘The one and only time he had the nerve to stand up to Father and he hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Even Father would have been impressed had he known. It was Stephen’s first and last act of bravery.’

  I saw my chance and rushed at Charlotte, barging past her into the room and running to the door and pulling it open. To my horror, standing in the doorway was Sir Stephen, his dark glasses black against his ashen face, the jet buttons on his waistcoat twinkling like dying stars.

  ‘Maybe not my last, Charlotte,’ he said, looking past me to his sister.

  ‘Stephen,’ said Charlotte, with a sugary lightness in her voice that was as alarming as the malevolence that had preceded it. ‘How long have you been standing there?’

  ‘So you killed her, Charlotte?’ Sir Stephen said quietly, his face and voice devoid of expression. ‘You murdered Margaret?’

  ‘But Stephen, surely you didn’t believe that nonsense. I was just humouring Michael,’ she said, her tone switching to one of wounded innocence. ‘Do you really think me capable of murder?’

  ‘I believe you would do anything for this house,’ Sir Stephen replied.

  Charlotte faltered a little in the face of Sir Stephen’s coldness, but she walked towards him, arms outstretched.