Immortal (17 page)

“Why?”

She looked around nervously, then whispered, “Strange things happen at Wyldcliffe. Be careful.”

I needed to know more.

“Helen, I thought I saw something strange over at Fairfax Hall. I know you were sick that day, but I saw someone just like you, with your color hair and everything. Was it…Could it have been you?”

Her expression changed, as though a shadow had fallen on her. Mrs. Hartle had walked into the room and was giving a message to Miss Scratton. Helen jumped up. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But—”

“Leave me alone!”

It looked as though we weren’t going to be friends after all.

Thirty

THE JOURNAL OF LADY AGNES, MARCH

2, 1883
I have left all my friends behind. My parents, Martha, the village people—they are all lost to me. I would give anything to be able to wake from this dark dream of a city and walk again over the moors, with the harebells in bloom and him at my side….

But I must not think like that. My life is here now. This is my home.

I have found a cheap place to stay, and even some work. I am paid to sew fine linen for rich women, together with a dozen other girls crowded into a shabby room over a shop in Covent Garden. We work late into the night to complete the orders, and our overseer, Mr. Carley, is very harsh. I feel ashamed that I once wore such clothes without questioning how they had been produced, or at what cost. At least in my new life I earn my living honestly. I hope I can keep this job; otherwise I will very quickly run out of money. I have never had to think about money before. There is so much that I have to learn.

One of the other workers, a thin, dark girl called Polly, has been especially good to me, showing me around and helping me when she can. I think she has taken some kind of fancy to me because I can read and have promised to teach her. At first the other girls doubted my story and eyed me suspiciously, but they are beginning to accept me. I have told them that I am nineteen and an orphan, and that I was employed by a grand family as a governess, but was turned away without a reference after the master took too keen an interest in me. It is a poor and common enough tale, but they seem to find it believable, romantic even. They sigh and hope that I will be miraculously discovered by my parents, who will, according to them, be a rich lord and lady, ready to whisk me away in their carriage. If only they knew the truth.

But I must not think of the past. I must not look back. My only comfort is the girl with red hair who haunts my
dreams like another self. Last night I saw her again, walking by the restless sea. I know that my destiny is somehow connected with hers. Apart from her, I must forget everything that once linked me to Wyldcliffe
.

Thirty-one

I

didn’t really know why, but it seemed important to find some link between me and Wyldcliffe, and I was excited about going to Uppercliffe Farm. The days passed quickly as I planned the outing with Sarah and practiced my riding. Underneath, despite these distractions, I was aching for Sebastian.
Please forgive me; please get in touch,
I prayed every night, and every morning I eagerly scanned the letters set out in the hall. He didn’t write.

I had to get over it and forget him. But a voice inside me cried,
I can’t…. I won’t.

That Sunday morning seemed the longest I had ever experienced. The late, leisurely breakfast. The walk to church, with the clouds threatening rain. The gloomy hymns, the long prayers, the reading from the Gospel….
And men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil….
And then the cold walk back to school, before we were finally free.

I went up to the dorm and pulled on a pair of jeans and some riding boots I had borrowed from Sarah. An old sweatshirt hid Frankie’s necklace from sight. I was glad that I was still wearing it on my ribbon, especially today, when I was going to see where Frankie’s family had once lived. As I changed my clothes I wondered if she ever thought about me, and my heart stabbed with pain. I missed so much about her. How she always woke me in the morning with a big mug of tea and a bigger smile. How she loved the sea and the stars and her simple cottage flowers. How she made me feel important for all those years, just by loving me.
I’m doing this for you too
, I tried to tell her as I hurried down the marble steps.

When I got to the stables, Celeste and Sophie were there already, all done up in immaculate jodhpurs and tweed jackets. A teenage boy I had never seen before was holding the reins of their long-legged horses. He had corn-colored hair and quiet brown eyes. I guessed he must be a local boy helping out in the stables for the weekend.

“Thanks, Josh,” said Celeste, swinging easily into the saddle. She and Sophie clattered off. I hoped we wouldn’t come across them on the moors. The boy gave me a quick smile, then turned away, busy with the other horses.

