House of Shadows

by Pamela Hartshorne

  You’re not my mummy! The memory of his furious face bothers me. He is just a little boy, and he needs his mother. I feel terrible about not being the mother he wants, but I must try and make a relationship with him. I can’t let Angie look after him forever, however devoted she is to him. Unless they are all lying to me, he is my son, whatever he and I feel. Inside my head, the need to find another son still beats insistently. I haven’t forgotten that, I am yearning to remember him more clearly, but until I do, I must do what I can for Felix, the child who is lost in the here and now. I don’t know how to help him, I just know that I will have to try.

  But I can’t face those steep stairs again, not yet. I should probably stay in my room today, but I am longing to explore further and to do something for myself. I think I could manage the main staircase, if I take it slowly. Mary is keen on setting goals. Today’s will be to find the kitchen and make some breakfast.

  I take a last yearning look at the moors, aglow in the morning light, before I turn back to my room. There’s no use thinking about riding for a while, but perhaps in a week or so I will be able to make it to the stables and the quiet, comforting presence of the horses. That can be another goal. I could go and see Blanche, I start to think, only to catch myself on a barb of memory: Blanche will not be there, I realize with a sudden, sharp sense of loss. But there will be other horses.

  I open the wardrobe, looking over my shoulder as if afraid someone will come in and catch me going through another woman’s clothes. Are these really mine, these skirts in vaguely ethnic prints, these asymmetric tops? I pull out a baggy linen jacket, and the scent of orange blossom wraps itself around me. My memory stirs: a face pressed into my neck, lips smiling into my skin. I love the way you smell. But no sooner has it come than it has gone again, leaving behind a sense of warmth, and nothing else.

  I hold the linen to my nose, hoping the memory will resurface, but there is nothing. Disappointed, I put the jacket back, close the wardrobe doors and try the chest of drawers instead. I find jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a soft hooded jacket. These clothes seem familiar. More like me, whoever “me” is. Getting into the jeans is a struggle and it hurts when I bend to put on the socks I have found in another drawer. I remember seeing some boots at the bottom of the wardrobe. My body protests when I pull them on, but they fit my feet so comfortably that this more than anything convinces me that these are my boots, my clothes, that this is my life, and I am, after all, Kate Vavasour.

  If I am Kate, who is Isabel?

  Remember, remember.

  Everything takes so long now. Just getting dressed is a major exercise, and by the time I have finished, it is half past seven and I have to rest in the chair, breathing carefully through the pain.

  The house is very quiet, quieter than it was at night. I wonder where everybody else is. Surely I am not the only one awake at this time of the morning? I don’t even know where the rest of the family sleeps. It’s easy to lose each other in a house this size, in pockets of silence and the shadowy turns of the stairs, or perhaps the Vavasours hide behind all those doors, each one closed like a turned back.

  Just when I am feeling abandoned, I sense someone outside the door, and look up eagerly. Perhaps I have misjudged the Vavasours. Perhaps one of them – Fiona, maybe, who is always correct, or Philippa – has come to put her head round the door and ask if I’d like a cup of tea. I am longing for one, and not looking forward to the walk down the stairs, but I think I am probably more eager for company.

  No knock comes. Instead, the silence deepens and I find myself staring at the door. Apprehension tickles between my shoulders. I’m certain I heard someone, but why are they just standing there?

  ‘Hello?’ I call. My voice sounds too high, not like mine at all.

  There’s no reply. Perhaps they thought I was sleeping and didn’t want to disturb me? Or perhaps it was a practical joke? Except it’s not very funny, and anyway, the Vavasours don’t strike me as jokey types.

  ‘Fine,’ I say out loud. ‘I’ll get my own tea.’

  I bite down hard on my lip as I lever myself out of the chair with my stick and make my way slowly over to the door, but when I get there, I find myself pausing, indecisive, my fingers on the handle. More than ever I am sure there is someone on the other side, but all at once I don’t want to open the door.

  I’m being pathetic. Am I going to cower in my room just because I don’t know what is waiting for me on the other side of the door? Cross with myself, I snatch it open before I can change my mind, and see – nothing!

