by Nancy Holder
The carriage rolled to a stop and a manservant approached and greeted Thomas deferentially, bobbing his head to Edith. He was arthritic and quite old, his eyes milky, and his homespun clothes were even more threadbare than Thomas’s dark blue suit.
“Hello, Finlay. How have you been keeping?” Thomas asked him warmly.
“Never better, Sir Thomas. I knew it was you a mile off.”
“Finlay, this is my wife.”
“I know, I know, milord. You’ve been married a while,” the man—Finlay—replied. Then he went round the carriage to fetch the luggage.
Poor thing, Edith thought. His mind is giving out.
Thomas handed her out of the carriage. Together they walked toward the front steps of the house she was now mistress of. Thomas opened his mouth to say something, but at the same moment, a cute little dog scurried around the carriage and yipped in ecstasy at the sight of them.
Edith cried, “And who is this? You never told me about him! Or is it a she?”
“I had no idea,” Thomas murmured.
Edith bent to examine the bouncy creature. She could feel its delicate bones beneath its icy, matted coat. “It has a collar. Is it a stray, do you think?”
“Impossible,” he said, wrinkling his forehead. “There’s no other house for miles and the town is half a day’s walk away.”
“Well, the poor thing is in a terrible state. Can I keep it? It looks famished.”
“As you wish,” he said indulgently. “Now, Your Ladyship, may I have the honor?”
With a flourish, he picked her up and carried her over the threshold of their home. They both burst into happy giggles. Married. And home at last from their honeymoon—if one could properly call it a honeymoon. They had not shared the marriage bed as yet. She was so grateful that Thomas had respected her mourning—and yet, she was ready to be a proper wife to him.
In all respects.
He set her down just inside the foyer, and as he slowly took off his top hat she was reminded of a magician drawing back the curtain of a magic trick. She had her first glimpse of the interior of the great house. There was a huge foyer, paneled in dark wood, and above it three stories of lacy balconies and Italianate galleries, profusions of finials, and Gothic arches decorated with quatrefoils. Portraits of centuries of Sharpe ancestors in gilded frames compounded Edith’s impression that she was standing in the ghost of Allerdale Hall, a memory of lost vibrancy, that the actual house was gone. Yet there seemed to be a birdcage elevator of moderate size, able to hold perhaps three people—a single note of modernity—and it reminded her of Thomas’s ingenious mining machine. This place would live again, and it would come into the present. She would see to that.
“Lucille!” Thomas called, his voice practically echoing. “Lucille! Lucille!”
The little dog barked a delighted chorus. Snowflakes drifted from the holes in the ceiling, soundless and melancholy. Edith found herself thinking of the rose petals she had scattered over her father’s casket—their skin-like texture and dying scent—and shivered.
She said over her shoulder, “I think it’s colder inside than outside.”
“It is an utter disgrace,” Thomas responded. “We try to maintain the house as best we can, but with the cold and the rain and the mines right below… it’s almost impossible to stop the damp and erosion.”
Indeed, there was evidence of damage everywhere, rust and mold and streaks and pools of red clay. Her father could have set all to rights with his engineering expertise, of that she was certain; she spared a moment for another, deeper pang of grief, felt it as palpably as if it were creeping up her body, then set it aside for her dear new husband’s sake.
“How many rooms are there?” she asked him.
He blinked, surprised. “Why? I don’t really know.” Then he grinned at her, and there was the charm that had won her over so quickly. “Would you like to count them?”
She laughed. “Oh, I will. But how can you sustain this house, just you and Lucille?”
Mr. Finlay entered with some of her trunks. “Take it upstairs, young master?” he asked. She smiled at the old man’s slip in speaking to Thomas as if he were still a child, his affection for Thomas evident. Edith’s father had always told her that if you wanted to measure the character of a man, then watch how he dealt with his servants. Thomas treated Finlay quite civilly, and there was a real bond between them. That pleased her deeply.
