Valley of Nightmares

by Jane Godman

  I pretended not to understand. “A big, black car,” I replied brightly, opening my eyes very wide. “A Bentley, I think it was. Oh, and you were driving it.”

  He didn’t respond, and I schooled my face back into a serious expression. How could I possibly explain my suspicions—my conviction—that what had brought me here was not of this world? That the unearthly ties that united Ceri and me in the spectral realm had, for some still unspecified reason, dictated that we must now also be together physically? And, even more bizarrely, that Taran House was the catalyst that had drawn me? I would be lucky if my feet touched the ground as he threw me out the door.

  “I needed a job where I got to use my brain instead of my bum!” I blurted out. “And it wasn’t as if there was a promotion in the offing at the Felicia, or some nice man was going to come along and sweep me off with a marriage proposal.”

  There was more to it, of course. I was only twenty-two, but if I wasn’t careful, I could see my life mapped out. I’d be like some of the older girls, doing whatever it took—and apparently it took a lot—to please Maxie, or his friends, just so that I could keep my place in the show.

  I didn’t like to let my memory drift back too often to the day I’d wandered into the Felicia—desperate, skinny and scared—and asked about the Cleaner Wanted sign on the door. Maxie took one look at me and marched me down the road to a greasy-spoon cafe. There he bullied me into eating a cooked breakfast washed down by several cups of tea and offered me a job as a hatcheck girl. Under Maxie’s brusque manner there lurked a heart of gold.

  “Put a bit of flesh on, and we might even try you out in the chorus.” He had waved away my thanks. “You got somewhere to live? Go to this address, tell Mrs. Comber Maxie sent you.” I owed Maxie a great deal, it was true, but my mind shied stubbornly away from a future in which sharing a bed with him became a regular feature. I had a feeling, however, whenever he looked my way, that he was storing me up for just such a starring role on some forthcoming occasion.

  “Even so, I imagine the extras were quite lucrative,” Gethin remarked gravely, and I bit my lip. Maxie had, at one time, owned a shady establishment that doubled as a brothel in Berlin. But—as he himself was fond of saying—Germany was no longer the place for those with Semitic tendencies. The Felicia was Maxie’s attempt to go upmarket. He encouraged us to have a drink with the customers, but publicly he insisted that there was no “funny business” at his club. Of course, there was funny business, and plenty of it. But it was all very discreet. Privately, the girls would make an assignation with one of the customers, and be well paid for their time. Maxie remained—or pretended to remain—oblivious. I didn’t really go in for all that stuff, myself. Unlike many of the girls, I didn’t turn tricks. But that’s because I’m a frightful prude. Or I used to be. Back then.

  But Gethin wasn’t to know that, was he? After all, I hadn’t exactly been a shrinking violet when I had a drink with him at the club. Thinking back, I’d practically thrown myself at him shrieking, “Take me to bed!” But his words still hurt me. Perversely, I wanted him to believe in me, to believe I was…what? Pure and good? But that was nonsensical, wasn’t it? Lilly, the inexperienced stripper. Who would believe that? I’d had a few encounters, but I wasn’t a cheap little tart. Since that was obviously what he thought of me, I wasn’t going to make myself vulnerable by trying to convince him otherwise. Give a girl a bad name and she may as well live up to it.

  “Gosh, I didn’t just strip down and give up the goods for anyone.” I tried to emulate Fanny’s bored drawl. “It always had to be someone I liked! Am I shocking you?” He shook his head slowly, the brooding expression more pronounced than ever. “Actually,” I continued, still in my best world-weary sophisticate voice. “I find sex most frightfully boring! An absolute chore! All that drooling, panting and pawing.”

  “Now you have succeeded in your quest to shock me,” he announced, chucking the newspaper he had been reading to one side and rising from his seat. I raised my brows and he said, “I’m shocked that any man lucky enough to have been with someone as warm, beautiful and downright desirable as you, Lilly Divine, didn’t take the trouble to ensure it was the most miraculous experience of your life.” I sat there staring up at him in stunned silence until, with a flash of that occasional and this time decidedly wicked smile, he bade me good night.

