The Lost Ones

by Anita Frank

  ‘I want to know – has there ever been a dead baby in this house? Well, has there?’

  ‘No, Miss Marcham.’ The voice that answered me was flimsy in strength yet flinty in nature, like hammered steel. ‘My son is the only baby that has ever been in this house – dead or alive.’

  We all turned to witness the entrance of Lady Brightwell as she shuffled up the corridor, her frilled dressing gown floating around her like surf on a breaking wave. One gnarled hand rested on the flocked crimson wallpaper as she made her painful progress. A miasma of illness surrounded her, draining her of all vitality. She stopped just short of us, exhausted, her breaths laboured. Miss Scott hastened to her side, slipping an arm round her waist and reproving her for such wanton recklessness. Lady Brightwell dryly observed that rest had been impossible with all the carry-on.

  ‘Lady Brightwell,’ I persevered, ‘are you absolutely sure?’

  ‘Miss Marcham—’ Batting away Miss Scott’s fussing hands, Lady Brightwell took a further step. The muscles about her eyes twitched as she regarded me with ill-concealed contempt. ‘Have I not already explained this to you? Very well, let me make it clear, one final time. That cradle was commissioned especially for Hector, and he is the only baby who has ever lain in it. I was blessed but once, Miss Marcham, and that one time robbed me of the possibility of another. In short, I have never carried, nor borne any other child, living or dead. Do I make myself very clear?’

  ‘But Annie—’

  ‘Why do you credit that girl?’ She shook her head, reaching out for Miss Scott’s arm. ‘She is a mere scrap of a maid. No doubt all the nonsense created by you and your sister has intrigued her mind and perverted her imagination.’

  ‘No, no, she saw—’

  ‘Nothing, Miss Marcham, the girl saw nothing.’ She had no intention of brooking any discussion. ‘Mrs Henge is completely correct – she should be disciplined, regardless of whether her actions were borne of malicious intent or simple foolishness.’ She fought to catch her breath, looking aged and frail, the effort of confrontation taking its toll. ‘Now perhaps if you will all be so kind, I would like to return to my room and rest – without any further disturbances.’

  Miss Scott, though the older of the two, made a spritely contrast to Lady Brightwell as she assisted her slow return up the corridor. Mrs Henge held back until they were out of hearing.

  ‘Well, Miss Marcham?’

  ‘That will be all, Mrs Henge.’

  ‘Lady Brightwell—’

  ‘As I have already stated, Annie is my responsibility and I will take care of this. You may go,’ I added for good measure.

  The housekeeper sparked with animosity. ‘She should be punished for such wickedness,’ she spat, her eyes narrowing, her mouth hard and unforgiving, but seeing she would gain no quarter from me, she raised her chin and strode away.

  ‘Do you see now? Do you see what it is you ask of me?’ Annie demanded, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, gulping back her misery. Before I could answer, a fresh sob caught in her throat, and with no propriety whatsoever, she fled up the nursery stairs. I started after her, but my progress was prevented by the hand that caught my arm.

  ‘Let me go, Mr Sheers.’

  He released me at once. ‘Leave her, Miss Marcham.’

  ‘No, I must speak to her.’

  ‘Later, perhaps.’

  ‘No, Mr Sheers, now,’ I snapped. I had a sense of something precious slipping from my grasp and I had to act.

  I ran after her, paying no heed to the open nursery door as I plunged through to the servants’ quarters. I drew up short, out of breath from my rapid ascent and thwarted by my unfamiliar surroundings. I called out – Annie’s name pierced the uninhabited corridor before me. When I received no reply, I hurried forward, grabbing at door handles one by one, to see if they would relent. After four frustrating failures I called her name again as I passed the servants’ staircase leading down to the lower levels of the house. I stopped – I had come far enough. A door just in front of me was ajar.

  My emotions collided as I hesitantly advanced – embarrassment, frustration, guilt and regret. I pressed it open with the palm of my hand. It squeaked on its hinges as it eased inwards, revealing a small room lit by a single window, with two beds pushed against opposing walls. On the left sat Annie Burrows.

