The Room Beyond

by Stephanie Elmas

  His mouth brushed briefly against the back of my neck. I felt his hands glide over me and my back arched in response.

  ‘This can be our room if you like, for now,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You wanted to come here so badly. Well now that you’ve finally made it, you should stay awhile.’

  Our lips met and, just like in the dream, I felt my hungry hands grasp hold of him, ripping at his shirt, as if I were incapable of doing anything else. The haze grew up around us; a whirlwind of grey, stinking fumes.

  But even though my body ached for him and I felt my limbs wind themselves around his, a cry rose up in my throat from somewhere deep inside.

  ‘Seb!’ I yelled with all the strength I could summon, although my voice came out as nothing more than the faintest whisper.

  He drew away from me, his eyes incredulous, aching with hurt and rage. I began to cry.

  ‘Seb?’ he spat, holding me at arm’s length like a rag doll. ‘Do you really think he’s going to help you?’

  His face blurred through my tears.

  ‘Seb... who destroyed my sister’s life, ripped her world apart as well as the rest of the family. Has he ever done anything to help us? No! Then why the hell would he help you?’

  He slammed me against the wall, urging his hard body against me: lips cloying against my face, hands reaching between my thighs. ‘I’ve got you now.’

  ‘No!’ I mouthed. ‘Please.’

  ‘You know... you have to be my best prize yet,’ he murmured breathlessly in my ear. His eyes were blacker than ink now, blacker than the darkest cave. ‘Did you know that? Did you know? I told you once that I have a habit of getting what I want.’

  I whimpered inside but, as he smothered my helpless body, the growing haze suddenly surged up behind his head. It spread out like a great hand, its fingers just discernible, flexing to the ends of their tips.

  ‘Not this time,’ I whispered back.

  The hand curled its fingers and slammed down over him, sending Raphael tumbling to the floor and dragging me down close behind. My ribs turned to fire as they collided with the ground and Raphael’s head bounced against the floor until there was blood and his eyes were closed. When I turned to look up a scream filled my throat once more, crying out loud and shrill this time like a blade of glass severing the haze.

  The face came towards me, its gaping mouth like a deep well. I dug my nails into the floor, my teeth chattering through my cries. It pressed itself against my cheek, the putrid mouth oozing down my neck.

  ‘I’m so lonely,’ it murmured, in a deep droning scar of a voice. ‘So lonely.’

  The eyes were agonizingly blue, its nose a dark recess that began to run down the length of my body, sniffing me in like a hungry wolf.

  Next to me Raphael stirred. I shifted my head closer to him.

  ‘Help me!’ I implored through my sobs.

  As he tried to raise himself up the face loomed forwards again, snarling through the darkness and sweeping me aside.

  ‘No, no!’ Raphael screamed. ‘I thought you’d be pleased. I’ve got her now. See, I’m just like you! Don’t you understand?’

  I grappled backwards into a corner, hugging my knees up into my chest against the hard floor.

  The mouth shrieked with fury and Raphael began to whimper. ‘You have her then, if that’s what you want. I thought you’d be pleased...’

  But up came the clawed hand again. And then the air filled with the thunderous roar of glass smashing and Raphael’s shrill screams as his body plummeted into the dark night air. I buried my face in my hands and all turned to whiteness.

  1893

  Another turning, now left, now right. The doors on either side watched their quiet march as candles in the walls flickered obediently to their passing. Walter’s back lurched on before her, cloaked in a dark shade of gold that looked brown in the dim light: a monk in his cloister. Only the contents of the small tray he was carrying cut through their silent journey with its gentle clinking sounds.

  Her hands were freezing cold in spite of the spring day she’d left outside.

  There were no windows here, only closed doors and the smell of wax. No possible connection to the world beyond. Her heart fluttered at the thought of her boy, waiting out there for her with Mrs Hubbard.

  At last his lurching back came to a halt before a pair of doors. He lowered his chin towards her, smiled thinly.

