Florence and Giles (21 page)

The road lonelied and now every noise spooked me. Each cry of the owl made me jump, each skimming bat made me duck. A couple of times I heard carriages coming and had to leave the road and hide behind a tree. More than once I stumbled and fell, hurting my knees and grazing my hands. The wind got up and for the last few miles blew directly into my face as if trying to hold me back.

What made the journey worse was my anxiousing. For it suddenly struck me that there was one part of my plan over
which I had no control. When Theo did not return home his tutor and the Van Hoosier servants would begin to worry and eventually they would go out to look for him. If they didn’t find him around the grounds of his own house then it would logical next to seek him at Blithe, where they knew he was a frequent visitor.

I desperated to search my mind. How exactly had I left Theo? It obvioused that his people would not be able to take the shortcut through the woods to Blithe because it would impossible in the dark, but would have to up their drive and go round by the main road. My hope was that they would come across Theo as they upped the drive. Now, I had dumped his body beside the drive, but how close to it did I leave him? If it was too far away, they might simply walk right past him in the dark and proceed to Blithe, where of course they would find the house in darkness and no reply to their knocking at the door, with the servants all gone and me not there. This in turn would surprise them, for they would not know about the servants being sent away. They might think something had happened at Blithe, something that perhaps involved Theo – for his absence and the absence of everyone from Blithe would too much coincidence not to connect. If they should enter the house and find me gone, I would not be able to explain it away.

At one point I so wearied and the road ahead so endlessed that I all but decided I might as well give up and lay me down to sleep where I was and let them find me and do to me what they would, for I was almost past caring. Then I looked up and saw to my left, a few hundred yards away, the chimneys of a great house topping the trees. It was the Van Hoosier place! I was not more than half an hour from home.

The thought of Blithe and Giles and all at last again being
as it had always been spurred me on. I quickened my pace, heart-in-mouthing it past the entrance to the Van Hoosier drive as I feared any moment the family’s servants might come rushing out, hunting for Theo. But no one did. By now I was tripping and stumbling at every step, I so exhausted, and it seemed another age before our drive came in sight. At last there it was and I alonged it almost at a trot, finding new energy from being so close. Inside the house, I straighted to the kitchen, poured myself a big glass of milk and cut myself a hunk of bread and a piece of cheese and sat at the kitchen table and devoured them as if I hadn’t eaten for days, which, when I thought about it, was the plain truth.

When I had sat there about half an hour I found my eyelids beginning to droop and knew it was time to move again or else I would be asleep until the servants came back and found me, and a great deal more besides. I opened the stove, took a poker and stirred up the fire. I took Miss Taylor’s hat and thrust it into the flames and watched until it had turned to ash and could never again be seen for what it was. Then I long-corridored toward the foot of my tower. It shivered me quite, what had happened on the stairs there, and as I pushed open the door that led to them I half expected to see the shape of Theo stretched out on the banister rail. It looked strangely empty without him. I overed the banister and upstairsed. I had kept all thought of Giles from my mind or else I would have been able to do nothing, for at heart I feared I might have given him too large a dose of chloroform and anxioused that after all I had been through I might have done the very thing I feared most.

Indeed, I near screamed out when I lifted the trapdoor and saw him lying there; he so stilled and paled in the
moonlight he looked like a corpse, and for a moment or two I could not go to him for fear of confirming my worst thoughts. But when I did I saw his breast rise and fall gently and finally let my own breath out.

It problemed me now how to get Giles back into his bed. I shook him and he stirred and muttered something I could not make out. I got behind him and put my arms under his shoulders and raised him up so he was sitting. I dragged him like this over to the open trapdoor and laid him down with his feet toward the hole. Leaving him there, I went down the first few steps and stood with my head and shoulders through the opening. Then I pulled Giles toward me. It fortuned he was so small and light. I pulled him down by his feet and eventually got him so he was lying on the steps, with his feet a couple of steps above mine.

