Florence and Giles (19 page)

Although it seemed now that my heart beat faster and that flocks of birds were in my stomach, so that I could scarce eat or sleep, I found myself both dreading and wishing for Friday, for I sured that was when the witch would make her move. Mostly, though, I longed for the day to come, no matter how much the thought of what I must go through terrified me. I wanted it all to be over. I wanted the opportunity at last, after so much subterfuge on both our parts, to join battle with her and overcome.

And at those times when the fear grew so great that I wanted instead to run away, I could always comfort myself with the knowledge that nothing could happen until the last day, and that even then, when she found the chloroform gone, she would have to come up with a different plan.

So it was that I near fainted when I came down for lunch on Thursday and found John, Meg and Mary in the hall, all three in their Sunday best and surrounded by baskets and carpet bags. Meg was hugging Giles while Mary was doing her best to suffocate him by kissing.

‘What’s happening? Where are you going? You surely can’t be leaving us here alone?’ I stammered.

There was a rustle of silk behind me and our new governess
was by my side. She smirked me one. ‘I thought it would be nice if Mrs Grouse had some visitors. Dr Bradley says that in such cases the sound of familiar voices can help a patient recover her senses.’

Meg pinched my cheek. ‘And we all want to see Mrs Grouse, too. We’ve known her and worked with her and lived with her all these years, and we can’t bear to think of her alone. I’ve two baskets of goodies I’ve baked for her so she’ll have some home comforts when she comes round.’

‘But Giles and I –’

‘Will be perfectly all right,’ said Meg, beaming one at Miss Taylor. ‘I’ve left a mountain of food for you and Miss Taylor knows all about it. It’s only for two nights. We’ll be back by noon on Saturday.’

My heart sank. By then it would be too late. By then it would all be over. I had not reckoned with this in my imaginings of the witch’s scheme. She had outmanoeuvred me quite.

I followed the trio, who all gratefulled Miss Taylor with a mixture of smiles and curtseys and forelocking, out the front door. John had hitched a horse to the old wagon which he used to haul supplies from town and he helped the two women up into it, which occasioned much laughing, for Meg was so fat she could not manage the climb at all and he had to put his shoulder beneath her derrière to get her over the side. Then he climbed up onto the seat, threw me a wink and shook the reins. The three of us watched the wagon disappear up the drive.

Miss Taylor turned to me and triumphed me one. ‘Well! So here we are.’

I defianted her one back, squaring up to her for the battle to come. For I would not let her see in my face the great
panic I felt inside. It was lost! The game was up! I had no one to help me now. For all I knew, this might be the moment she made her attack. Who could guess what powers the fiend possessed? What evil tricks had she learned during her short stay in Hell?

Instead, she held out her hand to Giles. ‘Come, Giles,’ she said, and the two of them walked back into the house. I myself could scarce move. My legs and every other bone in my body shook. I cursed myself for meeking it while the servants were still here. I should have thrown myself upon them and screamed and told them all…except, I knew I would not have been believed. Theo was right. It too fantasticalled for anyone without an imagination.

Once in the house, I listened, trying to hear where the others might be. I looked here and there and frequently over-my-shouldered, for I did not want to be caught unawares. I sneaked upstairs and heard voices coming from the schoolroom. Miss Taylor fairytaling Giles.

I walked back along the corridor past the mirror there and then stopped. I went back, lifted the mirror from its hook and, holding it to my bosom, downstairsed as fast as I could. I outed the back door and ran to the lake. I put the mirror on the ground and jumped up and down upon it, until the glass was all in pieces, then hurled the frame into the water.

During the course of the afternoon I did the same with the mirror in the upper corridor. The one in the entrance hall was fastened on the wall with screws and would anyway have been too heavy for me to lift. So I took a cane from the umbrella stand and smashed the glass, and when it was all in pieces I went around the edges of the frame with the handle of the cane, making sure not a sliver remained in which she would be able to see where I was.

Afterward I took a broom from Mary’s cupboard and swept up the shards of broken glass, for I did not want Giles to accident upon them. In all the time I was doing this, removing from her the advantage of her spyglasses, she did not appear. At first this surprised me quite, for I expected that when she saw through the mirrors what I was up to, she would descend upon me in a fury. But then it struck me. It was worse that she did not. It meant she considered me powerless; it simply did not matter to her where I was or what I did.

