In the afternoons and sometimes after dinner, I would read to Antonia for an hour or more at a time. She was an attentive and indefatigable listener. We finished Jane Eyre and moved on to Pride and Prejudice. She often corrected my reading of a word, my pronunciation or intonation, and frequently she was obliged to explain something for me, an allusion or historical reference. I thought her quite clever then, though on reflection I think hers was a superficial knowledge, having no other purpose but to impress. I do not mean she affected learning in order to seem superior, as many people do nowadays. She was wholly free of that sort of vice, believing as she did in an innate superiority of breeding that needed no outward show to bolster it. The display of knowledge was merely part of being an accomplished person, someone capable of joining in conversations at dinner without appearing wholly vacuous. There was nothing in her of the game-show contestant or the autodidact desperate for praise.
Her tutoring of me rested on the same assumptions. She was at first assiduous, embarking straight after breakfast on the first of the day’s allotted tasks, dreamed up by her the night before. In the first few weeks, I learned some basic Italian and brushed up the little French I had learned years before and now almost wholly forgotten. From the library, Antonia brought massive volumes on the history of art, stuffed with sepia reproductions of works by the great masters, accompanied by dreary commentaries that she quickly discarded in favor of her own lighter remarks, remarks I now perceive to have been deeply misinformed.
We found an old harpsichord, rather out of tune, under a dust sheet in a long-unused music room on the first floor. For half an hour each day she and I would sit facing this instrument while I, with clumsy fingers, attempted pieces by Bach and Mozart. Antonia herself played tolerably well, but without feeling. At intervals, she would instruct me in the names of exotic dishes, the vintages of wines, or the latest Parisian fashions, all without any apparent guiding principles.
For languages, music, deportment, and all the rest were, I soon discovered, a cause of infinite ennui to my cousin. Often in the middle of a session, or as I was finishing a sonata, she would drift into a little reverie, out of which I feared to rouse her; or talk about her childhood and early youth; or suggest that we take a walk about the grounds, hand in hand over frosted grass.
The one thing she did enjoy was horse riding, and she was determined to make a good horsewoman of me. She herself rode a sorrel gelding called Coriolanus, while I was presented with a two-year-old by the name of Petrarch. It cannot have been much fun for Antonia, for what she wanted was a riding companion with whom she could gallop for miles through the open fields, whereas I, wholly untrained, could barely keep a saddle. She persevered, however, and in a week or two I had at least learned how to sit up straight without tumbling to the ground.
There were, of course, frequent intervals in which I was free to explore the house and grounds alone. I never walked far, never out of sight of the hall.
A large stream ran through the estate for over a mile. Anthony explained that it was a tributary of the River Coquet and that its name was the Hartwell. The folly Antonia had told me about stood on a low hill overlooking the stream across a short grass sward. It was a small Greek temple, complete with Doric columns. A small door behind the portico formed the only entrance, but when I first went there, I found it locked. I thought briefly of asking Antonia for a key, but in the end thought better of it. The little temple repelled me somehow. There was a sinister feeling about it and the area for some distance around.
Returning from it the first time, I asked Antonia who had built it. She seemed almost reluctant to answer, then smiled her very best smile and sat me down beside her.
“It’s almost as old as the house, my dear. One of our Ayrton ancestors had it built, a man called Sir James Ayrton. It was his father, William, who built Barras Hall. William was a Whig who stayed loyal to the Earl of Sunderland after his fall in 1710. It’s a thing our family has always prided itself on—its loyalty, its consistency. William’s faithfulness brought him a rich reward. Sunderland became first lord of the treasury eight years later, and he did not forget the Ayrtons. When the hall was completed, the earl himself gave Sir William many books out of his own collection, and in time a great library was created here.”
“Is that the same library I like to read in?”
A wistful look crossed her face.
“No, my dear. I’m afraid it’s no longer what it was. Our grandfather incurred debts—gambling debts, if you want to know the truth—and to pay them off he sold over half the volumes. Most of the really valuable books have gone.”
“And what about the folly?”
“The folly? Oh, yes, of course. Well, James Ayrton, Sir William’s son, built the west wing, where you sleep. He was widely traveled. I believe he got as far as India, and afterward he was the British ambassador in Constantinople for a time. Later I’ll show you some of the treasures he brought back from his travels. He built the folly in 1740 as a place to hold parties. That was all the rage in his day.”
"What does the inscription mean?”
“Inscription?”
“Over the doorway. 'They shall inherit it forever.’” For a moment she seemed uneasy, as though the words had carried uncomfortable associations for her. Then she smiled and nodded.
“Oh, you mean our family motto. It’s a verse from the book of Exodus: I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.’ Well, perhaps so, but the old folly has seen its best days, I’m afraid. We’ve not had much use for it since Sir James’s time. It’s cold and damp inside. Anthony talks of having it knocked down before it gets to be an eyesore. It’s not in good repair. Hutton thinks it may be dangerous. I’d stay away from it if I were you.”
