“And you were the only one there?” I asked. “From the village, I mean?”
“Yes, the only one. No, wait, I tell a lie. Mrs. Toxley was there. You know Madge Toxley, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Not at the hanging, of course. But at the jail itself. I saw her departing as I arrived. I thought it a strange thing at the time but never thought of it again until just now. They were friends once, of course, but I considered it a strange thing that she should visit. Still, I put it out of my mind as I was there to witness a hanging, not to speculate about the friendships of others. And I had been to two hangings already in my lifetime, Miss Caine, and they are not pleasant experiences. I dreaded it, if I’m to be honest.”
I shuddered. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to watch another person killed in such a fashion.
“I stayed at an inn in Norwich that night,” he continued. “I had a restless sleep. And when I returned to Gaudlin the following morning, Mr. Cratchett told me the terrible news that Miss Golding had been killed the previous evening.”
“How, Mr. Raisin?” I asked, leaning forward. “How did she die?”
“A terrible accident, but ghoulish in its symmetry. Miss Golding had rather a good imagination and could be quite useful with her hands. She was attempting to build a sort of swing for the children between two trees using a length of rope that she must have borrowed from Heckling or discovered in one of the sheds. Anyway, she was halfway up a tree, tying the second of the ropes in place, when she must have lost her footing and somehow found herself enveloped in the rope as she fell. It wrapped around her neck and choked her.”
“She was hanged,” I said, closing my eyes, breathing steadily. “Just like the children’s mother.”
“Effectively, yes.”
“And Mrs. Westerley was already dead by the time this happened?”
“Yes, for about five hours I should think.”
“I see.” I considered it. I did not feel surprise. Had he told me that poor Miss Golding had died in the morning, I would not have believed it. I was sure that it could only have taken place after Santina Westerley’s punishment had been carried out. “And Miss Williams,” I continued, “the third governess whose grave I stood by in Great Yarmouth. What happened to her?”
“Poor girl,” said Mr. Raisin, shaking his head. “She drowned in her bath. A lovely young woman but permanently tired. I think she stayed up too late most nights reading. Should women read, Miss Caine? There’s a question for you. Does it excite them too much? Miss Williams was never without a book. She raided James’s library as if it was pure oxygen to her. She told me once that she had always had trouble sleeping but that it had been exacerbated since arriving at Gaudlin Hall. Of course, she was quite an accident-prone girl too. She had endured several scrapes since her arrival. I told her that she needed to be more careful and, on one occasion, she grew rather hysterical about it, saying that these accidents were not her fault, that they were inflicted upon her by forces unseen. I believe that she was taking a bath at night, fell asleep, slid under the water and, sadly, she was lost to us.”
“And Miss Harkness?” I asked. “The fourth governess?”
“It does seem rather odd, I know,” said Mr. Raisin. “And I can understand why you would find the whole series of events startling and unsettling. But Miss Harkness was a clumsy woman. Why, she stepped out in front of me on the street in the village on two occasions and nearly fell under the hooves of my horses. She claimed it was the wind, but she wasn’t looking where she was going, that’s the truth of it. But my reflexes are good, I was able to steer quickly away from her both times. On a separate occasion, however, with poor Mr. Forster from Croakley, she was not so lucky and she was trampled to death in the street. It was awful. Really too horrible to describe. Shortly after that I hired Miss Bennet, who became the fifth governess. But in case you think that there is something sinister about all this, recall if you will, Miss Caine, that Miss Bennet thrives. She has, I believe, returned to London to her former position.”
“Which was what?”
“A teacher. Like you. I forwarded her final week’s pay to her father’s account in Clapham, if you can believe it, because she wouldn’t even stay long enough for the bank to open and for me to retrieve the notes.”
“And Miss Bennet,” I asked. “She was perfectly safe all the time she was here?”
“Of course,” he said, then started to laugh a little and shake his head. “She was an hysteric though. I didn’t care for her at all. She would come storming into my office talking all sorts of nonsense about Gaudlin Hall and the things that were going on here. Mr. Cratchett suggested that we have her committed and he may well have been right. She behaved as if she was a character in a ghost story.”
“But she was perfectly safe?” I insisted. “Please, Mr. Raisin, I have to know.”
“Yes, she was safe, of course she was. Well,” he added, “she injured herself with a meat knife on one occasion; it was quite a serious cut and she would have bled to death had Mrs. Livermore not been on hand to help her. And there were a couple of other trivial incidents that she spoke of but—”
I stood up and walked away from him, uncertain whether or not to allow my thoughts to go where they were heading. I stared out over the grounds of Gaudlin. I felt an urge to run and run and run.
“Miss Caine, are you all right?” he asked, standing up now, too, and approaching me. I could feel his presence behind me, the warmth of his body, so different to that malevolent presence that had stalked me ever since my arrival. I wanted nothing more than to step backwards, to allow myself to fall into the security of his embrace. But of course I did not. I remained still.
