The Edge of Dark

by Pamela Hartshorne

Jane wished she hadn’t thought about Ellen. Do you think I wanted your father heaving on top of me? The image of her father’s meaty hands on Ellen still had the power to make Jane acutely uncomfortable. She knew what would happen tonight, of course. She had heard the servants talking, and Eliza Dawson, taking pity on her motherless state, had taken it upon herself to give Jane instruction in a wife’s duties.

  Robert would put his thing inside Jane, she had said, matter-of-fact. ‘It will hurt at first, but you’ll get used to it.’

  It hadn’t sounded very pleasurable when Eliza described it, but when the other maids talked about their sweethearts they smiled behind their hands and stroked their throats in a way that made Jane feel envious. She wanted to know what made their eyes dance with remembered delight, what secret memory caused their mouths to soften into curve.

  And tonight she would know. Jane’s blood fizzed with mingled nervousness and anticipation. Her role had been made very clear. Margaret Holmwood had looked Jane up and down, lips pursed, eyes flinty. ‘You are to give Robert a son,’ she said. ‘I trust you will be a good breeder.’

  ‘I would like to have a baby,’ Jane had confided shyly. Even if it did mean she might bellow and scream in pain the way Ellen had done, the thought of holding her own child in her arms warmed her heart.

  But Margaret wasn’t interested in what Jane wanted. Her hands were brisk as she unpinned Jane’s sleeves, lecturing her on the need to please her husband. Jane’s new maid, Annis, was silent, but her eyes met Jane’s in sympathy as she unlaced her bodice and helped her out of the new white satin kirtle Henry Birkby had given Jane as her wedding gift. White didn’t flatter Jane. It drained her of colour and left her whey-faced and lustreless. Robert had barely glanced at her during the marriage ceremony, and had sat silent and resentful at the feast below. Only Margaret, leaning over to whisper in his ear or stroke his cheek, had been able to make him smile.

  When Jane was standing in her shift, Margaret nodded to Annis to brush out her straight, fine hair while she stood back to study her critically. ‘You’re no beauty,’ she said, ‘but that matters little if you can bear a son. You know what’s expected of you?’

  The roast meats from the wedding feast rolled queasily in Jane’s stomach. ‘Mistress Dawson explained it to me,’ she said.

  ‘And who, pray, is Mistress Dawson?’

  ‘Mr Dawson is a scrivener,’ said Jane, glad to be able to boast a friend with more prestige than a butcher, but Margaret was unimpressed.

  ‘A scrivener’s wife?’ she jeered. ‘What does a scrivener’s wife know of pleasuring a man?’

  Jane bit her lip. ‘She told me I must do as my husband desires.’

  Margaret’s smile struck a chill in Jane, like her father’s cleaver slicing into a carcass. ‘Did she so? Then see that you do.’

  Nobody had bothered to scatter rosemary on the sheets, and the bridal bed felt cold and uninviting when Jane clambered in. Margaret had left, followed by Annis, who at least sent Jane a sympathetic smile of farewell.

  Jane pulled the coverlet up beneath her chin. She was cold and tired and she felt sick from the rich food. She’d drunk too much spiced wine because she was nervous and now her head was thumping. She didn’t want to be married, she realized. She wanted to be at home in the bed with Juliana pinching and snatching at the covers.

  But it was too late to go home. She was married, and now she had to wait for her husband to come to bed.

  He reeled in, laughing and jostling with his companions, a few minutes later, just when Jane had begun to think he wasn’t coming at all. She smiled nervously, but Robert barely seemed to notice her. He was too busy slapping his friends on the back and exchanging lewd jokes. Jane might as well have been a bolster on the bed.

  But at length the young men staggered out, having stripped Robert down to his shirt and urged him into the bed, and Jane was left alone with her husband. He lay on the other side of the bed and the silence was so heavy it crushed the air and made it hard to breathe.

  Chewing her lip, Jane slid a glance at Robert under her lashes. She wished that she had asked more questions of Eliza, instead of ducking her head and muttering that she understood. But the message had been clear: she was to do as her husband desired, so she must wait for him to make the first move.

