Falconridge

by Jennifer Wilde

  “How much farther is it?” I asked.

  “Be patient. We’ll be there soon enough.”

  “You’re not glad?”

  “Is one ever glad to meet his doom?”

  “Doom?”

  “A mere choice of words,” he said.

  I thought the remark an odd one, but I was far too excited to pay any special attention to it. My uncle was an enigma, but I was not going to let him spoil this for me.

  We seemed to be going uphill, the road gradually slanting up. The oak trees began to thin out, and I could see patches of sky through their tall limbs. We passed through a gate, two large gray stone portals standing on either side, the heavy iron gate swung back. The carriage swung around a curve, and I had my first glimpse of Falconridge, sprawling at the top of a hill, sharply outlined against the greenish sky.

  It was a formidable place, massive in size and beautiful in a rough-hewn, rugged kind of way. It was two stories high, constructed entirely of huge gray stones with a dark green roof. There were many turrets, and many towers, with two huge wings that spread out over the hill. A circular drive of crushed shell led one up to the portico, four flat gray slabs of steps before it. The woods came up almost to the house on the left side, and to the right there were terraces and gardens, all of them untidy and ragged looking and desperately in need of work. I could see a corner of the carriage house, and my uncle told me that there was a courtyard in back. Falconridge perched on the edge of the hill like the bird of prey that gave it its name and behind the house the lawns stretched down to the edge of a cliff that fell sharply down to the rocks and waves below. I could hear the sound of the waves pounding on the rocks as we drove around the drive and up to the portico. The house would never be free of that sound, I thought. It was like the labored breathing of some gigantic monster who constantly watched over the place, waiting for an opportunity to claim it as its own.

  “Well?” Charles Lloyd asked as he helped me out of the carriage.

  “It’s overpowering,” I said, rather awed by the place.

  “Yes, Falconridge is overpowering.”

  “And—and beautiful, too, in a strange kind of way. It doesn’t look like a house at all. It looks like something out of a history book. It is hard to believe that people actually live here.”

  “Many dozens of people have lived here since it was built,” he said, his voice dry. “And each one of them has left his mark on the place. You will find Falconridge full of the dead. The walls seem to have taken them in, absorbed them, and they watch you as you move along the corridors. It has a character all its own, this place. I hope you don’t find it too strong for you.”

  “I’m sure I shall love it.”

  “I certainly hope so, my dear,” he replied grimly.

  He led me into a vast hall, dimly lit. I saw a great staircase at one end, leading up into a nest of shadows, and I caught glimpses of faded tapestries on the walls and dark, heavy furniture. A woman in a severe black dress came to meet us. She was large, with big bones and fleshy features. Her iron gray hair was coiled tightly on top of her head, and her sullen black eyes stared at me as I stood there beside my uncle. The woman was sixty, at least, and a set of keys dangled from her belt. Charles Lloyd introduced her as Mrs. Victor, the housekeeper. She was a severe woman, tight lipped, harsh in manner, and I took an immediate dislike to her.

  “Martha,” Charles Lloyd said, “this is my niece. We’ve just arrived.”

  “I heard the carriage,” Martha Victor replied. She looked at me with those cold, flat eyes, as though I had no business being here. I could sense that this old woman was a tyrant with the other servants. I imagined that she ran the household with shrewd efficiency, countering no disobedience from the staff. I would merely be in the way, her eyes seemed to say.

  “Where is my wife?” my uncle asked.

  “In the front sitting room, with the spaniels,” she replied, as though she disapproved.

  “Has everything gone well since I’ve been away?”

  “Everything has run smoothly, Sir.”

  “Then I can thank you for that, Martha,” he said.

  She smiled, a peculiarly girlish smile for that heavy face. I felt sure that she did not smile often, and when she did, I was certain it was only for Charles Lloyd. When she turned to him, her whole manner changed and I could discern a kind of slavish devotion to him in her eyes. She would do anything to please him, I thought, anything in the world.

  “That was very kind of you to say,” she replied primly.