Now that she could not see me moving about the house, I needed to sit and think and make plans of my own. I went into the kitchen and took bread and cakes and cookies and filled a stone jar with water and tied it all up in a cloth and made my way along the long corridor and upstairsed it to my tower. It was the one place she would not easily find me; even Giles didn’t know about it and I considered myself to be safe there, but there was another reason to be there too: I needed to be able to watch the drive, for if Theo should put in an appearance I could not afford to miss him. With everyone else gone, he was my last hope.

It was a long afternoon and although I Robinson Crusoed the drive, squinting to see a friendly sail, there was no sign of Theo. I had to face the grim possibility that after yesterday’s attack his asthma now so serioused that he would not be paying me another visit before I Armageddoned with the governess. When the sun went down it began to cold, and distant dogs barked and the owl hooted. Of course, I could not light my candle for fear Miss Taylor might happen to step outside the house and see the light, but it fortuned I had no need of it, for it near full mooned, filling the tower with a pale, icy light, and I took this for a good sign that something, at least, was on my side.

That night I slept upon the trapdoor. I reasoned that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for a strong man, let alone a normal woman, to lift it from below with my weight upon it. Of course, Miss Taylor was not a normal woman and I had no way of knowing what powers a ghost such as she might have. I knew she could walk on water. I did not know though if ghosts really could walk through walls or if such tales were just so much foolishness. I would have to wait and see and above all hope she would not think of me being in the tower at all.

I feverished the night away. At some time I must have fallen asleep, for when I opened my eyes the harsh white light of the moon had given way to a grey dawn. A fierce wind howled about the tower and sent ragged clouds scudding across the sky like frightened birds fleeing the oncoming winter. When I moved, my every limb and muscle ached as if my body unwillinged to face the day.

I shook this silliness out of myself and got to my feet. I found my supplies and, even though my stomach churned, forced myself to chew my way through four or five of Meg’s cookies. I took a good swig of water and used the rest to splash my face, its iciness fulling me awake and ready for the task. As I lay there last night, it had come to me, a way in which I might make all turn out right, a way to save Giles and perhaps banish our governess, new and old, for ever. But for my plan to succeed perfectly, I needed Theo Van Hoosier to show up. I looked out at the drive and saw there was no sign of him, but that was hardly surprising, for it yet earlied and it would be at least an hour or so before he abouted in the visiting kind of way. I walked to another corner of my tower and looked down at the rear of the house, at the outbuildings which I knew it more importanted me
to watch, for it was here, if I guessed correctly, that the governess would make her first move.

I had a long wait. The sun got himself up and proceeded to climb the sky, although I only glimpsed him now and then through holes in the mournful day’s canopy of grey. Meantime, I restlessed back and forth in the tower, now checking the drive, now pacing to the back to check the outbuildings. And at last I had my reward! There was a movement and I saw the governess, holding her cloak about her tight, her head bent against the force of the wind, slip from the back of the house toward the stable. I didn’t waste a moment. I lifted the trapdoor and downstairsed and downbanistered in a trice. I flew along the corridor to the back door and outed. The wind gusted so hard it near knocked me off my feet, but I bent my head into it and ploughed on. The stable door was open and I carefulled an eye around the edge of the lintel and saw her as I had guessed she would be. She had lifted a harness from the wall and was walking toward Bluebird’s stall. I didn’t need to see any more but about-turned and, this time with the wind behind me, tore back into the house, upstairsed two at a time, flew along the corridor and flung open the door of the schoolroom. Giles was sitting looking at a picture book and at my wild entrance jerked his head up in alarm.

‘Flo! Where have you been? You missed breakfast and supper and Miss Taylor told me you were ill.’

‘Well, I’m not! Come quick, I have something to show you!’

He doubtfulled. ‘Flo, I’m not sure. Miss Taylor told me to wait here. She – she’s taking me on a little trip.’

‘It won’t take but a minute, Giles. It’s something special. A secret place! A really secret place. The best hiding place in all of Blithe. No one will ever find you there.’

‘Well, OK, but only for a minute, mind.’ He got up. I noted that he was wearing his best apparel.

I led him to the end of the corridor and downstairs and then to the tower stairs. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘up you go!’

He stared at the débris heaped across the bottom steps and then asked me, ‘But how?’

‘Ah, that’s the beauty of it. It looks impossible, don’t it? All right, follow me.’

As I began going up the outside of the banisters, putting my feet in the gaps between, I glanced back at my little brother and saw him wide-eyed with wonder. Without any further prompting he was up and after me, for no boy can resist a climb. I pulled myself over the banisters and then turned and hauled Giles after me. We sat on the stairs laughing, like the good old days. I had no worry, for I knew it would take Miss Taylor considerable time to harness Bluebird and hitch up the trap. There was no danger yet.

