by Michael Ford
So much for a draught blowing across the room.
The incident redoubled my determination. Samuel took dinner with Alexander Ambrose again that night, with his father retreating once more to his chamber. I had a moment of panic when Rob went down to the cellar to fetch a bottle of wine, but he came up again swiftly, and I was fairly sure he hadn’t spotted the item I wanted to keep hidden.
Had Mrs Cotton asked Sammy about the library key? I wondered. If it had been just the two gentlemen I might have had a chance to ask him directly, but Mrs Cotton chose to dine with them, so I couldn’t risk it.
From what I could gather while stoking the fire in the dining room and carrying away the plates, dinner was a muted affair.
At one point during the serving of the main course of stuffed pork chops, Samuel spoke up.
‘Auntie,’ he said – in a faintly mocking tone, I noted – ‘how would you like to pose for us later?’
‘Pose?’ she said, as though the meat she’d bitten into was rotten.
‘That’s right,’ said Samuel. ‘Alex here’s brought over one of those dagger . . . What are they called, old chap?’
‘Daguerreotypes,’ said Alexander, dabbing his lips with a napkin.
‘Sounds vicious,’ said Mrs Cotton. ‘What is it?’
‘Oh, Auntie, don’t look so suspicious,’ said Samuel. ‘It’s a sort of camera. Don’t you remember? They were all the rage at Crystal Palace.’
I smiled to myself. I remembered the day well, four years earlier. It had been a reminder that Sammy and I weren’t quite the brother and sister I’d hoped. The family – Mrs Cotton, Lord Greave and Samuel – had gone out to the Great Exhibition with the Ambroses, while my mother and I were left indoors. She’d taken me around the Park to lessen the disappointment, and bought me an ice cream.
‘Pray, what is a man of the law doing with such a contraption?’ asked Mrs Cotton.
‘It’s just a hobby,’ said Alexander anxiously. I noticed, as I carried apple sauce to the table, that Mrs Cotton seemed to be able to reduce even grown men to nervous wrecks.
‘We might take a couple of portraits in the house tomorrow, then give the thing a whirl in the garden,’ Samuel continued.
Mrs Cotton pursed her lips. ‘Are you sure you’re quite well enough to be gallivanting outside?’
Samuel grinned. ‘We shall hardly be gallivanting. Lots of sitting about, actually. It takes a good few minutes to fix everything up.’
‘Be that as it may,’ she said, ‘you must be careful, in your condition.’
‘You don’t want to sit for us then?’ said Samuel, his eyes alive with playfulness. ‘Be immortalised for all posterity?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Mrs Cotton. ‘Besides, I don’t have a “good few minutes” for “sitting about”.’
Samuel chuckled, which only made Mrs Cotton’s eyes blaze brighter.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ she said, and her voice was heavy with sarcasm, ‘I must retire.’
‘But you’ve hardly eaten a thing,’ said Samuel.
He was right. Mrs Cotton’s plate was still full.
‘I’ve lost my appetite,’ she said. ‘Excuse me.’
After she’d left the room, Samuel shook his head. ‘Dear, oh dear. Seems I upset the old crone, doesn’t it?’
Alexander grunted and looked at me uncomfortably.
‘Oh, don’t mind her,’ said Samuel. ‘She’s practically one of the family.’
Alexander looked less than convinced. ‘Been on the receiving end of Mrs Cotton’s tongue more than once, I dare say,’ Samuel continued. ‘Isn’t that right, Abi?’
I smiled, but didn’t speak. To do so in front of Alexander would have been out of turn. Inside, though, I was beaming.
Samuel drained his glass and picked up the bottle.
‘Another, Alex?’
‘Why not?’ said the guest.
‘Now, where’s that butler when you need him?’ said Samuel.
This is my chance, I thought.
‘He’s upstairs, sir,’ I said quickly. ‘Shall I get it for you?’
‘Very good,’ said Samuel. ‘Save Lock’s poor old knees on the cellar steps. I swear I can hear his joints over the gears of the omnibus.’
