Glancing in the direction of the playroom through the open door, I see Will’s frosted figure cheer himself as he wins a race, and set about losing myself in the box.
When I next look up, I’m not sure how long has passed, only that the cloud cover seems to have trebled into a thick mass, so black that it almost feels like night has crept up on me while I made my way through the box, separating documents into eras, pausing to read letters of condolences, or receipts from the pharmacist. I stop when I find an order for a mourning bracelet and, in the envelope, a quantity of human hair, dull blonde, tied neatly at one end with a pink ribbon. The order, carefully filled out, mentions a little girl of only four, but it is clear that it was never fulfilled. It makes me wonder how it found its way here, opened and saved, but never completed.
Shuddering, suddenly cold, a faint metallic crackle catches my attention. On the window nearest to me, little branches of frost are rapidly forming in the corners, a pattern that is being replicated across the great glass façade. I must have missed the button on the control panel for the underfloor heating, and the tips of my fingers and toes begin to ache with cold, when only a few minutes ago I felt warm.
I’ll leave the papers here on the table and return to them tomorrow. Carefully wrapping each page in acid-free tissue paper, and storing them in one of four archive boxes I’ve set up, I’m about to replace the lid on the old box when I realise that there are only two items left. Both of them look so much older than the others, and somehow, when I see them, I know that they are meant for me. Glancing in the direction of the playroom, I can’t make Will out precisely, but I can see the flickering lights of the screen; ten minutes more won’t hurt.
Opening the first, a leather-bound ledger, I see the words Parish Records Haworth Church and the date, 1650–1670. At once I am struck by the neat, measured writing, each letter exquisitely formed with great care, knowing that one mistake would be set against the rest of the words on the page, each one detailing a moment of great meaning to the human beings whose names record their births, marriages, and, all too frequently, untimely deaths. These are some of the records that Grace said were thought lost in a fire; that they still exist is a really important find.
And the ledger covers the same year as the infant’s grave I stood by at the Parsonage. Hovering my finger over the list of names, I look for hers. When I find it, my heart contracts.
Catherine Bolton, aged 1 year. Beaten to death.
The emotion that overwhelmed me at her gravestone, where I heard the cries of a lost child, now makes my knees buckle, and I sit down. Could it be that Catherine Bolton wasn’t just a lost baby; could it be that she was Agnes’s baby?
Catching my breath, the hairs rising along my arms, I read the entry again. And one word stands out as brutal as stone.
Beaten.
‘Ma!’ I hear Will call me. Pausing for a moment, I close the ledger and put it away. It seems like a good time and place to finish for the day, except that the final document, folded and bent in the bottom of the box, can’t be left in such a poor state another moment. Carefully I extract it and smooth it out. It’s a pamphlet cover page, the seventeenth-century equivalent of a tabloid newspaper, and the headline reads, ‘Trial of Agnes Bolton for murder and infanticide by Witchery.’
I shudder against the cold as my finger hovers over the words, gradually understanding their full meaning, translating into modern English as I read.
This is my Agnes, somehow I know it. Bolton. Like the baby’s name, and she stood accused of killing her own child. Beaten. Beaten to death.
Wind rattles against the glass, shadows creep under the tables, gathering in corners. And although it still falls with the same velocity as before, the rain is silent.
On this, the Third Day of October, 1660, Agnes Bolton, of this parish, also Ponden Hall, also unknown, was tried for the murder, by witchery, of her husband John Bolton and their child Catherine Bolton, who she did beat to death in service of Satan.
I stare at the name of my house, written so carefully into the page, a deep, lurching nausea seeping into my gut. Agnes stood accused of killing her baby.
A shadow creeps across the table, not a cloud passing over the sun because there has been no sun today. The shadow is in the room, and it’s growing.
I’m unable to move; my feet won’t peel themselves from the floor as the darkness obliterates the lights in the room where Will is. My breath mists as I breathe out, and the tiny tendrils of frost that had begun to form on the glass bloom, crackling into life.
