by Sarah Rayne
She was in a big, square room at the back of the house – it would overlook the lawns and the herb garden. She lay in a wide bed – the jealousy jabbed again, but I had been prepared for this – the covers drawn over her. Her hair was braided for the night. In the flickering light it was like two ropes of polished chestnut. Her eyes were closed, and there was a faint sheen of moisture on her eyelids, and a shaft of such love for her sliced through me; it felt as if something was wrenching my heart in two pieces.
I put out a hand to touch her face – her skin felt like cool satin and her hair was so soft and sensuous . . . But then, between one heartbeat and the next, I knew this was as far as I could go. She was too defenceless, too serene. I felt the madness drain from my heart.
I am not sure how long I stood there, the house silent and still all around me, the light still flickering over the bed, but I think it was quite a long time. Then there was the soft beating of wings beyond the window and the shriek of some small creature in the dark gardens as the owl pounced on its prey. It penetrated my frozen stillness, and I turned to the burning tallow and blew it out. It guttered almost at once, but it left a thin ghost-trail of itself on the air and a thread of evil-smelling smoke.
In the bed, Elizabeth turned her head and opened her eyes.
She saw me at once – I was standing against the partly-curtained window, the light behind me, and she must have seen an anonymous outline that she recognized was not her husband. She started back in the bed, one hand clutching the sheets about her in a gesture of defence – needless, of course, for I would not have hurt her. A door opened and closed below us, and there was the sound of someone coming up the stairs. Elizabeth screamed, and the footsteps quickened at once. I heard William Lee’s voice calling out.
‘Elizabeth? What’s wrong?’
He ran along the landing and burst into the room, and his eyes widened in horror. What he saw must have been as clear as a curse – the dark figure of a man standing in the room, his wife half sitting up in the bed, her hair tousled. I thrust the now-cooling candle and its macabre holder into my coat pocket and prepared to make a bolt for it, although where I would have bolted to, I have no idea. William stood between me and the door, and there was a forty-feet drop from the window, even if I could have got it open.
That was when he shocked me. He said, in a dreadful, sneering voice, ‘So this time you’ve brought your filthy whoring into the house, you cheating bitch.’
He was across the room in two strikes, his hand raised, and I waited for her to flinch, to defend herself verbally and physically. Indeed, I was ready to leap to her defence and be damned to them recognizing me.
But she said – and her sneer matched his and overrode it, ‘If I’m a whore, who made me one! If you could ever raise your manhood above half-mast I mightn’t have looked elsewhere!’
‘A decent woman would know nothing of such things,’ said Lee. ‘You were a slut before I married you – and your father glad to pay me to be rid of you and your whoring! If I had known that at the time—’ He turned to me. ‘As for you, whoever you are, get out of my house, for there is no gratification for your fornication here tonight!’
Through my panic and horror I realized I was standing with my back to the bedroom – in the dark bedroom he could not see my features. I started across the room, keeping my shoulders hunched and my face turned away, hoping I could get to the stair before he saw who I was, praying he would not attack me. But once outside I paused on the landing. My mind was still reeling from what I had heard, but if Lee intended violence towards Elizabeth . . .
I heard him say, ‘Tomorrow, Elizabeth, you will leave this house and go to wherever you choose. You will leave our daughter with me. I will not have her brought up by a trollop.’
‘Did you really think Elvira was your daughter?’ said Elizabeth, and she laughed.
I felt, rather than heard, Lee’s recoil. He said, ‘Oh God, you bitch. But on our wedding night—’ There was a pleading tone in his voice. ‘Elizabeth, surely that night—’
‘Did you count that as a demonstration of manhood?’ she said. ‘Or of fertility? I promise you, William, those few drops you managed to wring out that night would not have spawned anything!’ There was such derision in her voice that I winced.
‘But Elvira— Elvira isn’t my daughter?’ It was half a question, half a sob, and I felt a deep pang of pity for him.
‘Of course she isn’t. An inch of flabby skin that hangs like a turkey’s wattle, and you think it would father a child!’
‘Who—?’
‘Oh, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. The stable boy, the pot boy. Who knows?’
William Lee gave a low cry of pain and fury, and I heard him lunge across the room. Elizabeth screamed with real fear, and I took a step back to the open door. I no longer wanted to shield her from all the world’s evils – in these few moments I had seen the sweet, serene carapace ripped away and glimpsed what was beneath. It was like biting into a ripe juicy apple and feeling your teeth sink into pulpy rottenness. But even so, I could not let William Lee harm her.
I was too late. He had dragged her from the bed, and seized a heavy pewter figure from the washstand. He brought it smashing down on her skull – I saw it crunch against the white skin, and I saw the skin and the bone crumple and blood spatter the bedclothes. She gave a grunting cry and slumped back, her eyes falling open.
Lee’s face contorted with horror and disbelief. He stood there for several minutes, his hands trembling, then he seemed to give himself a shake like a dog emerging from water. Setting down the pewter figure, he took hold of her body by the arms and began to drag it across the floor. I believe in those moments he had forgotten I might still be in the house – I think he had virtually forgotten my existence.
