***
Within a few weeks of returning to Cambridge, Charlotte began to fear that she was going mad.
Whatever she believed about ghosts, she was not fey or gullible; she knew the presences she had sometimes sensed could be as much a product of her mind as of reality. There was no explanation for the apparition she saw in the middle of a bright October morning, except that the strain of her life was eroding her sanity.
She had delivered a message from her father to the Cavendish Laboratory, glad of a chance to escape the house. As she came out of the dark archway into Free School Lane—the laboratory standing sternly behind her and the grimy monasterial walls of Corpus Christi College in front—she saw a man standing in the side gateway to the college. Something about him caught her attention, a quality of stillness that reminded her of Karl. But his eyes seemed too large, set too wide apart, and he was staring at her with a look of malevolent amusement that chilled her to the bone. She only looked back for a second or two and then he vanished. Literally vanished, flicked out of existence as if he had never been there.
Charlotte stared at the empty gateway then reeled away, half-running along the lane to King’s Parade. There she slowed down and walked in a daze, surrounded by the hiss of bicycles and the flapping of black gowns, letting the bustle ease her back into reality. Opposite were the spires and arched windows of King’s College, solid and enduring yet seeming light as honeycomb, only lightly tethered to the ground. Risking injury between the weaving bicycles she hurried across the road and into King’s Chapel. There was no one inside. She sat down, folded her hands, and prayed.
She knew Corpus Christi was meant to be haunted, but by a ghost of the seventeenth century, not the twentieth. The modern, cruel-eyed young man was so vivid in her mind that she could recall the folds of his scarf and the tilt of his hat… yet he had disappeared. Why am I seeing things? Lord, please help me…
The chapel calmed her. The slender lines of stone soaring up to the intricately fanned ceiling, the windows crackled with jewel-bright colours, pierced her with their beauty. Was it God she felt here, or was it only the way the light and air gathered dawn-golden under the branching vault; the echo of all the thousands of souls who had filed in and out through the ages, the power of the kings who had built it? She didn’t know. To sit in the silence and the light while she gathered her thoughts was enough.
She had envisioned her father’s laboratory, her refuge no longer, becoming a cage of lions. In reality it had all been quite ordinary, externally at least, and she had fallen back into the pattern of work as if nothing had happened. Inside, though, the changes and the effort of suppressing her anxiety were wearing her thin.
Outwardly, Henry was still the same unthreatening figure; bulky, untidy, forever pushing his spectacles along the bridge of his nose as he worked. Yet the knowledge that he was to be her husband imbued his every movement with an intangible significance. It seemed so unreal. Previously she had been at ease with him, but now she felt as if she had wronged him, or owed him some enormous debt. Whatever this feeling was, it was not love.
It wasn’t as though he’d made things difficult for her, or embarrassed her by being emotional. In fact he had been quite sweet, which made it worse. When she had arrived home from Parkland Hall he had been waiting, breathless and pink-faced with nerves, clutching a diamond ring in a box.
“You must think I’m such a fool,” he’d said, “but I simply didn’t know how to ask you. I’m so glad, Charlotte. Um—I’m not awfully good at this romantic stuff, so we’ll just, er, take it as read and carry on as normal, shall we?”
He kissed her on the cheek, as if kissing a maiden aunt. Charlotte was taken too much by surprise to say, “No, it’s a mistake, I can’t marry you!”—and now it was too late. The trap had closed. Henry being what he was, they had carried on as if nothing had changed; except that the awful knowledge that they were to be married loomed over her. She couldn’t back out… and even her father was pleased about it now.
“Never quite imagined my little girl getting married, somehow,” he had said, patting her shoulder. “But of course, now I think about it, it’s perfect. Henry and you… “
Henry, and me, and Father… of course. Henry was ten years older than Charlotte, had been with her father as student and postgraduate. Her father was closer to him than to David; he was almost a surrogate son. For Charlotte to marry him was like the bonding of a magic circle.
She should be happy, but all she felt was guilty and trapped. But with Karl… with Karl it was worse.
