by Alys Clare
‘They wouldn’t believe you,’ she whispers, and he nods.
They walk on. The track passes through a thin copse, the naked trees like skeletal limbs clawing up at the grey sky. Presently he says, ‘There are rumours of a man, wealthy, powerful and gravely disturbed, for whom no treatment has much effect.’
Treatment. The word conjures up worrying images. ‘What do they do to him?’ she whispers.
‘I cannot say, cushla, for these are rumours, as I said, and not likely to be reliable. But—’ He pauses. ‘There is evil here.’
‘What sort of evil?’
He pauses, and she knows he is reluctant to tell her. She also knows he will, for he has come all this way to warn her, to make her aware she must be careful. Moreover, he has just made it quite plain that it’s not just Felix who is worried about her.
‘The rumours say he creeps out under cover of darkness with a big sack and steals children.’ He meets her eyes. ‘Girl children.’
‘Girls … ’ The single horrified word shoots out of her mouth, and then she is turning, breaking into a run, flying as fast as she can back to Shardlowes School to tell them, to warn them, to lock and bar doors, to close gates and thread them through with chains and an iron padlock.
She feels the thump of his feet on the ground as he races after her, and then his large hands take hold of her shoulders and he stops her as easily as if she herself were a child. ‘Wait,’ he says, and he isn’t even out of breath.
She bends over, her stays cutting into her as her ribs try to expand to admit air. ‘But they have to be told!’ she yells at him, face right up against his. ‘They’ve got to keep the girls safe, they must be warned so that they know and—’
He has turned her so that she is leaning against him and now he wraps his arms round her, holding her so close that she can feel his heartbeat. His coat and waistcoat have fallen open to the icy air, yet he is warm.
He says, ‘Cushla, they already know.’
Aghast, she breaks away so that she can stare at him. ‘They know? But they can’t, they—’
‘Of course they do,’ he says gently. ‘The school has existed for many years, and so has the asylum. You have only been here a week, and already you have heard the hounds. How could they not know?’
‘But the man, the dangerous lunatic with the sack who hunts girls, what about him? Do they know about him? Do they?’
She is shouting now, beside herself, desperate to get away, to tell someone, to protect, to take those innocent girls into her care and keep them safe, and here he is holding her so tightly that she cannot escape.
Still he holds her. ‘Those are but rumours,’ he says quietly. ‘If you were to go to the asylum and demand to know if they are true, the doctors and the staff would deny them, explain that such a thing is not possible, make you feel like an ignorant country fool for believing the stories.’
‘But they are true?’ she asks, quietly now.
And he shrugs.
Suddenly exhausted, she leans into him. ‘What shall I do?’ she whispers. ‘What can I do?’ For if Tamáz is to believed – and she does believe him for he does not lie – then this man, this horror who stalks by night, is rich and powerful, and such men are protected from the consequences of their excesses by a network of the similarly privileged who look after their own.
Even if they are dangerous and like to steal young girls.
He is stroking her back, firmly, rhythmically, just as she has observed him soothe the old black and white horse who pulls his boat. She is similarly soothed, for his power is quiet but compelling.
‘You ask what you should do,’ he says presently. ‘Watch, be vigilant, be careful.’
‘There must be more!’
‘There is not,’ he says very firmly, ‘because those within the school who know what is going on will be always alert for people who ask questions, who spy, who try to uncover what must remain covered.’
‘But why should they want to keep it covered?’ she cries.
He looks steadily at her. ‘Because the instinct to safeguard the interests of the rich and powerful outweighs the duty of protection of young girls who nobody wants.’
She gasps in distress, mouth open to protest at his brutal words, but then she thinks, He’s right. Oh, dear Lord, he’s right.
‘A teacher and a nurse have both left abruptly,’ she says after a moment. ‘The nurse was my predecessor and said she was going to looking after her sick mother, but I don’t think she’s coming back.’ I think she’s probably dead, she adds silently, and in a moment of weakness she wishes she could say to him, Take me with you when you leave, let me come aboard The Dawning of the Day and I will stay with you and be safe.
