by Anita Frank
‘I do appreciate what she’s going through,’ she continued, her demeanour softening as she leant towards me, her sagging features golden in the firelight. ‘I will confide in you now, Miss Marcham, I know exactly what it is to be unsettled – distressed even – by the gravity of pregnancy, by the prospect of birth. I myself did not take to motherhood – it is not all joy, having a baby. One surrenders a part of oneself and some cope with that better than others, I suppose.’
She paused again, and Miss Scott’s hand strayed across to lightly brush her forearm, willing her the courage to continue. Lady Brightwell, warmed by the comforting gesture, cleared her throat.
‘In my own case, illness initiated labour, a … very traumatic labour. It was touch and go whether I would survive, whether even the child would survive. Of course, I did and, thanks be to God, so did he. But that whole experience took a profound toll on me. I was not myself for some time after. I’m ashamed to say that I succumbed to a form of hysteria.’
She was clearly embarrassed to recount these details, humiliated by her perceived weakness, but she took a deep breath, and the vulnerability I had fleetingly witnessed vanished. Her voice was forceful once again.
‘I was a young woman, in a strange house, with a new baby and a stepchild who resented me. My husband was away much of the time and I felt completely alone. Even dear Miss Scott was not with me.’
‘Oh, my lady …’ Miss Scott began, but Lady Brightwell silenced her with a wave of her hand.
‘They were your parents, Scottie, you had to go,’ she said, before addressing me once again. ‘What I am trying to say, Miss Marcham, is that I am not, as I think you are inclined to believe, totally oblivious to Madeleine’s vulnerabilities at this time. I sympathise, I truly do, but I implore you to bring her to her senses and prevent her from leaping to ridiculous conclusions every time something untoward happens. Can you do that for me, Miss Marcham?’
I smoothed my skirts over the curve of my knee. ‘I came here, Lady Brightwell, to lend comfort and support to my sister in any way I can, and that is what I intend to do.’ I eyed her sharply. ‘Are you completely sure there’s nothing in what Madeleine says? That someone isn’t—’
‘I assure you, Miss Marcham, there is not.’
‘Then obviously I will do my best to allay any fears she has in that area.’ A lingering uncertainty niggled at me. ‘You are quite sure the younger staff—’
‘Miss Marcham, if you are in some way looking to point the finger of blame at Maisie, you are quite wrong to do so. Maisie’s mother worked in this house, and now her daughter proudly follows suit. She may be high-spirited, but I am confident she would never do anything to jeopardise her position.’
‘I think I would like to go to my sister now.’
As I reached the door it occurred to me I did not know the full nature of Madeleine’s accusations.
‘May I ask what sort of things Madeleine has complained of?’
‘Oh,’ Lady Brightwell harrumphed. ‘All sorts: odd noises, people sneaking into her room, things left on her bed …’
A trickle of ice ran down my spine. ‘What type of things?’
‘Ummm?’ I could see she was only half-listening now. Our discourse had ended, and her interest was waning.
‘Lady Brightwell …’ I pressed. ‘What type of things?’
She let out a sharp bark of laughter. ‘Toy soldiers, would you believe? Really! The notion of it. Quite, quite absurd!’
Chapter Fifteen
Madeleine failed to respond to my knock, but I let myself in anyway. Hector’s portrait lay face up on the bed, while she stood at the window, her back to me, her arms wrapped across her front. She didn’t turn around when I softly called her name, but a hand strayed to wipe her cheeks.
‘Did you have a nice chat?’
‘We need to talk, Madeleine.’
‘I don’t want to talk. There’s no point. Whatever they’ve told you, must be the truth.’
‘Madeleine—’
‘Stella, please!’ At last she faced me, and she was unable to hide her distress any longer. Her eyes were red and swollen, her nose inflamed, her mouth blown with misery. A breath shuddered from her and she threw her head back, as if hoping gravity might stop the pooling tears from falling. ‘Please, let’s not talk about it.’
