The Tutor (9 page)

Sometimes Tom drew landscapes, evocative depictions that placed one right

inside the scene. Other times he drew animals so lifelike, one felt if he touched the paper, he would feel fur. Occasionally he painted or drew the Hall or the boys, and those were always dark and foreboding works, with black washes of ink or paint suggesting awful things hidden in the shadows.

One evening I rested my hand on his shoulder and studied his drawing. It was of

Tom standing behind Clive and Whit as though keeping watch over them.

“What is it, Tom? What haunts this place?” I whispered.

He looked up at me, his eyes brighter and more intelligent than I’d ever guessed

they could be under that sloping brow. His big jaw worked as if he wanted to say

something but fought to hold it back. Forehead creasing in a frown, he shook his head before emitting one word. “Evil.”

It was all I could get out of him, and it was only enough to make me more anxious

and concerned. Were my two young charges in any real danger? Surely not from some

incorporeal entity, but perhaps from something or someone else.

By the end of my second week of teaching, I was so suspicious and so desperate

for adult companionship, I came close to searching out Smithers to talk to, but I knew a quest for conversation with him would be futile.

I went down to the servants’ hall at dinner one day, intent on meeting the rest of the invisible staff, only to find that I’d already encountered them all. The long table, which once must’ve held more than a dozen staff members, now seated only Smithers, Growler, Cook, Tom, Molly the maid, and the unnamed scullery maid. They all stared at me with the welcoming manner of shipwreck survivors assessing a stranger who threatened their food supply.

“Good evening. Although it seems I’ve met most of you, I thought I’d formally

introduce myself. I’m Graham Cowrie. I’ve looked forward to meeting you all, but it seems our paths would never cross unless I made the effort.” I babbled nervously and smiled too widely.

Smithers gestured me to a chair, and the cook’s helper jumped up to get a table

setting for me. She set the plate and cutlery in front of me while seemingly trying not to get too close. Did she think I’d grab her and eat her for dinner?

It was all too strange, and the rest of my meal with the staff didn’t get any better. I tried several conversational gambits that were met with desultory answers or silence.

Eating in silence is
not
conducive to good digestion, despite what vow-taking monks might claim. Uncomfortable and awkward were only two of the adjectives I could apply to the situation. The rest were curses unfit to write down.

At last, since things could get no worse, I bluntly brought up what had bothered

me since I arrived at this weird place. “This seems a small number to tend such a large house.”

Molly and the scullery maid exchanged a look but seemed afraid to speak lest

they earn the housekeeper’s disapproval.

Mrs. Growler, she of the Amazonian stature and disposition, refolded her napkin.

“Sir Richard is often away and never entertains. Our staff is sufficient to care for the portion of the house in use.”

I pictured the many shut-up rooms with furniture shrouded in sheets. “What about

when Mrs. Allinson was alive? Did the family entertain then? Was there more activity?”

Molly gasped audibly, as if I’d cursed aloud. The girl had information. I was

determined I’d get her alone some time and wheedle it out of her.

“That is not your concern,” Smithers repeated his favorite refrain. “I suggest, Mr.

Cowrie, you focus on the duties you’ve been hired to do and spend less time questioning how things are run here.”

The part of me that still relived the days when Roger Dwyer had bullied me and

would no longer put up with being cowed took over use of my voice. I knew I’d probably get no answers to any of my questions, but I was agitated from two weeks of isolation, so I blurted some of them anyway.

“I live here now, Mr. Smithers. I believe I have the right to understand how things are done. For instance, does anyone work in the stable other than the coachman who picked me up at the station? Who does the laundry? Molly, here? Does the store in the village deliver supplies? And is the master of the house currently in residence or traveling again?” This was like tossing a stone into thick, brackish water where it caused no ripples. I expected no response.

Mrs. Growler gave me the gimlet eye but, surprisingly, answered. “A

washerwoman from the village collects the laundry once a week. Day maids are

occasionally hired as needed. Perishables are delivered directly by local farmers. Other items come by train from the city and are delivered from the village. Sir Richard is currently at home and busy running the estate.” Her sharp gaze filleted me better than Cook had done the fish on my plate. “Are all of your questions answered, Mr. Cowrie?”