At this moment I near let him go, for I sudden-frighted when I heard a cock crow. Sure enough, the first red of dawn was fingering the sky and I knew I must hurry, for I had not long before the servants would return. We made our way down a step at a time, me going first and then pulling Giles after me, until we footed the first flight of steps and reached the landing. Now it was all much easier. I gentled Giles to the floor and went back and closed the trapdoor. Back down with my brother I got my shoulder under his and carried him down the rest of the stairs as he had helped me when I hurt my ankle. What I dreaded now were the banisters, for I doubted I had strength even for the littlest exertion. When we reached the point where we had to overbanister I leaned Giles against them so that his head drooped over. Holding on to him so he did not fall, I bent and lifted one of his legs and hauled it up over the banisters, so that he ended up lying along the rail, an arm and a leg either side, as poor
Theo had done. Then I overbanistered myself and stood on the other side, resting a moment, catching my breath. It was the last thing I had to do, I told myself, the very last thing. I gave Giles a tug but it was a might too hard and I felt myself fall backwards, so that we both landed in a heap on the floor with him on top of me. No matter, it was not a big fall and there was nothing broke. I rolled Giles off me, got to my feet, pulled him to his and this time picked him up and carried him in my arms, gratefulling that I am tall and strong and he is but little and light.

I upstairsed him to his room, where I undressed him, pulled on his nightshirt and put him to bed. As I left the room, I paused in the doorway and looked back at him for a minute or so to observe the rise and fall of his breath and make sure all was well. I had already begun to turn away when I awared that something in the picture of my brother sleeping peacefully jarred, although I could not think what. I almost dismissed the feeling as a silly illusion such as extreme fatigue will cause, for staring at the scene I saw nothing untoward. And then there it was. A book, on the little cupboard by my brother’s bed. Of course, as if Giles ever took a book to bed!

I walked over and picked it up and recognised at once Miss Taylor’s Bible, the same in which I found the steamship tickets. At first I thought to leave it there. I was so tired and longed for sleep, and after all, it was not unthinkable that she had forgot it; her bags were all packed and in reality no doubt she had.

But then it might suspicion someone because she had not taken it and I did not want any hint of doubt that she had left. I tucked it under my arm and downstairsed, stumbling like a drunkard as I went, for I could scarce now stay awake.
In the kitchen I opened up the stove, picked up the poker, gave the fire another stir and and was about to drop the book into the flames when something fluttered out and floated like a butterfly to the floor. I picked it up and found myself looking at a photograph. My eyes so ached for sleep they would hardly focus, and I stared at the image not able to make sense of what I saw.

Something familiared about the young woman I was looking at, something in the way she stood or her dress, as though I had seen the picture before. I reached out for the memory, but could not grasp it and I almost tore the wretched thing in two, the feeling frustrated me so.

I shook my head, screwed up my eyes and focused again on the woman’s face and then I saw. Of course! It was Miss Taylor, only younger, without the lines time must since have etched upon her face, though with that same determined, all-knowing look, that same smug smile. I relieved a sigh. So that was it, that was what I had recognised; all was explained.

I picked up the Bible with my other hand and consigned it to the fire, then the picture after it, to let the witch burn as she would surely burn in Hell. I watched as tongues of flame eagerly licked its edges. The top of the picture caught fire first and the evil woman’s face blackened and then disappeared. And then, there it was again, as I stared at what was left of her, the body without the mocking face, that feeling of some memory I could not touch, only strangely more powerful now, overwhelming me quite, so my legs went weak beneath me and I almost feared to faint. I reached out to snatch the picture from the fire, but too late; it burst into flames and I had to pull back or be burned, and then it was gone.

The lost memory nagged at me all the way back upstairs, and I almost wished I had not burned the photograph, for I sured if I had had chance to look at it properly I would have found what bothered me about it so. But it was too late now and I told myself to let it go, for it was only my fanciful mind, exhausted beyond endurance and seeing things that were not there.

When I reached my own room it was full daylight. Too tired to undress myself or even pull back the bedclothes, I collapsed onto the bed and fell into a deep sleep.

