This House is Haunted (29 page)

“I don’t doubt it,” I said.

“And the smell! My dear, it was atrocious. I thought I might pass out. Eventually we reached a cell that had no window but was built of four solid walls and the warden told me to wait outside while he spoke to Santina. This, apparently, was where the soon-to-die were housed during their last twenty-four hours.
Of course I was uncomfortable being left there on my own, but as the women were all safely locked away, it seemed certain that I could come to no harm.

“Still, it was a relief when the warden returned to tell me that Santina had agreed to see me. It was quiet inside, Eliza. That was the first thing I noticed. The walls were thick enough to block out most of the noise from the rest of the prison. Santina was seated behind a table, looking remarkably composed for a woman whose gallows were being tested even then. I sat opposite her and the warden left us alone.

“ ‘It was kind of you to come,’ she said and I tried to smile. She looked as beautiful as I had ever seen her, despite her imprisonment. I don’t mind telling you, Eliza, that I used to grow frustrated with the way that every man paid attention to her, my husband included. But she did not court it, I knew that. She did not tease and flirt as some women would; she simply existed. And she was very beautiful.

“ ‘I thought about it for a long time,’ I told her. ‘But I felt that I should see you, on this day of all days.’

“ ‘You always showed such kindness towards me,’ she said, her voice still tinged as it always was with that Spanish accent of hers. She had learned English perfectly, of course; she was bright, after all, and a quick study. But her accent never left her. I remember staring at her for the longest time, uncertain what to say, and finally breaking down and just asking her why she had done it, what had possessed her to commit such terrible acts, had she been possessed by the devil that night?

“ ‘They were going to steal my children,’ she told me, her expression growing grave as she spoke, her lip curling in anger. ‘And I will not let anyone touch my children. I swore that from the moment I discovered I was carrying Isabella.’

“ ‘Miss Tomlin was nothing more than a governess,’ I protested. ‘A young girl. She was there to help you. To take some of the weight off your shoulders. To instruct them in their historical studies and their sums and their reading. She presented no threat to you.’

“When I said this, when I used the word ‘threat,’ her hands sprang out and they clenched into fists. ‘You don’t know what can happen,’ she said, not even looking at me, ‘if a mother loses sight of her children. What others will do to them.’

“ ‘But no one wanted to hurt them,’ I said. ‘Oh, Santina, no one would have hurt them for the world. James told you that.’

“ ‘He wanted another woman to take care of them.’

“ ‘He didn’t,’ I said, and she stood up, raising her voice now so much that I expected the warden to interrupt us at any moment.

“ ‘No woman will ever take care of my children but me,’ she said. ‘No woman. I will not allow it, do you understand? And after I am gone, Madge Toxley, if you try to make them yours, then you will live to regret it.’

“I remember feeling a great wave of fear as she said this. Of course there would be nothing she could do from the grave, and somebody would need to take care of Isabella and Eustace. After all, they’re still so young. And yet when she said this, I believed that she meant it. Does that make sense, Eliza? And I told myself at that moment that I would not offer to take the children into our house, as Alex and I had already discussed doing. In fact, the knowledge that they were staying with the Raisins was a comfort to me on this count, despite … well, I don’t know if you’ve met Mrs. Raisin but I think it would be fair to say that her husband is a saint. But that aside, I knew they would be well looked after. Of course I wasn’t to know that James would be released from hospital and sent back to
Gaudlin Hall. I was certain, everyone was, that his death was imminent. And then, of course, when he came back here the children followed within hours.”

“Was it a psychosis, do you think?” I asked. “This desperate need to be the only person with control of her children?”

Madge thought about it for a moment and shook her head. “It’s difficult to say,” she replied. “None of us knew very much about her childhood. She may have confided more in James—if she did, then he never shared the confidence with Alex—and after the attacks, he was never able to speak again to tell us more. We never met her family, her parents were dead, she had no brothers or sisters. She brought no friend or confidante with her from Spain when James brought her back here as his wife. It was as if she had no past at all and yet, of course she did, that painful past of which we spoke. I think it affected her mind in a way that only became apparent after the children were born. What I believe, what I
know
, is that she suffered greatly when she was a girl. And became convinced that if she did not take care of the children herself, obsessively, completely, then they would suffer in some similar, indescribable way. There is cruelty in the world, Eliza, you can see that, can’t you? It surrounds us. It breathes on us. We spend our life trying to escape it.”

