Secret Lament (32 page)

She gave me a cool ironic gaze but went off into the hall, thrusting the branch of candles into Hugh’s hands. I ducked into the servants’ stair, tried to listen. Stairs like these
climb in a narrow gap between the walls of the reception rooms. Footsteps echo in these confined spaces; servants know how to deal with this – the intruder probably wouldn’t.

Hugh leant over my shoulder. We heard a clatter. “That’s him!” Hugh exclaimed. “Up or down, d’you reckon?”

“Down – he’d want to get out.”

We clattered down the stairs, the candles flaring wildly in the draught we created. Downstairs (in the cellars perhaps?) doors slammed, footsteps pattered. Light flickered ahead. I took the
remaining steps two at a time, almost cannoning into the man at the cellar door.

Fowler. He had a candle in one hand and a pistol in the other. “He couldn’t have got out this way,” he said, crisply. “The doors are all locked and bolted. He’s
still in the house.”

I swung round, pushed past Hugh. “He must have gone up after all.”

“Why the devil should he do that?”

I didn’t have breath to answer. I raced upwards, trying not to stumble in the uncertain light of the candles. The stair became narrower – how the devil did the servants get round the
corners with scuttles of coal and all their other paraphernalia? Fowler swore as he hit his head on one low beam.

“Damn it,” Hugh said, “He could have got out into any room!”

“How? He has no light, Hugh! How is he to see where the doors are?” The flaring light of our own candles barely showed the close fitting doors; no hint of light shone through from
the rooms beyond. There were not even any handles – just tiny holes to curl a finger into and tug. I plunged on, gasping for breath, feeling the muscles in my legs ache. In any case, if the
intruder had run into a room, then the door would still be swinging. He would hardly have the presence of mind to close it again neatly.

“How far up are we?” Hugh gasped.

Fowler, in the rear, was in a lot better shape that either of us, barely breathing heavily. “He must be heading for the roof. He’s going to kill himself!”

That had all too likely a sound to it.

“Does the stair go to the roof?”

“It must do,” Fowler said. “Heron’s does – that way the workmen can get out on to the slates if they need to.”

He was right. At the top of the stair, I came up to a blank wall, saw a thin line of brightness and grabbed at it. I caught the edge of a door; it swung open on to a roof flooded with moonlight.
A wooden walkway led out across lead guttering. Behind me, Fowler blew out the candles in case the intruder decided to take a pot shot at us.

I took a deep breath and edged out. No one attacked me. I saw only slates and tall chimneys and guttering and a few straggly weeds all bathed in ghostly moonlight. A step or two further and a
breathtaking view opened out before me, across the roofs of the town to the glittering gilded spires of St Nicholas’s Church.

A shadow moved.

I started after him. He was over by one of the chimney stacks, ducking behind it, trying to stretch across from one walkway to another, rather than going the long way round by the parapet of the
roof. But at that moment the moon slid behind a cloud and all was darkness. My foot went down into black shadow, caught the edge of the wooden walkway. My ankle turned over; I crashed down with a
force that took the breath out of me.

Hugh swore – from my prone position, I saw him leap over me, dart for the place where the shadow had been. And in the next instant, the shadow emerged from between two chimney stacks
–

Fowler fired. The shot whistled above my head; Hugh yelped in surprise. I saw the figure stagger. He stumbled then disappeared behind the chimney stack.

Fowler’s hand closed round my arm to help me up. I was cursing inwardly. I didn’t want the fellow dead! Fowler had just done what he thought best but God, the whole thing was a
mess!

Hugh was edging round the chimney stacks, holding on to them by his fingertips. By the time I got there, I saw why – part of the wooden walkway had rotted through and broken away. I
followed him round the stacks, with Fowler close behind me. Round the other side of the chimney, Hugh was staring blankly at the roof beyond.

There was no one there.

One day the meaning of all these trials will be revealed to us.

[Lady Hubert to her eldest daughter, September 1731]

“The other chimney!” I leapt for the next stretch of slates. There was no wooden walkway here and my foot came down hard on the roof. There was an ominous cracking
noise, as of wooden laths breaking under the slates. I jumped for the low parapet that edged the roof, landed on a more secure section of the walkway behind it. The moon slid in and out of the
clouds. Hugh was swearing, Fowler laughing.

