The Mark of Cain

by Lindsey Barraclough

  Mimi stands nervously in the snow in front of the open door. I tiptoe back along the stone passage and, holding my breath, peer round the corner into the hall. Could I sneak in and replace the phone before Ange gets there?

  Too late.

  With her back to me, Ange has the receiver to her ear, listening. After a few moments she replaces it. I don’t know if Roger has spoken or not.

  I turn to creep back down the passage when the telephone’s shrill ringing sets my nerves jangling and my heart racing in alarm.

  Is it Roger ringing back? I stand there, pressed against the wall, biting my lip, willing him not to speak to Ange.

  “Yes?” she says. “This is Mrs. Russell speaking.”

  A pause.

  “What was that? It’s a bad line. Infection, did you say? Nothing more at all? Are you sure? How long do you reckon he’s got, then? Well, we’re snowed in here. There aren’t any trains. We couldn’t get there in that time, no.”

  A few seconds pass.

  “No, I’m not the next of kin.” Listening to Ange, I touch my trembling hand to the pocket enclosing the little cloth man. “Well, his wife has been in an asylum for years. Yes, two girls — fifteen, almost sixteen, and eight. Yes, I’m looking after them for the time being.”

  I feel my legs go hollow, lean back against the wall; the round light switch opposite swims fuzzily in and out of focus.

  “No, I really don’t know nothing the police would be interested in. Yes, thank you. Yes, do that, would you? ’Bye.” Ange puts the phone down.

  Dizzily, I force myself away from the wall, try to move one foot in front of the other, stagger along the passage.

  If I can find help, is there still time, any time at all?

  I hurry through the back door. Mimi is standing there shivering.

  I grab her hand and pull her through the deep snow drifted against the side of the house.

  We’re already halfway up the Chase when she asks, “Cora, where are we going?”

  “We — we’ve got to go to Hilsea,” I say.

  “There won’t be no buses.”

  “Then we’ll have to go on foot.”

  “Can’t Roger come?”

  “I wish he was here, Mimi, I so wish he was. I tried ringing, but it was too late. We can’t waste a second going all the way to his house and back in this deep snow — he might not even be there. We’ve got to be quicker than we’ve been in all our lives.”

  “Why have we got to go now? It’s so cold.”

  “I’ll tell you later, honest. Give your cheeks a rub. They’ve gone purple.”

  “So have yours.”

  While we blunder on as best we can, the ice on the surface of the ditch below the trees makes a cracking sound in the sharp, numbing air. By the turning into Old Glebe Lane the mist has lifted, only to give way to fat, downy snowflakes the size of half-crowns.

  “Watch where you’re going,” I call. “There’ll be ice on the road under the snow.”

  The words have barely passed my lips when Mimi stumbles and falls heavily onto her side. I struggle towards her.

  She lets me help her up and brush the white clods off her coat; then she stands and wobbles for a little while, clenching her teeth and rubbing her elbow through her sleeve.

  “Are you hurt anywhere?”

  “On me arm a bit.”

  “Here, take my hand.”

  Then all at once the wind picks up and the snowflakes start to whirl and thicken, spattering our cheeks with flecks of ice. We pull our scarves over our noses and up to our sore, reddened eyes as we climb the hill. The snow begins to sweep blindingly across our path from the fields on one side to the woods on the other, so in only a few minutes we can hardly see where we are going. Wiping our faces every few minutes, we trudge upwards, Mimi having to lift her boots tiringly high to clear the surface. All of a sudden her feet slip again. She shrieks and pulls me with her as she tips backwards into the snow, first onto her bottom, then her back. My instant fear is not to damage the doll in my pocket, and I pitch awkwardly, crashing down full length beside her.

  I enter the room and pull open the drawer.

  The manikin is gone.

  The girl has taken it.

  I gaze along the spirit thread to the scarred man, unmoving under a starched white linen sheet, colourless face, closed eyes. The bed is cloudy behind thin gauze; the thread still holds, but weakens as the manikin moves away from me. The dying lights rise swarming into the air, glimmering and sparkling even through the thickening mist.

  Soon he will die, though whether he lives or dies does not matter to me.