I pressed back into the window alcove, partly hidden by the long curtains, and watched. He dragged her to the head of the stairs, then straightened up briefly, clearly out of breath from the unfamiliar exertion, and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, which was slicked with sweat.
Then taking a deep breath, he tipped his wife’s prone body down the stairs.
She fell in a series of thudding bumps, almost stopping on the half-landing, then sliding down the rest of the way, until she hit the bare oak floorboards in the hall. Blood oozed from her head.
William clapped his hand to his mouth and stumbled back into the bedroom. I heard him retch, then there was the unmistakable sound of him being sick. I was just gathering my resolve to make good my escape – in fact, I had stepped out of the concealment of the alcove – when a door opened at the far end of the landing, in the shorter half of the L-shape. A small figure clad in a long nightgown walked rather timidly towards the stairs.
‘Mama?’ She had a sweet voice, high and clear. Elvira. Her hair was the same colour as her mother’s, but the features might have belonged to anyone. The butcher, the baker, the pot boy . . . ‘Mama, I heard cries . . .’
She saw the tangled figure of her mother lying below, and then she saw me. She stopped dead, as if something had jerked a string. Our eyes met, and for several appalling seconds we stood motionless, staring at one another. Her eyes widened in utter horror, and I saw her mouth open to scream. But before she could do so, I had moved to the stair and I was running down them, slithering and half-falling, saving myself from falling by grabbing the banisters. I reached the foot where Elizabeth lay, and – oh God, the worst yet – my foot skidded in the mess of blood and brains. I gasped, righted myself, and ran to the back of the house, dragging open the scullery door through which I had entered. (Was it unbolted? I can’t remember – I was in no state to see such details.)
I have no recollection of going along Blackberry Lane and along to the village, but clearly I did so because I am back here in my secret room, writing these pages.
A short while ago I went back up to the workshop and stood listening. Did I expect to hear the sounds of a hue and cry coming through the st
reets towards me? If I had to hide from the police, could I do so in the secret library? How long could I remain down there?
But nothing moved, and I went across the cobbled yard to the front of the building. The street was deserted, but, as I stood there, I heard, very faintly, the chimes of St Paul’s. Two o’clock. I came back down the steps to finish this journal entry.
A sensible man would go to bed and try to sleep. But I am not sensible – although I don’t think I am mad any longer. My sanity returned in that bedroom when I heard Elizabeth exulting in her own promiscuity, scorning her husband for his impotency, flinging her daughter’s paternity in the poor wretch’s face. I think that might be when my own madness entered William Lee, for if ever raging insanity glared from a man’s eyes it did so in that moment.
It is now almost three o’clock, and I must at least make the attempt to sleep – and to appear shocked and horrified tomorrow when the news reaches me that Elizabeth Lee of Mallow House has died in a brutal attack.
I find I cannot mourn for her. I can mourn for the creature I thought she was, but I cannot mourn for the sluttish shrew she really was. I can mourn a little for William Lee, though, and for the madness that had him in its grip when he killed her.
But if I am going to mourn for anyone, it will be for the child – Elvira.
18th November
The news of Elizabeth’s death is all over Marston Lacy. I heard it from the dairyman when he left the churn of milk, and again from the postman. Mrs Figgis was voluble on the subject and eager to impart all the information she had gleaned on her way to my house. Most of it was wrong – how I ached to correct her. I did not, of course.
20th November
It’s becoming known, by gradual stages, that the police have questioned William Lee, and that he has said a burglar entered the house and resisted Lee’s attempts to throw him out. His wife came to his assistance, and in the scuffle the intruder lashed out at her, landing a blow which sent her tumbling down the stairs to her death. Lee is known to be distraught at his loss and is seeing no callers.
Everyone in Marston Lacy is quivering with sympathy and a ghoulish curiosity. There is genuine concern for the child. I have concern as well, but I am ashamed to write that alongside the concern is a selfish anxiety. Did she recognize me when we stared at one another on the landing? She cannot have done – as far as I know she has never seen me before.
But if she sees me in the village at any time, will she remember who I am?
21st November
The police have asked everyone in the village if a stranger has been seen in the area. Clearly, they are taking William Lee’s statement of a burglar seriously. I was in the Black Boar last evening, and the four-ale bar was alight with speculation. The village constable, seated morosely in a corner with his notebook and modest glass of cider, made notes of everything that was said, and as the evening wore on it began to seem that three-quarters of Marston Lacy had seen a sinister stranger on the very day of Elizabeth’s murder. A shifty fellow he was, they said, egging each other on. Wall-eyed and low-browed. He shambled through the main street, muttering and cursing to himself, opening and closing his hands as if looking for a victim to throttle. This last was hastily corrected to ‘looking for a victim to push down the stairs’. By closing time, the stranger’s appearance had attained the grotesque proportions of the deformed bell-ringer of Notre Dame and was possessed of much the same attributes and lusts as R.L. Stevenson’s Mr Edward Hyde.
I contributed my own mite by a vague half-memory of having noticed a tall, thin man wearing a trailing coat and worn boots walking through the village at dusk. I did not embellish this thumbnail sketch – I have always found far more notice is taken of a brief, unemphatic statement than of the hyperbole of the ale-flown.