  As soon as the door clicked closed behind him, I rushed to the ancient mirror over the mantel and studied my face in its scarred glass. “He thinks you’re beautiful!” I whispered to my reflection. She made a thumbs-up sign and grinned delightedly back at me. Succumbing to my feelings, I danced a few elegant waltz steps around the room.

  Unable to contemplate sleep after such a devastating conversation, I picked up Gethin’s discarded newspaper, deciding to acquaint myself with the goings-on in the world outside this valley. I had become something of a recluse. Given that ambitious and ruthless men were squaring up for a confrontation over which none of us ordinary folk had any control, I was entirely sure my reclusive state was a bad thing.

  The way the newspaper was folded indicated that Gethin had been reading a short article several pages in. It was couched in careful, cryptic terms, but it referred to a missing letter. Intrigued about anything that interested Gethin, I read on. The letter was from a high-ranking British diplomat and had been addressed to the Führer. The author of this missive appeared to have been a double agent. Although the letter vanished before it was delivered, the journalist reported that it was said to reveal—as proof of this traitor’s loyalty to the Reich—the identities and whereabouts of British agents working on the continent. The race was on to find the whereabouts of this very interesting document. The Germans wished to have sight of it, of course, in order to wipe out those working against them. In the meantime, British intelligence services were desperately trying to locate and destroy it.

  Shivering as though assailed by sudden cold, I cast the newspaper aside. Perhaps I didn’t want to learn more about the world outside the valley, after all.

  * * *

  Reverend Owen Lewis did not really fit in with my mental image of a Calvinist preacher. He was too twinkly and humorous, and when he declared his intention of calling on me at Taran House, I was surprised to find myself looking forward to the visit. He was the minister of the tiny village chapel. His eyes were endlessly blue in a round, kindly face. Tufts of snowy hair surrounded his shiny bald pate. It was hard to estimate his age, but from the way he talked about the valley, and events that he had witnessed there, I judged him to be in his seventies.

  Gethin, when I asked him, had given the matter some thought before saying, “Bryn was staunchly anti-religious. And I don’t think Christina cared one way or another. But the chapel is an important part of being Welsh. If Ceri is to make her home here and be accepted in the valley, then, yes, it would be wise to make sure she attends regularly.” So, despite her rolled eyes and vociferous complaints, I took Ceri to chapel every Sunday.

  “Last time I came here, the house was descending slowly into ruin Miss Divine,” Reverend Lewis commented as we drank tea in the parlour. The full-length windows were open onto the garden, exposing the room to the bright day that had burst upon us. Mount Taran rejoiced in the sun, and the surrounding farmland had flung off the clouds of winter sleep. The house slumbered in the bosom of the mountain’s embrace. “It is looking considerably better now.”

  “It’s such a beautiful house.” I sighed. How could I ever have thought it was ugly? “But it seems that circumstances have conspired against it in recent years.”

  He nodded. “My heart aches for this valley.” His accent was a lilting singsong that made everything he said sound like poetry. “The Depression hit Wales hard. In some places half the workforce was unemployed, and people have left the rural areas for the cities in droves. Which is why,” he said, with a smile at me, “it is so nice to welcome young people who choose to make the v
alleys their home.”

  “As a governess, I can’t claim to have any choice in the matter.” I returned the smile. It was irresistible. “I must go where my employer decides.”

  “You will excuse me for saying that I don’t believe you to be a typical governess, Miss Divine.”

  “The uniform didn’t fool you, then?” I asked, indicating my dark blue dress with its puritanical white collar.

  “Miss Divine, you are clearly unaware of the remarkable effect that your presence here has had on my congregation. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of young men attending the chapel recently. I cannot, sadly, ascribe this phenomenon to my charismatic sermons. I beg you, please don’t abandon your ‘uniform’. I would fear for their sanity if you do!” He laughed at my dumbfounded expression. “I am sure you will excuse me for adding that perhaps an unconventional governess was exactly what young Ceridwyn—and, indeed, Taran House—needed.”