  This woman Ange is my means of accomplishing, but there is a wrangle between her spirit and mine. Her flesh is failing her, and resistance to me weakens her still further.

  I lift the counterpane. There they lie, two poppets cut and almost stitched, the little one already plump with feathers. The needle is pinned through the face for safekeeping, the lengths of hair laid out for sewing — wavy and fair, long and dark.

  Her lack of skill vexes me, the snail’s speed at which I am able to work her fingers.

  I feel a dull throb in my knee but manage to raise myself to sitting. “Mimi?”

  I hear a sob.

  “Can you get up?”

  “Think so.”

  I stretch out my arms and help to pull her off her back. She rubs her eyes with her snow-caked gloves and we teeter up together. Mimi almost slides over again but grabs my arm and steadies herself. Then she turns away, whimpering, “I can’t feel my feet. I’m freezing.”

  Gently, I pull her on.

  At last we reach the top of the hill. To our left, warm lights glow from the windows of Glebe House. Columns of smoke rise out of the chimneys up to the low grey sky from which the endless snowflakes are blowing.

  I try to plough on towards the main road, but Mimi drags farther and farther behind.

  “Come on,” I urge her.

  “It’s too hard,” she whines, her voice deadened by the wind. “The snow’s too deep. My knees ache, and my arm. And — and I’m so hungry.”

  I trudge back to her and, from the other side of the white, lacy veil drifting between us, Mimi’s face crumples.

  “Dad should’ve come home,” she moans. “He said he would.” She sinks down into the snow, covers her face with her hands, and begins to cry.

  A lump fills my throat and my eyes start to burn.

  I slump down in front of her, my skin stinging as the freezing moisture seeps through the knees of my trousers. I take Mimi’s shuddering shoulders in my hands. “Please, Mimi,” I plead. “Try and get up.”

  “I — I’m so — so cold. And I’m hungry, Cora. Can’t we go back?”

  Her teeth chatter as she cries, her whole body convulsing as she breathes juddering, shallow breaths. Her tears wash into and melt the speckles of snow that settle on her icy cheeks. Shivering from deep inside my bones, I fold Mimi tightly in my arms and bite back my own tears of frustration. She nestles into me, and for a moment I think how easy it would be just to stay there and let the quiet flakes cover us … a soft, feathery eiderdown … no one would miss us … no more worries … nothing at all …

  An idea floats by on the air: that maybe Ange has done this … stepped outside and wrapped our little dolls in a shroud of snow …

  “For heaven’s sake,” someone cries. “What are you doing down there? You’ll freeze to death.”

  A firm arm is thrown around my shoulders, another around Mimi.

  “Come on, you’ve got to get moving.”

  I turn my head and gasp. “Roger!”

  He forces us up onto our stiff, numb legs. I am so overjoyed to see him, the tears that threatened to spill a few moments ago begin to seep out and sting my face. I turn away.

  In one stride Roger wraps an arm round my head and pulls me into his chest. The snow swirls and eddies around us, and for all the moments he holds me there, tightly pressed against his warm coat, I am dazed by t
he closeness, the warmth, and the safety of it.

  “I thought you were dead,” he breathes.

  Mimi tugs on my sleeve, and on Roger’s. “I’m still freezing,” she says.

  I pull away, awkwardly wipe my face.

  Roger springs into action. “Stamp your feet, Mimi!” he cries to her. “Harder! Swing your arms around like this! How about a piggyback?”

  He crouches so Mimi can climb up out of the snow. She locks her arms about his neck and tucks in her legs. He gets up, tramps forward a few feet, hoists her up a bit more, then turns in the spiralling snow to wait for me to catch up.

  He looks the same, in the black wool coat with the leather buttons, his school scarf knotted around his neck twice in the funny way he does it. But there is something different about him, something purposeful, and serious.

  “Where are we going?” he asks.

  “Hilsea.”

  “The Saint Laz?”

  I nod.

  “There’s no hope of a bus,” he says. “Are you up for the walk this time?”

  “Of course.”

  “Come on, then. Oh, I nearly forgot — I stopped off at Mrs. Wickerby’s. Hang on a minute, Mimi… .”

  Holding on to her with one hand, Roger reaches into his pocket with the other, pulls out a bar of chocolate, and throws it over to me.

