Whispers in the Dark

by Jonathan Aycliffe

  The weeping continued, every sob chilling me to the bone. In the shadows, the door seemed to beckon to me.

  I wanted to run, to pick up the hem of my nightdress, turn tail and flee back along the corridor, hurry to my room and slip inside and turn the key and take refuge in my bed. But I knew I could not. Not now.

  I must have stood there shaking for a very long time, I could not say how long. Everywhere shadows bobbed up and down, for the lamp was trembling in my hand. That such a simple thing as a girl weeping should have filled me with such fear may appear ridiculous to you. But you were not there, you did not have to see the darkness behind the door, you did not have to listen to the endlessness of that voice.

  It took me a long time to cross the short distance separating me from the stairs. My heart pounded painfully as I climbed up. At the top I leaned forward.

  “Who’s there?” I called. “What’s wrong?”

  At that instant the crying stopped. It did not falter or fade away, it just halted. Nowadays we would say “as though someone had turned a switch.” And at that very moment I heard a voice behind me.

  “Charlotte. What are you doing out here? What can you be thinking of?”

  I turned, my heart beating loud enough to fill all that sudden silence. Antonia was standing behind me, a candle in her hand. She was dressed in a long white nightgown, and her loose hair hung down over her shoulders like a veil.

  “Do you know what time it is?” she demanded.

  “I . . . I . . .” I faltered. “I heard something.” "Heard? What did you hear?”

  “Why, didn’t you notice it? You must have. She was weeping so loudly. It went on for such a long time. And she must be in there now. I have to find her, I have to go to her.”

  “Weeping? Someone in there? What sort of nonsense is this? The only sound I have heard is the wind. The wind singing outside. You have mistaken the wind for something else.”

  Nimbly she slipped past me and closed the door. There was a key in the lock. She turned it and took it from the door, clutching it tightly in her hand.

  “Come away from here at once,” she commanded. “You will catch your death of cold.”

  “But. . . ,” I tried again.

  She looked very coldly into my eyes.

  “There was nothing there,” she said. “A door blown open by the wind, and the storm howling outside. Do not deceive yourself any further, Charlotte. Go back to bed.” There was nothing more I could do. I walked quickly back to my room and slipped inside. As I turned to lock the door I felt something brush my cheek. It was . . . as though someone had touched me softly with their hand. The touch was followed by a rustling sound, very gentle, like a woman’s dress. And then the sound of my clock ticking. And the wind outside, crying across the night.

  CHAPTER 16

  I did not sleep again that night. Dear God, I can still remember how I sat in that semidarkened room, listening to the cries of the wind, imagining at every moment a movement beginning among the shadows or a whisper forming at my ear. I opened the shutters once more, fearing that if I left them as they were, it would never grow light in that room again.

  A little before dawn the wind died down, and I heard the crying again, softer now, or weaker, and more pitiful than I remembered. It stopped when the first light struggled into my room. I may have slept a little after that, but I truly do not recall.

  Not long after that, I dressed in order to make myself a little warmer. As the daylight strengthened I began to feel less apprehensive. It is curious how our desire for normality can override even the most powerful impressions of the strange or the terrible. At moments I almost started to believe that Antonia had been telling the truth, that I had indeed heard nothing but the wind. And that I had seen nothing in the garden the day before, only rain falling and the light of the sun in its descent. I determined to ask Antonia outright about the incident.

  It was a little before eight, when I normally went down to breakfast, that I heard someone moving in the corridor. As a rule, neither Hepple nor Mrs. Johnson came that way so early. I recalled Antonia’s haste to close and lock the door of the room above the stairs, and I now wondered whether the footsteps I had just heard might not be connected with it in some way.

  Hastily gathering my long skirts above my ankle to stop them brushing against the floor, I sneaked out of my room and turned toward the stairs. Someone had lit a light farther down. At the corner, where the short passage branched off, I flattened myself against the wall. Now, quite distinctly, I could hear noises coming from the end of the passage. Footsteps and an occasional bump. There was someone there after all.

