We were all quiet after this extraordinary speech. I could not read Mr. Gellis’ expression to see what he made of it. Who had seen the conversation yesterday morning, and gossiped around town about it? The innkeeper, or his family, perhaps? I turned to look at Mr. Ryder in his corner. His eyebrows were slightly elevated and he tilted his head. He was evidently seeing something in Mr. Gellis’ face that I was not able to see.
I turned back. Mrs. Clare looked only at Mr. Gellis, as if she had decided there was no one else in the room. She had recognized Mr. Gellis as of her own class of gentry, based on his acquaintance with the richest couple in town, and the concept seemed almost a relief to her; though, of course, she had had to make certain he understood that her own status was based on quality, and not on something as vulgar as money. Mr. Ryder and I, possessing neither, were not worthy of notice.
“Ah, well,” said Mr. Gellis. “My acquaintance with Mrs. Barry is from years ago, I’m afraid, and I know her husband not at all.”
“They’re not seen much, as I said. The house was empty for years until he inherited it, and they only lived there a few years after they married. They went to London and came back after the Armistice. The women here have tried to feel some sympathy for her, not having any children, but she hasn’t been very receptive. As for him, money is about all the good anyone can say for him. No one even knows what his father did.”
Mr. Gellis rubbed his temple, bemused and perhaps a little embarrassed. “Well,” he said.
But, having had her say on this topic, Mrs. Clare had turned to me. “You,” she said, her eyes piercing me. “You did not come to me yesterday. I told you to come to me after you’d been to the barn.”
I reddened. “I apologize. I hardly knew where I was going. I was rather agitated.”
Mrs. Clare nodded in a sort of resignation, and the Barrys were forgotten. “So she did show herself, then. We suspected so. We could hear things. What, exactly, did she do?”
“There were several aspects of the manifestation.” Mr. Gellis took over, back on his favorite topic. I was actually grateful, as I wasn’t sure I could go through all of it again. “Sounds. An attempt, we think, to speak. She interfered with our recording equipment.”
“Maddy can be mischievous,” Mrs. Clare said.
“So it seems. But I am particularly interested in one aspect. Has Maddy ever created a sort of hallucination before?”
Mrs. Clare looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“She seems to have created a nearly perfect illusion in Miss Piper’s mind that the barn was on fire. Miss Piper was convinced of it, and accordingly terrified. Has she ever done anything like that before?”
Mrs. Clare’s gaze turned to me, and she thought for a long moment. “How extraordinary,” she said. “No. No, she has never done it to me, or to Mrs. Macready as far as I am aware. How did she do such a thing to you?”
“Perhaps Miss Piper is somewhat sensitive,” Mr. Gellis offered. Of course. I had a soft shell.
But Mrs. Clare was frowning. “I am more concerned with the illusion itself,” she said. “It’s strange. Does it mean Maddy plans to burn down the barn? If she wanted to, she could have done so a thousand times already. Or was she simply playing games?” She looked worried. “I do hope Maddy is not going to burn down the barn.”
“I will help you get to the bottom of this,” said Mr. Gellis smoothly. “As promised. Let’s start the interview, so I can get a better picture of Maddy herself.”
And so we started. Mrs. Macready came in the afternoon, and though she contributed a good many details Mrs. Clare hadn’t known or offered, she did not say anything that contradicted any of Mrs. Clare’s facts. Both women were clear speakers, firm, and rarely emotional. Over the course of the day, a picture began to form of Maddy and her history—far from complete, and far from conclusive, but as detailed as we were likely to get with such a complicated subject.
The story went something like this. As Mrs. Clare had told us, Maddy had appeared one rainy night on the Clares’ doorstep, weakly knocking at the door. She was filthy, bedraggled, soaking, and barely clothed; she could speak only in low, hoarse cries of distress. Mr. Clare, the local magistrate, had still been alive then, though very ill, and he had given permission for the strange girl to be taken in, at least until they could deliver her home.