There was a steeliness in her voice that startled me. As though she were afraid I might go to the folly, afraid I might see something she did not want me to see. She changed the subject then, and I said no more of it.
There was another part of the grounds Antonia wished me to avoid. Not far from the folly, a steep path wound its way down through thick undergrowth toward the river. Passing it once, I asked Antonia if it led anywhere interesting.
“Why, no. . .” She faltered. “There are. . . some very dull ruins. An old church used to stand there. But it was too far from the house for comfort, and my grandfather had it pulled down. You'll find nothing there now but a few old stones. But I would rather you stayed away from the place, Charlotte. The path is muddy and treacherous, even dangerous in parts, and you might very easily slip and break a leg, or worse. We might not find you for days.”
I agreed, but mentally reserved the possibility of an exploratory visit in the spring or summer, when the mud would have dried up. The thought of old ruins, however sparse, thrilled me.
I spent more and more time in the library. Sir William Ayrton’s original library had been shut up and the books removed to a gloomy chamber on the first floor, a place full of shadows, little visited, dusty, and ill lit. The books had been left to fall, as it were, into a dust-induced slumber, seldom disturbed, unread, unloved. I came to believe it was my mission to wake them up and bring some sort of light back into their existence. Whenever I got the chance, I would go to the library to browse or read until the cold forced me to leave again. Finally Antonia said she would ask Hepple to light a fire there for me in the afternoons. It became part of her educational project for me.
Yet her manner was changing almost imperceptibly. I would often find her preoccupied. Sometimes, in the middle of a passage, she would stand and tell me to stop reading. Very often, she would go to the window and stand staring out into the garden, almost as though expecting to see someone appear there and come toward her. Once, as I watched, I saw her start, but when I asked if she was all right, she assured me that she was perfectly well. And yet, when she turned, I saw that her face had gone quite pale and that she was tremblin
g.
At certain times this nervousness became more marked. On two further occasions it grew cold during dinner, as it had done soon after my arrival. Each time Antonia turned noticeably pale and looked at her brother anxiously. From the corridor leading to my room a small branch passage broke off. At its end, only yards from the main corridor, a short flight of stairs led up to a low wooden door, drab and untended in appearance, as though the room to which it belonged had been long neglected. During our first tour of the house, Antonia had told me that the door was kept locked, that the room was used for storage and never entered. Yet I could not repress a faint shudder every time I passed the opening that led to it, for it seemed darker than the rest of the house, and very sad, as though it had once been the scene of an unhappy or terrible event. I observed that whenever she passed that way, Antonia very deliberately kept her gaze Fixed in front of her, quickening her pace a little, and biting her lip.
I saw little of Anthony. He was often away during the day, but it was never made entirely clear to me what business took him from Barras Hall. We dined together most evenings, and every night I would ask what progress had been made in the search for my brother. Generally Anthony would reply that there was no fresh news; but from time to time he would pull from his pocket a letter from Endicott, detailing the progress of the investigation. So far they had traced Arthur to two lodging houses in the west of Newcastle, then to a jobbing carpenter’s shop in Fleece Court and a farm on the outskirts of the city, at Kenton. There was a possibility that he had been seen a little farther north than that, at Ponteland, through which I had myself passed on my way to Barras Hall. It seemed that he was on his way here, and I began to think he would arrive at the front door in person, as I myself had done, long before Endicott and his men could track him down.
And then, quite unexpectedly, there came a report that he was back in Newcastle, for he had been seen there in a city-center shop one week earlier.
“He must have taken fright at the cold weather,” said Anthony. “And he would be right. This is no time of year for a boy like him to be trudging through the countryside. He has made the right decision to get back to the town.”
“But when will I see him? You said it would not be long.”
He reached across the table and took my hand.
“My dear, I fear we may have to wait for spring before he risks the road again. But don’t fret. He won’t slip through the net we’ve woven for him. Endicott has posted a fine reward in every public house and lodging this side of Newcastle. He has men scouring the city every day. Arthur won’t get far. You’ll be together again in time for Christmas. I promise you.”
That night I went to bed quite distressed, for in spite of Anthony’s reassurances, my former fears for Arthur’s safety had surfaced again. In the workhouse, I had heard people speak repeatedly about how hard winter was for the poor. Everyone had known friends and relatives who had died from cold or hunger when the temperature dropped too far or there was snow on the ground. Could Arthur, alone and without resources, survive to the spring? If he was now in the city, would Endicott be able to find him in time?
CHAPTER 13
The days drifted. Winter grew more severe, there was snow at the end of November, deep enough to keep us confined to the house for almost a week. I resigned myself to the likelihood that Arthur would remain undiscovered for another few weeks at least and gave up hoping to be reunited with him by Christmas.
“Did you love your brother very much?” Antonia asked me one morning.
“Yes, of course.”
“There is no ‘of course’ in it,” she replied. “Take Anthony and myself. We are very loving, but we were not always so. When we were children, we positively hated one another. Or so it seemed at the time.”
