Whispers in the Dark

by Jonathan Aycliffe

  I found a little public house where they sold me bread and cheese and small ale to wash it down. It was a rough place, with no more than a couple of unpolished tables and a few wooden stools. When I had finished, the publican’s daughter came to clear my table. She was a girl not much above my own age, red-faced and well built, but not at all pretty.

  “Can you tell me where to find Barras Hall?” I asked.

  “Barras Hall? Whatever do you want to go there for?”

  “My brother’s there,” I said. “I have to Find him.”

  “What business has your brother with the likes of them?”

  “You mean the Ayrtons?”

  “Who else would I mean? They’ll give him no work, if that’s what he’s looking for. Nobody goes to Barras Hall in search of work.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They just don’t.”

  “Nevertheless I believe he’s there. Can you tell me how to find it?”

  She hesitated, then nodded.

  “Keep on the main road as you leave here, that’s the Cambo Road. Stay on it through Cambo to Scots’ Gap. There’s a turning past there on your left, before you come to Hartburn. That’ll take you up to Barras Hall. You can’t miss it. There are walls all around and but the one way in.”

  I thanked her and left. Outside, there was a threat of snow in the air. On the grass verges, the morning’s frost had not lifted. I passed dark woods in which the frosted branches of leafless trees stood out against the conifers like plumes of smoke. No one passed me on the road.

  At Cambo, I asked the way again. My shoes were almost worn through by now, and I wondered how much longer I could walk in them. The road was badly surfaced, and I had started to limp by the time I got to Scots’ Gap. Not far past, another road, little more than a lane, turned northward between tall, winter-struck hedges.

  The wall started soon after that. It was high and thick, intended to keep people out. Grass grew right up against it and moss covered its top. Beyond it, a screen of trees prevented me from seeing any further. There was no sign of a house. On my left, tall crags cast sharp shadows against the flatness of the sky.

  I must have walked two miles or more before I came to a break in that long line of stone. Tall posts flanked a high rusted gate. Behind them. I could make out a sort of lodge, its door boarded up, its windows broken.

  I pushed open the gate and stepped inside.

  CHAPTER 8

  I am wide awak now, wide awake but dreaming of my past. A long path or drive lay in front of me, though from where I stood only a little portion of it was visible. On either side, dense evergreen shrubbery grew close to the edge, hemming in the path and blocking the view. The sky was obscured by tall, leafless trees that rose out of the bushes. They grew thicker and more tangled as they receded into the distance, until at last they became mere shadows through which I could see nothing.

  It was as though, stepping through that gate, I had severed myself from all contact with the world outside, as though my universe had abruptly shrunk to the narrow dimensions of this solitary gravel path thick with weeds. I glanced behind me. The heavy gate had closed of its own accord, unheard by me, as though acting in harmony with the trees and shrubs, working in silence to enclose and contain whatever came within their reach. To enclose within, but also, I sensed, to shut out.

  Strangely that thought comforted me, for was not the world from which I had come indeed something to be repelled? The walls and gate which had at first seemed so forbidding to me now took on a quite different aspect, as the outriders of a fortress within which—should all go well and against my expectations—I might at last find once more the security that my father’s death had snatched away. Behind those high walls I could forget the shabbiness and poverty of that other existence. If only it could be so. I shut my eyes tight and offered up a prayer. If only it could be so.

  The path was evidently seldom attended to. Moss and weeds choked it, and I began to fear that Barras Hall might, after all, be deserted or in a state of decay. Was this why there had been no reply to my mother’s letter? The trees, a mixture of oaks, beeches, and sycamores, had been left to grow without proper care. I remembered the splendid old trees in our garden at home, and all the pruning and lopping Tom our gardener had said was essential to their health. Here, clumps of dull green moss and splotches of unsightly fungi clung dispiritedly to the trunks, pitting and ruining the bark. I noticed several that had died and one, struck by lightning, that leaned heavily on its nearest neighbor, weighing it down.

