Sleep, Pale Sister

by Joanne Harris

  Before long I was carrying a dozen or so small packages along with the precious parcel; in my enthusiasm I had bought more presents than I had ever bought before—and among them was a small package I intended for Marta: a beautiful ruby pendant which glowed and pulsed like a heart. My last purchase was a fifteen-foot Christmas tree which I arranged to have delivered and, with a sense of perilous satisfaction, I began to make my way back to Cromwell Square.

  It was then that I saw her: a small slim figure in a dark cloak, the hood pulled so that it partly covered her face. I glimpsed her long enough to see a white hand clutching the wool, and streamers of her pale hair stark in the shadow of an alley…then she was gone.

  In an instant all my carefully built pretence was down, folding as completely as a house of cards. I struggled with the insane desire to run after her and tear the hood from her face. But that was ridiculous. Ridiculous even to think she might be Effie; ridiculous to imagine Effie with the mud of the grave still clinging to her skirts and that look of terrible hunger in her eyes…

  In spite of myself I found my own eyes darting furtively down the alley where the girl had disappeared. It wouldn’t do any harm to look, I told myself, just to see…The alley was narrow, the cobbles greasy with melted snow and weeks of accumulated rubbish. A thin brown tabby cat was nosing in the gutter after a dead bird, and the girl was gone. Of course she had gone, I told myself angrily. Did I expect her to wait for me? There were houses in the alley, shops for her to enter; this was no Gothic revenant to torment me.

  And yet, I was cold, so cold…and as I turned resolutely from the alley into the lights and sounds of Oxford Street I could have sworn that all the doors in that lonely alley were boarded shut; yes, and all the windows too.

  55

  I awoke to the sound of bells: great clanging, discordant bells which rolled across my dreams, forcing them into sharp, brutal recollection. Outside the club the street was white; the air white. In the distance I could see a small group of people struggling through the haze towards the church. I rang for coffee and, ignoring the maid’s cheery ‘merry Christmas’, I drank it and found that, as the warmth coursed through my veins, I could begin to face the previous night’s events with my usual detachment. Don’t think I wasn’t rattled; the night had taken its toll in dreams and uneasy imaginings, but they were only dreams.

  That’s the difference, you see, between me and Henry Chester. He turned his terrors upon himself like hungry demons; I see my own for what they are, fictions of a restless night—and still somehow they duped me, as neatly as we duped poor Henry…But it isn’t in me to be bitter: a gambler has to know how to lose with grace—I just wonder how they did it.

  I dressed in my clothes of the previous night and began to consider my next move. God knew what Effie had told Fanny by now; last night I hadn’t been able to guess whether she even understood that I had abandoned her. But Fanny would know; and Fanny could make a great deal of trouble if she set her mind to it.

  Yes, Fanny was the woman to see before I even thought of paying my visit to Henry.

  So I pulled on my overcoat and made my way on foot to Crook Street. My head cleared as I walked—the air was sharp and tinselly and pungent with the scents of pine and spices—and by the time I arrived at Fanny’s door I was ready to confront her with the most dangerous hand of bluff I had ever played.

  I knocked for minutes on the door and received no answer. I was beginning to think that no-one was home when I heard the latch click and Fanny’s face looked out at me, as white and expressionless as the face of the clock in the hall behind her. My first thought was that she had been to church because she was in black. Great folds of soft velvet swathed her from throat to ankles and, against the opulent fabric, her skin was startlingly white, her agate eyes more catlike than ever, but reddened as if she had wept. Strange and somehow uncomfortable to imagine that. In all the years I had known her I had never seen Fanny Miller shed a tear. I shifted uneasily, my smile stretching, grotesquely mobile, across my face.

  ‘Fanny, merry Christmas!’

  Unsmiling, she beckoned me to enter. I knocked my boots against the step and hung my coat in the hall. There was no sign of any of Fanny’s girls and for a moment I had the eerie impression that the house was derelict. I could smell dust—or the illusion of dust—an inch thick on the rotten floorboards. For a fleeting instant I heard the ticking of the hall clock amplified into a deafening pounding like a giant heart…then it stopped abruptly, hands frozen stupidly at a minute to twelve.

