The Mark of Cain

by Lindsey Barraclough

  I kiss the paper just here where I have marked it for you to touch. May God send his blessings on you both.

  Your most loving and happy sister,

  Kate

  Dearest Mary,

  Please God soon we will embrace and I will hold little Carey in my arms at last. All is prepared at Aunt Ankarette’s. I will be there within two hours, and Thomas will bring you so we may both be safely hidden there. He will steal you away in the darkness from that wretched house and you need no longer be afeared that that base, murderous creature who haunts the marshes will snatch away your child. Poor Kittie Wicken, that I did doubt her so, and forgive me, Mary, that I did question my sister’s words for so long a time. Do all that Thomas bids you, and soon you will be free from that other polluted, diseased and corrupted creature, your own husband. Please God, it is as the physician has said — that you do not appear to be suffering from the terrible affliction he has just discovered upon your lord’s person.

  Yours in haste,

  Kate

  There are no more letters.

  I don’t know how long I sit there, how many times the clock chimes its quarter hours. In the end it is the creeping cold in my bones that sends me up the stairs to my chilly bed. The window on the half-landing is crusted with ice.

  The harsh jangle of the alarm clock jolts me awake from broken, fitful sleep. My eyes ache.

  Pulling on my dressing gown and slippers, I step across to the window, draw the curtains aside, and look out over the bleak garden. In the half-light, glistening frost crowns the untidy tufts of grass and the sad empty flower beds. Even the stunted bushes and misshapen trees are under a light dusting.

  Beyond the creek the marshes stretch on into the misty distance. Behind me, the brass alarm clock ticks on, marking out its little divisions of measurable time. Before me, everything is motionless, lifeless as an old faded photograph.

  I stand close to the window, my breath clouding the small diamond panes, thinking of Mary Guerdon. Would she have been the same age as me? Did she stand at this window as I do now, looking out over this same pale, unchanged wilderness, frightened, knowing all those things I now know too?

  She couldn’t bear to destroy her sister’s letters — hid them instead.

  As I rub the glass clear with my fingers, I am startled to catch through the wet streaks a movement to my left, which begins at the corner of the wall to the edge of the cobbled yard.

  A figure moves away from the house, then walks quickly down the garden towards the part of the creek that funnels off towards the river.

  The hair is hanging loose, a faded red. It’s Ange.

  I can hardly believe that on this raw November morning, she is wearing only her nightdress, and absolutely nothing whatsoever on her feet. Oddly, she moves in a straight line, not veering to left or right to avoid the flower beds, but walking from the grass on over the hard, lumpy earth, then back onto the grass on the other side as if it is all one and the same. The only time she swerves is to avoid a tree stump.

  For a few dreadful seconds I think she has gone mad and is going to fling herself into the water. My mind races on what’s best to do. I am just poised to rush downstairs after her when I realize, even at that distance, that there is hardly any water in the channel and what little there is lies motionless, the tide caught frozen between coming in and going out.

  To my amazement, Ange crouches down and disappears behind the stiffened grass on the bank.

  For a couple of minutes my heart thuds with anxiety. Once more, I am about to turn for the door, when her head comes up again and I see her reach up with one hand. After a struggle, she stands upright, her nightdress, legs, and arms streaked and soaking with wet clay that could only have come from under the ice, as the mud on the bank is frosted solid.

  Ange looks straight across the garden towards the house and, with the same purposeful stride, marches back in an almost unwavering straight line. Her feet are bloody.

  I wait for a while, in a turmoil, not knowing what I should do, then rush downstairs. A freezing draught is sweeping down the hall from the stone passage. The back door must be standing open.

  When I look into the kitchen, Ange is sitting staring vacantly at the window, a packet of cigarettes lying untouched on the table in front of her. Our breath is like clouds. I hurry past and along the icy flagstones to close the back door before returning.

  Ange’s eyes are glassy and red rimmed. Strands of hair hang down over her feverish-looking face. The room is bitterly cold, but she is still wearing only her dirty nightdress. Her bare feet are mottled blue and red, her hands utterly drained of colour.