  I must have walked for almost half an hour. The gravel gave way in places to patches of half-frozen mud, across which I made my way with difficulty.

  Turning a sharp corner, I found myself suddenly in full view of the house. Beneath a shrunken sky, from which it could have been cut out and deposited on the ground, it stood facing me like a wall of gray stone. I felt my knees go weak as I looked at it, wondering why I had ever been so stupid as to come here, so naive as to imagine I might ever be received with cousinly pity or concern.

  You have seen houses like it on your travels. The drivers with their National Trust cards and their flasks of milky coffee visit them on weekends, to walk, silentfooted, in a daze of admiration, about their stiff, furnished rooms. I have never shared their fascination, but I suppose they look within themselves for memories of a past they never knew.

  I had arrived at the end of my road. I knew that if I were forced to turn back down that path and seek the open road again, I would have nowhere to go, that I would in all certainty die in a ditch somewhere.

  The facade was a long granite slab with high windows set on the ground floor and smaller, squarer ones on the first. In its center stood a rectangular portico of thick, evenly spaced pillars, topped by a pediment. Other than that, the house was devoid of ornament. Not even the clumps of ivy that rambled in patches over the stone could offset the impression of severity conveyed by its every angle. This was not the severity to which I was accustomed, the grim utilitarianism of the workhouse or the factory, but something of quite a different order.

  There was grandeur in it—for the house dwarfed everything around it—and a certain aloofness. Yet the severity of its lines suggested something else. Hauteur mixed with . . . what? Savagery? Not quite, something tamer than that, tamer and yet more ancient, if that were possible.

  Hesitantly I climbed the steps to the door. I stood there for a long time, suspended between conflicting fears. Several times I reached out for the handle that pulled the bell, and each time I drew away again. All the time, light was draining from the afternoon sky. I could feel the imminence of night. The cold had grown even more bitter. It was that which hurried my hand to the bell at last. I pulled it hard, a single, determined tug, followed by a long, scarcely bearable silence.

  And then, barely perceptible at first, I could hear footsteps coming nearer. The door opened soundlessly and I saw, framed in the doorway by shimmering candlelight, a tall woman dressed in black. Her waist was tightly clasped by a wide leather belt from which hung a huge ring filled with keys. In one hand she held a tall glass lamp in which a candle burned.

  “Well, girl, what is it? What brings you here?”

  Her voice was sharp and unwelcoming. I stammered my long-rehearsed reply.

  “Please, m-ma’am. I . . . I’ve come to see Mr. and Miss Ayrton. I mean Sir Anthony and Miss Antonia.”

  I think she almost laughed. There must, after all, have been much in my appearance and the directness of my request that was droll, even absurd. But if she felt any humor in the situation, she suppressed it readily enough.

  “Get on your way, you cheeky young baggage, before I tell Hutton to set the dogs on you.”

  “No, ma’am, please.” Fear overcame my hesitancy. “I’ve walked a long way. From Newcastle. I must speak with them. They’re my cousins. That is. . .

  She had been about to shut the door in my face, but at the word “cousins” she froze.

  “What? What
did you say, child?”

  “I meant. . . My father was their cousin. So I suppose I must be. . .

  I think my accent had caught her ear. She looked me up and down.

  “Father? You say your father? What is your name?”

  “Charlotte, ma’am. Charlotte Metcalf.”

  For a moment something like real pity moved across her face. I could not understand the look she gave me. She frowned and pursed her lips.

  “Wait here, girl. Don’t move from that spot if you value your life.”

  She closed the door with a bang. I heard her footsteps move away across the black and white marble floor whose shining face I had seen through the shadows in the entrance hall behind her.

  It was growing very cold. I was so tired, I wanted to lie down on the doorstep and go to sleep. Even inside the partial protection of the portico, the biting wind found its way to me. Behind the house, a dog barked loudly, and I wondered if the tall woman had gone to set the beasts on me as she had threatened. Shivering, I waited. I had nowhere else to go.

