by Maynard Sims
"Do you think she'd lie to you?"
Alice shrugged noncommittally. "What's it like living in London?" she said, as she lay back on the bank. "Is it really as grand as it is in books?"
I lay down beside her. "I don't actually live in London, not in the city."
"Oh," she said disappointedly. "I've always dreamed of going there. When the old man was alive he used to tell me stories about it. He lived there for a while when he was young. Some of the yarns he'd spin." She paused for a moment lost in her thoughts. "Don't suppose any of them were true," she said suddenly, and sat up, drawing her knees up to her chin.
"I have been to London, though," I said. "Of course it was only to go to museums and places like that. The Tower of London was interesting, I saw the Crown Jewels there. And armour, and weapons they used in olden days." I pulled my feet from the water and stood. Running to the trees I found a long branch of ash, and tucking this under my arm in the fashion of a lance, galloped back to where Alice sat. I halted a foot or so away from her and made a whinnying sound.
"Sit down you fool," said Alice laughing. "You know, you're not like the others that have been here."
"Do many people visit the house?"
"No, not really. I suppose it's a bit out of the way. I don't know what it was like before I came to work here, but in my time there have been three – two boys and a girl. Funny that, you'd think with your aunt living in such a big house she'd invite families to stay with her, but she doesn't. It's always children, just the children, and always your age, just turned thirteen or thereabouts. I feel sorry for her. Can't be much of a life for her when you think about it."
But I didn't want to think about it. Sitting by the lake I resolved to put all thoughts of my aunt from my mind. This was, after all, my holiday. In a short while it would be over and I would once more be back at school, poring over textbooks, swatting for exams, and generally having a miserable time of it. I was beginning to enjoy Border End. The place had its merits; one of them, and as far as I was concerned the most important, being Alice, with whom, I realised in a gush of adolescent embarrassment, I was infatuated, if not in love.
"You've caught the sun on your face," she said, getting to her feet and slipping on her shoes.
"I burn easily," I lied.
"Let's go to the old mill," she said, pulling me to my feet. "It's not far from here and we can see it before we have to be getting back."
She kept hold of my hand and led me through the trees via an overgrown, obviously rarely used path.
"I remember something I heard at school about St Paul's Cathedral," she said, once more returning to the subject of London. "Have you ever been there?"
I picked my way carefully through a large patch of stinging nettles. "Yes. My parents took me there a couple of years ago. It's very impressive. It was designed by Wren, you know," I said, resorting to my school-learnt knowledge. But Alice wasn't interested in such details, and she interrupted me as I described how Wren planned the rebuilding of the cathedral after the Great Fire.
"About a place in there where two people could sit, and it didn't matter how far apart they were, or even if they couldn't see each other, if one whispered the other could hear."
"It's called the Whispering Gallery. I think it's to do with the shape of the walls, the way they curve. Oh, you should come to London, Alice. There's so much to see."
"I wouldn't know where to begin. I'd be lost before I left the station."
"Not if you had someone to show you around: a guide."
"And I dare say guides come expensive."
"I wouldn't charge you a penny."
"Is that an offer, Jonny?" She had dropped the `Master Jonathan' in deference of our friendship.
"Yes. You could stay at our house. I'm sure Mother would be pleased to meet you; and there's Ellen as well, my sister. She could show you all the really posh shops where royalty and film stars buy their clothes."
"And I could have my hair done in one of those swanky salons." She ran her fingers through her curls. "I can imagine what Miss Tregear would say if I came back all done up like a dog's dinner: `Oh, Alice, you look just like one of Mr Cartwright's fallen women!'" She managed a fair imitation of the housekeeper's voice. "`Run along girl and wipe that muck off your face: tut, tut, lipstick and rouge, really, Alice'."
We both collapsed into fits of uncontrolled giggles. Then, suddenly, she fell silent.
"Alice?" I said, and squeezed her hand.