  Robert sighed at last and turned to look at her. ‘I will do this in the dark,’ he muttered and blew out the candle. For a moment, before her eyes adjusted, Jane was wrapped in a muffled blackness and her mouth was dry with fear. Then her husband was upon her. Without a word, he hauled the coverlet aside and pushed up her nightshirt to her waist. His hands fumbled at her, shoving her legs apart and jabbing at her privy place. Jane tried to help, but she didn’t know what to do. She spread her legs wider but she was very uncomfortable.

  ‘Lie still,’ Robert hissed at her, still pushing roughly at her. He was heavy on top of her, smothering her, and he started slobbering at her neck, muttering to himself, words that Jane couldn’t understand. He smelt of sour sweat and sour wine. Crushed beneath him, she struggled to breathe, and she turned her head to one side on the pillow, sucking in air. Eliza had said the first time was the worst and Jane hoped that she was right. It couldn’t be this horrible every time, surely?

  Then something was pushing between her legs, and all Jane could think was that it would soon be over. But it didn’t go very far. Jane was still wondering if that was it when Robert thrashed and cursed some more before flopping over onto his back.

  ‘I told my mother you were too plain,’ he said, his voice peevish. ‘Now see what has come of it.’

  Tears of disappointment and humiliation stung Jane’s eyes. It was her fault. She was too plain.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said.

  For answer, Robert turned onto his side with his back to her. Jane lay very still, staring up at the dark canopy. So this was marriage. It was not what she had hoped for. But she would have to make the best of it. She hadn’t had a chance to make Robert comfortable yet. He might yet grow fond of her. And while she couldn’t do much about her plainness, perhaps she could try harder the next night. Perhaps she wasn’t supposed to lie still? Perhaps he would like her to sigh and buck her hips? But he had told her not to move . . . Jane stirred wretchedly. Was it like this for every new bride? Beside her Robert was snoring the way her father did sometimes when he had had too much wine. It had been a long day, and Robert might be as tired as she was.

  It will be better tomorrow, Jane told herself. It must be.

  It will be better tomorrow. The words were clearly typed on the screen. She stared down at them, shame, embarrassment and disappointment still curdling in her stomach.

  ‘There you are!’ Helen’s voice cut across the room, cold as a slap, and the floor tilted sickeningly as Roz jerked back to the present. The tablet and stylus tumbled from her nerveless hands and landed with a crack on the floor, and there was a rushing and a roaring, dark and dangerous, in her head. Instinctively, she clapped a hand to her mouth as nausea rolled through her.

  Seeing her standing immobile, Helen bustled forwards to retrieve the tablet and stylus with an exasperated huff. ‘Jeff said you were up here but I couldn’t believe it,’ she said, thrusting them back at Roz, who somehow managed to fumble them into a grip. ‘I’ve been ringing and ringing your office.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I . . . What time is it?’ Roz’s voice sounded blurred to her own ears and the words felt unwieldy in her mouth.

  ‘It’s ten thirty-five. I thought you understood the team meeting was at ten thirty. We’re all waiting for you.’

  ‘I . . .’ Desperately, Roz tried to pull herself together. ‘I’m so sorry, Helen. I must have lost track of the time.’

  Helen blew out an irritated breath. ‘Well, if it’s not too much trouble, perhaps you could come now?’ she said. ‘Sir Adrian’s a very busy man and he’s got a lot of other commitments today.’

  Shaken and frightened, Roz followed Helen back down the stairs, across t
he hall and into the house next door. It was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other at first. The floor might look solid, but to Roz it was precarious, as if the slightest misstep might send her tumbling back into the past.

  ‘Roz, do hurry up,’ Helen snapped. ‘The rest of us don’t have all day.’

  Roz sucked in a steadying breath. She couldn’t think about what had just happened, not yet. She had to get through this meeting first. She couldn’t afford to think about Jane, poor Jane, crushed beneath her brutish husband, blamed for his impotence, humiliated and abandoned. She couldn’t afford to think about what it meant. All she could do was concentrate on breathing and on not being sick.

  Putting up her chin, she let Helen wave her sarcastically into Adrian’s office.

  ‘Roz, my dear, are you all right?’ Adrian leapt up to greet her. ‘You’re white as a sheet!’

  ‘I’m fine, Adrian. I was in the great chamber and I lost track of the time, I’m afraid,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, we’ve all done that,’ said Adrian conspiratorially. ‘It’s part of the charm of the house.’

