The Dead of Winter (11 page)

‘I thought it would be a relief to know I was not
mad,’ he said, ‘to know that someone else could share these horrors with me. But now I find that they are real, it frightens me all the more. Madness seems attractive now.’

He laughed at this and pulled me towards him.

‘What say we jump, Michael?’ he said. ‘Eh?’

I wriggled away from him and he laughed, climbing up so that he now stood on the edge.

‘Just me, then?’ he said, glancing at me over his shoulder as he teetered on the brink, and I saw that he meant to do it.

‘No!’ I shouted. ‘My father died to save your life. Don’t you dare waste it!’

I shocked myself with the vehemence of these words and my voice seemed to split the cold air like a whip-crack. Sir Stephen took a deep breath, hung his head and climbed down. I had tears in my eyes, more from fury than from sadness.

‘You are quite right, of course,’ said Sir Stephen. ‘Your father was a very brave man. He was a good soldier. He fought well and he cared about his men.

‘I was a poor officer, as you can imagine, Michael. I was only there to please my father. How many men died because of my incompetence? I wonder. It would have been better for everyone if the bullet that struck your father had struck me instead.’

I felt in no mood to argue with this sentiment as it happened to be a perfect summary of my own feelings on the subject. The snow was falling more steadily now, in fat woollen flakes.

‘But I am to make amends to some degree,’ he said, looking at me earnestly.

I frowned, wondering if this was more lunacy. I desperately wanted to get away from this strange man. I was about to make my excuses when Sir Stephen slapped his hands together loudly.

‘Run along now, Michael,’ he said, stroking his lank white hair, flakes of snow settling on his coat. ‘I must not detain you any longer.’

With that he turned away from me and stood gazing out across the land once again. I stood a moment looking at his thin black shape, a beetle on its back legs, and wondered if he was thinking about jumping again.

But that particular madness seemed to have passed and he appeared quiet now. I left him and returned by the narrow stairs, finding Charlotte at the foot about to come up, tapping her fingernails against the plaster wall.

‘Ah, I was just coming to find you. You have been talking with Sir Stephen for some time,’ she said. ‘I hope you haven’t tired him out.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.

‘Yes, quite all right.’ I wondered if I ought to tell her of Sir Stephen’s threat to jump from the tower, but decided against it. I was sure that nothing I could tell her would come as any surprise. She knew what her brother was like and I certainly didn’t want to attract any blame for having agitated him. Besides, I felt a sudden rush of sympathy for her and had no wish to worry her further.

‘Well, excuse me, then, Michael.’

I moved aside and she climbed the stairs to her brother. I eagerly returned to my room and the warmth of the fire.

I needed to get out of that hateful place. More and more I felt like a prisoner in Hawton Mere, and those imposing grey walls felt, day by day, more and more like high prison walls. To be fair, I had not been forbidden to leave the confines of the house. It was a self-imposed incarceration, for I had a fear of both those dreary marshes and the ghost who haunted them.

My spirits were revived a little when I looked out of my window some hours later and saw that the snow that had been falling steadily since my meeting with Sir Stephen had settled thickly. All
the wide sweep of land thereabouts was covered in such a thick white blanket that the house now appeared to soar above the clouds, and for a moment my soul felt as though it had taken flight along with it.

Nothing lifts the mood like new-fallen snow. I can think of no ills that would not be lightened by two or three well-aimed snowballs. I wanted nothing more than to get out of that dismal house and run out into that gleaming whiteness. I decided to explore the island on which Hawton Mere was standing.

To one side of the house was a garden, part of which was formal, with clipped yews standing like pieces in an abandoned game of chess – albeit a giant one. The other part was a kitchen garden, from which Mrs Guston got many of her vegetables and herbs. There were chickens too, and a henhouse for them to live in.

Where the moat widened to a kind of lake, there was a boathouse with a rowing boat, though both looked in a sorry state of neglect. Nearby, a huge wooden buttress was stacked against the old walls like a bookend.

