Frost Hollow Hall (4 page)

‘Will, at the lake yesterday, did you notice . . . ?’ I trailed off.

‘Did I notice what?’

What would I tell him? That an angel took my hand and guided me to safety? Heck, I’d tried to explain it to my own family and hadn’t got very far. I couldn’t tell
Will Potter
. As if he’d believe me, when I hardly believed it myself.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said.

We stared into the fire.

‘I went back to Frost Hollow Hall this morning to thank them,’ said Will.

‘Thank who? For what?’

‘The kitchen staff, for taking you in.’

I was having trouble keeping up. But in a dark corner of my brain something stirred, and a hazy sort of memory came back to me.

‘We went there yesterday, did we?’ I said, with a shiver.

‘’Course we did. Don’t you remember?’

‘What I mean is . . . did we go inside the house?’

‘I’ve just said so, haven’t I?’

I doubted even a cad like Will Potter could charm his way into Frost Hollow Hall. Not if there were men with dogs and sticks. But he seemed a bit too familiar with the place for my liking. Something didn’t add up.

‘You know the Hall quite well,’ I said.

‘My pa delivers meat up there and sometimes I help him. Why?’

‘So you know the family, then?’

‘No, I never see the Barringtons.’

‘So how come we ended up there? In the kitchens, weren’t it?’

‘Look, I know Cook and she’s a good sort, and the maids are all right too.’

‘They weren’t that friendly,’ I said, remembering that face looming over me.

‘The housekeeper, Mrs Jessop, you mean? Come to think of it, she did take a strange turn when she saw you.’

I stared at him in disbelief. ‘So you
do
know them, don’t you?’

He shrugged. ‘I know some of the staff a bit, yes.’

I couldn’t hold back any more. I let rip.

‘Some flipping dare
that
was, then!’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Ooooh, Frost Hollow Hall!’ I cried. ‘The big spooky place what no one goes near?’

Will moved uneasily in his seat. ‘So?’

‘But in fact you
do
go there,
and
you know the staff! How the heck does that make it any sort of dare at all?’

‘Easy, Tilly! Calm down!’

‘Calm down?! Why didn’t you just get us an invite to tea? It would’ve been a flip’s sight easier!’

‘But no one goes near that lake. Not since Master Barrington died,’ said Will. ‘And there’s other things too, dark, queer stuff. And now there’s even talk of a ghost. I heard all about it today.’

‘Huh! And I bet no one’s never seen it.’

‘One of the maids says she has. Some plates got broke last night, and she swears they just flew off the shelf at her. But I don’t think the others believed her.’

I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. Suddenly I felt very tired.

‘Will,’ I said. ‘
I
nearly died up there.’

‘I know,’ he said, looking very shifty indeed. ‘And I feel awful about it, I really do.’

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

Then he got to his feet. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

‘You do that.’

He’d almost got to the door when he stopped and said, ‘But you didn’t die, did you? Someone’s watching over you, Tilly Higgins.’

Dreaming: 2

I’m under the ice in the blink of an eye. A hand touches mine, the fingers so cold I shiver. When I realise it’s him, my angel, I light up inside. Only he looks too tense, too pale. I see his mouth is moving but I can’t hear the words.

‘What is it?’ I ask. ‘What’s wrong?’

Yet the more I talk, the less I hear. I stop. Wait. And it’s as if the answer is right inside my own head.

‘I can’t rest in peace until the truth is known.’

‘What truth?’ I say, confused.

He doesn’t answer.

It’s cold down here, too cold. His hand rests on mine like ice. I’m scared. He senses it almost before I do. I can’t bear him to look at me, and I try to turn away. But the lake bed is sticky. It sucks at my boots, grabs at my skirts. I’m held fast. I can’t move. The fear turns to panic. Inside my head I hear his voice again, clear as glass.

‘Now it’s your turn to save me,’ he says.

What on earth does he mean?

I see my own panic in his face. I almost feel his too-fast heartbeat. He moves back and begins to fade.

‘Who are you?’ I say, because no angel would be this unhappy.

