I twisted with a sharp cry but found myself powerless in the grip of the arm which lingered at my waist. He laughed, his teeth white, his black eyes bright with excitement, and suddenly his greed and his skill and his clever tongue reminded me of his mother Esther and I hated him.
“Bastard!” I spat at him, childish in my helpless fury.
He threw back his head and roared with laughter. “The pot calls the kettle black!” he exclaimed, and drew me all the closer so that he could force his wet mouth on mine and make his hamfisted fingers familiar in places where they did not belong.
I froze in revulsion.
The next thing I knew was the draft of an open door, a gasp rasping in Ned’s throat as his muscles jerked in shock, the sudden removal of all offense. I opened my eyes.
Axel was on the threshold. His face was white and dead and without expression, but the opaque quality was gone from his eyes and so was all hint of their withdrawn look which I knew so well. His eyes blazed. His hands were tight white fists at his sides. He was breathing very rapidly.
“So I was not quite in time,” he said.
Ned was backing away against the wall. “George, she asked me to take her to Rye to find a doctor—”
“Get out.”
“—her brother’s ill—”
“Get out before I kill you.”
Ned moved unsteadily towards the door without another word. I could see Axel trying to restrain himself from hitting him and the effort was so immense that the sweat stood out on his forehead. And then as Ned tried to shuffle past him, Axel seemed to find self-control impossible. I saw him seize Ned by the shoulders, shake him and then hit him twice with the palm of his hand before slinging him out into the corridor.
The door closed.
We were alone. I suddenly found I was trembling so violently that I had to sit down.
All he said was: “I told you not to come to Rye with Ned.”
And when I did not reply he said: “I think you’re too young to have any idea of the power you have to rouse a man’s deeper feelings. I suppose you have no idea that Ned wanted you from the moment he set eyes on you. You were too young, your eyes were blind. Your eyes are probably even blind now as you look at me. You’re far too young, you’re incapable of understanding.”
I dimly realized he was trying to excuse my behavior. I managed to stammer: “I only thought of Alexander ... I knew Ned would take me to Rye—”
“Alexander,” he said, “is not in danger. One of the stable-lads has gone to Winchelsea for Dr. Salter.”
“I wanted another doctor—”
“Dr. Salter is perfectly reputable.”
“But Alexander—”
“Alexander,” said Axel, “appears to have taken a non-fatal dose of laudanum. Are you ready to go?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then I suggest we leave without delay.”
I followed him mutely to the courtyard where he had left his horse. “But how—” I stammered, but he would not let me finish.
“I don’t propose to discuss the matter here,” he said curtly. “We can discuss it later.”
But even when we arrived back at Haraldsdyke he still refused to discuss the matter.
“I’m taking you to your room,” he said to me, “and you will stay there for the rest of the day. I am becoming tired of watching you to make sure you do nothing foolish, and your behavior has been so far from exemplary that I don’t think you can say I’m not justified in insisting you remain in your room today.”
“But Alexander—”
“Alexander will get better without any help from you. He can stay on a few more days here and then you can talk to him as much as you like, but you may not talk to him today.”
“But—” I began and then Vere came to meet us and I had to stop.
“My wife has been very upset by her brother’s illness,” said Axel abruptly to Vere. “She wants only to rest all day. Please ask Alice to make arrangements with the servants not to disturb her—she’ll be sleeping in our room and I shall move into Rodric’s old room so that she may have the maximum amount of peace and rest without interruption.”
I was too embarrassed by this open reference to the fact that we were to have separate rooms, to take notice of Vere’s reply.
Upstairs I moved towards the corridor which led to our rooms, but he put his hand on my arm and guided me instead down another corridor.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said quietly. “You shall stay in Rodric’s room. I’ll bring you anything you may need.”
I looked at him in amazement. “But why can’t I stay in our rooms?”
“I’ve changed my mind,” was all he said. “I’m sorry.”
“But—”
“Please!” he said, and I saw he was becoming angry. “You’ve flouted my wishes so often recently that I must insist that you don’t attempt to disobey me now.” He opened the door of Rodric’s room and gestured that I should enter. “I’ll come and see you every few hours to see you have everything you need,” he said abruptly. “Meanwhile I advise you to lie down and rest. And if anyone comes to the door, don’t on any account answer them. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Axel.”
“Very well, then. I’ll return to you in about an hour’s time.” And closing the door without further delay I heard him turn the key in the lock before walking away swiftly down the echoing corridor.
The mist rolled over the Marsh and smothered the house with soft smooth fingers. The silence seemed to intensify as the hours passed, and it seemed at last to me as I waited in Rodric’s room and watched the dusk fall that the silence was so absolute that it was almost audible. Axel had come twice to the room to see if there was anything I had needed, but he had not stayed long and by the time the dusk began to blur with the mist it was a long time since I had last seen him. I stood up restlessly and went over to the window to stare out into the mist, my fingers touching the carving on Rodric’s huge desk, and I thought of Mary again, remembering how she had admired Rodric and how we had spoken of him in this room.
The hours crawled by until I could no longer estimate what time it was. The increasing boredom of the enforced confinement made me irritated, and I was just wondering in a fever of impatience how late it was when I heard footsteps outside in the corridor and Axel came in with a tray of food.