  Gingerly I edged my head partly around the corner. A single light burned at the foot of the stairs. The door was ajar, and through the narrow gap I could make out a soft glow as of daylight. I was working up enough courage to go forward when the door opened. A moment later Mrs. Johnson appeared in the entrance. She seemed tired and gray, and her movements were sluggish, in marked contrast to her accustomed nimbleness. From where I stood, I could only see that she was carrying an earthenware bowl filled with strips of white cloth. The cloths appeared to be wet and stained with patches of red. As I watched she turned and closed the door behind her, locking it with a key on the large ring I knew she always carried with her.

  I had seen enough. Running on tiptoe, I got back to my room before she had time to reach the main corridor. Her footsteps sounded briefly in the passage, then gently faded into silence.

  Ten minutes later I appeared in the breakfast room. Antonia was waiting for me as usual. She explained that Anthony had had to go out early to inspect the estate for damage in the wake of the storm. I thought she seemed more subdued than usual. There were rings under her eyes. It was that look I had seen on those earlier occasions when it had grown cold in the dining room.

  She poured chocolate for me, hot and thick, filling the thin white cup of Sevres porcelain that had been set aside as mine. When it was full, she set down the chocolatiere and smiled. I sensed that to do so cost her an effort.

  “I hope you got back to sleep without trouble, my dear. After being so rudely wakened by the wind.”

  I shook my head.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “That sound . . . I couldn’t get that sound out of my head.”

  “What sound was that?”

  “The sound I told you about. As though someone was crying. As though her heart was fit to break.” Antonia frowned.

  “I told you, Charlotte, there was no one crying. Just the wind making a nuisance of itself, as it is inclined to do in these parts. Put it out of your head.”

  “But I did hear it! Not the wind, that can’t have been it, I heard the noise again later, long after the wind had stopped. . . .”

  She looked at me strangely. I find it hard to describe that look properly. A mixture of fear and pity and . . . loathing. Yes, I think all three emotions were present. And yet, throwing my mind back across the years, I think her feelings were directed less at me than at herself. For Antonia loathed herself above all others. And her very life was measured and controlled by fear.

  She put down the cup of chocolate she was drinking, settling it in its fragile saucer with the greatest deliberation.

  “Just what is it, Charlotte, that you are accusing us of? That we are harboring someone in that room? Keeping her there against her will, perhaps? Or a madwoman, maybe, like Mrs. Rochester in Jane Eyre? Is that what you think?”

  “I . . . I truly do not know what to think, Antonia. If you say there is no one else in the house, I am sure I must believe you. I cannot do otherwise, after all your kindnesses to me. But I do know what I heard.”

  “If you insist, Charlotte. I cannot very well deny that you must have heard something, for you are not to be persuaded otherwise. But you must think what you are saying, child. If what you heard was neither the sound of the wind nor the voice of a living person, then you leave yourself with only one other possibility, do you not?” She looked a
t me intently, as though challenging me to say what she knew I was thinking. But to speak it, to give it reality in speech, that was something quite beyond my powers.

  “I think . . .” I started to say, then looked away, bending my head.

  “You think the house is haunted, don’t you, Charlotte? That the sounds you heard—or think you heard— last night were made by a ghost. That possibly the figure you think you saw in the garden yesterday was a phantom. That is what you think, is it not?”

  I looked up with a sort of defiance. She had said the words I could not bring myself to utter. Her face was set and pale, but her eyes challenged me to contradict her. Helplessly I nodded. There was a long silence. I could hear the clock ticking behind me.

  “Well,” Antonia said at last, “that is not so very hard to understand. This is a large house, a house full of shadows. Everywhere there are boards that creak, and chimneys that whistle, and cracks that magnify the slightest gust of wind. I have lived here all my life, I have learned to understand the house’s moods and manners. You are fresh to it, and it is easy for me to forget that.”

  She lifted her cup and took a sip.