“Quite all right, thank you,” I said, stepping away now and smiling at him. “But it’s getting late. And I’ve kept you long enough. You’ll miss too much of your half-day’s holiday if you’re not careful and Mrs. Raisin will blame me.”
“I assure you, Miss Caine,” he said, taking a step towards me, “Mrs. Raisin will blame only me. She has a strong precedent in this regard.”
I smiled and even laughed. “I’ll see you to your carriage,” I said.
As I watched Mr. Raisin disappear down the driveway I felt a great exhaustion overwhelm me, as if the events of the last month had finally taken their full toll on my spirits. I wanted to collapse on to the gravel beneath me, to bury my face in my hands, to cry aloud and be taken from this ghastly, ghostly place. My life had been so simple before, a daily routine of school and Father, our conversations by the fireplace, his books, my care for our house, even Jessie’s ceaseless arthritic complaints, and now it was mysteries and unexplained deaths and a kind of brutality that made me question the very nature of existence. For a moment I felt ready to surrender myself to hysteria but the sound of laughter in the distance, that unexpected sound, made me look up and I caught sight of Isabella and Eustace throwing a ball to each other near the trees. I watched them for a few moments, considering joining them, before deciding against it and returning to the house. Closing the door behind me I stood in the centre of the hallway, looked around me and breathed as quietly as I could.
“Where are you?” I said in a low voice.
The curtain of the living room next to me began to move slightly and I watched it, rooted to the spot. There was no wind. The day was calm. “Where are you?” I repeated.
And it was then that I heard the voices. Two of them. A low conversation. An argument. The sounds were coming from inside the house. I knew it could not be the children for they were outdoors. And it could not be Mrs. Livermore and Mr. Westerley for their nursing room was too far removed from here to carry an echo, even if that unfortunate man could make himself heard beyond the distance of his bedpost. I listened carefully and judged that the voices were coming from upstairs, not the first landing but the second. I felt an unexpected sensation of calm within myself, no sense of fear whatsoever, as I ascended the staircase and listened while the
voices grew louder but remained indecipherable. Were they even voices? It was hard to tell. Perhaps it was just the wind finding places to seep through the cracks.
I followed the sounds to a door at the end of the corridor and pressed my ear to it and my heart skipped a beat when I realized that I was not wrong. There were most certainly two voices, engaged in a bitter feud. A man and a woman. I could not hear a word they were saying, it was more a sort of low murmur, but I could tell the difference in their gender and I could identify the tone of their conversation, which was growing more violent by the minute.
I would not be intimidated any longer. I reached for the handle and twisted it, flinging the door open, marching inside without a care for my safety.
The room was empty. Some old toys were scattered in a corner, a dusty rocking-horse and a child’s cot. But other than that it was devoid of ornament or, more importantly, of people.
“Where are you?” I cried out, my voice rising now, almost screaming in my frustration, fear and panic. My words must have echoed so far through the house that even the unfortunate Mr. Westerley, lying half dead in his bed near the rooftop, might have shifted slightly on his mattress and wondered.
“Where are you?”
But answer came there none.
Chapter Nineteen
STEPPING OFF THE train at Paddington Station, I felt as if I was walking back into my past. The commuters rushed to and fro, making their connections, almost none of them taking any notice of the young lady standing in the centre of the platform, looking around and breathing in the familiar, foul London air, something that had been lost to her for so long. Had anyone stopped to look at me they might have seen an expression of relief mingled with anxiety upon my face. I was home again, but this was no longer home.
The day was mercifully dry and I stepped outside on to Praed Street, taking note of the familiar flower sellers and tradesmen’s stalls before making my way towards Gloucester Square, where stood the small house in which I had grown up. I felt the most curious feelings of apprehension as I approached it; I had feared that I might become emotional, that seeing it again would bring back so many happy memories that I would be overcome by them, but to my relief I did not feel any tears spring to my eyes. Through the front window I could see a middle-aged man handing a book to a young boy, and they examined it together as a woman, no doubt the man’s wife and the boy’s mother, entered the room with a vase of flowers, made some remark to her family and then laughed at something the boy said in reply. The front door opened and a girl of about seven stepped outside with a skipping rope, breaking her stride for a moment as she took me in.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” she replied. “Were you looking for Mama?”
I smiled and shook my head. “I was just passing,” I told her. “I used to live in this house. I spent all my life here.”
“My name’s Mary,” said the girl. “I know all my letters and can recite the names of the books of the New Testament in order.”
Mary. My dead sister’s name. So a Mary would live in this house after all. “And the Old?” I asked, smiling at her again, and she scrunched up her face uncertainly.
“I’m not so very good at those,” she replied. “Papa says I must study more. When did you live here?”
“Until quite recently. A couple of months ago.”
“We’ve rented the house until our own is ready. Ours will be far grander than this.”
“But will it be as comfortable?” I asked, feeling a sense of loyalty towards my family home; I didn’t like to hear it insulted.
“I think so.”