“Yes, Finlay, please.” Thomas brushed Edith’s lips with a kiss and returned his full attention to her. “It is a privilege we were born into and one we can never relinquish. But we manage, darling, somehow. My workshop’s in the attic. I can’t wait to show you.”
He turned with a “wait-for-me” air and disappeared into the gloom. To locate his sister, she supposed. It was uncanny how, with a few quick steps, he seemed to vanish. How the house appeared to swallow him up. Despite her book of engravings, she hadn’t realized just how enormous it was. It could contain several Cushing Manors and a few copies of the McMichael home as well. She didn’t understand Thomas’s slavish devotion to it, but he came from an old family in a country steeped in tradition, custom, and duty. She couldn’t imagine enduring a life in this house for any other reason than love. And love would keep her here.
With Finlay upstairs and Thomas off to find his sister, she was ostensibly alone in the large, cold room. Except for the cute little dog, of course. The pup had grown so quiet that she had almost forgotten it was there. Now, as she looked at it, she realized that its tail was curled fearfully between its legs. Slightly uneasy, Edith drew her coat more closely around herself. The dog continued to cower, and she looked around, trying to see what it saw. But there was nothing. What was it frightened of?
As if in answer, the wind slammed the front door shut with a boom. She jumped. The dog hunched lower.
With the door closed, the great hall descended deeper into darkness, and she lost sight of many of the architectural details. It was enormous, and it dawned on her that one could look down from above without being seen. What that signified, she had no idea, and she tried to shake off her presentiment of doom. She was very tired, and this was the final destination of the day’s long, cold trip. This was her home now.
So she took off her hat and gloves, settling in, then spotted a large mirror, where she checked her hair. She wanted to look presentable for Lucille, whom she barely knew. Because Lucille had already left for England on that terrible day when Edith’s father had died, she had missed the wedding.
Her hair looked fine; Edith recalled the day she had gone to see Mr. Ogilvie with ink smudges on her fingertips and forehead. So much had happened since then, but the one constant was that she was still working on her novel. She had packed plenty of paper and the exquisite gold pen her father had given her; aside from the garnet ring Thomas had placed on her finger when he had proposed, the pen was her most cherished possession.
The dog was still cowering and as she looked down at the poor mite, she heard a strange, soft buzzing. She glanced down at a tray by the mirror to find, to her astonishment, a handful of dying flies. She frowned; it was so odd and unexpected. She couldn’t imagine how they had ended up inside the frigid house, nor why they were dying at this precise moment. She studied them and scanned the shadows for evidence of food or perhaps a dead animal.
Then the little dog trotted back into the room, startling Edith, who hadn’t even noticed that it had left. The house was freakish in the way it absorbed sound.
The pup was carrying a bright red rubber ball in its mouth and trotted up, wagging its tail as an invitation to its new friend to play fetch.
“You? Where on earth did you find that?” she asked it. She could not imagine any reason for there to be such a dog-sized ball in the fabulous ruin.
The dog persisted. She was about to stretch out her hand when in the mirror, she spotted the dark shape of a woman on the far side of the room. At last Thomas’s sister had emerged. Edith felt a little flutter of n
erves. They were strangers who now were family.
She raised a hand, but the figure stayed well away from her, so cloaked in the shadows that Edith couldn’t really make out her appearance. She seemed to be moving strangely… or perhaps that was due to one of Lucille’s tightly corseted Victorian gowns, which constricted movement. Edith far preferred the more modern full skirts and mutton-sleeved blouses of the New Woman, which coincided with her image of herself as a lady novelist.
“Lucille?” she said by way of greeting.
The lady moved away, and Edith was perplexed. Should she follow after her? Was there some reason Lucille was not speaking to her? And—dear Lord, was she smoking? The light caught some sort of trail wafting behind the woman in a strange way, faint strands that appeared to be glowing as they floated upward. She simply could not imagine such a refined lady as Lucille Sharpe puffing away on a cigarette.