When he and Henry stood together in the laboratory, heads bent as they puzzled over some problem, Henry’s mundanity only served to make the contrast between the two men more poignant.
Karl possessed a quality that she could only call presence. It was beauty and personality combined with an inexplicable aura, a luminosity that drew the attention and held it—almost like an actor on film, silver light and shadowy darkness, hypnotic. His charisma intimidated her, confused her, terrified her. While Henry was all life and activity, it was Karl’s dark, still grace that seemed to fill the room.
Charlotte had decided in advance how she would behave towards Karl. She was distant, polite and completely professional; it was the only way she could cope. She had hoped she would get used to him, but the feelings grew worse each day. Small consolation that her father had secured him lodgings in the town rather than offering him a room—possibly with Madeleine’s virtue in mind.
Yet Karl could really do no wrong for her father. He was delighted with the way Karl worked; his intense concentration, faultless observation, his swift absorption of everything he was told. But to Charlotte there was something unnatural about it. Sometimes Karl and her father had long philosophical discussions in which Karl said the strangest things, probing, it seemed, for some kind of arcane and sinister revelation that would unleash a nightmare if it were ever spoken.
Yet Madeleine didn’t seem to see anything threatening about Karl. Every day they took a break for tea in the drawing room at four and Madeleine would bounce in as sweet and fresh as spring, talking about everything under the sun except science. How could Karl not be enchanted by her? He was different with her, no longer serious but lighthearted and charming. Madeleine was so happy. Charlotte was pleased for her, ashamed of herself for being unable to accept Karl… but every day she woke up dreading the day ahead.
She sat, head bowed, twisting her gloves between her fingers. I could leave… but where would I go? I can never leave Father. Dear Lord… As she looked up, the grandeur of the chapel flooded her with guilt. How dare I pray? If I do go mad, it serves me right. There’s something bad in me… whatever it is that draws me to these dark ideas of the dead. Wickedness. Is it really other people I want to run away from, or myself?
Again she thought of the man who was a figment of her deranged mind, and she shuddered. I must see Anne. She will make me feel sane again.
***
“I saw someone who was there one moment and vanished the next. Do you think I’m going mad, Anne?”
“I think you might be making yourself ill. I wish I could shake you up so you didn’t take everything so seriously!”
They were sitting on a long smooth bank beside the Cam, watching punts slide by through long curtains of willow that kissed their own reflections in the water. The college buildings rose golden-grey on the far side, visible through the veils of foliage. The sun’s warmth had a clarity and softness that it only possessed in October, but the trees were taking on a bare, combed look and leaves lay scattered yellow and silver on the grass.
Leaning back on her elbows, Anne went on, “If you’d come riding with me instead of spending so much time cooped up in the lab, it would help you get things in proportion.”
“I have to work,” said Charlotte.
“You talk as if you have no control over your life at all, as if your father, Henry, Karl, everyone rules you and you have no say about anything! Why can’t you take
matters into your own hands?”
“It’s not that easy.”
Anne touched Charlotte’s arm. “I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic. It’s just that I’ve never suffered from this helpless feeling you seem to have. No one controls me. “
“I wish I was like you,” Charlotte said wistfully. “Sympathy’s the last thing I want. I need someone to tell me to pull myself together.”
“Well, I try,” said Anne. “It doesn’t seem to have much effect, does it?” She started laughing. “I have this habit of seeing the funny side of awful things. What with you and Edward, I think the whole world is going crazy.”
Charlotte smiled, despite herself. Anne’s bright candour always helped to cheer her up. Anne went on, “Talking of Edward, apparently he is still insisting there is something dangerous about Karl. I don’t believe in the supernatural—I think the craze for mediums and séances is absolute nonsense—but David has too much respect for Edward to dismiss his bad feelings. Did David tell you that he’s been trying to find out something about Karl?”
David had been dividing his time between London, Cambridge and Parkland Hall, so Charlotte had seen little of him. “No, he never mentioned it.”
