The Woman in the Mirror:

by Rebecca James

  ‘I cannot accept it, Mrs Yarrow. The children are impeccable.’

  ‘So impeccable as to tease you into disobeying their father?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Knowing the captain as I do, miss, there is slim chance he would have given blessing to your expedition. I’ll wager it was one of the children, was it not?’

  I swallow. Edmund is a boy, full of the boldness of youth. What child hasn’t told a white lie in defiance of a parent? That I will pay the price of that lie is unfortunate. I struggle to answer Mrs Yarrow, but my silence is answer enough.

  The cook sits. ‘All I’m suggesting, miss, is that being without their mother might have…addled their natures somewhat. Is it possible that your woman on the cliff was in fact the boy himself? That the twins persuaded you into the outing as a way to pursue their game? These children know Winterbourne and its surrounds better than anyone. It’s their home. They’ve no fear of tumbling into the sea or tripping on a stray log – they know every inch. It’s their playground.’

  We’re interrupted by the sound of a closing door.

  ‘Edmund!’ I jump up.

  The boy is huddled next to Tom, the houseman’s coat wrapped around his small shoulders. He is pale and cold, his teeth chattering, and his copper hair is plastered to his forehead with precipitation or clammy fright.

  ‘Found him in the copse,’ says Tom, ‘and a good job, too.’

  Mrs Yarrow steers him into the kitchen. ‘Let’s get you warmed up, lovey.’

  ‘Edmund, darling,’ I step forward, ‘are you all right?’

  As the boy’s meek form travels past me, I feel the urge to apologise – though for what, I do not know. He was the one who ran from me. I cannot bear to think of the accusations that passed the cook’s lips just moments before. Seeing Edmund’s frail body, shivering and innocent, I cannot entertain it for a heartbeat. I think of him shaking and alone on the moors and want to scoop him into my arms.

  But it seems I am required elsewhere. Captain de Grey appears in the hall.

  ‘Miss Miller, I must see you immediately.’

  Amid the brutal shadow of his face, his blue eyes glint like diamonds. They frighten and excite me, both at once.

  I turn to Edmund but the boy is being led away. For an instant, he glances behind him and sharply meets my eye.

  *

  ‘Just what in hell do you think you were doing?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Captain. It was foolish to leave Winterbourne. Accept my apology.’

  ‘Did you not deem it necessary to ask me first?’

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ I say, for I cannot think of anything else. Edmund is a child, and I could always have overridden his claim.

  The captain pours himself a drink – brandy, strong, in a cut-glass tumbler – and knocks it back. ‘Do you want one?’ He pours another.

  ‘No, thank you.’ He drinks more. He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and I notice the coarse black hairs on the outside of his wrist.

  ‘Sit down,’ he tells me. I do.

  ‘Do you have any idea,’ he says, ‘what those children mean to me?’

  ‘Yes, Captain.’

  ‘Do you have children?’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘Then you lie.’ He sits at his desk. It is scattered with paper, an ashtray bearing the stubs of several cigars, and a framed photograph whose picture I cannot see from this angle. ‘You cannot possibly grasp what it might be to lose a child,’ he says. ‘I could have lost Edmund today. Do you hear me? Do you understand?’

  I swallow dryly. I have no idea what it is to lose…

  Oh, but I do, Jonathan, I want to say. Oh, but I do. And I think that if I were Laura de Grey, with this husband and these children, I would have wanted to live for ever and a day. I would have risked losing nothing. I would have held them all to my heart so tightly that none of them could get away.

  ‘I accept full responsibility for what happened,’ I manage. Any protest that Edmund orchestrated his own fate would sound petty on my part. If the price is the captain’s anger then so be it. ‘It was reckless to leave Winterbourne.’

  I wonder where the captain was this morning, when I came knocking. Possibly he was sleeping, or possibly he’d been drinking. But for a tired man, for a drunk, his eyes are piercingly clear. The burned side of his face is in shadow (does he always sit so as to ensure this?) and his dark hair is unkempt. He trails a long finger around the rim of his brandy glass, watching me.