She gave a toss of her head. "No," she said. "Can't really see myself in London somehow. Might have been different once upon a time but no, not now."
I was about to say something to cheer her out of her sudden gloom, when she let go of my hand and ran off through the ferns.
"Come on, slowcoach. We're almost at the mill. Look, there it is."
I ran to catch her up but before I could reach her she took off again, leaving me and the woods behind, running across a patch of barren land towards the water mill that loomed like a shipwrecked paddle steamer in the distance.
It was obvious from my initial inspection of the mill that it had long been in disuse. The large wooden water wheel was missing several paddles, and in places was rotting. The slatted door that led into the actual mill had been sorely neglected, and its split and weather-beaten palings came away from the frame as I touched them.
"Careful," said Alice, as one of the timbers fell with a clatter to the ground. "Don't want any accidents. Let's go inside, but watch yourself, the floor's not as strong as it could be." I made as if to get through the doorway. "No, not that way. I usually get in round here." She jumped down into the ditch that had once carried the water to the wheel, and ran along the side of the mill. We reached the side of the building and Alice busied herself prising open a window, the panes of which had long since been removed.
"Let me," I said, taking a step forward.
"I can do it," she said, and shot me a glance that told me I'd be foolish to argue. "Done it enough times." She drew in her breath and pitted her strength against that of the unyielding window. "There," she said, as the wood gave a mighty squeal of protest and shot upwards. "Come on then. Give me a leg up."
I intertwined my hands, as acrobats do, and bent so that she could get a foothold. With little effort she was up and through the window. I followed, slower and more deliberate.
It was cool inside the mill, but there was a mustiness in the air: a smell of damp and rot. I pulled a face.
"You get used to it after a while," Alice said, smiling at my discomfort. "It's because it hasn't been used for ages. Sad really, the way they've let it go."
I wondered aloud who was meant by `they'?
"I'm not sure who owns it. I don't know, I always feel a little sad when I come here. There's something about this place; I even felt it when I was small and used to come here with some of the kids from school. I suppose to them it was just a place to come and play, and some of them used to come here, instead of going to school. It's never been like that for me. When I come here I feel...I don't know...as if I belong, do you know what I mean? Have you got a place, y'know a place of your own, where you go when you want to get away from people; a private place?"
"I have my own room at home, but that doesn't really count; Mother sometimes comes in, or Ellen. There's very little privacy."
"Hmm. Come on, I'll show you the mill-wheels, they're about the only things in this place that never seem to change...don't rot or fall apart. When this place is just a heap of rubble they'll still be here, dare say they won't be where they are now, but they'll never be destroyed, not by nature anyway." She walked across to a crumbling wooden staircase and put her foot on the first step, pressing down with all her weight, testing its firmness. Satisfied it would bear her, she stepped up and repeated the procedure with the next. "The stairs are a bit tricky," she said as I joined her. "Got to be careful, you especially, Jonny. Mistress would skin me alive if anything happened to you."
"Don't worry about me
," I said, and took the entire flight in three bounds. Upon reaching the top safely I turned and grinned down at Alice who stood open-mouthed, gaping at me in surprise and annoyance.
"I told you to be careful," she said, as she took the top stair.
"And I told you not to worry about me." I walked across and examined the massive millstones and the muddle of cogs and gears that had once worked them. Alice came over and sat on the stones.
"What did you mean when you said that I wasn't like anyone else you'd had at the house," I said, after a while.
She pushed a curl of hair out of her eyes. "I don't know really," she said. "I suppose it's because none of the others ever spoke much to me. The last one we had down, Simon, I think his name was, proper little snob he was." Once again she turned to mimicry. "`Run me a bath, Alice. Fetch my pyjamas, Alice.' Proper Lord Fauntleroy, if you ask me. Is he related to you? Silly, of course he must be seeing how you've both got the same aunt."
"We may be related but it doesn't necessarily follow that I know him. Our family is very large; there are cousins and second cousins that I have heard about but never set eyes on. It all gets rather confusing. To be honest, I'm not even sure how I'm related to my aunt."