“You believe that?” I asked, surprised by her bleak outlook on the world.

“I do,” she said. “Quite firmly. I know something of which I speak. When I met Alex … my dear, I was very
fortunate
to meet Alex. It doesn’t matter why. But I know something of cruelty, Eliza Caine. By God, I know something of that.”

Her face turned cold and I said nothing for a long time; I knew better than to question her on her own experiences. I
had always thought myself the most unfortunate of creatures for losing a parent, and an unknown sister, so young, but my childhood had been a happy one, my father had loved me with every fibre of his being and sworn to protect me always. With such love to fall back on, what could I understand of Santina Westerley’s past? Or, for that matter, of Madge Toxley’s?

“The last I saw of her,” continued Madge finally, “was the sight of her marching around her cell, repeating over and over that if any other woman attempted to take care of her children, they would regret it. That she would destroy such a person. The warden was in the cell by then with one of the prison officers and between them they restrained her. No easy task. I left, I didn’t even say goodbye, and ran from the prison in tears. It was terribly upsetting. And an hour later, of course, Santina Westerley was dead. They hanged her.”

“Only she never died,” I said quietly and Madge stared at me, her eyes wide open.

“I beg your pardon,” she said.

“Oh, she died of course,” I replied, correcting myself. “The hangman did his job. Her neck was broken, her spine was cracked. The blood stopped flowing and she ceased to breathe. But what happened to her after that is something else entirely. She is still here, Madge. Here at Gaudlin Hall. This house is haunted by her.”

Madge Toxley stared at me as if I had lost my mind, in much the same way that Reverend Deacons had looked at me earlier in the day.

“My dear, you can’t mean it!”

“Can’t I?”

“But the idea is ludicrous. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“When Santina Westerley was alive, she killed Miss Tomlin and attempted to kill her own husband. When she was dead, she hanged Miss Golding from a tree, she drowned Ann Williams in her bath, she pushed Miss Harkness out in front of a horse and carriage, trampling her underfoot. She did what she could to end the life of Harriet Bennet but that woman got away. And now she means to murder me. She will not allow me to bring up her children, I am quite certain of it. She has tried to kill or injure me in so many ways already. And I don’t believe that she will stop until she has succeeded. Her spirit is locked within these walls, where her children are confined, and while this house stands and woman after woman enters it as governess she will continue to wreak her havoc. But I can never leave, you see,” I continued, a tone of resignation entering my voice. “I cannot do what my predecessor did. And so I stand condemned to death. It will come for me as surely as night follows day.”

Madge looked at me and shook her head. She pulled a handkerchief from her bag and dabbed at her eyes with it. “My dear, I am worried for you,” she said eventually in a quiet voice. “I think you have lost your reason. Do you not realize how preposterous what you say is? Can you not hear yourself?”

“You should go, Madge,” I said, standing up and smoothing down my dress. “And please don’t talk to the children any more if you see them. It can do you no good and might bring great harm upon your head.”

She stood now too and reached for her coat. “I shall speak to Alex,” she said. “We will bring a doctor to you. Perhaps a sedative of some sort. You are still grieving, Eliza, are you not? For your dear father? In your grief, your mind has grown
bewildered, that’s the only explanation, and you are engaged in flights of fantasy. I shall speak to Alex,” she repeated. “He will know what to do.”