But I soon exhausted the possibilities of this island, and I decided that I must once more cross
the moat and get some space and good air about me. The snow now carpeted the marshes and it seemed a new place, brighter and less threatening – much less threatening than the house that towered over me. I crossed the bridge and instantly felt as though I could breathe more freely.

It was a cold morning. The sky was now lined with a thin coating of cloud and occasionally snow would once again fall in fitful flurries. Clarence joined me, though he soon grew bored and, after chasing a passing magpie, he trotted back towards the house.

I busied myself in the construction of a snowman, whose rotund features put me happily in mind of good old Mr Bentley. After its completion I decided to walk the whole circuit of the moat and then head back into the house where I would warm my toes in front of the fire in the kitchen.

Hawton Mere looked as massive as ever. I found myself stopping and staring up at Sir Stephen’s spire-topped tower, wondering about the man inside and just what part he had played in the tragic events at the house. Was it grief or remorse that laid him low? Was it guilt that held him prisoner here?

I rounded the whole house, edging past the
bloated part of the moat. The ground near the water became more uneven and swamp-like with the frosted and blackened leaves and seed heads of reeds and bulrushes. I was forced further out into the surrounding marsh, stepping from hummock to hummock in avoidance of the frozen bog between.

I eventually made my way back to the bridge and walked beyond it to stand beneath the window to my room. As I did so I realised that when I saw Lady Clarendon’s ghost, she was staring up intently at a certain part of the house and I had a suspicion what that might be.

I walked back towards the bridge a few yards until I stood where I thought she had stood and looked up. There was the stone balcony, with an arched door leading on to it – the same place I had imagined seeing something fall.

As I stood there gazing up at it, I heard a strange noise nearby. It began with a sound like chalk on a wet slate: a squeaking and squealing as the ice in front of me began to crack. The noise was so high-pitched that it was painful to hear and I placed my hands over my ears to shut it out.

Looking down at the moat I saw something loom up out of the filthy depths of the water and
up towards the thick ice. It was just a shape at first, a darkness in among the icy grey, but then it came into focus. Lady Clarendon’s face stared up at me from beneath the ice, not with wildness or with anger, but with a look of overwhelming sadness.

I was filled with a stupefying terror. I could do nothing but stand and gape at this pitiful creature: pitiful but dreadful all the same, her skin blue-white, her limpid eyes red-rimmed under the layer of ice.

I had an instant to take in her terrible, pale and tragic form: her wet hair floating beside her face, her hands reaching up towards the ice above her. And then it happened …

I heard the faintest whispering behind me, as if a snake were sliding across the snow. The pressure on my back was almost imperceptible at first. It was like a breeze that gained in power with appalling suddenness until it shoved me forward, my shoes slithering at the snowy moat’s edge and my whole body sliding, slipping, falling feet first into the ice.

The cold hit me like a kick from a carthorse, knocking the wind from my lungs and making it difficult to breathe as I tried and failed to gain purchase on the ice, which broke away at my touch, or upon the muddy bank. My clothes were so heavy
with water; it was as though an anchor had been bound to my legs, for I struggled to keep even my upturned face above the water.

My attempts to shout for help were pitiful. The cold and the fear had squeezed my lungs dry and I suddenly felt sure that this was my death: this was how I was to die. I was wheezing painfully now, the walls of the house high above me swirling in and out of view as I flailed around in desperation.

All struggle spent, I could no longer keep my face afloat and as I sank beneath the black and icy waters of the moat I sensed my soul was already free and swimming away from me. It was like sleep and it did not feel so terrible.

But suddenly I felt something grab me and drag me back from that watery fate. It seemed to take an age, as if I had already sunk to unfathomable depths and was being hauled up by rope.

And then light and sound exploded all around me. The walls of the house were there once more, then gone, then towering over me again. Then a face loomed in front of me, blurred. A voice was calling my name. A dog – Clarence! – was barking excitedly.

I felt so cold. I was lifted to my feet but I could not feel my legs to stand, and doubled over, vomiting
a copious amount of the foul-tasting moat water into the snow at my feet.

Powerful arms lifted me off the ground and began to walk with me towards the bridge. My head lolled backwards drunkenly and standing, just faintly visible at the mist’s edge, was the ghost, watching my departure.