  I grab a tea towel to wipe her feet, then run into the hall for a coat to put over her shoulders.

  “Ange … why — why did you go outside? It’s perishing.”

  Her whole body is quivering. When she turns her head in my direction, the sinews stretch taut and stringy in her neck. She looks but doesn’t seem to see me.

  She begins to cough, and her hand flies up to shield her mouth. The skin on the back is cut and scratched, her fingernails black and broken.

  “You’ve got to put something warm and dry on,” I urge, “or you’ll catch your death. Do you want me to get you something from your room? Have you had your pills?”

  She stands up without speaking and makes her way stiffly into the hall.

  I follow and watch her slowly climbing the stairs, dreamlike, in a trance. Her coat drops from her shoulders and flops down. In only her wet nightdress, she continues upwards, leaving smears of blood from her feet on the stairs.

  “I’ll bring you a cup of tea,” I call, turning back to the kitchen.

  A little later, a hot-water bottle tucked under my arm, I put a tray with a cup of tea and a plate of buttered toast down on the carpet outside Ange’s room and knock softly on her door.

  Hearing nothing, I gently push it open, pick up the tray, and move quietly inside.

  She is lying in her untidy bed, face to the window, covers pulled up to her chin.

  I tiptoe in, elbow the copy of Woman’s Weekly off the bedside table onto the floor, leaving the tea and toast there.

  Turning to lift the covers at her feet, I catch sight of Ange’s face and am so startled that I drop the hot-water bottle, sending it slithering off the bed onto the floor.

  Her eyes are wide open, her skin covered in a sweaty sheen. She is muttering to herself, “Too hard … too cold … frozen … too hard … too cold …”

  Unnerved, I can’t think what to do. Should I get a doctor?

  I tidy the bedcovers as best as I can.

  “I — I’ve made you a cup of tea and some toast,” I say, gently pushing the hair off her forehead. Her eyes begin to droop. She groans.

  “Do you need your pills?”

  Without answering, she quickly drifts off into a wheezy sleep.

  I don’t know what to do.

  Why isn’t Dad here?

  I hear light footsteps on the landing. Mimi appears at the door.

  “What’s the matter with Ange?” she says, peering in.

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the ’flu or something. We need to get her warm. She keeps saying she’s too cold, too frozen.”

  Mimi’s eyes fix on Ange with an expression I can’t fathom. She doesn’t step beyond the threshold.

  “I’m going to find some Germolene for her feet — they’re all scratched — then leave her in peace for a little while, give her a chance to warm up,” I say, closing the door behind me. “I’ll come back in ten minutes and see if we should get the doctor out.”

  I put my hands on Mimi’s shoulders and look into her face. “Are you all right?”

  “Think so. What are we going to do about school?”

  “We’ll have to miss it,” I say. “Say we were ill.”

  I can’t go in anyway. Madame Mary Saint Bernard saw me glance at the book. It will be plain to her that it was me who took it, rummaged through her desk, stole out of the wind
ow. I don’t know what that will mean, what she will do — expel me? Will another letter arrive, and remain unanswered like the first? What would happen then? I push the thoughts away, my head already too crowded.

  Mimi and I drift through the day like ghosts, restlessly moving between rooms, unable to settle. Now and then I spread out the book and reread Katherine Myldmaye’s letters, and every so often go and check on Ange, who sleeps on. Sometimes, her back turned away, Mimi draws in her exercise book, blowing on her icy fingers, then seeing if she can still use a pencil with her gloves on.

  In the middle of the afternoon, as the heavy sky begins to press down on the frozen earth, we are startled by a noise from the doorway.

  Ange is standing there, in a big, scruffy blue cardigan over a brown woollen dress and zipped sheepskin ankle boots. Her hair is lank and loose, pinned back off her face with a couple of kirby grips, and her dried-out skin, unevenly powdered and rouged, is drawn tightly over her cheekbones under hollow-rimmed eyes. A smear of lipstick has settled into the lines of her cracked lips.