  “It’s nice to have someone to depend on, Martha, and I can always depend on you.”

  He patted her shoulder, deliberately exercising his charm. Martha Victor held her head down, trying to hide her pleasure.

  “Is my nephew with Helena?” he asked.

  “No, Sir. Mr. Wade went to visit a friend in the next county. He will be gone for two days.”

  “Damn,” Charles Lloyd said, frowning.

  “Shall I see to dinner, Sir?”

  “No—not just yet. I am going to go up to my room. Tell my wife I will be down later. That will give her a chance to see her niece for a while alone. See that the bags are brought in will you, and take Miss Moore to the sitting room.”

  He left us alone. For a moment we stood there in the dark hall. I was extremely uneasy under the gaze of the housekeeper. Her lips were pressed tightly together with disapproval. She seemed to be sizing me up, and she quite clearly did not like what she saw. I wondered why she should be so cold towards me. Perhaps she thought I would make things more difficult for her. Perhaps she just didn’t like people. I waited patiently, meeting her stare with level eyes. I was not going to let her bully me.

  “Shall we go?” I said, my voice icy.

  “This way, Miss Moore.”

  She led me down the hall and around a corner. She opened the door to one of the rooms and held it aside. I heard loud barking, and then three spaniels charged towards me, leaping and jumping at my feet. One was blonde, one brown, one brown and white, all three fat and glossy and beautifully groomed. I stood back, startled, but the dogs were not unfriendly. They merely wanted attention. I knelt down and stroked the ears of the blonde, and it responded by licking my palm, the other two clamoring for similar favors from me.

  “They adore you already,” a loud, rather scratchy voice said. “I think that’s marvelous! They know instinctively about people, you know, much better than we do, of course. Come, my dear, let me really see you. I’ve been in a panic all afternoon, afraid something would happen and you wouldn’t get here safely.”

  “Mr. Lloyd said he would be down later,” Martha Victor said.

  “Very well, Martha. You may go.”

  I stood up, brushing my skirts, Martha Victor left, closing the door behind her. The dogs bounded at my feet, cavorting and carrying on with remarkable vigor. My aunt called to them, and they all three went scurrying across the room to leap on a sofa in a wriggling, glossy pile. I looked at my aunt, unable to speak. She held both of her arms out, smiling brilliantly. Her face was aglow with pleasure. I knew immediately that at least one person at Falconridge wanted me here.

  “Lauren, dear. I am your Aunt Helena!”

  “I—I don’t know what to say.…”

  “Don’t bother to say anything. We’ve ages of time for that. Let’s just look at each other. Oh, dear, I hope I shan’t cry. That would be so sloppy. Louise’s little girl.…”

  “I’m so happy to be here,” I said, my voice weak.

  “I’m ecstatic! At long last.…”

  My Aunt Helena had been ten years older than my mother. That would make her fifty six, four years her husband’s senior. She had not held her age as well as he, but she was a stunning figure just the same. She was small and thin, with delicate bone structure, but there was nothing fragile about her. She seemed to be charged with energy, full of a startling vitality that showed in her quick movements, the toss of her head, her rapid, eloquent gestures. Her s
ilver hair was piled carelessly on top of her head, caught up with a purple velvet ribbon, some of the curls spilling over her forehead. Her clear blue eyes were alert and intelligent, the lids shadowed with lilac, and her mouth was the mouth of a young girl, the lips pink and firm and slightly pouting. Her brow was lined with tiny wrinkles. She wore a royal purple dress and a starched white apron. A yellow paperbacked French novel and, strangely enough, a tack hammer stuck out of the pocket of her apron.

  She saw me looking at the hammer and laughed.

  “I’ve been tacking down the carpet in this room,” she said. “It’s come loose on one side. There’s so much to do, really, and I hate to ask the servants! They’re always so busy trying to keep the place in some kind of order, there’s just never enough time to see to all the little things. Besides, I adore puttering. Yesterday I varnished the stair railing. Martha was horrified.”

