The Room Beyond

by Stephanie Elmas

  ‘Let me deal with Raphael.’

  ‘Ha! You always say that but nothing ever gets better does it? God, do you know how many times I’ve toyed with the idea of just burning the damned place down?’ she laughed.

  ‘Don’t be disgusting.’

  ‘You’re disgusting darling, you’ve wrecked my life. No more of this, I’m off.’

  ‘Off where?’

  ‘To try and get bloody warm, what do you think?’

  ‘Arabella...’

  It had stopped raining outside. Patches of watery blue blinked from behind the grey clouds, lighting up a sheen of dew, or frost maybe, across the grass outside. I unravelled my body from the chair and left the now empty room from the same end as where Edward and Arabella had been standing. It brought me out into one of the central corridors of the house and then back into the grand hallway. Robert was there, buttoning up his coat.

  ‘Oh hello. You don’t happen to know where Beth is do you?’

  ‘No idea,’ he stammered. A fresh crop of spots had sprouted up on his neck. He caught me staring and wrapped his scarf around them self-consciously. ‘Off to play the organ now in the church for a bit.’

  ‘Have fun. Oh Robert!’

  He paused.

  ‘The thief who stole the painting from the church. I think I know who he is. Should I be scared of him?’

  Robert swallowed uncertainly, toying with his long hands.

  ‘You should be scared of a lot of things,’ he mumbled quietly, making for the door before I could reply.

  I found Beth in the kitchen.

  ‘Fancy a walk? It’s stopped raining now.’

  ‘Alright. You’ll have to follow me though, there’s something I want to show you!’

  It felt so much better when we got out of the house. Beth skipped about ahead of me, her wellies splashing and squelching in the newly sodden grass. We passed through some ornamental gardens with old roses cut back into prickly stumps and animal-shaped box hedges now badly frayed at the edges. The paths were cracked and caked with slippery wet leaves and curtains of ivy had crept up walls and statues, robbing them of all shape and identity. Beth pulled me through a gate in one of the hedges, so innocuous that I had to stoop to get through.

  ‘Wow, a lake!’

  ‘Yes I know, it’s wonderful isn’t it?’

  Another hidden gem in this sad old place.

  We found a flat stone on the bank to perch on. It was damp but our coats were thick enough. Beth found pebbles and we tried to skim them across the water. Plip. Plop. Most of them refused to cooperate, sinking straight down to the bottom.

  ‘A little girl almost drowned in here once,’ she said thoughtfully.

  ‘Really? How do you know?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I think I suddenly just realized it one day when I was talking to Sasha.’

  ‘Does he help you remember things?’

  ‘Sort of. He always speaks to me in this nice soft way, like feathers. Sometimes he looks in my eyes and my brain feels a bit funny. Raphael says I mustn’t let him do that, that it’s called hippo, hipon...’

  ‘Hypnosis.’

  ‘Yes that’s it. Raphael can do it too, he learnt it from a special book in the library. I try not to let Sasha do it but then he’s so nice and I... I don’t mind really,’ but she screwed up her forehead in a troubled sort of way. ‘AND he’s writing this book about me, which is so exciting, so I can’t help but tell him things, like the way the little girl nearly drowned in this lake. I’m going to be famous!’

  Her eyes were suddenly so huge and innocent that it hurt just to look back at them.

  Beth is not a healthy little girl.

  If only I hadn’t heard those words. It was true: sometimes it was better not to see, not to know.

  I hugged her to me, her little head pressed close to my chest.

  ‘I’m sure you will be famous, in your own way. But don’t get too excited about it now.’

  We squelched our way back to the house and Estella came tripping up to the door to let us in.

  ‘Dad’s fixed the electrics! So there’ll be warm radiators and turkey on the table!’

  Arabella sailed past in the background, a nearly empty glass of wine in her hand. She’d changed into a red dress with lipstick to match. Her hair was tied back in a chignon. She was ageless again.

  ‘Hello darlings, did you have a nice walk?’

  ‘Yes thanks.’

  ‘Good good,’ she smiled distractedly, sliding around a door.

  I got away from them as early as I could that evening. All that forced hilarity: the champagne drinking, the cracker pulling, their unrelenting attempts to catch each other under the mistletoe, left a sour taste in my mouth. It now felt as if I’d been away from Seb for months and when I tried to picture that pining face at the window I now found only blurred images and sometimes, even, a cruel grimace at the centre of a black painting.

  I fell into a restless sleep, the events of my stay racing through my mind with such vivid cruelty that I gripped my blankets until my knuckles hurt. And when I sank into even lower, mournful dreams, a figure, Raphael, crawled into my bed.

  I tried to hold back at first, my limbs rigid, my heart racing. But when his body enveloped itself in mine it was impossible to resist him. This time my fists clutched at handfuls of flesh, urging him closer to me, his breathlessness in my ear, the taste of sweat on my tongue.

  I threw myself up, bolt upright in my bed.

  No one.

  There was no one else in the room apart from me and the frenzied sound of my own breathing. Slowly I unclenched my fists and grasped my sketchbook. In the half light of my table lamp Seb appeared before me, more sad and gaunt than I’d ever seen him, his eyes fixed in an urgent plea.