“Mary!” A voice from behind made the child turn as her mother, a pleasant-looking lady with an open expression, appeared in the doorway behind her. She hesitated for a moment but then smiled and greeted me. I replied politely but, not wishing to engage in any further conversation, said goodbye to Mary and continued on my way. I felt pleased that the house was once again occupied by a family. It had been a happy home once and might be again.
Madge Toxley had agreed to take care of Isabella and Eustace in her own home that day although, as she said herself, they scarcely needed minding as they were always so well behaved. Isabella was distressed at the notion of staying away from Gaudlin Hall for an entire day, insisting once again that “they weren’t supposed to leave,” but I put it to her that she had made no such strenuous objections when an afternoon’s play on the beaches at Great Yarmouth had been on offer, an argument which silenced her a little.
Madge was surprised to see me when I arrived at her front door early that morning, sleepy children in tow behind me, and said that I had an emergency in London that I had to attend to and that she would be doing me the most tremendous favour if she could take care of them until later in the evening.
“But of course,” she said, opening the door wide to let the children in, and as she did so I could see her husband, Alex, in the parlour beyond, looking out at me then disappearing out of sight. “There’s nothing wrong, I hope?”
“No, just something I need to take care of, that’s all. A person I need to speak to.”
She nodded but appeared dissatisfied with my reply and I immediately recognized why.
“You have my word that I will return,” I told her. “I would not abandon the children. I promise you that.”
“Of course, Eliza,” she said, blushing slightly. “I didn’t think for a moment—”
“And if you had, it would have been perfectly understandable,” I said, reaching out and placing a hand on her arm in an expression of trust and friendship. “No, I will be back this evening, no matter where the day takes me.”
The presence, whatever it was, did not seem intent on causing either of the children harm. Its malevolence was directed solely towards me, but I did not want to take the risk. It set my mind somewhat at ease to know that they would not be alone.
In Paddington, the omnibus stop that I was seeking was a five-minute walk from my old terraced house and, when I arrived, I set my bag on the ground and stood next to an elderly lady, who turned to look me up and down with a rather disparaging expression on her face. I wasn’t sure why particularly; I had made the effort to dress well for today, but for whatever reason I wasn’t to her taste. I thought I recognized her as Mrs. Huntington, who had taken care of me occasionally as a child, but then I remembered that that good woman had lost her mind after her husband and son had been killed in an accident some years before and been committed to a home for the bewildered in Ealing, and so it could not have been her; she might have been her twin though, so alike was she. I prayed for the omnibus to arrive for the manner in which she stared at me both unsettled and aggravated me. When it finally came, I boarded, stated my destination, paid my halfpenny to the conductor, and sat down.
In the past I had never paid much attention to the streets of London. One never does perhaps when one lives in a city, but driving through them now I was struck by how dirty they appeared, how the fog never seemed to lift fully from the air but sat there, a miasma through which a person needed to fight for advancement, and I wondered why our capital city had become so polluted that one could scarcely see from one side of the street to the other. Norfolk had the advantage over London on that score; it was clean at least. One could breathe there. I could suffer a ghost for a little fresh air.
I had timed my journey so that I would arrive at the school shortly before lunchtime and the traffic was on my side, for when I saw the building coming into sight, I checked my watch and knew that there would be ten minutes to go before the boys in their classrooms were given the signal to take their hour’s lunch break. Stepping down from the omnibus, I waited by the railings and watched. There was no need to rush; the moment would come soon enough.
Standing there, I couldn’t help but recall my first morning teaching at St. Elizabeth’s School, that transition I made from schoolgirl to schoolteacher, and the terror I felt when my small girls appeared before me, some nervous, som
e close to tears, watching and waiting to see what type of instructor they would have for the following twelve months. Naturally, I was the youngest teacher at my school and most of those who were seated behind desks in the adjoining classrooms had taught me only a few years before, so I knew only too well how cruel they could be at times. I had been beaten many times by these same ladies who had welcomed me that morning as if I was an old friend, their hypocrisy not lost on me for a moment, and I still felt intimidated shaking their hands or entering the teachers’ private tea room, an area which had been always off limits to me as a student and had held the promise of nothing but terrifying times within.
I resolved that day never to frighten my small girls, never to intimidate or beat them; it was not necessary that they love me—in fact, it would be for the best if they did not—their respect was all that mattered and I would do my best to earn that. And during the three years of my employment at St. Elizabeth’s I grew in confidence to the point where I both thoroughly enjoyed my job and believed that I had some skill at its execution. Certain that my future did not hold the possibility of a husband or a family of my own, I imagined that I would spend my life within the four walls of my classroom, the decades would pass and I would grow older and greyer just as the portrait of the Queen and Prince Albert would never fade, but the small girls, my small girls, would never change, would remain the same age for ever, replaced on an annual basis by a fresh intake, many of whom would be the younger sisters of girls who had already sat before me. There was a part of me that looked forward to the day when a child would appear on the first day of school whose mother had attended before her. Then I would know that I had succeeded in my position.