  Then I hear it: a low growl, barely more than a vibration in the throat, and I look down to see the little dog, Pippin, lying with her nose on her paws, her eyes fixed on me. One corner of her mouth is quivering a warning and her hackles are alert, but I am so relieved to see a living creature that I laugh.

  ‘Oh, Pippin, you frightened me!’

  I can’t bend very far, but I hold out my hand encouragingly. ‘Have you been waiting for me? Come on, come and say hello.’

  Pippin’s growling deepens into a snarl and her lip curls up over her teeth.

  ‘Is it the stick? Is that what you don’t like?’ Carefully, I rest it against the door frame but as I take a step towards her the dog snaps furiously at me, making me flinch back and stumble against the door, while she puts her tail between her legs and belts down the corridor in terror.

  She’s terrified? My heart is jerking in my throat and when I suck in a breath in fright, my ribs stab an agonizing protest. I hold my hand to them while I wait for my racing heart to slow, the tendons in my neck taut with the effort of not bursting into tears. I am ridiculously upset. Pippin is just a dog. She doesn’t mean to hurt me, I know, but I can’t seem to stop my lips trembling. Why is she so afraid of me? Anyone would think I was—

  My mind jars to a halt, reverses to come at the idea again.

  Anyone would think I was a ghost.

  I cover my mouth with my fingers. My skin is warm. I can feel my breath, feel my heart beating. My leg aches and my ribs hurt, but my flesh is solid. I have bruised myself where I knocked my shoulder against the door as I recoiled from Pippin’s attack in fright. I am real, I am alive. I am not dead.

  Ghosts are insubstantial wraiths. They don’t stumble against doors or long for a cup of tea. Of course I am not a ghost.

  But what about those memories of my life as Isabel? What if she is somehow part of me, inside my head? I shiver, a fast, uncontrollable shudder down my spine, before I pull myself together. I’m being ridiculous. I don’t believe in ghosts; at least, I don’t think I do. Isn’t Oliver Raine’s suggestion that I have recreated a memory from a book I’ve read or a film I’ve seen a much more likely explanation?

  Of course it is, I decide, relieved. Pippin is probably spooked by my altered appearance and the threatening stick. I probably smell different after those long weeks in hospital, too. I just need to give her time.

  Steadier now, I take a good hold of my stick once more and set off in the same direction as Pippin. My stick makes a dull sound on the carpet runner as I limp along the corridor but otherwise the house is silent. At the top of the staircase I pause, one hand on my stick, the other on the elaborately carved finial. The air has grown taut, and I stand very still, straining to hear, while the silence condenses and grows thick and heavy, so heavy that it is an effort to breathe.

  The door into the long gallery is closed this morning. It is finely carved, with a wrought-iron handle. Turn it. The idea shimmers in my head. Turn it. Come in. Come in and see.

  I forget the fact that I am thirsty and want a cup of tea. Without conscious thought, I am at the door, taking hold of the handle, turning it.

  As soon as I step into the long gallery, recognition settles over me like a sigh. Ah, yes, I do remember this. The gallery stretches the width of the house. On one side, ten bay windows overlook the courtyard and the gatehouse, five on either side of the great window above the front door. On the other the wooden panelling
is hung with morose portraits of past Vavasours. Why have they moved the tapestries? I wonder. They were so beautiful, and more colourful than the paintings.

  The room smells of old wood and beeswax and something elusive, something rich and lustrous, as if the years of dusting and polishing, of silks and velvets and leather shoes, of guttering candles and sunlight and warm bodies, are all pressed into the scent of the past.

  The floorboards are dark and shiny with age, and the rubber base of my stick squeaks as I walk along the gallery. There is a humming in the air, or perhaps it is in me. A sense of waiting. Waiting for what?

  Frowning slightly, I step up into one of the bay windows. It is as if opening the door to the gallery has cracked open something in my memory, too. I remember this room, I have stepped up into this bay before.