  Just as I was finishing the final strokes of the picture something scraped against my bedroom floor, near the doorway. I stiffened at the thought of a mouse, but when I gingerly turned to look I discovered something white lying there instead: a note. I unpeeled myself from the warmth of my bed and opened it.

  Dear Serena,

  When I apologized to you this morning I was utterly sincere and I feel I owe you a rather better gift than the one I’ve already given to make up for things properly. You talked about secrets, well here is one that very few people have ever had access to.

  It’s an enormous volume, I’ve learnt so much from it over the years. It really has benefitted me immensely. But as you have little time left here I suggest you just read the introduction. It’s enough to give you an insight.

  Oh, I forgot to tell you where it is. Look out of your window. It’ll give you a clue and then close your eyes, follow your instincts. You have more hope of finding it than most people.

  Good luck and I trust that you won’t tell ANYONE about this. I’m leaving tonight so you won’t be seeing me here again.

  Raphael

  His handwriting was small and jagged, as if a spider had written the words. I rushed over to my window, drawing back the curtains and looked into the night. On the other side of the glass the brick wall outside glowered back at me. I could see it quite clearly; it was almost like a London night out there, not particularly dark at all. There was no moon to light things up, but even so it was an orange sort of glow, like bright lamps turned up to the sky.

  The library.

  Only the big glass dome of the library, properly lit up, could reflect so much light.

  Fear and excitement pumped through my veins until my body felt hot, even though I could see my breath before me. Druid Manor was sleeping now, so dark that I didn’t need to close my eyes, although I did anyway. I followed my instincts, just as Raphael had instructed and gradually the air turned cooler about me, the smell of damp stronger in my nostrils. My fingers skimmed against the crumbling plaster and across the occasional light switch, but I didn’t even bother trying to turn the lights on. And with every footstep my journey suddenly seemed to make more and more sense, as if I’d walked it a thousand ti
mes, knew the route as well as the lines on the palm of my hand.

  When I opened my eyes the library’s double doors rose up before me and shafts of light beamed invitingly from around their edges. Come in, they seemed to say. Come and hear some secrets.

  The first thing I saw inside was Lucinda’s face in the portrait, grinning straight back at me like before.

  ‘Hello Lucinda Hartreve,’ I murmured, half expecting her to answer back.

  A round table had now been placed in the middle of the room and on it lay a book that looked like a big old dictionary. It had a brown leather cover, hardly embellished at all apart from the title and the name of its author on the front.

  Disappearance and the Art of Hypnosis by Walter Balanchine.

  The pages, some as thin as tracing paper, smelt of dust and history. My fingers were shaking so much that I could hardly bring myself to turn them. On the first page it read:

  This book is dedicated to my dear friends, Lord Stephen Hartreve and Miranda White.

  I scooped the book up as carefully as if it were a newborn baby, sat down with it, cradled in my lap, and began to read:

  I have been accused of performing magic many times in my life. From the unruly children who battered me and broke my bones on the streets where I grew up, to the audiences who have sat open mouthed with wonderment at my theatrical exhibitions. But I tell you this, the magic around us, in the natural comings and goings of our daily lives, is a thousand, nay a million times more phenomenal than anything I could ever conjure.

  They say I can make things appear and disappear. Well yes I can, not by spells but through the manipulation of the mind. So skilled am I in this craft that I can make almost anything happen for the person who wants to believe it, or the person who looks deeply enough into my eyes. And I will discuss this art later in my volume. It is something that can be learnt through rigorous training.

  But how did I learn it? I hear you ask. In truth I did no more than take heed of the world around me. I watched what others refused to see. I loved and admired what is beautiful but studied with equal vigour what is ugly and displeasing to the eye. This magic you all speak of is everywhere! And in our world things appear and disappear about us all the time. Let me help you, reader, to learn how to take notice of this natural occurrence and harness its power in your own way.

  I will begin with a story. A melancholy story about a little girl called Miranda. This is what happened to the dear little creature:

  Miranda’s mother became ill. She took to her bed for more than a year, white with fatigue and groaning with pain. The family acquired medicine, although it was of little use, and kept it in a high cupboard.

  One day young Miranda was left alone to nurse her mother. The woman was in a particularly troublesome state and called to her young daughter to administer her medicine. The child had some difficulty in reaching the high cupboard where the potion was kept. She was scared of falling, of breaking her bones against the hard stone floor. But she reached as high as she could and found the bottle, or should I say ‘a’ bottle which she felt suited the purpose.

  Little did Miranda know that this bottle was certainly not her mother’s medicine; that it contained a ruthless poison that ripped through the woman’s stomach within minutes and left her a corpse.

  Miranda’s father and sister were naturally distraught by the untimely death of the woman they loved and together they agreed that, as a form of punishment, young Miranda should be completely ignored by everyone for an entire year. Even the servants, who cherished the little girl’s sweet nature, were threatened with dismissal for breaking this rule. And so the little girl was left quite alone to her misery and wretchedness.