  ‘I agree,’ he says. ‘Reckless. And it won’t happen again.’

  ‘You have my absolute assurance of that.’

  Abruptly, the captain stands. ‘Are you engaged to be married?’ he asks, walking to the window.

  The question surprises me. ‘No.’

  ‘Then what is your position?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Your position, Miss Miller,’ he says. ‘A woman of your…’ He waves a hand around in lieu of a word. ‘You must have a sweetheart at home.’

  I meet his eye. ‘I lost my sweetheart during the war.’

  The captain lifts his chin a notch. ‘I see. Did he see action?’

  ‘If your question is whether he died in action, the answer is yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘The war was cruel.’

  ‘Was yours a long affair?’

  I laugh, uncomfortably. ‘Forgive me, Captain, but I cannot see what this has to do with what happened in the mist.’

  ‘It has everything to do with what happened in the mist. I am trying to ascertain what attachments you might have in your personal life, Miss Miller – attachments which enable you to look after my children to a satisfactory degree. Now, for a woman to have never been obligated, at least not in any serious way, and to have no children of her own, well, that was the problem with our last governess. I cannot entertain a possibility of that repeating. To care for my family, to understand how high a stake they represent to me, you must first appreciate high stakes in your own life. I am invested in my children. What are you invested in, Miss Miller?’

  I glance to the floor. I think of my father in the house in Surrey, demanding my intentions, just as the captain is now. ‘You’re a silly, stupid girl. I’m ashamed to call you my daughter. Do you know how ashamed I am?’

  Captain de Grey’s study is like the chapel at Burstead, dark wood panelling and oriel windows, high-backed chairs (or pews in the chapel’s case) where we would all stand in neat rows to say our prayers. Forgive us our trespasses… Winterbourne bears down on me, seems to watch me with hidden eyes, curiously looking, curiously poking the soft parts of my flesh, testing to see what makes me wince.

  My trespass cannot be forgiven. What I did – or didn’t do. The choice I made.

  Those are my stakes. Higher than them all.

  ‘I was engaged to be married,’ I say. ‘We had plans for after the war.’ I don’t disclose those plans to the captain – it is too painful, too raw, even after years have passed. ‘Captain,’ I meet his blue eyes, ‘I know what it is to love. I know what it is to have that love taken away. I would not wish the heartache I have suffered on my worst enemy. I will protect your children as if they were mine. You can be assured of that.’

  He surveys me for a moment, so intensely that I have to look away.

  ‘As if they are yours?’ he repeats.

  ‘As if they are mine.’

  He nods. ‘I’m assured,’ he says, softly. ‘You may go.’

  Chapter 12

  Cornwall, present day

  Rachel stepped inside. She fumbled for a light switch, then, finding none, used her phone to illuminate the way. On the fireplace were a collection of altar candles and a box of matches, which she knelt to and lit. From there she could spot the basket of firewood and bucket of kindling, which she assembled in the hearth. She took a newspaper from her bag and packed balls of it under the tinder, so that when she held a flame to the arrangement it swiftly licked orange a
nd the wood cracked and sparked.

  It was amazing how little glow was needed to irradiate a dark space. Rachel stood and looked about her. Her surroundings were vast. High above in the entrance hall, a roof lantern let the moon peer in, as curious an eye as hers, and after a few moments she could start to make out every shape and contour as if she were seeing them twelve hours from now. No doubt about it, the place was creepy. She thought of her aunt shuffling around here in her final days, ancient and alone, and a sudden snap made her turn her head – but it was only the firewood as it splintered and burned.

  ‘Get a grip!’ she scolded herself. Her voice sounded funny in the dark: she half expected it to fly back at her or for some sound to answer it.

  All the same, it was a relief to spy the solitary switch at the foot of the stairs. To Rachel’s amazement, when she pressed it, the chandelier spluttered to life. She sneezed, as all of a sudden the dark romance of the hall was eclipsed by its stark, neglected reality. Cobwebs hung in swathes between the rafters; the fireplace was coated in silver: everything from the framed pictures on the walls to the banister on the staircase to the shabby, frayed rugs on the flagstone floor was devoured by age.