But she doesn’t.
She moves slightly, about to straighten up, wrench herself from him, set out back to the school. He understands, and just as she turns away he reaches up a hand and lays his fingertips very lightly on her cheek.
They are back in the churchyard and very soon they will separate. She holds on to the moment.
She is about to speak the words of farewell when his head goes up and he steps beneath the dark shelter of a huge yew tree, pulling her with him. They stand, utterly silent, unmoving, and she hears brisk little footsteps on the road beyond the churchyard wall.
A figure comes into view, erect, striding briskly, hands folded over a small book; a prayer book? But the figure does not come into the churchyard …
She – it is a woman – gives the impression of purpose, of busyness, but there is something furtive about her, and once or twice she looks around, a frown replacing the bland expression.
Tamáz breathes right into her ear, ‘That woman is dangerous.’
‘How can you be sure? Do you know her?’ she breathes back.
‘I do not know her but I do not need to,’ he replies. ‘Lily, these places are the home lands of my forefathers, and although the waterways are filled in and the encroaching land is inhabited by others, we remember, and the water down beneath us remembers, and I recognize what she is.’
‘She— then she is one of your people?’
‘It is not why I say she is dangerous, but yes, her ancestors were of Fenland blood.’ He gives her a penetrating look.
‘Just like yours, but you’re not dangerous!’
He grins and says softly, ‘Oh, cushla, you know better than that.’ Then, his face straightening, he adds, ‘All groups include good and bad, and Fenland people are no exception.’ He nods towards the woman in the road. ‘She is dangerous in a sly and secretive way, and I read it in her as if it was written in words. Keep her at a distance, and if you must pass her, neither engage her in conversation nor meet her eyes.’
Lily stares after the departing figure.
So I am not to talk to her nor even look at her, she thinks.
Which will not be easy, for the small upright bustling figure even now heading back towards Shardlowes School is Miss Dickie.
Lily and Tamáz bid each other a slightly formal farewell. She has not revealed that she has recognized the small upright figure, and he has picked up her slight withdrawal. She knows these things in her soul, without having to work them out, and she is saddened. He turns to walk away, and she thinks of him striding back to the station, waiting for a train down to Bishop’s Stortford – and on a Sunday the limited service is hardly likely to supply a train at the very moment he wants one – and the long hours that will undoubtedly pass before he is aboard The Dawning of the Day. She steps towards him and he turns back, a slightly quizzical expression on his face. She wants to hold him, for their earlier embrace is a warm and vivid memory, but the mood has changed and now there is a sense of formality between them, so that she does not feel she can touch him.
These thoughts flash through her head in an instant.
She says with admirable calm, ‘Thank you very much for bringing the message, and for your counsel.’
He nods. ‘I am glad to have helped.’ Then he dips h
is head in a sort of bow, turns and walks away, to be swallowed up in moments by the misty gloom of late afternoon.
She watches the empty space where he was standing, fighting the strong urge to run after him.
Then she leaves the churchyard and heads back to the school.
FIFTEEN
Shardlowes is still when Lily quietly enters through the servants’ door and slips up the stairs to the sanatorium block. She takes off her cloak and bonnet and puts on her apron and veil. It is gone five o’clock; she was with Tamáz for longer than she thought. She goes into the treatment room, checking that she has sufficient supplies of the cough syrups, throat lozenges and inhalants that the girls suffering miserably from their colds will undoubtedly come to ask for between now and bedtime.
Then she goes across to Matron’s room and taps softly on the door. Immediately Matron calls, ‘Come in!’, and Lily has the brief impression that she sounds brighter.
This impression is underlined by Matron’s appearance, for she is sitting up in bed and a book lies open on the bedclothes. She is wearing a crocheted bed jacket in a particularly violent shade of mauve, and there is a very faint colour in her plump cheeks that is not the flush of fever.