  ‘Your clock’s stopped,’ I said.

  Fanny did not answer.

  ‘I…I came as soon as I could,’ I went on doggedly. ‘Is Effie all right?’

  Her eyes were unreadable, the pupils tiny. ‘There is no Effie,’ she said, almost indifferently. ‘Effie is dead.’

  ‘But…last night I…’

  ‘There is no Effie,’ she said again, and her voice was so distant that I wondered whether she, like Henry Chester, had developed too much of a taste for her own potions. ‘No Effie,’ she repeated. ‘Now there is only Marta.’

  That bitch again.

  ‘Oh, I see, a disguise,’ I said lamely. ‘Well, it’s a good idea; it means she won’t be recognized. Ah, about last night…’ I shifted uneasily from foot to foot: ‘I…well, the plan went…I mean…Henry fell for the whole thing. You should have been there.’

  No answer. I could not even be certain she was listening.

  ‘I was worried about Effie,’ I explained, ‘I was going to come back for her straight away, but—Effie must have told you, I ran into some difficulties. There was a policeman at the cemetery gates. Must have seen the lantern and come to get a closer look…I waited hours. I went back at last but Effie had already gone. I was worried sick.’

  Her silence was more and more unsettling. I was about to speak again when I heard a sound in the passageway behind me; a whispering of silk. Unnerved, I turned abruptly and saw a shadow, grotesquely elongated, flicker across the painted wallpaper: in the dimness of the passageway I could hardly see her. I half guessed at her features in the pale oval of her face, the folds of her grey dress falling softly to the ground in a perfect curve, her black hair loose and straight…

  ‘Effie?’ My voice was hoarse, attempting joviality.

  ‘I’m Marta.’

  Of course. I tried a chuckle, but the sound was lost, grotesque in the silence. Her voice was bleak, bloodless: the sound of snow falling.

  Lamely I said: ‘I just called to see if you were all right. Ah…not sickening for…anything, you know.’

  Silence. I thought I heard her sigh; her breath the rasping of skin on frozen grass.

  ‘I’m going to visit Henry later today,’ I continued doggedly. ‘You know, a business visit. Talk money.’ My words were unbearable in my throat, like ulcers. I felt physical discomfort in speaking. Damn them, why didn’t they speak? I saw Effie’s mouth open—but no, it wasn’t Effie, was it? It was Marta, that bitch Marta, black angel of Henry’s desires, temptress, torturess…She had nothing to do with Effie, and though she might be a fiction born of ochre and powders I realized she was all the more dangerous for that. For she was real, damn her; real as you or me; and I could sense her passive delight as I stumbled through broken phrases in search of the explanation which had seemed so clear to me a few moments before in the snow. She was going to say it: I knew what she was going to say. Suddenly I could hardly breathe as she stepped forwards and touched me. Her rage was searing but her delicate touch against my skin was anaesthetic—I felt nothing.

  ‘You left me, Mose. You left me to die in the dark.’ The voice was hypnotic; I almost admitted it.

  ‘No! I—’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘No, I was telling Fanny—’

  ‘I know. Now it’s my turn.’ The voice was distant, almost expressionless; but my raw nerves were quick to sense that rage—and with it a kind of humour.

  ‘Effie—’

  ‘There
is no Effie.’

  Now, at last, I could believe that.

  I took my leave as best I could; at the last fighting for breath as I struggled through fathoms of thick brown air with the smell of dust in my mouth, my nostrils, in my lungs…Fanny did not speak another word as I grabbed my coat and staggered out into the snow. Glancing fearfully over my shoulder, I caught one last glimpse of them, standing side by side, hand-in-hand, fixing me with their silent feral gaze. They might have been mother and daughter in that moment: their faces were identical, their hate mirrored. Panic slashed me and I fell in the snow, damp seeping into my clothes at the knees and elbows, my hands numb…

  When I looked back again, the door was closed, but their hate remained with me, cruelly, delicately feminine, like a breath of perfume on the air. I found a gin-shop and tried to force my nerves into submission, but Marta’s rage followed me even into drunkenness, souring my warmth. Damn them both! Anyone would think that I really had murdered Effie. What did they expect? I’d helped her to escape, hadn’t I, even though the plan might have miscarried just a little? I’d fooled Henry, and I would be the one to get them the money—I was sure that they would have too much delicacy to dare to confront Henry themselves. Yesterday it was ‘I need you, Mose, I’m counting on you, Moses’ but today…No use wrapping it in clean linen, I told myself; they’d used me. I certainly didn’t need to feel guilty about my own behaviour. I looked at my watch; half past two. I wondered what Henry was doing. The thought immediately cheered me somewhat. Soon it would be time to pay my little visit to Henry.