I want to go to him but I’m still held fast. My skirts are tangled in a mass of weeds. The more I tug, the tighter they hold me. The boy stops. He doesn’t answer, but he comes back to me, and with one deft move frees my skirts.

I owe my life to this boy. It’s my turn to help him. And I would, if only I knew how.

Now he tries to tell me something. It’s something to do with my frock. I twist this way and that to see what he means, but it stirs up mud and the water turns so cloudy I can hardly make out a thing.

‘Who are you?’ I say again.

But my words are lost in the water.

6

Some Sort of Truth

The first thing I clapped eyes on was my best Sunday frock, hung like a shadow on the back of the door. Ma had put it there to dry out. Just the sight of it now made me go shaky and shivery like I’d a fever coming on. And that question still echoed around my head:
Who was the boy in the lake?

A strange notion gripped me that the answer was here in the room. That it was, in fact,
inside
my frock.

I was out of bed in a flash.

Up close, the fabric had that outdoors smell. Quickly, I ran my fingers along each sleeve and around the neckline. The cotton was damp and chill like pastry, and thin in the places where it was almost worn through. More slowly now, I traced each pleat, each fold, moving down until I’d reached the hem. Nothing seemed amiss, though I noticed how loud my heartbeat seemed. Perhaps I was poorly still. Or maybe this was all part of the dream.

Then, at a spot where the hem had come loose, I touched something small and hard. I pinched at it, rolled it in my fingers, feeling its shape through the cloth.

What was it?

I eased the thing out. It fell cool and heavy into my palm. I closed my fist tight round it, scared I’d drop it, though by now I knew from the feel of it what it was.

How the heck had it got into my frock?

My head reeled. In my dream, the boy had barely touched me. I’d no memory of him giving me anything. Then I remembered. In freeing my skirts, he’d touched the hem. He’d saved me, and this was my reminder. Now I had to do the same for him.

I tiptoed over to the window and lifted the curtain for what little light there was. By now it was just before dawn. The pane was covered with ice. When I breathed on it, the ice melted away and I saw that it was snowing outside.

Ever so slowly, I opened my fist. In my hand was a small gold ring. I stared in wonder. Tiny heart-shaped leaves were carved into its surface. It was right lovely, the gold all warm-coloured like honey. So the boy had saved my life and given me a ring. Yet I still didn’t know his name.

I began to feel uneasy. This ring was clearly worth a bob or two, but poor folk like me didn’t have fancy jewellery, not unless we’d nicked it. Everyone knew that.

I turned the ring over. Something was written on the inside of it, words almost too small to see. I held it closer to the light.

Christopher Edward Barrington

My insides turned cold.

It couldn’t be . . .
could it?

I pressed my forehead against the window. Any minute now, I’d wake up. But the ring felt real in my grasp. In the dream the boy hadn’t answered my question. Now he had. This
was
the answer, wasn’t it? The boy under the ice wasn’t an angel. He was Kit Barrington.

Only Kit Barrington was dead.

My breath seemed trapped in my throat. I must be delirious. It couldn’t be real. I even considered waking Eliza up, because of a sudden I was fearful. It all felt too much, too strange. I hadn’t the wits for
this
. I didn’t ask to be part of some dark business, where dead people were haunting my dreams.

It was very nearly light now. Behind me, the bedsprings creaked as Eliza turned over. I realised how chilled I was, how my teeth were chattering and my hands shaking with cold. I crept back into bed, all the time keeping hold of the ring, which seemed to grow warm in my grasp.

Sure enough, the fear began to lift. Did it matter if Kit
was
a ghost? I had no reason to fear him. He’d saved my life, after all. And he really was the finest-looking boy I’d ever seen. What’s more, he was counting on me to help him. It felt like an honour, really it did. My own ma wouldn’t trust me to darn a flipping sock.

As I lay listening to the hush of falling snow, and the church clock as it chimed the hour, I grew calmer. I pushed the ring onto my finger. It slid over my knuckle, cool and tight, as if it had been made for me.

*

When I woke again it was proper morning. The room was full of cold white light. Snow light.