  We talked for some time about Ceri, her well-being after the loss of her parents and what the future might hold for her. But I sensed that Reverend Lewis had other matters on his mind. Eventually, with a penetrating stare, he asked, “And how is Gethin?”

  “Busy,” I replied. I had barely seen him over the past few days. He left the house before breakfast and returned after dinner. Whatever it was that was taking up so much of his time had etched fine lines about his eyes and caused a grim look to appear about his mouth. I didn’t mention to Reverend Lewis how much I longed to soothe those signs of strain away with my fingertips and lips. I had a feeling he might not approve.

  “I meant, how is he emotionally? Following Bryn’s and Christina’s deaths?” Reverend Lewis helped himself to a biscuit, watching my face as he ate.

  “It would be difficult for me to comment, since I didn’t know him before,” I said noncommittally. I wasn’t sure I wanted to discuss my employer’s business with this insightful little clergyman.

  He sighed. “And yet, I feel that you are a most perceptive young lady, Miss Divine.” The blue eyes continued to probe. “Most perceptive,” he repeated. He tented his fingers and rested his chin on them. “I have known the Taran family for a long time. You will no doubt be aware of the legends surrounding our valley, Miss Divine. We delight in telling them, and they grow in character with each telling. But this house, located as it is at the heart of the mountain’s circle, has more than its fair share of folklore and history. You cannot live here and be unaffected by the lingering emotions of this place. That effect is strongest for those of the Taran family. I baptised the twins, and I watched them grow up.” His face was troubled. “I’m worried about Gethin. In looks the boys were identical, fine and handsome. As they grew up, Gethin was the sensitive one, the one who felt things deeply. Bryn was more outgoing, charismatic. Definitely a charmer. You felt strongly that nothing touched him. But there was real hatred between them, and I know how profoundly Gethin’s life has been affected by that.”

  “You mean over Christina?” I asked.

  “Amongst other things,” he agreed. “In that instance, Bryn systematically set out to come between them. Of course, they didn’t live here then, but sometimes visited the valley during the summer months, and it was a painful thing to witness. Christina wasn’t strong enough to resist him, and Gethin, although he tried to hold her, couldn’t compete with Bryn when he turned on the full beam of his charm. And, well, you know the rest.”

  “And now Gethin is left caring for their daughter,” I finished for him. I didn’t need anyone else to tell me that was an uneasy relationship. I saw it for myself every day. “Why do you think Bryn hated Gethin so much?”

  “I think this place—this house—has the power to polarise the souls and emotions within it,” he said bluntly. “And I am well aware how fanciful that sounds, Miss Divine, particularly for a man of my calling! Therefore, evil—and that is not a word I use lightly—can, if allowed to do so, thrive here. There is an ancient creed that warns ‘When the darkness falls, stay indoors…’.”

  “‘When the true darkness descends, stay indoors,’” I corrected him, explaining, as he raised his brows, “There is a copy of the text in the old master bedroom.”

  “Heed it well, Miss Divine.” He nodded. “Yeats said that the world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our human senses to grow sharper. The darkness referred to in that creed may not be the darkness of nightfall.” He rose to take his leave, seeming embarrassed that he had spoken with such depth of feeling.

  I walked out with him, and he clasped my hand, saying with a warm glow in his eyes, “Good can also thrive here, Miss Divine, and I feel that your arrival here has been a good thing—for Ceridwyn, of course—but also for Taran House.”

  “When you talked about evil,” I said, “did you mean that Bryn Taran was evil?”

  “I meant that there has been evil here at Taran House. There may yet be evil here still,” he replied gravely, and I sensed a warning in the words.

  After he left, I walked slowly back into the house, puzzling over his parting message. My eyes were drawn upward to the clock tower, and as if on cue, the sun ducked behind a cloud casting a long shadow over the valley.