“Excuse me,” Edith called, walking toward her. It was not Lucille; she could tell that much. For one thing, her height was wrong.
Ignoring Edith, the stranger entered the elevator cage. The mechanism hummed to life and the elevator ascended as Edith hurried over to it and peered upward. Too late; all she saw was the bottom of the cab.
Then Thomas walked back in, and Edith waved her hand at the lift just as it stopped at the top of the house. Or at least so she assumed. The machinery had stopped humming, but she wasn’t certain that the elevator door had opened yet.
“A woman, Thomas, in the elevator,” she told him.
He raised a brow. “You mean Lucille?”
“No, no, Thomas, it wasn’t Lucille,” she insisted.
“That contraption seems to have a mind of its own,” Thomas said, almost fondly. “The wiring gets affected by the dampness in the house. It connects to the clay pits, you see. Promise me you’ll be very careful when using it, and never, ever go below this level. The mines are very unstable.”
She wanted to make it clear that there had been a woman in the elevator. It hadn’t just “decided” to go up.
As she opened her mouth, the little dog started barking and bounded toward the foyer. The door opened and Lucille walked in, wrapped in gloves and heavy woolens, and her eyes widened when she saw the dog.
“What is this thing doing here?” she asked curtly. “I thought that you—”
“Dear Lucille,” Thomas broke in happily. “It’s so good to see you!”
As he went to embrace her, she threw off her cape, preventing him. Then she regarded Edith with a cool eye.
“I see you made it, Edith,” she said, which was a rather strange thing to say. “How was London?”
“A blur. A dream,” Edith said, putting aside her concerns about the woman. Perhaps Lucille had engaged someone from the village to prepare the house for their homecoming. And truly, London had been a dream. Despite her father’s wealth and position, she had not traveled much. She and Thomas had seen many of the sights that had been in her book about England, just as depicted, and Thomas had seemed so happy revealing his country to her.
Thomas said happily, “We went to the Albert Hall, Lucille. A concert. So grand. So wonderful.”
Indeed, they had listened to a Chopin program, and Thomas had remarked that Lucille would have loved it. He had spoken often of his sister during their excursions, and Edith had been touched by his devotion to her. It had reminded her of Alan and Eunice, and she had felt a pang of homesickness. She occasionally caught herself talking about her father, and would cut herself short because she did not want Thomas to think she wasn’t happy. But Thomas had encouraged her to talk about him, reminding her that she was still grieving.
Lucille bristled a little. “I see. Well I went to the post office. Your machine parts are here from Birmingham. Two heavy crates. You’ll need Finlay to fetch them.” She spoke stiffly, clearly a bit jealous of their fine time. But one went on a honeymoon with one’s bride, not one’s sister. Surely Lucille understood that. Perhaps they could take a trip together, the two Sharpe sisters-in-law, while Thomas worked on his machine. It would be difficult to be parted from Thomas for even a few days, however.
Lucille cocked her head. “Edith? Is there something the matter with you?”
Thomas looked at Edith too. His warm glow dimmed a bit. “Give us a moment,” he told Lucille. “She’s a little shaken.”
Lucille hung up her winter things. “Goodness. Why is that?”
He shrugged. “She saw something. A shadow, a reflection. It frightened her.”
Lucille favored her with a condescending smile. “A shadow? Oh, darling, all that lives in this house are shadows and reflections and creaks and groans. So you’d better soothe that boundless imagination of yours from now on.”
Edith considered. She was tired and Allerdale Hall was filled with “shadows and reflections and creaks and groans.” After all, she had imagined that the woman had been having a cigarette, yet she smelled no smoke.
And as she turned her head, she caught her own reflection in another mirror, and she had to admit that despite presentable hair, she looked a sight: pallid complexion, dark circles beneath her eyes. She barely recognized herself.