  She had curled herself into a hedgehog ball, her shoulders rounded, her face hidden behind the tuck of her knees. Perhaps she hoped to conceal herself – disappear, even – if only she could become as small as physically possible.

  I hovered at the end of the bed. She made no attempt to acknowledge me and seeing her reduced into this terrified huddle humbled me. After an age, I gingerly sat down.

  ‘Do you see why now?’ Her body muffled her words, and I had to strain to make them out. ‘Why I didn’t want to help? And now they’ll all wonder about me.’

  There was resentment in her voice, and I couldn’t blame her for it. I had persuaded her to lower her defences. I had encouraged her trust, induced her to help me without consideration for what it might cost her – I had thought only of Madeleine, what happened to Annie Burrows had been of no consequence. I felt ashamed of my selfishness.

  She slowly unwound, her shoulders rolling back, her head lifting. ‘Do you know what it’s like to be called “witch”?’

  Like a lightning flash illuminating the night, I had a sudden insight into her life. A little girl distinct from everyone else, a little girl with a remarkable gift – but not one that marked her as special, but as different, and in this cruel world of ours, different was not a good thing to be. To survive she had learnt to hide in plain sight, but I could only imagine the painful lessons she had suffered along the way.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The apology was woefully inadequate – a piece of cotton to moor an ocean liner. Awkwardly, I reached forward and rested my hand on the arm that belted her legs, but soon withdrew it to my lap. ‘She had no right to say that.’

  ‘They all say it,’ she said with such heartbreaking resignation, I wondered if she might consider the spiteful slur deserved.

  ‘Well, they are wrong to do so. It isn’t true, for starters. What you can do is remarkable – you are remarkable, Annie Burrows. You have a precious gift, you should not be ashamed of it.’

  ‘It is a curse, not a gift.’

  ‘It is whichever you choose it to be.’ My agitated fingers toyed with a fold in the blanket beneath me as I tried to formulate my tumbling thoughts. ‘I cannot claim to understand what it is you do, Annie, or how you see the things you do, but I find myself unable to dismiss you, as others might. I believe you, Annie.’ I shrugged lightly in the face of her sceptical scrutiny. ‘I don’t know what else to say, I can’t even explain my conviction to myself, just that it is clear and plain to me, even when it should be anything but. I believe in you.’

  The first fragile buds of rapport unfurled through the congenial silence that followed – an exchange of shy smiles, a softening of defences, the onset of spring.

  ‘What do you think it meant, what you saw?’ I asked.

  ‘I saw a dead baby.’ She drew her knees tighter against her narrow chest.

  ‘Who was it, Annie? Whose baby?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She lifted her head higher, unwinding a smidgeon more, growing bolder in the thaw. ‘I can only see what he shows me. He shows me what he has seen, just as he has seen it. I know no more than that.’

  I nodded, my inept mind struggling to understand. ‘It is all connected – it must be,’ I mused. ‘The question is how? What can it all mean? Dear God,’ I whispered, the monstrous horror sinking in anew. ‘What happened in this house?’

  An apologetic knock startled us both. I spun round, surprised to see Cook hovering in the doorway, clutching something to her waist.

  ‘I’m so sorry, perhaps now’s not a good time, but I happened to pop up and I heard voices …’ Flustered, she thrust out her hand, and I saw now what was caught in her thick f
ingers – a fold of paper. ‘Well, I said you could have it and I happened to be up here, and … well, anyway, here it is.’ I accepted her offering with some confusion. ‘Why, it’s what you wanted!’ she said, eager to please. ‘Edith’s details.’

  ‘Edith?’ I echoed stupidly, unfolding the sheet.

  ‘Why, Edith Jenkins: the nanny.’ She beamed as the penny finally dropped. ‘That there’s Nanny’s address.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The address revealed that Edith Jenkins – Nanny – had not travelled far to assume her next post, and this discovery presented an exciting new possibility: a face to face meeting. I was convinced she held the key to discovering what had happened all those years ago.

