The Girl at the Window

by Rowan Coleman

  There are very few times in my life that I’ve been really lost for words and this is one of them. Three storeys of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, all full to the brim with books, all kinds of books, but even from here I can tell that many of them are old, really old, and my palms itch to explore the parade of spines. There’s a spiral staircase at each end, leading to railed landings for each floor; and, on each landing, ladders on runners grant access to every single one of what must be thousands of editions. The room is lit strategically and carefully to protect the ancient documents, and there are a series of long tables, lined with chairs, each with a reading lamp. He’s built it as if it might always be full of at least a dozen scholars, not just one man and his very occasional guest. And then I get it; he’s built a temple, and ideal, a prayer to literature. And I love it.

  ‘Oh my God!’ I gasp, just like Will did a few minutes ago. ‘Oh my God, Marcus!’

  ‘I thought you might like it.’ Marcus is smiling. ‘I’ve inherited so many books from previous generations that I have no real idea what’s here. My father was a proper collector and Brontëite, and he also discovered some local records in amongst the family collection which he added to. I’ve been adding as well, in my own haphazard way, over the years, but I don’t have much of a plan. I just look for books or records connected to the area, to the Brontës, and buy them. A lot of them were in storage for decades until I built this place. Still want the job?’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’ I gaze around me. ‘Apart from yes, yes please.’

  ‘That is excellent news.’ Marcus grins, crossing his arms over his chest as he takes in his kingdom. ‘I can’t tell what a joy it is to have a guest who is properly wowed by my wow factor. An archivist, a Brontë lover, a genuine Ponden Heaton – you really are quite the find, Trudy.’

  ‘I’m … thank you.’ I smile warmly at him. ‘I’m interested in why you collect records, though – they’re mostly terribly dry and dull.’

  ‘I suppose it feels like collecting lives: lost histories, births, deaths and marriages, old photographs, inscribed books … They all meant something to someone once. Someone has to curate them.’

  ‘That’s exactly how I feel,’ I reply, and we share a moment of understanding, that little rush of warmth when you find a kindred spirit.

  My eyes roam from shelf to shelf as he talks, seeing countless boxes waiting to be opened, wondering what might be in amongst them that could show us a glimpse of something long past or forgotten, help us to understand history or even change it.

  ‘Months ago I ordered in all this conservation material, special cardboard boxes and folders and things, but it’s still all unpacked, so …’

  ‘Marcus, you are my perfect man.’ The words are out of my mouth before I have time to think about what I’m saying, and I see his eyes widen, his pink cheeks becoming ruddy. ‘I mean … I only meant … I didn’t mean. Oh crap.’

  It feels like a slap, a punch in the chest, to have forgotten Abe, even for a moment long enough to say something so light-hearted and flirtatious. And suddenly I feel as if I should leave.

  ‘Trudy.’ Marcus stops me, his fingertips on my shoulder, just for a moment. ‘It’s fine, honestly. Don’t be embarrassed, I know exactly what you meant. And if you are still keen to work on the library, then may I present you with this?’ He unfurls his hand, and in the middle of it is a huge iron key.

  I stare at the key, instantly wanting to pick it up and feel its cool heft in my hand.

  ‘This is the front door key,’ Marcus explains. ‘It’s largely symbolic, to be fair. The locks are controlled by a PIN pad, but even so, don’t lose it, because there are only two and it would be a devil to get a new one cut. There’s a security code too, on the back of this card. You’ll need these to get in and I’m often away.’

  ‘Thank you, Marcus,’ I say, taking the key and the card. ‘It means a lot to me that you’re giving me this opportunity.’

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ he says. ‘It pleases me to think of you here. And you can bring Will with you, too; my games room is his whenever he wants it.’

  ‘You are a very kind man,’ I tell him.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Marcus colours a little. ‘It used to be that good manners and decency were something we took for granted. Kindness is a kind of politeness, don’t you think?’

  ‘I do,’ I reply.

  ‘Now, dinner. And after that I’ll give you a tour. We can go right up to the turret, but I’m afraid it’s structurally unsound on the top floors; however, we can have a wander on the ramparts.’

