Whispers in the Dark (17 page)

“But surely there can’t always have been two of you?”

“Ever since my dear mother left, yes. She hated living in such a big house after my father died. That’s why she bought her villa in Morpeth.”

“Who lives there now?” I asked, wondering if the house might not have come into Caroline’s possession.

“It’s empty for the moment, We’ll look for tenants in the summer. No one takes on property at this time of year.”

“Don’t you have any other relations who might take it over?”

She looked at me very attentively. Could she have sensed that I knew or guessed something? Possibly.

“No,” she said emphatically. “There’s no one now, apart from yourself. And your brother Arthur, of course.” She hesitated. ‘I did not want to tell you this, Charlotte; at least not yet. But Anthony and I have considered . . .” She looked intently at me. "Well, my dear, we have considered whether it might not be possible for us to adopt you. And Arthur later on, naturally, once he has been found. Do you understand what I am saying? We mean to have you legally adopted by ourselves.”

I stared openmouthed at her. I could not think what to say.

“There’s no need to say anything now, my dear. It will take you lime to get used to it. But I hope you will be pleased. You will no longer be an orphan. And it would mean so much to us. Neither of us having children of our own, of course.”

It was as though she had guessed exactly what had been going through my mind and was now supplying a direct denial of Caroline’s existence. I decided I must be more direct.

“But. . .” I began hesitantly, conscious of a need for extreme caution. “If you . . .”

“Yes?”

“What if you were to marry? Surely you are not yet too old to have a child of your own.”

Something between a smile and a sneer crossed her face.

“You are mistaken, child. It is entirely out of the question, I assure you. Even if I were to marry, I am too old to give birth. But marriage is impossible in any case.” She paused. “Well, I suppose you are old enough to know something of my past. I was . . .” She hesitated again. “I was once engaged to be married. I will not trouble you with the details. He was a wealthy man, an important man, that is all I will say. The wedding plans were made, the date had been set, the banns called, the church reserved, the invitations sent. And then Simon . . .” A look of pain settled in her eyes. “And then, without warning, and with only weeks to go, my fiance broke his pledge. He wrote to me saying he could not go through with the marriage after all. A week later he left for the colonies.”

Her voice on the verge of breaking, she fell silent. I sat staring at her, frightened to speak, yet desperate to know the answers to so many questions.

“How . . . long ago was that?” I asked.

She looked up. There was a haunted expression in her eyes.

“How long? Twenty years ago,” she whispered. “A very long time. I was seventeen years old.”

Seventeen. Only two years older than I would be in a few weeks’ time.

Anthony arrived soon after that and began his meal while we finished ours. He seemed tired and preoccupied, and Antonia and I soon went to the drawing room, leaving him to finish eating alone.

“You are very close to Anthony,” I said.

“Yes, of course. Only a few years separate us. We have shared our lives.”

I hesitated, then plunged in again.

“I am surprised that he has never married. He is as handsome as you are beautiful.”

She seemed flattered by my words.

“Thank you for that compliment, my dear. Yes, you are right, Anthony is a good-looking man. More than one young lady has been left crying on her pillow for his sake. But while Mother lived here he considered it his duty to look after her. And then . . . And then he stayed single to look after me. He has made a very great sacrifice. But I try to be a comfort to him.”

“Why,” I said, “it is almost as though you two were married.”

She looked at me rather coldly.

“Yes,” she said, “it seems quite like that, does it not?”

Anthony came in then.

“Isn’t it time you were in bed?” he asked, rather brusquely.

It was still a little early, but I nodded. I wished them both good night and went off to my room. Caroline’s diary was still in the drawer where I had placed it. I settled down before the fire and began to read where I had left off.

23 November. Last night I heard something at my window. As though someone was scratching on the panes. But when I looked, there was no one there. I asked Mother this morning if she had ever heard of ghosts at Barras Hall, but she said I was being silly and told me to say my prayers with a better will.

24 November. Scratching again. It woke me twice. I said nothing to Mother.

27 November. There was singing last night. I tried to make out the words, but they were indistinct. It is not a Christmas carol. I’m frightened now, but I daren't say anything to Mother or Uncle Anthony.

28 November. Voices in my room. I can't make out what they say. Terrible fear all night, and more scratching.

29 November. I lock my door at night now. but the footsteps never cease, and I still hear whispers where there should be no whispers. Dear God, make it stop. I think I may be going mad.

3 December. They have started in the daytime now. I am frightened to be alone, and spend every moment I can with Mother. The old man was on the stairs again yesterday.

Mother says there are to be special celebrations for my birthday. I am trying to concentrate on that, to take my mind off other things. It’s only two weeks, but the eighteenth seems as though it will never come.

The eighteenth. I looked at the page in disbelief. That was the date of my own birthday. And it was less than a week away. Suddenly I remembered how Antonia had talked so often about my destiny. Did it have something to do with her daughter? She had dressed me in her clothes, and I guessed that many of the other things I had been given had once belonged to her. Tonight she had talked of adopting me. She would have two daughters, both born on the same date. She and Anthony would take the place of my parents, and I would take the place of Caroline. . . . With mounting horror, I began to understand. I remembered Antonia and her brother coming out of the folly together, the kiss he had given her, their walking away together hand in hand. Had Anthony been Caroline’s father? God knows, I understood little enough of such things. But the possibility was undeniable.

So, too, was another possibility that now forced its way into my consciousness: that Caroline might no longer be alive. That she had died and that. . . I could not bear to follow the train of thought to which this led me. Hastily I returned to the diary.

5 December. The old man again. He was in my room last night. I could not see him, but I know he was there, watching me. When I see him on the stairs, there is such a look of hatred in his eyes. I’m more frightened of him than of anyone. He means me harm, I know he does, and I don’t know how to stop him.

