Whispers in the Dark

by Jonathan Aycliffe

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “My father wasn’t a laborer. His name was Mr. Metcalf. Douglas Metcalf. That’s his photograph.”

  For a moment she was quite stupefied, not grasping what I was saying. Then something like the truth began to dawn on her. It was my voice for one thing. In the time I had spent in the workhouse, I had not quite lost my middle-class accent, though often enough I had been made fun of on account of it. And Mrs. Lincott knew the names of her husband’s friends.

  “Do you mean Metcalf who owned the alkali works?”

  I nodded.

  Her hand flew to her mouth.

  “Good God . . . I’d heard . . .”

  She sat down in the nearest chair and stared at me as though I had just fallen down the chimney.

  “But good heavens, child, how do you come to be in this condition?”

  I did my best to explain, though my understanding of what had happened was then quite rudimentary. Nevertheless she seemed to grasp the essence of what I was saying.

  “And you say your mother died in that terrible place?”

  I nodded, fresh tears springing to my eyes. It was the first time I had spoken in a civilized fashion with anyone since my mother’s death. I imagined this woman—a woman of my own class, a woman who dressed and spoke as my own mother had done—I imagined her rising from her chair and taking me in her arms and tearing me away from my endless scrubbing in order to live with her and her children as one of the family. Like a princess in a fairy tale, restored to her true station after a life of poverty.

  For a moment, even now, I truly believe that very thought had passed through Mrs. Lincott’s own head. And for a moment, I do not doubt, she was on the verge of acting on that impulse. But with a degree of selfmastery that I can only call heroic, she reined herself in. When she next looked at me, I saw with a fallen heart, she had determined to regard me as the same scullery maid she had taken me for on entering the room.

  “Well, I am saddened to hear your tale,” she said, rising from the chair. “I shall tell my husband about it. I believe we met your mother once at a dinner held by the Lit, and Phil. To think that she should have died under such circumstances. And so young. How tragic. How very tragic.”

  The next moment she walked several paces to the door, then turned and glanced at me again.

  “Finish up in here quickly, will you?” she said. “I have guests coming in half an hour.”

  The door opened and closed, and I was alone again.

  CHAPTER 6

  Nothing improved. Days passed, weeks passed, whole months went by. If Mrs. Lincott ever thought of me, it must have been as something very distant, nearly abstract, an example of how the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children. Or perhaps I was just an embarrassment she preferred to keep hidden away in the scullery. Of me as a person, I am sure she never thought at all. If she did, she never showed it in any concrete fashion. There were no gifts of clothing or bedding, no pieces of extra food. Nothing ever came my way in that house but hard work.

  And yet the very expectation I had that I might yet receive some favorable treatment at Mrs. Lincott's hands was based on the wholly irrelevant fact of my having been born into the same class as she, on the coincidence—not such a great one in those days—that my father and Dr. Lincott had been members of a scientific and cultural society. But what else did I have to fend for myself with if not that? I knew no one outside the workhouse, I had not been bred to poverty, there was enough loneliness in me to fill the hearts of a family of beggars.

  Spring came and passed, little noticed by me in the shadows of the scullery where most of my work was done. I had no days off. And if I had been given one, how would I have spent it? I had no clothes fit to wear outside, no money, not so much as a penny to buy a slice of pie. There was little for me to look forward to in life: at best I might hope to become a parlor maid and share a cold room under the attic with one or two other girls, and think myself fortunate to have a pair of old shoes and a cheap hat and an evening off once a week. I was old enough for the streets, my body was grown enough to be worth a shilling or two to a sailor in Newcastle or South Shields; but I knew next to nothing of that trade, just the nods and winks I had observed listening to other girls gossiping in the workhouse.

  Summer passed. Some days the heat in the kitchen was unendurable. I slipped out into the yard whenever I got a chance, which was seldom enough, and looked over the yard wall and the roofs of the houses round about, up at the blue sky, wondering what it must feel like to be out there, to be as free to come and go as a bird. In its way, summer was worse than winter. I cried more often, alone at night on my scraps of rag. And I thought of Arthur, of the games we had played in our garden at home, where flowers had blossomed and huge trees cast a welcome shadow on soft grass.

  Autumn arrived with soft winds, then hard. The days flickered past, one rushing into the next without distinction. One night, very late, I wakened suddenly from a dream to hear the wind kicking and squalling in the streets outside. Something heavy was rolling back and forth in the back alleyway. I could not shake the dream out of my head.

  I had seen my brother Arthur. He had been standing alone at a window in a dark house, with a light behind him, the pale light of a candle. He was scratching at the window with his hands, scraping his fingernails against the glass, as though trying to escape from something. I could still hear the scratching, it would not go away. And suddenly, in the dream, I had realized that I myself was standing in the room in the dark house, in the room with the candle, and that Arthur was outside the window, that he was scraping hard with his nails, trying to get in. And I had not wanted him to enter. I had been afraid of his pale face and his long, thin hands.

  In October, the first signs of winter appeared. There was a day of hail, and a day so dark the lights were left on from early morning. The next day something wonderful happened. At least, it was wonderful to me. There was a new arrival at the back door, someone—so Lottie said— come from the workhouse to be lady’s maid to the oldest daughter of the house, Miss Emily, now turned fifteen. I was in the kitchen when the new girl entered, and I nearly dropped the pan I was scrubbing when I caught sight of her: it was Annie, barely recognizable in a cap and shawl, shivering on the doorstep.

  Venables brought her through the kitchen before whisking her away to the maids’ room in the attic. As she went by she turned her head and winked at me. I could barely contain my excitement.