“Yes. I, um… That explains some things.” Of course I hadn’t dared to ask my

biggest question of all—what had happened to Mrs. Allinson that the mere mention of her name caused Molly to gasp? Were mysterious circumstances surrounding her death merely a figment of my overactive imagination, or had something occurred?

I limped through the rest of that meal, hobbled by Mrs. Growler’s chastening

tongue, then beat a retreat back up to my own domain. The schoolroom and my bedroom were beginning to feel like a little safe island in a turbulent sea. I spent the evening playing cards with the boys, and, for the rest of that week, I awaited my first day off with the eagerness of a child anticipating Christmas.

When the morning finally arrived, I barely said good-bye to the twins before

breaking free of the manor house and hurrying to the stable. I’d chatted with Mr. Drover a few days before, and he’d promised to take me to the village as he was set to pick up a few things. I was glad, because the long walk would’ve taken up most of my precious morning.

As the wagon creaked over the rutted road, I was reminded how very isolated the

Allinson estate was. “Mr. Drover, can you tell me a little about the estate’s history and such?”

“The house been there many a year,” he offered.

I waited, but apparently Drover was as taciturn as every other person in the

vicinity. Maybe it was a trait of northerners.

“When did the Allinsons first come to own it?”

“Ahh…” More silence followed. “It’s belonged to the family many a year. The

land was bestowed by some king, to the best of my recollection.”

“Has the family lost its fortune? It seems the place is understaffed, and the

building is…quite worn.” A crumbling monstrosity was closer to the truth.

His shaggy brows drew into a ponderous frown, and he slowly shook his head.

“No. I don’t believe so. The farms and mill never done better. Prosperous years around here, these past few.”

So where did the money go? Was Sir Richard a gambler who lost his fortune at

gaming tables in the city? I didn’t see him as the type. For one thing, it would’ve required him being rather social, and he seemed to prefer solitude. Perhaps his neglect of the house, like that of his children, was simply because he couldn’t be bothered. He was in a deep depression, suffering the loss of his wife, so he allowed everything to fall apart.

There I was again, pondering Allinson’s motives, making excuses for him,

thinking
about him as I did far too much of my time.

“Do you work alone in the stable? No boy to help muck out the stalls or groom

the horses?” I turned my questioning to Drover.

“Nope. There be only a few animals to care for. I manage all right. The man

before me left suddenly. I hired in temporary and ended up staying.” He paused a

moment as if exhausted from saying so much. “Quiet, just me an’ the horses. Suits me.”

“I imagine.” I settled back on the swaying bench for the rest of the ride to town.

Quiet was fine for some—for pretty much everyone who lived at Allinson Hall,

apparently. But I was used to a little noise. When I entered the local pub, I inhaled the stench of sweat and sour ale, and blissfully absorbed the chatter and laughter of men enjoying a few hours off work. Although it was only midmorning, big burly farming types took up several of the tables, lifting their glasses and spinning their tales. Even though their northern dialect was as thick as the wool on the sheep most of them raised, this felt like coming home.

Nearly every head in the place turned toward me. Strangers must be rare beasts in

these parts. I lifted my hand in greeting and dove into the silence. “Hello. I’m Graham Cowrie, tutor to the Allinson twins.”

Blank stares. I didn’t think I could stand any more silent walls between me and

my fellow human beings. “A round for the house on me,” I called to the barkeep.

Immediate smiles and cheers erupted. More than one way to win new friends, I

thought, as a man at the nearest table motioned me to an empty chair.

After filling in the blanks about who I supposedly was, answering the country

folks’ questions about life in the big city, and drinking a pint of stout so thick it could stand alone without a glass, I finally began to nibble away at my new friends’ store of knowledge.