‘Still snowing,’ said Eliza. ‘Ma’s up already, clearing the front path. Don’t know why she’s bothering.’

She’d propped herself up on the pillows, and even though I was only half awake, I sensed something was troubling her.

‘Tilly?’ She sounded serious. It didn’t bode well. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

My heart sank. I was rubbish at keeping secrets. But she’d got my attention, so I pushed my hair out of my eyes and sat up. I must have nodded because she said, ‘Good,’ and started rummaging under the bed. She pulled out a book. Between the pages was what looked like a piece of paper.

‘Now, this is the secret part what you’re not to tell,’ she said, taking the paper out and smoothing it over her knee. ‘Ma would go hopping mad, and we don’t know for certain.’

I’d not the faintest notion what she was on about.

Three words jumped off the page:

‘
WHITE STAR SHIPPING
’.

This didn’t make matters much clearer.

‘When Pa went off to the railways, he left his best jacket behind. I found this in the pocket,’ said Eliza, meaning the piece of paper.

‘You went through his
pockets
?!’

She shrugged, unfazed. ‘Someone needs to ask questions. People don’t just not come home. I’ve asked folk in the village too.’

‘And?’

‘No one’s seen him. Not even at the alehouse.’

‘So where d’you think he is?’

She turned to face me. Her eyes were bright. ‘You know he had those dreams?’

I did, all too well.

One day, Tilly
, he’d say,
we’ll find a house with some land and keep our own pigs for market, and we won’t owe nobody nothing. Won’t that be grand?
Then Ma would tell him not to be daft because you couldn’t do it all on thin air, and she’d share looks with Eliza, who’d start yawning. Neither of them had ever listened. Not like I did.

‘Looks like this was one of them,’ she said to me now. ‘And what a dream to have!’

The piece of paper was a flyer, the sort that people handed out in the street when they wanted to sell you something. I started to feel sick as I focused on the words.

‘
STEAM SHIP
’ and ‘
STEERAGE CLASS
’.

‘£7
A TICKET
.’

‘
LIVERPOOL TO NEW YORK IN UNDER TEN DAYS
!’

‘He wouldn’t!’ I cried, staring at Eliza in horror.

‘But
America
! Just imagine it!’

‘Well, if he did go he’d take us with him.’

‘Huh! Would he?’

I wasn’t sure either. How many hours had I sat at his feet, listening to him paint a merry picture of the life we’d one day have? And now I struggled to even remember what his voice sounded like. I hid my face in my hands and began to cry.

‘Blimey Tilly!’ Eliza gasped. ‘Where d’you get
that
?’

I parted my fingers to see my sister kneeling over me, her hair tucked behind her ears. Her eyes were nearly popping out of her head.

Oh flip!

I was still wearing Kit’s ring. I whipped my hand back under the covers. Too late. She grabbed my wrist hard.

‘Let me see!’ she hissed.

I snatched my arm back. ‘Keep your beak out of it!’

‘I’ll just have to tell Ma, then.’

‘Try it,’ I said, ‘and I’ll be telling your secret too.’

7

Double Dare

Eliza didn’t speak to me at breakfast. She left for work without saying goodbye. Quite honestly, I was glad to see the back of her. Now I could hide Kit’s ring away without her seeing. I couldn’t risk carrying it with me; I might lose it or get done as a thief. In the end, I chose our bed as the hiding place, stuffing the ring in an old stocking and sliding it under my side of our mattress. If Eliza did try to nick it, I’d be sure to wake up like a shot. Then I wound my shawl tight round my head and shoulders and set off to school.

It wasn’t snowing any more, but the sky was still grey and heavy, and the air so cold it woke me up and got me thinking. Not miserable thoughts about Pa; these were good ones all about Kit. For the first time in my life, I felt I’d been trusted with something proper important. I was glad of it, and proud, but it weighed on me too since I’d no idea how to help him. All I knew about Kit came from village gossip, which didn’t seem much use when I was trying to seek out a truth. What I needed was to get closer to the real Kit Barrington. That way I’d find out the facts.

The big question was
how?