Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling (15 page)

“I worry that Darkling could be harmful to the children.”

Lily narrowed her eyes and folded her arms. “I'm not sure I understand.”

“Mourning is difficult enough by itself, but to extend it indefinitely . . . they might never recover.”

“I see.” Her voice was a piercing whisper. “Then why bring them at all?”

“Because I understand what it means to lose a loved one. You can all heal together, but at some point it will have to end.”

She held my gaze for a long while, until I began to feel uncomfortable and looked away. Lily's ire deflated, and suddenly she looked small and weak. “What do you propose?”

“An end to it. Three additional visits. No more than that.”

Even in the dark I could see that she went pale. “I'm tired, Mrs. Markham.”

“I did not mean to overstep myself—”

“You've made your point. I shall consider it carefully.”

Lily left the corridor for her room, a place I realized I had still not seen. I hoped she would think on my proposal. To protect the Darrows, I had to sever the ties between Darkling and the world of the living, but I could not do so until I more fully understood the connection.

I continued down the hallway and found my own room, too tired to explore the mysteries of the books from the library.

I dreamt of Sundays with my father. In the years after we returned from India with my mother's body, we had started to spend time together on the Sabbath day locked away in the conservatory, reading books, playing chess, and telling each other stories both fictional and true, no small number of which pertained to my late mother.

“The end is nigh, my peppercorn.” That was his my father's pet name for me, his peppercorn, for he felt that I was very beautiful, but rather fiery if not handled with care.

He lit his pipe and began to smoke, which meant he was growing tired and that we would soon be off to bed. But the smoke did not disperse into the air to attach itself to his hair and clothing. It circled around his head before gathering beside him, a cloud of noxious fumes taking the shape of a man. My father grew weary the more he smoked, and the cloud became more substantial.
Black
. It watched him sit back in his chair as he dropped his pipe and stopped breathing, eyes open, mouth slack.

It lingered for a moment beside his lifeless body before scattering through the air to attach itself to everything in the room, a memory extinguished and remade.

CHAPTER 12

Mysteries of The Ending

T
he next morning Lily did not come down for breakfast. Instead, she gave Duncan a note for the children, which mentioned something about an upset stomach and resting for their next visit (which she hoped would be soon). I held my tongue, while Mr. Whatley tipped his glass in my direction and stared at me from across the table with the devilish smirk that seemed a permanent fixture on his rugged, impish face. We did not linger after our meal.

As we approached Everton, I was so lost in thought that I did not notice Mr. Darrow standing at the door of the house waiting for us, and I had no time to prepare myself for our first encounter since I had inadvertently invaded his dream.

“Hello, boys!” Mr. Darrow lifted James into the air and tussled Paul's hair with his free hand. “Having fun with Charlotte?”

“It's a lovely day, so I thought we'd go for a walk.” I spoke up before the boys could respond to their father's question. Adults are much better liars than children.

“Splendid idea! I wish you'd thought to invite me along. I ended up falling asleep at my desk.” He looked at me and blushed when he noticed that I was looking back at him. He turned his attention to the boys. “Are you finished with your lessons yet?”

My stomach tightened. Our lessons seemed such distant things. What kind of governess had I become? I chastised myself, but not too severely. The boys were young and would recover from whatever lapses these interludes with their mother had caused in their education. Some things were more important than arithmetic, such as being available to their reclusive father.

“Yes, I believe we are for the day.” The boys turned to one another, beaming at their good fortune.

Henry clapped his hands together. “Excellent! I believe we have an appointment by the lake?”

T
he boys rode their bicycles ahead, flicking the bells on their handlebars with gusto at every passing pedestrian as I rode next to Mr. Darrow. We traveled past the bakeshop and the butcher, the blacksmith, and the sweets shop that sold the caramel toffees the boys loved so much, past St. Michael's Church and the vicarage. We continued on until the barren autumn spokes of the forest obscured the village of Blackfield, and we found a grassy clearing overlooking the lake. Everton was visible across the water.

It was unseasonably warm, as if summer had decided to make one last appearance before the onset of winter. I removed a picnic basket from its perch on the back of my bicycle and began to set out our lunch, but while my back was turned the boys stripped down to their underwear and jumped into the lake.

“You'll catch your death!” I said anxiously, but Mr. Darrow laughed and sat down on the blanket.

“More for us, then,” he said.

I looked up and smiled uncomfortably.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Yes, I'm just afraid I haven't gotten much sleep lately.”

“You're working too hard, and that's not good for anyone. Especially the children.”

“They are very energetic.”

