The Silence (26 page)
Authors: Sarah Rayne
‘We’ll always have Shropshire – no, it hasn’t got quite the right ring, has it? Are you going to read this aloud or am I, or are we going to read it silently together?’
‘Silently together, I think, don’t you?’
‘Because we’ll each have a different perception of what he might have sounded like?’
‘Something like that.’
The pages were headed: COMPOSITION BY ESMOND WEST, AGED 9, AT STILTER HOUSE, CAUDLE MOORE, DERBYSHIRE.
Beneath this were the words, MY FAMILY.
MY FAMILY
Mr Bundy says people in schools have to write compositions about their families, so I am to do the same as my holiday task.
My family is my father who is called Ralph West. We live in a house with Mrs Hatfull the cook, and a parlourmaid. We have a lot of parlourmaids – not altogether, but one at a time, because most of them go away soon after they come, so we have to have a new one.
I don’t have a mother because she died two years ago. Her name was Julia and my father says she was very beautiful and I must look at her photograph every day so I can always remember her. I do what he says, but even if I look at the photograph ten times a day, I don’t really remember very much. The one thing I do remember is the day she died.
Michael and Nell looked at one another.
‘The day she died,’ said Nell, softly. ‘Is this it? Are we going to find out what happened to Ralph’s wife? Because if so—’
‘You aren’t sure whether you want to know.’
‘Not if Ralph killed her, no. Because that would mean Brad – and Beth – have an ancestor who was a murderer.’
‘I think you’ll have to read it,’ said Michael. ‘Otherwise you’ll constantly wonder. But Nell, darling, most people have a bad ancestor or two. If this was a story about a swashbuckling pirate in the 1700s, you’d probably even be enjoying it.’
‘Swashbuckling pirates can be rather sexy,’ said Nell.
‘I’ll buy a sword and a parrot tomorrow.’
‘No need. You’re sexy enough already.’
‘Am I?’ said Michael, astonished.
‘It’s my view that most of the female students in Oriel think so.’
‘We’ll go into that later,’ said Michael, rather disconcerted. ‘For the moment, concentrate on the wicked ancestor at Stilter House.’
My father tells people my mother died after a short illness, but I know she was ill for a long time. She lay on a sofa in our house and had shawls and cushions and medicine, and everyone had to be quiet so as not to give her a headache.
There was a silver tray in her room for all her pills, but the tray was kept behind a screen so no one could see it, because my mother said medicines were ugly. The screen was called tapestry, and it had lots of wool embroidery stuff, blue and green, in swirly patterns all over.
I hated the screen. I had to visit mamma’s room each evening after my supper and before grown-up dinner, which mamma and papa had in the dining room if mamma was well enough. Sometimes she had a tray. In mamma’s room I had to sit on a chair and tell her about my day and my lessons.
Again Michael and Nell paused.
‘The tapestry with the eyes,’ said Nell. ‘That’s what Esmond drew for Minching.’
‘Yes. He said the eyes told him he must never speak. So there was a tapestry,’ said Michael.
‘And there could have been someone hiding behind it the day Julia died.’
‘Yes. And,’ said Michael, thoughtfully, ‘Esmond could apparently talk quite normally then. “I had to tell mamma about my day,” he says.’
Mamma listened to what I told her, but she liked to talk more about her pains, which were sometimes in her head and sometimes in other places. Sometimes she had an attack of the vapours. I don’t know what vapours are, but mamma often had them. I never knew what to say when she talked about vapours and pains, so I used to look at the tapestry and imagine I could see faces there, and that there were people living inside the swirly blue and green world. The person who made the tapestry had not meant to put faces in, but I saw them anyway. There was a man with a droopy moustache, and a lady with a huge hat with birds on it, and a thin little man with a long pointy nose like Jack Frost. Sometimes I found new faces – new people. Mostly I liked them and I could make up stories about how they had found their way to the tapestry world, or how they had gone on an adventure to get there because there was a legend about it being a beautiful place to live.
One of the faces frightened me, though. It was where there were two little slits – tears in the tapestry halfway up – which were supposed to be mended, but never were. They made slanting eyes, those slits, like you see in drawings of the devil, and there was a curly bit of crimson embroidery under them, which looked like a beard or the top of a pitchfork. I thought it might really be the devil, hiding inside the tapestry, peering out at the world. On Sundays the vicar tells everyone about the devil being in the world, and how he listens and watches in case he hears somebody do something bad, which means he can carry that person off to hell. You have to behave and be good all the time so the devil can’t catch you. If that’s true, the devil might have thought the tapestry world was a very good place for him to hide and keep watch.