  The door opened again. The woman in black was there again, her face still impassive, looking down at me as though I were a species of snail that had crept into her path.

  “You are to come with me,” she said. “Stay close behind me and keep your hands to your sides.”

  I took a deep breath and crossed the threshold. How simple that is to write: "I crossed the threshold.” But there are certain steps that take us farther than we think, and once we have taken them we can never go back. That movement of two or three paces was one such. I have never gone back. I can never again be that child on the doorstep, that shivering, half-clad wretch with so little to hope for.

  She closed the door behind me. I found myself standing in a high, shadow-filled hall lit by a huge candelabra in the center. Neither gas nor electric lighting had reached that far from town, even by that late date. Here they still used candles or oil.

  All around the borders of the hall were pillars of dark pink marble atop which were set busts of Roman emperors in white stone. There was an enormous fireplace of white marble, unlit, and above it a great mirror in which tiny reflected candles sparkled. I had expected decay, and instead here was opulence such as I had never seen. Barras Hall may not have been the grandest of houses—it lacked the stateliness of nearby Wallington or Seaton Delaval—but coming as I did out of such an utter wasteland, everything in it filled me with awe.

  The tall woman went ahead of me along a long unlit corridor, then along a side passage lit by a single oil lamp, at the end of which we came to a narrow flight of stairs.

  “Watch your step here,” she said. “The steps are worn, and you’ll break your neck if you slip.”

  I followed her up gingerly. We entered a wide corridor into which the rays of the setting sun were falling through a line of sash windows. Everything had turned red, for the sun had crept out from beneath its covering of cloud. Between the windows, hanging from long cords, were large portraits done in oils, men and women dressed in the fashions of one hundred and more years ago. All along the corridor, small Chinese cabinets and gold-painted chairs captured the sunlight. I almost stumbled on the faded carpet, realizing with a shock that it was the first on which I had set foot in years, apart from the one in the Lincott’s drawing room. The feeling of softness beneath my feet was almost sinful.

  We came at last to a high, gilded door. The tall woman paused, holding her candle at chest height, then knocked. A weak voice answered, and she opened the door.

  “You are to go in,” she said. “Miss Antonia is waiting for you.”

  I felt so frightened. What had I come to do? To claim an inheritance to which I knew I had no right? To thrust myself on a relative who had already turned my family away empty-handed? The tall woman had made no reference to Arthur. He must not have made it here after all. I shivered as I stepped into the room.

  I had expected . . . I do not know quite what. Something infinitely grand and imposing, a salon filled with gilded furniture and rich tapestries, a room in which soirees were held, glittering, full of glittering people. But this was only a small drawing room, lit by row upon row of candles, comfortably furnished in a thoroughly Victorian style. There were no mirrors: that struck me almost at once, so intense had been my expectation that the room would be filled with them. A log fire burned in the grate, a massive fire, whose heat reached into every corner of the little chamber.

  On a low divan set against the wall facing the fireplace sat the most striking woman I had ever seen. I held my breath the moment I set eyes on her. She was slender and fair and very, very beautiful. I could not then guess her age very well, but I think now she must have been in her middle or late thirties. She was one of those women whose beauty is not mere prettiness, whose features have the strength to survive the disappearance of early youth. As her eyes fell on me I sensed at once a clutter of emotions: pleasure, curiosity, and, more deeply hidden, an inexplicable sadness.

  She was dressed in a fine black gown of shot silk, the collar and sleeves edged with violet, as though she were in half mourning. The whole effect, whether intentional or not, was thoroughly Victorian, as though the woman in front of me still lived twenty or thirty years in the past.

  I stood uneasily by the door, not knowing whether to curtsy, step forward, or retreat. She held me with those perfect, unblinking, all-seeing eyes, as though ingesting me by sight alone, in small, satisfactory bites.

  “Come here, child.”