  “I’ve just had a sandwich,” he says. “Couldn’t eat another thing. You two have it.”

  Greedily, I rip open the paper and break the chocolate into squares, clumsily shoving some all at once into my own mouth before giving the rest to Mimi.

  We trudge along the main road. After a while the wind drops and the snow begins to thin to small, sparse flakes. It isn’t so deep towards Hilsea. Under the trees there are dark circles of earth and grass that haven’t been covered at all. As we pass the entrance gate to a large farm, Mimi at long last wriggles down, deciding she wants to walk.

  “Go ahead,” I say to her, “so we can keep an eye on you.” Once she is out of earshot I ask Roger, “How did you end up coming to find us?”

  “Honestly, I’ve been so worried I was almost camping out by the phone. When it rang a little while ago, I picked it up, and there was nobody there — at least, nobody said anything, but I could sense someone breathing, and listening.”

  “Oh, please don’t tell me you spoke to Ange, thinking it was me.”

  “No. I knew it wasn’t you, and put the receiver back.” He looks at me. “I told you I’d come.”

  When Mimi is at the pillar box on the edge of Hilsea, just far enough in front, I nudge Roger’s elbow.

  “Could we just stop for a minute,” I say softly, taking off my glove and reaching gingerly into my pocket, shrinking from the touch of the hair on the little man’s head. “I need to show you something. I’ve been terrified I might have squashed it.”

  I glance over at Mimi, see she still has her back to us, and lay the figure on my hand. I hear Roger draw in his breath as he grasps the meaning of it: of the blood-drop pins that stand out red and shiny against the scattered snow.

  “I — I found it in Ange’s bedroom. This bit of cloth is from one of Dad’s shirts, and these pins …”

  “They’re stuck in where he was stabbed, I can see,” he murmurs.

  “She was able to do this even though he was way off in London.” I swallow. “The hospital rang. I overheard Ange talking to them, just before we left. It seems like he … he hasn’t got long… .” I try to speak slowly. “And — and Ange has snipped some little bits out of our clothes as well — Mimi’s and mine — and taken hair out of our hairbrush. This isn’t the only doll she’s made.”

  The colour drains out of Roger’s face.

  Her hands are cold and stiff, her white breath rolls across her fingers, but still she knots the thread, pushes the needle into the head, and runs the stitches in and out, in and out, in and out, so all the little fair hairs are fluffy around the face.

  Blue for the eyes, loop the yarn, pull it tight, cut with the swan-necked scissors. Loop again, pull it tight, snip.

  Red for the little curved mouth …

  The shops that make up Hilsea High Street stand opposite a long, low wall surrounding the graveyard of Saint Margaret’s, an imposing red-brick church that seems far too grand for such a small village.

  “The Saint Laz is this way.” Roger points, and we cross the deserted road.

  Skimming the corner of the churchyard and the end of a narrow lane, we pass a large Victorian vicarage covered with the bare winter bones of a creeper, and separated from the vicarage garden by a wicket fence is a row of six ancient houses, standing joined together on a wide, shared expanse of snowy grass. Each one is identical to the next, the walls washed a creamy pink, and the arched doors and carved, pointed gables painted white.

  We pause to read the stone plaque on the wall linking the two middle houses:

  “Mr. Wragge said the women live in the house on the end,” I say, “but which end?”

  The words have barely left me when the door of the house nearest the vicarage garden opens, and a woman in an old brown coat comes out sniffing into a handkerchief. She turns to wring the hand of another woman, half hidden by the door frame, then hurries across the grass, head down, passing us without a glance.

  Instead of closing the door straight away, the woman in the house lingers for a moment, then moves forward onto the step, and, standing perfectly still, turns her face towards us. The reflected sky gleams off her round glasses. She looks curiously old-fashioned, tall and slightly ungainly in her tweed skirt, grey cardigan buttoned to her chin, and heavy brogues, her mouse-brown hair scraped back with two elaborate tortoiseshell combs.

  “It’s Miss Jewel,” Mimi whispers behind her hand.

  After looking all about her, across the grass, over to the fence and the vicarage, Miss Jewel beckons us forward. Roger and I look at each other hesitantly, but Mimi walks on over the snow to the house and we follow.

