The Silent Companions

by Laura Purcell

Jolyon raised his hands. ‘It does not matter what I say. You are sure to do just as you please. But you will have to get Mr Stilford here, or Mrs Holt, to make your enquiries. I am returning to London by this afternoon’s train.’

  ‘This afternoon!’

  ‘I am afraid so. Speaking to the gentlemen at the funeral made me realise how pressing business matters are.’

  ‘But . . .’ How could he abandon her, leave her alone with Sarah? ‘When will you be back?’

  ‘Not for a good while, I should think.’ His lips compressed; she sensed there were things he could not say in front of Sarah. ‘I am sorry, Elsie. But I have to go back. For the factory.’

  And how could she argue with that? She, who had given so much for that place?

  ‘Of course. Of course, I understand.’

  When Jolyon’s carriage departed in a spray of gravel, Elsie was left despondent. The place felt even bigger, emptier without him. She wandered around her room and the summer parlour but found nothing to do.

  Grey clouds bubbled up outside. Wind lashed at the trees. Even the light within the house was subdued and grainy. All she could hear was the tick of the clock, the groaning of the walls and a maid, brushing a hearth somewhere on the first floor.

  She did not like being alone in this house: she felt it was watching her. Sensing her movements within its walls, as she felt the baby flutter inside her belly.

  It was no good. She needed company, no matter how dire. After two hours of boredom she padded down the maroon corridor, past the ghastly marble busts, towards Sarah’s room.

  Knocking once, she entered to find Sarah curled up on her bed with a book and Mrs Holt’s cat, Jasper. The room was remarkably like her own – only, as Jolyon had said, mirrored. The trees waving outside Sarah’s windows were a treasury of gold and bronze; Elsie’s side had the coppers, the burnt reds.

  ‘Oh! Mrs Bainbridge. I did not expect you.’ Sarah placed a mark in her book and rose, embarrassed, to her feet. Jasper merely watched her – he did not forfeit his spot on the bed. ‘I’m sorry. Did you need me?’

  ‘Yes. As a matter of fact, I am going to explore the house. I want you to join me.’

  ‘Explore?’ Sarah’s brown eyes widened. ‘Why, are we – I mean . . . I suppose Mrs Holt won’t mind?’

  ‘Mrs Holt? What has she to do with it? This is my house. I can do as I like.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose you can.’ For a moment, Sarah’s wide mouth sagged. Perhaps it occurred to her, as it did to Elsie, that she had been pushed out of the inheritance. But then a happier thought seemed to inspire Sarah, for she smiled and said, ‘This house has belonged to my family for a long time. It is the only part of them I still have. A connection. I would like to explore ever so much.’

  Elsie held out her gloved hand. ‘Come along, then.’

  Sarah hesitated. Elsie suddenly remembered exposing her coarse hands the night they had first arrived: palms the colour and texture of pork rind. She tried not to let the consciousness show on her face.

  ‘What are you afraid of?’

  With a quick release of breath, Sarah stepped forwards.

  They started at the very bottom of the house. The Bridge was, in fact, much larger than they had imagined. It seemed to twist into itself. Leading off the Great Hall, across from the fireplace Elsie had warmed herself at that first night, they found a drawing room panelled with dark wood up to shoulder height. Blue-grey paper covered the rest of the walls; its shade reminded Elsie of dead cornflowers. It was a cold room, full of marble urns and tapestries.

  ‘Why would you withdraw here?’ she asked. ‘I’d wager there are workhouses decorated with more warmth.’

  The drawing room connected to a vast, powder-pink space filled with instruments. A mottled harp leant against the window, as if pining to get out. One of its strings had snapped. Elsie ran her eyes up the rose-coloured curtains that blocked out the daylight. The ceiling was scalloped, like the white icing around the top of a cake.

  Sarah flew towards the grand piano, opened it and pressed a key. A plume of dust rose up with the note. ‘I can play the piano,’ she said. ‘Just little pieces. Mrs Crabbly used to like them. I will play for you tonight.’

  It was a testament to how dreary Elsie felt that she actually looked forward to it.

  Next came a card room, decorated in green. A stuffed stag head loomed over them from the wall, his antlers casting shadows like the branches of a tree.

