The Unquiet House

by Alison Littlewood

CHAPTER FIVE

  Charlie seemed to wake as they went further from the mire. They crossed the bridge and reached the path and the ground was blessedly solid beneath them, and the colours intensified: the sky was deepening, and swallows were wheeling above them. Charlie pulled ahead, rubbing at the back of his neck, and she hurried to keep up. She felt lighter, freer: alive.

  She failed, she thought. The woman had failed. She had meant for Emma to die, to drown in the mire alone and away from anyone, and she had failed. She relished the cool air in her lungs and Charlie, here with her and himself once again. She remembered the way she’d woken with the telephone in her hand, wanting to speak to someone, anyone, to find out who he was and if she could trust him, and now she knew: he wasn’t evil, had never had any scheme, had never been against her. He was just Charlie, and they could get to know each other properly now, no doubts standing between them. She found herself smiling, joy tingling at the edge of her senses. She needn’t be alone.

  And then Charlie whirled around and she saw the expression on his face and her smile faded. His skin was pale and his eyes were wide, still unfocused. ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘Emma, I’ve stayed here too long. I’m not sure why.’

  He turned his back and started to run, away down the slope towards the lane, and after a moment she ran after him. His steps were loud on the road and then he was gone, turned in at the gate. When she caught up to him he was bent double with one arm resting on his car. He let it fall and slumped onto his knees, the crunch of it loud on the gravel. She winced, but he didn’t appear to feel any pain.

  Slowly his head turned and he looked up at the house. The way he stared froze her. It was as if he was seeing something she couldn’t see and she looked up at the windows as a shadow passed across it. She shook her head. A cloud, or a bird; it couldn’t be anything else. Not now. Not here. The woman had failed.

  Charlie bowed his head and his back jerked as if he was retching. She didn’t want to touch him, but after a moment she did, resting her hand lightly on his shoulder. He didn’t respond. It took him a while to raise his head. He turned to her again, and said: ‘There’s something wrong in there, Emma. There’s something in the house.’

  She shook her head, no, there was nothing, it was all right now; but he looked away from her, past her, towards the road and away. ‘I have to go,’ he said.

  ‘Charlie, no. Not like this.’

  ‘I have to get out.’

  ‘Please. You could stay a while.’

  He shook his head again, the movement wild, and she realised with shock that he was close to tears. ‘I can’t go in there,’ he said. He felt at his pockets, turning even paler, and then he found his keys and clutched at his chest. ‘It’s all right,’ he muttered. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘Charlie, come inside. You can have a drink first, rest a little—’

  He pushed himself to his feet and edged around the car, supporting his weight against it once more. He reached the driver’s side door and pulled it open.

  ‘Wait. Your things …’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I’ll get them for you.’

  ‘No! Emma, no. You should get away from here. You should get out.’ And then he paused and said, quietly, ‘If you can.’

  ‘Charlie?’

  He half-fell into the car and fumbled with the keys. It started first time, ready to go, to drive away and leave her, just as they had been given this chance.

  She didn’t call out or grab the door as he pulled it closed. She could see it wasn’t any use. He had panicked, that was all; he’d sensed something of what the woman had done to him and he wanted to get away, and she couldn’t blame him. He would leave this place and he would calm down and then, soon, she would see him again. They could start over. He probably wouldn’t even be able to remember why he’d wanted to go so badly. It would be all right.

  He reversed onto the grass, the wheels sinking in, and then pulled forward, scattering gravel in his haste. He did not look back as he drove away; he didn’t even look at her.

  Emma was left standing on the drive, staring at the road, wondering how long it would be before she saw him again. He was mine, she thought. He was only a distant relative, but it was painfully clear now that he was the only one she had.

  CHAPTER SIX

  There’s something in the house.

  Emma closed the door behind her and she knew that Charlie had been wrong. It wasn’t the house that was the problem, it never had been. It was the woman who had tainted it, cursing it with her presence.

