The Lost Ones

by Anita Frank

  And with that, he returned to enjoy the warmth of the fire and the conviviality of the evening, the joint comforts of which failed to reach the lonely corner I found myself left within.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Though the night passed uneventfully, just as one could have predicted, I did not sleep well. I finally awoke feeling heavy, my limbs like lead weights crudely attached to my body.

  I tugged the cord for Annie and she appeared a few minutes later, tight-lipped and cautious. As she began to lay out my clothes for the day, I told her in an off-hand fashion that Mr Sheers intended to interview her. Though she made no comment, I noticed her hands faltered in their task, becoming momentarily inactive, until she restarted their motion with concentrated calm.

  ‘They are convinced we are making it all up, Annie: Mr Brightwell and Mr Sheers. Their sole purpose is to convince us that these events are little more than figments of our imagination.’ Still she said nothing. ‘Imagine that – men telling us we are mad, once again.’ I tilted my head as I screwed the back onto my pearl drop earring. ‘Will you be brave enough to tell them the truth, I wonder?’

  She made no attempt to answer.

  Madeleine was alone in the dining room when I went in for breakfast. The overcast aspect of the day insinuated itself into the room; beyond the window panes the air shimmered with rain. She came straight to me, her mien as glum as the weather outside.

  ‘I tried to talk to Hector again last night, but Stella, he’ll have none of it. He is certain we are making the whole thing up. He says Mr Sheers is convinced our subconscious thoughts are overpowering our rational ones, or some such mumbo-jumbo as that – that it’s all in our minds!’ She rested against the sideboard, her arms folded across her chest, as I helped myself to what remained in the silver salvers. ‘Except we know it isn’t, don’t we? He wants to talk to you today, you know, Mr Sheers. You will tell him everything, won’t you, Stella? You will be frank with him? You won’t allow him to sway you or embarrass you into thinking he’s right?’

  ‘I don’t think it will make any difference, whatever we say,’ I told her as I settled myself down to eat. ‘Mr Sheers has no intention of entertaining any extraordinary conclusions. He simply does not believe in ghosts.’ Even now the word felt strange on my tongue and faintly ridiculous. ‘I doubt anything will make him change his mind.’

  ‘Then what was the point of him coming?’

  I looked at her in surprise. ‘To confirm Hector’s opinion: that it’s merely a lot of nonsense conjured up by two unstable girls.’

  ‘No, no. He promised me he would listen to what I had to say. He promised to take me seriously.’

  ‘He’s indulged you by bringing in a second opinion.’

  She gnawed at her fingernails, staring into the haze beyond the windows. ‘What are we going to do, Stella?’ I could hear the fear edging her words. ‘If they don’t believe us, and we have to stay in this house as it is …’ She glanced back at me, before worrying her nail again.

  ‘If they don’t believe us, we will have to try and sort it all out for ourselves, won’t we? Just as we would have done if they had never come.’

  ‘Everyone is against us, Stella. Everyone in this house.’

  ‘We still have each other.’

  She smiled at my reassurance, a thin watery smile, but it wasn’t long before she was tearing at the innocent nail again, staring blindly through the window into the uninviting day.

  To make up for having ignored her for much of the previous day, Hector surprised Madeleine with tickets for the matinee performance at the local theatre, leaving me at a bit of a loose end. So, once the rain had abated, I decided to take a solitary walk in the grounds, eager to stretch my legs and blow away the cobwebs.

  I had just returned and was casting off my coat into Maisie’s waiting hands, when Mr Sheers loped into the hall and asked whether I might spare him a few minutes. My stomach clenched with nerves, but I did my best to conceal them as I agreed to his request. He led me down the corridor into the new wing, throwing open the door of the study, entreating me to make myself comfortable.