Alexander laughed along with him, and I hurried out of the room. My heart was fluttering as I skipped down the steps to the scullery. Cook had her head up close to the open oven door, cleaning, and Rob was rubbing a piece of horse tack with a grubby cloth. ‘Everything dandy up there?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They want another bottle.’
Rob sighed. ‘They’ll be drunk later.’
Cook stopped her scrubbing for a moment, and Rob and I shared a look. Then she carried on.
‘Need a hand with the hatch?’ Rob asked.
I thanked him, and he hauled up the trapdoor easily. I descended the steps and went first to the spot behind the crates. I felt in the gloom and pulled out the Ouija cloth, then stuffed it in my apron. The wine rack was across the other side. I plucked out a bottle.
It was as easy as that.
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Chapter 28
Samuel and Alexander finished the second bottle more quickly than the first, and then retired to the drawing room. I helped to wash the dishes, and Rowena wound round my legs. The poor thing seemed lost now. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll get her back.’
I was getting ready to go to bed myself when I remembered that I needed some sort of ball. What had Dr Reinhardt called it? A ‘pointer’? But what could I use?
It came to me. In the drawing room was bowl of carved and painted fruits. One of the tangerines would do very well, and it was unlikely to be missed. However, from the sounds spilling out into the main hallway it seemed Alexander and Samuel would be ensconced there for some time. They’d moved on to brandy or whisky, no doubt. I hesitated, trying to think up some valid excuse to go in. Then footsteps came from the drawing room.
‘Oh, Abi,’ said Samuel. He was a little red in the face and his words were slurred. I reflected that it was a good thing that Mrs Cotton had gone to bed. No doubt she would have had something disapproving to say about his condition. ‘Abi, you can help us. We need more light for the camera.’
‘More light?’
‘Yes, bring all the lanterns and candles you can find to the drawing room. Do you mind?’
‘Of course not,’ I said.
I knew nothing about photographic equipment and wondered why their experiments couldn’t wait until the following morning, but I stopped myself from panicking. The Ouija was safely stored upstairs, and it couldn’t hurt to spare a few more minutes for Samuel. I went into the sitting room, the library and the dining room for the lamps, then down to the scullery to fetch more candles. When Cook heard what Samuel and Alexander were up to, she tutted and said, ‘They’ll be burning the bloody house down, they will.’
I took everything through to the drawing room on a tray. When I arrived the curtains hadn’t been drawn and the window glass reflected the inside of the room almost as cleanly as a mirror. A vase had been taken from the table, and on it stood a strange object the like of which I’d never seen before. It looked part piece of furniture and part musical instrument. Resting on a hinged platform, it comprised two polished wooden blocks joined by something like the bellows of an accordion, made of wood too rather than cloth or leather. From the far end a brass cylinder protruded, capped with a thick glass lens. It was as big as a medium-sized dog. Beside it a tray of liquid, supported on a tripod, was heating up over a low oil flame, while Alexander was buffing a transparent plate.
Samuel took the lamps and candles and arranged them around the centre of the room. By the time they were all lit, it was as bright as day.
‘Perhaps you’d like to be our first sitter, Abi?’ said Samuel, adjusting the position of a lamp. I thought that Alexander looked a little put out at the suggestion. As for me, I wanted to get upstairs to the Ouija cloth.
‘I should be getting
to bed,’ I said.
‘Nonsense!’ said Samuel. ‘It will only take a moment.’
He pulled an upright chair across and placed it in front of the brass tube, about six feet away. He patted it. ‘Take a seat, then.’
‘Will it hurt?’ I asked.
This brought a snigger from Alexander, who shook his head. ‘Not a bit, my girl.’
I perched on the seat and looked towards the camera lens. Alexander slid the plate into the back of the machine and leant down beneath a hood to look through the other side.
‘A bit low,’ he muttered. He wound a small handle on the side and the lens titled upwards. ‘That’s better. Right, Miss Tamper. I need you to stay absolutely still for about thirty seconds. Can you manage that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good.’ He reached forward for the cap over the lens. ‘Ready?’