  56

  My euphoria lasted until I reached Cromwell Square. Then I saw the wreath of holly and berries on the door and a kind of lassitude crept over me, a numbing of the senses at the thought of the part I would have to enact with Tabby when, inevitably, Effie did not come home. My hand was on the door when it opened abruptly and Tabby’s face appeared, smiling and radiant with excitement and pleasure. A quick glance took in the parcels in my arms and she gave a little crow of delight.

  ‘Oh sir,’ she said, ‘Mrs Chester will be pleased! The house looks a treat, too, and I’ve got the cake just cooling in the oven. Oh my!’

  I nodded, rather stiffly. ‘You have been busy. Could you take these parcels and put them in the parlour?’ I held out my purchases. ‘Then, maybe a glass of brandy?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’ She bustled off with the presents, eager as a child, and I allowed myself a sour smile.

  I was drinking brandy in the library when the Christmas tree arrived. I watched the porter and Tabby put it up in the parlour, then I watched Tabby hang it with glass balls and tinsel, sticking little white candles on to the ends of the branches with wax. It was oddly compelling. Sitting by the fire with my eyes half-closed and the pungently nostalgic scent of pine needles in my nostrils I felt a quite pleasant sense of disorientation, as if I were some other, younger Henry Chester waiting on Christmas Eve for a magical surprise…

  Night was falling; Tabby lit candles on the mantelpiece and put more logs on the fire; the room had acquired a homely warmth, a sparkle which, though ironic in the circumstances, was oddly potent: the reality of last night seemed as distant as the events of my childhood and, as I turned to speak to Tabby, I found myself almost believing my own fiction.

  ‘Tabby, what time is it?’

  ‘Just left four, sir,’ replied Tabby, applying the taper to the last of the tree’s candles. ‘Perhaps you’d like a cup of tea and a mince pie?’

  ‘Yes, that would be very nice,’ I said approvingly. ‘In fact, you had better bring up a pot: Mrs Chester said she would be back at four at the latest.’

  ‘I’ll bring her a slice of my special cake,’ said Tabby kindly. ‘She’ll likely be cold.’

  Well, the pot of tea and the pies and cake stayed on the sideboard for nearly an hour before I allowed myself to feign unease. It was simpler than I thought. The fact was that with the approach of night my earlier indifference had begun to fade; I was restless without quite knowing why. I felt thirsty and drank brandy, but I found that the brandy made me hot and dizzy. My eyes kept turning towards the parcel containing the silk wrap, lying at the foot of the Christmas tree. I could not keep still.

  Finally I rang for Tabby.

  ‘Has there been no word from Mrs Chester?’ I demanded. ‘She did say she would be back by four, and it is past five now.’

  ‘No word, sir,’ said Tabby comfortably. ‘But I wouldn’t worry. Likely she’s stopped for a chat somewhere. She won’t be long.’

  ‘I hope there hasn’t been an accident,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, no sir,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I’m sure she’s on her way.’

  I waited until the Christmas candles had burned to stumps on the mantelpiece. The ones on the tree were long gone and Tabby had already replaced them for when Effie returned. I drank coffee to steady myself and tried to read a book but could not concentrate on the dancing print. Finally I brought out my sketch-book and began to draw, focusing my thoughts on the lines and texture of the paper, of the pencils, my head a hive of silent bees. I looked up as seven struck on the mantelpiece clock and stretched out my hand for the bell-pull. The gesture stopped halfway; my hand left in mid-air like a puppet’s as a movement by the tree caught my eye. There. The curtain moved, very slightly, as if plucked by invisible fingers. Straining my ears I thought I could hear a kind of resonance, like the wind blowing across a wire. A draught ruffled the bright wrapping on the presents under the tree. A glass bauble spun on its own, throwing an arpeggio of light on to the nearby wall. Then silence.