  ‘How macabre.’ Elsie wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Do you really think so?’ Sarah gazed up at the mounted head. The fur was dirty. Each light brown eyelash was carefully separated, revealing the ebony marbles encased within the sockets. ‘There’s beauty in it. Ordinarily this fellow would be rotting, but instead he is here, still majestic. Preserved forever.’

  ‘Stuck in The Bridge for the rest of his days? I can’t envy him that.’

  The stag marked the end of the wing; there was no escape but back through the music room and drawing room. When they returned to the Great Hall, the red-haired maid emerged from the green baize door on the servants’ side.

  ‘Helen!’ The maid pulled up sharp at the sound of Elsie’s voice. ‘It is Helen, isn’t it?’ She nodded dumbly and her legs bent in a curtsy far superior to Mabel’s. ‘Helen, now that the funeral is over, I want you to turn the pictures on the second storey. And anywhere else, for that matter. Miss Bainbridge and I want to look at the portraits. Can you do that for me?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  Curtsying again, Helen turned and went back through the baize door. They heard her feet through the walls, climbing the spiral staircase. Elsie and Sarah ascended the wider, carpeted steps reserved for the family.

  ‘There was sawdust here earlier,’ Elsie said, watching carefully. ‘It seems to have gone.’

  The first floor started off well, with a honey-coloured parlour adjoining a billiard room in the west wing. But as they made their way to the east wing, Elsie felt a nauseous chill take hold of her. Some sixth sense told her what they were about to see.

  ‘Oh, look, Mrs Bainbridge! How darling!’ Sarah dashed forward, leaving her leaning on the door jamb. ‘Look at the little nursery!’

  A child might have played there only yesterday. It was spotless. The flower-patterned paper showed no signs of age and the carpet, a bright chintz of red and yellow, had been beaten and washed. A rocking horse stood proud and gleaming in the centre of the room, little dapples of white across its rump. Sarah pushed it and giggled as it bumped on green castors.

  Elsie looked around. The horse was not the only toy. Dolls were arranged round a miniature table set out for tea. On the floor beside them was a wooden Noah’s ark, complete with animals. A high screen sat in front of the fireplace. Within range of the heat hung a cot trimmed with swathes of lemon fabric. It was joined by an iron bedstead covered in a patchwork quilt for an older child. Her throat closed up.

  ‘There is a schoolroom beyond,’ said Sarah.

  ‘I think I have done enough exploring for the day.’

  She drifted back to the gallery and looked down on the Great Hall. The grey and black flags danced before her eyes. Dear God, she couldn’t do it. They might as well ask her to go to Oxford and sit an exam. She could not be an ordinary mother to an ordinary baby.

  All those toys, the memorabilia of childhood. Perhaps it was different if you grew up happy, with memories of your father dandling you on his knee and your mother kissing your tears away. But for Elsie there was nothing but fear. Fear for the baby. Fear of the baby.

  Jolyon had turned out all right, she reminded herself. But it was easier with Jolyon being a boy. What if Rupert’s baby was born a girl? She could not love a daughter that looked like her. She could not bear to glance upon a mirror of her past without being sick.

  ‘Mrs Bainbridge?’ Sarah crept to her side. ‘Are you unwell?’

  ‘No. Just . . . weary.’

  ‘Will we explore again tomorr
ow?’

  ‘There is not much left to see. The library and the summer parlour are on the same floor as our bedrooms, we can go there any time. And then there is only . . .’ Her brow grew tight with the memory of the garret. That night and the sound rasping just beyond the door, out of reach. What had it been?

  She could not believe it was rats – not a noise like that. She wanted to know the truth. Raising a hand, she pulled a pin from underneath her cap. Two blonde curls tumbled down.

  ‘Mrs Bainbridge?’

  ‘How would you like to see me pick a lock?’

  The passageway on the third floor appeared less eerie by daylight. It was a different corridor to the one she had cringed down. The Dutch tiles revealed their copper colour and clacked beneath her boots. She noticed clouds of damp and little cracks she had not seen on the walls before.

  ‘I don’t believe you, Mrs Bainbridge. You are poking fun at me. You cannot really pick a lock.’

  Elsie grinned. ‘You will see. I am a most resourceful woman.’ She turned the hairpin between her gloved fingers. It had been a long time since she’d done this. There were no locked doors at the factory, these days.