  “Very well, my dear. It seems that I shall have to set your mind at rest. After breakfast, we shall go to your mysterious room and see for ourselves. I assure you, we shall find no languishing prisoner. And no waiting ghost.”

  She smiled as though we had found a joke to share. But I could still sense an underlying uneasiness. She was like someone whistling in the dark. The rest of breakfast passed in an uncomfortable silence. I was aware for the first time that I had begun to fear my cousin, though I could not as yet say exactly why. I did not mention that I had seen Mrs. Johnson coming from the locked room, nor did I voice my suspicion that what I had seen on the cloths she carried had been blood.

  When we had finished, Antonia stood.

  “Well, Charlotte, are you still game for a visit to your haunted room?”

  I nodded reluctantly. I was sure that whatever had been in there was now gone. For I was by no means convinced that the sounds I had heard had indeed been of supernatural origin. What if they had really been holding someone? And what if that someone had now been done away with and their room cleared of all traces of their presence?

  There was a stillness about the house that I had not perceived before. It was as though my own senses were being sharpened or growing attuned to an atmosphere of menace that had at first been concealed from me. We went quickly upstairs, Antonia always a few paces ahead. When we reached the passage, it was dark. Mrs. Johnson had extinguished the light, It felt very cold.

  Antonia relit the lamp. Around her neck she wore a gold chain at the end of which were several keys. One of these fit the door. She opened it and pushed it slowly open. My heart was beating fast, yet I knew I would see nothing.

  A cold winter light falling through high windows revealed an empty room. It was bleak and unfurnished, and its walls had been painted a dull white. The floorboards were bare and unpolished. The only thing that relieved the bareness was a fireplace in the wall opposite. It did not seem to have been lit in a very long time. A cage of iron bars covered the windows from top to bottom.

  I cannot describe exactly what it was I fell as I followed Antonia over the threshold. Despair does not describe it, or anguish. It was more like a wave of loneliness, of abandonment. Very like what I had felt the day my father died, and the days that followed it. Or that dreadful moment when my mother and I set foot inside the workhouse. Above all, it was like the day Mrs. Moss came to tell me that my mother, too, was dead. It was as though the room itself acted as an amplifying chamber for those worst feelings of my childhood.

  “You see,” said Antonia, turning to me. “It is as I said. There is nothing here. What you heard was nothing but the wind.”

  “You told me this was a storeroom,” I said. “You said it was locked and only used for storing things nobody wanted.”

  For a second Antonia was thrown. She must have forgotten her earlier explanation. But she recovered almost instantly.

  “You’re perfectly correct. But since your arrival, I’ve decided to make a few changes. You need a better room in which to paint. This room receives excellent light, even in the winter. Mrs. Johnson has been clearing everything out of it, I think she finished cleaning it this morning. It will soon be ready for your first lesson, as soon as I can get the paint and other things from town. I had been hoping to save it as a surprise, but you’ve rather forced me to spoil it, Never mind. I’m sure you’re going to be very happy here.”

  Suddenly she stopped speaking. The next moment I felt it, too, the abrupt drop in temperature. I saw the sudden fear in her eyes.

  “Come, Charlotte. We’ve spent long enough in here already. There are things to be done.”

  So saying, she grabbed my arm and pulled me through the door. She had scarcely locked it before she set off, hurrying ahead of me back to the main house. I followed, distracted and unsettled. But of all the impressions that that empty room left on me, the greatest was that of overwhelming loneliness.

  CHAPTER 17

  I could not concentrate for the rest of that morning. Nor, I noticed, could Antonia. She knew, I think, that I did not believe her, that I still harbored nagging suspicions about what was going on at Barras Hall. A change had come over our relationship, a cloud that would not easily be blown away.

  At lunch, Anthony told us of the damage the storm had caused in the woods. Trees had been blown down, a stream had been blocked by subsidence, some of the outbuildings had suffered the loss of slates or bricks. I paid little attention to this recital, for half the places he mentioned were unknown to me. But one remark did attract my notice briefly.