Lily finds herself smiling. ‘You look better,’ she says warmly.
Matron nods. ‘I feel better.’ She gives Lily a long, assessing look, then her face softens slightly and she gives a curt nod. ‘You’ve looked after me quite well,’ she says gruffly, and Lily can tell it takes some effort to issue even this grudging compliment. ‘Thought I might be in for a bout of pneumonia’ – so did I, thinks Lily – ‘but we’ve kept that devil at bay.’ She pauses. ‘Well, I suppose you have,’ she amends, and now the effort causes her to squirm a little.
‘You have a strong constitution, Matron,’ Lily says, stepping forward to straighten the rumpled bedclothes and help Matron plump the pillows, ‘and your own good sense told you to stay right where you were until you felt your strength begin to return.’
‘I’m not out of the woods yet, not by any means,’ Matron says very firmly, just in case Lily has any idea of taking it easy now that her superior is recovering.
‘Of course not, you’ll have to continue the bed rest for several days after your temperature has returned to normal, and—’
‘A week at least, I always say,’ Matron interrupts.
‘—and there is no reason to hurry, for our only cases just now are colds and none of the sufferers seem too unwell.’
‘Don’t tempt providence!’ Matron says reprovingly.
Lily smiles. ‘Are you hungry? Shall I ask the kitchen to send you up something tasty for supper?’
Matron’s little eyes gleam. ‘Yes. Sunday evening’s usually cold slices from the roast with salad, but I want something hot, so tell them I want bubble and squeak – there’s bound to be leftover vegetables – and a helping of the teatime trifle. A big one!’ she adds as Lily sets off to pass on the order.
It is getting late. Ten o’clock has struck on the church clock, the melodious sounds carrying on the cold, still air. Lily crosses to her window, looking out at the night. She is uneasy but does not know why. She raises the lower section on its sash, leaning out and looking over to where the bulk of the asylum looms up in the darkness. She thinks about everything Tamáz told her; about a madman with a sack; about fear spreading through a Fenland village built on land that holds ancient memories.
It was sufficiently alarming in daylight, with Tamáz’s warm, strong presence beside her, but now, in the silent night, alone, it is far more than that.
She reaches up to draw down the window, for the air is dank and chill. But she hears, or thinks she hears, voices; soft whispers, and a palpable sense of tension …
She leans out again, glad that she had extinguished her lamp before going to the window so that there is no light to give her away and reveal that she is listening. One voice is Miss Dickie’s: she has a tight little mouth which does not move much as she talks, giving her words a clipped and sibilant quality that is unmistakable. The other is a man’s.
Lily edges further out over the windowsill, straining to hear. The only men to be found in or around Shardlowes are Eddy and a general handyman who sees to the boilers and tends the grounds, but this man is not a servant. The voice is that of an educated, sophisticated man, moreover one in a position of authority over Miss Dickie.
For it sounds as if he is telling her to do something she does not want to do.
‘But I must insist!’ he says, and the staccato words are suddenly loud, demanding, instantly followed by a ‘Sssssh!’ from Miss Dickie.
‘You have no choice but to comply,’ he repeats in a soft, reasonable tone. ‘You know this, Ann.’ He pauses, then in an even quieter voice he adds, ‘For one thing, there is the money. I believe I am right in saying that you and Salt have become accustomed to it?’ Miss Dickie mutters something inaudible. ‘I thought so,’ the man murmurs. ‘And I need hardly remind you that now is not the time, my dear, for words spoken out of turn, for the Prince is on the very point of accepting the invitation, and nothing must stand in the way of the Angels achieving what has been their aim for so long.’ There is more, but the voices are softer and Lily cannot make the words out.
And presently she hears firm footsteps pacing away down the path, and then the quiet closing of a door.
She shuts the window. The room has become very cold, and she draws the heavy curtains, crossing to the little fireplace to put a couple of small logs on the glowing embers. She fetches her shawl, wrapping it tightly around her, but the shivering is more from apprehension than cold.
