by Jean Plaidy
Carolan had no words to express her delight. One plump finger stroked the bird’s feathers.
“Pretty, pretty pretty!” cooed Carolan.
Such a baby, thought Mrs. Orland, although sometimes she had the air of quite a sophisticated young person!
Margaret was standing near Everard, saying shyly: “Everard, please show me your books; I do want to see your books!”
Everard almost scowled, but Mrs. Orland said: “Take Margaret to your study and show her your books, Everard.”
Everard said: “I do not want to Mother. I…”
“Everard. Margaret is your guest!”
Everard went very red, and led Margaret ungraciously towards the door.
“And when you have seen them, you may join the others in the garden. And remember … not too much noise. Papa is writing his sermon.”
Carolan said: “Is he always writing sermons?”
But no one answered that, and she supposed he was, because whenever she was at the rectory she was always told to be quiet on that account, and she could not imagine the rectory unless she herself was there.
“Now, Charles, suppose you take your little sister into the garden and show her the nice flowers until the others come down. You would like to see the nice flowers. Carolan?”
Carolan would have liked to stay with the wood on the stand, but Charles was eager to escape from the restraint of Mrs. Orland’s drawing-room.
“Come on, Carolan!” he cried, just as though he really wanted to show her the flowers, so that Carolan thought he had changed suddenly, and liked her after all.
It was lovely in the garden.
“Who wants to see her old flowers!” said Charles, but he said it in quite a friendly way, and Carolan laughed because she had always really wanted to be friendly with Charles.
“Do you want to see her old flowers, Carolan?”
“No,” said Carolan.
“Nor do II’ He laughed as though it were a great joke and Carolan laughed too because she was never sure about jokes, and always laughed when she thought there was one.
Charles led the way to the end of the garden, and at the end of the garden was a low stone wall__and beyond the wall was the graveyard.
“They look funny, those gravestones!” said Charles, and he laughed; so, thinking it was another joke, Carolan laughed too.
Charles was being very nice this afternoon.
“See me leap that wall!” he cried, and did so.
“You could not do it!” he challenged.
She knew she could not, but she tried. He stood on the other side of the wall, laughing at her, but not in a spiteful way.
“You are too little, Carolan; you will be able to when you are bigger.”
“I wish I was bigger!”
“Oh… you will be one day. Give me your hand and I will help you over.”
She scraped her knees getting over, but it was exciting being on the other side of the wall. She liked it. The gravestones were like ladies in grey cloaks, but they did not frighten her; the sunlight glinted on them, making them sparkle, showing her that though they might look like people they were only stones after all. How she loved the great blazing sun up there. It was such a comforter; she was not afraid of very much when she felt that to be close by.
“See if you can catch me,” said Charles, and he walked quickly amongst the gravestones.
“I walk!” he called over his shoulder.
“You run. That is what you call handicaps, Carolan. Oh …” For she had nearly caught him. Carolan shrieked with delight; she forgot all the unkind Charleses she had known, and remembered only the kind one who had helped her scramble over the wall and let her play touch with him in the graveyard. She caught him and they stopped, laughing, by the side of what to Carolan looked like a little house covered in ivy.
“Do you like it?” asked Charles. She shook her head.
“It is like a little house,” she said, ‘but it has no windows. I like windows.”
“Do you know what it is ?”
“No.”
“It is what we were talking about… you know… a vault… It is our family who live in there our dead grandpapas and grandmammas and uncles and aunts …”
“Oh!” said Carolan.
“Walk, and I will catch you.”
“Later on perhaps,” said Charles.
“Now I am going to look in there.”
“But you must not.”
“I can if I want to, and I do want to.”
He tried the door, but it was locked, and she was filled with relief.
“You cannot,” she said gleefully.
“Carolan, you would be afraid.”
She stoutly denied it. She could do so happily, for how was it possible to go through a locked door?
He said: “Carolan, if that door were open, would you go in? I would, I would want to go in.”
“So would II’ He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a key. She stared at it in dismay and horror.
“But Charles … How can you have a key… for that?”
He took her hand; he held it lightly just as though they were friends. Then he opened the door; there was a short flight of steps that led down into darkness.
He looked at her over his shoulder.
“Papa keeps the key,” he said.
“I have seen it often in a drawer in the library with other keys. I took it because I wanted to see what it was like in here. You do too, Carolan. You said so!”
She was silent. It was a different world in there; it was damp and it was dark and there was none of her well-loved sunshine to defy the darkness.
“Come on.” said Charles. He was excited; he had meant to enjoy this adventure with Everard, so he had taken the key and hidden it in his pocket. He was almost sure once that Jennifer had felt it there, but she had said nothing so she could not have noticed it; and then her words in the carriage had made him see the possibility of another adventure with Carolan instead of Everard whose years made him inclined to be superior.
