Roots of Evil (18 page)

Alice leaned forward, gripping the sides of her seat, knowing she was being absurd, but a tiny ridiculous part of her hoping that in some undreamed-of way it might come right after all, that Alraune might not commit that last appalling act…

It did not come right, of course. Conrad’s music was filling up the auditorium, echoing the thrumming of a mind embittered and corroded by the need for revenge, and the sound of Alraune’s footsteps were inside the cadences.
Pad-pad-I’m-going-to-kill
…And for the second time tonight Alice had the curious impression of scudding emotions pouring down from the future…

As Alraune raised the stiletto, and as the once-mesmeric figure of the scientist turned his head and widened his eyes in horror, the stiletto came flashing down on to his face…Once…Twice…

The screaming music reached its impossible heights, and the final frame came up: shocking, pitiable. As the music began to fade in a long and terrible moan, the man who had created Alraune pawed in helpless agony at the dark bloodied holes where once his eyes had been…

Alraune watched for a moment, and then took the man’s hand and led him solicitously to a high-backed chair. While he thrashed in his death throes, as if in macabre echo of her years in the convent she lit votive candles which she placed on each side of him. A sacrifice. A libation. The dark flames burned up, casting unearthly shadows on the dying man.

Alraune studied the effect, and adjusted one of the candles. Then she sat on the ground at the feet of her creator, and watched him die.

It was not until the lights were turned back up in the auditorium that Alice became aware again of the packed theatre, and the looks being sent in her direction, half-admiring, half envious. A very dark film, people were saying to one another. Very dark indeed, and far more shocking than the version done by Brigitte Helm a few years ago. Very disturbing. That final scene…Ah, that had
not
been in the original book?
Most
explicit it had been, one felt quite upset. And were they to understand that the scientist had died from Alraune’s attack on him
or not? Oh, left to the imagination of the audience, was it? Very modern. Er – was it correct that champagne was to be served in the foyer now? Ah, it was correct. And a little supper as well? Caviare and smoked salmon? Well, that would be very acceptable indeed.

It was necessary, as it always was, to remain cool and distant; to appear unmoved by the attention and the curious looks. But actually, thought Alice, sipping her champagne, actually I’m loving every moment of it, although I mustn’t let anyone guess that. And yet at the deepest level of all was still the thread of anxiety that seldom left her, because it would be so easy for this to suddenly end. If I were to be recognized – if I were to be confronted with a visitor to the house where I was a maid, or even a man from those shameful, shaming nights near to St Stephen’s Cathedral…

I could be anywhere, in any company, she thought, and someone might suddenly fling out an accusing finger, and say, But this isn’t a real baroness at all. This is only some drab little servant girl, brought up in an English village, aping her betters, pretending to be grand and rich and beautiful, drinking champagne as if she’s used to it, wearing expensive clothes instead of the ones suitable to her rightful station…What would I do if that happened? thought Alice.

She would not contemplate it. She would keep Lucretia’s mask firmly in place, and she would make sure that no one ever connected the dazzling baroness with a little brown-haired lady’s maid who, once upon a time, rather than face starvation, had sold her body in Vienna’s streets.

It was rather odd the way that word,
secret
, had kept cropping up while Edmund was having that meal in Lucy’s flat. Edmund had always thought that Crispin was the only one who knew about the secrets in this family, but after that evening he had several times caught himself wondering.
‘I’d have thought Ashwood would be the last place you’d want to visit
…’ Lucy had said. And when Edmund had asked why, she had said,
‘Well, because of Crispin
…
’

How much might Lucy know about Crispin? About the secrets?

They had played a game called Secrets on that night all those years ago when Lucy’s parents died. Edmund had been invited for the weekend; Lucy’s mother, bright, butterfly creature that she was, loved filling the house with people and she had said that of course Edmund must come, wasn’t it his autumn half-term from Bristol, or
something? Nonsense, of course he could be there; all work and no play, remember the old warning, Edmund.

Mariana Trent’s party-game that weekend was a hybrid: a mixture of the old-fashioned Murder and Sardines, all to do with hiding in the dark (which would be pleasantly flirtatious, said Mariana), and with trying to elude the designated murderer (which should be deliciously spooky). It was Mariana’s own invention: a super game and it was called Secret Murder, and everyone would hugely enjoy it.

The party had a 1920s theme, which meant the females could dress up like mad in fringed outfits, and Mariana could wear a jewelled headband and a feather boa, while the men were persuaded fretfully into dinner jackets. There would be a nice supper, and Bruce would see to the drinks; he mixed a
lethal
Sidecar and they would have White Ladies or Manhattans with the food.

‘She’s trying to re-create Lucretia,’ said Deborah, on hearing Mariana planning all this. ‘She’s always doing it and I wish she wouldn’t, because no one ever will re-create Lucretia. You’d think Bruce would get tired of it, wouldn’t you, but he’s nearly as bad as she is. I suppose that’s why they married. Kindred spirits. She’ll be nicknaming people Bunty or Hugo next, and telling Lucy to call her mumsie-darling. Like something out of Somerset Maugham or a Noel Coward play.’