  I took a moment to look about me as I approached the walnut desk that dominated the room. I was, to be quite honest, surprised he had set up camp in Sir Arthur’s hallowed quarters. Even Hector had not chosen to utilise the study since his father’s death, so strong was the patriarch’s pervading presence, and indeed, there was something stifling about the room that put me ill at ease. Everything was too large, too overpowering, for the space attempting to contain it – the vast desk, the enormous globe on its polished brass stand, the gaudy gilt mirror and the stags’ heads mounted on plaques. Everything struck me as being too conspicuous and ostentatious. It was hardly surprising that Hector chose not to work in here – he would for ever be a little boy labouring in his father’s shadow.

  Mr Sheers, however, didn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable with his surroundings, though he made no attempt to settle behind the desk. Instead, he gestured me to the two facing chairs arranged before it. As I sat in one, he took the other, removing a notebook from the desktop. His pen hovered over the blank page.

  He asked me to start by revealing all the strange events that had occurred since my arrival, encouraging me to include any peculiar feelings, odd sensations, queer smells, indeed anything that might seem different from the norm.

  ‘Is there any point to all of this, Mr Sheers? You as good as told me last night what you intend to deduce from this whole affair – my evidence is irrelevant. Your mind is set; your conclusion is already drawn. Nothing I say will change your opinion.’

  He set the pen down. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Marcham. I should apologise for being rather heavy-handed last night.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to apologise, Mr Sheers, but you are clearly a man of conviction. This’ – I waved my hand between us – ‘therefore strikes me as a fruitless exercise.’

  ‘I would argue that it’s not fruitless, not at all. I’m still keen to know what you’ve experienced, and I want to understand why.’

  ‘As long as the “why” fits in with your own theories,’ I pointed out.

  He smiled. ‘Perhaps you will convince me otherwise.’ He shrugged and begged me to indulge his curiosity. ‘Let’s see what conclusions we can draw together at the end.’

  I sighed and huffed, before folding my hands in my lap. Then in a fluid fashion, bereft of emotion, I gave as thorough an account as I could. He interrupted intermittently, seeking clarification on certain points, and throughout his pen scratched across the surface of the paper with surprising neatness considering the speed at which it moved. I hesitated over my first reference to Annie, and he looked up, detecting my reticence immediately. My mind fogged over how much to say, how much to reveal, and I cursed myself for not having prepared more. So far, I had kept it simple: no assumptions, no deductions, just straight facts, stripped of theories. But now I had evoked Annie Burrows, and I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Is there something more you want to tell me?’ His voice was suddenly so gentle, I fancied he was going to take my hand and peer into my eyes, hoping for a glimpse of my secrets. I interlaced my fingers as I tried to think. He shuffled forward on his chair. ‘Is it about Annie? I’ve spoken to her already.’

  I demanded to know what she had told him, but he proved evasive. He was like a cunning detective, keeping witnesses apart, denying them the opportunity to collaborate on their stories. If only he knew that Annie Burrows had no intention of cooperating with me at all.

  ‘I have nothing more to tell you,’ I said at last.

  A carafe of water and a cluster of glasses stood upon a silver tray in the middle of the desk, and I asked whether he might pour me one. He handed me the tumbler without comment. I drank deeply, nursing it in my lap once I had done.

  ‘So, Mr Sheers? I have told you all I know. What do you conclude?’

  He studied the notes in his book. ‘It’s all very interesting.’

&nb
sp; ‘But you don’t believe a word of it.’

  There was a weighty pause. ‘I believe you believe it.’

  ‘Mr Sheers, I have spoken plainly to you, I would very much appreciate it if you could do me the same courtesy.’

  My display of unfettered irritation clearly took him aback. The veneer of practised charm slid away, revealing something much more thoughtful and honest. He placed his notebook flat on his knee and leant forward, his dark gaze focused on me with unnerving intensity.

  For a horrible moment I was transported back to those frightful Harley Street appointments arranged by Dr Mayhew. He had suggested to my parents I might benefit from the involvement of ‘Head Doctors’, as he so charmingly referred to them. I had resented the way they tried to claw into my private thoughts, my private grief, relishing any details I inadvertently let slip.

  The resurgent memory unsettled me, but if Mr Sheers noticed my fleeting discomposure, he made no show of it. He settled himself back in his chair, his bearing detached and professional now.

