Immortal

by Gillian Shields

  “Oh, wait!” Sarah exclaimed. “Where’s Helen?”

  “Helen is not well. She will not be joining us.”

  I glanced up. The infirmary was on the second floor, overlooking the drive.

  I thought I caught a glimpse of Helen’s fragile features at the window. But I was distracted by Miss Scratton hovering at my side, looking sterner than ever.

  “Listen, Evie,” she said. “This is really important. You can’t get another demerit. Is that clear?” Then she stiffened and looked over her shoulder. The High Mistress, Mrs. Hartle, was standing on the top step by the front door, watching us silently. I felt as though someone had poured ice water down my neck.

  “Your behavior has been quite disgraceful, Evie Johnson,” Miss Scratton announced in a loud voice. “Now keep up with me.”

  We followed the others to the school gates. Instead of turning down to the village and the gloomy church, as we did on Sundays, we took the path that led up to the moors. Miss Dalrymple went on ahead, pointing out the site of the old fort where I had ridden with Sebastian. I didn’t listen. I was puzzling over what Miss Scratton had just said. Had she simply been telling me off—or was there some other warning behind her words?

  I looked up at her fiercely plain face, and it struck me that there was some kind of tension between her and Mrs. Hartle. Perhaps Miss Scratton had wanted the job of High Mistress herself? That wasn’t any of my concern, though. All I cared about was that Miss Scratton had accepted my garbled explanation the night before about feeling faint and wanting to get some fresh air in the yard. I’d pretended that I’d used the back stairs so I wouldn’t disturb anybody, then got shut in by accident.

  As we started to climb higher over rough ground, I wondered if Helen knew why I had been out on the grounds at night. And if she did know about Sebastian, would she tell Mrs. Hartle? Then I would be in real trouble. I could imagine the frost in Mrs. Hartle’s voice, the quiet triumph. I never wanted to accept you into the school.

  Dad would be so upset if they kicked me out. I couldn’t let him down like that. Secretly, I felt slightly ashamed. After all, I had come to Wyldcliffe to help Dad, not add to his troubles. I was in school to learn, not to chase after a boy with blue eyes. Something would have to change. I couldn’t bear to stop seeing Sebastian, but there had to be some other way of meeting that wouldn’t break any more rules.

  The path began to snake down the other side of the ridge to a wooded hollow below. Miss Dalrymple trotted out facts about limestone outcrops and the ancient mines that had left a honeycomb of tunnels and shafts under the hills. The girls crowded around her, asking questions and admiring the view. Miss Dalrymple turned and smiled rather unpleasantly, her cheeks pink and plump in the wind.

  “Miss Scratton, don’t you think dear Evie could join the rest of us? It would be a pity for her not to enjoy the day’s adventure.”

  “Evie had enough adventures last night,” said Miss Scratton icily. “She will stay under my supervision.”

  Strangely enough, I was glad of her reply. Miss Dalrymple looked annoyed for a fraction of a second, then shooed the class along, lecturing them enthusiastically about our surroundings. But Miss Scratton and I walked behind them in silence.

  Twenty-two

  F

  airfax Hall was not what I had expected. I had grown used to the somber gray buildings of the Abbey, but the Hall, behind its thick screen of laurels, was a gracious house made of light stone, with an elegant pillared facade. It looked out of place on the side of the rugged moors. But that wasn’t the main surprise. As we trooped down the driveway, we saw two police cars parked outside the door. The museum director came rushing out to meet us.

  “Oh, it’s such a shame,” she began hurriedly. “I tried to call you, Miss Scratton, but the school said you had already set off, so it was too late to let you know.”

  “Let us know what?” replied Miss Scratton.

  “About this terrible break-in. I can’t quite believe it yet. The whole place has been ransacked.” The poor woman looked on the verge of tears, and kept pushing her glasses nervously into place.

  “Oh, dear, has anything been stolen?” asked Miss Dalrymple.

  “That’s the strange thing,” said the museum lady. “Everything has been turned upside down, but we think that only one item has actually been stolen.”