Lucy, who was only eight, would go to bed as usual; her room was at the top of the house, so she would be far enough away from the party not to be disturbed. They would look in on her from time to time, said Mariana, but she would sleep through it all, the lamb.

Everyone was very complimentary about the 1920s theme, saying wasn’t it fun to dress up like this, and imagine playing a Murder game before supper, what a hoot, and it would be just like an Agatha Christie book. And look at this – Mariana had set out little displays of ’20s and ’30s photographs and theatre programmes and things, how clever of her, where on earth had she found all that?

‘Oh, I just ferreted around a bit,’ said Mariana, delightedly. ‘There’s oceans of stuff in the attics, all packed away in trunks, in fact no one’s thrown anything away for the last hundred years; we’re all absolute magpies, you could write a whole family saga from the stuff if you wanted to. Eat your heart out, Mr Galsworthy.’

The game of Secret Murder required everyone to imagine the house to be in the middle of nowhere. There had been a power cut, and it had just been discovered that there was a mad killer among the house-guests…

‘It’s not Agatha Christie at all, it’s a remake of
The Cat and the Canary
,’ said somebody disagreeably and was told to hush.

‘And,’ said Mariana, with mock-severity, ‘you’ll all be given a folded-up card, which will assign you a role at the house-party. There’s a shady lady and a sinister foreigner and a colonel and so on – oh, and a butler, of course. And whoever gets the card marked with a cross is the murderer.’

Bruce, chiming in good-humouredly, explained that everyone’s identity must be kept secret, but the object of the game was for the guests to keep out of the murderer’s reach until the lights came on again. They
could all go anywhere in the house, well, anywhere except Lucy’s bedroom, which was on the little second floor, and the killer had to find as many people as possible in the dark and murder them.

‘How?’ demanded the person who had said this was
The Cat and the Canary
.

‘Well, by tapping the victim on the shoulder and saying “You’re dead”.’

‘How extremely polite and refined. If I get the murderer’s card I’ll do a bit more than tap shoulders, I promise you.’

This was greeted by several, slightly nervous, female giggles.

Bruce was on light-switching duty, said Mariana, and the lights would go off exactly ten minutes after the printed cards had been drawn, and remain off for half an hour. Then they would all gather in the big sitting-room for the interrogation.

Edmund had joined in, agreeing that it was marvellously spooky. A terrific game. He had been enjoying the party; there were one or two younger girls to whom he had been introduced, and everyone was friendly. Just before the lights went out, he heard one of the older female guests asking Mariana who
was
that nice-looking boy, and he paused, pleased to hear himself described as nice-looking and wanting to hear the reply.

‘Oh, that’s Edmund Fane,’ said Mariana. ‘He’s a relation of Deb’s husband. He’s reading law – it’s only his first year, but they say he’s so clever. Yes, he is nice-looking, isn’t he? But he has such a bleak time of it, poor Edmund, with the most frightful father, you wouldn’t believe how
awful – well, yes, it
is
a medical condition, melancholia or something, and we’re all so sorry about it. That’s why I said to Bruce, let’s for goodness’ sake give the poor boy some
fun
for once, prime some of the girls to flirt with him a bit…I said to Bruce, it’s only
kind
…’

The bitch. The all-time, gilt-edged, venom-tongued bitch. Edmund stood very still, the noise and the laughter of the party going on all round him, but coldly and angrily detached from it all. As if a glass panel had come down between him and the guests.

They were sorry for him. Mariana and Bruce Trent were sorry for him because of his father – that was why he had been invited.
‘He has such a bleak time of it, poor Edmund
…
’

He heard, as if from a long distance, an amiable response from Bruce, saying something about it being open house here, everyone welcome, but how about getting on with the game. Nearly time for the murders, ha-ha, hope everyone’s enjoying themselves, let’s have some more drinks before the lights go out, shall we…?

The drinks were duly distributed, and the cards were given out, and the lights went off on schedule. There was a good deal of scuffling and giggling and muffled squeaks as people trod on other people’s feet, and anxious questionings about what on earth one was supposed to
do
for goodness’ sake, and shrill-voiced girls saying, Oh, Henry, wherever are you? and, Do hold my hand.

The darkness seemed to rush at Edmund, and it was a thick smothering darkness, full of hateful whisperings,
‘He has such a bleak time of it, poor Edmund
…’
‘That frightful father
…’
‘Give him a bit of fun for once
…
’

Edmund shivered, despite the well-heated house, and wondered if he would ever get Mariana’s words out of his mind. He could feel them trickling through his brain like acid.

And he had forgotten how alive the darkness inside a house could be, and how it could fill up with sly whisperings and scalding emotions. His father, retreating more and more into a terrible inner darkness of his own, sometimes talked about it, and although nowadays the old man was as near mad as made no difference, lately Edmund had found himself understanding. Once or twice during these holidays, his father had taken to mumbling about his own past, dredging up memories.

