Resonance (18 page)

‘I’d ask you to watch the way you look at me, madam! Talk about put a beggar on horseback. I might have known. Well, let me tell you, miss
luminous
, miss
lovely
, just because a man like Lord Wolcroft makes eyes at you doesn’t mean you’re set for life. Take it from one who knows – as soon as that pretty face of yours begins to line, you’ll be—’

‘Shush,’ said Harry, holding a hand up.

‘I
beg your pardon!’

‘Aw, lady, just
shush
. Listen. Do yah hear that?’

The old woman stilled, the little brown bottle clutched before her, her eyes wide with the fear that Harry knew was sharpening her tongue.

He looked to the ceiling. They listened. It took a moment, but then it came again, very definite, very clear: a rustle, then
a thump, then the slow, quiet sound of something dragging itself across the boards above.

‘What
is
that?’ asked Ursula Lyndon.

‘I don’t know,’ said Harry. ‘But I’m darned sure it’s no squirrel.’

Apparently unperturbed, Tina resumed staring at the lake. She pressed her hand to the glass again, as if telling something to stay in place. When she looked back, Harry felt there were miles between them, aeons. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

‘Where?’

‘To find Joe.’

‘We should stay here,’ whispered Miss Ursula, her eyes on the ceiling.

Tina crossed the room and gently kissed the old woman’s powdered cheek. ‘You stick with me now. Don’t be scared.’

She went to the door. Overhead, the noise started again: the unmistakable sound of several large things dragging themselves across the floor of the attic; the uncertain scuffing of feet; the sense of a slow crowd moving.

Harry felt Ursula Lyndon press to his side. She once again took his hand. The sounds moved from where they were standing across the boards of the ceiling until they were directly above Tina. Then they stopped.

‘Are you coming with me?’ Tina asked.

Harry nodded.
I don’t think we’re the only ones
, he thought.

The Key

V
INCENT KNEW
R
AQUEL
had been surprised by his kiss, but he did not think she had been disturbed. Certainly she had not pulled away. She had, in fact, reciprocated, and when her lips had parted in response to his gently probing tongue and her arms had tightened around him, Vincent had felt a thrill between them which he had not enjoyed for decades.

He would not like her to think it was the presence of the girl that had awakened him so. Though Raquel well knew his love of pretty things and it had never seemed to bother her, he hoped she understood that the girl invoked a response in him that was less sexual and more … what? More hunger, he supposed.

It was a different feeling altogether to lust.

Admittedly, when the villagers had first advanced upon her, Vincent’s fear
had
been that they would rape her. It had taken him back, all too vividly, to the many times on his father’s ship when a new delivery of slaves had brought about a frenzy in the men and they had indulged themselves with horrible abandon upon the helpless women of the cargo. At such times, Vincent would scamper up the rigging as far as
he could climb – far from the shrieks and the crying; far from the catcalls and laughter. He remembered hating everyone then: the slaves, for revealing that side of his shipmates; his shipmates, for their cruelty; and himself, for retreating to the blue of the African sky and staring uselessly out to sea while on deck and in the holds below, men he thought of as family fashioned hell on earth from the only place he knew as home. Sometimes he had also hated his father, but mostly he had just hated mankind – its abominable weakness, its shameless, open, striving greed.

When, at the age of fifteen, he had felt the first stirrings of his manhood in response to the sights and sounds of the decks below, and when such sights and sounds had then begun to intrude into certain kinds of dreams, Vincent had known he was on the verge of losing himself. Shortly after, he had approached Cornelius with his idea. Within the year they had enacted their mutiny and fled from the monsters their fathers had been set to make of them.

Raquel said this history made him gentle with women. Vincent did not know about that – he never felt particularly gentle – but he supposed she would appreciate better than most gentleness in a man, her first husband having inflicted more than enough masculine torment upon her.

Raquel. Vincent missed her. He had not realised how much. Where had it gone – the intimacy, the warmth? How had he not noticed its absence?

Once Matt is restored
, he thought,
things will return to normal
.

He smiled. It would be good to shake off the dust they’d been accumulating; to restore their life to the idyll it had once been.

He brushed the horses. Their muscles quivered beneath his touch, and as he worked the sun-flecked air of the stables warmed their dark hide, his dark hands, his lips.

Somehow, his thoughts of Raquel became entangled with those of the girl and that dress, and how she might look in it: turning beneath a bright light, quivering, her dark hair tumbling down, the softness of her breasts pushed up by the bodice—

‘VINCENT!’

Vincent jumped, embarrassed, and then amused. It would appear that the trip to Dublin had been slightly more refreshing than even he had appreciated.

Then Cornelius came slamming in from the stable yard and stole all the lazy sensuality from the air.

‘You took my key!’ he cried.

Vincent’s heart dropped. ‘Cornelius, you cannot mean to go below again so soon.’

