Property of a Lady (25 page)

The knowledge of what I saw in that too-brief flare of light is drumming into my brain. I’m in the attics of Charect House, on the other side of the damaged wall the men rebuilt. I have no idea how I got here, except that I know I tried to follow that sly, beckoning humming . . . Did it bring me up here? It must have done. And then I sank into that deep, dark sleep.

Heaven knows how long I was unconscious, but while I lay there, the plasterer must have come in to finish the work to the newly-built wall. A couple of hours’ work, early on Saturday morning, so the plaster can dry out over the weekend, that’s what the builder told me. Or perhaps the man even came back on Friday evening, to get the job done and out of the way. Whenever it was, he wouldn’t have seen me, because I was lying in the far corner, in a little recess created by a section of jutting wall, most likely part of the chimney breast. And I was half covered by sacking, so he would just have seen a pile of household debris. Some old sacks, a couple of discarded dust-sheets. No need to bother carrying them down the stairs.

I’ve struck a second match, and it might not be quite as bad as I feared. There might be a faint chance of escape. There’s a tiny window, set high up, and surely I can break the glass and climb out.

I can’t. The window is too small – it’s a tiny, round window, barely a foot across, hardly more than a ventilator. It lets in a few threads of light at the moment, for which I’m deeply grateful – I can just about see to write these lines. But I think when night falls, it will be pitch dark in here.

I don’t know if this is still Friday or if it’s Saturday. What I do know is that the builders won’t be returning until Monday morning, and that means I’ll be here for two, if not three, days. Trapped up here in the silence and the dark. The prospect terrifies me . . .

Michael was unable to make out the writing on the rest of this page – it trailed off as if the writer could no longer hold the pen. There were sections of blank paper, then it resumed near the foot of the page. Oh, Harriet, he thought, please be rescued.

I’ve used up a third, precious, match examining this place very carefully, and now I’m sitting under the little round window, writing this. It’s a surprisingly calming thing to do – although I won’t answer for the clarity of what I’m actually writing. But it gives me hope to be writing it – it makes me believe I’m sending a letter to someone and the unknown someone will respond. I might still get the letter to the outside in some way, although at the moment I can’t see how. The window is hopeless – too small and too high. I can just manage to see out of it, and I can just touch the glass with my fingers, but even if I could break the glass I couldn’t climb out.

The walls are solid. I’ve tapped them all the way round, and three of them are obviously the brick outer wall of the house itself. The fourth seems to be the new one – there’s a different feel to the surface, and there are one or two slightly damp patches, as if the cement or something isn’t quite dry. But although I’ve banged this wall, and tried to gouge out the damp-feeling plaster with the heel of my shoe, it’s set hard and I’ve made no impression on it.

A little while ago I managed to stand on tiptoe and look through the tiny window. Far below are the familiar tanglewood gardens. The window looks down on to the side patch – what would have been the kitchen garden. Vegetables and herbs. It’s a ruin now, but it’s still recognizable for what it once was.

In terms of actual distance, that patch of garden is only forty or fifty feet below me. In reality, it might as well be forty or fifty miles, because I can’t get through the window; I can’t even get high enough to break the glass. And if I could, what good would that do? Could I throw something out? What? What would attract attention? Shoes? A note? But a note would blow away at once, and shoes would simply become part of the miscellaneous debris that’s already scattered around the house.

But it will be all right. The builders will be back on Monday (how far away is Monday?), and I’ll hear them and I’ll be able to make them hear me. I’ve only got to sit it out and wait. I’m dreadfully hungry. Worse, I’m dreadfully thirsty.

At this point the writing deteriorated so badly and was so damaged by damp or age that, although Michael spent almost an hour poring over the faint marks on the pages, he finally had to admit defeat. Harriet had certainly written more – there were two and a half pages left – but it was plain that by that time she had been writing in what must have been virtual darkness, perhaps striking a match every so often. What demons had gibbered at her while she huddled up there?

But she got out, he thought determinedly. Of course she did. They’d have found her body when they broke that wall down if she hadn’t. I was there when they did that – I’d have seen her body. Her own builders would have returned and heard her calling for help. Or she would have managed to finally break the glass of the tiny window and attract someone’s attention.

The window.

He turned back to Harriet’s description of the small space in which she had been imprisoned. He would deal, afterwards, with the question of why and how she had been imprisoned. For the moment he would focus on the practicalities. On the window. A tiny, round window, she had written. Barely a foot across, hardly more than a ventilator.

A round window.
Round
. His mind presented him with the memory of the small window that had been uncovered when the builders broke through the attic wall. It had been small, but it had been a traditional oblong, perhaps eight by ten. He had looked through it on to the shrubbery directly below. He had not seen the kitchen garden, as Harriet had. Because the window she had looked from was on a different part of the house?

He switched on the computer and, after a few false attempts, found the photographs he had mailed to Jack and Liz. Which one was it Jack had joked about? ‘You should have told your girlfriend not to stand at the window while you photographed it,’ he had said.

Michael opened the first three, and then, suddenly and heart-stoppingly, the one he wanted was there. The slightly shadowy figure of a dark-haired female, one hand raised as if waving to someone on the ground. Or was she trying to bang on the glass to attract attention? It was exactly as he remembered it. What he had not remembered, though, was that the window itself was round. And he was as sure as he could be that he had not seen a round window anywhere inside Charect House.

He sat back, his eyes still on the screen, remembering how he had been vaguely surprised when the demolished wall had disclosed such a small space, and how he had expected it to be larger. Jack, working from a ground plan the builders had supplied, had seemed to expect it to be larger as well.

Was it possible there was another attic? An attic that had a small, round window?