"It cannot have been true. You are very happy together. Like a husband and wife.”
She raised her eyes from the tapestry she had been working on.
“You think so, do you?”
I nodded.
“Were your parents like that? Very loving toward one another, I mean?”
“Yes. Oh, very much indeed.”
“Then you were very lucky. It is not always so.”
I already had a good idea that such was the case, from conversations overheard in the workhouse. But I had rather thought the lack of love those women spoke of owed a great deal to poverty. The middle and upper classes, I still fondly imagined, were free of the terrible vices and unbearable pressures that split working-class families apart.
“When I grow up,” I said, “I think I would like not to marry, but to live in a house like this with Arthur.”
Antonia snapped off the thread she had been working with and tossed her needle into the basket.
“I am delighted to hear it,” she said. “Now, if you will excuse me . . .”
She stood and left the room, leaving me puzzled by the abruptness of her departure. I remained in the morning room to finish off a small piece of embroidery I had begun two weeks earlier. When it was done, I saw that more than an hour had passed. I wanted to show Antonia my completed work and therefore set off in search of her.
I could find her nowhere on the ground floor. The house was quite silent: Anthony had gone out to visit a farm on the estate, Mrs. Johnson and Hepple were preparing lunch in the kitchen. Upstairs, I headed directly for Antonia’s bedroom, a large, mirrored chamber set almost in the center of the building, with a superb view over the garden.
As I worked on the embroidery, which involved some complicated pieces of raised needle weaving and cloud-filling stitches, Antonia had regularly complimented me. I was proud of the finished article, still tightly fastened in its tambour, and now wanted to surprise her with it, for she had expected me to take another day at least over its completion.
She had left the door of the room open. Rather than call out and draw attention to my presence, I approached the door quietly, meaning to surprise her. But as I reached the opening I caught sight of her in one of the large mirrors that hung on the wall facing me. Her back was turned, and at first I could only see her partially. There was, however, something about her manner that cautioned me to be careful and, above all, not let myself be seen.
She had changed her clothes, and now, as she turned slightly, I could see that she was no longer wearing the dress she had been wearing when she left the morning room, but a wedding gown. It had once been a lovely thing of lace and satin and embroidered panels, white and delicate and soft, but was now rather faded and even tattered in places, as though it had been torn and clumsily repaired. As I watched I saw that Antonia was admiring herself in another mirror on the opposite side of the room, turning, bending, straightening, for all the world like a young bride on the morning of her wedding.
And then, abruptly, her hands flew to her face. As though stricken, she stood thus for a few moments before sinking onto the bed behind her, sobbing like a child. Embarrassed now and frightened, I turned and sneaked away along the corridor and down the stairs.
All during lunch, Antonia seemed very strained, and if I looked closely, I could see the redness in her eyes. She admired my embroidery without real enthusiasm and ate distractedly. Returning to the subject of the morning, she inquired more closely about Arthur: what he had been like, what things he took pleasure in, what he found distasteful, what he most liked to eat, and so on—no end of trivialities, to which I offered the best answers I could.
The afternoon I spent alone in the library at Antonia's suggestion, reading a novel called Ardath by Marie Corelli. She was at the height of her fame in those days, though I fancy even you, Doctor, have never heard of her. And very lucky you are, too, for she was a dreadful prig and a worse writer, and she deserved none of the success that public opinion of the time heaped upon her.
Anthony spent almost the whole of dinner regaling us both with stories of the tenant farmers and the extra work they had to put in when it snowed. One man had already lost three sheep in snowdrifts. Another farm wa
s wholly out of reach, even on horseback. Antonia listened politely while her brother spoke, but I saw that she was still out of sorts, pale, and thinking of other matters, matters whose nature I could only vaguely guess.
I reached my bedroom a little early to find Johnson turning down the sheets. She seemed a bit startled by my sudden arrival. I asked her if she thought Antonia was ill, for she did not seem to be herself.
“She’s not ill, miss, no. It’s just that sometimes
“Sometimes what?”
“Nothing, miss. When you’re older, you’ll understand better. You have to be kind to Miss Antonia. She hasn’t had an easy life. In spite of appearances.”
She turned to go, then, pausing, looked back at me.
“Be sure to keep your door locked tonight, miss. Once I’ve gone.”
“Locked? Whatever for?”
She looked steadily at me.
“This is an old house, miss. The doors are old. Sometimes a wind blows on the moors. The corridor can be drafty, and these doors don’t hold as fast as they used to. Best to keep it locked. I have a key. I can let myself in when I bring your hot water in the morning.”
I must have fallen into a deep sleep. I had sat up reading and must have dozed off in my chair. When I woke, I felt stiff and awkward. The fire had died down almost to nothing. My candle was still alight, but it had burned down low. Something must have wakened me. As I sat there the first thing I heard was the wind. And then, above it, another sound. The sound of footsteps coming along the passage outside my room.
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