There are children in the house. I heard some of them laughing on the back stairs yesterday. I take the back stairs now when I can, to avoid the old man. I think they are the same ones I heard singing in the folly, and again in the garden. What can they want?

10 December. There was something on the lawn last night. I watched it for a long time, creeping across as slowly as a tortoise. It was too far away to make out the shape properly, but it seems to be black and about four feet long. It has arms and legs, though I am not sure how many. I think it may be there every night, only I cannot see it when it is too dark.

11 December. It was there last night again. Moving toward the house. I think it was closer than on the night before. It may not lake it much longer to reach the hall. God will not answer my prayers.

I have asked Mother to invite the Reverend Watkins, but she says he will not come here. It has something to do with an old quarrel. I have decided to ride down to the village tomorrow with Oliver. I need to talk to someone.

He was in the old place today. Darker and more solid every time he appears. No matter where I go, he manages to find me.

12 December. I saw the minister today. He is a young man and has only been two years in the parish. I asked him, and he says he knows nothing about a quarrel. He sat and listened while I told him all I have seen and heard. At first I think he believed me touched, but after a little while he fell very silent. He asked me many questions, and at the end spoke with me most earnestly. He says my life may be in danger if I stay at the hall. When I asked him why, he merely said that he had heard things about the house, things some of his oldest parishioners had told him. I pressed him for details, but he claimed that was all he knew, that the house has a bad name in the district. He knows more than that, I’m sure of it. At least he has promised to visit.

Mother asked where I had been. I said, to the blacksmith’s to have one of Oliver's shoes reset. She looked as though she did not believe it, but she said nothing. She and Uncle Anthony are together much recently.

Noises tonight. No night without them now. The thing in the garden is almost at the wall. There is something in the corridor while I sleep. I hear it rustling. Is it enough to lock my door?

13 December. Reverend Watkins came today, but Mother sent him away as though he had been the devil himself, and not a man of God. She guessed that I had been to see him. In the end, I told her everything. She looked at me as though she thought I was mad, as I had feared she would.

At dinner, Uncle Anthony told me I was to say no more about what he called my “delusions. ” Otherwise they might have to have me locked up. On my way to bed I noticed—oh, please help me, somebody—that a new lock had been put on the door of the little chamber at the top of the stairs near my bedroom. I saw Johnson there earlier today. If I can, I shall escape tomorrow. Reverend Watkins will help me.

Nothing in the garden. I think it is here now. Inside the house. It will be a long night. I saw him in the passage outside my room this evening.

That was the last entry. The rest of the pages were blank. I sat shivering, as though I had turned to ice. More than anything, I wanted to believe that Caroline had escaped as planned. And yet the book I held in my hands was surely the best evidence against that. For surely she would not have left it behind, however carefully hidden. Unless . . .

The only hope I saw was that an opportunity for flight had suggested itself unexpectedly and that there had been no time to worry about such trivial things as her diary or her dresses. I wondered if she had taken Oliver, if that was how she had managed to get away.

And yet, however much I wanted to believe in Caroline’s escape, in my heart I knew it was unlikely. She had written her diary that night and placed it behind the shutter as usual, for me to find all those years later. The next day something had happened, and she had never returned to her room. I thought of that other room, the one with bars on the windows, and Antonia’s threat to have her daughter locked up. Was it her weeping that I had heard?

A terrible thought struck me. What if they had kept her locked up until now, a lonely prisoner in that awful room, with Johnson as her jailer? That would explain so many things. Perhaps she had indeed been mad, perhaps she had imagined all those things she said she had seen or heard. And perhaps—I shuddered at the thought—she was allowed out of her cell at night, to take a little exercise while Antonia slept. Those footsteps I had heard outside my door, might they not have been hers? That would explain Mrs. Johnson’s insistence that I lock my door. She might be given to violence. That could explain the blood I had seen on those white cloths. And was it possible that the figure I had seen in the garden two days before, the young girl in a gray dress, had been none other than Caroline, allowed out by mistake?

This explanation, disturbing as it was, nevertheless gave me a little comfort. I deliberately put out of my thoughts my own memories of voices singing at the folly or a dark shape creeping slowly across the lawn.

In order to reassure myself further, I determined that I should approach the Reverend Watkins myself. Mrs. Johnson would surely know if he was still vicar of Kirkwhelpington. Or, if he had since been moved, as was probable, the new vicar would be certain to know an address to which I could direct a letter containing my inquiries.

And yet, if my mind were to be set to rest on Caroline’s account, I had to acknowledge that further information could leave me a prey to darker thoughts. What if she had indeed escaped? What if the minister had smuggled her away from here and was now willing to tell me that she was alive and well in another part of the country, married possibly, as I had first imagined her? In that case, if Caroline was not mad, had never been locked up in that room, whom had I heard weeping? Whom had I seen in the garden? And what was it that Caroline had seen and heard in Barras Hall all those years ago?

Mental excitement kept me awake longer than usual, but in the end, exhausted by my thoughts and the day’s exertions, I undressed and slipped into bed. Sleep came quickly.

It was very dark when I woke. I did not emerge from sleep slowly, as I usually did, but quite abruptly, with almost no transition. One moment I was sleeping, the next I was lying fully conscious in that darkened room. It is important that you understand this, Doctor, that I was not asleep. What happened next was not a dream.

I knew with absolute certainty, just as I had known earlier, that someone else was in the room with me. There was no sound, not even the sound of breathing, but I knew I was not alone. I lay there for a very long time while the most terrible thoughts passed through my head. At last I could stand it no longer. Whatever might come of it, I determined to have a light with which to confront my visitor.