Of a sudden I felt a hand around my neck from behind and another cover my mouth and nose with a cloth so that I near suffocated. The cloth smelt of something strong and strange, like the dentist’s surgery and –

I awoke and found I aloned on my bed. I had but nightmared. I began to relax me again, meaning to go back to sleep, but then a dagger went through my heart. I bolt-uprighted. The chloroform! What an idiot I had been to make so simple a mistake! I leapt from the bed and ran to Giles’s room. He still peacefulled asleep. I bent over him. He stank of the stuff. I dashed to Miss Taylor’s room and by her washbowl found a tablet of soap. I sniffed it. It reeked of lilies, strong as if it were the flowers themselves I smelt. I poured some water into the bowl and carried it to Giles’s room. Taking a cloth, I covered it in soap and scrubbed his face with it. He stirred and flung his head this way and that, as even in sleep a boy will have a natural aversion to water, but he did not wake. At the end he smelt of lilies, which might be strange for Giles but not so strange as chloroform.

I was just replacing the bowl and soap when another thought so sharped me I almost dropped them. What had I done with the chloroform bottle? I felt my pockets. It was
not in any of them. What if I had dropped it in the trap? Or somewhere else, the stables, perhaps? How would I put that on Miss Taylor? Or would everyone just assume it was something to do with her?

It suddened to me that if I had not dropped it, then it must be still where I had used it, in the tower room. I relieved me a sigh, for no one would find it there. So, congratulating myself, I was on my way back to my own room when another thought struck. Suppose they searched for Miss Taylor? It was not beyond the realm of possibility that someone might suggest looking up in the old tower. Especially if the police were involved, for a man like Hadleigh would leave no stone unturned. I turned around and made for the tower.

Putting my head through the trapdoor, the first thing I saw was the bottle, and the cloth with it, lying where I had left them. I climbed up into the room and picked them up. I could not resist a little smile. That was it! Everything now taken care of. Nothing at all left to give me away. At that moment some movement must have caught my eye for I looked out at the drive and there, at the top of it, saw the wagon upping it. The servants were back!

I dithered a moment. I could leave the bottle here, but then it might fortune a search would take place before I had chance to up here again. It was a risk I dare not take. On the other hand, I had to move fast, for it would be worse still to be caught bottle-handed. I outed the trapdoor and tore down the stairs. I outed the back door and downed to the lake. I ripped the label from the bottle, tore it to shreds and scattered them to the wind. I bent down to the water, filled the bottle, stoppered it and flung it as far as I could into the lake.

I walked back toward the house and at the well slid the
cloth between the narrow gap between two of the planks of wood, poking it right through, so it fell into the chasm below. I could not help thinking that it would help Miss Taylor sleep.

I entered the back door as the servants came in the front. I could hear them chatting happily. I had turned the corner of the back stairs just as Meg and Mary alonged the corridor below. By the time they came to see why we did not downstairs to breakfast I would be sleeping peacefully in my bed.

‘So, it seems she is gone, then?’

I took a sip of my tea for I needed to swallow to clear any doubt from my throat. ‘Yes, she is gone.’

Hadleigh stared at me the longest time until I so uncomfortabled I had to speak again. ‘She just took off one night. She didn’t even say goodbye to Giles. Last anyone saw of her was boarding the train for New York. She left the horse and trap at the railroad station. Poor Bluebird was out in the cold all night.’

He stared at me another long minute then shook his head, and took a sip of his own tea. We were in the drawing room. He’d called soon after he’d gotten back. It was near a month since Miss Taylor…left.

‘Funny she should just go off like that,’ he said. He quizzed me one. ‘Why do you think she would do that?’

‘Well, maybe it was because of you. I showed her your letter. Maybe she figured she’d be dismissed anyhow, after lying about her references and all. She left right after that.’

‘Without Giles.’

I chuckled, as though at myself. ‘I guess I was wrong about that.’