  The softness of her voice surprised and, curiously, comforted me. Its musicality swiftly undermined all my reservations. There was not the least harshness or rebuke in it. At once I felt less afraid than I had been. “Don’t be afraid. I want to look at you.”

  I stepped toward her tentatively, as though afraid my legs would snap and send me toppling on my face. I could not speak. All the time, I kept my eyes on the carpet.

  "Let me see your face,” she whispered when I was only a few feet away.

  I looked up. Her soft blue eyes were regarding me with an expression of mingled curiosity and pity. I felt like crying out.

  “You say you are my cousin Charlotte. Is that so?”

  “I . . .” The words froze on my lips.

  “Don’t worry, child. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I won’t harm you. Even if there be no truth in your story, I should not send you away empty-handed. There is nothing to fear. Speak up.”

  “Yes, ma’am. That is, my father was your cousin.”

  “Your father? And what was his name?”

  Her voice was so gentle, her manner so reassuring.

  “His name was Douglas Metcalf. We lived in Kenton Lodge, in Gosforth. That is, until he died.”

  “I see. You mean Gosforth in Newcastle, of course.” I nodded.

  “When and how did your father come to die?”

  I told her the date and circumstances. Her eyes widened, as though she were hearing of his death for the first time.

  “Child, how do you come to know this?”

  “I’ve told you,” I said. “He was my father.”

  "But. . She hesitated. “But how do you come to be dressed like this? In rags. Surely—”

  “We wrote to you. That is, my mother did. She told you how we had lost our money.”

  Her mouth opened. She seemed alarmed, startled by my revelation.

  “Wrote? Lost your money? When was this?” Her voice took on an urgency that had not been there before.

  "Why, soon after Father died. You did not answer. No one answered. No one wanted to help us. We had to go into the workhouse.” I found it impossible to keep the bitterness out of my voice. While this beautiful woman had been living here in style, my poor mother had been forced to take my brother and me to that terrible place.

  “But, my sweet child . . .”

  She stood suddenly, looking down at me.

  “Tell me this isn’t true,” she said. “That you’re making it up.”

  I shook my head.
>
  “It’s all true,” I said. I lifted my bag. “I have photographs. Of my father and myself. Of my mother. You can see them if you like. There are letters. It’s all true. Every word.”

  “And your mother and brother? Where are they?”

  “My mother’s dead. She died in the workhouse.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. She sank slowly back onto the divan.

  “Dear God,” she whispered. “We received no letter. No letter, do you hear me?”

  She looked at me in horror, in what I took for unfeigned horror.

  “Oh, my sweet child. What have we done to you? What have we done?”

  There were tears in her eyes. She reached out her hands, held her arms open. In so many years, no one had opened her arms to me like that. I felt a cry spring to my lips, a dreadful cry of misery and loneliness. And the next thing I knew, I had thrown myself on her and been taken into her embrace.

  CHAPTER 9

  It was late that night. I had been handed almost ceremoniously to the tall woman—whose name, I learned, was Mrs. Johnson, and whose function was that of housekeeper—to be divested of my rags, bathed, powdered, perfumed, and dressed in proper clothes. These latter presented something of a problem, for no children or adolescents lived at Barras Hall, and it was hard to see how Mrs. Johnson could conjure up a wardrobe for me out of nothing. However, leaving me in the bath, she disappeared for about twenty minutes. When she returned, an entire outfit of clothes was cradled in her arms, all of my size. They were a little old-fashioned, dating from perhaps twenty or thirty years before, like the dress my cousin Antonia had been wearing, but very well preserved and of the highest quality.

  Women wore so many items of clothing then, most of them underclothes. I started out with long woolen combinations, buttoned and frilled, and black woolen stockings; over these I slipped on a pair of cotton drawers, followed by a white petticoat bodice, exquisitely embroidered and fully equipped with its own array of buttons and frills; over that went a shorter, flannel petticoat and a flounced alpaca petticoat; and finally, a lovely blue silk dress, the most beautiful thing I had ever worn in my life.