  In the courtyard below, I see someone else at last. George is in a quilted jacket and riding boots. A riding helmet is tucked under his arm and he’s studying a piece of paper – a letter? – in his other hand. Beside him, Angie leans in to point out a phrase, and George purses his lips. There is something intimate about the angle of her head, the way she stands so close to him. As I watch, George says something which makes Angie nod her head. Her shiny brown hair swings forward and she shakes it neatly back into place, and they both laugh.

  I wriggle my shoulders, suddenly uncomfortable. I shouldn’t be spying on them. I’m about to step back when I see them both turn as if to greet someone coming out of the door below me.

  I lean closer into the window to see who it is, and just like that, memory slides into place, smooth as a well-oiled bolt.

  I was leaning forward just like this while I waited eagerly for the carriage to bring Judith. Edmund had sent for her. It was his idea. He had business with the Council of the North and was sent for to York. He would be gone three weeks, a month perhaps, and he asked if I would like Judith to keep me company while he was gone. The elderly aunt who had helped me settle into running the house had died two months earlier, and Edmund feared that I might be lonely on my own. There was no question of me going with him, even if I had known how to go on in a city. For I was with child.

  Four months it had been since my flowers had come down, and it had taken Edmund to make me realize what was happening with my own body.

  He was delighted, but he had turned stern, forbidding me to do this or that as if I had suddenly become fragile. I loved my husband. My heart leapt every time he came into a room. I thrilled at the knowledge that I could look at him whenever I liked, that I could touch him whenever I wanted. Sometimes my eyes would rest on his mouth, on the angle of his jaw, or his hands, nicked and scarred in the way no courtier’s should ever be, and my belly would clench in disbelief that I could be so lucky.

  Together we rode out to the fields and woods, and I soon knew the folk in Askerby as well as I had done those in Crabbersett. We rubbed ears of wheat between our fingers and eyed the cattle to see how fat they grew. We chose a situation on firm, dry ground for a new malthouse. I was there when Edmund discussed the building of it with the joiner and I took the stick they were using to draw a plan in the dust, and suggested changes of my own. We planned to improve our stable and decided together when to wean a foal or cover a filly. We rode over to our neighbour’s estate to inspect and buy his fine Turkoman stallion. In all things Edmund treated me as an equal, and I loved him for it.

  But there were times, too, I admit, when Edmund baffled me. Times when he would retreat into silence and I did not know how to reach him. Then I would wish that I could talk to Judith. I missed her. She always understood.

  I was not alone with a houseful of servants, but sometimes, yes, I was lonely. I had been fond of Edmund’s aunt, who earned her place in the household by making everyone comfortable. When she died, I did my best to supervise the running of the house as she had done, but truth to tell I did not care overmuch if the silver was polished to a shine. As long as the horses were cared for and there was food on the table and clean linen, I was happy. I did not make my own cheese or hang over the cook. I had no special remedies or recipes. I did not mend my husband’s shirts with my own hand. But the servants smiled as they went about their tasks, and if guests arrived there was always a good meal and good cheer to greet them.

  Still, I missed having someone to tell how frustrated I was by the way the babe had taken me over. I was no longer just me. I was a vessel, carrying Edmund’s heir. I was happy at the thought of a child, of course I was, but I felt trapped too, and I couldn’t tell Edmund of my fear.

  Judith would understand. She knew how I dreaded being bowed under the weight of a baby and unable to run. She knew how I feared the birth and how I feared ending up like my mother, bound to the bed, raving and thrashing at the unseen spirits that tormented her.

  So I was wild for her to arrive. I had written straight away and Edmund had sent his coach, the one I never used, to bring her to me. I would have walked outside but I didn’t want to miss her arrival, so I paced up and down the long gallery instead. When I heard the sound of carriage wheels I flew to the window and craned to see. Yes, it was Judith! I could see a servant helping her to step down from the carriage.

  She stopped to shake out her skirts and look up at the facade of the Hall just as the sun burst out from behind a cloud. The brilliant light turned her face blank and I almost recoiled until I realized that it was but a trick of the light through the glass. When I peered closer, I saw that she looked her normal, sweet self.