He stood up and carried his cup and saucer over to the
window and stood looking out. Everything was white outside. It was December now and we’d had a lot of snow. He took another sip of tea. ‘And this business of Mrs Grouse’s accident. She had nothing to do with that?’

‘Oh, no sir, I was with Miss Taylor when that happened. It wasn’t anything to do with her at all.’ It felt queer defending my old enemy, especially of a charge I knew to be true, but the last thing I wanted was Miss Taylor getting blamed for that and Hadleigh going looking for her; who knew what stones he might overturn? ‘I’m sure Mrs Grouse would tell you just the same.’

‘If she could remember anything about it.’

I bowed my head. ‘Well, yes sir, if she could remember.’

‘I gather she makes good progress?’

‘Yes sir. Apart from not recollecting the day of the accident, she is almost her old self. Dr Bradley expects her to be able to resume her duties in a few weeks.’

He turned and looked at me, that same penetrating stare. Then he shrugged and set his cup and saucer down on the tea tray. ‘Well, I must be going. I’m glad it all worked out.’

I followed him to the door. ‘Yes sir, thanks to you.’

‘And you’ll be getting a new governess, I presume?’

‘Why, yes. When Mrs Grouse gets back and writes my uncle about what’s happened.’

Suddenly Hadleigh looked me up and down. ‘I’ve just noticed. You’re all in black.’

‘Young Mr Van Hoosier, sir.’

He looked shocked. ‘Good God, he was so young.’

‘Asthma, sir. A terrible affliction. We are all upset for him, especially Dr Bradley.’

‘Well, yes, a doctor hates to lose a patient.’

‘It’s not just that, sir, it’s the failure of his treatment that
makes it so much the worse for him. Dr Bradley thought he had asthma cracked with that spray of his. Now he says his experiment has failed, for it did not save Theo, and the illness may have to wait many years for such a treatment as the one he thought to have found.’

‘Ah, so the young man’s death is a double tragedy, then.’

‘At least poor Theo is clear of his suffering now.’

He fingered the brim of his hat. ‘Yes, that’s one way of looking at it, I suppose.’ He turned and outed the door and I ran after him into the hall and held open the front door for him. He stopped in the doorway and put on his hat and coat. ‘What happened to the mirror?’

I followed his gaze to the empty frame. ‘Oh, it got broke.’

He shrugged and outed the door. I watched him walk toward his horse, but at the last moment he turned and stalked off around the side of the house. I closed the door and took off down the long corridor and a few minutes later I was up in my tower. It was still my private place, for when Giles woke from his long sleep that day he didn’t remember being there. He told me of this dream he’d had that he and Theo had been together in a castle. He said it had seemed so real he’d thought it must be true, but I pointed out that it impossibled, for Theo had not even been to see us that day, and later, Giles said he wished it had been true, for it turned out to be the day Theo died and he would dearly have liked to have seen him one last time.

I looked out the window and saw Hadleigh trudging along the side of the house. He made his way around to the back and then started down toward the lake. Of course, now it was frozen quite and on top of it there were a good few layers of snow, so many falls had we had of late, that if you
didn’t already know, you wouldn’t even guess there was a lake there.

Hadleigh did know, of course, and he stood there a long time, staring out over the water, at the spot where Miss Whitaker had tragicked a whole governess ago. I wondered what our new governess would be like. I wondered whether it would be Whitaker again and felt it would not, for I somehow thought that this time I’d trapped her soul for good, but anyhow it didn’t anxious me now, for I knew I had her measure quite. Besides, I had my tower and, until she came, I had Giles to myself. Things were how they were when they were best. With luck it would take some time to find another teacher and until then it would be as it should, Giles and I together. Nothing would ever upset that now.

Abruptly, Hadleigh turned and walked away from the lake. He passed the old well without even giving it a glance and disappeared somewhere below me. I crossed to the other side of the tower and saw him emerge at the front of the house. He trudged through the snow to his horse and mounted it. He took one last look at the house, then turned his horse away. I sat in my tower and watched them up the drive, horse and rider merging into one dark shape, a black rook upon the white snow.