  “And what was that?” asked Miss Scratton sharply. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “Not at all. I suppose it will all be in the local paper anyway. It was a portrait, not terribly valuable, but of great interest: a member of the Fairfax family, a fascinating character. Oh, dear…I’d better get back to the police—and you’ve walked all this way for nothing. I’m afraid no one is allowed to come in while the police are examining everything.”

  A few of the girls let out groans at the news.

  “But we can’t go back to school right away, can we, Miss Scratton?” asked Sophie.

  “No,” agreed Miss Scratton. “It’s too far to walk back without a rest, and the bus I have arranged for us won’t arrive for a couple of hours. We’ll just have to wait here until it comes.”

  The woman from the Hall looked heartbroken at the idea that we were being deprived of the chance to see her beloved museum.

  “Oh, dear, oh, dear,” she said. “Of course, I’ll have to check with the police, but perhaps you could at least walk around the gardens. Even at this time of the year they are full of interesting specimens. They were laid out in the nineteenth century by Sir Edward Fairfax and are considered a very fine example…Oh, dear, please excuse me.”

  She rushed back into the house, appearing again a few minutes later.

  “The sergeant says that your girls can walk in the lower gardens, down by the lake.”

  The lake. I looked up with interest.

  “Excellent. You can all make some sketches, girls. There’ll be a prize for the best one,” said Miss Scratton.

  The class flocked behind the mistresses, cheered up by the idea of a little competition. We reached the formal gardens behind the house, with their walkways and patterns and stately flower beds. But the lake turned out to be a disappointment. It was a sterile, man-made affair, a glorified pond with a fancy fountain stuck in the middle of it.

  I found a stone bench to sit on and made a feeble attempt to draw the fountain. Sebastian had been right: Our visit to Fairfax Hall had been a complete letdown. I wondered when he had been here—he had seemed to know all about the place. I imagined him being dragged around the museum by his parents when he was a kid. No, that couldn’t have been right, I remembered, because Miss Scratton said the house had been opened only recently. Perhaps he had sneaked in at night, like he sneaked into Wyldcliffe. That would be more like Sebastian. I grinned to myself, and suddenly ached to be with him.

  Without being consciously aware of it, I had drawn a figure in a long dark coat next to my sketch of the lake. I looked around, half expecting to see Sebastian lounging against one of the trees, with that mocking smile on his lips.

  He wasn’t there, of course. On the far side of the lawn dark shrubs had been clipped into tall shapes. Beyond them the garden ended and the moors began. Then I noticed something. High on the slope that rose up from the edge of the garden, behind a tangle of thorn trees, there was a dark block of stone. A girl was standing next to it, her pale hair blown about by the wind.

  “Helen!” I cried, and jumped up, letting my sketch book fall to the ground. “Helen! Wait!”

  Large, splashy drops of rain began to fall. The girls by the lake snatched up their things and ran, half grumbling, half laughing, toward the Hall. But I was running in the opposite direction, trying to get a better view of the girl. Then Miss Dalrymple stepped out in front of me, barring my way. I let out a yelp of surprise.

  “Whatever is the matter?” she asked smoothly. “You’re going the wrong way—you’ll get soaked.”

  “But…but I saw Helen up there on the hill!”

  S
he laughed a little tinkling laugh. “There’s no one there. You’re imagining things, my dear.”

  It was true. There was nothing to see. There was no girl there, only the thorn trees and the dark stone, and the rain falling like tears.

  “Evie!”

  I turned to see Miss Scratton standing tall and thin in her flapping black raincoat. “Run over to the Hall and out of this rain! We’ll have to shelter there until the bus arrives, whether the police like it or not. Quickly!”

  She shooed me in the direction of the house, but I wasn’t sure whether she wanted to get me away from the rain or from Miss Dalrymple.

  When we finally arrived back at school we were told to change into dry clothes. I flew up to the dorm for a clean shirt, then found my way to the infirmary. I tapped on the door.