  It couldn’t have been updated in decades, and why should it have? Rachel imagined her ancestors here, the ‘curious’ de Greys, whose conversations had rippled through this space, whose calls had wound down the stairs, whose laughter had gathered round the fire. Now, the house was silent. Empty. But despite its dereliction, of all the works of art Rachel had seen, of all the visionary imaginings she had helped promote and display, of all the galleries she had spent hours in getting lost in a beautiful fantasy, those contained at Winterbourne – the very bones of Winterbourne, from its architecture to its fittings – were by far the most beautiful fantasy of them all. Whoever had designed and built this had been inspired to the point of madness.

  Rachel thought of her apartment in Manhattan with the blare of traffic outside, the reassuring glow of the streetlights holding her until she fell asleep… Here, she was on her own. There was no phone ringing off the hook, no late-night coffee shops, no Aaron Grewal messaging her with an invitation for that evening. She could hear her own breath. Her heartbeat. There was nobody for miles around, just her, the house, and the wide, sprawling sea. But she wasn’t afraid. It simply didn’t occur to her to be afraid. It didn’t occur to her to consider the long trek back to civilisation and warm lodgings, or to regret not taking the cab driver up on his offer of returning her to town. Winterbourne had already cast her under a fascinated spell. She had entered a priceless masterpiece, was standing in it, breathing its antique air.

  It was late. She decided to head to bed, resolving to see to the house in the morning. She found the first chamber she could and collapsed in sleep.

  *

  Birdsong woke her. It took a moment to remember where she was but the cold soon brought her to her senses. Rachel was still wearing last night’s coat, her knees tucked in tight – she must have crashed out as soon as her head hit the pillow, not even bothering to slip beneath the covers. Turning over, she decided that it might have been for the best: the four-poster was as dust-caked as everything else, the brocade bedding stiff with disuse. She coughed, getting up to open the window and let in the fresh air. It took several attempts to release the latch but when she did, it was as if the house inhaled, its aged scent dispelled by the crisp Cornish breeze. The empty seascape was beautiful, the water blue and twinkling in the cool September sunshine and the sky adrift with clouds. She detected a fishing boat in the distance, the only sign of life.

  All she could think about was having a shower. Such a thing seemed doubtful at Winterbourne, and as she ventured to explore the labyrinth of rooms her instinct was confirmed. The bathroom on this floor was straight out of the 1900s. There was an iron tub and the loo looked archaic. It was also freezing. She searched the walls and found an old-fashioned convection heater, shaped like a zeppelin, and was gratified when she pulled its cord and heard a reassuring groan before the element glowed to life. The taps on the bath were rusted so hard that she almost gave up, before one of them surrendered and a brown choke of water splurged on to her hands. In minutes the corrosion passed through and the water began to clear, but there was nothing warm about it. She resolved to figure that part out later.

  Remarkably, she found a couple of clean towels in the cupboard. She dried and dressed quickly, in part because of the bitter cold (despite the heater, which was now emitting a burned, charred smell: she switched it off) and in part because her stomach was growling. She had bought a few basics before leaving London – bread, milk, eggs, coffee – and realised she hadn’t eaten a decent meal in days.

  It seemed simplest to keep the room she’d slept in, so she unpacked, dusted off the dresser and set out her belongings. She thought how in need of decoration the whole place was: a new ream of wallpaper, for a start, to go over the botched job someone had done in covering up the mural opposite her bed. She only half glanced at it now, and wondered what beautiful design had once detailed its surface.

  Only before she left did she notice the painting. It was discreet, tucked behind the drapes, and depicted a tiny cottage, golden hay bales, a cow waiting to be milked… Rachel smiled, liking it immediately. It was just the sort of thing she’d love to take back to New York and share with the gallery.

  She searched the painting for a sign of human life, some face to greet hers, but there was none. Only an open upstairs window, a small square of empty black, flung open to the night as if someone, or something, had escaped.