I nodded.
‘Here we go, then. Don’t move.’
He whipped up the shutter.
I held my breath, but could feel Samuel standing behind me breathing very slowly as we both looked into the lens for half a minute. There was no whirring motor or grinding gears. Was it even working? I wondered.
Master Ambrose repositioned the cap. ‘Right. Lights out, please.’
Samuel stood up and went round extinguishing the lamps and candles. I wasn’t sure quite what we were doing, but I helped anyway. Soon the room was in darkness, and I saw his friend working over the heated liquid.
‘The likeness needs to be developed quickly in the dark,’ explained Samuel. ‘That way the image becomes fixed.’
‘We’ll leave it to dry overnight,’ said Alexander. ‘Will your aunt mind if we pin it up in here?’
‘She won’t have to,’ said Samuel bluntly. ‘It’s my father’s house, not hers.’
Afterwards, with the portrait hanging to dry in the darkened room, Alexander Ambrose took his leave. On the way out of the drawing room I took one of the fake tangerines from the bowl. It wasn’t perfectly round, but it would have to do.
With the front door locked and bolted by Samuel himself, he paused on the stairs.
‘Are you feeling all right, Abi?’ he asked. ‘You don’t seem yourself.’
You don’t know the half of it, I thought. And if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.
‘Is it my aunt?’ he said.
I didn’t know what to say. It was as though he could read my thoughts.
‘I heard her the other night. Something about a key? You can tell me, Abi.’
‘She thinks I stole it,’ I said.
‘And you didn’t?’
I shook my head.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Soon things will change around here. My father, he’s – well, I’m sure you know he’s very ill.’ A look of pain crossed his face. ‘I don’t mind telling you his affairs are in a mess. Things will be better, I promise.’
He’d never struggled with his words in the past, but I caught his meaning, or thought I did. Was he speaking of Mrs Cotton? Was he saying she’d be out of our lives for good?
I didn’t press him, and wished him goodnight.
Normally I would have fallen into bed after such a long day, but that night was different.
Outside my bedroom the wind was howling and buffeting the roof, and the old timbers creaked a little under the barrage. Rain lashed the window like volleys of pebbles thrown against the glass.
I unrolled the cloth on the floor by the light of a candle, and sat cross-legged beside it. It was freezing up there, but as I shivered in my thin nightdress, something warmed me inside. I remembered what Dr Reinhardt had said about the spirit world – ‘pockets of oil and water’. Perhaps one such pocket was forming around me now.
On the grey cloth the letters were unevenly sized and clumsily stitched, as if by a child learning her way with a needle and thread. Twenty-six letters around the outside, and the words ‘Aye’ and ‘No’. I wondered where it had come from – some gypsy market maybe. I wondered if it could really work.
I took out the wooden tangerine and placed it in the centre of the cloth. If it hadn’t been for all the other happenings in the house over the preceding days, I would have felt foolish. But now the room took on an extra dimension of darkness. The shadows deepened into purest black, and the cloth seemed almost to glow on the floor.
I did as Dr Reinhardt had instructed and placed my fingers lightly over the top of the wooden orb, closing my eyes.
‘Mama?’ I whispered. ‘Is that you?’
Almost at once I felt a warmth in my fingertips, blood pulsing along my arms and through the pointer. Not painful, but unsettling.
The ball started to move.
I’d heard of such things, of course, when a group of people gather in some deserted place – a graveyard or abandoned house. There are always those who want to frighten and be frightened.
But there was no one in that room with me. No person anyway.
The ball moved, and my fingers followed it.
When I dared to open my eyes, I saw that it rested over the word ‘Aye’.
Another time I might have been afraid. But now I smiled as my eyes filled with tears.
The ball rocked under my fingers.
‘Mama,’ I said, ‘were you poisoned?’
I closed my eyes again, and felt the ball roll.
Again it settled on ‘Aye’.