“How are you?” he asked peremptorily, and added: “I’m sorry I was so long delayed in bringing you some food. I intended to bring it earlier.”
“It doesn’t matter—I haven’t felt hungry.” I wanted to ask a multitude of questions, but I guessed instinctively that he would refuse to answer them. “Axel—”
“Yes?” He paused on his way out of the room, his fingers on the door handle.
“When may I leave this room?”
“Tomorrow,” he said, “but not before then.”
“And Alexander—”
“He’s still drowsy and is resting in his room. He’ll be well enough tomorrow. You needn’t worry about him.”
The door closed; his footsteps receded. I sat down on the edge of the bed again without touching the food and drink on the tray, and tried to be patient and resigned, but I found the inactivity hard to endure and after a while began to rearrange the contents of the desk drawers in an agony of restlessness.
I heard the footsteps much later, when I was contemplating undressing and trying to sleep. The floorboard creaked above me and made me look up. Presently it creaked again. After listening intently I thought I could distinguish the muffled tread of footsteps as if someone was pacing up and down the room above my head.
But there was nothing above this room except the attics and no one slept there any more.
I took the candle and went to the door but the lock was firm and there was no breaking it. I looked around in despair, and then for the third time searched the drawers of the desk, but there was no duplicate key conveniently waiting to be discovered. My glance fell on the knife whi
ch lay on my dinner tray. Seizing it I went back to the door, inserted the blade between the door and the frame and scraped at the lock.
Nothing happened.
I stepped back a pace and stared at the door in frustration. Then I took the candle, and holding it at an advantageous angle I peered into the eye of the lock. It was difficult to be certain, but I thought the key was on the other side and that Axel had not troubled to remove it altogether.
Going back to the desk I took two sheets of notepaper from the drawer and inserted them under the door side by side with one another. Then I took the fork and poked it into the keyhole.
The key fell to the ground without much trouble. Holding my breath I stooped and carefully pulled the sheets of paper back through the gap between the floor and the bottom of the door, and soon I saw that the key had fortunately not bounced off the paper on falling to the floor; it came gently towards me on the notepaper, and a second later I was turning the lock to set myself free.
As I opened the door it occurred to me that the footsteps overhead had stopped some minutes before, but I did not pause to question why this had happened. I tip-toed very quietly down the passage, my hand on the wall to guide me, the candle snuffed and abandoned in the room I had just left so that I was in darkness.
The house seemed still enough, but as I neared the landing I could see the light shining from the hall and heard the soft murmur of voices from the drawing room nearby. I hesitated, fearful that someone should come out of the drawing room as I was passing the door, but I knew no other way to the back stairs, so at last I took a deep breath and tip-toed quickly across the landing to another passage at the far end.
Nobody saw me. I paused, heart beating fast, and listened. Everywhere was quiet. Moving into the shadows once more I found the back stairs to the attics and cautiously began to mount them one by one.
I was convinced that the footsteps I had overheard above Rodric’s room had been Alexander’s, and had immediately suspected Axel of imprisoning him in the attics for some reason. Who else would be pacing up and down there as if he were a caged animal? And into my memory flashed the picture of the diamond-cut inscription of Rodric’s on the attic windowpane, the reference to his own imprisonment there as a boy. That room at least had been used as a prison before, and if my guess of the house was correct, tonight it was being used as a prison again.
I reached the top of the stairs, and paused to get my bearings. Nervousness and excitement made me clumsy. With my next step forward my ankle turned and I stumbled against the wall with a loud thud. I waited, my heart in my mouth, my ears straining to hear the slightest sound, and once I did think that I heard a door opening and closing far away, but nothing further happened and in the end I judged the noise to be my imagination.
It was pitch dark. I wished desperately that I had brought my candle, for I wasn’t even sure of the way to Rodric’s attic. At last, moving very quietly, I felt my way down the passage until I reached the point where the passage turned at right angles to run into another wing. I was just beginning to be unnerved by the total blackness when I turned a corner and saw a thin strip of light below the door at the far end of the corridor. I edged towards it, the palms of my hands slipping against the cool walls, my breathing shaky and uneven.
The silence was immense. The prisoner had evidently not resumed his pacing up and down. Some quality in the silence unnerved me. Would Alexander ever have submitted so silently to imprisonment? I visualised him breaking down the door in his rage or shouting to be released, not merely sitting and waiting in passive resignation.
I started to remember ghost stories. My scalp prickled. Panic edged stealthily down my spine, but I pulled myself together and stepped out firmly towards the light which was now not more than a few paces away. It would never do to let my nerve weaken now.
I was just stretching out my arm to guide me alongside the wall when my fingers encountered a human hand.
I tried to scream. My lungs shrieked for air, the terror clutched at my throat, but no sound came. And then a hand was pressed against my mouth and a voice whispered in my ear: “Not a sound, whoever you are” and the next moment the door nearby was pushed open and I was bundled into the dim candlelight beyond.
The door closed. I swung around, trembling from head to toe, and then gaped in disbelief.