We got to our feet and Giles raced me up the stairs but at the top had not the strength to lift the trapdoor into the tower. I pushed it open for him and a moment later we were in my secret kingdom, lords of all we surveyed.

‘Look!’ shouted Giles. ‘There’s Theo!’ and sure enough, halfway up the drive was that familiar heron striding toward the house.

‘Where?’ I replied, slipping the bottle from the pocket of my dress.

‘There! There! On the drive, can’t you see, Flo?’

I unscrewed the bottle and tipped some of the liquid onto my handkerchief. ‘Ugh, what’s that smell?’ said Giles, and he began to turn his head, but too late, for I had the cloth over his face and my arm around his head like a vice, gripping him to me, muffling his protests with the cloth until he
ceased to struggle. I let him rag-doll slowly to the floor and bent over him to check he was still breathing.

That certain, I arranged him into a comfortable position, placing a cushion beneath his head, for I did not know how the chloroform worked and I figured that if he were comfortable he would be less likely to wake. Besides, I did not want my little brother awaking stiff or sore – as I had done – from lying in a bad way.

Once I had comfortabled Giles, I outed the trapdoor, closed it behind me, downstairsed, downbanistered and corridored at breakneck pace. When I reached the front door and looked out the window, Theo was standing staring at the house, puzzling and scratching his head. It obvioused he had rung the bell several times and, having received no reply, was confused as to why. It didn’t matter about him ringing the bell, because Miss Taylor could not have heard it from the stables. I just gratefulled I had got here before Theo walked away.

I opened the door and stepped through it and his expression relieved to see me. ‘Florence, where is everybody? I thought perhaps you’d all died of the plague.’

‘Theo,’ I said, grabbing his hand, ‘there’s no time to waste. I need your help, come quick!’ He stood still, dumbfounded. I tugged him. ‘Come on!’

We ran along the front of the house and around the side, bringing us to the back of the house, but at the opposite end from the stables where Miss Taylor would be still at work hitching up the horse. By now it well late-afternooned and the sun was already thinking about retiring for the night, not that he had been out much all day anyway. I led Theo
past some old glasshouses that had long ago fallen into disrepair, there being no one to tend them, and brought him to the thing that was at the heart of my plan.

‘I need your help to get all this stuff off,’ I said, waving a hand at the old well. Theo stood staring at it, at its low walls and the planks laid across them and then the heavy slabs of stone in turn laid upon them.

‘It’s a well,’ said Theo.

I impatiented. There was no time to lose. ‘Yes, yes, of course it’s a well; what else would it be!’ Seeing his face, I relented. ‘Theo, I’m sorry, but if I am to prevent that witch from taking Giles we need to do this now.’

‘But why?’

I exasperated, hands on hips. I wondered whether I could tell him but deep inside I knew that doing so would result in an argument which I by no means certained of winning. Theo so often scrupled about the littlest thing and he also cowarded over anything that was against the rules. This was very much against the rules! Besides, I needed to hurry. The witch might be finished in the stables at any moment.

‘I don’t have time to explain now. Please, please, Theo, help me!’

He made no reply but just stood there, staring first at the well and then at me.

‘Very well!’ I snapped. I strode up to the well, grabbed the top paving stone and began trying to lift it. Puffing and panting, with the greatest effort, I managed to raise one side of it a couple of inches, but then my strength gave out and I had to let it drop. Without looking at Theo, I seized hold of the stone again and began once more grunting and groaning as I struggled with it. That was too much for any Yankee gentleman to stand. Theo rushed to me, seized the other side of the stone
and began to lift too, and between us we managed to slide it off the one beneath and place it on the ground. As we let go of it, Theo commenced to coughing, which necessitated the use of his spray, but as soon as the fit subsided, he was ready again for the fray. In this manner, huffing and puffing, grunting and groaning, coughing and spraying, we managed to lift all five slabs and place them in a neat pile upon the ground.

Then we removed the four thick planks, one by one. These were not so heavy and when Theo began coughing after the third one, I slid the fourth off on my own. When we were done Theo looked down into the well and whistled. ‘Phew! That’s some hole. Does it even have a bottom?’

I didn’t answer, for the less said about the well the better. I took his hand and carefulled him back around to the front of the house and in through the front door.

‘Say, what happened to the mirror?’ he said, seeing the empty frame.

‘I smashed it.’ I prouded. ‘I had to make sure she couldn’t see what I was up to.’