  ‘Are we here at last? I cannot believe that we are still in the same house!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am – perplexed. Who would ever have thought of such a thing?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Walter... I don’t think I can!’

  ‘Now now. Look at me, look carefully. There you go. When you came to my lodgings you asked for my help. You put your trust in me. Would I ever abuse such a precious thing? Would I Miranda? This is the best and only way, I promise you. Hold onto your bravery; he won’t do anything to hurt you. Even though he can appear brash, he is a kind and gentle man. Have faith in me, please. Do come in and try not to be dazzled.’

  He clasped her hand and drew her into the room but the light inside nearly knocked her back into the corridor. She screwed her eyes up as tightly as they would go without closing them entirely.

  ‘If you would remain here for now, I will just have a few words with Lord Hartreve first,’ Walter murmured.

  She edged back against one of the walls, hands outstretched, and gradually eased her eyes open so that the full extent of the room blossomed into view. It was a mammoth, circular library crammed with all manner of collections and crowned with pane upon pane of glass. How on earth was it possible for such a place to exist within that murky warren of tunnels out there?

  ‘Walter, is that you? I must have nodded off,’ muttered a shaky old growl of a voice.

  ‘I am sorry to disturb you,’ came Walter’s softer tone.

  ‘Never mind, never mind. What time is it?’

  ‘Gone two o’clock in the afternoon.’

  He was over at the far side of the room, huddled up and almost unnoticeable in the depths of a winged armchair. His whiskered face looked mottled, his hair just a few remaining strands and there must have been three or four blankets wrapped around his knees.

  So this was the man whom Lucinda had so despised: her father, Lord Hartreve.

  ‘Have you brought me some tea?’ he barked.

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Bring it over then. I’m parched, positively parched.’

  But Walter seemed to be in no hurry. He strode casually over to a small table some distance away, lowered the tray upon it and then proceeded to haul the table and its contents together across the room to his master.

  ‘Good gracious, surely there must be an easier way?’ grumbled the old man.

  ‘In fact, no.’

  ‘Really? Astonishing.’

  He gathered the tea up into his shaky hands. Just beyond his chair there was a large painting on the wall, so vibrant and energetic that it seemed to beckon her towards it. The man in it was clearly Lord Hartreve himself: younger, stronger and far more bullish looking than the frail figure in the chair now. And there was Lucinda as well, sitting on the horse beside him. Beautiful young Lucinda with all that hair, laughing at the world around her.

  ‘You have a visitor sir,’ said Walter, taking the man’s hand fondly into his own.

  ‘What are you talking about? You know that I don’t see anyone.’

  ‘I do know that, but you will make an exception today I’m sure. And she is already in this room. Your visitor is a lady called Miranda White.’

  ‘Miranda White?’

  ‘Yes. And she is of the utmost importance. This I know will come as a great shock to you but Lucinda’s child, the baby she was carrying when she fled to France, has survived. And Miranda is his legal guardian. She came to me in London for guidance and I have brought her here to you. They seek your help.’

  The
old man fell forwards, wheezing loudly and in spite of his apparent feebleness Walter had to use both arms and enough puff to turn his cheeks red to grapple him back into his chair.

  ‘This tincture will sooth you sir, take a little,’ he said and like a baby Lord Hartreve drank directly from one of the small phials about Walter’s neck.

  At last, when his breathing had slowed down again into soft regular gasps, Lucinda’s father whispered something to Walter. Walter patted his shoulder with a reassuring hand and glanced over at her.

  ‘Lord Hartreve will see you now. Please do come over here.’

  Her legs quivered beneath her.

  ‘Stephen Hartreve is a kind man.’ Walter had said it over and over again.

  ‘But he will hate me! He will turn me away.’

  ‘No. He will do what is right by his grandson. You must trust me. Please.’

  Lord Hartreve seemed less frail at closer quarters. Although he was hunched down and too thin for a man with such a sturdy frame, his eyes still glistened brightly and as soon as she tiptoed closer they fell on her like a hawk.