  She was grateful to be enclosed in its cool shade, its protective walls. Her fear was fading. The mire was behind her and she need never go there again. There had been no reason for Charlie to run away like that. For the first time she felt the stirrings of contempt. What on earth had he been thinking? But he too had been tainted by its ghost. He was of the woman’s blood so perhaps he had simply revolted against it, wanting to cast off her spirit, to get as far away from it as he could.

  And it hadn’t been his fault. At least she knew now that Charlie had really been her friend. One day he too would realise that, and when he did, she would be here, waiting, when he came back.

  No: she was still leaving, wasn’t she? That was her plan. She had only wanted to come back here and gather her things and get out, like Charlie. She would go far away and never return. She could sell the place, get rid of it – pass it on. She shivered. She realised the house was cold, even now, in the daytime. Its air had a musty taint.

  Still, it was hers. Hers.

  She had seen it in her mind, right from the beginning, a grand place with light spilling down the stairs, gleaming on the polished balustrade and the freshly painted walls, the shining floor. It was a place where she could live, not just exist; somewhere that made her special, that set her apart. Somewhere that made her feel as if she belonged.

  She swallowed, hard, remembering her parents’ house and her own small flat. They seemed impossibly far away. She didn’t need to run back to them. She no longer felt so frightened. Mire House folded itself around her and calmed her and made her feel safe. She was here now, and she had nowhere else to be. She belonged here. It was hers.

  This place is your home, Emma. It always has been.

  She shook the woman’s words away. She didn’t have to listen to them. She had taken something that was true and right and made it twisted. Now she was here, inside, safe, she didn’t want to leave it. She didn’t want to be anywhere else; she wasn’t sure she had anywhere else left to be. Mire House was the only solid thing in the world. The woman had been right: she did belong here – but not in the way she had meant.

  Emma closed her eyes. She belonged here because the woman had failed. Now she was here, alone, but that was all right. Somehow, it always had been. Being alone needn’t be frightening, not here.

  She pictured her mother’s face, then her father’s, and they were smiling. They no longer reminded her of the hollow place inside. It had been her greatest fear, to have nothing and no one left, that she would simply disappear, but now she was home. She could exist in its silence and call it peace. She could breathe again.

  She did just that, taking a long draught of air, but there was something wrong with it. At first she wasn’t sure what it was, and then she knew: that stale taint – it hadn’t been that way when she’d set out on her walk with Charlie. It had been cleaner then, refreshed by the breeze from windows left ajar, the only scent the chemical tang of paint. Now it smelled of the mire. She looked up at the stairwell. Motes of dust hung there, circling one another like long-dead dancers. She narrowed her eyes. The walls were not as she remembered. The corners were darkened with dust-coated cobwebs and the walls were festooned with dry screws of peeling paint and flecked with mould. She could smell mould now too, the scent strong and organic. She closed her eyes and pictured her own hands, working, covering the walls with fresh paint. She opened them once more and the image faded. Everything was grey. It was
shadowed; it was old.

  She stepped forward and ran her fingertips across the wall, feeling only dust beneath them. Then she went towards the back of the house and pushed open the door to the dining room, one of the last rooms she’d worked on. It was where the mould was coming from, she could tell by the sourer tang in the air. It always had been stronger here at the back of the house, the closest point to the mire.

  Dark blotches had spread from the back wall, painting them anew with its clammy fingers. The carpet was uneven, rippling like swampy ground. Beneath the mould the walls were a filthy ochre: the colour of abandonment, of loss. It looked as if no one had been here in a very long time. Emma made a sound in the back of her throat. She could see the room as she had left it, brightened by the work of her hands, of their hands, hers and Charlie’s. She had worked so hard to make everything new, to show that it was her own. To make it her own. Now its air clogged her throat; she couldn’t breathe. She backed away, turning from it so that she wouldn’t have to see the old house appearing once more, emerging from the past. She must have been wrong. She was only confused, that was all. It must have been one of the other rooms that she’d painted. She had made a mistake.

  She stood there, just breathing, forcing herself to think. The drawing room: that was the first thing to be finished when she came here. It was the first room she’d been able to see in her mind, the one where her vision was clearest. She had been going to paint it green and read a book in a tall chair by the light of a lamp. Charlie had seen the colour and told her it was perfect. And it was: it was.

