Whispers in the Dark (28 page)

“Take me to him. I want to see him. Please. I don’t care what happens, I want to see Arthur.”

He looked down at me, as though weighing pros and cons, then nodded.

“So you shall. Yes, indeed, so you shall.”

Unlocking the manacle, he released my arm and as quickly seized me by the other.

“You must not run, little Charlotte,” he whispered. “For there is nowhere to hide. He will find you wherever you go. He is your ancestor as well as mine. You have him in your blood. He is part of us both.”

His touch felt loathsome, his breath and his voice, everything about him. I tried to pull away, but he had me fast. We walked together slowly toward the center of the folly. I could see them flitting in and out among the shadows, the figures of children, all about my age, white-faced, staring-eyed, huddled together for cold comfort. And I realized with the deepest revulsion that I was soon to join them here, that it would go on forever. The excitement I had felt on first hearing that Arthur was alive had wholly drained away, for what did being alive matter? What did anything matter—being brother and sister, being reunited, being young and pretty and good?

Arthur lay on a low truckle bed, on top of a pile of dirty blankets. He was dressed in his old clothes, the clothes he had entered the workhouse in and which he had now outgrown. He seemed at first unaware of us, as though he slept. I could see only his back, for he was turned away from us and curled up almost in a ball, like a young child afraid of the darkness in which it is forced to sleep.

Then, as though startled into wakefulness, he gave a jump, straightening on the bed and, for a long moment, lying there quite still, listening to our approach, or so it seemed. I wanted to call to him, seeing him thus, quite past belief, alive and breathing as I had so long hoped; yet I feared to startle him, and so stood alongside Anthony, waiting for Arthur to turn. It was then that I noticed his left leg was chained to a heavy bolt set in the floor.

He did not move, other than to raise himself a little on his left arm. I glanced at Anthony, but his face was impassive, and I could take no instruction from it. What was wrong? I started to move closer, but Anthony laid a hand softly yet firmly on my arm, restraining me.

“Speak very quietly,” he whispered. “You must not startle him.”

I took a slow breath.

“Arthur,” I said, “don’t be afraid. It’s me, Charlotte. Your sister Charlotte.”

I saw his thin body stiffen. But he did not turn at once, as I had expected him to do. Instead he raised himself further and turned his face sideways, as though trying to locate my voice among the shadows.

I called his name a second time, very low.

“Please, Arthur, I’m not a ghost. I’m not dead. It’s really me.” I hesitated, then lied. “I’ve come to take you away. We’re going home.”

He turned. Dear God, how I wish he had not. But he turned and I saw a little of what my cousin had done to him.

Even as I cried out and covered my eyes with my free hand, Anthony was drawing me into his embrace, whispering frantically in my ear.

“Charlotte, Charlotte, you must believe I did it for his sake, truly for his own sake. To stop him seeing. A blindfold would not have been enough. He might have torn it off, or one of them found a way to dislodge it. Believe me, I gave him laudanum.”

But with or without laudanum, he had torn out my brother’s lovely eyes, and the bloody sockets that stared back at me had broken my heart as surely as confirmation of his death would have done. Without another word, I tore myself out of Anthony’s weakening grasp and dashed the last few feet to Arthur’s side.

He stiffened as I sat on the bed beside him, throwing my arms around him, embracing and kissing him as I had done for so long in my imagination. But then, as I continued thus, alternately weeping and crooning his name, I felt him go limp and almost drift from my arms. He endured my kisses, as he might have endured a stranger’s caresses or blows, with frank indifference. I spoke to him, I whispered his name, I pressed the toy soldier into his hands, I told him who I was, and all he could do was slump in my arms like a rag doll.

Whether it was the effect of overmuch laudanum, or a surfeit of fear, or an utter, despairing inner change, I realized that the creature I held in my arms was no longer the brother I had known, but a shell, a gutted carapace from which the spirit had long since departed. His eyes apart, this thing had Arthur's face, the same features grown older, thinner, and paler than I remembered. But it was not my brother. Not really. Not any longer. Not in any way that mattered.

I turned in a rage to Anthony.

“How long?” I screamed. “How long has he been like this?”