In an attempt to be accepted into their circle, I’d modified my accent from

“gentleman fallen on hard times” to “lower-class just like you” minus the East End slang I’d grown up using.

“Strange lot up at the big house,” I began. “Been there nigh on three weeks, and I still feel like a bad cold everyone wishes would go away.”

A murmur of ayes and some chuckles greeted my comment.

George Trent, a farmer who’d delivered a load of hay to the livery stable and was

delaying returning home to a mountain of chores, clicked his tongue against his overly large teeth. “Surprised you lasted this long.” He bent over the table and lowered his voice. “You
see
anything up there?”

I straightened, my haziness from the overly strong ale evaporating at his words.

“See what?”

“You know.
Anything?
” he repeated.

Simple as that, key to a lock, I’d opened a secret cupboard, and gossip spilled out.

“My gal Betty used to be a maid there. Came home after a week, sayin’ she’d do

millwork rather than go back,” a towheaded man named Mortimer shared. “At first I

thought maybe Allinson had tried it on with her or summat, but she said it weren’t nothin’ like that. Said she felt scared all the time, like something ’as watchin’ her.

Stalkin’ her like.”

“Aye. My Brian said the same,” chimed in another man whose name I couldn’t

remember. “He were a footman for near a year. Polishing the silver one day when he said a coldness come over him. Seemed all the light was sucked from the room, and he sat in darkness, only the darkness were
inside
him. He could hardly breathe. Leaped up from the table and left the silver where it lay. He never went back.”

I blinked. This was much more dramatic than what I’d expected to hear. Of

course, stories had a way of being embellished. This certainly went a long way toward explaining the short staff. No one from the village wanted to work at the Hall after hearing such rumors.

“I can’t say I’ve experienced anything quite like that,” I said. “From what I’ve

seen, it’s nothin’ more than an old house with lots of shadows and creaky wood floors. I wonder, do any of you know anything about Mrs. Allinson’s death?”

Glances shot back and forth across the table before George finally spoke. “They

say
she died of a sudden fever. That’s what was told us. Gone the same night she fell ill.”

“But you doubt that?”

Big shoulders shrugged. “All I know’s my first wife, Bess, God rest her soul, had

pneumonia, and it went on for days before she passed. I never heard of a fever could take someone just that quick.”

“No one but the Allinson family at the funeral, Sir Richard and the boys, the vicar said. No chance for local folks to pay respect to the lady, and no out-of-town guests arriving.” Mortimer shook his shaggy blond head. “’Twas very odd.”

“Aye. Indeed. ’Twas.” The others supported him.

I took a sip of the second glass of ale someone had set before me. “What was

Lavinia Allinson like?”

“A kind lady. Did her part visiting the sick and organizing the May festival and

such.” Mortimer paused. “Or she did when she first came here. No one saw her much

toward the end, even at the church. Mayhap she was already sick with whatever took her.”

“Sick indeed,” George scoffed.

“What do
you
think happened to her?” I asked outright.

“I couldn’t say. That lot up at the house is closemouthed, shut tight like a widow’s pocketbook, but those who’ve worked up there for a time and aren’t so high and mighty about telling tales—”

“Like my Betty,” Mortimer added.

“Like Betty,” George agreed, “said Mrs. Allinson seemed a real unhappy lady,

weeping as she walked in the garden, pale as the belly of a garden slug. Wouldn’t come out of her room some days, or she’d go up in the tallest tower and stand looking out the window for hours.”

The man whose name I’d forgotten nearly bounced on his chair with excitement.

“Our Brian said the same. The day he left, he looked back and saw the missus peering out the tower window. Or
something
was peering,” he added in a ghoulish whisper.

The barkeep, a stocky man in an apron, had drifted over to join in on the

conversation and fill the glasses. “Ghost stories and rubbish! As the young man says, it’s just an old house with creaking floors and falling bits of masonry. Poor Mrs. Allinson was a woman suffering the moodiness all women are prone to from time to time. She was used to the city and likely had a hard time living a quiet country life.”

“So she died of sadness?” George scoffed.