  ‘So you claim to be in possession of my grandchild?’ he growled.

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘How do I know that you’re telling me the truth?’

  ‘I have it all here: a birth certificate and letters from Mrs Eden to her lawyer.’

  He grasped at the papers, leafing through them one by one, his hands now as steady as a young man’s.

  ‘You have the child here?’

  ‘Yes, outside in the care of my cook who has become a close friend. I also have a personal letter from your daughter, if you’d like to read it.’

  He took the crumpled letter with tender fingers, his eyes devouring every line and as they reached the end they filled with tears. His hands began to shake again.

  ‘You nursed my Lucy!’ he whimpered.

  ‘I did, for the first few days until her husband was able to find her a proper nurse.’

  ‘Sit down Mrs White,’ he sighed, all that sternness suddenly retreating from his face. ‘Now, explanations,’ he continued softly. ‘You call yourself Miranda White. Have you changed your name from Whitestone?’

  ‘Yes, I changed it shortly after my husband died; it suits me better I think. I believe that I’ve endured enough associations with that man.’

  His eyes widened. ‘And yet you were able to forgive my daughter her... dalliance with him?’

  ‘Quite frankly, if I may be blunt, I was horrified by both of them at first. Please forgive me when I say that I disliked your daughter thoroughly for her behaviour. But my husband Tristan was a foul man and he treated her in an abominable way. He trapped her in one of the rooms of her house, drugged her into senselessness. I couldn’t allow it to go on; no one deserves such punishment.’

  ‘So you are the woman Walter told me about. The woman who helped her escape from him?’

  ‘I am. I tampered with Tristan’s wine one evening, sent him off into a deep sleep, and Mr Eden and I smuggled her out. We took her to Dover but she was so weak that I agreed to stay until the nurse came.’

  ‘And what was she like then, my Lucy?’ His eyes filled with tears again.

  ‘Muddled, weak, astonished to discover that she was even carrying a child. She seemed to think that she would be a bad mother.’

  ‘Then why didn’t she come back to me? I would have cared for her! Why on earth did she leave my grandson to you?’

  ‘You’ve read her letter, she seemed to trust me. Forgive my forwardness, but although your daughter conducted herself with great exuberance in her lifetime, I think that she was in truth a very troubled soul. We both had the misfortune of becoming involved with a despicable man and I think that, for her at least, this formed some sort of perverse bond between us.’

  Lord Hartreve made no reply. His expression was fixed towards the floor, his chin nestled within clasped fingers.

  ‘I have one final question,’ he said at last. ‘If my daughter left her son to you, then what are you now doing in my house?’

  She breathed deeply; this was the moment she’d been dreading.

  ‘Just tell him the truth Miranda.’

  Walter’s last words when the carriage had drawn to a halt before Druid Manor’s stark walls.

  ‘He’ll think I’m mad.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I will support you.’

  She leaned forwards towards the old man. ‘This is a very hard thing for me to explain.’

  ‘I imagine that few things could be more difficult to say than what you have already told me.’

  His voice was soft and coaxing, nothing like the growl she’d first heard.

  ‘Yes, you are right, absolutely right. You see, first of all, I have no other suitable place to go. Tristan’s family have turned their backs on me and my sister too, who is my only close surviving relative.’

  ‘Presumably you have some money and property of your own?’

  ‘A very small amount of money. In the last few months of his life Tristan frittered most of our fortune away. I have the house, but it is becoming somewhat of a burden.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘We lived next door to your daughter, in Marguerite Avenue. As you know the houses there are rather fine, the envy of many I believe. But since my husband’s death in there, something about our home perturbs people. In spite of all my efforts I cannot sell the place.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Have you a more precise explanation for this odd resistance? Surely a man’s death cannot be enough to render a property abhorrent to the entire metropolis?’