“Hey, Evie,” Sarah called, leading Bonny and Starlight across the cobblestones. I scrambled up onto Bonny’s broad back, and soon we were riding down the lane outside the school gates. I breathed out and tried to trust the steady jog-trot of the strong little pony. I mustn’t fall off. I mustn’t end up like Agnes….

“We turn off here,” said Sarah. “There’s a path that leads to Uppercliffe. It’s quite high up on the moors. Apparently there was a hamlet there once, just the farm and a few cottages. But the people moved away years ago. Perhaps they couldn’t make enough money from the land.”

A bird—I didn’t know what kind—cried mournfully, and the wind sighed over the bare hills. It must have been such a hard, lonely life in the old days, I thought. No wonder they had given up and moved away. We jogged along, and the sound of the wind seemed to be heavy with voices from the past….

“I’ve found something else out about Agnes,” said Sarah as she rode next to me. “I went to the library after supper last night to get a book for my French class, and I bumped into Miss Scratton. I thought she might know something, being a history teacher and all that. I told her that we were interested in finding out stuff about local history and had looked at that book about the school.”

“So what did she say?”

“She said that Reverend Flowerdew wasn’t exactly a reliable historian, and that it wasn’t totally clear that Agnes had died in a riding accident. That was the official story that people like Flowerdew repeated, and that the family acknowledged. Agnes was found dead on the grounds, supposedly thrown from her horse, but the talk among the servants was that she had been killed by some kind of intruder at Wyldcliffe.”

“You mean…murdered? That’s so horrible.”

“It’s only a possibility, according to Miss Scratton.”

“What else did Miss Scratton say?” I asked as we rode slowly side by side.

“She said the servants’ stories about an attack were dismissed as gossip. The official coroner supported the riding accident theory.”

“But why would there be two contradictory versions of her death?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps the servants simply got it wrong. Miss Scratton said Agnes was really popular with the ordinary people. Her old nurse even had a kind of seizure when she heard that Agnes was dead. I suppose it would only take a couple of hysterical young maids to get carried away when the news broke and then the rumors would be all over a little place like Wyldcliffe. Perhaps the authorities and her parents just came forward later and told the truth—that it was an accident.”

I hoped so. The idea that someone would deliberately kill a slim girl with starry eyes and bright hair was too awful. But these things happened, had always happened.
Strange things happen at Wyldcliffe…. That cursed place.

No, it couldn’t be true. Impossible.

“Do you really believe in ghosts, Sarah?” I said abruptly.

“Yes,” she answered. “Yes, I think I do. I can’t believe that the energy that makes a person’s identity can just be destroyed and disappear into nothingness. I think that part of us lives on after death, whether you call it the spirit or the soul or whatever. So if our spirits do go on after death, isn’t it possible that some spirits might get lost, or stuck between worlds, like a penny that has been dropped down a crack?”

“Is that what you think happened to Agnes?”

Sarah shrugged. “Don’t they say that someone who has experienced something very traumatic—such as being murdered—could leave a kind of electrical energy behind them? A sort of shadow or a footprint? And people who are sensitive might be able to pick that up.”

“You mean like a radio signal, but it’s the actual person you receive, instead of music?” I was half joking, but Sarah didn’t laugh.

“Yeah, I think so. Besides,” she added, “I’m still loyal to my Romany ancestors. The Romany people have always held that life for the dead continues, and that the dead can return to haunt the living.”

“The dead can return,” I repeated. My heart began to race, and I changed the subject. “Let’s get going, or it will be dark before we get to Uppercliffe.”

“Okay, then. Ready?”

We had reached a broad path across the heath, and Sarah cantered away smoothly. I tried to copy her. Bonny obediently pricked up her ears and set off after Starlight. At first I thought I would fall off; then I settled into the rhythm and clung on grimly as we sped across the moors.

Sarah had told me everything she had found out. I hadn’t been equally honest with her. I’d also done some research, but I’d kept the results to myself.

