A Taste for Nightshade (15 page)

No, it wasn't just the picture that had made her uneasy – it was a noise on the stair. The stair creaked again, closer and louder. Peg froze. What reason could she give for having unlocked the door and come in here? Before she could think at all, the door was flung open. Guiltily, she sprang backwards.

‘What the Devil are you doing in Mrs Croxon's room?' Peter Croxon filled the doorway, spite sharpening his tousled fair features. Lord! If there was one person she didn't want sneaking up on her, it was the master's moralising brother. He remembered her from old, she could see it in his stony eyes.

‘Tidying up,' she answered smartly, moving the pictures about on the table.

‘I very much doubt that. Where is Mrs Croxon?'

‘Out,' she said, eyes cast down, willing him to go.

‘She is out, sir. Or have you forgotten your position here? Oh, and by the way, I have noticed that for a housekeeper you employ remarkably few servants.'

She didn't reply, but scowled at him as she made to leave. In answer he blocked the door with his outstretched arm. His leanness was the sort that was strong and fast. He also stood a good head taller than her.

‘Now we are alone, Peg, or whatever you call yourself these days – know this. I am watching you,' he said in a low growl. Still he refused to budge out of the way. ‘And I am watching Grace, too. If anything should happen to her—'

She made a calculation and glanced up at him with a beseeching expression. ‘Mr Croxon, if you would be good enough not to tell the mistress I was here —'

‘Why in damnation shouldn't I?' 

She was standing very close to him. Her face formed a practised look of yearning. Suggestively, she parted her lips in a coquettish smile.

‘You could grow to like me if you tried,' she said in a low, slow voice. His pale eyes were fixed upon her in a fascinated stare. Sensing no resistance, she lifted her fingers to rub the sensitive skin around his ear. ‘You see, I like you.' He didn't move. She lifted her mouth towards his, stoking the familiar fire of a man's need. Her body melded against his, groin to groin. She closed her eyes.

A blow to her face sent her reeling back towards the work table. Her fingers shot up to her stinging cheek.

‘Get out, you!'

With her shoulders bowed and her hand cupping her face, she made a dash past Peter Croxon and ran half-blind down the stairs.

In her own quarters she found a mirror. There was a purple bruise spreading over her cheek, and bloodshot veins filled her half-closed eye. In half an hour she would look like any black-eyed blowsabella. Peter piss-proud Croxon, she muttered, you took a wrong step there. But she had gathered some information. She now knew the brother had a sentimental hankering for Mrs Croxon. As she dabbed Pear's Almond Lotion onto her swelling face without great effect, she was too muddled to think of a plan. He had struck her. He had rebuffed her. Her brain was giddy with anger. When she calmed down from this blaze of fury, she would rack her brain for an answer: Peter Croxon, what was his price?

 

 

Slowly, Michael and I established a routine of pleasantries. True, he complained much of the difficulties of establishing the mill, but how could such an enterprise not be hard? And he confided in me; that Peter had visited, while I was out in Earlby, but the brothers had quarrelled again. More surprising, he began to cast me occasional long appraising looks. Did he, I wondered, wish to unburden himself of some matter? But whenever I looked up and smiled in readiness to hear his concerns, he inevitably retreated to his own thoughts and favourite green bottle of spirits.

Then our first bill arrived from the village: for nearly £37. As I no longer possessed such a large sum myself, the next time Michael dined at home, I resolved to broach the subject. Over a savoury rabbit stew and extravagant dessert board, Michael and I talked peaceably of clipping back the growth that dimmed the Hall's windows. It seemed a good omen for the future. As we talked, I fancied I glimpsed the bridegroom of my dreams in Michael's features. His appearance always had something of the Classical about it, clear-skinned and sculpted, but when free of care, his eyes shone brighter and his rare smile was radiant.

Reluctantly, I asked him for the money, as sweetly as I could.

For a moment he was disconcerted; then gave a bitter little cough. At that moment Peg came in to clear the last of the dishes. She had searched for a housemaid, but finding none met her high standards, she carried out even that menial duty.

‘Have you finished, sir?' she asked, for his almond cheesecake lay abandoned.

He made a dismissive gesture with his hand.

‘Sir,' she said humbly. ‘You asked me to tell you how the fire downstairs is doing. It burns bright tonight, sir.'

‘That's enough. Leave us,' Michael snapped.

I protested once she had gone. ‘Please, do not scold Peg.'

He laughed, not pleasantly. ‘She is your housekeeper, not your friend.'

‘Ask yourself, what other company have I?'

Our spell of mutual sympathy was over. Peevishly, he asked me to come upstairs to his study, and once there, placed a document before me.

‘What is this?'

‘The next stage in raising capital for the mill.'

‘But what of the first stage?'

‘It is proceeding.' He thrust the pen towards me.

I swallowed hard. ‘Yes, but how is it proceeding? You told me there is only mud on my land so far; great pits of mud.'

‘I keep telling you. The business is complex. I must order the great waterwheel now.'