He took Carolan’s hand, and she descended the stairs with him reluctantly.
“What an odd, nasty smell!” she said, and her teeth began to chatter.
“Earth and worms and dead people!” said Charles. That is what you smell.” His voice was shrill with excitement. Now Carolan’s eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness; they were standing in what was like a room, very cool and quiet, she thought.
“On the ledges,” said Charles with his mouth close to her ear, ‘are the coffins. Oh, does it make your flesh creep, Carolan?”
“No!” lied Carolan.
“But I like outside best.”
“But you wanted to come, Carolan. You said you did.”
“Yes, but we have been. I can catch you; you cannot walk faster than I can run.”
“Would you be scared to stay down here all night. Carolan?”
“I would not stay here all night.”
“But if you did …?”
Her show of courage deserted her; she made for the steps.
“Listen!” said Charles.
“What was that?”
She stood still; she could hear nothing but the wild beating of her own heart and Charles’s breathing. He caught her shoulder suddenly; he gave her a little push backwards; her fingers touched the clammy wall. She shrieked, and then horror silenced her, for Charles had leaped up those steps and had shut the door on her. She scrambled up the steps as fast as she could, but the door was already closed. Now there was no comforting light at all… nothing but the damp darkness. She beat her fists on the door.
“Let me out! Let me out! Please … please let me out!” There was no answer. She went on beating her little hands against the heavy door. She found the lock. She pushed, she kicked. But Charles had locked the door; he had taken away the key.
Carolan shut her eyes tightly and pressed her face against the door; she felt that a thousand horrors were rushing up the steps after her; she wa
ited for something terrible to happen. She went on waiting. Nothing happened but the awful stillness pressed in en her, and the cold damp darkness was more unendurable than anything else could have been.
She could not keep her eyes closed for ever; she must open them. Fearfully she looked over her shoulder. She could just make out the dark entrance to the room; she turned and pressed her back against the door, her eyes fixed on the entrance to that room. Whatever was coming for her would come from that direction, she knew. She remembered the stories she had heard whispered by the servants; Jennifer had told her some horrible stories about dead people. Would they be angry with her for venturing into their home? She had lied; she had said she was unafraid, believing she would not be called upon to prove her lack of fear. Jennifer said liars went to hell; but what was hell, compared with this dark home of the dead?
“Charles!” she screamed; but the sound of her own voice, echoing about her. frightened her so much that she pressed her lips together lest any sound escaped to terrify her.
She did not know what to do. A sob shook her. She began wildly kicking the door again, but the hollow sound of her kicks echoed through the place as her voice had done.
“Mammal Mammal’ The words must escape. She shut her eyes and began to pray.
“I did not want to come here. I took only one small piece of sugar yesterday. It was not I who put my finger in the apple jelly. I did not. I did not! If I could get out of here. I would never do anything wrong again. I would never make faces at anyone… not even Jennifer…”
What was that? Only some small animal scuttling along down there in the gloom. She started to shiver, and her face was wet, but not with tears, for strangely she had shed no tears. Tears were soft and comforting things, and there was no comfort for her in this dark place.
Would they come out of their coffins? What would they look like? She shut her eyes tightly. I will not look at them… I will not look. Perhaps they would force her to open her eyes, and they would be horrible … horrible and angry with her for coming into their house.
“Oh, let me out. let me out!” she sobbed.
She found she was lying on the damp ground, her head pressed against the door, her hands over her ears, great sobs shaking her. Something must happen soon. Now she lifted her hands; she must hear. She was sure strange noises were going on all about her. Was it better to hear or not to hear? To see or not to see?
A ghostly voice whispered: “Carolan!”
She trembled.
“Carolan!” said the voice again. She stared at the entrance to the room which was the home of the dead, and she heard the voice again: “Carolan! Carolan! Are you there. Carolan?”
It was Everard’s voice, coming through the door, and she was almost fainting with the joy of hearing Everard’s voice; but she could not speak though her lips were moving. Frantically she tried to find her voice; he would go away: and he would leave her. He was there, but she had lost her voice and could not call to him.
“Carolan! Carolan. Are you there, Carolan?” She tried to get to her feet, but she was shaking so much she could not stand.
“Please…” she managed to utter, but her teeth chattered, and the words could not come out.
She tried again and again, and then she heard Everard’s footsteps going away.
Despair seized her. She could shriek now.
“Everard! Everard! I am here. Oh, please get me out, Everard!”
But she was too late, for he had gone, and she would have to stay here all the night. The night? But here in this dark place it was always night. There was the faintest gleam of comfort in the thought, and it gave her the courage to raise herself and to turn her gaze on the dark entrance to the room.
It began again now the staring about, the closing of her eyes; one moment alert, the next shutting out all sound and all sight.