She determined not to pursue it, at least not when they had just arrived home and she needed to create a bond with her new sister-in-law. However, the house was much more unsettling than she had expected, and she would have to rein in her imagination.
“I need a proper welcome, that is all,” she declared, embracing Lucille. “From this day forward, the house will contain nothing but friendship and love and warmth.”
From Lucille’s posture, Edith could tell that her new sister-in-law was looking over Edith’s shoulder at Thomas. Smiling at him, she hoped. Letting him know that she was pleased by Edith’s overture.
“Warmth would be an excellent start,” Lucille said. “Thomas, your bride is frozen.”
Lucille unhooked the key ring from her waist and turned to go. She seemed harried and a bit tired.
Thomas smiled at Edith. “I’ll take you upstairs, my darling. Start a fire at once. You can run a hot bath. You’ll need to let the water run. The pipes will carry some red clay at first but then the water will clear.”
Abashed that Lucille should perform housekeeping tasks while she bathed, Edith thought to reject the bath in favor of assisting her. But truthfully she was frozen, and so exhausted that she would be of no use to anyone. She vowed that she would lift the weight from Lucille’s shoulders, or, at the least, take on her fair share. She herself was not used to performing work customarily given to servants, but she was game to learn, and did know how to run a house.
“Lucille, whenever it’s convenient, may I have a copy of the house keys, please?”
“You don’t need one,” Lucille said quickly. Then, in a more measured tone, she added, “For now. There are parts of the house that are unsafe. It will take a few days for you to familiarize yourself. Then, should you still feel that you need them, I’ll have copies made.”
Edith let herself be satisfied with that answer, but she made a pledge to herself to be useful to Lucille. The other woman had carried the burden of maintaining this enormous house for too long, and it was clear to Edith that the house was winning.
We shall turn that tide together, she vowed.
Then she followed her bridegroom toward the lift, anticipating a nice hot bath and then, perhaps then… the bridal chamber.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WATCHED.
The bride was in the bathroom, standing in her chemise and corset as she turned on the taps. Steam spilled from the faucet and the first few sputters were red as blood.
“Oh, God,” she cried.
There is no God here, it thought. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
The recalcitrant heaters on both sides of the tub began to knock, the pipes vibrating like a death rattle, then growing louder, a horrible sound. Rude and demanding. Then the water ran clear and hot. Not everything was ruined and decaying. Not yet, anyway.
She removed her eyeglasses and placed them in the basin. She climbed into the tub. Quite a dainty thing. Blond hair, a distinction. American. A novelty.
Above her glasses, in the mirror, a handprint bloomed.
Busy tonight, then, inspecting the bride. What was she like?
* * *
Belowstairs, in the scullery, it made another observation:
“What is this?” the sister asked. Her voice was clenched with worry, a tinge of panic. “What is she playing at?”
“I have no idea,” the brother replied, graduating the flame in the copper heater. Ah ha: caring for the comfort of the innocent in the tub. Making sure her bath was hot, and the water for her tea as well. Laying the traps. These two, these dark two. How it loved them. Wind them up—
“The dog.” The sister was agitated. There were beads of perspiration on her forehead. “You said you’d killed the dog.”
His face tensed. Was it with apology, or excuse? “I left it on its own,” he confessed. “I thought…”
“How has that thing survived? All this time?” she wondered aloud. “On scraps, I suppose. As we all do.”
Then his face softened, and the love he bore his sister came through. “We won’t have to do that anymore.” His voice held promise, certainty.
“Won’t we?” She scowled. “The money is not here, is it?”
“Not yet, but soon.”
She stomped to the stove and readied a kettle of boiling water. Then she selected a red tin of tea and poured the water through the leaves into the pot. Next she inspected the cups and rejected the one with a chip in it, placing perfect cup and saucer together. The tea service was cloisonné, a family heirloom. Beautiful. There were so few treasures left.