‘What business is it of yours where I go and when? How dare you take my key!’

In a perfect storm of disgust, Cornelius flung himself at the jacket Vincent had left hanging by the door. He began rifling through the pockets, and before Vincent could stop him he had found what he was looking for and more.

‘You have the iron key, too!’ he cried, holding up the key to the old castle tunnels.

‘Calm yourself,’ said Vincent. ‘Cornelius!’

But Cornelius was already turning away, apparently intent on retreating underground.

He must not find Matthew! Vincent grabbed him, and Cornelius responded with immediate fury, twisting from
Vincent’s grip and punching him in the face without so much as a warning.

The blow spun Vincent against the door, the bright taste of blood on his lips. He pressed his hand to his bleeding mouth and willed himself not to succumb to the instant, almost blinding, desire to beat his friend senseless.

When he was calm enough to turn, he found Cornelius had backed into the yard, a set of keys clutched in each hand.

‘Look at you,’ snarled Vincent. ‘Barely up out of the ground, and you want to return. You have not even taken time to change your soiled clothes or comb your hair – you presented yourself to
Raquel
in that condition – and here you are, already mindless again with need.’

Cornelius turned away without replying, heading for the orchard and the old castle ruins, the closest access available to his angel. Skewered with panic, Vincent strode after him.

‘Cully,’ he said. ‘Cully! I cannot afford to lose you yet. Stay with me for just a while longer. You can visit with your angel for as long as you wish afterwards. For days, for decades. Just help me finish what we started here first. There is still so much to do in the theatre. And … and the séance. Yes. We must prepare for the séance. And you had something else planned for the girl, too, didn’t you? The dress? You must do her up in that dress, for Raquel and me. Wouldn’t you like that?’

Cornelius’ fury softened, and he halted, looking about him in what could only be described as despair. Vincent gently took the keys from his hands.

‘What has upset you, cully? You are not usually prone to such temper with me. The last time you raised your fist to me was the week Matthew left us. Do you recall?’

‘Oh, don’t,’ moaned his friend. ‘Don’t … Poor Matt.’

Slowly, carefully, Vincent took him by the arm. When Cornelius did not shrug him off, Vincent led him to the orchard gate and sat him on the bench there.

Cornelius leaned his head in his hands. ‘I found myself in his room, Vincent. I had not meant to … It was such a shock to see all his things still there. The dust of ages on them.’ He shut his eyes as if against a pain. ‘Matthew.’

‘He will return.’

Cornelius’ anger flared again, cutting bright and unexpected through his grief. ‘Stop that!’ he snapped. ‘I’m
sick
of hearing it! I’m tired of telling you it will not happen!’

‘It shall happen. And sooner than you think. Then things will be as they once were, Cornelius. We will
live
again. Raquel will laugh and walk about and come on trips as she used to; you shall not spend your whole life underground, and I shall—’

Vincent stopped talking, realising with a start what he had been about to say.

‘You shall what?’ asked Cornelius, straightening. ‘What shall you do?’

Vincent shook his head.

‘What?’ insisted Cornelius, his eyes narrow, his face intent.

‘It has been over fifty years since I was in the village, did you know that? I had not realised it until Peadar said as much.
Fifty years
, Cornelius. Where did that time go? What have we been doing with it?’

Cornelius got to his feet. Vincent remained seated, squinting up at him as he blotted the sun. Cornelius’ face was lost in shadow.

‘You are not happy here,’ he said quietly. ‘You want to leave.’

Vincent thought about it. ‘I want more,’ he admitted.

There was a moment of unreadable silence, during which Vincent shaded his eyes, trying to see Cornelius’ expression. A cry of ‘Captain’ from the far end of the orchard made him turn. Luke was striding through the far gate, his face even sourer than usual.

‘Captain,’ he yelled again. ‘I have apples and I have wood pigeons what I caught in the traps. It’s the best I can do. If them doxies don’t like ’em they can bloody well lump ’em.’

Vincent found himself filled with an almost painful relief that the conversation had been diverted. He took the excuse to step out of Cornelius’ shadow, and, ignoring Cornelius’ eyes on his back, he followed Luke through the slants of late sunshine and the long grass of the orchard, as if keen to hear more of what he had to say.

Cornelius stayed in the shade of the wall, and when Vincent glanced back, he had gone.

Rooms and Boxes

H
ARRY FOLLOWED
T
INA
as she led the way from one side of the upper floor to the other, gently opening and closing doors as she went. Most of the rooms on their side of the house had been moth-eaten bedrooms choked with dust, but here in the other wing, Harry thought things felt more lived-in. The dust was not so deep; the wooden floor and certain pieces of furniture gleamed gently as if from regular use.