  ‘The incidents in this house began with your sister. Now, I understand that she has stayed here previously without any misgivings or unexplained occurrences, and yet since coming to stay this time that has clearly changed. We must therefore ask ourselves what else has changed in that time, and there is one obvious, happy alteration.’

  He paused, like a school teacher waiting for his favourite pupil to provide the correct answer.

  ‘She’s expecting,’ I said, unable to meet his eye.

  ‘Quite. It is a well-noted fact that changes in female hormonal conditions or’ – he took a moment to decide how best to proceed, before delicately picking his way through the minefield before him – ‘or other … emotional conditions,’ he said at last, ‘can precipitate experiences that some would be keen to define as paranormal.’

  I laughed in spite of myself. I bit my lips to stop lest he should think I was hysterical. I shook my head in disbelief, and yet at the same time, I wondered why I was so shocked. Was this not what I had expected all along?

  ‘Emotional conditions?’ I mocked. ‘Hector has kept you well informed, then?’

  ‘You are no longer serving in France,’ he said, ‘and you are decked in mourning. I would have made a calculated guess, even if Hector hadn’t forewarned me.’

  I sipped at the dregs of my water – my throat was dry, and I didn’t want him to misinterpret any catch that might occur while I was speaking.

  ‘I see very well what you are saying, Mr Sheers,’ I said at last. ‘My sister is pregnant and therefore clearly cannot be deemed rational, and I am beside myself with grief and so have no doubt lost my senses also. Hysterical females, such as ourselves, do not make convincing witnesses.’

  ‘Please, Miss Marcham, bear with me. Don’t you think it’s strange this is all happening now? Is it really so astounding that your sister, your pregnant sister, should be struck to the core by the tragic tale of a little boy falling to his death? That a woman who is about to become a mother herself suddenly hears him crying, and yet finds herself powerless to comfort him? Surely that predicament is every mother’s worst nightmare?’

  ‘I have heard it too,’ I pointed out, meeting his eye now.

  ‘Yes, you imagine you have – the idea planted by your sister and left to develop in your own subconscious, to be fed by your grief-stricken state.’

  I rose from my chair, determined to listen no more. I placed the glass firmly down on the desk as Sheers got to his feet.

  ‘You are wrong, Mr Sheers. You yourself admit you are no expert and I can assure you your deductions in this matter are incorrect. I am sick and tired of men telling me I am unstable,’ I announced, a revealing crack in my voice. ‘Am I grieving? Yes, I am grieving. I have lost my fiancé. I held his dying body in my arms, unable to do anything to save him.’ He attempted to interject, but feeling my composure slipping with frightening rapidity, I held up my hand to stop him. ‘No – I tell you now, Mr Sheers, that does not render me mad. It does not. It merely makes me heartbroken. But I assure you, one can be heartbroken and remain fully in control of one’s faculties. Perhaps in time you will come to see that.’

  And with tears blinding me, I fled the room.

  The unexpected knock on my bedroom door came just before dinner. I had still not recovered from my interview with Mr Sheers, and was feeling sullen and subdued. Thus distracted, I failed to respond to it immediately, but when it sounded a second time I came to my senses. Hector, dressed in his evening suit, stood in the doorway.

  ‘Might I have a quick word, Stella?’

  I would have loved for nothing more than to send him away, but I knew I couldn’t. He closed the door behind him. He made no attempt to advance into the room, and remained where he was, tugging uncomfortably at the cuffs of his shirt.

  ‘How are you?’ he said at last.

  ‘Actually, I have a thumping headache.’ Since this afternoon, tension had built in my temples and now throbbed there as a constant reminder of the unpleasantness of the day.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  He might have been content to stand to attention, but I was not. I drifted over to the chairs by the grate and sank into one. After a moment’s hesitation, he took the one opposite, though he only perched, as if prepared for flight.

  ‘I do appreciate you coming to spend some time with Madeleine.’

  ‘It’s been lovely to see her.’

  ‘But I think perhaps it’s time for you to go.’