It was obvious something was terribly wrong with the girl, but it was Mrs. Macready who explained, as she had been the one to give the girl a hot bath. The stray girl had bruises everywhere on her body—up and down her arms, about her throat, and, most tellingly, on her breasts, legs, and thighs. When probed for details, Mrs. Macready admitted that the bruises had been fresh and pink. There was blood dried into the remains of the girl’s dress, blood in her hair. She had not wanted to be touched. It was impossible to ask her what had happened to her, or where, or by whom, as she would not speak.
They had given her dry clothes and food, and in the subsequent days the Clares had begun to make inquiries in all the surrounding towns, asking about any girl who had gone missing. The girl did not seem genteel; they guessed she was perhaps a servant. It was impossible to tell how long she had been walking barefoot through the woods, or from how far away she had come. She still would not speak. Mr. Clare sent inquiries to his fellow magistrates farther and farther afield.
Though she did not talk, the girl was not mentally deficient. She understood what was said to her, and watched all that went on around her with a sort of wild intelligence. Mrs. Macready, especially, felt that the girl was as normal as any other, underneath her terrible distress. She took the girl under her wing and gently put her to work under the servants’ stairs, peeling a few potatoes at first, or washing a few pots. “It helped to keep her busy, I thought,” said Mrs. Macready. “She seemed a little calmer somehow, though she were never truly calm. I didn’t give her much that was hard. She could take an hour to slice a few apples, and I wouldn’t mind. I did it mostly to keep her near, to keep her company, like.”
It was here that Mr. Gellis asked Mrs. Macready to describe Maddy. Mrs. Clare had given the same description: young, perhaps about twelve; pale, with long, ink-dark hair. Her eyes had been gray. Mr. Clare had thought she was Irish, an idea both women instantly adopted and still believed.
The strange girl had been afraid in Mr. Clare’s presence; she had shied uneasily away from him, and would not look at him. But it was as nothing compared with the unreasoning terror she had shown when the milkman came by, or the gardener. Indeed, when any man, of any kind, came to the house, the girl would disappear, to be found later, crouching in her room with the door locked, again mute.
For by this time, she had slowly begun to speak. She said her name was Maddy, though she wouldn’t, perhaps couldn’t, give a surname. Eventually, the Clares had given her their own name, and she came to be known as Maddy Clare. Mrs. Clare shrugged at the strangeness of the idea. “She would only say one word when we asked her name,” she said. “Maddy. What were we supposed to do?”
After a time, it came to seem normal to have Maddy in the house. Their inquiries had come to nothing. No one wanted the girl, and she had nowhere to go. There was talk at first about her, and speculation around town; she was the object of a little gossip, especially as she never left the house, even to attend church with the other servants. But the Clares’ class and reputation were sterling, and the talk died down when the next topic came along.
Maddy still spoke only rarely, and could still be terrified into days of mute silence. Still, she worked steadily, as if she felt the debt she owed to the kind family who had taken her in. All would have been quiet, except for Maddy’s rages.
The rages, according to both women, were infrequent—perhaps once yearly. And they were truly terrible. In a rage, Maddy would rip her clothes to shreds; she would break furniture and crockery; in one of them, she had gone to the back kitchen garden and torn up every plant there, demolishing each plant even unto pieces, until her hands bled. Mrs. Clar
e had made her repair the damage for that one, and replant every plant in the garden. Her rage past, Maddy had done it with eerie calm.
“What would set her off?” Mr. Gellis asked.
Mrs. Clare took a long time, rubbing her fingertips tiredly on her forehead. “I don’t know. As God is my witness, I don’t know. The first was after Mr. Clare died—we thought it had to do with that, but then it happened again, and—I just don’t know. I never crossed Maddy, Mr. Gellis. I was never unkind to her. I never punished her or disciplined her. I pitied her too deeply for that. There was never anything I could think of to make her so enraged.”
“Nothing,” Mrs. Macready said more succinctly to the same question. “Nothing at all, sir. Maddy didn’t need anything. She just wasn’t right in the head, that’s all. She’d go off, and it was terrifying, I don’t mind telling you. Mrs. Clare would tie herself up over it, but I never did. I loved Maddy like a daughter, in my way, but sir, she was a little bit mad. Mrs. Clare don’t like to hear it, but it’s the truth.”
