by Susan Hill
‘You will have more fun when Leonora arrives. And this miserable rain. We don’t get a lot of rain at Iyot but we do get wind. Wind and skies.’
He thought everyone had sky, or skies, but perhaps this was not the case. He didn’t ask.
‘Five!’ he said under his breath, removing another blue.
‘Excellent.’
Mrs Mullen brought in a small glass of milk and two garibaldi biscuits on a lacquer tray.
‘Thank you very much,’ he said, stopping in the doorway. ‘I have had a very nice day.’
His earnest, unformed face stayed with Kestrel for a long time after he had gone. He was her own flesh and blood, he was part of her. She did not know him, as she had not known Dora after she had grown up and married, and yet she felt connected to him and his words touched her deeply, his vulnerability impressed itself on her so that she felt suddenly afraid on his behalf and had an urge to protect him. But he had gone, his footsteps mounting the stairs carefully until they went away to the fourth flight and the attics.
Once he was there, Edward put his milk and the hated garibaldi biscuits carefully on the table beside his bed, and went to look out of the window. It was very high. The sky was huge and full of sagging leaden clouds, making the night seem closer than it was by the clock. Ragged jackdaws whirled about on the wind like scraps of torn burned paper. He could see the church tower, the churchyard, the road, and the flat acres of fen with deep dykes criss-crossing them. A small stone bridge. A brick cottage beside a lock, though he did not yet know that was what it was called.
He drank the milk in small sips and wondered what he could do with the biscuits that he could not have swallowed any more than he could have swallowed a live spider. In the end, he opened the cupboard in the wall. It was completely empty. He broke off a corner of the biscuit and crumbled it onto the plate, and climbed up and put the rest far back on the highest shelf he could reach. Perhaps mice would find it. He was not afraid of mice.
And then, as he turned round, he felt something strange, like a rustle of chill across his face, or someone blowing towards him. It was soundless but something in the cupboard caught his eye and he thought that the paper lining the shelves had lifted slightly, as if the movement of air had caught that too.
He went back to the window but it was closed tightly, and the latch was across. It was the same with the window on the other side. He touched the door but it was closed firmly and it did not move. The room was still again.
Five minutes later, he was in bed, lying flat on his back with the sheet just below his chin, both hands holding it. The wind had got up now. The windows rattled, the sound round the rooftop above him grew louder and then wild, as the gale came roaring across the fen to hit the old house and beat it about the head.
Edward did not remember such a wind but it was outside and could not get in, and so he was not in the least afraid, any more than he was afraid of the sound of rain, or the rattle of hail on a pane. He had left the wall cupboard slightly open but the lining paper did not lift, and there was no chill breeze across his face. This was just weather. This was different.
He went to sleep rocked by the storm, and it howled through his dreams and made him turn over and over in the narrow bed, and in her own room, Kestrel lay troubled by it not for herself, well used to it as she was, but for the boy. At one point when the gale was at its height she almost got up and went to him, but surely, if he were alarmed he would call out, and she felt shy of indicating her feelings or of transmitting alarm. High winds were part of the warp and weft of the place and the old house absorbed them without complaint.
He would get used to them, and when Violet’s child came tomorrow, so would she, whatever she was like.
A vision of her sister came into Kestrel’s mind as she fell asleep, of the bubble curls and pretty mouth and the coquettish charm she had been mistress of at birth. Leonora. Leonora van Vorst. What sort of a child would Leonora be?
6
He was sitting on the edge of his bed reading and as he still did not find reading easy, although he loved what he discovered in a book when he found the key to it, he had to concentrate hard and so he did not hear the footsteps on the last flights of uncarpeted stairs or their voices. He read on and one set of footsteps went away again and it was quiet, late afternoon. It had stopped raining, the wind had dropped and there was an uncertain sun on the watery fens.
And then he was aware of her, standing just inside the doorway, and looked up with a start.
‘You seem to be very easily frightened,’ she said.
Edward stared at the girl. She had dark red hair, long and standing out from her head as if she had an electric shock running through her, and dark blue eyes in a china white face.
‘I’m not frightened at all.’
She smiled a small superior smile and came right into the room to stand a yard or two away from him.
He slid off the bed, remembering manners he had been taught almost from the cradle, and put out his hand.
‘I am Edward Cayley,’ he said. ‘I suppose you’re my cousin Leonora.’
She looked at the hand but did not take it.
‘How do you do?’
She smiled again, then turned abruptly and went to the window.
‘This is a dreadful place,’ she said. ‘What are we supposed to do?’
‘It isn’t actually terrible. It is quiet though.’
‘Who is that woman?’
‘Our aunt. Aunt Kestrel.’
Leonora tossed her hair. ‘The other one, with the sour face.’
He smiled. ‘Mrs Mullen.’
‘She doesn’t like us.’
‘Doesn’t she?’
‘Don’t be stupid, can’t you tell? But what does it matter?’ She looked round his room, summing its contents up quickly, then sat down on the bed.