There was no one behind the next chimney stack either, but there was a small attic window, and it was yawning wide open.

I grabbed the sill to swing myself inside and felt something warm and sticky under my fingers. “He’s bleeding,” I said to Fowler. “You hit him all right.”

“I never miss,” he said in a matter of fact way. “Except that once, with Heron.”

Hugh climbed through the window behind me, blocking the moonlight briefly. The room was unlit and unoccupied, a lumber room, neatly piled with boxes and trunks. A path led to the open door. We
piled out into a maze of tiny rooms. The servants’ quarters.

Fowler pulled a stump of candle out of a pocket, struck tinder and lit it. His past might be questionable but he was plainly a good man to have beside you in a fight; he seemed prepared for
everything. He lit a second stub from the first and handed it to me.

“Check all the doors,” I told him. “If you find him, don’t put yourself at risk but shepherd him towards the ground floor.”

He nodded, went off to the first door. Hugh and I went down the bare wooden steps to the storey below, shielding the candle flame against draughts. I was wondering where George’s spirit
was; he should have warned us when the intruder reached the roof. Thank God I had not relied on him.

On the banister towards the bottom, I felt the hot stickiness again. “He’s down here all right.”

A figure loomed out of the darkness, the metal of a pistol glinted. The candlelight showed me Esther. Her pale hair had fallen about her shoulders; she was a little out of breath. “Did you
find him?”

I stared down at her. “He came this way. Didn’t you see him?”

She shook her head. “I’ve just got here. I came through the servants’ passageways.”

“The main stair,” I cried. “He must have gone down the main stair!”

We plunged through the darkened rooms. These were not the fine rooms of the lower storeys, but they were neat and pleasant nevertheless, with comfortable chairs and beds, and clean curtains
shining bright in the moonlight. The sort of rooms the governess gets in the more considerate families, or the room the companion lives in.

Brightness blossomed as the moon came out again and shone in through an elegant floor-length window on a half-landing of the main stairs. I went headlong down, jumping two or three steps at a
time. Below I heard raised voices. Was that George? Yes, an excitable boyish treble calling enthusiastically. A shriek. Corelli shouted. Running footsteps. A banging of doors. By the time we got to
the hallway, Corelli was nowhere to be seen but there was uproar at the back of the house. I threw myself at the servants’ door.

Beyond was chaos. Tom was sprawled against a wall, dazed and bleeding. Catherine was shouting from the scullery – I heard Ned’s sharper tones. George was some way off, shouting:
“Here! Here!” Where the devil was Corelli?

“Hugh,” I said, struggling for breath. “Stand by the drawing room door. If he tries to get in there, stop him. Esther – the library door.” I didn’t wait to
see if they obeyed me; I ran on.

A shot. Catherine cried out in alarm. Someone hurtled out of the kitchen and crashed into me. Ned Reynolds. “Butler’s pantry!” he yelled and ran on. I followed him into the
cellars, into the chill and dank corners of the house. George was still shouting. In heaven’s name, could he not say something useful – like – we’re in the scullery! Ahead,
I thought I saw a shadow twist and turn.

We stumbled to a halt. Cellars stretched on either side of us; dusty wine racks to one side, a few barrels of beer, one or two broken pieces of pottery, dented saucepans. Shelves of jams and
preserves.

Ned was heaving for breath. “Damn, damn! He must know the house well to get away so easily!”

“He should do,” I said, cursing myself for not having thought of it before. “He lives here.”

Ned stared at me in astonishment. “One of the servants? I thought there was only one male serv – ”

I was already running back towards the scullery.

At the back door, Catherine was standing with a heavy skillet menacingly raised. She pointed urgently towards the front of the house. I ran on, hearing her call after me. “He was bleeding!
His arm!”

Ned was close behind me again. “I thought my shot missed him.”

“Fowler got him when we were on the roof.”

We headed back to the main part of the house. Corelli was just inside the servants’ door. “He tried to get out the front again – I stopped him and he ran back.”

“Go back to the door,” I said urgently.