He glanced back down the sombre corridor they had just travelled. It was a brooding march of closed doors. As in the downstairs halls, stuffed animals lined the walls, and they seemed to watch as the huddled knot of intruders made their way past. Between the two wings, the top of the main staircase showed a graceful curve of banister. There was no sound from the lower floors.

‘This is a sewing room,’ whispered Tina, stepping through a newly opened door. The creatures in the attic above sighed as Tina crossed the threshold, then went very still overhead.

‘I think the poor things have decided to wait outside,’ said Ursula, her eyes on the ceiling. She met Harry’s eye, tinkled
a little laugh. ‘How odd that I should say “poor things”. And yet it feels right, does it not?’

Harry nodded uncertainly. The old woman was behaving a little oddly.

This room was much less neglected than the others. In some places there was no dust at all. Unlit candles were everywhere, some new, some half melted, hundreds of them. Tina touched everything she passed, as if grounding herself, feeling her way through reality. She stopped by a tall window, framed in low evening light, and tentatively rested her fingers against the elegant black-and-gold neck of a treadle-powered sewing machine.

‘Wilcox and Gibbs,’ she whispered. ‘Very old-fashioned. I was saving for a Singer & Co. I never told Joe that. I was afraid it’d embarrass him, when he had so little. Such foolishness …’

Absently, she pressed a finger to a sheaf of yellowed fashion plates sitting on the work table and regarded the partially finished dress on the mannequin before her. It was covered in dust. ‘Years out of date,’ she whispered. ‘Just like that woman … all out of date.’

She looked down at the gleaming wood of a low,
scroll-backed
chair that faced the window, ran her fingers along the freshly dusted windowsill, gently touched a miniature painting of the boy Harry presumed to be Matthew. ‘She sits here all the time …’

Miss Ursula went to her side, gazing down at the grounds. ‘Perhaps she enjoys the view,’ she suggested brightly. ‘Like a bird in its gilded cage.’

‘Or a spider in a web,’ said Harry.

‘Perhaps she’s a
spider
in a gilded cage.’ Miss Lyndon
laughed and took another nip from her bottle. ‘I’m not sure I’d mind it myself,’ she murmured. ‘Certainly it’s a pretty cage, only in need of a
little
dusting.’ Harry eyed her, frowning. He wondered if there was gin in that little brown bottle of hers. ‘I wonder what’s in there?’ she said, loosely gesturing to a door on the far side of the room.

‘The light is very strong in there,’ said Tina.

Cautiously, Harry went to the partially opened door and, standing well back, pressed it open. It was a playroom. Charming in the warm light from its big windows, it was obviously a much used, well loved space.

Harry ventured inside. What Gladys wouldn’t give for these toys! Entranced, he gravitated towards a great dollhouse that stood like a frosted wedding cake on a table by the fireplace. He peered through the tiny frames of its downstairs windows at miniature tables and chairs, candelabras, a piano. He smiled to see all the dolls sitting upside down at the dinner table, their legs sticking in the air, then frowned to see their severed heads placed in a neat and grinning row on the sideboard. He straightened in a hurry, and the stench from the upper rooms of the dollhouse made him reel backwards in shock.

What on earth?
With sinking heart, Harry placed his handkerchief over his nose and mouth and peered into one of the bedroom windows. The curtains on the four-poster bed were closed, the painted floor beneath it stained and gummy. Harry thought he only half-imagined the sound of buzzing flies.

He backed away. The room around him seemed heavy now with dreadful possibilities, and he stood in the centre of it, his handkerchief pressed to his nose, intimidated by
the now glaring dolls. A stain on the floor drew his eye. Children’s footprints traced a dark circuit from it to the foot of a little bed and back again.

A furtive noise brought his attention to a wall of puzzle boxes piled by the window.

He listened, his heart hammering, until the sound came again – a dry, skittering flutter, then silence.

Reluctantly, Harry approached the boxes. Cheerfully painted, and all about six inches cubed, they were stacked carefully one atop the other, like a wall of building blocks. With dread, Harry opened the lid of the nearest box. It was filled with feathers, that was all: the fine, fluffy under-down and sleek pinfeathers of a sparrow, perhaps, all soft greys and browns. Emboldened, Harry opened the next. He slammed it shut again immediately, the sight of the gaping, skeletal beak and curled dead foot enough.

That weak little flutter of movement came again, drawing his attention to the last box on the top row.

Oh, I can’t
, he thought.
I can’t look.

‘It’s all right, Harry.’ Tina’s soft voice made him yelp; her hand on his back made him flinch. She picked up the box and carried it to the window. The sash squealed as she raised it. Fresh air flooded the room, dolls’ dresses rustled, puppets twisted on their strings.

The box thumped within Tina’s hands. ‘Poor thing,’ she whispered.