  ‘That would be so wonderful,’ I say, excitedly, as I look up at the fairy-tale turret and notice a light in the upmost window.

  ‘There’s a light up there?’

  ‘Yes, I like to make the place look as romantic as possible. No floor, but I put a light in that simulates a candle and it’s controlled from here – look.’ He shows me a great dashboard of switches concealed behind a carved wooden panel that controls the light and heat in each room, switching the turret light on and then off. ‘Truth is, I’m a terrible show-off. Now let’s see if we can prise your son away from that screen.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  We are home by nine and, after a bath, Will climbs into his PJs in front of the fire while I make up his bed on the sofa, shoving a grumbling Mab off several times before I can complete it. Will doesn’t ask me why, and I don’t offer a reason, although I have one ready: it’s raining steadily outside and when I went upstairs to collect his belongings there was a steady drip of water soaking into the carpet. I placed an old tin bucket under it that Ma had in the bathroom, presumably for such occasions.

  We read, and he tells me how he wants to be the first man on Mars, and I tell him how much I’d miss him, but I’ll let him go, though, because you need to be brave to make new discoveries and, anyway, I could come and visit on holiday.

  It feels so precious, this particular closeness, the weight of his body leaning into mine, the way he plays with the rose gold chain his father gave me on our seventh wedding anniversary, which I always wear around my wrist. We dream and plan for a future with flying cars and cities on the moon. Maybe it’s here, in these tight spaces between Will and I, that I can truly feel Abe, feel him recreated by the two of us.

  ‘Ma,’ he says, ‘you haven’t told me any more about you and Dad for a long time. What happened next?’

  I think about the first year of my marriage and I hold him a little closer.

  ‘What happened is that we lived very, very happily until you came along, and then we lived even more happily, which, you know, was because you were there, too.’

  It seems to satisfy him for now and I continue to hold him as he falls asleep, feeling the weight of his head on my chest, his complete ease and contentment.

  And I remember my firstborn child.

  Tru and Abe

  Our flat was very small, a studio: one large room and a bathroom. It was all we could afford but I loved it. Even though it meant leaving my home behind, the space and shadows, the moors I knew so well, I loved it, because it was ours. I’d look out of the high window at the city beyond and see our future, mine, Abe and our baby’s, and it was always bright.

  The day it happened there was a storm brewing, no rain at first, just the building charge in the air. I’d been at uni all day, so I’d flopped onto the sofa and put my aching feet up as I’d waited for Abe to come home with pizza. I’d felt content, happy.

  When Abe had come in, he was flustered.

  ‘What happened to you?’ I’d asked, my hand covering the pit of my abdomen where I’d felt the tiniest tug of pain.

  ‘Some old tramp, off his face on something, stood in the doorway, wouldn’t move, wouldn’t let me past him. I mean, what could I do? I didn’t want to hurt the poor bloke or call the cops on him, plus he stank like the grave, so I told him that if he wasn’t gone in five minutes there’d be trouble.’ I remember smiling at Abe’s half-hearted threat.
‘Luckily for me he was gone after I’d walked round the block, otherwise I’d have had to call my pregnant wife on him.’

  ‘Pregnant wife …’ I’d smiled and he’d dropped the pizza on the table and put his arms around me.

  And the pain again, deep inside, sharp enough for me to wince.

  ‘What up?’ Abe had asked me, concerned.

  ‘Nothing,’ I’d said and smiled, but I think at that moment I’d known. ‘You get some plates, I need a wee.’

  ‘You always need a wee these days,’ Abe had called back, laughing.

  That’s when I’d found the blood.

  She was so perfect, our little girl. Though she never drew a breath she lives on in my heart and she always will. Our Emilia.

  In the weeks that followed I’d wanted my mum, wanted her so badly. But when I’d thought of how much I loved the child I’d lost before I even had her, I could only think of what Ma had said to me on the day that I’d left home. And I hadn’t been able to bear the thought of seeing her face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘Why don’t you sleep down here too?’ Ma asks once Will is tucked in, watching a movie on the laptop over Mab’s head. ‘All of us together. Won’t be any fun for you in that leaky room – the drip, drip, drip all night drives you mad. And you know, there might be happenings.’