Mamma had a visitor the day she died. It seemed to be a secret, because when I went to her room, as I was opening the door there was a scuffly sound. Mamma did not make scuffly sounds, so I knew someone must be with her, but I went in anyway.
This is what I saw. I’m supposed never, never, to tell about it, and I won’t. But I want to write it down, even though I shan’t let Mr Bundy see what I’ve written. I shall write another composition to show him, and I shall hide this, and one day I might be brave enough to let someone – someone grown-up – read it.
‘Next page,’ said Michael, turning over the fragile paper with infinite care. Esmond had used both sides of each of the sheets.
‘Something he saw in the room,’ said Nell. ‘Michael, was it Ralph he saw? Ralph killing her? Was it Ralph who told him he must never speak of it?’
‘But Ralph took him to that doctor to see if the mutism could be helped, remember?’
‘Yes, but Ralph wrote about wanting to keep Esmond in silence,’ said Nell, reaching for the second page of Esmond’s composition.
The faces in the screen were not watching me when I went into the room that day, not like they usually do. They were watching mamma. And the screen was wobbling as if somebody had just bumped into it. It wouldn’t be mamma, for mamma did not bump into things, and she was lying on the sofa as she always did. The screen was in a different place – nearer to the sofa – as if being bumped had moved it a bit.
I sat down and asked how mamma was today, which I always had to do, and mamma said she was a little tired and perhaps I should go up to my room or into the garden and come back later. I got up, but she leaned forward and grasped my hand very tightly.
‘Esmond,’ said mamma, in a funny, harsh whisper. ‘Esmond, find papa and tell him—’
Then she let go of my hand and her whole body jerked. Her face twisted as if she had a really terrible pain, and her back arched as if something had punched her from behind. Her eyes went all stare-y and bulgy, and she fell back against the cushions. Blood started to dribble out of her mouth – it was dark blood, nearly black.
I said, ‘Is it the pain, mamma?’ but she just went on staring at me, not speaking. I started to feel sick and my legs were so wobbly I didn’t know if I could run to find papa.
The screen shivered, and mamma fell over to one side, and that was when I saw something was sticking out of her neck, just beneath where her hair was scooped up. A long narrow spear, like a huge splinter. Only this wasn’t a bit of wood like you get from a tree or a rosebush; this was a thin steel needle and it glinted in the gaslight, coppery and crimson, exactly as you would imagine the devil’s spear to glint. Blood came out all round it, soaking down into mamma’s dress and into the silk cushions. It must be hurting her dreadfully. I leaned over and tried to pull it out, like you do with a splinter, but it was stuck in mamma’s neck, and when I pulled harder more blood came out and went on my hands and the cuffs of my shirt.
That was when I saw that there really were eyes looking out through the devil’s face in the screen – living, moving eyes that were watching me. It was the devil. He was watching me from inside the tapestry world.
And then – this is the bad bad part – the devil spoke. He had a horrid thick whispery voice, and he said, ‘Esmond.’ He knew my name. He knew who I was.
‘Esmond,’ said the whispery voice, ‘you know who I am, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, sir.’ I had no idea what you called the devil, but sir was what you called grown-ups, so I thought that might be all right.
‘Esmond, you must never speak of this – of what you have seen in this room. You must make a solemn promise. Never speak. If you do, something terrible will happen to you. You understand me, Esmond? Never speak or something terrible will happen.’
I said, ‘Yes, sir, I promise.’
Then I ran out of the room, and papa was coming along the hall and I ran straight into him. I was shaking and sobbing, and he’s a good, kind man, my papa for all he sometimes pretends to be so strict. He bent down and took my hands, and his hands were warm and comforting, but I still could not stop shaking. He said, ‘Esmond? It’s all right. I’m here. What is it? Is it mamma?’
Never speak . . . I nodded, and he kept hold of my hands and together we went into mamma’s room.