“He’s trying to be discreet, for obvious reasons. Still, I think you ought to know this. It’s rather odd; he couldn’t find out anything about Karl at all. Fleur didn’t remember who brought him to the party, all the guests denied knowing him. He couldn’t find anyone who’s even heard of Karl.”
Charlotte suddenly felt annoyed. “It’s too bad of David to snoop around like that—as if Father’s own judgement isn’t sound!”
“But look at it from David’s point of view. His sister’s fallen for a total stranger. What if they got married, and Karl turns out to be a cocaine pedlar or a bigamist? And all David can say is, ‘Edward tried to warn me and I didn’t listen!’ Mind you, I wouldn’t envy Maddy being married to a man who has women falling in love with him whenever he turns round. I wonder how often he takes advantage?”
She spoke flippantly but Charlotte felt a physical jolt that seemed to drain all the blood out of her head. “Oh, don’t! I can’t bear to think about it.”
Anne sat up, looking curiously at her. “Not jealous of Maddy, are you?”
“Jealous?”
“You say you don’t like Karl, but perhaps you are protesting too much. Would he be on your mind all the time if you weren’t attracted to him?”
“That’s preposterous!” Charlotte was dizzy with indignation.
Anne shrugged, grinning. “Why? Because the Prof’s daughter isn’t supposed to have such base urges? But it’s perfectly normal to have feelings. Perhaps if you started admitting it to yourself, you wouldn’t be so unhappy and you wouldn’t be seeing people who weren’t there.”
***
“We usually spend a few days at Parkland at the end of October,” said Madeleine, one evening when the day’s work in the laboratory was over. “I wish you would come with us, Karl. There’s lots to do, riding and shooting and so forth, and Aunt Elizabeth’s I holding a musical evening. It would be so lovely if you would play a duet with me, piano and cello.”
Karl said, “I don’t know if your father can spare me.”
“I’m not a slave driver,” Dr Neville responded with mock gruffness. “I intend to shut the lab and have a few days’ rest m’self.”
“Oh, please come, Karl,” said Madeleine. Charlotte wondered why she was having to try so hard. “The musical evening’s for charity. Everyone who can do a turn simply must join in.”
“In that case, I should be delighted,” Karl said graciously. Then he looked at Charlotte. “And will you take part as well?”
Charlotte felt her face turn hot, but Madeleine said, “Oh, don’t ask for miracles. Actually, she has a lovely voice, but ask her to sing in front of an audience and she would run a mile. She’s only happy hiding with her books—aren’t you, Charli?”
Charlotte hated their attention, hated the unthinking cruelty of Madeleine’s words. As soon as she could make an excuse, she went to her room. I’m still hiding, regardless of anything Anne said.
She went to bed early that night, but she couldn’t sleep. Her father was dining in college, Madeleine had gone to a dance and the servants to the music hall, and none of them would be home until late. She was alone. The house was shrouded in rain and she felt eerily isolated within it, as if it were an island with nothing outside but an eternity of grey shimmering veils of water. She felt like a dream figure, a formless ghost. Only the rain was real.
It helped to talk to Anne but there was only so far she could presume on friendship; the worst of it lay inside her and no amount of talking would exorcise it. Like twin spectres they waited in the shadows of her room; unwanted marriage, unattainable freedom.
The thought of kissing Henry actually repulsed her. The idea of lying in the same bed, of his hands on her body—she cringed and curled up under the bedclothes. Did other women have these fears? Not Fleur, who had returned from her honeymoon with a smug and knowing air. The difference was, apparently, that she and Clive adored one another.
I ought to love Henry but I feel nothing. It’s not fair to him.
Then, unbidden, an image slid into her mind of herself with Karl. Kissing, lying together… The shock of it took her breath away. Dark excitement, blackened with terror… She pushed the image away, denied it, but it kept creeping back. Almost in panic she sat up, turned on the bedside light, and saw her mother’s face looking at her from the photograph. Shame suffused her. God, how can I even think of such a thing?