Memories. As Edmund crossed the hall, the photographs and the faces that Mariana Trent had thought interesting enough and fun enough for her display swam out of the shadows. Memories. Lucretia von Wolff and those long-ago glittering glamorous years. Mariana loved them; she adored her mother’s legend, and she was always trying to revive it, exactly as Deborah said.

It would teach Mariana a lesson if all those memories were destroyed tonight. If every snippet and every tag-end – all the cuttings and photographs and scrap-books about Lucretia – were to be irretrievably lost, and it would serve the smug bitch right for pitying Edmund,
‘Prime some of the girls to flirt with him a bit
…
I said to Bruce, it’s only kind
…
’

His heart beating furiously, the uncertain light casting his shadow before him, Edmund began to climb the stairs to the attic floor.

Lucy had gone obediently to bed just after eight o’clock and had lain awake listening to the party sounds, which were all mixed up with the sounds of the rain outside.

She liked lying in bed hearing rain pattering down on the windows and the roofs; it made her feel warm and cosy and safe. Mother usually complained if it rained when she was giving a party because she liked people to wander into the garden with their drinks, but tonight she had been pleased about the rain; she said it would add atmosphere to a game they would be playing later on.

The party was being pretty noisy. There was a lot of shrieking and laughing going on. Lucy hoped her father would not sing the extremely rude song he sometimes sang at parties after he had drunk too much and which made everyone helpless with laughter, but which always made Mum say, Oh,
Bruce
, half embarrassed, half laughing with the rest.

But whether Dad sang the song or not, it did not seem as if Lucy was going to be able to sleep through the noise. It did not much matter, because tomorrow was Saturday and not a school day, but she was starting to be very bored with just lying here doing nothing. She might read a bit of her book and hope to fall asleep over it, or she might get out her drawing-book which she could prop up on her knees, and the coloured pencils, or…

Or she might take this really good chance to explore the attics, which was something she absolutely loved, but that Mum and Dad did not really like on account of there not being any electricity in the attics. Lucy might
trip over something in the dark, Mum said, and what about those twisty stairs which she might easily fall down.

But tonight no one would know if she went up there, and so she got out of bed, put on her dressing-gown and slippers, and padded along the landing, careful to be extra-quiet. It might be a bit spooky in the attics at this time of night, but if so she would come back to her bedroom. Lucy went through the little door, remembering to duck her head because of the sagging bit of oak on the other side which smacked you in the forehead if you were not careful, and then she was there.

It was not spooky at all. It was exactly the way it always was: the exciting feeling of stored-away secrets, and the scents of the old timbers and the bits of furniture that long ago had been polished with the kind of polish you did not have nowadays. Lucy loved it. She loved the feeling that there were little pieces of the past scattered around up here, so that if you looked hard enough you might find them – maybe inside the old cupboard that stood in a corner, or locked up in one of the tea-chests, or folded inside the sewing-table with the green silk pouch under the top, or tucked away under the slopy bit of roof at the far end.

Usually she brought her birthday-present torch with her so that she could look at the photographs in the albums, or read bits from the old magazines. Sometimes there were things about her grandmother, which was very intriguing indeed, because there were big mysteries about Lucy’s grandmother. But she had not brought it tonight, so it was very dark and quiet. The rest of the house seemed suddenly to have grown very quiet, as well.
It would have been nice to think this was because she had slipped through one of those magic chinks that take you into other worlds, but it would not be that at all; it would be everyone playing Mother’s game, whatever it was.

Lucy found the oil lamp which they used in power cuts, or if plumbers came up here to do something called lag-the-pipes, and which would give pretty good light. There were matches at the lamp’s base, fastened there with a rubber band – she was not really supposed to use matches but she knew how the oil lamp worked and she would be careful. She struck a match, and set it to the part of the lamp that was called the wick. There was a glass funnel thing that you had to slide down over the flame so that it would not burn anything.

The lamp made splashy yellow puddles of light, which Lucy liked. She set it against one wall, and thought she would see what was stored under the slopy bit of roof at the far end. She was just crawling across to a boxful of old photographs – old photographs were the best things of all up here – when there was a sound from beyond the attic door. Lucy looked round, because it sounded exactly as if someone had come up the twisty stairs, and was creeping very quietly across the tiny landing outside. It might be part of Mum’s game, although Mum had said nobody would come up to the second floor – there was only Lucy’s bedroom there, and the rest of the house was plenty big enough for the guests. They would put a little notice up at the foot of the second-floor stairs saying not to go up there, so Lucy could feel quite safe in going off to sleep as usual.

Probably whoever was out there was just somebody who had not seen the notice. Or perhaps the notice had fallen off. Lucy was not exactly frightened, but this was starting to feel a bit scary. The oil lamp was still burning, but she had closed the attic door, and she thought whoever was out there would not see it.

And then her heart bumped with fear, because the door was being pushed slowly inwards and a shadow had fallen across the dusty floorboards. Lucy could not see who it was; she could only see the shadow, which was huge and oddly-shaped because of the flickering oil lamp. She had thought it would turn out to be Mum or Dad, who had found her room empty and come up to look for her, but neither of them would creep scarily around like this; they would just come inside, calling out to know where she was.