She knows that something is about to happen, although she has no idea what …
She does not go to bed, instead making herself as comfortable as she can in her chair, determined to stay awake, to hear the first warning signs of whatever it is that will happen this night.
She is shaken out of a half-doze by a sound she has heard before: the baying of bloodhounds. She leaps up, confounded by sleep and her head swimming, rushes to the window, forces up the lower pane, leans out, straining her ears.
Nothing.
She leans out further, but the night is quiet and still, very cold but with no sign of anything out of the ordinary.
Did I imagine it? she wonders. Did I dream it, the sound put into my sleeping mind by what Tamáz and I talked of?
She shakes her head as if the action will somehow clear her ears and enable her to hear the hounds again.
Still nothing.
She is tempted to return to her chair. Tempted, even, to undress and go to bed, to sleep soundly until the bright morning comes. She resists, instead lighting her lamp and quietly letting herself out of her room. I will walk along the corridors where the dormitories are, she tells herself, Alice, Louise, Helena, Red, Blue and Green, and I will reassure myself that all is well, the girls asleep and safe in their beds just as they should be.
She pauses only to exchange her soft slippers for her strong boots, for the left one has a sheath sewn into the seam in which she keeps a very sharp boning knife. Then she gathers her courage and sets off.
All is calm in the passage where the senior girls have their dormitories, the night so quiet that she can make out soft snores from Louise and the sound of someone turning over in her sleep in Helena. She proceeds to the juniors’ section, walking quietly but quickly, turning the corner and entering the dark corridor …
… and suddenly she is falling, the lamp flying out of her hand, and in the second before she hits her head very hard she has time to think in terror, The lamp! Oh dear God, the lamp! Fire!
Then blackness takes her.
Felix is on the night train. He is cold and his back aches, but these bodily discomforts fade in his agony of anxiety for Lily.
The previous day was one of enlightenment, via the garrulous, embittered, scandal-loving Angus Leckie, until the bottle of Scotch was almost empty and alcohol finally overcame him.
But
then he mumbled that comment about a little island.
Felix left him where he lay, his conscience forcing him to make sure the range was stoked up, tuck a blanket round Angus and alter the angle of his head to prevent his neck seizing up. It was the company that had made him go on drinking, Felix reflected fairly as he closed the door and set off for the track, so it was only right. The thundering hangover would be more than enough to cope with without a chill and a stiff neck as well.
He had marched as fast as he could to the little station, where his frustration was increased tenfold on learning from the timetable posted up beside the firmly locked door that the next train was not until mid-afternoon. It was not yet midday, so he had some three and a half hours to wait.
As he stood pacing to and fro on the track outside the station, however, his friend the delivery man came along. Taking pity on him – ‘It’s a sparse train service up here, y’see sir, particularly on the Sabbath, but reliable for all that, and the afternoon train will be on time, you mark my words’ – he went on to offer Felix a bite to eat if he’d a mind to it, to pass the time.
Felix had clambered up on the cart almost before the delivery man had stopped speaking.
Now he sits on the train, staring out into the blackness of the night. He is not sure where he is. His journey is made up of complicated changes, its completion in any sort of decent time far too dependent on each successive train being as punctual as the first one.
So far, so good, he tells himself.
At midnight he is standing on the platform in Edinburgh station waiting for the London train. There has been a cow on the line and it is late.
Felix curses every cow ever born.
Lily, Lily, he thinks.
He has tried not to let his anxiety overcome him, and this has proved relatively easy all the time he’s been moving and making his slow but steady way towards her. Now, though, held up by a daft bloody cow which has somehow escaped from a field that a stupid careless farmer failed adequately to fence, he is pacing up and down Edinburgh station and his mind is filling with images of Lily in danger, Lily on the trail of the truth and pushing, pushing to uncover it, Lily arousing the attention – the enmity – of someone who would very much rather she didn’t …