‘Where have you come from?’ He opened his mouth to say ‘London’ but she carried on without waiting to hear. ‘I came from Geneva this time,’ she said, ‘but before that from Hong Kong and before that from Rome. Not that way round.’
‘How did you do that?’
‘Well on a ship and a train, of course. I might have flown but it seemed better.’
‘Not on your own.’
‘Of course on my own, why not? Did you have to have someone to bring you, like an escort.’
‘I came in charge of the guard.’
‘Oh yes, I’ve done that. I came in charge of stewards and so on.’ She bounced off the bed. ‘Your mother’s dead.’
‘I know.’
‘What did she die of?’
‘I’m not sure. No one has ever said.’
‘Goodness. My mother’s alive, so is my father, but somewhere else. At the moment my stepfather is called Claude. I hope he stays, I quite like Claude, but, of course, he won’t, they never do for long.’
He caught sight of her face then and it was strange and sad and distant.
‘We could go out into the garden.’
‘Why? Is it interesting? I don’t expect so. Gardens aren’t usually.’
‘Our aunt found some jigsaw puzzles.’
Leonora was at the window.
‘Shall I get them out?’
‘I don’t want to do one but you can.’
‘No, it’s all right. How long did it take you to get here?’
‘Two days. I slept on the boat train.’
‘Were you sick?’
He had gone to stand beside her at the window and he saw that he had made her angry.
‘I am never sick. I am an excellent sailor. I suppose you’re sick.’
‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Some people are, some aren’t and you can’t die of being sick.’
Her eyes seemed to darken and the centres to grow smaller. ‘Where do you think people go when they die?’
Edward hesitated. He did not know how to behave towards her, whether she wanted to be friendly or hostile, if she was worried about something or about nothing.
‘They go to heaven. Or … to God.’
‘Or to hell.’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Hell isn’t fire you know.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Oh no. Hell is a curse. You’re forced to wander this world and you can never escape.’
‘That sounds all right. It’s what – you wander this world. You’ve wandered to all those places.’
He could sense something in her that needed reassurance and could not ask for it. He did not know, because he was too young and had never before encountered it, that what he sensed in Leonora was pride. Later, he was to understand, though still without having a word for it.
‘Do you remember your mother?’
‘No. Aunt Kestrel does but she didn’t want to talk about her.’
‘What, because it might upset you? How could you be upset about a mother you don’t remember?’
‘No. I think it – it might have upset her.’
‘Oh.’
That was something else he would come to know well, the tone of her voice that signified boredom.
‘Tomorrow we’ll play a trick on that woman,’ she said next. ‘I’ll think of something she won’t like at all.’ She sounded so full of a sort of evil glee at the idea that she alarmed him.
‘I don’t think we ought to do that.’
Leonora turned on him in scorn. ‘Why? Do you want to be her favourite and have her pet you?’
He flushed. ‘No. I just think it would be a bad thing to do. And mean.’
‘Of course it would be a bad thing to do. And mean. How silly you are.’
‘I don’t think she’s very nice but perhaps it’s because she hasn’t any children of her own or doesn’t know any.’
‘Aunt Kestrel hasn’t any children but she doesn’t hate us.’
‘I don’t think Mrs Mullen would hate us.’
‘Of course she hates us. And I am going now to think about what trick to play.’
‘Where are you going?’
But she had already gone. She came and went so silently and completely that he wondered if she did not move at all but simply knew how to just appear and disappear.
He did not see her again until the bell rang for supper and then, just as he was going across the hall, she was there, when she had not been there a second before.
From now on, he determined to watch her.
‘Have you thought?’
But Leonora stared at him blankly across the table.
‘I wish the weather would improve,’ Aunt Kestrel said, slicing a tea-cake and buttering half for each of them. ‘You would find so many good things to do out of doors.’
‘What things?’
Aunt Kestrel looked like someone caught out in a lie. That is how Leonora makes me feel, Edward realised, as if she can see through me to my soul and know what I am thinking and if I am telling the truth, or trying to bluff my way out of something.
She had not yet been here for a whole day and already the mood of the house had been changed entirely.
‘My mother is said to be the most beautiful woman who has ever lived,’ Leonora said now. ‘Did you know that?’
‘How ridiculous,’ Aunt Kestrel said, spluttering out some little droplets of tea. ‘Of course she is not. Violet was a pretty little girl and grew up to be a pretty woman, though she was helped by clothes and having people to bring out the best in her.’
‘What people?’
‘Oh, hairdressers and … you know, those people.. But as to being the most beautiful woman who ever lived … besides, who could know?’
‘It was written in a magazine of fashion.’ Leonora’s face had changed as a blush of annoyance rose through the paleness and her eyes darkened. ‘It was written under her photograph so it would have to be true. Of course it is true. She is very, very beautiful. She is.’ Edward watched in horror as Leonora stood up and picked up a small silver cake fork. ‘She is, she is, she is.’ As she said it, she stabbed the fork down into the cloth and through to the table, one hard stab for each word. Aunt Kestrel’s mouth was half open, her arm slightly outstretched as if she meant to stop the dreadful stabbing, but was unable to make any movement.