And so, though Maddy lived in the Clare household for seven years, she remained essentially a mystery to those who knew her. Who she was; where she had come from; what had happened to her; what enraged her so; whether she was sane or not; what her deepest feelings, thoughts, or questions were—even Mrs. Clare and Mrs. Macready, who mothered her as much as she would let them, never knew.
And after seven years, on a day when Mrs. Clare went to an acquaintance’s for tea and Mrs. Macready went to the market for a few fresh pieces of fish for supper, Maddy went to the barn, took a rope that was used for the horses, and hanged herself from the rafters. She left only a badly scrawled note, placed on the floor beneath her dangling feet. Each word of the note was set on its own line. The note read:
By their estimate, Maddy Clare was nineteen years old. They had not known she could write.
Mrs. Clare looked out the window as she told this; she was the picture of a woman keeping her emotions only barely in check, her face a mask of despair, the words forced out one at a time, like an automaton. Her eyes were dry.
There was a long moment of silence. I felt sick to my stomach, but I did not look up from my shorthand. Mr. Ryder was still and silent in his corner.
“I did not know there was a note,” Mr. Gellis said softly.
“No one knows there was a note, Mr. Gellis,” said Mrs. Clare, “except myself and Mrs. Macready. We put it away when we found it—found her. The magistrate did not even see it.”
“What did it mean?”
Mrs. Clare shook her head. “I don’t know. Once again, Mr. Gellis, when it comes to Maddy, I simply don’t know.”
Again, Mrs. Macready had a simpler answer to the question of the note. “You’re looking literal, like,” she chided. “Trust me. I knew Maddy, and I’ve thought about this. The note didn’t mean nothing except that Maddy was in hell. She was in hell when we found her, and she stayed in hell, though we tried our best. God knows what she thought was true when she wrote that note. She was in hell—that’s the only truth that matters.”
The haunting had started within weeks. They knew it was Maddy, of course; if anyone would rest uneasy, it would be she. They tried everything to put her at peace—séances, Ouija boards, attempts to commune with her, to tell her to move on. Nothing worked. Then they had called in Mr. Pelham, the vicar, and Maddy had flown into something that resembled her mad rages when she lived. She had remained terrified of men until the day she died.
It was as the interview concluded that Mrs. Clare asked Mr. Gellis what he intended his next steps to be. Mr. Gellis closed his notebook and put down his pen. “My assistant, Miss Piper, will go to the barn again tomorrow. It seems to me that Maddy has found Miss Piper to be rather receptive; this time Miss Piper will try to gather more information, and communicate directly with Maddy if that’s possible. Is that agreeable to you?”
Mrs. Clare nodded, then looked at me. I sat frozen, my fingers aching as they clutched my motionless pen. I was trying to breathe.
Mr. Gellis also turned to me. He was all business. “Can you do it, Miss Piper?”
The back of my neck was frozen cold. “Yes,” I said.
They turned away, and I risked a glance at Mr. Ryder. His eyes were on me, his expression unreadable. Then, like the others, he turned away.
Chapter Nine
We rose early again the next morning. Now the day dawned differently, the sky clear and blue, the breeze warm and promising spring and, soon, early summer. The wet mist of the previous day had dissipated.
I looked out the window at the top of the stairs for the man at the edge of the trees, but he was not there.
I found both Mr. Gellis and Mr. Ryder in the common room, drinking coffee. I poured a cup for myself and joined them. I felt strangely disembodied today, nearly giddy, in a way that was almost frightening. I should be terrified of Maddy Clare and the barn. I should be solemn after the recitation of Maddy’s tragic story—indeed, I had felt grief for her late into the night, until I fell asleep. I should be again wary of the two men who sat at a table in the common room now, looking, mostly, at me.
I did not feel any of these things—or if I did, I was only vaguely aware of them. Mostly, I felt a sort of readiness.
We drank our cups in silence.