  Charm? It wasn’t the word Roz would have used, but she summoned a smile. ‘Anyway, I’m so sorry for keeping you all waiting.’

  Chapter Seven

  Helen brought in coffee and biscuits while Adrian introduced Roz to Lucy, the curator, and Mark, who would be in charge of the front-of-house team. They were fawning over Roz too, Helen thought contemptuously. To hear them, you’d think she had done them some great favour by keeping them waiting ten minutes!

  ‘We were just talking about the launch,’ Sir Adrian said when they had finally given Roz enough attention, and Helen was settled next to him, ready to take notes. ‘As you know, we agreed on 31 October, which isn’t long to get things organized, but I’m anxious to get the house open to the public.’

  Roz poured milk into her coffee. ‘That gives us six weeks. We should be able to organize something suitably spectacular by then.’ Her voice sounded a little odd to Helen, high and tight, but no one else seemed to notice. She was obviously neurotic, Helen decided, remembering how Roz had dropped the tablet. What her mum would have called ‘narvy’. No one had any time for nerves in Helen’s family.

  ‘That’s where it’s so important to have an experienced events manager on hand,’ Sir Adrian said and Helen kept her head down so that no one would see her rolling her eyes.

  ‘Mark was suggesting we tie the launch theme in to Halloween,’ Lucy put in. Helen didn’t mind Lucy. She was a Scot, with a round, pleasant face and none of Roz Acclam’s fine-boned nerviness or London affectations. Sir Adrian didn’t make a fuss of her either.

  ‘We’re going to struggle to get visitors over the river,’ Mark explained, picking up on the argument they’d been having before Helen was dispatched to find Roz. ‘Most of the major attractions are on the other side of the river, and I think we need to have something unique that will get the punters to make the trip up Micklegate. Ghosts are always a big draw,’ he said, and Helen saw Roz’s hand jerk, slopping coffee into her saucer. ‘Holmwood House could easily be haunted, don’t you think, Roz?’

  Sir Adrian, Lucy and Mark all looked expectantly at Roz, whose hand, Helen noticed, trembled as she put down her cup and saucer. The woman was a bag of nerves, she thought.

  Roz cleared her throat. ‘The house certainly has the right atmosphere for a ghost,’ she said after a moment. ‘It’s really quite creepy when you’re there on your own.’

  ‘Oh, do you think so?’ Sir Adrian sounded surprised, as well he might, thought Helen. There was nothing ghostly about Holmwood House. She had been over there masses of times on her own, and she’d never noticed anything out of the ordinary. Helen’s pen stabbed at the paper. This was just Roz making herself interesting again. She wasn’t going to write it down.

  ‘Definitely,’ said Roz, and Mark looked gratified. The others had dismissed his haunted house idea until Roz came along. ‘It’s very shadowy in parts, especially in that passage leading to the closet.’

  ‘What passage?’ asked Lucy, puzzled. ‘There isn’t a water closet in the house.’

  ‘No, I meant closet as in study,’ said Roz, looking from one blank face to the next. ‘You know, the room at the end of the passage leading from the great chamber? Past the parlour . . .’ Her voice trailed off as they all shook their heads.

  ‘There isn’t a room there,’ said Helen with satisfaction, enjoying Roz’s evident consternation.

  ‘Oh, but . . .’ Roz stopped, frowning uncertainly.

  ‘It’s interesting you should think that,’ said Lucy. ‘The buildings archaeologists did speculate that there might have been another room down there, but later modifications to the house meant they couldn’t be sure, so we didn’t recreate it in the end.’

  To Helen’s delight, a mottled flush was creeping up Roz’s throat. She didn’t look so cool and collected now, did she? ‘I must have been thinking about some other house I’ve seen,’ she said, which didn’t convince Helen for a minute.

  Still shaken by her experience in the great chamber, Roz was struggling to concentrate. Mark was enthusiastic about the haunted house theme. ‘It’s a pity the house hasn’t been continuously occupied,’ he said. ‘I’m sure we could find someone who’s died here, but all the locals only remember it as a model shop.’

  Roz looked up sharply at that. ‘A model shop?’

  ‘Yes, you know, all those kits to make boats and planes, and toy cars.’

  ‘And train sets?’ For a moment she could hear again the thread of sound echoing in the great hall, the faint rattle of the wheels on the track vibrating, needle-fine, in her skull.