  “Come in.” The nurse looked up from her desk. “Yes, what is it?”

  “Um…I came to ask about Helen. How is she?”

  “She’s not been at all well today. It looks as though she’s in for a nasty dose of the flu.”

  “So, she hasn’t been outside all day?” I asked, trying to peer past her for any sign of her patient. “She didn’t manage to go out for some fresh air?”

  “I hardly think so, with the temperature she’s been running. And she’s tucked up in bed now.”

  “Well…um…tell her I came,” I finished lamely, and walked away. The girl I had seen must have been someone from the local village. The truth was, I told myself, I was light-headed with exhaustion. I half envied Helen her bed in the quiet infirmary. I longed to sleep and sleep and sleep.

  But not yet. I had promised Sebastian to be there that night, and I would never break a promise to him.

  I made my plans like a thief. Helen would be staying in the infirmary, so I knew she couldn’t possibly interfere. After supper, when it was getting dark, I quietly raided a gardener’s shed and “borrowed” a flashlight, so that I wouldn’t have to face that utter blackness on the stairs again. Oh, I had it all planned out. I promised myself one more stolen hour of happiness with Sebastian; then I would be sensible and get some sleep at last.

  Twenty-three

  “B

  ut why not, Sebastian?” I said, staring sulkily over the lake. Nothing was turning out as I had imagined.”

  “I’ve told you.” He sighed. “I can’t see you in the daytime. This is the only way we can see each other.”

  “I could meet you on a Sunday afternoon. Some of the girls are allowed out then to go riding, or for walks.”

  “So you are going to tell the High Mistress that you’re going down to the woods to meet a boy from the village?” he asked. “Do you really think she’ll allow that?”

  “Well, no…” I admitted. “But if we told her that you’re a family friend.” I needed to say what had been on my mind for some time. “You know, if your parents actually invited me to your house for tea or something, Mrs. Hartle couldn’t object to that. Jessica Armstrong has some cousins who live a few miles away, and she goes to visit them.”

  “I cannot ask my parents to meet you. I’m really sorry.”

  “Why not?” I fumed. “Are you ashamed of me?”

  “It’s not that!”

  “Is it because I don’t really belong at Wyldcliffe? Would you rather take Celeste or India or someone like that to meet them? Is that it?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, bewildered by my fury. “Please, Evie, it’s just impossible. Don’t drag my parents into this. They…they wouldn’t understand; they are old-fashioned; they can’t…Evie, please don’t look like that.”

  “Did your parents meet that other girl?” I blurted out. My lingering jealousy over the girl from his past—whether it had been Laura or someone else—flared up like a white-hot flame. “Did you invite her to your house?”

  “I’m not going to lie to you. Yes, they met her.”

  “It’s not fair.” I was horrified by the whining tone of my voice and tried to pull myself together. “It’s just that I’m so tired,” I pleaded, staring into the rippling black water.

  “Do you mean you are tired of me?”

  “You know I don’t mean that. But I’m in so much trouble already, and if I get another of those blasted demerits I don’t know what will happen. Whatever you think of your parents, I don’t want to upset my dad by getting thrown out of Wyldcliffe. And if I do get kicked out,” I carried on miserably, “then I really will never see you again.”

  “But you said you wanted to keep meeting, that you didn’t mind the risks.”

  “I just don’t see why we have to creep around like this every night. It’s getting ridiculous. I’m putting myself in a really bad position with the school, as well as being exhausted, and I don’t even know…” I looked up at his troubled face. I wanted to say, And I don’t even know how you really feel about me.

  The words wouldn’t come. I dreaded getting an answer I didn’t want to hear. I knew in my heart that there was a barrier between us, something holding Sebastian back. Yes, I was his dearest Evie, but I needed more. I couldn’t go on just wondering and hoping, waiting for a sign that never came. I kicked an old laurel root that grew near the water’s edge and growled, “I don’t even know your full name.”

  “Sebastian James,” he said with a mocking bow. “Delighted to make your acquaintance. There, does that satisfy you?”