  The year passed slowly and as each day went by Miranda became further and further entrenched in her desolation, until even her skin began to look grey and unhealthy. Gradually she started to forget what it was like to be noticed and spent so much time on her own that any form of human contact became quite terrifying to her. When strangers approached her she shrank away from their company, as if their sympathy was too painful to bear. Even outsiders stopped talking to her; they sensed the fear in her eyes and in her stooped, pale little frame.

  It was a year and a half after her mother’s death before her father and sister even realized that Miranda’s sentence had been well and truly served. But her family had got so used to ignoring her that it seemed quite unnatural to bring a sudden halt to the habit. She continued to spend most of her time alone or occasionally in the company of kind servants.

  As the years went by Miranda’s family began to find her presence in their lives so faint that at times they barely found it possible to see her at all. In their hearts they liked to believe that she had vanished altogether. But she was there all the time, wilting and pining in the background and one day, quite suddenly, she was a woman: a woman with strength and courage, married off to a despicable man and left to grapple with the evils that life threw at her. So courageous and so quietly beautiful.

  Now reader, what do you think of this? Did magic make the little Miranda disappear? Or was it her family’s disgust and contempt that imprisoned her in her own guilt and forced her out of their lives...?

  The introduction ended like this, with a question mark. I shivered: my teeth were chattering and I noticed that my fingers had turned blue. I had nothing on but my nightdress. My arms were so rigid with cold that it was a struggle just to put the heavy book back in its place on the table.

  On the wall by the double doors more than a dozen brass light switches saluted up at me. One... two... three. I flicked them off, one after another, gradually lowering myself into darkness like a diver sinking down into the blue. When the last light went out I closed my eyes and felt for the door handle. It felt better not to try and look at all when there was nothing left to see.

  1893

  Yet another carriage scraped to a halt outside. More furniture for the new inhabitants of number 36 no doubt. At a safe distance from her bedroom window, Miranda glimpsed down at the street below, expecting to see a wardrobe or perhaps a piano wobbling across the pavement. But no, a lone carriage was waiting down there instead and a dark figure of a man was unfolding himself from inside it.

  She squinted down and realized that the emerging figure was her lawyer Mr Fairclough. And then the edge of a petticoat brushed against the carriage door behind him, the gloved fingertips of a woman’s hand reaching out for the lawyer’s assistance.

  Miranda’s hands sprang up to her cheeks. She raced to her dressing table to inspect her blotchy skin in the mirror. Her dress was awful and her hair was in such a state: greasy at the roots, dry at the ends. She scraped it back as far as it would go but it still looked frightful.

  A knock came at her bedroom door and Mrs Hubbard entered looking rather hot and flustered.

  ‘You have some visitors.’

  ‘Yes, yes I saw them through the window. I have to do something to this face of mine!’

  But Mrs Hubbard seemed to hesitate, as if she was trying to find the right words for something. ‘Rather an unexpected guest...’ she murmured.

  ‘I know! All very unexpected. Please see to them, I really must sort myself out now.’

  The door groaned shut and Miranda was left alone with her face in the mirror. Her skin had always been pallid but now increasing colonies of speckled marks seemed to be moving in, along with small veins like cracks of red lightning in her cheeks. And the purple rings beneath her eyes didn’t help matters.

  ‘What’s become of me?’ she whispered to her reflection. But the mirror seemed to be in an unforgiving mood today, looming closer and closer towards her like a magnifying glass, stretching her face to double the size. The veins in her cheeks multiplied, toxic red now, uglier and uglier. And then the shadow fell behind her.

  It was so dark and sudden this time that a spasm shot through her and a yelp escaped from her lips. The mirror had turned black, a gaping cave-mouth; she could barely find her face in it a
t all.

  ‘Please... not again. Leave me alone for pity’s sake!’

  She scraped the stool back beneath her, away from the dressing table, away from the mirror, the palms of her hands clutching against her chest. She screwed her eyes tightly shut: one... two... three... and then slowly blinked them open.

  The mirror was white and watery again, all gone. Nothing left of the fear but the sound of her own rapid breathing.

  When she entered the drawing room, the lawyer was standing there alone.

  ‘This is most unexpected,’ she said, moving towards him. ‘I thought you came with a guest...’

  ‘Ah yes, in the other room Mrs Whitest... White. I wanted to take the liberty of speaking to you alone first. My apologies for coming without warning, it is rather an urgent matter.’

  ‘I do hope it’s good news - something about the house? Do tell me you’ve found a buyer at long last.’

  Mr Fairclough lowered his head and made a sort of brief gurgling sound with his throat.

  ‘Um, I’m afraid...’ he answered, casting his eyes along the full length of the room and drawing his eyebrows together in such a serious sombre way that they were almost in danger of touching in the middle. ‘... I’m afraid to say that the sale of your house is not the reason for my visit today; it is proving to be something of a problem.’

  ‘A problem? Why, what are people saying?’

  ‘As I have not been directly involved in proceedings it’s difficult for me to judge accurately. But news has come back to me that, for some untold reason, people are keeping away and the few who have visited have been rather, how can I put it, disturbed.’