  With mounting excitement, I shared my plan with Annie, pacing her draughty room, the wind pushing against the tiny window with its paltry view of roof tiles and a hint of sky. When I stopped, bright-eyed and enthused, I looked at the dejected figure hunched on the bed and felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. She had been a queer but contented creature until I had wedged my knife under the lip of her shell and prised it open, determined to find the pearl hidden within. Now she sat there exposed, hollowed out and alone – haunted by the dead and shunned by the living – and it was all my doing.

  ‘You should come with me,’ I blurted out. The dried trails of her tears caught the light as she turned her face to me. She looked so lost, so fragile. I knew what it was to conceal one’s true self, how difficult and isolating it could be. I was in a unique position to help Annie Burrows – my company could be a haven where she could finally be herself.

  ‘Yes, yes, you should come. There can be no truth without you, Annie – I need your help.’ Again, her instinctive wariness flared, that innate caution that had served her well. ‘We are all alone in this house, Annie, you and I. We must stick together.’ I touched her shoulder. ‘Come, help me dress for dinner. And tomorrow – tomorrow we will visit Nanny Jenkins.’

  Dinner was a strange affair. Lady Brightwell was bedridden and unable to join us, but Miss Scott lent us her company, though she made it clear from the start she did not intend to tarry long, as she was keen to return to her ladyship. She confided that recent events had taken a profound toll on her mistress. All the talk of Lucien had reopened a distinctly unpleasant chapter in her life, and there was only regret and self-recrimination to be found within its pages.

  Intrigued, I encouraged Miss Scott to elucidate. She huffed and faffed as was her manner, but eventually she admitted Lady Brightwell held herself partly responsible for the boy’s death.

  ‘She always felt guilty for not taking to him, I think,’ Miss Scott explained, toying with her egg mousse. ‘“Scottie,” she would say to me, “it’s so terribly hard having to see your predecessor’s progeny every day, and worse to be expected to have affection for him.”’

  ‘She was jealous of him?’ I was unable to mask the disgust in my voice.

  ‘Oh! Don’t judge her too harshly, Miss Marcham. She was so young, and Sir Arthur had so adored his first wife, you see, and Lucien was her spitting image. Lady Brightwell couldn’t help feeling second best. After the accident, I think she felt in some way she had made it happen, by wishing the boy didn’t exist. Once she was expecting herself, you see, she just wanted a fairy tale ending – a palace, her husband, a son.’ She lowered her gaze. ‘She got what she wanted … but at a most dreadful cost.’

  ‘She wanted Lucien gone?’

  ‘Oh she never wished harm on the boy!’ Miss Scott was quick to assure me. ‘She just wished everything had been different – that Sir Arthur had never been married before, that he had not had any other children. It all tarnished it for her, you see, his history.’

  ‘She knew what she was getting into when she married him.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Marcham, you think it is all so easy …’ a sad smile hovered on her lips, ‘but back then, one had to do as one was told, not what one necessarily wanted.’ She set down her cutlery, the egg mousse barely touched. ‘It was considered an advantageous match.’

  ‘Were you here, Miss Scott, when the tragedy occurred?’ Sheers chipped in.

  ‘I was. I had not long come back – I had been away, looking after my parents who had succumbed to influenza, which was terrible that year.’ She paused as Maisie collected her plate. ‘So, I just missed Hector’s birth – poor Lady Brightwell had such a time of it.’

  ‘And she was still confined to her bed?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh no, she was just beginning to get about again – she had been bedbound for days after the birth, and quite unable to care for Hector. If only I could have been here to help her, but my parents, you see. Hector was cared for by the nanny, but after her carelessness with poor Lucien – well, she couldn’t be trusted, not with Hector.’

  ‘And so, you became Hector’s nanny?’

  A blissful smile illuminated her face, and again, the beauty she must have enjoyed in her youth radiated through the faded exterior. ‘Yes! She said, “Scottie, I cannot trust anyone but you.” So, I looked after him. He has been my joy.’

  The conversation was steered to happier topics for the remainder of the meal, and as soon as pudding was cleared, Miss Scott excused herself. I assured Mr Sheers that I would be quite content with my own company if he wished to partake in brandy and cigars, but he elected instead to escort me back to the drawing room where Maisie had set out the coffee.