  She walked unsteadily across the hall, noting that the tiles were smeared with muddy footprints. Her own? She wasn’t sure and she didn’t want to think about it. She reached out to push the door open and then she stopped. There were voices, low and urgent, just on the edge of hearing. They were coming from somewhere behind her. At first it sounded as if they were everywhere, echoing around the hard tiles and empty walls of the hallway, and then she heard a soft crunch as of footsteps on gravel. She breathed again. It was someone outside. She couldn’t think who it might be. It occurred to her it could be the dark woman, come to reclaim the house she had built, but somehow it didn’t feel like that. She stayed motionless. If she didn’t move, they wouldn’t know she was there. Soon they would go away again.

  She listened for a knock but instead the murmuring came again. She couldn’t make out the words but she could tell that one voice belonged to an older woman and one to a man; his voice was lower than her dry, cracked tones. With a start, she realised that she recognised it. She had heard it somewhere before, but she couldn’t remember when. Then she thought:

  You getting on all right, are you? Big old house, that.

  It was my— a distant relative’s. I inherited it.

  Ah. Sorry. Or good for you, not sure which.

  The voice belonged to the man from the church. What was his name? Frank, that was it. But why was he here, now? She froze and listened again. At last there was a knock at the door. She didn’t move but she leaned towards it, straining to hear.

  ‘It was never a good place.’ The voice was the woman’s.

  ‘I don’t suppose it was, Mum.’

  ‘I never did like you coming ’ere that time. I never wanted you to set foot in it, not really. Not one bit—’ Her voice faded.

  ‘Aye, well. I shouldn’t ’ave. I know what it led to, Mum. I still remember what ’e said, that ’e weren’t scared …’

  ‘I don’t want to think on’t, love. Not our Mossy, not ’ere.’

  ‘No, Mum.’ There was a pause. ‘It were just an accident, nowt else …’ and then, ‘I was never quite easy about it, that lass coming t’ live ’ere. It din’t quite feel right.’

  ‘No, well. We’ll check on ’er, love.’

  They fell silent. Emma stepped softly towards the door, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to open it. She didn’t want visitors. She only wanted Charlie back, but if not him, she wanted to be on her own. And then the door handle turned and the catch opened with a click and she rapidly stepped back into the shadows beneath the stairs. She stared at the door and she didn’t blink. If she could keep them away with her will, they wouldn’t come in: they’d turn and they’d run.

  The door opened.

  ‘It’s open. We’ll ’ave a quick look, then you’ll know she’s all right. That’s the best thing.’ The woman’s face was full of concern beneath the wrinkles. Her hair was white and pulled into a bun, stray hairs surrounding her like static electricity. She put a hand nervously to the mole just next to her lip, and then a man’s hand took her arm and helped her across the threshold. It struck Emma then how colourless they looked, this old woman and the tall, thin man behind her, and yet she could almost sense the warmth they had for each other. She could see it in the gentle way he clasped her arm.

  Inside the threshold, they paused and looked around. ‘You was good to that old man, Frank.’

  He gave a rueful smile. ‘He weren’t that old,’ he said. ‘You teld me that once, though he were old enough to us. It were a shame, though. I should’ve gone back, after, you know. I never did say I were sorry. But then what happened happened, and it were all too late anyway and I couldn’t take it back, any of it.’ His smile faded as he spoke and his voice cracked and Emma realised that he was close to tears. His gaze was vague, as if he was looking at something a long way away. He still hadn’t noticed her where she stood, pressed back against the wall.

  She didn’t quite know why she had hidden. By rights she should declare herself, demand to know what they were doing in her house, but she found she wanted to hear more.

  The old woman patted his hand and leaned in towards him. ‘It weren’t your fault. I were punished enough when she took them, my brother Will, and—’ She paused. ‘Well, it were enough. I were a part of a future she never got to live, that was all, an’ she couldn’t forgive me for it. I suppose it were worse, leavin’ me to carry on without ’em. ’Course, I thought it were done, after that. I thought it were ower. I never thought— I’d ’ave gone away if I’d suspected for a minute it’d tek our Mossy. Far away, where nowt’d have ’urt the pair o’ you.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Dun’t go gettin’ upset, Mum. P’raps you shouldn’t ’ave come with me.’