“Which is why I want to be more involved, just like this. Spending time with them and getting to know them better. Being a father instead of a distant figure locked away in his office, snoring.” He smiled again, and I tried to stop myself from thinking him rather dashing, but failed.

“That's why I so enjoy working for you, Mr. Darrow. You have a true interest in the well-being of your children.”

“My name is Henry.”

“Sir?”

“You can call me Henry, if you like. We're outside. There aren't as many rules out here.”

“Mr. Darrow, I am still your employee.”

“Nonsense. You're part of the family. Since I can call you Charlotte, it's only fair.”

“All right then, Henry.”

“Charlotte.”

We stared at one another comfortably, wordlessly, at complete ease in each other's company. Then the boys plopped down on the blanket, wet as dogs.

“We're hungry!”

“What have I told you about toweling yourselves off?” I said with a bemused expression.

“But I'm wet like a fish!” James sucked his cheeks between his teeth and puckered his lips. “Phfee?”

I grabbed the nearest towel and locked the boys' heads in the crooks of my arms. Henry watched in amazement as I wrestled them dry.

“There! Almost passable. At least it'll do for now.” I released them and turned around to serve tea from a sealed flask when I heard a pair of giggles followed by the appropriate splashes.

I turned to Henry. “You couldn't have stopped them?”

“I wanted to see you dry them off again. It was quite impressive.” He smiled playfully and dashed off to the edge of the lake, calling, “Lunchtime!”

When he finally succeeded in getting them out of the water and dried off on his own (I refused to help him), he walked back with the boys, his gaze carefully fixed in my direction. I suddenly felt my heart very acutely, beating against the confines of my chest, and I was glad that he happened to be out of reach lest I might have re-created the scene from his dream and made a fool of myself in front of the children.

It was a relief to bask in the sunlight again after so much time at the House of Darkling. I spread my dress over the blanket on the ground and took in the mild air of the lakeshore. Henry removed his hat and sat down with a pleasant sigh and a half smile, seeming to lose his perpetually tortured expression.

He spoke without opening his eyes. “Would you care to take the boat across the lake?”

“What a lovely idea. You prepare the vessel, and I shall untangle the children.”

They had started fighting after they left the water, and it was no small task to separate them. Paul had already directed a few choice blows into his brother's shoulder and thigh, and James was insistent that there be retribution. But when I threatened to drown them both like unwanted kittens, they believed me and sat quietly on opposite sides of the boat. Henry pushed us off, and we began to glide through the water.

The lake was surrounded by great hills and a smattering of trees. The steeple of St. Michael's Church was visible in the distance, and trails of smoke from the cottages in the village laced the air with the smell of freshly baked pies and roasted nuts. The boat rocked gently against the tepid current.

“So tell me, boys, what have you been learning from Charlotte?”

“If we don't do our lessons, she's going to skin us like a pair of Indian tigers!” James said excitedly, thrilled to be compared to anything as vicious as a tiger.

Henry smiled broadly and began to chuckle.

“One must be firm with children, Mr. Darrow.”

“Oh absolutely!” He had to stop to catch his breath. “Boys, I was unaware that I had unleashed such a force of nature upon you. Your mother would be very pleased.”

James spoke up before Paul or I could think to stop him. “But she is, Father!”

Paul immediately stood up and lunged at his brother. The boat leaned precipitously to one side, and then turned over completely. I took Henry's arm instinctively as we fell into the water, a plume of spray ascending into the air when we splashed into the cold lake. We were still near the shore, but I grabbed James anyway and lifted him to my side, scrambling out of the water like a drowned rat, our clothes sticking to us uncomfortably and releasing pockets of water with each sloshing step. The four of us collapsed at the edge of the lake. Henry took out his handkerchief, but saw that it too had been completely soaked and threw it on the ground.

“Paul, what on earth has gotten into you?”

The boy looked at me nervously, and then to his father.

“I'm afraid it's my fault, Mr. Darrow. James has been telling fibs, recently—” James opened his mouth to speak, but I gave him a forceful look, willing him to be quiet. He was. “—and I've been trying to break him of the habit. Paul was simply a little overzealous with my instructions.”

Henry scratched his wet head, and pushed a strand of sopping dark blond hair away from his face. I thought he suddenly looked very boyish.

“I see. Well then, I suppose we had better get back to the house and change before any of us catch cold.” He extended his arm and pulled me up from the ground, but when I stood, I neglected to release it.

I felt an unpleasant combination of euphoria and dread. I could not deny that it pleased me to be walking arm in arm with Henry Darrow. I would never be able to forget my late husband, but Henry made the loss of Jonathan bearable somehow. When I was around him, the pain I always felt transformed itself into something else. He gave me hope that I could be happy again.