  “She looks very efficient,” I remarked.

  “Martha? Oh, but she’s such an old dragon! I stay out of her way whenever possible. She’s been at Falconridge since the place was built, or at least for the past fifty five years. I don’t think she approves of me, thinks I’m an intruder, although I’ve lived here ever since Charles and I got married. He is the only one who can do anything with her. She looked after him when he was a baby, although she was merely a child herself. She may be a grim old thing, but she runs the house with amazing skill. We couldn’t do without her.”

  My aunt sat down, spreading her skirts over the sofa. One of the spaniels crawled into her lap, but she pushed him aside, scolding him gently. She reached into a wooden box on the table beside her and took out a cigarette, then fumbled into the pocket of her apron for a match to light it with. I watched with amazement as she lit the cigarette. I had never seen a woman smoke before. My aunt settled back on the sofa, filling the air around her with blue-gray plumes of smoke.

  “Are you horrified? Most people are. It’s a vice I picked up in Spain several years ago. The local parson is outraged. He thinks I am a regular Jezebel. But, pooh, life is too short to worry about what other people think.” She blew another plume of smoke and laughed. Her laughter was a cackle, really, a rasping, amusing noise. “You must forgive me for rattling on, my dear. It’s been so long since I’ve had anyone to talk to.”

  She looked up at me, and her mood seemed to change. She grew very quiet, and her eyes were sad. She took a final puff of the cigarette, then crushed it out in a tray. The blonde spaniel crept cautiously into her lap again and she stroked its long ears. She seemed to be lost in thought. For all her vitality and verve, I could sense that she was an extremely sensitive person, full of emotions she kept closely guarded.

  “I was thinking of your mother,” she said quietly. “Poor Louise. We were so close as girls. We worshiped each other. Then I married Charles and came here and she married your father, and—things were not the same.”

  “Was my mother ever at Falconridge?” I asked.

  “Once, for two weeks, before she married. She was eighteen, and Charles and I had been married for ten years. It–it wasn’t a happy time. Something happened, and—when Louise left we lost contact with each other. There were hard feeling—I’m so sorry about it all, but life does that, makes barriers.…”

  I wondered what had happened at Falconridge so many years ago. My mother had never mentioned her sister Helena until her death bed, and I was certain that whatever happened at Falconridge had caused her to completely close her mind to the house and the people in it. My aunt must think this, too, I thought, and it was the reason for her sudden sadness.

  “But you’re here now,” she said, smiling gently. “I’ll make it all up to Louise. It’s going to be so wonderful, Lauren. You’re mine now. You must tell me all about yourself.”

  “I am afraid there is not much to tell. I’ve done nothing but go to school.…”

  “It must have been dreadful,” she remarked.

  “It was,” I agreed.

  “Have you had any young men?”

  I shook my head. She arched an eyebrow.

  “You’ve never had a young man dying of love for you?”

  “No, Aunt.…”

  “Helena, my dear. You must call me Helena. But it’s absurd! You are eighteen and have never had a lover. You don’t take after us then, your mother and I. There were always dozens of gallants, far too many of them! It was such fun—but, I forgot, young ladies are not supposed to have fun nowadays. It’s like smoking, strictly forbidden. I am dreadfully out of step with the times!”

  She laughed again, her high spirits completely restored. I found her delightful in every way, and I loved her already. She took out another cigarette and lit it, holding the match for a moment as the flame burned down. I noticed that her nails were polished a dark pink, and there was an enormous diamond ring on one of the slim fingers. It flashed as she shook the match out.

  “Was the train ride awful?” she asked.

  “It wasn’t too bad.”

  “I abhor them. That’s one of the reasons I never leave here if I can avoid it. I’ve done all the gadding about I care to. I’m much too old to have my poor bones shook loose in a railway coach.”

  “We met a Mrs. Graystone in Devon. She had been visiting her sister and was coming back.”

  “Oh?” Helena said, looking up. “I didn’t know that Lavinia had left.”

  “Yes, she was at the station when the train stopped.”