  Ridiculous, I told myself, in subdued rage. It was a draught, an ill-fitting window-frame, an open door somewhere else in the house. Ridiculous to imagine Effie outside that window, Effie with her long, pale hair loose around her white, hungry face…Effie come to take her present…and perhaps to give one too.

  ‘Ridiculous!’ I spoke aloud, my voice comfortingly solid against the background of night. Ridiculous.

  Still, in spite of that ridicule I found that I had to go to the curtain, twitch aside the heavy brocade, look through the thick glass into the street. In the light of the gaslamps the street was deserted, white: no footprints marred the glowing snow.

  I rang the bell.

  ‘Tabby, has there been any word from Mrs Chester?’

  ‘No sir.’ She was less ebullient now; Effie was three hours late and the snow had begun to fall again, stifling the night.

  ‘I want you to take a hack to Cranbourn Alley and find out if Mrs Chester has set off home. I will stay here in case anything has happened.’

  ‘Sir?’ she queried doubtfully. ‘You don’t think she might have…I’m not sure I—’

  ‘Do as I say,’ I snapped, thrusting two guineas into her hand. ‘Hurry, and don’t stop for anything.’ I tried a rueful smile. ‘Maybe I am being over-cautious, Tabby, but in a city like London…Go on. And hurry back!’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, still frowning, and from the window I watched as, wrapped from head to foot in shawls and cloak, she hurried out into the unbroken snow.

  When she returned she had two policemen with her.

  I could hardly suppress a guilty start as I saw them come in through the gate, one tall and thin, the other as squat as Tabby herself, lumbering ponderously through the dense snow to my door. Even as panic hammered down my spine I found myself stifling laughter as bitter as it was compelling. With one hand I fumbled for the chloral bottle on its chain and shook out three grains, which I swallowed with a last mouthful of brandy. I felt the rictus of my sour mirth relax. I forced myself to sit and wait.

  When I heard their knock I leaped from my chair, almost tripping on the stairs as I ran to open the door. I let my face slacken in appalled comprehension as I saw them, Tabby’s face puckered with half-shed tears, the officers of the law deliberately neutral; hatless.

  ‘Effie!’ My voice was ragged; I allowed all the desperate suspense of that evening to permeate the two syllables.
‘Have you found her? Is she all right?’

  The tall officer spoke, keeping his voice carefully flat. ‘Sergeant Merle, sir. This’—indicating the other figure with a long, bony hand—‘is Constable Hawkins.’

  ‘My wife, officer.’ My voice was raw with disguised laughter—no doubt it sounded desperate to Sergeant Merle. ‘What about my wife?’

  ‘I’m afraid, sir, that Mrs Chester did not arrive at Cranbourn Alley. Mrs Shelbeck was out, but Miss Shelbeck, her sister-in-law, was most distraught. It was all we could do to prevent her from coming herself.’

  I frowned, shaking my head in bewilderment. ‘But…’

  ‘Could we come in a moment, sir?’

  ‘Of course.’ I hardly needed to play the part; I was light-headed, almost reeling from drink, chloral and nerves. I grasped the lintel of the door for balance. For a moment I almost fell.

  Merle’s thin arm was surprisingly strong. He grasped me as I toppled, leading me to the warmth of the parlour. Constable Hawkins followed us, with Tabby bringing up the rear.

  ‘Mrs Gaunt, perhaps you might bring a cup of tea for Mr Chester?’ said Merle softly. ‘He looks unwell.’

  Tabby left the room, looking back over her shoulder at the two policemen, her face pinched with apprehension. I sat heavily upon the sofa.

  ‘I’m sorry, sergeant,’ I said. ‘I have been ill recently, and my wife’s condition has put me under some strain. Please do not be afraid to tell me the truth. Did Miss Shelbeck seem surprised that she had planned to go to Cranbourn Alley?’