‘Tell me about the toy soldiers.’
She groaned and swung back to the window. ‘I don’t want to. I don’t want to talk about any of it.’
‘Madeleine, did you put the toy soldier in my bed?’
‘No! Of course not, whatever would make you think that?’
Having gained her attention, I walked around the bed and pulled open the bedside drawer. I didn’t need to say anything.
‘I didn’t put it in your bed. I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t.’
‘Where did these come from?’
‘They have all been left for me. In this room.’
‘By whom, Madeleine?’
She made no attempt to answer but adopted a guarded expression as she turned back to the window. I joined her there, determined not to be ignored, determined to have her confide in me.
‘You think someone in the house is doing this to you on purpose.’ A solitary tear tumbled over the scalded rim of her eye and trickled slowly down her cheek. ‘You think there’s someone invoking Lucien’s death to make you afraid, afraid for your baby.’ She bit her lip and swallowed hard. My own heart ached at her display of dignified misery. ‘Madeleine, Hector told me about last time.’
Her face crumpled. I rested my arm about her shoulders and drew her against me. Gradually her stiff body eased into my embrace, her resistance weakening as she unfolded her arms to cling to me. I kissed her head and offered words of solace as her body heaved, until at last she regained her self-control and pulled away from me, drying her cheeks with her hands.
‘I am right, aren’t I?’ I said at last. ‘You suspect someone’s trying to hurt you – make you feel vulnerable?’
‘That’s what I thought … at first.’ She slumped on the end of her bed, her fingertips subconsciously catching the picture frame.
‘What do you mean “at first”?’ I asked as I dropped down beside her.
In a faltering voice, she explained how she had discovered a toy soldier tucked within her bed on the second night of her stay. She dismissed it without much thought, but the night after, another one appeared – again she ignored it as nothing more than a foolish prank. But by the time the fifth one appeared she’d had enough, and the toys’ association with Lucien – knowing of his mother’s tragic death and his own fateful fall – troubled her, and suddenly the ill-conceived joke wasn’t so funny any more.
She took the liberty of having a quiet word with Maisie, the obvious culprit, but when the girl vehemently denied any wrong-doing, she mentioned it to Mrs Henge, who in turn brought the matter to Lady Brightwell’s attention. The servants had been summoned and questioned and all had denied any involvement. Madeleine was left embarrassed, but worse, she was aware of her mother-in-law’s scepticism. She resolved to say nothing more, but as the toy soldiers continued to appear, she began to suspect a sinister intent.
‘And then other things started happening,’ she said quietly.
‘What other things?’
Restless, she pushed herself from the bed. ‘Someone had been in my room.’
‘Madeleine, you live in a house with servants and family – no doubt many of them have reason to be in your room,’ I pointed out, subduing a flicker of disquiet as I recalled my open door, and the sensation of fingers in my hair.
She whirled round. ‘While I’m asleep? And I don’t mean sneaking in to light the fire in the morning.’ She began to prowl about the room, her agitation mounting. ‘Again, everyone denied all knowledge. I took to locking my door, but it would be open come morning – the key still in the hole. I even took to rolling back the carpet, so if someone unlocked the door from the other side, I would
hear my key dropping onto the floorboards. It never did.’ She hurried back to the bed, sinking down beside me, her body urgently angled into mine. ‘Stella, no one on the landing would have been able to unlock the door without dislodging my key first.’
‘Madeleine, what are you trying to say?’
‘Things happen in this house that defy explanation …’ Her voice fell to a whisper, as her eyes slid surreptitiously about her, distrusting the very walls that enclosed us. ‘I am afraid … I am afraid of this house.’