He hesitated but went, passing Fowler who had just come to the bottom of the main stair. “Where the devil can he have gone?”

I was looking about. Something was wrong. Something was not as it should be. I heard the murmur of voices in the hallway – Corelli’s voice and Hugh’s. I crunched through the
fragments of the Roman matron who lay shattered in pieces on the floor, and came to an abrupt halt.

The library door was up ahead. Closed and silent.

Where was Esther? Surely she must have come down the stairs when she heard all the shouting…

I pushed gently at the library door. It swung open almost soundlessly. The room was unlit but then the erratic moonlight slid into the long room and showed me two vague figures, across the far
side of the room by the bookshelves and the angular shape of the ladder that gave access to the higher shelves. The light gleamed on Esther’s face and on her hands clutching at the arm of the
man behind her. And on the knife held at her throat.

Hugh appeared behind me, with one of Fowler’s candle stubs. The figures were too far away to be illuminated by the candlelight. I gestured to him to stay back and advanced slowly into the
room, hands held out in front of me to show I had no weapon. The face of the man holding Esther was shadowed, half obscured by her; he was slight and not particularly tall. My attention was on the
man’s hand and the knife – a kitchen knife by the looks of it – that lay across Esther’s throat, but even in my preoccupation I noticed the edge of slight amusement that
curved Esther’s lips. What the devil was there to be amused at? She was as bad as Heron.

I was careful to pitch my voice low and reassuring. “There’s no need to hurt anyone – ”

Esther moved faster than I could see. Seizing the moment when her assailant was slightly distracted, she heaved on the arm she clutched, tugged, shifted her weight. The next moment, her
assailant was falling and the knife was hitting the ground with a clatter. He yelled.

No mistaking that voice.

Matthew Proctor.

Nothing can prepare us for such events; all we can do is go blindly on.

[Lady Hubert to her daughter, October 1731]

He scrambled to his feet – Esther grabbed at him but missed. At the last moment she put out a foot to try and catch his ankle; he stumbled but ran on. Heading for the
drawing room door.

I went after him. As I passed, I dipped to catch up the knife but misjudged the distance in the erratic candlelight and only managed to kick it further away. I left it. With Esther and Hugh
close behind me, I plunged after Proctor.

As I ran through the door into the drawing room, the smell of mildew and decay almost overwhelmed me. I gagged. Hugh swore; Esther drew in a sharp breath.

Proctor fell over; a clatter of small things tumbled to the floor. Then Hugh’s candle cast its dim light. I made out a curtain with the shape of a couch behind it, a large table with bread
covered by a cloth. And Proctor stumbling to his feet again in a tangle of threads and needles and ribbons.

We had stepped through to the other world.

Proctor was heading for the further door, the one out into the hallway, and in this world it was not guarded by Corelli. I yelled to Hugh to cut Proctor off; he pushed the candle stub into
Esther’s hand but tripped over the tumbled work table, managed to right himself. He and Proctor arrived at the door at almost the same time; Hugh flung his weight against it and it slammed
shut.

Silence. The shutters were closed and only a thin band of bright light shone underneath. I glanced around, relieved to see that the girl – Proctor’s daughter, Flora – was not
here. Esther, by the door to the library, was composedly holding the candle stub and looking round with wary interest.

And in the middle of the room stood Proctor, breathing heavily, blood darkening his left sleeve and oozing down over his fingers. He looked about him with little darting glances, at Hugh, at me,
at Esther, backed away towards the window. I held up my hands to try and calm him.

“Proctor,” I said, as soothingly as I could. “We must talk.”

He was watching me with febrile energy, as if he thought me about to pounce on him.

“Where the devil are we?” Hugh demanded.

“In that other world. We’ve stepped through.”

“In my house,” Esther said with a trace of exasperation. She tilted the stub of candle, poured wax on the table edge and stuck the candle to the wood. Hugh sighed and said heavily,
“For heaven’s sake, will someone explain all this?”

“You trapped me,” Proctor said accusingly. Blood dripped from his fingers on to the bare floor. “You told me to come back and try again so you could trap me!”

“Actually, I didn’t,” I said. “I meant something else entirely. I only realised how you might take it when I knew you had attacked Julia.”