  ‘I might, later,’ I say. ‘But I want to read for a bit, remember? There’s a book I want to look for. I looked for it this afternoon but had no luck, so I’m going to look for it a bit more tonight.’

  Ma stares at me blankly for a moment before she finally cottons on that I’m talking about the diary papers.

  ‘Come get a cup of tea off me first,’ Ma says. ‘I’m making one.’

  ‘I’m fine actually, I’ll just—’

  ‘Just come in the kitchen,’ she orders, pointing at the door.

  I wait until Will begins to nod and take the laptop off of him, watching as he rolls onto his side and falls effortlessly into a deep sleep.

  ‘Watch him, you’re in charge,’ I tell Mab, who positions herself at his side, her head on his hip, her eyes slowly closing as she falls asleep beside him.

  ‘Well, hopefully your noxious farts will ward off trouble,’ I whisper as I leave.

  In the kitchen, Ma has lit candles and turned off the strip lighting.

  ‘Ma …’ I see an upturned glass in the centre of the kitchen table and some pieces of torn-up paper that she is busy writing letters on. ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘Long time ago,’ she says, her head bent over her work, ‘when me and your dad were first married and you were a scrap of a thing, he thought it’d be a lark to have a medium here one Halloween. I said no, I were dead against it. No point in stirring up that which is at rest, I said, but your dad wanted it. And when he wanted something, he had a way of making it happen, wearing a person down until you just agreed to make him shut up.’

  ‘You were newlyweds?’ I say, under my breath.

  ‘Yes, bit more than a year, I suppose. Anyway, he wanted to have a party and make a big thing of it. You know how he liked Halloween.’

  Suddenly I see what she’s about.

  ‘Are you serious? You want us to have a séance?’ I sit down at the table, watching as she adds the words YES and NO to her scraps. ‘Ma? Come on, really?’

  ‘We did it at the big table, back then,’ Ma said. ‘But I thought we’d better not disturb the boy.’

  ‘Considerate of you,’ I say. ‘Ma, look, these things are nonsense. I know – I’ve studied the Victorian obsession with them, all smoke and mirrors, all of it. And anyway, even if it wasn’t, what do you and me know about … it?’

  ‘You don’t need to know anything, you just need to be ready,’ Ma says, looking up at me, her eyes bright. ‘I mean, you only had to look at that baggage Bob got in to know she was a charlatan but, well, your dad were happy, his friends were enjoying it, and I thought it were harmless enough. None of us were ready.’

  ‘Ready for what?’ I ask her cautiously.

  ‘Marion Makepeace, that were her name.’ Ma wrinkles her nose as she remembers. ‘Stunk of knock-off perfume. She told us she was going to summon any spirits present. Bloody load of old cobblers, she had no idea what she were doing.’

  ‘So then why?’ I gesture at her Blue Peter Ouija board.

  ‘It were rubbish, most of it,’ Ma says as she moves the pieces of paper around the table until she is happy with how they are laid out. ‘Someone here with an “E” in their name, died with lung or possibly heart problems – the usual sort of claptrap – but then, just towards the end something happened. The room got so cold, and suddenly this woman, … one of your dad’s guests … started weeping, tears running down her face, and she didn’t know why; she just said she felt such terrible grief. And Marion Makepeace was suddenly afraid. She stopped talking and was just staring and staring at the glass. It had started moving – and this time she wasn’t touching it. I saw it with my own eyes and it spelt out one word: “Look.” Old Marion shrieks and snatches up the glass but it flies out of her hand and smashes against the wall.’

  ‘O … K.’ I say the word very slowly. ‘So she threw it?’

  ‘No, it looked like it was ripped out of her hands. The silly cow ran out the house screaming, and your dad’s mates laughed their heads off. They thought it was a great joke, old Bob up to his tricks, and your dad didn’t deny it. They all stayed up late drinking, up till dawn, if I remember rightly, but when he did finally get into bed, I said, “How’d you make the glass do that, Bob?” And he looked at me straight and he said, “Don’t ask me, love, I didn’t have nothing to do with it.”’