‘Oh, Madeleine …’ I took her hands and squeezed them, thinking how young and vulnerable she looked, having delivered her terrible admission. ‘It’s just a house – just bricks and mortar. You risk exaggerating these things – twisting them into something they’re not. I suspect the toy soldiers were a nonsensical prank gone wrong. I’ve seen the glint in Maisie’s eye, she’s a mischievous one – not malicious, I don’t think, but immature and perhaps thoughtless. Of course she’s going to deny any wrong-doing, she doesn’t want to get into trouble. As for the door, I’m sure there’s a sensible explanation – a loose-fitting lock, perhaps …’
She withdrew her hands from mine. ‘No, you are wrong, Stella. I have spent all my time here thinking these things through as logically as I can …’
‘You are too close to them, too emotionally involved, you cannot see the wood for the trees …’
‘No, Stella, there is something not right about Greyswick. Even you have sensed it, I know you have. Why else do you find yourself so drawn to the nursery staircase and those rooms I have tried so hard to keep you from?’
I had no answer for her, just a rising sense of unease. Memories of Annie Burrows whispering in the nursery forced their way to the fore, but I pushed them back, not wanting to dwell on her strange behaviour, so disturbingly reminiscent of her father. I did not want to dwell on any of it. I had exiled my recollections to the shadowy corners of my mind years ago and I would not cast any light onto those thoughts and suppositions now. I was afraid of what I would find there; something, I suspected, far more disconcerting than cobwebs and dust.
Madeleine got up and returned to the window, bracing herself against the frame. She had spent weeks stockpiling her precious secrets – now she was contemplating sharing her cache with me – if I deserved it, if I could be trusted. She decided to take the risk.
‘I hear crying, Stella.’
She was an empty shell when she turned to gauge my reaction, as if someone had scooped out her tender heart and sweet filling, leaving just her exterior, rendered unnaturally hard without her innate gentleness to soften its edges. Alarmed, I asked her what she meant.
‘I hear crying at night. It’s a heartbreaking sound … it drills into my head and I can’t shake it loose.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know what he wants with me.’
‘Who, Madeleine?’
‘No one else hears him, Stella … only me … and only now.’ She cupped her belly.
‘Madeleine, what are you talking about?’
‘I’m too frightened to go to him. I’m too frightened of what I’ll find if I open that door. Do you see now, Stella, do you understand why I cannot rest in this house?’
Tears glazed the blue irises dancing across my face in search of understanding, as she fought to subdue the emotion swamping her without warning, tearing at her throat, trembling through her limbs. I was appalled by the transformation.
‘Dear God! Who, Madeleine? Who do you think you hear?’
In those taut seconds I awaited her answer, my very surroundings seemed to contract, as if the room itself was holding its breath, waiting for her revelation.
‘Lucien Brightwell, of course.’
Silence stretched between us. A word unspoken filled the void, one I could not ignore.
‘Madeleine, are you trying to say you think this house is haunted?’ She nodded her head: short, sharp tremors of movement. ‘Is that what you’ve told the others?’
‘No, how could I?’ She sniffed and wiped again at her cheeks. ‘What would they think if I said that? They already think I’m mad – perhaps I am.’
‘There are no such things as ghosts, Madeleine …’ But even as the words left me, my conscience called. Jim Burrows’ face backlit by flames flashed before me. I tried to banish the image, but in the deepest recesses of my mind, a slumbering monster stirred. ‘Whatever you’ve experienced, I’m sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation.’
‘I thought so, too, at first. But not any more. I’ve exhausted all the “perfectly reasonable” explanations. Either this house is haunted, or I am losing my mind. It’s not much of a choice, is it?’ She collapsed into a chair by the dead fire, the bed of ashes lending a sooty tang to the air.
I was struggling to grasp it all. ‘What makes you think it’s Lucien Brightwell?’
‘It’s a child I hear, Stella. Only Hector’s family have lived in this house and Lucien is the only child to have died in it.’
‘Perhaps there is a living child here – someone the servants are concealing, and it’s them you hear?’
‘Don’t you think I’ve thought of that?’ Her head snapped towards me, anger and disappointment conflicting in her stormy eyes. ‘There is no child at Greyswick, Stella, I assure you of that. No living child.’ She looked back into the ashes, her zest extinguished. ‘You don’t believe me.’