  “And where do you live?” I persisted.

  “I told you, Evie, up on the moors.”

  “But where? What’s your address? What’s your telephone number?”

  “What is wrong with you tonight?” he exploded. “You sound like…like a police inquiry.”

  “Maybe that’s what I need to get some answers from you,” I said, my temper blazing up in an instant.

  “I’ll give you answers when I can,” Sebastian blazed back. “But not now.”

  I stared up at the dark horizon. It was hard to see where the moors ended and the sky began. Tears blurred my sight.

  “Let’s not fight,” I begged. “All I want is to find some other way to see each other. Something normal. You don’t seem to realize how hard this is for me.” Hard because I’m crazy about you…because I don’t know if you are still dreaming of the girl you lost…because I don’t know where any of this is leading.

  “Hard? You want to know what is hard? Do you think it’s easy for me to spend every day alone, wondering what you’re doing, waiting to see you for a few snatched moments? I have to see you, Evie. I…I need you.”

  “Then invite me to your house,” I argued. “Introduce me to your family, your friends. Treat me like someone you care for, not just some midnight prank.”

  The demand I had made seemed to echo in the night. At last, Sebastian spoke.

  “I can’t.”

  “Then I can’t keep on seeing you,” I replied bitterly.

  I turned away from him, but he caught hold of my arm.

  “Don’t go like this,” he pleaded. “I would do as you ask if I could. Please trust me.”

  “How can I trust you after this? Let go of me!”

  He stepped back, his face a mask of misery. “I’ll be waiting for you, Evie.”

  “Don’t bother,” I cried. “I never want to see you again!”

  I stumbled back to school, sobbing all the way.

  Twenty-four

  THE JOURNAL OF LADY AGNES, NOVEMBER

  13, 1882 I have sobbed my heart dry, and now I can cry no more. My old happiness with S. is over. I am shaking even as I write this.

  The torrential rain had prevented us from riding over the moors together for several days. I was feeling uneasy that I had not heard from him in all that time, but two days ago he sent me a note asking me to meet him in the grotto. “Come toward midnight, when everyone will be asleep. That way there will be no danger of being overheard.” I did not like the idea but hated to disappoint him. At least in this one small thing I could do as he asked.

  When I guessed that m
ost of the household had retired to bed, I threw some clothes on and crept from my room to the servants’ staircase. I thought this would keep my excursion a secret if Papa happened to be sitting up late.

  A single candle was sufficient to give me a little light on those narrow steps. I was ashamed to think that I had never set foot there before. It was cold and bare. I thought of the maids, Nellie and Mary, who run up and down those stairs fifty times a day to serve us, and wondered if people in years to come will look back and wonder at our lives: rich and poor side by side and yet hardly knowing anything of each other’s worlds. When I am of age I would like to have my own little house, where I could learn to manage for myself, and have no servant, unless it was poor Martha, who would be welcome as a faithful friend.

  I reached the ground floor and made my way past the kitchen and out through the stable yard. Then I ran as swiftly as I could across the lawns to the lake. How the shadowy ruins seemed to glare over me in the darkness! I had never felt afraid of them before, but now it seemed that they stood like a broken crown, guarding the entrance to some awful dungeon. My heart pounding, I hurried past them into the shrubbery. I heard S. call my name softly, and I entered the grotto.

  A lamp was burning at the base of the statue of Pan, and the little god seemed to dance in the flickering light. S. was sitting slumped against the wall. His face was half in darkness, but I could tell, with a sinking heart, that he was in one of his bitter, willful moods. It struck me that he looked terribly ill, and I knew at that moment that I loved him, that I had always loved him. I wanted to hold him, comfort him, take him in my arms. But I didn’t know how.

  “What is wrong?” I asked. “Are you ill?”

  “No, it is nothing,” he answered, coughing impatiently and scrambling to his feet. “Let’s begin the Rites.”

  I started to make the Sacred Circle, but he stopped me, catching my arm roughly.