  ‘You would be surprised.’ She glanced at Walter who nodded gently for her to go on. ‘Sir, you may never wish to see me again after you hear what I am about to say. It is perhaps in vain that I implore you for some level of understanding of my plight, but I’m doing so nonetheless. My husband Tristan Whitestone died by his own hand in the kitchen larder of our house. My cook discovered his body, but I saw it too: he was smiling, in fact grimacing would be a better word for it.

  ‘Ever since that ghastly episode I have been plagued by regular and increasingly vivid visions of him within the walls of my home. At first I truly believed that my superstitions were overcoming my grasp of reality and even now, when I hear myself saying these words, a part of me still feels as if I’m doing my own sanity a disservice. However, when I discovered that he was not only haunting me but also persecuting his defenceless child, a baby I now love as my own, I finally became convinced of the truth.

  ‘There is a vile and haunting aura in that building that revolts and terrifies everyone who moves within its shadow. I would rather live in the workhouse than spend another night of my life in there and as proof I am handing over the keys of my home to you now. Confirm my words for yourself, take the house, I never want to see it again. I have nothing left but the love I bear towards a small boy and the hope of your guardianship.’

  Lord Hartreve regarded the keys beneath his heavy brows and said nothing for a long time. ‘I’ve witnessed many things in my rather long and tortuous lifetime,’ he answered, finally. He was breathing heavily again, struggling it seemed to speak coherently. ‘You must understand that I too am haunted by ghosts; most human beings are, although few are willing to admit to such a thing.

  ‘What you have said is indeed shocking and somewhat sensational and yet I still feel as if I’m in the presence of an honest, if not bruised and distressed woman. I doubt whether you have descended into the realms of lunacy yet!’

  He smiled at her with such reassuring warmth that her heart melted towards him.

  ‘Walter will look at your house; he understands the way this world works far better than I do. But in the meantime, for both our sakes, let’s not talk about this again for awhile.’

  He pulled himself up and out of his chair, clenching his fists firmly together behind his back as if to separate himself physically from the subject.

  ‘When was the last time I left this l
ibrary?’ he called out. ‘Two, three years ago?’

  ‘Closer to four,’ Walter replied.

  His legs shook uncertainly and then he tottered forwards as if about to turn head over heels. She dashed towards him, grasping hold of his arm.

  ‘Ah. Thank you... There is a small lodge cottage on the estate. It’s a little rundown, but Walter will arrange for its refurbishment. You can live there if you like.’

  ‘Are you, are you quite sure?’ Her hand squeezed his arm tighter.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  She peered deeply into his honest watery eyes and suddenly it felt as if the bright beams of light from the roof above were filtering right through her, filling her with warmth to the tips of her fingers, the ends of her toes.

  ‘Words cannot express my thanks. If I can ever repay you for your kindness...’ she faltered.

  ‘You can indeed. You can repay me with immediate effect.’

  He hobbled on towards the doors, her hand still wedged tightly in the crook of his arm.

  ‘Anything!’

  ‘Well introduce me to my grandson then. He is the only thing I now have that’s worth leaving this library for.’

  ‘Of course. Nothing would make me prouder.’

  The glow of sunset had set the fields on fire. The air was at its loveliest at this time: still full of the day’s warmth but cool enough to breathe and so clean and golden. Two silhouettes appeared against the skyline, rather like a tall grasshopper and a squat little ant with a walking stick.

  It would perhaps be better not to tell Mrs Hubbard that they were already on their way. She was panicking enough as it was about the garlic and the raspberry flan and the flour on the floor. She’d greet them out here first, talk things over in the fresh air before taking them inside.

  Then later, if she could get him on his own, she’d tell Walter about her swims in the secret lake. It was surely the closest thing to heaven to glide through that pure, silky water each morning when the rest of the world was still sleeping apart from her and the dragonflies. And if he knew about it then maybe he’d join her one day...

  The silhouettes had doubled, tripled in size, Lord Hartreve moving almost like a sprightly young man now that he had the comfort of his new stick by his side. They paused to circle around something lying in their pathway: a small furry mound as orange as the sky.