  ‘How is your maid?’ he asked once I’d poured for us both.

  I brushed off the incident. He watched me as I sipped my drink, before asking if I truly believed the cradle had been rocking prior to Annie’s entry to the nursery. In no uncertain terms, I told him that I did. I refrained from going into detail, but I made it very clear I had good reason to believe Annie Burrows.

  ‘What is it about this girl that evokes such trust in you?’ he asked, smiling in wonderment. ‘She makes the frankly extraordinary claim of having seen a dead baby and you don’t bat an eyelid! I find it quite astounding that you don’t question her, not for one moment, and yet common sense and the evidence would support Mrs Henge’s theory rather than your own.’

  I bristled at the mention of Mrs Henge and tartly observed I would favour my maid over Greyswick’s housekeeper any day. He was still not satisfied though and pressed me again about Annie. He leapt at my hesitation.

  ‘There you are! You’ve done that before.’ He dispensed with his coffee to better study me, determined to discover what lay beneath my veneer. ‘I ask you about that girl and you clam up, as if you’re tempted to tell me something but think better of it.’

  ‘When have I done that before?’

  ‘When I interviewed you.’ He laughed and apologised for the rather grandiose description of what had taken place in the study. ‘You seemed reluctant to be drawn on her then as well. I’m curious.’

  My guard went up. There was something about Mr Sheers that made me wary, I realised. He had a disarming charm about him that created the impression he was harmless, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that behind that façade lay a cunning mind, deft and dangerous.

  ‘She’s shared your experiences in this house, I know, but there’s more to it than that, I’m sure. She demonstrated the same reluctance. Why?’

  I turned my face to the fire and closed my eyes. The heat prickled against my eyelids, and all I could perceive was a solid wall of gold. The overwhelming sense of loneliness that had enveloped me since Madeleine left shouldered its way to the fore and subconsciously my fingers clasped my locket.

  ‘Tell me about Annie Burrows. Please, Miss Marcham. I would so like to help if I can.’

  I hadn’t expected to want to confide in him, but there was something so kind, so encouraging – so beguiling – in his sincerity. In that quiet moment, when the only other sounds in the room were the soothing crackling of the fire and the rhythmic tick of the ormolu clock, I wanted him to hear my story and believe me. So, gripping my locket and gazing into the hypnotic flames to avoid the g
entle mockery in his eyes, I told him everything – from the night of the fire, to Jim Burrows, to the hideous incidents at Greyswick, and Annie’s conviction that Lucien was seeking justice for his death – his fall by foul play.

  ‘You can say it. That I’m a fool.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re a fool, Miss Marcham.’

  ‘But still, you don’t believe me.’

  ‘Would you like a drink? A proper drink?’ He pushed himself up from his chair and made his way to the decanters on the sideboard. He poured generous measures of whisky into two tumblers and made his way back to me, his uneven gait a constant reminder of the sacrifice he had made for his country. When I had taken my glass, he held his aloft.

  ‘To the fallen,’ he said without sentiment and took a hearty swig.

  I echoed his words, my fingertips alighting on my locket again. After a few sips, I held up my tumbler, the light refracting in its carved pattern.

  ‘There, Mr Sheers, I’m suitably fortified. Let’s hear it. Belittle me if you wish, I’m ready for you.’

  He chuckled. ‘I have no wish to denigrate you in any way, Miss Marcham.’

  ‘But you think I’m mad.’

  ‘No, no I don’t. I’ve learnt not to think that at all. I appreciate you taking me into your confidence. Your revelations are … eye opening. You want my thoughts on the matter?’

  I assured him I was most eager to hear his analysis. Indeed, I reiterated, I would be fascinated to hear it. He met the irony in my voice with a wry smile before delivering his theory. He believed I had misconstrued what I had witnessed on the night of the fire.

  ‘In the light of this lingering fantasy, I think the transference of “supernatural” power to Burrows’ daughter is perfectly understandable. However, I do think that for her – an insignificant young girl who is never likely to amount to much – having someone like you, a lady, her mistress, bestow such abilities upon her and then believe the stories she makes up to promote the idea … well, I’m sure she must find it intoxicating.’