But then there was the other part of it, the echo of the conversation I had had with Mr. Whatley. What kind of person was I that I presumed to take an interest in a man whose wife had not been—and was still not quite—dead for much more than a year? I never thought of myself as a schemer or a seductress, but it was difficult to avoid the comparison. A match with Mr. Darrow would be advantageous to say the least. The only thing I could rely upon was the strong arm that looped through my own, and I held on to it more tightly than perhaps I should have. I wondered if this was not lost on the boys, who trailed behind us in silence.

L
ionel Larken was waiting for me in the kitchen when we arrived back at Everton, trying not to come between the cook and the scullery maid, for Mrs. Mulbus held a large paring knife in her hand and was pointing it severely in Jenny's direction while muttering something about a nick in the stew kettle. He looked haggard and tired. After I had dried off and changed, I sat with him in the parlor.

“It's Susannah.”

“What's happened? Not another attack?” I felt the color draining from my face.

“That's just it, I don't quite know. I'm not sure that she's been sleeping. I woke up the night before last and found her wide awake, pacing around the cottage. She was staring out the windows with this funny look in her eyes, but she wouldn't tell me what it was all about. I finally got her back into the bedroom, but she insisted upon touching every shadow in the room to make sure there wasn't anything hiding in them.

“But that's not the worst of it. Mrs. Willoughby called on me last night. She said that Susannah had an episode in the shop yesterday. She left her alone again in the afternoon to make some deliveries, and when she came back, the store was in ruins. Susannah said that she thought she saw something like a rat in a pile of scrap fabric. She went to see what it was to get it out of the store, but there was nothing there. Instead, and these are her words, the pieces of fabric started knitting themselves together around her throat, strangling her, covering her nose and mouth, binding her hands so she couldn't struggle. She was able to free one of her hands and took a hot iron to her throat. Whatever was happening to her stopped, and she burned all of the fabric scraps behind the store. My God, Charlotte, you should see her throat. Dr. Barberry said she'll be fine and all healed in a few weeks, but I'm worried for her.”

“Do you believe her story?”

“I believe that she believes it, and my wife is no fool. Never was very superstitious. If she said she saw something unnatural, then I believe her. But what do you do for someone chasing ghosts in the night?”

“These things are only happening when she is alone. You must watch her. Never let her out of your sight.”

“There must be something else we can do.”

“Leave it to me.”

T
hat night as I was preparing for bed, I removed
Mysteries of The Ending
from my basket. I remembered Lily's warning, and how the books had affected me back in the library, but my anger and suspicion overpowered any sense of caution. Nanny Prum had died an unnatural death, and so would Susannah unless I could better comprehend Whatley's intentions. To work against him, I first had to understand him. I sat on the bed and opened the book.

As I read over the strange, otherworldly characters, an icy wind plucked at my nightdress. I looked up to close the window, but instead of being in my bedroom at Everton I stood before a crumbling castle with toppled-over towers and a drawbridge that looked as if a very large bite had been taken out of its side. Across it stood a ruinous doorway with a knocker made of chains as thick as my neck.

The book was still open in my hands, and I closed it around my index finger to keep my connection to the place open but tenuous in case it proved to be dangerous. The door was thrown backward before I could even knock, answered by a vile, mad-looking thing shaped like a little girl. Her hair was falling out in clumps, and where her eyes should have been there were two tiny black keyholes set in the gray flesh of her face, both of them oozing a dark, foul liquid I did not care to identify. I gasped with a sharp intake of breath, and she snapped at me with black, broken teeth, almost catching my arm until she was yanked backward by a loop of chain around her throat.

The little girl lay sprawled. The chain that encircled her neck extended across the coarse stone floor and halfway up a staircase, where it was wrapped around the gloved wrist of a woman dressed in an aging ball gown, ratty and frayed around the edges, with holes worn down to the petticoats beneath, and a ring of skeleton keys that clattered at her side. But even so the woman held herself with a composure that bordered on the majestic, and when she spoke it was with a voice as rich as velvet, deeply commanding and aware of its power to instruct and control.

“You do not belong here,” she said softly. In her other hand she held a battered candelabra whose candlesticks were lit with tiny blue flames. I stood upon the threshold, still shaking from my encounter with the unpleasant little girl, my insides knotted together with fear.

This was a mistake.
I contemplated closing the book and turning back to Everton, to slide back beneath my covers and allow Whatley to do as he would, but what of Susannah and the Darrows? I inhaled deeply, the air stale with decay, and entered the castle.