  “I didn’t know she had a sister in Devon,” Helena remarked. There was a look of puzzlement in her eyes.

  “I understand she is the local seamstress,” I said.

  “She made this dress. She’s quite wonderful. She had a shop of her own in Liverpool before she married. She makes gowns for all the ladies in these parts. We’ll have to see about a new wardrobe for you, Lauren. Lavinia has dozens of bolts of the most exquisite material.”

  “Mrs. Graystone is a very attractive person,” I said.

  “Yes, Lavinia is attractive, poor thing. Her husband is such a sullen brute, one of these solemn, silent types, always brooding. He gives her a hard time, I’m afraid. Beats her. Once she had a perfectly wretched black eye, and she always looks as though she were going to burst into tears.”

  “Why doesn’t she leave him,” I asked. “Surely she could support herself with her sewing.”

  Helena cocked her head, smiling mysteriously. “That’s something you wouldn’t understand, not at your age. He is quite good looking in a rough, rugged sort of way, with those smouldering brown eyes and that large, lumbering build. Many women would take a lot from a man who looks like that.”

  “Life doesn’t seem to have been very kind to Mrs. Graystone.”

  “It’s not kind to anyone, my dear. Surely you know that already. It’s a constant battle. It’s how one goes into battle that counts. One can run away from it, one can stand and take the blows and whine about it, or one can have style. It is style, my dear, style that matters in life. One must learn to make the best of all circumstances, no matter how unpleasant they may be, and do it with style.”

  Aunt Helena stood up, her purple skirts rustling. She pushed a silver curl from her wrinkled brow and dropped the cigarette in a tray. She drew herself up, and there was something regal about her as she stood there, her eyes turned inward on some private thoughts. She certainly had style. She might be an eccentric old woman, outrageous in much of her behavior, outspoken and opinionated in speech, but she was an aristocrat to the tip of her toes.

  “We had better change for dinner,” she said. “It’s getting late. I will show you your room. Come along, dears—Simon, Philip, Adele. Get off that sofa. Hurry up—behave yourself, Adele.”

  The dogs leaped off the sofa, their paws pattering on the parquet floor. The blonde, Adele, shook her fur, and the other two pranced about my aunt’s skirts. She led the way down the hall. The light was almost gone now and the hall was filled with shadow. I could hear the sea pounding on the rocks far below, a constant
background.

  “Your room is upstairs,” Helena said. “In the right wing. It is a little isolated from the others, but it’s the best bedroom open.”

  “How many rooms are there at Falconridge?” I asked.

  “Over a hundred,” she replied. “We only use twenty or so. The left wing is entirely closed—everything covered with sheets and a generous layer of dust. I hope that someday we can open up all the rooms and restore the place. It’s my one dream.”

  “You love this place, don’t you?” I asked.

  “It’s a part of me. I’ve loved it since the first day I saw it. I belong to Falconridge.”

  “And does my uncle share your sentiments?” I inquired, already knowing the answer.

  Helena laughed, a dry, crackling noise that sounded very loud in the empty hallway. “I don’t think Charles loves anything,” she replied. “Certainly not Falconridge. He would gladly watch it burn to the ground, but it’s all we’ve got. No, Charles is the kind of man who needs constant change, constant excitement. He thrives on it. There’s not much of that at Falconridge, and that’s the tragedy, my dear. To each his own prison.”

  “It’s very sad,” I said.

  “Not sad, merely ironic. We want that which we don’t have, and since Charles has Falconridge, he wants something else.”

  She led me up the dark staircase. One of the servants began to light lamps and the flickering yellow light began to glow in pools, pushing back the shadows. I ran my hand along the varnished banister and followed my aunt, the dogs prancing along behind. We reached the second floor and turned right, going down one hall, turning, going down another. A servant carrying lamps passed us, making a curtsey to Helena.

  “Finally,” she said, pausing before a door. She opened it and led the way into the bedroom that had been assigned to me. I caught my breath. It was a beautiful room.