  *

  After breakfast, she set about cleaning. Unsurprisingly there wasn’t much to use, just an old mop and a dustpan and brush. She unearthed a bucket under the kitchen sink and filled it with soapy water, then dragged the whole lot into the hall. She focused on her own room, the bathroom and the kitchen. The rest would have to wait.

  The rest, she swiftly learned, was considerable. Rachel was incredulous at the spaces that continued to open at Winterbourne, on and on they went, one maze of rooms that led to another. On the ground floor alone was a grand study, steeped in the scent of old books and leather, a library addled with damp (what room wasn’t?), a drawing room with two small desks pressed up against the window, a scullery, a chapel, a ballroom, and downstairs were the old servants’ quarters, which Rachel closed the door on. Upstairs, along from her bedroom, were half a dozen more, some with single beds, some with four-posters, some with no sleeping arrangements at all. Two other storeys climbed above, which she explored with amazement, marvelling at the sheer grandiosity of the place. Doubtless, it was eccentric. The mansion was homage to all things gothic, its turrets and spires like elaborate peaks of icing; its grave, studded furniture soaked in rich history; its candle holders and wall tapestries as sumptuous as they came. It was like a museum. She half expected red rope to be looped across doorways with a polite sign reading: Please do not touch.

  Only, it was hers to touch. All of it. Every piece.

  Never in her wildest dreams could Rachel have connected herself with this lavishness. It was preposterous. All those years wondering about where she had come from, all those tears she had shed thinking she would never know, all that anguish over discovering her birth mother was dead, all those teenage fall-outs with Maggie and Greg (imagine if they were alive to see Winterbourne), it all came to this: this splendid, impossible palace in the middle of nowhere on the Cornish coast. She felt like an impostor, a pretender to the throne. It wasn’t hers. She had no right to it.

  But she did. Her grandfather had been Jonathan de Grey.

  Still, she thought of her elusive grandmother. Who had she been? The woman was an essential shadow, the key to Rachel’s parentage. She wasn’t Laura, the captain’s wife. Who, then? Someone with whom de Grey had strayed – and there was a passion and romance she clung to in this because without those elements it sounded sordid, to have gone behind the back of a wife and mother. And through that passion her
grandparents had created Rachel’s mother. My mother… To think that mysterious woman had begun her life here, in this house, on the floorboards Rachel now walked on, was crazy. Which room had she slept in? What toys had she played with?

  At once, a door banged shut behind her. Rachel flew round, before chiding herself for being easily spooked. She pushed the door, expecting it to open as easily as it had closed, but it didn’t give. She leaned her body against it but it wouldn’t budge. Strange. She rattled the handle – it was stuck.

  A distant voice enquired: ‘Hello?’

  Rachel’s heart pounded. She waited, her breath hard, wondering if jet lag was getting the better of her. The voice came again:

  ‘Hello?’

  It was coming from downstairs. Rachel grabbed the mop and held the stick firmly. She left the locked room and headed down two flights, the mop held aloft like some cocked baseball bat. She saw the top of a man’s head before she saw anything else, as she peered down through the banister. It was pleasing, for a moment, to be unobserved and yet observing, and a relief (if bizarrely anticlimactic) to recognise her impostor as real, unconnected with the sealed room upstairs, nothing to do with Winterbourne’s slamming doors or chill draughts.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Rachel asked sharply, stepping into the hall, resenting the stranger for catching her at a vulnerable moment and making her lose her head.

  ‘Hi,’ said the man, turning. He carried a crate of produce – fruit, bread, meat and a bottle of wine – and wore an easy, steady smile. ‘I’m Jack. Jack Wyatt. Thought I’d bring you up some stuff. Sorry to let myself in. I tried ringing, but the bell’s broken.’

  Rachel leaned the mop against the wall and ran an arm across her brow. The man called Jack was a little older than her, and very tall. He had brown hair that was slightly greying round the ears. His complexion was tanned, as if he spent a lot of time outdoors. His grin was wide and slightly lopsided, which made it interesting.