Mamma was still lying where she had fallen, and she was still staring straight ahead. I stayed by the door while papa bent over her, hoping he would be able to pull the dreadful glinting splinter out of her neck and make her well again, but not daring to tell him it was there. The devil was no longer watching from the tapestry world, but he might still be able to see and hear. He would know if I spoke after I had made that promise not to.
I looked round the room, and I saw him dart past the big side window that looked over the gardens. He paused and stared straight at me, and put a finger to his lips. Never speak, Esmond . . . I nodded so he would know I meant to keep my promise.
Papa had seen the spear. He grasped it and pulled hard, and there was a terrible sucking sound, which made me feel sick again. As it came out, mamma seemed to become boneless and to collapse. There was more blood as well. Papa’s shoulders shook as if he might be crying. I didn’t know until then that grown-ups cry.
He stroked his hand over mamma’s face and when he took it away mamma had closed her eyes as if she was only asleep. That was easier to look at than the staring eyes.
Papa said, very quietly, ‘Julia, my poorest love.’ Then he looked back at me, and he looked at my hands which had blood all over them, and he knelt down in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders and looked at me very seriously.
‘Esmond,’ he said. ‘You must do exactly what I tell you and you will be perfectly safe. I will make sure that you are safe. You must never speak of this, not ever. Not if you live to be a hundred. Do you understand that?’
I managed to nod.
‘Never speak,’ said papa, in the same solemn serious voice. ‘Never speak.
Nell was crying when Michael laid down the final page.
‘Oh Michael,’ she said, leaning into his shoulder, wanting the warmth and the comfort of him. ‘That poor frightened little boy.’
‘And all that imagination he had,’ said Michael, pulling her against him. ‘Seeing a world inside the tapestry, imagining people travelling there because it was a beautiful place.’
‘It all fits,’ said Nell. ‘Ralph thought Esmond had killed Julia. Goodness knows what he thought Esmond’s motive was – perhaps he thought Esmond was trying to help his mother’s headaches in some way – but he was determined that Esmond wouldn’t be punished for it. I suppose the authorities – doctor, police – would put it down to an unknown intruder.’
‘And then he left his house in Derby and retired from his company, and brought Esmond to live in an out-of-the-way place to protect him.’
‘Why did he pick Caudle, I wonder?’ said Nell.
‘Because he knew about it through his wife’s family, I should think,’ said Michael. ‘The Susskinds, remember? I told you about the police reports. Isobel and Julia both had the same maiden name.’
‘Yes, of course. So Ralph might have felt a connection to Caudle – as if it was a family place. He might even have thought the place brought him nearer to Julia.’
‘It was more than just Caudle,’ said Michael. ‘He took considerable trouble to buy the actual land where Isobel Acton,
née
Susskind, had lived.’
‘Yes, and it sounded as if he helped track down the owner of the land, as well. That could argue some family knowledge,’ said Nell. ‘She looked back at the pages. ‘So Ralph told Esmond never to speak of his mother’s death,’ she said. ‘And Esmond’s frightened little mind interpreted that as never speaking at all. And coming minutes after the massive shock of seeing his mother die – and of hearing that other voice . . .’
‘Who was that?’ said Michael, his brows drawn down in a frown. ‘For pity’s sake, who was it hiding behind that grisly screen?’
‘Julia West’s murderer.’
‘Yes, but who was it? And what actually killed Julia? Nell, my dear love, don’t cry, I know it’s harrowing, but try to remember it was a long time ago. Focus on the practicalities if you can. The who and the how. Start with the how. That spear thing – what could it have been?’
Nell had found a box of tissues and was mopping up her tears, but she thought they might return if she dwelled too much on Esmond West’s fear and his heartbreaking obedience.
Never speak.
But she forced herself to consider Michael’s words.
‘It could have been something the murderer brought with him.’
‘That makes it premeditated,’ said Michael. ‘But it doesn’t sound like that, does it?’
‘No. So it would have to be something already there.’
‘What, though? What would have been in a lady’s sitting-room in those days? Knitting needle?’
‘I shouldn’t think it would be a knitting needle,’ said Nell. ‘I don’t think someone in Julia West’s stratum of society would have knitted. She’d probably have embroidered or done crochet work. Actually, there is tapestry crochet – I’ve seen it in museums. That’s a thought. It could have been a crochet hook – one of the tapestry ones. They’re a bit like a heavy-duty darning needle.’