  “Ange! Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  “I’m all right,” she says weakly. “Think I must have missed taking me tablets. I seem to be getting all forgetful.”

  “We thought you’d got the ’flu. I was all ready to get the doctor in.”

  “I’ve had a couple of aspirins, done meself up a bit. I’ll just sit by the fire, get some mending done.”

  “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

  She reaches for her sewing box.

  The afternoon wears on and the sky grows darker. Mimi and I play Snap and Old Maid with a pack of cards we find in a drawer.

  We are running out of logs for the fire. If Roger were here, he could have helped me get some from the barn. The frost hasn’t lifted from the ground all day. Maybe it will be warmer tomorrow. I’ll get some wood then.

  Ange sits with her feet up sideways on the settee, doing a bit of darning, drifting off for a little nap from time to time, then stitching up the frayed edges of cuffs and collars, and patching the odd rip. Her glass-headed pins gleam in the firelight, and her fingers deftly push the tip of the needle in and out, then snip the thread with the silver swan-necked scissors.

  I go into the kitchen to find something to eat. There isn’t much in the cupboard. I mix a tin of baked beans with some scrambled eggs, put three bowls of it on a tray with some spoons, and take it into the sitting room.

  The Jotmans will be squashed around the table under the airer, its four wooden rails probably draped with socks, having something like shepherd’s pie covered in bubbling grated cheese, or a stew in the big pan with the black handles, Pete, Dennis, and Roger squabbling over the last bit of meat.

  When Mimi has finished eating, she takes her rag doll, Aggie, from behind a cushion.

  The lights go out, the radio fades to nothing, and the soft humming of the radiator dies away.

  My heart drops.

  “Oh, no, not again,” says Mimi, propping Aggie up on the small table, against the base of the lamp.

  “Must be a power cut,” I say.

  In the sudden darkness, the light from the crackling flames in the hearth burns brighter, spreading its golden-reddish glimmer into the corners and outlining the straight edges of the furniture.

  “I’ll go and fetch some candles.” I half stand, glancing at Ange. When I see her, I sink slowly back into the chair, amazed and disturbed.

  She is staring at Aggie sitting on the tabletop.

  Her eyes are like mirrors in the glow of the fire, alive and glistening with reflected heat. In that strange, distorted half-light of flame and shadow, her lips, which had looked thin and parched only a short while before, seem moist, red, and fleshy, and slowly they stretch into a glinting smile.

  As if it isn’t Ange at all.

  The telephone rings out in the hall. We jump.

  Is it Wrayness Abbey? My legs go weak. I can’t move.

  Ange starts to rise, but Mimi shoots up.

  “No, Mimi, leave it!” I say.

  “It might be Dad,” Mimi says, hurrying out.

  My heart pounds. Would Madame Mary Saint Bernard send the police? Can you go to prison for stealing a book?

  I hear Mimi speaking, but her voice is muffled, as if she has her hand cupped around her mouth. It can’t be the school. They wouldn’t bother to discuss my thieving with my sister, but if it’s Dad, why is she being so secretive?

  All at once Ange gets up and strides out of the room.

  “Who is it?” I hear her bark at Mimi.

  I can’t make out what Mimi says, but the receiver slams down and Mimi runs off. Ange comes back in and sits down heavily in her chair.

  “What was that about?” I ask, but Ange says nothing, just stares at the fire.

  I get up, go into the hall. “Mimi?”

  No answer.

  She isn’t in the kitchen.

  I go down the stone passage and knock on the toilet door, push it open.

  Empty.

  I didn’t hear her run up the stairs, but I go and look in our bedroom, in the bathroom.

  “Mimi? Are you in there?”

  Always the old fear, slipping back in so easily.

  I press my chest with my fist as my heart starts to thump.

  Giddily, I make my way quickly down, go back into the sitting room.

  Ange is lying back in the armchair, eyes closed. I shake her by the shoulder.

  “Has Mimi come back?”