I raised my head to see who my rescuer was and the unmistakable craggy profile of Hodges came into focus.

‘We must get you to the house, Master Michael,’ he said, ‘and get you warm.’

He carried me with no discernable effort and I felt like a small child again. I had a strange half-memory of my father carrying me like this when I was very small and the thought of it, and the misery of my condition, brought tears to my eyes.

Hodges ran up the steps and kicked the door open. Edith was dusting in the hallway and looked terrified at our approach. I was more concerned that she had seen me crying and raised my arm to shield my face.

‘Hold that door open and fetch Mrs Guston, girl,’ shouted Hodges, making for the kitchen.

Edith snapped into action, running to open the door for us, then followed after, shouting for the
cook as Hodges took me over to the fire. When Edith came back with Mrs Guston, the cook shrieked with horror and told Edith to get blankets.

I had not appreciated just how cold I had become until I entered the warmth of the kitchen. My whole body was now stinging painfully as though it were studded all over with rose thorns. My skin was a pale blue; a corpse would have looked livelier.

Mrs Guston clucked and fussed about me as if I were a small child and I was happy to acquiesce. Tears welled in my eyes as my shoes and wet britches were taken and I was wrapped in a huge blanket by the roaring fire.

‘Fetch the lad some hot milk, Mrs Guston,’ said Hodges. ‘And a nip of brandy wouldn’t go amiss. I’ll have a glass myself.’

‘What is going on?’

Charlotte drifted in. She had changed her dress again.

‘Master Michael slipped while out walking, ma’am,’ said Mrs Guston. ‘Mr Hodges pulled him out of the moat –’

‘Heaven be praised,’ said Charlotte, rushing forward. She gathered me up in a warm embrace
and when she let me go I saw there were tears in her eyes. ‘You are not to go out there again. You are to go nowhere near that moat. You could have been killed. Oh, Michael, Michael. Promise me you will stay away from that moat.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ I replied hoarsely.

‘Edith!’ said Hodges, making the girl jump an inch or two in the air. ‘Don’t stand there gawping, girl. There’s work to do. And that goes for all of you!’

He clapped his hands with a crack like a rifle shot and we all started at the sound and breathed once more. Then Hodges followed Charlotte out of the kitchen.

I looked about me at the servants but no one seemed to want catch the eye of another and so I turned to the fire and watched the dancing flames. The warmth of the fire without, and the hot milk and brandy within, slowly did their work, and I fancied Death might have to come looking for me another day.

Dry clothes were brought for me and the kitchen cleared of prying eyes so that I could change with some privacy. All the same I got undressed and redressed with the greatest possible haste, horribly concerned that Edith or Mrs Guston or Charlotte would wander in as I was halfway through the exercise.

I need not have worried however. After a goodly amount of time, there was a knock at the door and Mrs Guston’s smiling face appeared.

‘All done, then?’ she asked.

I said that I was ready and she breezed in
followed by Edith, who, on Mrs Guston’s instructions, picked up my soaking wet clothes and carried them off. I decided to go back to my room, a little exhausted at being quite so on display.

Edith had banked up the fire in my bedroom and I pulled a chair in front of it and sat cherishing the heat. My bones still felt chilled and I was in no hurry to move. While I sat there toasting my feet, there was a knock at the door and Hodges walked in.

I made as if to stand up, but he raised his hands to stop me.

‘You don’t get up for me,’ he said.

‘I never thanked you for saving my life,’ I said.

‘I was glad to do it,’ he replied. ‘Though it’s Clarence you really have to thank.’

‘Really?’ I said with raised eyebrows. ‘How?’

‘I’d never have heard you, sir,’ said Hodges. ‘These walls are so thick, you can’t hear a thing from one side of the house to the other. No – it was Clarence who heard and it was Clarence who started barking and howling and told me something was amiss. You can’t spend too long in water that cold without going under for good. A few more seconds and it would have been too late.’

Hodges broke off here and looked into the fire
and I saw him swallow dryly.