She placed it on the broad shelf of the outside windowsill and opened the lid. Harry stepped back, afraid of what horrible mutilation might emerge as Tina tilted the box. A sleek, speckled thrush slid out onto the granite sill. It seemed frozen with terror, until Tina lightly touched her finger to its
shivering back, and in a startled thrum of wings and flicker of shadow it was gone. Tina traced the arc of its flight across the top of the windblown trees, then closed the window.

For a moment she stood looking around the room, scanning the shape of things Harry could not see. ‘The light was all over that little bird.’ She crouched, frowning, and pressed her hand to the polished boards as if checking for heat.

‘It’s all heading down there, Harry.’ He almost flinched when she looked up at him again, her eyes were so concentrated and fierce. ‘The light. It’s all heading for Joe.’

A
S THEY DESCENDED
from the top floor, Miss Ursula waved languidly to the ceiling, and bade Tina’s sighing followers ‘bye bye’. She’d put the little brown bottle away, but Harry thought she was far too relaxed for the circumstances – far too prone to stopping and touching things and humming.

The first-floor landing led from both sides of the upper staircase to an arched picture window overlooking the grounds. From this window, another curved flight of dark wooden stairs led down into the entrance hall. Peering over the banister, Harry could just see the rump of the stuffed horse below. The quality of the light and the cool shift of air told him that the front doors were still open to the breeze.

There were four doors on this floor, one at each corner of the landing, all set into deep alcoves. Tina made straight for the door to the left of the big window and tried its handle. Outside Harry could see the dogs. They were asleep on the grass, their blunt noses facing the house. There was no sign of any of the human inhabitants.

‘It’s locked,’ said Tina, loudly rattling the door.

‘Hey,’ hissed Harry. ‘Keep it down! Try another one.’

‘I need
this
one,’ she cried.

Ursula drifted to Harry’s side and gazed wistfully down at the dogs. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Puppies. I had a puppy once. Mother taught him to dance while I sang.’ She rapped on the glass. ‘Coo coo,’ she called. ‘Coo coo! Puppies!’

Tina began banging on the locked door.

‘Oy gevalt,’
said Harry. He pulled Tina aside and crouched to peer at the lock. ‘Just a very old double tumbler,’ he muttered. ‘Piece of pie.’ He slipped his lock-pick set from his sock, and in a matter of moments was twisting the handle and pushing the door. He grinned up at Tina, expecting praise, but she just shoved past, frantic to be inside.

Harry scowled. Climbing to his feet, he took Ursula Lyndon by the arm. ‘Come on, ma’am. Let’s leave the doggies alone.’

He ushered the old woman into a world of quietly ordered sound and movement. The room was large, taking up perhaps this floor’s entire right wing. Many windows flooded the space with light, and it was packed with bookshelves, tables, display cases and desks. The activity within was a stark contrast to the rest of the silent, morbid house. Clocks ticked softly from the crammed bookshelves. Lizards and snakes and chameleons rustled in cages filled with foliage. There were many aquariums, all alive with darting fish and crabs and creeping molluscs. They were fed bright streams of air by clockwork bellows, and filled the room with the sound of flowing water and the regular, gentle
shush
of a sleeper’s breathing.

Tina pushed determinedly through a maze of glass
display cases. Harry went to follow, then paused at a tall desk. Someone was obviously working on a project here: there were many reference books opened, many jotters filled with notes. What looked like a scientific periodical sat open to one side. It was well thumbed, the text in French. The opened page was underlined in many places. A piece of paper had been wedged into the spine, and on it, in the same bold copperplate hand as in the jotters, someone had written: ‘De Bary’s ideas on mutualism interesting here. Reread
Die Erscheinung der Symbiose
.’ And then, underlined many times, a note in different ink, presumably added later: ‘The living together of unlike organisms! De Bary has hit on it. I am certain. Should I tell Cornelius?’

Harry blew a light coating of dust from these pages. He flicked the pen in its dry inkwell. Whoever had written this had not been at work in a while.

Glancing up, he saw Tina pass behind a series of specimen jars. Their lifeless contents hung suspended in amber liquid, and neat labels told their names: ‘Remora’, ‘Leech’, ‘Tapeworm’. Tina’s slim shape shifted and warped within the curved belly of each container as she passed it by.

‘He’s here somewhere,’ she whispered. ‘The light is all straight lines here, all clear and ordered. Because he’s here.’

By the door, Miss Lyndon perused a shelf of books. ‘Someone likes their Jules Verne,’ she murmured. ‘And
en Français
, no less.’ She snatched a very old-looking book from the shelf.
‘The Life of Olaudah Equiano
. Why, of course!’ She ran a finger along the spines on the shelves, excited. ‘No Frederick Douglass? How odd, especially considering the … shall we say
mixed
nature of our dark friend’s relationships.’

Tina cried out suddenly, from somewhere near the front windows. ‘He’s here! He’s here, Harry!’