"But that's silly, if she's your aunt..."
"No, you don't understand. I know she's my aunt but I don't really know how she fits into the family tree. Of course she must fit in somewhere, and it must be on my father's side because her name is Walters, but she is far too old to be my father's sister, and as far as I know my grandfather was an only child."
"Well, you've certainly confused me. Why don't you ask someone if it bothers you so much - your father?"
"He's dead." The words took on a horrible starkness as they reverberated around the walls of the old mill.
"Oh," Alice quietly said, and let the matter drop.
In the wall there was an opening about the size of the window below. We stretched out on the millstone and gazed at the surrounding countryside. The day was peaceful, only the occasional call of a bird disturbed the serenity.
"I can see why you like it here," I said after a while. "It's so quiet, you can almost hear the silence. Would you really give all this up to go to London?"
There was no reply. I twisted round to look at her but she was getting to her feet. There was the strangest expression on her face; a mixture of bewilderment and fear, mingling together to create an ashen mask.
"Is there something wrong?" I asked, but she didn't seem to hear. Instead she jumped down from the mill wheel, and ran towards the stairs. She made only two steps down, when the sickening sound of splintering wood rent the air.
"Alice!" I shouted, but my voice was lost in her scream and the creaking and snapping of timber, as the stairs gave out beneath her. There was a dull thud and a groan, followed by a cloud of white dust that swirled upwards and filled the room.
I sat rigid with shock until the disaster registered in my brain, and then I was on my feet running, leaping across the hole in the stairs. When I reached her she was already pulling herself upright. Then she was standing, dusting off her dress with brisk fussy movements of her hand.
"Are you hurt, badly hurt?" was all I could find to say.
"Course not," she snapped, but followed the denial with a grunt of pain as a long piece of wood dislodged itself from the debris and fell against her leg, tearing a gash in her calf. She stared down at the wound and wavered. I caught her as she fell forwards.
I pulled her clear of the mess, and laid her down on the floor, taking off my shirt and rolling it into a ball that I then slipped under her head as a cushion. I dashed from the mill in search of some water with which to bathe her wound and bring her round. Thankfully my search was short, for at the back of the mill was a well, a low circular brick affair complete with winch and bucket. As I turned the handle to lower the bucket I prayed; prayed that the well would not be dry; prayed that Alice would be all right.
My first prayer was answered as the bucket came up filled to the brim with water as clear as crystal - it must have been fed by an underground spring for it to be so fresh - and I carried it back to the mill, careful not to spill a drop of the precious liquid.
Once inside I hunted for a piece of cloth. In the corner of the lower room, on the far side of the wreckage of the stairs, was a pile of old flour sacks. The first two on the top of the pile were infested with lice and these I hurled across the room. They settled on the heap of rubble, sending another cloud of dust eddying upwards. The rest of the sacks, save for the bottom one which showed signs of damp and mould, were dry and clean, at least as clean as I dared hope.
I returned to where Alice was lying and tore one of the sacks into usable pieces. I immersed them in the bucket, then removed one and wrung off the excess water. I formed the cloth into a pad and pressed it against her forehead, all the while imploring her to open her eyes. When after an age had passed there was no improvement in her condition, I took another cloth from the bucket and this time wrung the water out above her face, opening her lips and letting the water trickle through her teeth into her mouth. A thought formed itself in my mind and began to gnaw at me; how on earth were we to explain all this when we eventually returned to Border End?
Alice moaned and opened her eyes. The pad of wet sacking was still pressed against her brow. She brought up her arm and pushed it away, then sat up and looked around at the damage. "Sweet Jesus," she said softly.
"Your leg, it looks bad," I said, half-expecting her to faint once more.
Gingerly she began to feel herself all over, checking for further injuries. Satisfied there were no bones broken, she lay down and stared up at the ceiling.