‘So you have an inventory of costs?' A little devil of spite possessed me as I pretended to look for such an item.

‘What do you care for inventories, for God's sake?'

What I did see, when I glanced down, were the words: ‘To borrow the sum of £1000.'

‘What has happened to the first sum?' As I looked up I fell mute, seeing at once that any pleasantry between us had died. Yet I still felt entirely secure in my rights. Mr Tully had insisted that I must be signatory to any instructions.

‘You told me one thousand pounds would allow a beginning to the building work. Michael, I only ask you how it was spent?'

As answer he knocked the papers to the floor with a sweep of his arm. I started back, astonished at his extraordinary behaviour. All the pages lay scattered on the floor.

‘Inventory?' he shouted, his face ugly. ‘You draw up an inventory if you want one. I have had enough of all this. Are you an idiot, to goad me? I am going mad from it all.' Then he scraped up all the papers and threw them, higgledy-piggledy, towards me so they struck me.

An idiot? I recollected the day Mr Croxon had first called on my father. Yes, I had married a man I barely knew. I had bound myself to him for life. But I would not tolerate this blustering. The blunt truth was that it was my land.

I spoke as clearly as I could, though my voice began to tremble. ‘No, Michael. Though I understand you may have wagered your bachelorhood upon it, I am not an idiot.'

Before he could take breath, I hurried off to my chamber. Peg just then happened to be on the stair and I almost knocked against her. ‘Mistress,' she said, backing away, concern for my welfare written large on her face.

‘Oh, Peg,' I wailed, and as a friend might, she reached out to me, silently touching my arm, communicating her complete understanding of my situation. I could not speak aloud to a servant, but it was a comfort of sorts, that Peg had sympathy for my troubles. Nevertheless, I broke from her and continued to climb the stairs, very anxious to be alone with my turbulent thoughts. The pressure of Peg's hand on my arm remained; a token of understanding from one woman to another in distress.

Next morning I had to get outside, and so began a period of long walks in the park. Early November continued bright, with the last sun of the year shining low and coppery over the woods. Striding through heaps of rusty autumn leaves, I ached to see beauty dying all around me. I felt completely alone in that rambling wilderness, save for the crows cawing in their rookeries and the wrens bobbing from hedge to hedge. I began to make studies in my book of the delicate lines of drying grasses and frilled seed pods. I looked for some lesson on how best to live from Nature, that every year died and was renewed, but none appeared.

Instead, I heard an unearthly sound as I walked in the woods. It was music, but not like any I had ever heard. It was as if the god Pan were playing his pipes in an English wood, a meandering, melancholy summons that vibrated low in my stomach. I stopped stone still, transported as if in a trance cast by Monsieur Mesmer himself. When silence returned I looked about for the source of the sound. When I reached the spot where the sound had originated, nothing remained, only silence. But in the distance was the person I expected to see least of all: Peg, in her outdoor garb, moving at a slow, reluctant pace, towards the Hall. I held back and said nothing to her, for I valued our secret communion on the stair.

Another day, sheltering beneath trees in a rain-shower, I uncovered a doorway long obliterated by undergrowth. After pulling shrubbery aside, I stepped inside a long deserted summerhouse, fronted by cracked marble columns and ironwork, the rear extending deep into the hillside. Though still filthy, even after I cleared away the tenacious vines, the windowpanes gave sufficient greenish light for me to sketch indoors. In a cobwebbed corner stood a gardener's burner that must once have coaxed oranges or other delicate shrubs to life. With that alight, I found a chair and sat with my shawl muffled around me as I sketched.

The marble statues that lined the walls were fine copies of the Greek masters, with muscular limbs and serene faces, though sadly disfigured with a blueish-green patina. As an exercise, I copied a figure of a handsome boy, admiring the sculptor's rendering of tensed muscle, the body frozen just an instant before extending in action. My mind drifted to Michael, the uncertainty hanging over us, my urges to please him, my need to move beyond this stupid impasse. As I sketched the statue's blind eyes I half-heartedly followed his line of sight.

I stood and looked more closely at the statue. ‘What are you looking at?' I said out loud. A green stain blotted the boy's cheek, ugly but also strangely beautiful, for the colour was a peacock's viridian. For the first time I noticed the description, ‘HARPOCRATES – SILENCE', engraved on the pediment, and had a vague recollection of a Roman boy-god who personified that virtue. He held one index finger raised coyly to his lips, while his other hand pointed towards a low arch in the wall. I paced over to the spot at which he pointed. The niche was filled with gardener's trellis that I removed with rising excitement. Behind stood an oak doorway set low in the wall. As I lifted the latch, it opened onto a blast of chilly darkness. Lighting the stub of a candle at the stove, I propped the door open and ventured inside.

At once I knew this was no gardeners' store, but another tunnel burrowing into the hillside. Setting forth with the excitement of new discovery, my footsteps rang out and my breath fogged before me in clouds. The place had a mossy, mineral smell, and save for the dripping of water, was silent. Though at first the tunnel ran straight, it soon descended an incline, and my feet splashed into muddy puddles. Who, I wondered, had last passed through that door?