He looked about him awkwardly, half-expectantly. “Not long,” he said. “A few weeks. That is why you were kept in the house. To prolong your endurance. You would have broken more quickly. Sir James wanted you here, but we defied him.”

“You’ve destroyed him,” I shouted. “Don’t you see? Don’t you see what has become of him?”

Anthony shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter, Charlotte dear. Only one thing matters here, and that is the feeding of the hunger.”

“Tell him to go to hell,” I cried. “None of this is necessary, none of it. Can’t you see?”

He shook his head again, sadly.

“He is in hell,” he whispered. “They are all in hell. That is all there is, Charlotte. All there has ever been.”

“I don’t believe that. I can’t believe it.”

That was when he appeared. Shadowed. Pearled by the little light. More silent than the tomb his body lay in. He was dressed in his black veil; it hung from his head almost to his feet, covering the whole body. Behind the thin fabric, I could see a little of his features, white and insubstantial, the lineaments of age. There was a stench, a grave-stench, that had not been there before. He took a step toward us. His feet made no sound, no sound at all.

It was Arthur who reacted first, twisting back from me and scrambling across his bed as far from James Ayrton as the chain around his ankle would permit. He could not see him, yet the terror wrapped about his face was unmistakable. A low, penetrating moan escaped from his lips. I reached for him, but Anthony snatched my wrist and pulled me roughly off the bed, hissing at me to behave myself. As if behavior mattered there.

Arthur’s moans subsided into a fearful whimpering. Ayrton reached out a hand toward him, and he flinched back from it, for all the world like someone who could see.

“He can see him,” I said. “Blinding him made no difference. Did it?”

Anthony did not answer, but I knew I had hit on the truth. That James Ayrton was visible, not to the naked eye, but to whatever inner sight it is we all possess. Or, now that I have had these many years to ponder the matter, not visible so much as inwardly present, as though imprinted, fused, united in the most intimate fashion with my brother’s spirit, For all that he had tried, my cousin Anthony had failed to blind Arthur’s inner sight. Until James Ayrton came in his tattered veil and charnel-house stench to cast a final darkness over whatever little light remained flickering there.

With a thin hand, Ayrton tugged at the veil, drawing it slowly up over his wasted head and draping it over his arm. His face seemed made of clay, white clay, dragged and squeezed into the hollows and ridges of his endless suffering.

“My congratulations,” he whispered, his speech a graveyard speech, half-articulate, as though it traveled, dislocated, through clay or centuries. “I hope we celebrate your birthday with the solemnity that is your due.” I could not tear my eyes away. Horror, true horror. His face, his white face, his slippery face had begun to flutter, as though it had no true shape, as though the folds of skin were flapping like a handkerchief crumpled in a man’s hand.

“It was never meant to be like this,’’ the flapping mouth said. I saw little teeth appear and disappear in the black cavity, like seeds in rotten fruit. “This was a temple of light; I wanted to fill it with eternal jubilation. Eternal life, not. . . this. You would have been a princess here, I would have set a crown of roses on your pretty head. But it came from outside. An error. A mistake, a matter of words, a mere stumbling over formulae. But there is no forgiveness here, not in this world we inhabit.”

The eyes rolled like guttering flames in candle wax, their light struggling against the surrounding whiteness.

“When he has Finished with you both, it will be my turn. I am grown very thin, I am almost bone again.”

He stopped, as though listening for something. I heard, in the shadows, a slithering sound. Ayrton looked at me, then around at Arthur, still cowering on the bed and whimpering gently. The slithering grew louder. At that moment, there was a sound of heavy knocking on the door. Anthony gripped my arm tightly, startled and afraid. The banging came again. I looked around, thinking some impossible salvation had come, and in that instant made up my mind. With a sudden effort, I broke away, tearing myself with all my strength from Anthony’s grasp, stumbling back into the shadows toward the entrance. Taken unawares, Anthony was several seconds in recovering, then I heard his feet pounding behind me.

As I reached it the door burst open. I screamed, not knowing what lay in front of me. Moments later I felt Anthony’s hand on my arm again, his Fingers clutching me like steel. And then, abruptly, everything changed. There was a voice from the darkness in the doorway. Hutton’s voice, on the verge of panic.