‘Well, Michael, you’ve handed me an odd one with this,’ said the head of the History Faculty. ‘Where on earth did you dig this up? Oh God, you didn’t actually dig it up, did you? Because it smacks of mist-shrouded graveyards and heroines walled up in crumbling dungeons, and—’

‘Did you manage to decipher any of it?’ said Michael, who had spent a virtually sleepless night before delivering the remaining pages of the diaries to the History Faculty Head at half-past eight, and had paced the college impatiently until lunchtime, waiting for the results.

‘Only about three-quarters, but enough to get the gist of it.’ He reached for a large envelope on the edge of his desk. ‘I’ve put a rough transcript in here for you, but some of it’s guesswork. Michael, tell me you haven’t been cavorting around sepulchres in your spare time? Or was it a macabre treasure hunt you went on for Halloween?’

‘It’s something that turned up in an old house a friend’s renovating.’ Michael had to restrain himself from snatching the envelope out of the man’s hands.

‘Oh, I see. Simple as that. Interesting though. It’s a genuine document, then?’

‘You tell me.’

‘I haven’t done any dating tests – you didn’t give me time – but I can do some if you really want. It seemed authentic, though.’

‘That’s what I was afraid of,’ said Michael and managed to get out of the office before he was asked any more awkward questions.

He had hoped there would be a message from Jack when he got back to his rooms, but there was not. Still, it was only twenty-four hours since they had set off for New Jersey. Plenty of time for Jack to check phone messages and call back.

He got through the afternoon’s session with a group of first years on the structure and origins of iambic verse, and by six o’clock was seated at his desk, taking Owen’s semi-guesswork transcript from the envelope.

The light is fading, and I only have twelve matches left. I’ve counted them several times – it’s something to do.

I’ve shouted and banged on the window at intervals, but it’s no use. My voice is so cracked and dry that I don’t think anyone would hear me.

I think it might now be Saturday evening, which would account for no one being here. Whatever day it is, no one has heard.

But I’m not alone in the house. Every so often I’m aware that someone’s out there. Like the way your skin prickles before a thunderstorm. Each time that happens, I wait, listening, and presently I hear the attic stairs creak, and a slow tread comes across the floor. I’ve tried calling out in case it’s a tramp or a gypsy looking for a night’s shelter, but there’s no response. But whoever is out there doesn’t go away. Whoever is there, stands on the other side of the wall for a very long time.

Have to stop writing now – light almost gone. I’m so thirsty . . . My head throbs agonizingly, and I can hear the blood pulsing in my temples. Or is it the hammer-blows of the old clock ticking away . . . No, stupid, the clock’s all the way down in the drawing room, I couldn’t possibly hear it up here.

I have the feeling that Harry is quite close to me tonight.

Owen from the History Department had added a note of his own at this point:

Michael – sorry, impossible to make out the next few sentences. The words
clock
and
singing
seem to be indicated, though. Best I can do. O.

The transcript resumed on what seemed to be Sunday morning, with a faint light filtering through the tiny window into Harriet’s prison.

Grey light coming in now. Good. Another day – a day when I’ll be rescued. Head throbbing as if it’s swollen to three times its normal size. Is that lack of air?

I drifted in and out of sleep – the utter darkness very frightening, though. Lips cracked and dry – keep thinking about tall glasses of cold water . . . But today I will be rescued. Or I will think of a way to get out. If only I could tear down this wall . . .

I can’t tear it down, but could I burn it down? Matches – ten of them left. I could make a torch from the sacking. I might be able to break the window from the fire . . . Harry would say that’s a good thing to do – practical. He was so practical, Harry.

Fire no use. Cement probably still too damp. Sacking burned up but then burned itself out too quickly.

I’m going to try pushing these pages into the new wall where I burned part of the plaster. They might reach the other side.

Whoever reads this – whoever you are – please help me. Please break down the attic wall and get to me . . .

Harry seems very close to me now. As if he’s waiting for me somewhere quite near. If I put out my hand I have the feeling his hand will close around it. Warm and safe and very loving, just as it always was . . . I always knew he would come for me one day . . .

TWENTY

T
he diaries stopped abruptly. Michael sat back, a huge wave of emotion sweeping over him. Did she get out? he thought. Surely someone missed her and went looking for her.

The phone rang, startling him, and hoping it was Jack he snatched it up. Nell’s voice said, ‘Michael? Is this a good time to ring?’

‘Any time is good if it’s you,’ said Michael, before he could stop himself. Before she could speak, he said, ‘I mean, I’m glad it’s you – I’ve got several things to tell you about Harriet.’

‘Did you finish her journal?’

‘Yes. It’s a bit emotional, though. I’m not sure if I can actually read it out. I thought I’d get photocopies made – I could post them to you.’

‘I’d like to read them,’ said Nell. ‘Yes, please post them.’

‘You sound as if you’ve found something else.’

‘I have,’ said Nell. ‘I read to the end of that local history book last night – the one that had the information about Elvira. The author included another case history. He said it was the last person to be a patient in there – the last one to walk out through the doors, is how he put it. It sounded as if Elvira was the youngest patient he could find, so he put the asylum’s last one in as balance. Michael, it was Alice.’

Michael’s mind had been so filled with Harriet that he had to think who Alice was. Then he said, ‘Alice Wilson? Alice was in Brank Asylum? Are you sure?’

‘Yes. She was taken there after being at Charect House. The admission notes are included, and there’s an article she wrote for the author when he was compiling the book. I’ll see if I can get it photocopied, and if so I’ll send it to you. The writing sounds exactly like the journals I found in the old clock. Sorry, that sounded a bit Lewis Carroll, didn’t it? Like the dormouse going to sleep in the teapot.’