She sighed. It was hopeless trying to sleep. Rising, she slipped a beige woollen dressing gown over her nightdress and made her way downstairs to the study, shaking her hair loose and tying the cord as she went.
The house was quiet, bathed in a steady rush of rain. Strange, the door to the study was open; her father usually left it closed. She crossed to the desk and switched on the desk light. The warm radiance fanned across the book-lined wall and the heavy oak desk, where her typewriter stood between two neat piles of paper.
She sat down, stifling a yawn. Her father was writing a book based on his lectures, and the typing of it occupied much of her spare time. It was a soothing occupation, even wrestling with his illegible amendments; it kept her thoughts from the dark landscape where they strayed too often. She inserted a fresh sheet of paper into the machine and looked over the notes to find her place.
As she set her fingertips to the keys, she knew with a sensation of paralysing terror that she was not alone in the room.
Clasping the back of the chair as if it were a shield, she turned round very slowly and stared at the sofa that stood across the corner to the left of the door. The shock of seeing a figure sitting there almost stopped her heart. When she realised it was Karl, she found it completely beyond her power to move or speak.
He was regarding her with surprise, as if he thought this wide-eyed, pale-robed apparition might be a ghost. Remaining seated—as though the courtesy of standing up would frighten the spirit away—he said gently, “Charlotte, I seem to make a habit of startling you. Forgive me. I thought if I spoke it would alarm you even more.”
Her tongue and lips worked, but no sound emerged. She was acutely aware that she was in her nightclothes, and her pulse was thundering. He indicated a book that lay open beside him and added, “There were some scientific books of your father’s that I wanted to consult, and he was kind enough to suggest I come this evening to read them at my leisure.”
“But you were sitting in the dark,” Charlotte managed to say.
“I was thinking more than reading,” said Karl.
“Er—Father should be home at any moment,” she said, looking desperately at the door. “He’s rather late.”
Karl’s eyebrows lifted. “Please don’t let me interrupt you. Do you always work so late?”
“No, I—I couldn’t sleep, that’s all.” She glanced at the typewriter and knew sh
e stood no chance of concentrating with Karl in the room. She gave a quick shake of her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“In that case, won’t you come and sit beside me?”
He extended a hand towards her. She froze, caught between the urge to run out of the room, and the requirements of good manners. One awkward encounter, and the barrier of professional distance she had cultivated was ripped away like rotten silk. It horrified her to discover just how fragile those painfully-built defences had been.
Yet his hand—luminous and rimmed with red light—was compelling. Somehow she found herself taking a breath, pushing back the chair and walking towards him. As his pale, slender fingers touched hers a shockwave went right through her body; yet strangely it was a wave of coolness, soothing. She sat down, suspended like dew on a web.
“I think I was as surprised as you when you came in,” he said. “I am sorry I gave you such a shock.”
“It—it doesn’t matter, truly,” she said, trying to moisten her dry mouth. “I didn’t think there was anyone in the house—obviously… “
“Your appearance is perfectly modest and charming,” he said with a slight smile. His fingers were still entwined with hers, and she didn’t know how to pull away. On his right hand he wore a gold ring with a blood-dark, polished stone. He was looking at her, but she could not meet his eyes. She just stared at the ring.
“Charlotte, are you afraid of me?”
The question was a shock. So direct. It hung in the air between them, unanswerable yet demanding a reply.
“Er—I—of course not.” She sounded brusque. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, we have worked together for several weeks now, yet it seems that I know you no better now than the first time we met. You never look at me, never speak to me unless you have to. Is there a reason?”
“No, really—if I’ve seemed unfriendly to you, I apologise, I never intended that.”
“Won’t you tell me what you did intend?” he said softly. She was so aware of his gaze that she was compelled to look up; and the radiance of his eyes, close to hers, instantly swallowed her. Irises of deep amber sparkling with gold and red fire, the pupils large and depthless… Dear God, this can’t be happening… “I don’t know. I don’t know that I should.”
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