  “We shall have to have someone in to look at the folly,” he said. “There’s been damage to the roof. A branch fell on it and took some of the stone cladding away. I’m afraid it will cost a lot to put right,”

  "Shouldn’t we just have it pulled down, Anthony? It’s in a bad enough state as it is.” Antonia’s face was flushed. She had taken wine with her meal, something I had only observed her do at dinner.

  Anthony looked at her more sharply than seemed warranted by the question.

  “I think not, Antonia. On the contrary, this may be the right moment to have it put in good repair. We’ll see what Kettlewell says.”

  "You know he won’t work there, Anthony. Nor his men.”

  Anthony shot a quick glance at me, then back at his sister.

  “They will if I pay them enough. They’re common laborers, Antonia, they’ll swallow anything for cash. If need be, I’ll bring men in from Newcastle.” He paused. “I’ll go straight into Morpeth after lunch. Don’t expect me back until dinner. But don’t wait for me if I’m late: I can always eat alone.”

  When he had gone, Antonia turned to me. The wine had made her more relaxed. She smiled, a ghost of the winning smile she had summoned up so easily before.

  “I know you are tired, Charlotte, after your wakeful night. So I propose we cancel all our lessons for the rest of today. I have been thinking. You are often alone here. I know how dull that must be for a girl your age. You are unaccustomed to our country stillnesses. Clearly it unsettles you. Now, I really cannot have my dear cousin unsettled. You must have a companion.”

  I looked at her uncomprehendingly.

  "Don't look so startled, my dear. I have thought of the very thing. We’ll put on our wraps and bonnets and take a turn through the grounds. I’d like to see for myself a little of this famous damage Anthony has been telling us about.”

  Mrs. Johnson brought our things and we set off. It was bitterly cold. The wind had torn yesterday’s clouds clean out of the sky, and the rain had cleared most of the snow away, but Antonia said she thought there might be more snow in the air. We headed past the stables to an area I had never visited. This was Hutton’s domain, a place of potting sheds, vegetable gardens, and kennels. I could hear the dogs barking long before we arrived.
/>   Hutton appeared as though from nowhere, doffing his cap as he watched us approach. I had kept myself well out of his way until now, fearing his surly manner and unkempt appearance.

  “Miss Antonia, Miss Charlotte. What can I do for you?”

  He never smiled, did Hutton. I guessed him to be in his late fifties or thereabouts, a beetle-browed, stony-faced, ill-proportioned man of few words. He had, I fancied, a temper. And for all that he acted subserviently toward Anthony or his sister, I had detected a freeness in his manner that suggested ill-suppressed insolence. Hutton was not downtrodden. It was almost as though he held some power over my cousins, or as if all three shared some secret.

  “Hutton, your bitch Sarah gave birth to pups last year, did she not?”

  “Hmm, that she did.”

  "What’s become of them?”

  “Drowned, ma’am.”

  “What, all of them?”

  He shook his head slowly.

  “No, not all. I kept two. Was you wanting one, miss?”

  “Not for myself. I thought Miss Charlotte might like one for company.”

  “They’re not lapdogs, miss. I keep them for working dogs. They’re hardly suitable for a young lady.”

  “What breed? I think Anthony said they were lurchers.”

  “No, ma’am. Springer spaniels. Nothing fancy about them, mind you. Not much pedigree to speak of.” Antonia turned to me, smiling.

  “You won't mind if they don’t have pedigree, will you, Charlotte?”

  “I . . . No, of. . . of course not,” I stammered. I had never had a dog, never owned a pet of any description. All my fears seemed to have been eclipsed by this sudden, delicious surprise. As Antonia had intended they should be.

  “Let’s see them, Hutton. We don’t want to keep Miss Charlotte waiting.”

  He led the way to a low shed near a rubbish heap filled with shards of garden crockery. As we approached, high-pitched barking broke out from inside the shed. Hutton opened a narrow door, stopped, and went inside. Moments later he came out holding two spaniel pups, one under each arm. They were both well grown.