"Are you sure you're all right?" I asked, and then began to think about how her mood had changed just before she had fallen. "Whatever made you take off like that? It was as if the devil himself was at your heels."
She said nothing but continued to stare upwards. A small tear formed in the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek.
"What is it, Alice? Please, you can tell me, I am your friend."
"I saw them," she said, her voice almost a whisper. "Just standing there, looking up at me."
"Who were? Where?"
"You didn't see them?"
"See who?"
"The children. They were standing by the edge of the wood, beckoning to me. They wanted me to go with them. And I wanted to go, Jonny, I wanted to be with them." The fear returned to her eyes. "She was there too. Your aunt. I couldn't see her, but she was there, in the shadows, telling them what to do. I could feel her there."
I was bemused. "But there was no-one there, Alice. I would have seen them too."
"I know." Her body trembled, then shook with a convulsive sob. "I know, I know, I know. But I saw them, Jonny, I swear. They scared me. Two of them were the boys who were here a couple of years ago."
She sat up and stared into my eyes as if searching for some confirmation. "I don't understand it, Jonny. I don't understand." And she was in my arms, head upon my shoulder crying, her body shaking. Words were useless. I stroked her hair and let her get the shock out of her system.
It was some while before we left the mill. The damage to Alice's leg was not as serious as it had first appeared, and after she had bathed it with a piece of calico torn from her petticoat, and more water from the well it hardly noticed. She tidied her dress as best she could, and shook the dust from her hair. After wiping the dirt from our faces with the cloth she said: "We'd better get back, it's getting late. I'm going to catch it from old Tregear, something shocking."
"But I'll explain," I said.
"There's no explaining to that one, besides she'll tell me off for bringing you here in the first place."
"Then we won't tell her."
"But..."
"There's no need. If she asks how you hurt your leg you can say you tripped over a tree stump or something. Agreed?" She nodded. "Look Alice, about what you saw."
"Let's forget it, eh. I've prob
ably had too much sun."
"But you saw them."
"Please, I'd rather not say any more about it," she said, then crossed to the window and climbed through.
When we reached Border End we were dismayed to find Miss Tregear standing in the doorway, obviously waiting for us. She made a show of studying her watch as we approached, but as we got to the doorway, instead of the tirade we had been expecting she said simply: "Your aunt wishes to see you, Jonathan," and then to Alice: "It is time to prepare dinner." Then she swept into the house leaving us to exchange disbelieving glances on the doorstep. By the time I said goodbye to Alice, and entered the house Miss Tregear was already across the hall and half way up the stairs. She stopped and waited for me, then together we made our way up the rest of the stairs and along the landing to Aunt Madeleine's room.
The housekeeper tapped lightly on the door, and upon receiving a curt, `Enter' from within, turned the handle and opened the door wide. She all but pushed me inside and closed the door behind me, leaving me alone with my aunt.
The room was large and decorous. The furniture was Regency in design but I wasn't to know whether they were genuine antiques or just good reproductions. Several paintings hung from the walls, together with an oval gilt-framed mirror. The dressing table was cluttered with an assortment of bottles and old-fashioned looking blue glass jars containing who-knows-what. But the focal point of the room, the object to which my eyes were drawn, was a large mahogany four-poster, a magnificent testament to the carpenter's skill, resplendent with intricately carved posts, a frilled canopy, and lavishly embroidered silk hangings which were tied back to the posts. It was on this luxuriant bed that Aunt Madeleine reclined majestically, like some fabulously opulent figure out of history.
On closer inspection, however my aunt was not as she first appeared. While her dress was as immaculate as ever, and her hair was neatly pinned, there was about her an aura of sickness. Her face seemed more wrinkled, her eyes, still like pale sapphires, only duller this time, sunken into dark sockets. And not even the make-up that was applied more heavily than before could do much but enhance this emaciation. My first impulse to go to the bed and kiss her was stifled by an apprehension, almost a fear, of her. It was if something had drained the life-force out of her. I hung back by the door and said nothing.