‘And no one is allowed to say it is not true.’
She dropped the fork on the floor and it spun away from her, and then she was gone, the skirt of her blue cotton frock seeming to flick out behind her and then disappear as she disappeared. The door closed slowly of its own accord. Edward sat, wishing that he was able to disappear too but forced to wait for Aunt Kestrel’s anger to break over him and take whatever punishment there might be, for them both.
There was none. His aunt sat silent for a moment then said, ‘I wonder if you can find out what is wrong, Edward?’
He sped to the door. ‘She is like her mother,’ she said as he went, but he thought that she was speaking to herself, not to him.
‘She is too like her mother.’
7
He did not see Leonora and the door of her room was shut. He hesitated, listening. The wind had dropped. There was no sound from her and he opened his mouth to say her name, then did not, afraid that her anger was still raging and that she might turn it on him. He thought of the cake fork stabbing into the table.
The house no longer felt strange to him but he did not like it greatly and he was disappointed that his cousin seemed unlikely to become a friend. She was strange, if Iyot House and their Aunt Kestrel were not. She belonged with Mrs Mullen, he thought, turning on his left side. The last of the light was purple and pale blue in a long thread across the sky, seen through the window opposite his bed. It had not been like this before. Perhaps there would be sun tomorrow and they could explore the world outside. Perhaps things would improve, as in Edward’s experience they often did. His school had improved, his eczema had improved, his dog had improved with age after being disobedient and running away all through puppy-hood.
He went to sleep optimistically.
There was moonlight and so he could see her when he woke very suddenly.
Leonora was standing in the doorway, her nightgown as white as her skin, her red hair standing out from her head. She was absolutely still, her eyes oddly blank and for several moments Edward thought that she was an apparition. Or a ghost. What was the difference?
‘Hello?’
She didn’t reply.
‘Are you quite all right?’
She did not move. He saw that her feet were bare. Long pale feet. He did not know what to do.
And then she came further into the room, silently on the long pale feet, her hair glowing against the whiteness of her skin and long nightgown.
‘Leonora?’
She had walked to the window and was looking out, washed by the moonlight.
Edward got up and went to stand beside her. At first he did not touch her, hardly dared to look directly at her. He had the odd sense that if he did touch her she would feel cold.
‘Are you still asleep?’
She turned her head and stared at him out of the blank unseeing eyes.
‘You should go back to your own room now. You could hurt yourself.’
Stories of people walking out of windows and far from home across fields and into woods while they were deeply asleep came into his mind.
You should not try to wake a sleepwalker, the shock could kill them. You should not touch a sleepwalker, or they may stay that way and never wake again.
He began to panic when Leonora sat on the ledge and started to undo the window latch, and then he did reach out and touch her shoulder. She stopped but did not look at him.
‘Come on. We’re going back now.’
He nudged her gently and she got up and let him guide her out of his room and back to her own. He steered her to the bed, pulled back the covers and she climbed in obediently, and turned on her side. Her eyes closed. Edward spread the covers over her with care and watched her until he was sure she was fully asleep, then crept out.
8
‘Oh do hurry up, hurry up …’
Aunt Kestrel came into the hall. ‘If you are going out you need stout shoes. The grass is very wet.’
Leonora ignored her, hand on the front door.
Edward looked at his feet. Were the shoes ‘stout’?
‘Well, perhaps you’ll be all right. Don’t go too far.’
‘Hurry up,’ Leonora said again. The inner door opened and she went to the heavy outer one, which had a large iron key and a bolt and chain.
‘Anyone would suppose ravening beasts and highwaymen would be wanting to burst in,’ she said, laughing a small laugh.
Mrs Mullen was in the dark recesses of the hall watching, lips pinched together.
Aunt Kestrel sighed as she closed both doors. She was confused by the children, and bewildered. Leonora was like Violet, which boded ill though perhaps not in quite the same way, who knew? Edward was simply opaque. Had they taken to one another? Were they settling?
She went into her sitting room with the morning paper.
Mrs Mullen did not ask the same questions because she had made up her mind from seeing both children, Edward, the little namby-pamby, too sweet-tongued to trust, and Leonora. She had looked into Leonora’s eyes when she had first arrived, and seen the devil there and her judgment was made and snapped shut on the instant.
‘Where are you going?’ Edward watched his cousin going to the double gates. ‘The garden is on this side.’
Leonora gave her usual short laugh. ‘Who wants to go in a garden?’
She lifted the latch of a small gate within the gate and stepped through. He went after her because he thought he should look after her and persuade her to come back, but by the time he had clambered over the bottom strut she was walking fast down the road and a minute later, had crossed it and started up the path that led to the open fens.
‘Leonora, we’d better not …’
She tossed her red hair and went on.
When he caught her up she was standing on the bank looking down into the river. It was inky and slick and ran quite slowly.
‘Be careful.’
‘Can you swim?’