  * * *

  The photograph album was leather bound, with gilt trim on the cover. Inside it, each heavy-duty, black page had tabs to secure the pictures in place. Embossed vellum sheets between the leaves provided another layer of protection. These were Taran family memories, and I perused them greedily, searching for clues about Gethin’s past. Most of the pictures were carefully posed portraits. The album started with a sepia wedding photograph. I think photographers in those days threatened newly married couples with dire consequences if they smiled. Consequently, the expressions this couple wore were funereal. The bride wore a straight, drop-waisted dress that finished a few inches above her ankles. Her heavy lace veil was worn flat to her head, and to my critical eye, it resembled a tablecloth. Do we ever really approve of the tastes of the previous generation? She held a bouquet the size of a cartwheel. The groom, self-conscious in his bow tie and tails, was undoubtedly Gethin’s father. The harsh beauty of the Taran features was as evident in him then as they were in Gethin now.

  A series of typical family snaps followed. A woman, unmistakably the bride, seated before an easel, wore a floppy hat and a frown of concentration as she applied her brush to the canvas. Mount Taran towered behind her. Then came a picture of the wedding couple holding their newborn twin sons. Gethin’s parents had permitted themselves a prim smile for the camera in this one. Next came a photo of two identical, dark, hair-tousled boys in shorts digging on a beach. One of those boys holding aloft a sports trophy in a triumphant pose, while the other—arms folded across his chest, face expressionless—looked on. First day of school, standing on the steps of Taran House, the hair now tamed. At the cricket stumps—older now—one brother shielding his eyes from the sun and laughing with his teammates, the other standing slightly to one side, frowning in concentration. One of the twins leaning against a car while the other sat in the driver’s seat, both of them with cigarettes dangling from their lips. A jokey shot of them, with their mother between them. They had linked their arms through hers and lifted her a few inches from the ground. All three of them were laughing. From the sketchy details Gethin had given me of his family, I calculated that his mother must have died very soon after that picture was taken. Bryn and Gethin Taran were each a mirror image of the other. I don’t know what I had expected. Perhaps that Bryn’s celluloid image would radiate evil? Or that I would know him by his horns and tail?

  An aging envelope had been tucked into the back of the album, and I slit it open. It contained a few more photographs, which I studied with the guilty feeling of one prying into an intensely private story. The first showed a young couple, and I immediately recognised the location. They were sitting on the edge of the marble fountain that graced the lawn out at the front of Taran House.
Christina looked relaxed, unlike her image in the picture Ceri kept in her room. Her hair was longer and wavier, and she was smiling up at the man—one of the twins—who had a protective arm about her tiny waist. The next picture in the sequence showed Christina, still seated on the fountain’s rim while her beau knelt in front of her. He was holding a small, open box out toward her, and she was clearly crying. But she was smiling through her tears. This was an interesting tableau, because, in it, the other twin lounged against one of the porch columns, watching the scene. His face was in shadow. Was this Bryn watching as his brother proposed to the woman he loved? Or Gethin watching as his hopes disappeared? How infuriating it was not to be able to tell the brothers apart!

  The final picture was of the three of them, on Bryn and Christina’s wedding day. My heart ached for Gethin, standing slightly to one side of the married couple, his face as stony and proud as the Welsh mountains. Christina had changed. Her wavy hair had been cut and tamed. There was a tension about her face that had not been there in the earlier pictures. The brittle look that I knew from Ceri’s picture was emerging even then. She wore a simple, full-skirted, below-the-knee dress and a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with flowers. Bryn was smiling like the cat who had got the cream. But what interested me most about that picture was not the love triangle it depicted, fascinating though that was. It was the startling family resemblance. Not a physical resemblance so much as a shared expression. I had never noticed it before, but in this photograph it was brutally clear. But it shouldn’t be a surprise, should it? They were twins after all. I ran my finger over the face that reminded me so starkly of Ceri. Gethin’s face.

  Chapter Nine

  The crowds press in on me, stifling my breathing and a panicky, claustrophobic feeling rises in my gullet. He is so close I can almost touch him, and as I try to push my way forward, he turns and throws me a flash of his familiar cheeky grin.