Oh Agnes, what did you do?
And then, in one sharp, powerful shove, the chair I’m sitting on is shoved away from the desk, sliding me back several feet. In a second I’m standing, looking around me, wondering if it was me, did I push myself away from the awful words? Perhaps I did.
But then, it’s almost as if I can hear her voice, the voice I’ve come to know in the words she so carefully etched onto paper. I hear her rage, hear it vibrate and hum in the silence, and I need to know: what happened to Agnes that led her to marry this John Bolton and lose her child so violently?
Imagine how it would feel to know you are about to die, found guilty of the murder of your own beloved baby; imagine the grief and fury, because in amongst all the pent-up fury and violent hate I felt just now, there was also love. A deep, abiding love – and the bottomless chasm of loss that only a mother could ever know.
‘Mum! Mum! Mummy!’ Will is calling me again, and this time there’s an edge of fear to his voice. ‘Mummy, I’m lost!’
I’m still trembling as I exit the library, still battling the feeling that something terrible has just happened. Closing the door behind me, on the other side of the frosted glass the light flickers and blink out.
‘What’s up, Will?’ I make my voice bright as I walk into the games room but he isn’t there. ‘Will?’
‘Mummy?’ I hear his voice; it’s muffled and there’s a kind of echo to it. It’s close, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
‘Will, are you hiding?’ It’s hard to keep the anxiety out of my voice. ‘Where are you?’
The giant screen is still lit up, left as if in mid game – cars engaged in some kind of phantom race. Picking up a remote control I switch everything off, lifting the huge bean bags one by one, expecting to uncover him, giggling at his great game.
‘Come on, Will, it’s time to go!’
‘Mummy? Mummy, are you there? Mummy, I don’t know where I am and it’s dark.’
Frustrated, I look around; there isn’t anywhere else for him to hide in this room, no other furniture at all.
‘Will?’ I look up at the driving rain, the enclosing night, the shadow of the ruined turret peering down at me. ‘Will, stop playing. Where are you?’
‘I don’t know where I am, Mummy.’ I hear his voice, but it’s fainter this time.
‘Will, call out as loud as you can,’ I tell him. But when his voice comes it is small and muffled, and sounds so very far away.
‘Mummy, I’m scared!’
That’s when I realise: he’s trapped in the walls.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
It’s only now, in this moment, that I see that this house isn’t as completely open and honest as it first appears, but is rather a maze of false starts and dead ends.
‘Will!’ I run to the flat, laminated panelling on the other side of the room. ‘Will, what were you doing when you got lost?’
‘Exploring,’ Will says. ‘And then I don’t know what happened. It’s dark and I can’t get back.’
‘It’s OK, Will.’ I struggle to keep my voice calm and light, to fight against the instinctive, lurching dread; hearing my child’s disembodied voice echoing in the air, seeping into my voice. The obvious thing to do is to call Marcus, but of course, there’s no signal out here and I have no idea where or if he has a landline, certainly not in this room anyway, and I can’t leave Will alone. We have to figure this out between us.
Backing away fro
m the wall I go and stand in the middle of the room.
‘Will, can you see any light at all?’
‘No, I can’t see anything, Mummy.’ I hear his voice tremble. The only thing my brave boy has ever been afraid of is total dark, and now he’s imprisoned by it.
‘Pretend your fingertips are your eyes, Will,’ I say. ‘What can you feel?’
‘On – on one side I feel rough brick, old brick like the castle, and the other side smooth. I can’t stretch my arms out wide that way. I can if I move to my side; then it feels like a long corridor. But I don’t know and I’m scared to move, Mummy.’
‘That’s OK, darling, you are doing so well.’
I know the long back wall of the room is the only one that intersects with the old building, running along the wall that leads to the turret and the ramparts.
‘OK, Will, I know whereabouts you are. I think there must be a hidden panel, like a secret door in Scooby Doo, that you accidentally triggered. So I want you bang on the smooth side of the wall, OK? Bang as hard as you can. Don’t worry, Will, I’ll get you out. I’ll tear this whole place down, brick by brick, if I have to.’