  A pattering sounded on the tiles behind. She looked round and saw Jasper, scampering to join them.

  ‘Oh, bless him.’ Sarah stopped to wait. When Jasper drew level with her he brushed against her leg, making her dress sigh.

  ‘How fortunate you are, Sarah. You have a firm friend there.’ It was strange, but she did not seem able to traverse this corridor without the cat. Was he guarding something? Or did his arrival mean Mrs Holt was nearby? It was one thing to let Sarah see her pick a lock; quite another to do it before the housekeeper. ‘Come along then. Hurry. We must do this while the light is still good.’

  She saw the door at the end of the corridor; three shallow steps rising to a barrier of chipped wood. It did not look sturdy. She did not see how it could contain a nest of squirrels or rats. Surely their rapacious little teeth would have gnawed through it by now?

  She was just about to mount the steps when Jasper streaked past her, mewing. ‘Foolish chap!’ He stood before the door as he had done that night, green eyes shining, and miaowed. She turned to Sarah. ‘Perhaps it is a good thing we have him with us. Mrs Holt thinks there may be some type of rodent living there.’ Sarah shuddered. ‘Don’t be afraid. They cannot hurt you. And the cat will kill them.’

  ‘I do not think I can watch that. I hate mice.’

  ‘Very well. You stand back here, then, while I attend to the lock. Jasper and I will go through.’ She paused. Hopefully she was not about to make one of the skeletal discoveries Mr Underwood had mentioned. ‘I must confess, I am curious to see what manner of beast is in there. You would not believe the strange sound they made.’

  ‘Oh! But I have heard it, at night. Is this where it comes from?’ Sarah looked at the door with wide eyes. Something in her expression made Elsie’s stomach clench. ‘Could – could an animal produce that sound?’

  Jasper mewed, and scratched at the door. It was a dull imitation of the hiss she heard at night. Thin white lines marked the wood where he had worried it over time. ‘Jasper. Come away.’

  He looked at her, his emerald eyes inscrutable, his paw suspended. Then he swatted the door again. It creaked ajar.

  Sarah stepped back. ‘Look! It’s open.’

  Elsie could not believe her luck. ‘Mrs Holt must have written to Torbury St Jude for a locksmith. I didn’t expect her to be so prompt.’ She jammed the hairpin back under her cap. ‘I’m going in to explore.’

  No creatures skittered out from the opening – that was a good sign. Mounting the steps, she stood next to Jasper and peeked inside. The air was still and heavy. There were no rats, no squirrels, no skeletons; just trunks and old furniture. Dust coated every surface, thick as velvet. ‘Sarah,’ she called back. ‘It’s quite safe.’ She coughed, then sneezed. ‘Rather dusty, but safe.’

  She pushed the door and watched it swing back on its hinges with a prolonged whine. She expected Jasper to dart in ahead of her, but instead he turned tail and fled back the way they had come. She laughed; coughed again. ‘Cats. They are such perverse creatures, are they not?’

  She took four steps into the room, her hem sweeping up a cloud of dust. The garret looked as if time had stood still for centuries. Cobwebs festooned the corners but no insects writhed within them; all were dead in cocoons or shrivelled and dry. By the far wall slumped a clock that no longer ticked. Its face was smashed and the hands hung at odd angles. Holland sheets covered square shapes that might be portraits.

  She walked to a table beside the smeared window. It was heaped with yellow-paged books. Dust obscured the titles. With the tip of one finger she prodded through the pile. A few volumes lower down the stack still had clean covers. Treatises on gardening from two centuries back. Some leather-bound pads that looked like journals. Culpeper’s Complete Herbal and a Generall Historie of Plantes by Gerard. ‘Sarah, come in!’ She tried not to inhale too much dust as she called. ‘There are no mice. But there are books.’

  Sarah’s long face appeared, hovering beside the door. ‘Books?’

  ‘Yes, if you can still read them. Mouldy old things! I think some of these have been here since the Norman Conquest at least.’

  Sarah padded to her side. ‘Oh! My goodness.’ Reverently, she picked up the volumes with the tips of her fingers. Tidemarks misted some of the pages; others were as yellow and thin as onion skin. ‘Receipts. Ingredients. A list of farrier bills. Oh, look at this! Sixteen thirty-five! Can you believe it?’ She blew to clear dust from the cover. ‘“The Diary of Anne Bainbridge”. Two volumes of it. Why, she must be one of my ancestors!’