  Heedless of the babe I carried, I ran along the gallery to the stairs and down to the great hall. I burst in just as Judith was coming through the door. She was as neat as ever, her hair falling straight down her back and kept in place with a cap, her hands folded at her waist exactly as they had been when I had first seen her.

  ‘Judith!’ I flung my arms around her. ‘Oh, Judith, I am so glad to see you! I have missed you so!’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Judith laughed as she disengaged herself from my embrace. ‘Isabel, you have not changed at all! I thought to find you a grand lady, and here you are, running through the house like a country wench!’

  ‘I fear they will never make a fine lady of me,’ I said, cheerfully ignoring the subtle reprimand, and I tucked my hand into the crook of her arm. ‘Let us go and be cosy. I cannot wait to hear news of everybody! Does my uncle still grumble with his gout? Is my aunt well? Is my cousin Lawrence still sulking at being called home? And what of Peg and Agnes?’ I asked after the servants. ‘How do they do?’

  ‘Your aunt and uncle send greetings,’ said Judith. ‘They are looking to make a marriage for your cousin soon. The rest of the household go on well enough.’

  It was nearly a year since I had seen Judith and I was more shy than I expected. She seemed so much more assured than I. Should I not be the one who had changed? Judith was a maid still while I was a wife and mistress of this great house. But I had never rid myself of the notion that somewhere a mistake had been made, and that sooner or later the world would line up to point a finger at me in disbelief and call me an imposter. She is but an unruly maid, they would say. She is not old enough to marry or be mistress of such a house.

  Edmund laughed at me when I told him this, but I knew that if Judith had married instead of me, she would have assumed the running of the household without a moment’s doubt. She would not have needed Edmund’s aunt to show her how to go on.

  The truth? My pleasure in seeing my friend was jumbled up with feeling inadequate and inexplicably chastened, and I found myself babbling to cover my discomfort.

  I sent for wine and cakes from the kitchen, and Jennet, the little maidservant taken in from the poorhouse, brought them up to us in the parlour. Poor child, Jennet was not well favoured. She had a nose squashed up like a piglet’s that made her breathe heavily through her mouth, and a club foot that meant she walked with a lurch that sent the wine slipping and sliding on the tray. I got up quickly and took it from her before the goblets tipped onto t
he floor.

  ‘Thank you, Jennet.’

  I could feel Judith looking at me as Jennet clumped away. ‘What is it?’ I asked, looking up from pouring the wine.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, and her smile was back in place so quickly that if you did not know Judith as well as I did, you might have sworn that it had never slipped at all.

  ‘No, tell me.’

  ‘It’s just . . .’ Judith paused delicately. ‘Well, I did not expect to see you behaving as servant rather than as mistress, that is all,’ she said. ‘You have no need to thank her or to take on her tasks.’

  ‘I was just making sure the wine didn’t fall,’ I protested.

  ‘You should not have her as a servant if she cannot be trusted to carry the wine,’ Judith pointed out. ‘As well have a dog and bark yourself.’

  I was silent. I could not believe that rescuing the tray had been so wrong, but I felt foolish anyway.

  ‘Oh, I do not mean to criticize, Isabel.’ Judith leant forward in consternation and put a hand on my knee, and I remembered what Edmund had said about my face being too easy to read. ‘Indeed, you must do whatever you think best. This is your house, and if your husband does not care for you to stand on your dignity, then who am I to say anything? I fear only that you let yourself be taken advantage of. You are so very trusting.’

  Smiling, she sat back, evidently deciding that she had said enough. ‘It is good to be here at last. May I take a cake?’ She nibbled delicately at one. ‘It is very good. I would use a little less saffron myself,’ she said. ‘I will give your cook a recipe of my own.’

  She was so capable, I remember thinking enviously. Of course Judith would be able to make fine cakes while I, I went to the kitchen to steal scraps from the sugarloaf for my mare, and if the cook caught me she shooed me out as if I were a mere dab of a girl. Judith was right, it was time I tried for more dignity. I remember thinking that, too.