  In my confusion, I don’t at first take in the tension in Ange’s body, the lack of the natural softness of sleep about her. As I leave the room, I think I hear the rustle of clothes, an out-rush of breath, but only fleetingly wonder then if, maybe, she isn’t really asleep at all.

  In the hall I inch my way along the old panelling under the heavily carved banisters.

  The temperature drops as the radiators grow cold. My breath leaves me in a mist.

  Which panel below the staircase opened the priest hole all those years ago? I try to remember. Years before, Mimi disappeared in there. Surely she hasn’t done the same again.

  I tap lightly, press my ear to the wall. “Mimi?” I plead. “Please — please answer me, Mimi. Are you there? Please, Mimi — please.”

  Nothing.

  I press each panel in turn. Level with my shoulder, one gives a little to my touch. I try again. There’s a slight movement, a rough grating sound, a dull ping, but no more. The mechanism seems to have broken. Mimi couldn’t have got in.

  With growing dread I search until I don’t know where else to look.

  I come out of the dining room, in despair look both ways along the dim hall.

  To the left, at the end of the passage, is the door to Auntie Ida’s old kitchen. Just at that moment the lights flicker back on and I see that the key is missing in the lock.

  I move down, stand in front of the door, touch it with my fingertips, push it a couple of times.

  “Mimi?”

  I tap gently with my knuckles.

  “Mimi, it’s Cora.”

  I hear a noise — the grating of a chair leg on the flagstones.

  “Please, please, Mimi, let me in.”

  Seconds go by. The chair moves again.

  More seconds.

  The key scrapes in the lock. The door opens inwards a couple of inches. There is Mimi’s eye.

  “Oh, Mimi!”

  I push the door open, fling out my arms, and pull her to me, lowering myself to kneeling on the cold hard floor. She is shivering. I stroke her hair and rub her cheeks with the backs of my fingers.

  “For heaven’s sake, what are you doing here?” I cry. “I couldn’t find you.”

  I wrap my arms tightly around her, and for one moment she lets down her guard.

  “I miss —” She shudders into my shoulder. “I want Auntie Ida.”

  I can’t say a word. Rubbing her back, I gaze over Mimi’s head at Auntie Ida’s kitchen. In the half-darkness I can make out the hard
edge of the old stone sink, the torn curtain still hanging underneath, and the black range with the heavy kettle in its place on top. The huge wooden table stands in the middle of the room, the top crisscrossed with the threadlike trails of woodlice and silverfish; the floorboards beneath are scattered with mouse droppings and crumbs of nibbled paper.

  My eyes grow hot.

  We drank our tea there, ate boiled eggs from the hens that once scratched around behind their wire fence in the garden.

  There, in deep shadow, is the dresser with its rows of dust-rimmed plates, cups, and jugs and, on a shelf, the large Bakelite wireless sits under a film of grey. Draped across the ceiling, spiders’ webs loosely droop with the remains of insects.

  “Come on, let’s get you warm,” I say, stumbling with her into the lighted hall, wiping my wet cheek with my finger.

  Still holding her, I manage to pull the door to and lock it.

  I look down at the key in my hand, peer down the hall to see if Ange is awake and watching, then carefully tuck it under a loose corner of the carpet.

  “See where I’ve put it, Mimi?” I whisper.

  She nods gravely.

  “Would you like to go to bed early? I’ll do you a hot-water bottle, and see if I can find a bit of milk to make some cocoa.”

  She nods again.

  A little while later, in our bedroom, as I pull up her covers, I ask Mimi who was on the telephone.

  “Nobody,” she says, and turns over to face the wall.

  “Mimi …” I put my hand gently on her arm. “You’re not on your own, you know. You can tell me anything. We — we’ve got each other.”

  She shrugs me off.

  With a sigh, I go downstairs to wash up the cocoa pan, dry it, then crouch down to put it back with the others in the cupboard under the sink. I am about to close the door when I notice a little corner of dull-red card squashed behind a tin of Vim. I yank it out.