‘And what are you up to?’ He stood curiousing me one. ‘What’s all that business with the well for?’

I put a finger to his lips to quieten him. ‘No talking now,’ I whispered. ‘I have no idea where she is. She was in the stables but she may have finished there by this time. Follow me and don’t say another word.’

Checking carefully first at the corner at the end of the hall that we coast-cleared, I led him into the long corridor and down to the other end, where we outed and came to the bottom of the stairs to the tower and I started to banister up. When I was halfway I stopped and beckoned Theo, who stood looking up at me, evidently exhausted. ‘Well, don’t just stand there, come on!’

A moment later we were up in the tower. Giles still peacefulled on the floor, his breath rising and falling nice and steady, which relieved me quite. Theo looked from my brother to me. ‘Chloroform,’ I said. I showed him the bottle and the cloth. ‘Stay here and keep watch over him. If he starts to wake, give him another dose.’

Theo took the cloth and sniffed it, dropped it and immediately began to cough. He slid to the floor deathly pale and gasping. Sitting with his back to the wall, he fumbled his spray bottle from his pocket and gave himself another blast, which seemed to quiet him. He set his spray down on the floor beside him.

‘Theo, just rest for a while. I’ll be back directly!’ I said. I lifted the trapdoor and back downstairsed fast as I could. I long-corridored and outed the back door. I reached the stables just as Miss Taylor was coming out and I guessed that the trap was now all harnessed up.

‘Miss Taylor! Miss Taylor!’ I screamed. ‘Come quick! It’s Giles! He’s had an accident!’

Her face went pale as the corpse I knew she had been. ‘An accident, what do you mean?’

‘Please!’ I turned and began to run. ‘Just come!’

I pulled up my skirts and took off and fairly flew along the back of the building, giving her no time to think. I swear I felt her breath hot on my neck, so close behind me was she, but I had the speed of the devil and she could only just keep up. I stopped, panting so hard I could not speak. I held out a shaky hand, pointing at the well.

‘Giles…the well…I told him not to…’

She understood immediately, rushed to the wall around the well and bent over it. ‘Giles!’ she screamed. ‘Giles! Are you all right?’

I pushed her aside and climbed up onto the wall, resting on my knees, and held on to the pole that had once held the bucket rope so that I could swing my head right over the centre of the opening. ‘There he is!’ I shouted. ‘I can see him! I think he’s moving!’

‘Watch out, let me see!’ she said, tugging at my leg. I climbed down from the wall and in an instant she had replaced me, clambering up onto her knees and, with one hand holding on to the pole, stretched out her neck and peered down. ‘Where is he? I don’t see anything. Giles! Giles!’

I cast around and saw a hefty branch lying by the well. I picked it up and swung it hard and struck the hand that was holding the pole. I swear I hit it so hard you could hear her metacarpals snap, but she hung on for dear life, her knuckles white as bone. I swung again and caught her another one even harder than the first. There was another crack and her fingers uncurled from around the pole. I dropped the wood and flung my full weight at her and with both hands gave her such a shove that over she went, into the well. She was gone with a single scream. I had Hansel and Gretelled her with one magnificent blow.

I peered over the edge of the well. There was nothing but blackness, a deep hole that might go to the very centre of the earth, for all I knew. My whole body, my torso, down to my fingers and toes, was shaking with the triumph of it all and also with the fear. For I knew not what powers the fiend had. I knew she could not be killed, for she was already dead. But it possibled she might know how to fly. I lifted the end of one of the wooden planks and dragged it over the edge of the wall. Resting it there, I went to the other end, lifted it and slid it across the chasm, so that it ended up resting on the wall on either side, as it had been before. I did the
same with the remaining planks until the opening was covered quite. In this fashion I would know if she had escaped while I was gone. Then I betook me back to the house.

I made my way straight up to the governess’s room. Her two valises were on her bed, both closed. I prayed they would not be locked and it fortuned so. I opened the one containing Giles’s clothes, removed them and took them next door into his room, where I put them away. I opened the other valise. I looked around the room and found her hat, coat and purse, but everything else was packed. I opened her purse, found some money and took it all. Then I put the purse and the coat into the valise that had contained Giles’s things. Making sure both valises were fastened tight again I took them downstairs and out the back door to the well. I relieved to see none of the planks had been moved. Unless she possessed the power to pass through solid objects, which I had seen no sign of, she must be still trapped. I took the end of one of the planks and manoeuvred it onto the one next to it, heart in mouth, for any moment I expected her to come shooting out like a genie released from a bottle, but nothing occurred. I took first one valise and then the other and dropped them through the gap I had made. Then I manipulated the plank back into position and headed back to the tower.