‘I just don’t understand why no one else has experienced anything.’
‘Maybe they have, but they’re like you – in denial.’
Her words cut me, their inferred lack of support wounding me deeply, yet as I continued to try my best to reason with her, to reassure her of the absurdity of her conclusions, it was my own duplicity that troubled me the most.
Neither of us could face dinner, so as dusk stole the light from the room we had Maisie bring up a tray, sending our apologies to Lady Brightwell. We talked more on the subject, but it was futile: we were both entrenched in our positions, with neither of us willing to give ground. In the end we lapsed into stalemate and engaged ourselves with other distractions until it was time to retire. I kissed Madeleine’s cheek as I left and begged her to get some rest.
‘Sleep is so elusive here,’ she murmured, as she slowly closed the door.
I chose not to have Annie help me. I undressed myself and climbed into bed, but when I extinguished the light, it was impossible not to imagine what lurked in the shadows, and for the first time I found the darkness threatening, as if our conversation had given the night carte blanche to create whatever terrors it wished.
The stubborn memories that troubled me did not help my state of mind, as I dwelt on dead men and dead children, until at last I threw myself onto my side and hiked my blankets over my head, determined to sleep.
I am looking for Gerald. He is not dead, he is merely lost – I must find him. I am running through a tent – it stretches for miles, I cannot see its end. The canvas snaps and cracks as the wind billows it in and sucks it out with every howling gust. The duckboards beneath my feet are slick with blood, and it is all I can do to stop from skidding through the coagulated pools. There are so many beds – I must find him. Gerald! I want to scream his name, but it lodges in my throat. I hear him crying. He is sobbing for me. I am coming! Please do not cry, my love! I am coming!
My eyes flew open. I peered into the darkness as my consciousness drunkenly staggered into the present, my breaths cutting my lungs with short, sharp thrusts. I propped myself up on my elbows, the bedcovers slipping from me, as I struggled to anchor myself in place and time. Gradually, I began to recognise familiar articles in my room and their tangibility reassured me. With a sigh I collapsed back upon my pillow, reality reasserted, my hopes of Gerald sinking like lead to the pit of my stomach.
I rolled onto my side and shuffled to get comfortable, willing myself back to sleep, desperate to shun the images of my nightmare. My muscles began to relax as my body moulded into the mattress.
; Then I heard it.
I sat up, staring into the darkness. Had I been mistaken? I focused again, trying to bore beneath the still surface of the silence to discover the faint sounds trapped beneath. My breathing was too noisy, so I seized my lungs. I squeezed my eyes shut – there could be no distractions. I had to concentrate, I had to be sure. I waited, all my senses redundant bar one.
I gasped, my eyes wide.
I was not mistaken.
It was there – faint, but distinct.
I heard it. Just as she said.
A child.
Crying.
Chapter Sixteen
I lay rigid in my bed, barely able to even breathe, captivated by the sobs that softly filtered into my room – though I lacked the courage to contemplate from where. Every sinew of my body was taut, ready for flight, prepared for self-preservation. My heart pounded so loudly against my chest I could almost pick up its vibrations through the still air.
I longed to pull the covers over my head and hunker down into my mattress, to cower from the ghastly unknown, but somewhere amongst the fear-induced fuddle of my brain was a petulant voice demanding I get up. It played its trump card: I owed Madeleine.
There had to be a rational explanation, I told myself firmly as I pushed back the covers. I sat, shivering in the darkness, waiting for the plaintive sound to pierce the air. When it finally came I almost persuaded myself it was nothing more than the wind sighing through a loose sash. But then it came again, and I knew it was not.
My legs were quivering as I got up, my joints liquid now rather than cartilage, muscle and bone. I groped towards the door, drawn to the sliver of light running along its bottom, a beacon in the darkness. It was the final barrier to whatever awaited me beyond my room. I had long since turned my back on God, but now in my hour of need, familiar sacred words found their way to my lips, as I turned the handle and inched the door ajar.