The Haunting of Highdown Hall (38 page)

She could sense the energy in the room was at crisis point. It was like some enormous geyser bubbling away just under the surface, ready to burst forth at any given minute, to spew its contents over them all, to burn them, destroy them. She had to surface and fast.

Too late, the geyser exploded. Ness and Corinna were already embroiled in it, their screams piercing the air. Were they hurt? Oh God, she hoped not. Then Theo’s voice reached her above the maelstrom. Far from cowed, it was strong and determined.

“White light. Keep projecting white light. A wall of white light, solid and firm, no gaps at all.”

Ruby’s eyes fluttered.

“Ruby!” Cash sounded relieved. “Are you okay?”

“I... I,” she muttered, the worst headache she had ever experienced in her entire life temporarily blinding her, holding her prisoner in the void.

“Where’s Cynthia?”

Cash looked angrily around him.

“I don’t know, but this Jack character, he’s really starting to piss me off.”

As she struggled to sit up, Ruby’s attention was caught by Jed.

“What’s he doing?” she said, screwing up her eyes.

“What’s who doing?” asked Cash, confused.

“Jed, he’s ferreting about under the bed. What’s wrong with him?”

Cash shrugged his shoulders.

“He’s out again. He’s got something in his mouth.”

“I don’t...” Cash looked even more confused as a folded piece of paper landed on his lap. He grabbed it. “It’s a letter.”

“A letter? What letter? Was it in the box? Did I miss it?”

“If it was in the box,
we
missed it, you and me both.”

Leaning forward she asked Cash to pass it to her, but her head was thumping so violently she had to hand it back. “You read it... I can’t.”

Cash held up the paper to what scant light was available and did his best to decipher the jagged handwriting. As he did so his eyes grew wider.

“Right, Jacko,” he said, rising determinedly. “Listen up. You too, Cynthia, you’re going to want to hear this.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

“
Dear Mary
,” shouted Cash. As Ruby had been earlier, now he was wild-eyed, his head thrashing from side to side, looking all around him. “I presume that’s your mother, right?”

A hush descended.

“There, that got your attention, didn’t it?”

“What are you doing, Cash?” Ruby hissed, afraid for him but intrigued, as intrigued as Cynthia and Jack were, she knew they were listening just as intently as she was.

“
Dear Mary
,” Cash repeated, a little less frantically.

“My parents don’t know I am writing to you. They think they have absolute control over everything I do; well they don’t, not always. I wanted to thank you, Mary, for taking my darling baby boy.”

Cash took a breath, as much for himself as to allow time for the words he had spoken to sink in. After a moment, he continued.

“I miss Jack every day: the smell of him; holding him close to me. I didn’t want to give him up, but you know that. Words can’t describe how I feel about him; he is perfect, beautiful. And his smile, I’ve never seen a smile as sweet. He is so much a part of me; a part I will mourn until the day I die. If only I could keep him by my side.

“An orphanage or you – that was the choice I was given. And of course, I chose you. No doubt you were paid an insulting amount for taking him in, but I know money isn’t why you did it. You’re kind, Mary, I see it in your eyes. You were always kind to me, all the years you worked for us: taking the time to look in on me, to play cards sometimes or simply sit and talk. I always appreciated it – my mother and father, they’re busy people, far too busy to spend time with me. And you have a child too, Cynthia, I’ve heard you talk about her. I hope she and Jack will become the best of friends, as well as brother and sister.

“I will miss you too, Mary, when we move to America, but at least I can console my poor, broken heart that Jack will be well looked after. He is part of your family now, an ordinary, loving family, not one bound by social constraint. Please treat Jack as your own and don’t tell him about me, it wouldn’t do him any good. My family will never accept him – especially since he was conceived in somewhat difficult circumstances. But despite that, I love him. I never thought I would, but I do.

“When you kiss him at night, Mary, kiss him for me too.

Olivia Aston.”

After he had finished reading, there was a resounding silence as everyone in the room, without exception, tried to fit together this latest piece of the puzzle.

At last Ruby spoke, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Can you help me up?”

As Cash rushed to her side, Corinna reached for the box, turning it over and over in her hands as though it weren’t so nondescript after all, as though it were a thing of wonder.

“Aston,” Ruby repeated. “That name, it’s familiar.”

“It’s one of the families Mary used to work for,” Cash hurried to explain. “Don’t you remember Esme saying?”

Did she? Ruby winced as she tried to recall. The fog surrounding her brain took a few moments to clear. Yes, that’s right; Mary had worked for both the Astons and the Carrs.

As though sensing her confusion, Cash continued, “Olivia must have been a daughter of the Astons. Obviously she got pregnant out of wedlock – a big deal in those days, especially if you’re, as Esme put it, ‘from the upper echelons’ – and she gave the child away – to Mary. And that child, it was Jack, or David as he later called himself.”

Corinna stopped looking at the box and looked at Ruby instead.

“So, Jack was no blood relation at all?” she said. “Do you think he knew?”

“Only one way to find out,” Ruby replied.

Leaning slightly on Cash, she steeled herself for what was to come.

“Jack, were you aware that Mary was not your natural mother?”

No answer.