I tried to control my breathing. I was sure I hadn’t made it move. Absolutely sure.
I brought the ball back to the centre of the cloth. There was only one more question I needed to ask. ‘Mama, was it Mrs Cotton?’
The ball didn’t move straight away, but slowly rolled to ‘No’.
‘What?’ I said aloud. There had to be some mistake.
I asked the same question again. ‘Was it Mrs Cotton?’
This time the ball moved more steadily and directly. ‘No’.
Not her? Then who? Suddenly I felt a flush of anger. What had Dr Reinhardt sold me? I’d given up my father’s watch for a worthless piece of junk. It didn’t even work.
Or perhaps the spirit was confused. The doctor had said that too, hadn’t he?
I asked a final time, enunciating each word clearly with my eyes tightly shut. ‘Did Mrs Cotton poison you?’
Suddenly the ball was snatched away. It rattled across the floor and rolled to a halt by the window.
I didn’t understand. Dr Reinhardt hadn’t mentioned anything like this happening. Perhaps I’d caused it in my overexcitement.
I stood up and went to retrieve the wooden globe.
At the window, I heard something that sounded like the whisper of leaves. A fraction of a second later, I realised there were no leaves on the trees at this time of year.
I blew out the candle to see better and pressed my nose against the glass.
Outside it was very dark, and the thick clouds were deep and forbidding grey smudges. None of the houses beyond seemed to have their lights on, and their windows looked like a hundred black eyes peering back.
The lane beside the house was quiet, but not completely so. There was a movement – a figure slinking through the darkness against the wall opposite. I was struck immediately by the impression that he – for it was a man, I was sure – was up to no good. I strained my neck to watch him. Then he turned across the lane and I realised he was coming towards the back gate.
Towards the house.
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Chapter 29
I quickly left my window and hurried out of my room and down the stairs, still in my nightdress. A draught snaked around my ankles as I turned back along the corridor to the spare bedroom where I had left Rowena and her kittens. In there was a window that looked out into the stable yard.
He was over the gate when I saw him, and moving through the yard to the rear stable. He reached up through the hatch and took something from high up inside.
When he turned round again, I froze. He was looking up at the house as though he could see me, but I knew I mus
t be wrong. There was no light behind me. He headed back towards the rear door, then took the steps up into the garden, in the direction of the library.
Of course! He had the missing key.
My mouth was dry and I swallowed uncomfortably. What on earth could I do? I didn’t dare wake Lizzy. Heaven knows what she’d have said. Nor Samuel – with only one leg to rely on, he would be in more danger than me. As for rousing Mrs Cotton, that was unthinkable. Any alarm and the intruder would surely run, and what then? Would they even believe me?
But Rob would be sleeping, as he always did, in the china closet adjacent to the sitting room. He was brave and able-bodied. If I could get to him . . .
There was no time to waste. As I passed the main landing, I saw a candlestick on the table. I broke off the half-melted candle and hefted the silver. It was heavy enough to do some damage, if I dared to use it. I took the main stairs rather than the servants’ ones, thinking that whoever had come in would be more likely to run if he thought a member of the household had awoken. When I reached the bottom, I stopped with my hand on the banister and listened.
There was no sound. I stepped down into the main hall. Maybe the man hadn’t come in at all. Perhaps he’d turned at the back door and walked away, deciding that it was too great a risk.
Through the arch, I saw the library door was open. I remembered clearly that when I said goodnight to Samuel, it had been closed. Mrs Cotton insisted on all doors being shut when the house went to bed.
A rattle came from the dining room.
I looked across the hall to the sitting-room door. Rob was asleep in there. If I could just shout to him, he was sure to hear me. Something made me stop. Perhaps it was the years of being told never to raise my voice in the house, or simply the waves of blood pumping in my veins. If the intruder was in the dining room, all I needed to do was to close the door behind him and wedge a chair beneath the handle. Short of breaking a window and climbing out, he’d be trapped.
Then I could awaken the house.
I scurried on tiptoe towards the drawing room door. It was open. He had been in there too.