‘Mummy?’ His voice is suddenly very small, his fear tangible. ‘Mummy, it sounds like there is someone else in here with me. I hear breathing.’
Urgently, I run my hands over the smooth, white laminate panels, their vast expanse only disturbed by a few randomly placed, down-lit curved shelves that look like something out of a spaceship, which house games and DVDs. There must be some hidden button, some secret movement that will unlock a concealed doorway.
‘It’s OK,’ I call out, ‘you’re probably just hearing yourself, Will. Just stay right where you are, OK? I’ve nearly figured this out.’
‘Mummy, hurry!’ Will screams, and, tearing at the panelling, my nails crack and break – and then I see it, on a low bookshelf, a solitary model figure of Darth Vader. Of course, Will would want to pick that up. Diving for it, I try to, but it doesn’t move, so I push it back – and hear a click. A door opens, just a centimetre, but it’s enough.
‘Will, I’ve found it, I’m coming!’ I open the door, expecting to find him right there. But he is nowhere to be seen.
There is no narrow corridor between the castle wall and the room, just a modern-looking dimly lit lobby leading to the turret staircase.
‘Will?’ I hammer on the narrow section of wall that closes off the gap between the old building and the new. ‘Will, can you hear me?’
There is only silence.
‘Mummy!’ I suddenly hear his shriek – and it’s coming from up the steps.
I hear him running down towards me as I rush up to meet him, and then we are in each other’s arms. He clings to me, and I lift him off his feet and run. Down the steps, out of that room, out of that house, into the grounds and finally into the car, leaving everything open behind me, just knowing that we need to be out. We need to be somewhere I can control.
Once we are in the car I lock the doors and look at my son. Taking his tear-streaked face in my hands, I examine him for injuries. He’s covered in dirt, there are cobwebs in his hair and he is as pale as a … he is very pale. But uninjured.
The rain drives down, the night closes in, and I hug him to me, holding him close, until eventually I feel the tensions ease in both our bodies.
‘You’re safe,’ I tell myself as much as him. ‘You are safe, Will, I’ve got you.’
‘I don’t know what happened,’ Will says. ‘I didn’t like it, Mummy.’
‘Me neither, Will. How did you get up the steps? Did you find a way out?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know. It just happened, it all just happened, and I don’t like that place. Bad things happen in that place. I don’t want to go back, Mummy.’
‘You don’t have to, not ever,’ I promise him.
‘Here, this is for you.’ Will holds out his clenched fist.
‘What is it?’ I ask, even though, somehow, I already know.
Will unfurls his hand to show a crumpled sheet of paper. I don’t need to smooth it out to know that it’s covered with Agnes’s hand.
1658
The world has ended this day. This day my life is no more, and I am a ghost that walks and talks but feels no more, for God has abandoned me, and I must pay for my sins with my own happiness.
There is no sign of Robert, no word, no message. My stomach swells under my skirts, and soon I will not be able to hide my predicament. Betty has tried her best, searching out news of Robert, but could find none, not even where he had been sent, and now I am certain he must be dead by Casson’s hand. I know what he is capable of, and my love lies rotting in a bog.
And God forgive me, I went to the Kirk and stood on the rock and prayed that I might have the strength to leap and end my pain, dashing out my innards on the rocks below that I may join my love forever. But how could I, when faced with such beauty, decide to see it no more? It is a sin to take my own life, but a greater sin to take the life of the innocent babe that quickens in my womb. I have no hope, now, except this spark of him that I will love until the day I die, Robert’s child, who I must suffer the greatest pain and humiliation to protect.
‘He will have you,’ Betty said. ‘And what will you do else? There’ll be no work for you. No home with a bastard in your arms. No end but to find your way to ill-gotten gains. You could travel and claim to be a widow, but on what means? You have nothing, Agnes, and a woman with nothing must take what she is offered and he will have you.’