Every movement about her set her heart pounding afresh. Sometimes it was the rustle of the trees outside; sometimes it was the call of a bird.
“Everard, come back.” she prayed.
“I can talk now … I can talk.” And she went on talking, just to assure herself that her voice was still hers to command.
Surely Everard would come back! Why had he said her name if he had not thought she might be there?
“Carolan!” A key turned in the lock, and Everard almost fell over her, lying there. He picked her up. She stared at him, still terrified, wondering if one of the dead ones had come for her and, as an additional torture, had made himself look like Everard. Everard sat down on the top step, just as though it was anybody’s step, and held her in his arms. She thought he looked frightened, but she only seemed to see things through a haze.
He said: “Everything is all right now, Carolan. I am taking you out of here.”
She was shaking so much she could not answer him. He was very tender, Jennifer said he was a mollycoddle. He did not play games; he liked his books; one day he would be a parson like his father, and write sermons all day long. But one thing Carolan knew instinctively about Everard; he would never lock frightened little girls in with the dead; and to Carolan, newly released from hell, he was wonderful.
He went on talking while she lay in his arms, which was just what she wanted him to do.
“There is nothing to be afraid of, Carolan. The dead cannot hurt anyone; besides, they are your own dead here. They would love you if they were alive, just as people at home love you.”
Just as people at home loved her? Charles? Jennifer? The squire? But did it matter what Everard said! She only wanted his protecting arms round her and to listen to his soothing voice.
“There!” said Everard softly, like somebody’s mother. There! You feel better now.”
Then her tears began to fall, and she could not stop them.
“Oh, I say!” cried Everard in real dismay.
“Oh, I say, you know, it is all right now, you know.”
But she could not stop the tears, and to show him that they were not really sad tears she began to laugh, and she was laughing and crying all at once, which frightened Everard. He kept saving her name.
“Carolan! Carolan!” and rocking her to and fro as though she were a baby. And eventually she stopped laughing and was only crying. Then Everard said: “I hope I have hurt him badly, I do!” She was so interested that she stopped crying and asked: “Who, Everard?”
“Charles!” said Everard.
“Let us get away from this place. We ought not to have stopped here; it is a dismal hole.”
They went out and he locked the door after him. She stared round-eyed at the key.
He said: “Your eyes are red!” And she began to sniff again. Then he added: “I don’t mind admitting I should not have liked being shut in there alone myself… much.”
And saying that was almost as wonderful as letting her out. He was twelve years old and she was five, and yet she felt a wonderful companionship spring up between them.
She could see the sunshine glinting through the trees, and she stared up at it, at the lovely sun itself. And when she blinked and shut her eyes she saw red suns on her lids, as though it were saying to her: “It is all right. It is all right. You see I am here, even when you shut your eyes!” And she was suddenly wonderfully happy; she leaped up and kissed Everard. He did not much like being kissed by a little girl of five, but he was faintly aware of the charm of Carolan, of green eyes shining between swollen lids and a sweet and tremulous baby mouth.
“I say.” he said.
“I say!” and wiped off Carolan’s kiss, smiling at her as he did so to show that he was not as annoyed as he might easily have been.
“You should bathe your eyes,” he said.
“I will take you to the pump in the yard, shall I?”
She nodded. Willingly she would have followed Everard to the end of the world.
Just as, a little while ago, everything had been dark tragedy, now everything was very gay or extremely comic. She laughed when Everard pumped the water and
gave her a lace-edged handkerchief, which she held under the water. Then he stopped pumping, and said: “Here! Give it to me.” And he took it and bathed her face with it, and again she thought he was like somebody’s mother.
“Everard,” she asked him, ‘how did you get the key?”
“I knew he had it,” he told her, and that was another delightful characteristic of Everard’s; he did not say, as the others would: “Oh, shut up, baby.” or “You wouldn’t understand.” Everard went on: “He showed it to me this afternoon. Then, when I saw him without you and asked where you were, he looked sly and I guessed: so I came and called you, and when you did not answer I was afraid you had fainted.”
“I did not faint,” said Carolan proudly, ‘but when I tried to speak my voice would not come.”
“Well,” he said, ‘you are all right now.” She leaped high into the air to show him that she was indeed all right. She was happier than she had been all the afternoon or for many days; she was not sure why, but she was a mercurial little creature, often very sad, often very happy; but rarely had she been as happy as she was now. Perhaps it was because Everard, twelve years old and admired and respected by the others, was being so kind to her.
While they were at the pump, Charles and Margaret came up. There was a cut right across Charles’s forehead and it was bleeding. Charles and Everard glowered at each other, and Margaret looked frightened.
Everard said contemptuously: “You can say you fell over one of the tombstones and cut your forehead. Carolan can say she was with you and she fell first, and you went down after her. That will do.”