“Sir Anthony, you’ve got to come.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

"It’s your sister, sir. She’s gone mad. She’s set light to the hall, it’s out of control. We tried to stop her, but it was no use. You’ve got to come, sir.”

There was a sound behind us. A rustling louder than any I had heard before.

Anthony hesitated only for a moment, then he pulled my arm and began to drag me through the doorway.

“You can’t leave Arthur behind!” I shouted. “You can’t leave him there.”

But he ignored me. With Hutton following, we ran, hand in hand, down the long, tangled path, away from the folly. As we came up from the river, we topped a rise, and there before us, bright against the night sky, was the southwest corner of the hall, burning like a torch. We plowed on, picking our way in the darkness, through trees and undergrowth.

At last we broke free of the woods and came out into the open by the side of the house. The fire was taking hold rapidly now. Antonia must have run from one room to the next, laying flame to curtains or bedding or whatever else would easily ignite.

We pressed around to the front of the building. A small group of figures was gathered on the drive outside. A police sergeant was sitting on the front steps, his helmet beside him, his head down between his knees, coughing furiously, while a constable stood beside him, trying to help. Mrs. Johnson and Hepple were standing a little way off, looking on helplessly.

Anthony thrust me into Hutton’s hands, telling him to keep tight hold of me, and ran toward the house. He had scarcely gone half a dozen paces when someone dashed out from the shadows and seized him. There was a rush of light from behind, and I recognized the stranger as the solicitor, John Parker. Anthony struggled to free himself of his grip, shouting wildly.

“For God’s sake, let me go! I have to help her! Get your hands off me, damn you!”

He was too strong or too mad for Parker to restrain for long. Tearing himself free, Anthony bolted up the steps and into the house. For a moment the solicitor made as if to go after him, then, seeing me struggling with Hutton, ran toward us instead.

“Let her go,” he snapped. Hutton, having already seen the police, shrugged and let my arm drop. Instead of joining Johnson and Hepple, he stalked off alone, no doubt thinking to see to the stables.

“Miss Metcalf! Are you all right? I was worried sick in case you were inside as well.”

“What’s happened? Where’s Antonia?” I shouted. “She’s still inside. There’s no telling where she is. Nobody can get to her now. If she doesn’t make it out on her own, she’s done for.”

I looked up at the house, then back at him. We were standing far back now; the flames had taken hold on the ground floor and were spreading more and more rapidly. “Why did you come?” I asked.

He must have heard the bitterness in my voice. "I’m sorry,” he said. “I tried to get here sooner, but the roads were blocked until a few hours ago.”

“You handed me back to them,” I said. “I trusted you, and you just stood there and let them take me.”

“There was nothing I could do then, believe me. That scoundrel Melrose told Sir Anthony everything. Your cousins arrived at his house that evening, guessing you had gone to Morpeth. I pleaded your case, but they wouldn’t listen to reason. I’ve told Melrose he can find another partner. But thank God you’re safe.”

At that moment there was a crashing sound. Glass came flying out of one of the upper windows and landed tinkling on the gravel of the drive. We all looked up. Antonia was standing at a window on the second floor, her long hair streaming around her shoulders, outlined by fire. She had changed into her wedding dress. In one hand, she held a lighted candle that lit up a face contorted by fear and grief and madness.

“I’ve beaten you!” she screamed. Her voice was unsteady, distorted by the roaring of the flames. “Beaten you all!”

She started laughing and then as suddenly broke off. For a moment—but perhaps it was only shadows— for a moment I thought I saw a second figure appear in the window beside her, looking down on us. A young woman in a gray dress. A young woman with long blonde hair. I thought she looked sadly at me. The next instant a rush of fire swept from the interior of the room and engulfed Antonia. The old wedding dress, its frills and lacework, ignited instantly. Like a torch, she turned to flame and was lost from sight.

I turned to Parker.

“My brother,” I said. "He was here all the time. He’s chained up in the folly.”

He stared at me.

“I’ve just seen him,” I said. “Please, you’ve got to hurry. I don’t know what’s happening.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “He’ll be safe now.”