Mr. Gellis spoke at last. “Miss Piper, do you think you are capable of going in there this morning?”
I put down my cup. “Yes, Mr. Gellis.”
“You remember the words?”
He had given me suggestions of what to say to Maddy’s ghost, should she appear—a set of lines, much like a theater script. I had everything committed to memory. “Yes.”
“The recorder isn’t fixed yet,” Mr. Gellis continued. “There will be no camera this time either. I rely on you to take accurate mental notes. We’ll need to debrief you the minute you get out of there, so please try to stay collected. Do you think you can do that?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Very good.”
I stood and took my empty cup to the sideboard. I stood there for a long moment, with my back to both men. I had not looked at Mr. Ryder, and likely he had not looked at me, but I was so painfully aware of his presence that my equilibrium was beginning to crack. Just the knowledge of him in the room made the knot of longing in my stomach unbearable.
“Mr. Ryder—” I began.
“For God’s sake.” His voice was low and rough. I could not remember the last time I had heard him speak. “My name is Matthew.”
I turned and looked at him, surprised. He was scowling at me with his dark eyes that missed nothing. He pointed at Mr. Gellis. “And that is Alistair. If he won’t put a stop to this Mr. Gellis nonsense, then I’ll do it myself. It stops here.”
Mr. Gellis frowned for a moment, then shrugged. “It doesn’t seem a bad idea, I suppose. And we’ll call you—” He cocked his head at me. “What is your first name, Miss Piper?”
It took a moment to realize that neither of them would ever have heard my name. “Sarah,” I said.
Mr. Gellis—Alistair—suddenly smiled at me, one of his sweet, lopsided smiles. “Lovely. Now, Sarah, we have to go. Are you ready?”
I smiled back at him, relieved to see his charming side. “Certainly.”
“Very well.” He stood, and came toward me. To my surprise, he took me gently by the shoulders and looked into my eyes. “I know I can be rather distracted at times,” he said sincerely. “I don’t suppose I’m as kind as I could be. I warned you when we met, I’m not much used to female company, so I must apologize for my boorishness.”
“Oh,” I said, helpless.
“You have done very well, you know. You did well your first day in the barn, and yesterday with the interviews. Very well indeed. I wanted you to know that.”
I was blushing now. “Oh. Well.”
“You’re brave to go again. Most girls would have been running straight back to London by now.” He gave me another smile, and as I felt rather warmly
toward him, I returned it. To my shock, he pulled me gently to him and gave me a hug—a chaste one, to be certain, but still a hug. His arms came around me and his hands pressed my back, as I felt myself flush down the front of him and I turned my cheek to rest briefly on his collarbone. He smelled of tangy cologne and clean wool. My arms were pinned under his, so I did not have the chance to raise them and hug him back. Before I could respond, he had let me go.
I was blushing furiously—a fact that I knew well would be misinterpreted by both men. I looked at Mr. Ryder—Matthew—but his face was a careful blank, and he simply sipped his coffee. Alistair was looking kindly at me. I blushed harder. Alistair was terribly handsome, a fact I had known from the first moment I saw him. Handsome, and smart, and easy to be around. But my crush of the first few days had been exactly that—a temporary crush. As much as I liked Alistair, the physical closeness of the hug had only brought home the fact that I felt nothing more than amiable friendship for him. It was Matthew who kept me awake at night, whose image I saw constantly in my daydreams. But to blush at Alistair’s hug meant I must be smitten with him, and both men would think it so.
I did not know what to do about Matthew thinking I had feelings for Alistair. Perhaps he simply didn’t care. It was too difficult to untangle, and too embarrassing to contemplate. Besides, I could not think of it right now. Maddy Clare awaited me in the barn, and today I had something to say to her.
The barn was again silent when I went inside. Mrs. Clare did indeed leave the barn locked, as Alistair had said; with more of my senses about me this time, I noted that she—or Mrs. Macready—would come to the barn, unlock it, and go away again before my arrival. Neither Mrs. Clare nor Mrs. Macready ever went inside anymore.
The Haunting of Maddy Clare Page 7