When I put my head through the trapdoor, Theo was where I had left him, his spray bottle by his side. He had that ready-for-the-oven-chickenskin look about him again and his breath rasped like a file. But something else stranged too, something in the way he looked at me, that somehow mixed fear with disdain.

‘Theo, I know you’re poorly,’ I said, ‘but I need your help again and I must have it now.’

‘Very well.’ He spoke like someone in a dream as if not really connecting with what I said. With a great effort, he dragged himself to his feet and followed me to the trapdoor. I quicked one at Giles, saw that he still peacefulled and then descended.

Theo stumbled twice on the stairs and had difficulty climbing over the banister rail, but I urged him on, for I could not have him quitting on me now. For the first thing anyone familiar with Blithe, such as John, would ask would be, who moved the stones?

I helped Theo around the house as if he were the one with the bad ankle now. We came at last to the well. I was relieved to see my four planks still in place, evidently undisturbed. ‘Help me lift the stones,’ I told Theo. Without a word, like a dead man with no expression or an automaton with no will of its own, he bent and took one side of the top slab of the pile we had made. I took the other and we began to lift. It was much, much harder than before, because then we had simply slid the stone from the pile and put it down. Now we were actually lifting it from the ground. I seemed to have the strength of a hundred men, which I put down to the excitement that was coursing through my veins. Theo, though, had only that of a pale and trembling boy. Nevertheless, he bent himself bravely to the task, his face a grimace of agony. In this fashion we lifted the first slab onto the planks. No sooner did we have it in place than Theo started coughing, as though he had been holding off all this time. He patted his pockets, but didn’t take out his spray. He shrugged, got the fit under control and we commenced on the second stone. By the time we had that in place, Theo was coughing all the time, but I drove him on. It seemed to take an age, but at last we had three slabs in position and
were nearly finished with the fourth, but just as we were levering it onto the one below, Theo staggered and let go where he was holding it, so that I had the whole weight on my own. I near dropped it on my foot, which surely would have broken every bone in it, so suddenly did Theo release it, but I pulled myself together just in time and, thrusting my body against the edge of the slab, with a loud cry from the very effort of it, slid it into position.

Theo was now coughing uncontrollably. ‘Theo, use your spray!’ I cried.

‘I cannot.’ He sucked in air with a terrible wheezing noise. ‘I left it – I – I – I left it – up in the – in the tower.’

I put my shoulder under his and arounded him the side of the house. We went in through the back door and made our way to the foot of the tower. I lowered him gently to the ground, leaning him against the wall. ‘Theo, wait here, I’ll go fetch the spray.’

I upbanistered and hauled my tired body over it and onto the stairs, pausing to look back at Theo, who paled and lifelessed against the wall, no longer coughing, but panting like a runner after a long race, or the way that when you caught a fish and laid it on the ground beside the lake and watched it, it would gasp as if for air until it expired. I turned and ran up the stairs. In the tower room I made straight for the spray and on the way noted that Giles still peacefulled and breathed nice and steady. I was about to go down through the trapdoor when something suddenly anxioused me, some thought I could not at first identify.

Then there it was, that look Theo had given me when I returned to the tower room, that fear of me in his eyes, followed by the resigned way he had followed me and helped me with the planks and stones. What could it mean?

I suddened an instinct and walked across the room and looked out the back window. Below me I saw the well, perfectly in view. I knew then that not so long before, Theo had stood here. And I knew that he had seen. And I knew Theo. If there were any doubt about what he thought of my action he would have remonstrated with me, he would have refused to help me. It obvioused why he had not. It was that fear I’d seen in his eyes. He had gone along with what he considered my madness because it was the safest and easiest way. It meant one thing. As soon as he awayed from Blithe, he would tell.

I outed the trapdoor and downstairsed. From the top step of the last flight I looked down and saw Theo, all white and waxy, panting out his life. ‘Florence, hurry!’ he gasped. ‘Please hurry!’

I did not move.

He repeated his plea. ‘Florence, please! Why are you just standing there, please!’

I did not move and watched in horror. Seeing me statue like that, he began to push himself up. He fell forward, flat on his face, and I all but rushed down to help him, for I thought he was near done for, but then his body twitched and he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, like a dog, head hanging loose between his arms. ‘Florence…’ His voice scratched the air and it was like someone cheesegrating my soul. ‘Florence…’