My captor gaped too but presently managed to say weakly: “Mrs. Brandson! Why, I do beg your pardon—”
It was young Mr. Charles Sherman, the bachelor brother of James Sherman, the lawyer of Rye.
“Good heavens!” I said still staring at him, and sat down abruptly on a disused stool nearby.
“Good heavens indeed,” said Mr. Charles, smiling at me uncertainly as we recovered from our mutual shock. “I wonder if you are more surprised than I or if I am more surprised than you?”
“You could not possibly be more surprised than I,” I retorted. “Forgive me if I sound inhospitable, but may I ask what on earth you’re doing hiding in the attic of Haraldsdyke at the dead of night, sir?”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Charles, torn between his obvious desire to explain his presence and his equally obvious air of conspiratorial secrecy. “Dear me.” He scratched his head anxiously and looked puzzled.
This was not very informative. “I suppose it’s some sort of plot,” I said, since it clearly took a plot to explain Mr. Charles’ encampment in the attic. “Did my husband bring you here? What are you waiting for? How long do you intend to remain?”
Mr. Charles cleared his throat, took out a handsome watch from his waistcoat pocket and glanced at it hopefully. “Your husband should be here in a few minutes, Mrs. Brandson. If you would be so obliging as to wait until he arrives, I’m sure he will be able to explain the entire situation very easily.”
I was quite sure Axel would do nothing of the kind. He would be too angry that I had escaped from Rodric’s room to indulge me with long explanations of his mysterious activities.
“Mr. Sherman,” I said persuasively, “could you not at least give me a little hint about why you should be pacing the floor of this attic tonight and waiting for my husband? Please! I know a woman’s curiosity is her worst and most disagreeable feature, but—”
“Ah, come, come, Mrs. Brandson!”
“There! I can tell how you despise me for it, but—”
“Not in the least, I—”
“—but I’m so worried about my husband, and if you could just help to put my mind at rest—oh, Mr. Sherman, I would be so grateful to you—”
I had fluttered my eyelashes enough. Mr. Charles’ natural kind-heartedness and fondness for flaunted femininity had made him decide to capitulate.
“Let me explain from the beginning, Mrs. Brandson,” he said graciously, and sat down on the edge of a table opposite me for all the world as if we were pausing in some drawing room to pass the time of day. “I am, as you so rightly assumed, here at your husband’s bidding in an attempt to prove once and for all beyond all reasonable doubt who killed Robert Brandson last Christmas Eve. Your husband has known from the beginning that Rodric could not have killed his father, but for reasons of his own he was reluctant to speak out at the time. For various reasons of delicacy I cannot elaborate further on this except to say that your husband saw Robert Brandson alive and well after Rodric had quarreled with his father and ridden off over the Marsh. Therefore he knew Rodric could not have been responsible for Robert Brandson’s subsequent murder...”
Esther, I was thinking, Esther. Robert Brandson must have caught Axel with her in her rooms. After the quarrel with Rodric he must have gone upstairs to talk to his wife and found Axel with her—in her bedroom...
“... let me explain what happened: according to your husband, on the day of the murder,” Charles Sherman was saying, “your husband took Rodric out shooting on the Marsh since Rodric and Vere had come to blows and George thought it would be best to separate them for a while. When they came back Robert Brandson called to Rodric from the librar
y and summoned him inside to see him.”
“Because he suspected Rodric of being involved in smuggling and in league with Delancey.”
“Precisely. Rodric told your husband afterwards—”
“But they didn’t see each other afterwards!”
“Oh yes, they did, Mrs. Brandson! Patience, and I shall explain it all to you. Rodric told your husband afterwards that this accusation was untrue but that when he had tried to deny it to his father and cast the blame on Vere, the conversation had abruptly degenerated into a quarrel. Rodric walked out and rode off on to the Marsh and Robert Brandson, in a great rage no doubt, stormed upstairs to discuss the matter with—”
Esther, I thought.
“—your husband George—”
Esther, I thought again, and Axel was there. Robert Brandson wanted to ask his wife if she knew which of their two sons was guilty of smuggling and conspiring with Delancey.
“—but George could not help him. However, shortly afterwards he decided to go down to the library to discuss the matter further with his father—” To talk his way out of a compromising situation, I thought, and to beg his father’s forgiveness.
“—and it was then,” said Charles Sherman gravely, “that he found Robert Brandson dead. His immediate reaction—after the natural grief and shock, that is—was one of horror in case he himself, or indeed someone else whom he knew to be innocent—”
Esther.
“—was suspected of the crime. He hesitated for some minutes, trying to decide what to do, and then Esther—pardon my informality, I mean Mrs. Brandson—arrived on the scene—”
Liar, I thought. She was with Axel all along, conferring with him, trying to decide what to do.
“—and her screams roused the servants and the other occupants of the house. Rodric was naturally suspected, but Esther refused to believe it, since Rodric was her favorite son, and to pacify her George rode off after Rodric with the idea of warning him and sending him into hiding until there was proof of the murderer’s true identity. As I’ve already said, George himself thought Rodric must be innocent but was prevented from saying why for reasons of delicacy.”
The Shrouded Walls Page 17