“What do we do now?” said Cash, still supporting Ruby. But before she could answer their attention was captured by a light shining through the windows. At first Ruby thought it might be car headlights, perhaps Mr Kierney and his guests returning home early for the Christmas festivities. Quickly, and with relief, she realised it wasn’t.

Cash squinted. “Is it my imagination, or has it just got brighter in here?”

The room was indeed taking on an unearthly hue, the light more intense than she had ever seen it before. Unable to help herself, Ruby took an almost involuntary step towards it. It was so warm, so enticing – so
familiar.
She wondered briefly if she were actually dead, perhaps that blow to the head had been far more serious than she’d thought?

She glanced around the room, Theo, Ness and Corinna looked amazed too. But Jed, clever Jed, who had somehow known which piece of paper to seize upon, was wagging his tale frantically.

Ruby sensed movement and turned her head. Just a few feet away from her, facing each other at last, stood Cynthia and Jack. Not demons. Far from it. Just two people.

Cynthia asked the same question Ruby had.

Did you know?

Jack hung his head.

Jack!

Ruby was glad to see fire in her sapphire eyes. Reluctantly, Jack answered.

I... Mother was delirious at the end. She said things. I couldn’t be sure.

Looking up, he almost spat his next words at her.

I never had any intention of touching you. What I wanted was to destroy you.

A pause between them.

You didn’t know about the letter?

Jack shook his head violently.

That box, why would I look in it? It was all about you.

There was still such bitterness in his voice.

Ruby came forward. “It was about you too, Jack,” she pointed out, “you and Olivia. Her treasure box, that’s what you said Mary called it, clearly she treasured all three of you.”

Ruby wondered briefly whether to mention Mason. After all, he had been in amongst Mary’s treasures too. But she decided against it. For whatever reason he was there, Cynthia would find out soon enough.

Jack’s eyes locked onto Ruby’s – a fire of a different kind burning fiercely in them.

Mary wasn’t mine. She was Cynthia’s. EVERYTHING was Cynthia’s!

“You
had everything too. You just couldn’t see it.”

The cuttings on the floor fluttered ominously. But before his rage could build again, Ruby stepped forward, holding her hand out towards him, trying to reach him, not just physically but emotionally too.

“Mary loved you, Jack. Olivia loved you. Love is everything.”

Mary should have told me! The truth might have set me free.

“Why, Jack?” Ruby could guess but wanted him to say it anyway.

He looked lost. He
was
lost.

I might not have felt so... so useless.

The despair in his voice moved her.

“She had promised not to. And from what I gather, Mary was a woman of her word. And you weren’t useless, Jack. What you did for your mother at the end was noble.”

Ruby’s words hit home. The newspaper scraps lay still once more.

There was another pause before he spoke again, subdued.

I’m sorry.

It was Cynthia who stepped closer this time.

I’m sorry too.

Jack reached out to her. Cynthia reached out to him. Their hands connected.

A lifetime wasted
.

Ruby was about to interrupt, to try and console Jack further, to tell him nothing in life was wasted, no experience, no emotion, no thought, whether good or bad, that it all had some purpose even if that purpose was never made clear here on earth. But she was stopped in her tracks. A voice, one she hadn’t heard before was calling.

Jack.

In the room, those who heard it turned to it.

Who are you?
Jack looked frightened as a figure emerged from the light.

The woman smiled at him – a dazzling smile, a smile to lose yourself in.

Jack’s face transformed entirely, it wasn’t possible to hold onto pain in the presence of such beauty.

Mother?

The woman nodded.

Without hesitation, Jack walked towards her, his image growing stronger as he did so, allowing Ruby a glimpse of the young man he had once been. Pleasant to look at, if a little understated; a fount of hope and promise before anger had stopped him from truly blossoming. As Jack reached the light, Ruby realised it wasn’t Mary who had come to reclaim her son but Olivia, reuniting herself with the child that she’d had torn from her.

As Olivia took Jack in her arms, the room glistened as though it were filled with diamonds.

Cash shielded his eyes and Ruby wondered what he could see. She’d have to ask him later. Theo, Ness and even Corinna were rooted to the spot, as if in a trance.

As the two figures faded, Ruby turned to Cynthia.

“There’s no one waiting for you in the shadows anymore, Cynthia, it’s your turn now.”

Cynthia looked downcast.

There’s no one waiting for me in the light either.

Turning back to the light, Ruby smiled.

“Oh, I think there is. Look again.”

It was John Sterling, striding towards them, faint at first and then much stronger. He was as handsome as Ruby had ever seen him look on the screen or in photographs; his dark hair was neatly greased back, his white shirt open slightly, tantalisingly at the throat.

John...
Cynthia whispered, half in disbelief, half in awe.

About to rush towards him, she stopped. Looking down at the news articles Mary had saved, she then looked up at Ruby.

She didn’t forget me.

“Nobody could forget you.”

She was proud.

“Of
you
,” Ruby clarified. “Yes.”

Cynthia’s eyes clouded briefly but Ruby was not concerned – all earthly sadness, she knew, would soon be resolved. Turning from Ruby, Cynthia looked at John again. A girlish laugh escaped her as she ran across the divide that separated them, hurling herself into the sanctuary of his arms. John was laughing too, a sound as sweet to her as birdsong.

You waited for me,
Ruby heard Cynthia say.

I’d wait forever if I had to,
replied John.

No more games,
said Cynthia earnestly.