  ‘I’d not see you come ’ere alone, love. If I ’adn’t—’

  ‘Mum, don’t. Our Mossy – that could ’ave been an accident, nothing more, an’ anyway, we shouldn’t think on’t now. Not ’ere.’

  ‘You said ’e weren’t scared. He weren’t, were ’e? I’d hate to think of ’im, alone and scared, in the mire, at the end.’

  Emma bit her lip.

  It took Frank a moment to respond. ‘He – he teld me he weren’t scared of the old man, Mum.’

  She was silent for a moment. ‘But he was scared of summat else. Well, he ’ad more sense than any of us, then.’ She put a hand to her face; it was shaking.

  ‘Mum, it’s all right. Step in ’ere a minute. Have a sit-down. I’m sure t’ young lass wouldn’t mind.’ He opened the door to the drawing room and helped his mother inside.

  Emma stepped forward to follow them and then she froze. They would see her; they would wonder why she hadn’t spoken. Somehow she didn’t want to reveal herself just yet. She felt they had more to say. She edged away from the door just as Frank came out. He paused partway, staring up at the stairs, his eyes wide open and fixed.

  ‘Go on, love. I’ll be all right. Just you ’ave a quick look, then we can go and we dun’t ever ’ave to come back agin.’

  ‘All right, Mum. You sit tight, now.’ Frank stepped slowly across the hall, looking down at the black and white tiles. They were smeared with dirt and he picked his way between the footprints as if he didn’t want to disturb them. He paused at the bottom of the stairs and put his hand on the rail and just stayed there, looking upwards. He roused himself and glanced around. Emma caught her breath but he didn’t notice her and then he tilted b
ack his head. ‘Miss? Emma?’ he called. ‘Emma!’

  She bit her lip. She couldn’t bring herself to speak. She hadn’t asked him to come here. She didn’t want him here. He was an intrusive presence and soon he would leave and she would be alone once more. Then she heard a quiet murmur coming from the drawing room.

  Frank tentatively made his way onto the landing, turning the corner, his footsteps moving away. He did not call out again; it didn’t seem as if he really wanted to be heard. Emma glanced upwards to be sure he couldn’t see her before she crossed the hall and pushed open the drawing room door.

  The old woman wasn’t seated. She stood with her back to Emma and she was still making that sound, although Emma realised she wasn’t speaking at all; she was humming, one hand twitching at her side, as if she was trying to recall some long-forgotten tune.

  ‘I never did get to dance,’ she said.

  Emma didn’t breathe.

  ‘I came here once, to a – soirée. It were in the war. It were then that I met the children, you know – Arthur, Clarence, Hal and Tom.’ She paused. She must have heard Emma enter the room, but the way she was speaking – she did not appear to be expecting to receive a reply. She must think it was her son standing behind her, though from the sound of her words, she was a hundred miles away, lost somewhere in the past.

  ‘After what ’appened, I came here often. I ’elped Mrs ’Olling-worth – Antonia – with the cooking and the polishing. I even helped whitewash this room, once. She had no idea what to do, bless her. She came from money and she married money, but it din’t make her happy, for all that. She said she always felt like she were bein’ watched. Perhaps she was.’

  Emma shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘Do you reckon that were why, love? Why she took our Mossy as well as Tom? Because I ’elped his new wife, ’er replacement?’

  For a moment Emma thought that was all; there wasn’t anything else to come, but then the old woman added, ‘It were all my fault, love, not yours. It were Antonia ’Ollingworth said I should start again, you see. I allus said as ’ow I’d never wed, not after what ’ad ’appened. After Tom – I said I’d never ’ave children, neither. I din’t trust myself with ’em. An’ I din’t wed, not for a long old time, but then I met your dad, an’ when ’e asked me, I remembered – I remembered what she’d said an’ I dared to think I could start ower.’ She let out a sob.