It may be the beer I drank tonight, but I am starting to feel safer. There have been no police enquiries at my door, and I am daring to believe that either Elvira Lee was unable to give the police any useful information – or that her father has not allowed her to be questioned by them.
They have been glimpsed briefly in the area, sad figures in their black clothes, the child holding tightly to Lee’s hand.
23rd November
A difficulty now presents itself. The clock commissioned by William Lee is finished, and I cannot decide what I should do about it. But I am loath to lose 150 gns, and the clock was made to a specific and approved design, so it may be months before I find another buyer for it. The cost of the materials was quite high – rosewood is expensive, and the blue enamel for the face was specially cut.
I have drafted a letter to Lee that is partly-condolence, partly-business . . .
My dear Mr Lee,
Permit me to offer my deepest sympathy on the tragic death of your wife, and to condole with you on the terrible circumstances surrounding it. I had never met Mrs Lee, but had seen her occasionally from a distance and believe her to have been a gracious and lovely lady, well-respected in these parts.
I am in something of a quandary, since the long-case clock you were so kind as to commission from my workshop is now complete – indeed, has been so for some three weeks now. If acceptable, I could arrange for its delivery to Mallow House in the next few days. I would be most grateful if you would let me know if that is a suitable arrangement.
Believe me, sir, your very humble servant,
Very sincerely,
Brooke Crutchley
Master Clockmaker
I have posted the letter and await a reply.
24th November
The reply has come already.
My dear Crutchley
I am in receipt of your letter and thank you for your kind sentiments and condolences.
You will appreciate, I am sure, that in the present circumstances I had forgotten the commission for the clock. However, I am aware you will have expended considerable time and cost in its making, so would be happy if it could be delivered here any time on Thursday. A note of your account will oblige.
Yours etc.,
Wm. Lee
I have decided to accompany the clock when it is taken to Mallow. It’s risky, but it is my custom to do so with all new clocks. On this occasion it will resolve in my mind whether or not Elvira recognizes me. I cannot continue in this dreadful state of unknowing.
I believe I shall destroy those books that set out spells and enchantments. They seem to me to represent a period of my life when I was not sane. Do I believe in them any longer, I wonder? I don’t want to. And yet I cannot forget how the locks clicked open before the Hand of Glory that night, and how both Elizabeth and William seemed to sleep so deeply and only woke when I snuffed the light . . .
TWENTY-SEVEN
26th November
I have spent the night in tumult. I have no idea what to do, but I have finally been able to come down here, and I hope that setting down the events of the last twenty-four hours may serve to calm my mind.
Yesterday the carter arrived at the workshop as arranged, to load the clock on to the dray. We swathed it in dust sheets, and I protected the mechanism with plenty of cotton waste.
Blackberrry Lane was shrouded in autumn mist – wisps clung to the bare branches of the trees, and everywhere was touched with hoar frost. Mallow House, when we reached it, seemed lonely.
William Lee himself admitted us to the house. He looked pale and haggard, but he was courteous and asked that the clock be taken to his library. It was to stand against a wall near the windows.
The carter helped me to carry the clock inside, then took himself off – he had another delivery to make, but offered to call in an hour’s time to take me up and so back to Marston Lacy.
‘I will leave you to your work,’ said Lee. ‘I have a task in the orchard – a tree whose roots have spread to unfruitful soil. My gardener uprooted it yesterday, and it is to be replanted in more wholesome earth.’
One somehow doesn’t associate murderers with homely tasks like replanting trees. From the window
s I watched him walk through the gardens. After a few moments the child joined him. She was wearing a scarlet scarf and a little scarlet hat. The colours were too bright for her – she’s a rather sallow child – but they were vivid and warm against the grey morning.
I gave the shining mahogany of the clock’s casing a final polishing – it had picked up a few fragments of straw in the cart. Then I opened the door to set the mechanism going. It started at once, sweetly and smoothly, the measured tick making a pleasant, slightly soporific sound in the quiet room. I waited to make sure the hands moved round correctly. Once I would have imagined how she would have looked at the clock many times during the day, seeing the minutes and hours pass, seeing how the secondary face showed the months.
I put the cloths and beeswax away and left out a small phial of thin oil for occasional use within the mechanism. I always do that with a new clock. Then I went to the window.
There they were, at the bottom of the gardens – I could just make out the scarlet of Elvira’s scarf and cap through the trees. My heart began to bump, for this was to be the test. I was resolved to walk down to the orchard and tell William Lee his clock was in place and working satisfactorily. I would smile at the child and see what happened.
It was not easy to go along the gravel paths, between the smooth lawns and the herb garden in its enclosure of box. Even on a day like this there was a faint drift of rosemary and thyme and mint, and the acrid tang of the box.
The orchard was only just about worthy of the name. There were four or five trees – mainly pear and plum, but I could see the apple tree to which Lee had referred. It lay on the ground, its branches like burned bones.
They had not heard my approach, and I paused in the shadow of some shrubbery, trying to summon up the resolve to go forward.