Without telling her, I had sneaked into the little telephone room at school and looked up the name James in the directory. There had been two entries, and I had called them both. No, they didn’t have a Sebastian James there. No, they didn’t know of anyone of that name in the Wyldcliffe area. No—getting impatient now—they couldn’t think of how I could contact him. But not finding his number didn’t mean anything, I told myself. His family was probably unlisted; that was all. I imagined them living in a big house with a high wall around it, keeping everyone away. Just as Sebastian had wanted to keep me away from the rest of his life.

Sarah pulled Starlight up to a walk. “There it is,” she said. “Uppercliffe Farm.”

Lying in a dip in the moor were the tumbled remains of a farmhouse, hardly bigger than a cottage. Weeds grew in the wide cracks in the walls.

“What do you think happened to it?” I asked.

“I guess when the family abandoned the farm other people came and took some of the stones to repair their own cottages. It looks sad, doesn’t it?”

“I’m going inside.”

“Be careful. The roof doesn’t look too safe. I have a weird feeling. I think we should start heading back.” She glanced around anxiously.

“Oh, come on, Sarah,” I pleaded. “We’ve come so far; we can’t go back yet.”

We dismounted and let the ponies crop the grass, then walked up to the abandoned house. The door had fallen off its hinges, and the staircase had rotted away. Sheep and rabbit droppings littered the ground. The whole place seemed on the point of collapse.

I felt so disappointed. There was nothing to see, nothing to connect me with the people who had once lived here. It was time to move on. Then I saw it.

“Look!” I pointed above the space where the door had once stood. “Look at that shape, up there….”

Over the doorway there was a stone block crudely carved with a date. But underneath the lettering was another carved mark, a curious shape I felt sure I had seen before.

“What’s that?” I asked. “Ordinary farmers like these wouldn’t have a family crest or anything like that, would they?”

“I don’t think so. I wonder what it means?”

Staring at the ruin, I tried to imagine the farmhouse as it might once have been, with solid stone walls and smoke drifting from its chimney. Where the weeds and grasses grew now, there would be onions and potatoes and a few bright flowers. I closed my eyes and concentrated, until a picture shimmered in the darkness behind my eyelids. I could smell wood smoke. Where the gaping doorway had been, a neat blue door stood open. A plump, red-cheeked little girl toddled out and sat on the step. She clutched an apple in her hand, and the sun glinted on her bronze curls. A slow, comfortable woman’s voice called out from the house, “Effie? Effie, you mind and be a good girl out there, my chick.”

Effie…Effie…Evie.

“Evie!”
A high, thin wail reached us on the wind. I opened my eyes with a start. Something had happened.

“Eveee…Saraaah…Eee-veee!”

“Someone’s shouting for us,” said Sarah. “Come on!”

We ran over to Bonnie and Starlight and heaved ourselves up, then charged away in the direction of the cries. Soon we saw two horses wandering loose and two girls huddled in the bracken. One of them was lying awkwardly, her leg twisted beneath her. It was Celeste. Sophie was crouching next to her with a white, terrified face.

“Thank God,” she moaned. “I thought you would never hear me.”

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“A rabbit shot out and spooked Celeste’s horse, and she fell off. She keeps fainting. I didn’t want to leave her on her own to go and get help. We’d seen you riding up to that old cottage, so I knew you couldn’t be far away. I’ve been calling and calling. I was so worried that Celeste might…like Laura…” She burst into noisy sobs.

Sarah tried to calm her down. “Listen, Sophie, she’s certainly not going to die, but she has hurt herself. I’ll gallop back to Wyldcliffe and get the doctor. Evie will stay here with you. I won’t take long. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

In a second Sarah had gone. It began to rain. Sophie stopped crying and started to shiver. I put my arm around her awkwardly.

“Th-thank you.”

We sat in uncomfortable silence. Celeste groaned faintly, drifting in and out of consciousness. A bird sang high above us, unconcerned by the rain, oblivious to our presence. I tried to think of something to say. “Don’t worry. It will be okay.” It sounded so meaningless.