  The clock on the mantel chimed the hour, the shrill strikes thrusting knives into my aching head.

  ‘Please understand, Stella, I have nothing against you, but the doctors have made it very clear that if we are to avoid what happened last time’ – he looked beseechingly at me – ‘what Madeleine needs right now is peace and quiet. She needs to be calm, Stella, and from what I can tell she is anything but. I had hoped your company would help but’ – his hands flew up in exasperation – ‘I have to say I’m very disappointed to hear that instead of settling everything down you’ve rather inflamed the situation with more of this nonsense.’

  ‘Nonsense?’

  ‘Yes, Stella, nonsense. If you’re trying to be supportive let me tell you now – you’re doing more harm than good.’ Agitated, he sprang from the chair and strode to the window, raking his fingers through his hair. ‘Look, I realise how hard these last months have been for you. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, losing Gerald the way you did. Losing anyone in this war is hard enough, but what happened to you …’ He hesitated. ‘I thought perhaps you were feeling better and spending time with Madeleine might be good for both of you, but clearly I was wrong. I’m sorry, Stella, but I have to think about what’s best for my wife, what’s best for our baby – and right now, being with you doesn’t seem to be doing her any good at all.’

  I was too upset to respond. The ticking clock spanned the silence while I composed myself.

  ‘You’re wrong, Hector. We’re not making it up, it’s not in our imaginations – there is something happening in this house.’ I swivelled round in my chair to face him. ‘Take her away with you, Hector, please! Take her back to London, she’d be safer there than here. I beg you, don’t leave her here.’

  A muttered expletive stopped me in my tracks. He was puce, his anger sparking. ‘I’m sorry, Stella! This is the very reason I want you gone from here.’

  ‘Hector—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Stella. I very much hope there will be a happier time in the future, when we can all be together again, but that time is not now.’ He strode past me, stopping as he reached the door. He gripped the handle, casting back over his shoulder. ‘There’s a train first thing tomorrow, I’d like you on it.’ And with a final, fleeting apology, he opened the door and was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It took me some time to recover. Though not wholly unexpected, I was still left dazed and somewhat dumbfounded by his decree. The dull call of the dinner
gong galvanised me into action. The evening would progress, and I would have to be part of it – it was the done thing, after all. Pulling on my gloves I left my room and as I did so I had the misfortune of colliding with Mr Sheers.

  ‘Was it your idea,’ I demanded, ‘to have me removed from Greyswick?’

  ‘Miss Marcham, please. Given your sister’s delicate state, I just felt it was best—’

  ‘To get rid of me.’ I was angry and resentful, and it was easier to lash out at this man, a stranger, than to cause trouble with my brother-in-law who, come what may, I was rather stuck with. ‘Well, thank you very much for that. You have no idea the damage you have done. She will be here alone now, alone with no one to protect her.’

  ‘Miss Marcham, she has her mother-in-law, she has Miss Scott, servants – she is hardly alone.’

  I had no patience for his ignorance. ‘You have no idea what you’re dealing with.’

  ‘I think I do, Miss Marcham.’ He manner was grave and resolute. ‘And I think you will soon find the situation greatly improved.’

  ‘Once I’ve gone,’ I carped. We reached the top of the staircase. His features clouded with weariness, though I wasn’t sure whether it was from my attack or the prospect of the physical feat now facing him. It was sobering seeing him grip the broad banister and lean heavily into it, pivoting his left leg, wincing as he took weight on it, moving his right leg down in a curious hop that he was at pains to minimise. Putting aside our differences, I offered him my arm, but he just glared at me.

  ‘Thank you, I can manage.’

  Cut by his curt dismissal, I stepped out past him without further ado and hurried down the stairs, leaving him to labour at his descent alone.

  I heard my name as I reached the drawing room corridor and Madeleine came rushing to greet me. She threw her arms around me, holding me close, as if I were a lifebuoy in a surging sea, her only hope of survival. As I gently disentangled myself from her suffocating grasp, I could see that the rims of her eyes were raw, and her face puffy. Hector had told her everything, she informed me, her voice catching with emotion.