  ‘Not a very interesting one, if her diaries have been rotting here for two hundred years,’ Elsie observed. She put a foot out and tested the floorboard. It creaked, but held. ‘I wonder what could be under these sheets?’ She threw one back with a flourish. Dust exploded out. They both gagged for breath. When the air cleared, it revealed a rocking chair and a small case that looked like a physician’s travelling store of medicine. Elsie pulled it open. Clear glass bottles with cork stoppers rattled inside. ‘Must have been an apothecary in the family,’ she said. ‘The residue at the bottom looks like herbs.’

  Sarah turned, clutching a book against her bosom. ‘Let me see.’ She took two steps towards Elsie – then shrieked.

  Elsie dropped the bottle she was holding. It cracked open and released a mouldy, underground smell. ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘There’s something there . . . Eyes.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous . . .’ Her voice subsided as she followed Sarah’s gaze.

  Sarah was right. Green-brown eyes lurked in the shadows at the back of the room. A white sheet concealed most of the face, but she could see the pupils, trained on her with an unnatural scrutiny.

  ‘A painting. It is just a painting, Sarah. Look, it does not blink.’

  Elsie dug through the clutter, pulling and pushing objects out of her way. Dust powdered her dress grey, trailing from the hem in ribbons. The painted eyes kindled as she grew closer, as if greeting an old friend.

  Elsie seized the end of the sheet covering the portrait and dragged it away. The material snagged as it moved, finally coming loose with a ripping sound.

  ‘Oh!’ Sarah cried. ‘It’s . . . it’s . . .’

  It’s me, Elsie thought with horror.

  It was a girl, about nine or ten. A button nose and pursed lips. Eyes that simultaneously beckoned and dared you to come closer. She was staring into the face of the child she had been: the girl with her youth ripped out.

  How? Her mind stuttered and stopped. The face before her eyes was her own, yet she felt no kinship with it. Go away, she wanted to scream. Go away, I am afraid of you.

  ‘It is not a painting,’ Sarah said. ‘That is – it’s painted, but it is not a canvas. It seems to be free-standing.’ She put her book down, pushed forwards and poked her head arou
nd the back of the figure. ‘Ah, no. It is flat. But it has a wooden prop, you see?’

  Elsie’s field of vision expanded. The face shrank into proportion and she saw the painted girl in full. Waist-height, like a real child, the figure represented was dressed in olive silk with a gold lace trim. A tissue apron drifted around her legs. She did not have blonde hair like Elsie; it was red-brown and piled up onto her head in a kind of pyramid, threaded with orange ribbon and beads. She held a basket of roses and herbs at her waist. The other hand was raised, pressing a white bloom against her heart. She was not of this century; perhaps not even of the last.

  ‘Remarkable.’ Sarah rested a hand on the outline of a shoulder. The colours had faded with age and there were little scuffs on the woodwork. ‘It is as if someone has cut out the figure from a painting and mounted it on a plank of wood.’

  ‘Does it . . . Does it not remind you of anyone?’

  Sarah nibbled her lower lip. ‘A little. Around the eyes. It must be one of the Bainbridge ancestors. We cannot be surprised if she looks a bit like Rupert.’

  ‘Rupert?’ she repeated incredulously. But then she saw it: just a whisper, creeping through the chipped paint. She looks like me and Rupert. Her heart seized. Was this what her baby would look like?

  Sarah ran her hand along the wooden edge of the arm. ‘She’s beautiful. We must take her downstairs. Let’s put her in the Great Hall. We might be able to lift her between us. If we – oh!’ She sprang back. A shard of wood impaled her palm. ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Come here.’ Carefully, Elsie held Sarah’s fingers within her gloved ones. ‘Grit your teeth. One, two – three!’

  The splinter slid out. Beads of blood welled up from the puncture mark; Sarah raised it to her mouth and sucked.

  ‘These antiques do fall apart,’ Elsie said. ‘Probably best to leave the thing where it is.’

  ‘Oh no, Mrs Bainbridge, please! I would so love to have her in the house.’

  Elsie shivered. ‘Well, perhaps you should get a servant to move it for you,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Thicker skin.’

  Behind them, the floorboards screeched. ‘Dash it!’