  The lintel is so low Roger has to duck to get under it into the stiflingly hot, narrow hall.

  The woman says nothing but leads us into a small sitting room. Roger stands stooped and awkward under the beams as we hover, uncomfortably overheating in our heavy coats, only a few feet across the carpet from the coal fire blazing away in its old cast-iron grate. The air is pungent with an unfamiliar smell, like nettles mixed with aniseed, and as my eyes grow used to the rosy light, I become aware of an array of exotic stuffed birds and animals, bizarre masks, and curious ornaments, their contorted shadows quivering up the floral-papered walls.

  The woman smiles at Mimi, and Mimi simply nods her head.

  Miss Jewel turns in my direction. I feel her magnified eyes lingering on me, and look at the carpet.

  “I — I’m Cora Drumm,” I mutter.

  “Roger Jotman,” says Roger.

  “And I am Mrs. Ketch,” comes a voice. “Lailah Ketch.”

  Another woman rises ghost-like out of a wooden chair in a dark corner, its back carved like the wide-open tail of a peacock. Half in shadow, the woman stands impressive and angular, her thick grey hair just skimming the beams. Her eyes, like two chips of black jet, range probingly over Roger and me before settling on Mimi, who returns the gaze.

  “Hello, Mimi,” Mrs. Ketch says.

  “Hello, Mrs. Ketch.” Mimi shifts her attention to the objects in the room, her eyes flitting from one thing to another.

  “I see you are curious,” says Mrs. Ketch. “There are a lot of treasures, aren’t there, Mimi. We were missionaries together, my husband, the Reverend Ketch — God rest his soul — my niece, Iris here, and me, travelling to places you may never even have heard of — Abyssinia, the Congo. We even travelled the Silk Road to Samarkand, but just as war broke out, the good reverend went down with the cholera in Bihar in northern India, and Iris and I returned to England.” She waves a spidery hand around the room. “As you can see, we brought far too much back with us.”

  I notice her eyes flicker up to a
clock on the wall emblazoned with large black words: The Eastern Bengal Railway Company. She makes a kind of stirring movement with her hand at Miss Jewel and rolls her eyes towards the kitchen. The younger woman opens the door and disappears behind it, while the strange smell wafts in and lingers even more strongly than before.

  Mrs. Ketch lowers herself back into the peacock chair. “You’d better sit down,” she says.

  “No, p-please don’t worry,” I stammer. “We’re in a bit of a hurry.”

  Mrs. Ketch pats a small stool at her feet. “Mimi, come and sit near me.”

  Mimi gives me a quick glance, then squeezes past the old leather trunk — stuck all over with worn labels from far-off lands — that fills the small space in the middle of the room.

  I catch Mrs. Ketch’s eyes darting from me to Roger, then back to me. I sit impatiently on the very edge of a hard, upright chair and find myself nervously twisting the woollen fingers of my gloves. Turning my face slightly to avoid the woman’s unsettling gaze, I hear the kitchen door open a crack, and catch a movement, reflected flames flickering on a glass circle, and behind it one of Miss Jewel’s huge eyes. A second later it’s gone and the door creaks shut.

  Not knowing what to say to Mrs. Ketch with Mimi there, I sneak a glimpse at Roger. His eyes are wandering over the room, from the Zulu spears crossed over the mantelpiece to the stuffed monkey on the wall staring down at us all cockeyed. Then he turns his attention to a dusty glass case on a small table by his elbow, by the look of it containing some oddly shaped nuts from foreign parts. He seems to fix on something, looks up at me, then makes a little jerk of his head towards a round, red object lying beside the glass case, at the same time furtively pointing at it with his finger.

  I squint. It’s a ball of red twine.

  I peep sideways at Mrs. Ketch. Her eyes are on us. All at once she says pointedly, to Mimi on her stool, “Mimi, why don’t you go and help Iris in the kitchen. You might be interested to see what she’s cooking.”

  Mimi shoots me a look. I lower my eyes and nod.

  “Go to Iris, dear, there’s a good girl,” says Mrs. Ketch.

  Mimi gets up, and with a last glance at me, goes into the kitchen, closing the door behind her, the sudden draught sending the flames flaring up in the grate.