Perhaps fifteen minutes passed; it was impossible to say. My candle burned down fast in the draught. Annoyed, I paddled through inches of freezing water. If I were not to be stranded in the dark, I needed to return very soon to the summerhouse. The candle guttered violently – only by cradling it, did it stay alive. Gradually, workaday sounds reached me from the tunnel ahead. Next, a dim glow became apparent, that I realised must come from the storerooms I had visited with Nan. I was cold and wet, and moved rapidly on, thinking to climb the stairs and appear in the kitchen like a conjuror from a trapdoor. Then, drifting in echoing rhythms down the tunnel, I heard Peg, haranguing someone severely, her voice sharp with fury. I stopped in my tracks and listened. My housekeeper, having taken a bad tumble on the stairs, had an ugly black eye, and was recently in none too good a temper. She sounded not only angry, but strangely excited. On an impulse, I determined to retrace my steps, telling myself I had no wish to intrude on a quarrel. There was the summerhouse door, too, that still stood propped open and all my paints still laid out. Just then I noticed a hint of silver glinting in the Stygian stream at my feet, and stooped to investigate. It was a metal sewing thimble, which I slipped absent-mindedly onto my finger. Then I turned about and hurriedly retraced the way I had come.

A good way further down the tunnel a sudden gust of cold air whistled up behind me and blew out my flame. Blackness smothered me with all the suddenness of a falling cloak. I gave a little shriek and heard the candle stub hit the ground. There was but one solidity in that place and so I grasped the slippery wall, as the fading afterglow of the candle swam before my eyes. I waited for my sight to clear, but without the smallest chink of light, nothing but waves of profound darkness surged towards me. I knew I should continue but my feet refused to move. The smell of the place grew stronger, of something slick and green and foul, suddenly so pungent I could taste it. Again, sounds reached me from behind my back, from the kitchen-end of the tunnel: this time of something moving fast.

‘Hello?' I called in a high and startled voice. The rapid footsteps did not falter. ‘Who is there?' I cried. The sound of breathing was getting closer; coming in fast, uneven gasps. I peered around for an approaching light but no light appeared. I opened my mouth to speak but no words formed. A person was rushing towards me, running, and all the time making tiny sobbing noises. Fearful of their crashing into me in the darkness, I cringed back against the wet wall. Now the stumbling steps were no more than a few feet away, then drew up close, then halted at my side, as if paralysed by terror. A panting, ragged-breathed female stood a finger's length away from me, completely invisible in the dark. ‘No,' she whimpered softly, in an exhalation that spoke of raw despair. ‘Oh God, help me.' Those wisps of words were spoken to herself alone; I had a powerful sense she could neither see nor sense me, as I pressed my back against the slippery wall.

Then in a twinkling, as if I woke from a midnight trance, I was alone. The tunnel was empty. I heard steady drips of moisture fall again.

Panic erupted in sickening waves within me. I was conscious that something extraordinary – a sort of vortex of terror – had visited me. I had to get out of that tunnel. I picked up my skirts and ran, staggering blindly, plunging on, guided only by my cold-numbed fingertips. On and on I floundered, with a new and nightmarish certainty that there were more tunnels than I had at first believed and I had stumbled into a treacherous side-branch. Were these perhaps old mine workings? At any moment a bottomless mine shaft might lurk unseen before me, or a subterranean lake gape at my feet. Or even worse, the terrified presence I had encountered might be lying in wait for me, exhaling terror, invisible but no less real for that. And this time it might see me, or even – God forbid – reach out whatever fingers it possessed and clutch me, pulling me towards it. If so, I should die of it, I knew it.

With giddy relief, I saw light ahead of me, and threw myself, sobbing, back into the wondrous, half-blinding daylight of the summerhouse. At the stove, I pulled my wet stockings off; then hauled my chair up close to dry my legs and skirts. I was still shaking, and cursing myself for the risk I had taken. The iron thimble fell to the floor, a paltry object with
‘For Mother from her Jamie,'
engraved in tiny letters along its rim. Well, Jamie and his mother were long gone from Delafosse. Replacing the trellis, I decided to tell no one of the tunnel or my misguided explorations.

As for the running woman, I could scarcely hazard a guess at what I had heard. Now I was back in the light I immediately dismissed notions of Old Dorcas or other such nursery tales. I racked my brain for a rational explanation. Perhaps, I told myself, Peg had threatened one of the staff so severely she had run away, and the bizarre acoustic effects of the tunnel had tricked me into thinking she was closer than she was. Yet hadn't that whimpering appeal issued only inches from where I stood? Next, a powerful suggestion did strike me with horrible force: that the noises I heard were a depiction in sound, much as a magic lantern performance depicts images, from a quite different point in time, though when it was, or would be, I did not know. And the worst of it was that the identity of the woman also sprang instantly into my mind – and I shuddered to think of it – that I had heard myself, running in terror, at some unknown future date.