I smiled at her and nodded; there was no point arguing with her, she would believe what she chose to believe and disbelieve what she could not accept. Unless she took over as governess to the Westerley children there was simply no possibility that she could comprehend the things that were taking place at Gaudlin Hall. And I would not wish them on another. Let her think that I was mad if she needed to. Let her think that everything could be cured by a restorative or a bottle of medicine or a long recuperation. Let her blame my ideas on the death of my father. None of it mattered. I was governess here. I had assumed responsibility for these children and, in the same way that Father had refused to cede permanent custody of me to my aunts Hermione and Rachel after the death of my mother, in the same way that he had asserted his rights over me and his commitment to my safety and my care, I had done the same for Isabella and Eustace. I would not let them down, no matter the consequences. Santina Westerley had made her intentions clear before her death and it seemed to me that she was a woman of her word. Soon enough, she would come for me again. And this time it was most likely that she would succeed.

I said my goodbyes to Madge at the front door and watched her for a few moments as she made her way down the driveway before closing it again. At first I rested my forehead against the woodwork, wondering what I might do next, but as I turned round, a hand grabbed me by the neck and threw me across the floor. I hit the wall of the hallway with a scream and felt a
body, invisible, rushing towards me. Before it could reach me, however, another presence swept in from my left side and there was a sound like thunder as they collided, one roaring at the other, before both presences disappeared entirely, leaving only one thing, one familiar thing, in their wake.

The scent of cinnamon.

Chapter Twenty-two

A
S DARKNESS FELL
, I believed that there would be no possibility that Santina Westerley’s spirit would ever leave me in peace as long as it was allowed to wander in its half-world between life and death. I could survive any number of attacks, and had, but it was surely only a matter of time before she caught me off my guard and achieved her purpose. Would I see her, I wondered, as I departed this world for the next? Would our paths cross for even a moment, as Harriet Bennet’s and mine had at Thorpe Railway Station six weeks earlier? Or would I simply disappear into nothingness while she lay in wait for her next victim?

I wondered whether my predecessors had fought so hard, whether they had succumbed to fear quickly or risen up against their tormentor. Had they fought back? Had they even realized who they were fighting? I thought it unlikely. But still, there was hope for me, for I was certain that I had something that they did not have: a spirit watching over me.

After the attack in the hallway I lay trembling on the ground for I know not how long. Of course I was frightened, but being able to identify who the presence was and why it resented me
so badly had taken some of the terror out of these encounters. I understood it at least. Now it was merely a question of survival. But that scent of cinnamon that lingered in the hallway had left me startled, emotional and terribly afraid. I thought of Eustace and his encounters with the old man and it became clear to me at last who my benefactor was.

I wept as I lay there, and felt a distress unlike any that I had suffered since first entering Gaudlin Hall. Was it possible that Father, like Santina Westerley, had not yet departed this earth? Could he really be looking out for me in this terrible place? There seemed to be no other explanation and yet it left me heartsore, imagining his pain and loneliness, his inability to communicate with me. What was it he had said to me when I returned from Cornwall as a child, when he had at last come to terms with Mother’s death?
I will always look after you, Eliza. I will keep you safe
. Somehow he had managed to connect with Eustace but not with me. I knew not why. Were the souls of the dead in closer communication with the young? I could endure these riddles no longer. I was left with no choice if I was to prevail; I must provoke the ghost into action. I must end this.

When I recovered my senses, I repaired to the writing table in what had once been Mr. Westerley’s study and, opening some drawers, I located a sheaf of notepaper and envelopes headed with the Gaudlin Hall insignia. Drawing one out, I took a quill from the desk and began to write. When I finished I stood in the centre of the room, speaking to the air with all the oratorical might that I could muster, attempting to equal the confidence of Charles Dickens when he addressed his audience in that hallway off Knightsbridge not so long before. I read the
letter I had written aloud in a clear voice, enunciating every word so there would be no confusion as to my intentions.

Dear Mr. Raisin
[I began]

It is with profound regret that I tender my resignation as governess at Gaudlin Hall
.

I am reluctant to go into details as to why I must leave this place. Suffice to say that circumstances here have become untenable. I do not believe that this is a suitable place for children to be brought up and with this in mind I have decided to take Isabella and Eustace with me to my next destination. Where that is, I cannot say. For reasons I will explain at another time I do not wish to commit the name of that place to a letter. Suffice to say that when we are settled, I will write again
.