  Mark nodded. ‘It burned down, oh, years ago now. In the nineteen eighties. You were around then, weren’t you, Helen? What happened to it after that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Helen, doughy with disapproval. ‘I was only a child. I think there was another shop for a while, and then there was another fire about ten years ago. They thought it was arson but nobody was ever arrested. And when they were clearing up after that fire, they uncovered the original timber framing . . . and that’s when we got involved.’

  Lucy made a face. ‘Not much scope for hauntings in a model shop, unless there was a fight to the death over a toy train!’

  ‘Someone lived there before it was a shop,’ Roz heard herself saying. ‘We should play up the human story of the house, so it’s not just about the furnishings but about the people, the servants as well as the Holmwoods themselves.’ She turned to Adrian. ‘Do we know anything about who lived there in the sixteenth century?’

  ‘Well, there’s Sir Geoffrey, of course.’

  ‘There aren’t any records about anyone else who might have lived in the house then?’

  ‘I’ll get the archivist to have a look.’ It was clear that Adrian was only interested in Sir Geoffrey.

  ‘You know what?’ Mark leant forward. ‘We should have a séance. Where I worked before, we used to hire out the hall to psychics who’d come and spend the night and do investigations. It was a really good money-spinner. It’s amazing what these guys will pay to set up their equipment in a historic building, and we found it was a bonus for us too. The sniff of a haunting brought in a lot more visitors. If we did the same here, I’m sure they’d be bound to find a ghost or two, and then we could market ourselves as a haunted house.’

  Adrian wrinkled his nose in distaste. ‘It’s a bit tacky. What do you think, Roz?’

  ‘I think Mark’s right about it being good for publicity,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, honestly!’ Helen could contain herself no longer. ‘I can’t believe you’re seriously going to hold a séance! There’s no such thing as ghosts!’

  Roz thought about Jane, about the way time in York had wavered since she had arrived. Three times now she had slipped into the past, and it was getting harder to dismiss it as some bizarre trick her subconscious was playing on her. The first couple of times, yes, it had made a weir
d kind of sense, but how often did you dream in sequence?

  ‘I used to believe that too,’ she told Helen. ‘But I think I might be changing my mind.’

  At last the meeting was over. Roz was glad of Lucy’s company as they climbed the stairs to the top floor together. Lucy’s office was next door, and knowing the curator was there made her own room feel less threatening.

  Letting the smile drop from her face, Roz shut her office door and looked around her. The room regarded her stolidly in return, just a freshly painted, newly furnished office. Nothing to be afraid of at all.

  She sat at the desk, her hands flat on the surface as if to anchor herself to reality, and forced herself to think rationally. She had been in the great chamber earlier, but the room was empty. She hadn’t really been put to bed there, or lain suffocating under a thrashing, hopeless husband. Horrifyingly vivid as the experience had been, it hadn’t been real. Helen had come to find her and there had been no bed, no Robert. Of course it hadn’t been real.

  Which meant there were two possibilities, Roz decided. She might be having a breakdown that involved extraordinarily vivid and coherent hallucinations about a life in the sixteenth century.

  She didn’t feel as if she was having a breakdown, but that might not mean anything. And if she was, what then? Should she go to a doctor? And say what? The thing is, doctor, I keep travelling through time? I close my eyes and I’m sharing a bed with a drunken, selfish sot who can’t get it up? Before she knew where she was, she would be referred for psychological tests. There would be low-voiced discussions, and hospital appointments. How long before the Holmwood Foundation decided they needed someone a little more reliable to head up their events programme?

  This was her big break. Roz couldn’t stand the thought of slinking back to London and a chorus of unspoken ‘I told you so’s. She had made such a big deal of coming to York. How could she give up now? No, she couldn’t tell anyone she thought she might be having a breakdown.

  The alternative was even worse. Roz made herself consider coolly the possibility that she was somehow regressing to Jane’s life in the past. Before she came to York, Roz would have dismissed the idea out of hand. She had been like Helen, certain that there was a rational, scientific explanation for every mystery. The thought of being possessed by a ghost would have made her scoff. Roz was the least spiritual person she knew. She didn’t believe in God or ghosts. She didn’t even read her horoscope. It was all nonsense.