  ‘Dad liked to spin a yarn,’ I say, repressing a shudder.

  ‘He did, and I forgot about it after that day until this day,’ Ma says. ‘And then, after last night’s goings-on, I had a thought. What if it was her back then, lass? Your Agnes. What if she’s been waiting all these years and no one’s helped her. All these years feeling so heartbroken and alone – that’s an awful thing to live with. To die with, too. So what if it’s your Agnes?’

  ‘She’s not my Agnes, Ma,’ I tell her softly, glimpsing just a little of her unseen life once more, feeling the tragedy of it. How could I have lived in this house with her for so much of my life and not understood her unhappiness? How could I have left her to it?

  ‘She’s part of the house and the house belongs to you, so …’ Ma puts two fingers of each hand on the glass and nods at me. ‘Maybe she can tell us something.’

  ‘What, like where Emily Brontë’s second manuscript is?’ My laugh is strained.

  ‘Well, maybe,’ Ma says, and she is serious. And whatever else I do now, I want to please her, and if this is it, so be it.

  Reaching out, I place my fingertips on the glass.

  Dead-end darkness crowds around the curtainless windows. When I look out, all I see is myself looking back at me. All around us the house stretches and sighs. There is something like a movement from upstairs, the sound of a door closing, an echo of footfall.

  ‘Is there someone there?’ Ma says, and I repress a giggle. She eyes me and I do my best to keep a straight face. The truth is, it isn’t the idea that this is foolish that makes me want to laugh: it’s the fear that it might not be.

  ‘Agnes, are you there, love?’ Ma tries again. ‘Do you need our help?’

  The glass doesn’t move.

  ‘Speak to us, love,’ Ma says gently. ‘Do you need help, Agnes? Are you afraid?’

  There is a sudden tension, a long, silent note of anxiety that stretches out the air around us to breaking point. Catching my breath, I watch the candles flicker and almost gutter completely. For a second, there might be another figure reflected in the glass, but when I look again, there is nothing there.

  And the glass doesn’t move. We wait, and we wait, and it doesn’t move.

  ‘Well then,’ Ma says, very quietly, ‘I’m away to sleep.’

  A surge of relief floods
through me the moment I take my hand off the glass, the atmosphere of expectation dissipating as Ma turns on the electric light, which flickers and falters before it finally catches, filling the room with its cheerful artificial light.

  ‘I know you think I’m a fool,’ she says, looking at me as she is about to close the kitchen door behind her, ‘but I’m an old woman; I have my fancies.’

  ‘You really aren’t even close to old; you know that the life span of the average woman hasn’t been under fifty for about a hundred and fifty years right? And anyway, it’s fine,’ I say, getting up to fill the kettle. ‘I’ll clear up.’

  ‘And you’ll come sleep downstairs after you’ve … looked.’

  ‘Yeah, I will,’ I say, puzzled at her sudden desire to have me closer to her, puzzled and touched. ‘Course I will, Ma.’

  She closes the door behind her, and I search out a clean mug, pour boiling water onto a teabag, muttering to myself in a vague impression of my mother, ‘Agnes, are you there, love?’

  It’s only when I turn back to the table to clear away the pieces of paper that I notice that the glass has moved. It’s neatly positioned over one piece of paper.

  The piece that says YES.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  It’s desperately dark at the top of the stairs.

  The shadows seem to be full of intent, peering down at me as I take the bottom step. The urge to turn around and go back into the warm, cosy living room is strong, but if there are other parts of Agnes’s story, other parts of Emily’s hidden legacy concealed within Ponden Hall, I won’t find them anywhere I feel safe.

  As I reach the top, I flick the light switch on, but the hallway remains dark: except, that is, for the thin slice of light under the closed door to Cathy’s room. Taking a deep breath, I think of Mab and her quiet, stoic determination to stay by Will’s side earlier, and push the thought of that glass out of my head. Squaring my shoulders, I walk into the whispering dark, towards the slice of light, and let myself into the room. If she was there, in the kitchen, maybe she left something here for me, some kind of message.