John Bolton, the man she spoke of, is blacksmith in the village. Older than me by my life again, and a drunk. I see him on the street, leering at me as I walk by, and I know that look, for I have seen it in Casson’s face. It is a look that likes to hurt.
At first I railed against the idea. I cannot, I cannot, I cannot. The thought of another touching me again, after Robert touched me and loved me, of another man to have dominion over my body and my life. I cannot, I cannot, I cannot.
But Betty spoke on.
‘He’ll put a roof over your head, Agnes, and feed you and feed your babe. He knows you are with child and will raise it as his. He needs a good worker and a willing maid.’
Still I wept and refused, for I am not yet even sixteen, and for my life, that had once known such tenderness and such joy, to be made the property of such a filthy, pawing man, filled me with dread.
‘You have had your love, Agnes.’ Betty was insistent. ‘More love than some see in a lifetime. And what did it bring you but heartbreak and sorrow? He is gone, and he has not once in these long months sought you out.’
‘Because he cannot, because he is dead,’ I wept.
‘Perhaps that is so, but what can we do, when the man that took him from us is the Constable and the law? There is no justice in this world for the likes of you and me, Agnes. All you can do now is find a way to live on for you and for Robert’s child. Marry John Bolton.’
‘I will hate him,’ I swore.
‘Then leave,’ Betty told me. ‘Go on the road and spin a yarn of a dead husband on the way and see how long you will survive, before the roaming soldiers take you and your child. And what if one day you have no choice but to sell your baby, as your mother sold you?’
What little hope I had, that precious spark I had guarded so closely, was snuffed out in that moment, and I lost my God, for I cannot hear him any more.
‘Dear girl,’ Betty said, ‘Robert’s gone. He left you behind, and you must understand that. That part of your life is dead, dead except for the life that clings on in your belly. That’s all you will have of it now, and, dear God, it’s precious and fragile enough as it is. So protect it and make your marriage. You tasted the honey, child. Now you must live with the sting of the bee.’
And so I said I will marry John Bolton.
‘Praise be!’ Betty kissed me. ‘Work hard and pray hard and you may yet be saved.’
I did not speak further, for if I did I would have misspoken. I would have told
Betty that I do wish to be saved. I wish to be close. Close to the man that has ruined me so that I may make him pay for all he has done to me.
Agnes, all I have that is truly mine is my name
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Will talks all the way on the drive back to Ponden. Words pour out of him, as if he feels the sudden need to articulate every thought and feeling he has had since we lost Abe, or as if some invisible wall he had built around himself has crumbled to nothing. I listen and he talks as we navigate the steep and winding roads around Debden Bridge, rainwater running down the inclines in impromptu waterfalls, streaming across the road, only a thin barrier of drystone wall between us and the wooded ravine beyond. He takes me back to the time before the crash, not just of the plane, but of his life. He reminds me of the ways things used to be, the peace and tranquillity that Abe and I had found, the family we made, our life which was small and inconsequential and quiet, but full to the brim with such love that it meant the world to us.
We take the road over the top of the moor. Mist gathers in pockets, absorbing my headlights as the night meets the land and there is no horizon. Will talks about the day I told him his dad’s plane had been lost, about those weeks after I left him, kissed him goodbye and flew to Peru. About the hours he spent with Granny Unity, not talking about anything, staring at the second hand on the clock so hard that it seemed to him it didn’t move at all.
I slow the car down to barely twenty miles an hour as I take each hairpin bend, uncertain of what I might find waiting for me in the gloom, half expecting a white face to appear in the mist, a hand to reach through the glass and grab me, and still my son talks. He talks about the day I came home without Daddy, and that he couldn’t believe it. Because Mummy always finds everything he’s ever lost, the tiniest bit of Lego, the most beloved drawing; Mummy always finds it, but she couldn’t find Daddy, and then he looks at me as we wait at a temporary traffic light, with no other traffic on the road.
The Girl at the Window Page 20