  That night I lay awake, knowing how close some sort of salvation lay. Every day after that, I waited impatiently for Annie to appear. The longer I waited, the more my hopes fed off her, the more I fantasized about our reunion. But it was over a week before we had our chance. On the second Sunday after her arrival, she sneaked downstairs after lunch.

  I shall never forget the look on her face when she clapped eyes on me. She just stood staring at me, up and down, as though I were a freak in a sideshow at the Hoppings. When she finally spoke, her voice was low, as though she were trying to keep it hushed in the presence of the sick.

  “What have they been doing to you, Charlotte? You’re like a skeleton.”

  The next moment we were in one another’s arms, both of us in tears, then Annie had me at arm’s length, clucking and tutting like an old hen.

  “You’ve got to get away from here,” she said at last, “You’ll kill yourself if you stay on.”

  “Get away?” The thought terrified me, as much as the idea of spending the rest of my life in the Lincotts’ kitchen. “Where to? Where can I go? I’ve got no money, I've got no one to go to.”

  Annie shook her head.

  “Of course you do, hinnie. You want to find your brother, don’t you?”

  I looked at her in astonishment.

  “Do you know where he is?”

  She smiled and raised her eyebrows.

  “Maybe I do, hinnie,” she said. “Maybe I do.”

  “Tell me, then, tell me. . . .”

  She
sat me down at the table.

  “Sit still now, and let us tell you. We were took out two weeks ago, Bob and me. He’s been given work in Gateshead, I was sent here by that old bitch Moss. We spent a couple of days together first, though, on account of our dad.”

  “Your dad?”

  She nodded.

  “They buried him. That’s how come we’re out.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She smiled.

  “Don’t be. I hated the old bastard. We’ll be better off without him. Anyway, our Bob says he saw your brother before he went out.”

  “He’s still in the workhouse? But I was told—”

  “No, before your brother went out, I mean.”

  “Did Bob find out where they were sending him?” Annie nodded.

  “A place in Gateshead, just like our Bob. Clark’s metal foundry. Not the place for a lad like him. Bob didn't think he’d stick it. But he never meant to. He told Bob that first chance he had, he was off.”

  “Off? But where to? Where could he go?”

  “He said he was set to go to relatives of yours in Northumberland. They’d take him in, he said, and then send to have you brought from the workhouse. That was his plan.”

  “Relatives?” I looked at her blankly, unable to understand whom she could mean. “We have no relatives, Annie. There’s no one would take us in.”

  “Well, your brother told Bob these were folk with a big house in the country, up near Morpeth. He said they were lords and ladies, gentry, and they’d never stand to see him or his sister starve when all they had to do was open their doors and let you in.”

  My heart shook. Surely he knew, surely he remembered. They had never answered my mother’s letter. Not even Arthur could get through those doors.

  “Was their name Ayrton? Did Arthur say?” I asked.

  She frowned, then nodded.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think that’s what Bob said. Ayrton.”

  That night I had another dream. I dreamed that Arthur came to me in the night. He had grown older than I remembered him, he was thin and dressed in curious clothes, and his hair had been allowed to grow long. He came to me across the kitchen, stepping through a pool of moonlight that fell across the cold flags, but his feet made no sound. There was no wind outside, not a breath. The house was utterly quiet, huge and brooding all about me. He advanced slowly with his hands outstretched, my little brother, with his mouth open and his eyes wide, like someone wide-awake in sleep. And I heard him speak, but his voice seemed to come from far away, from another place entirely.

  “Help me, Charlotte,” he whispered. “Please help me.”

  “What’s wrong, Arthur?” I whispered. “Mother’s dead, and I can’t help you if I don't know what’s wrong.”

  But he only stood there, his white hands stretched out helplessly, the sleeves of a long shirt falling over his wrists, his mouth open, calling in a whisper for help.

  I woke with a start. For a moment I thought I had not been asleep at all.

  CHAPTER 7

  I made my escape the following Saturday. Annie fixed it all for me. The Lincotts suffered nothing more than the temporary inconvenience of losing a scullery-maid, someone whom they never even paid for her labors and who could be replaced from the endless stock of the impoverished and desperate.

  Annie’s father had left her a little money, and out of this she gave me three shillings and sixpence, more money than I had ever had in my life. That’s worth seventeen and a half pence nowadays, and it will scarcely buy you a newspaper.

  “When can I pay you back?” I asked.

  “When you’re a fine lady in that big house.” She laughed. “You can take me on as a maid.”

  “No, you’ll come and live with us. You’ll be my friends, you and your brother.”

  “You’ll forget us when you’re rich. Wait and see.”

  “I’ll never forget you, Annie.”

  And I never have. I remember Annie every day. I’ve tried to find her so many times, always without success. She slipped away from me without trace, like a boat without a mooring. A long time after that I went to the Lincotts and inquired about her, but they barely remembered her name and could not tell me where she had gone. I did not make myself known to them, nor do I think they would have thanked me if I had.

  “I’ll write to you,” I said. “As soon as I’ve settled in.”

  I didn’t tell her how unlikely I thought it that any of our dreams would ever materialize. The Ayrtons would turn me back at the door, and that would be the end of the story. My greatest worry was how, after that, I would ever find Arthur.

  Annie told me where to go and how to make my way through Gateshead and Newcastle. In addition to money, she gave me something of even greater value: a pair of old but sturdy shoes that fit me properly. As a result, I was able to walk all the way, anxious to save the little money I had. In Gateshead, I found Clark’s foundry, a horrid place filled with fumes and noise, where they told me Arthur had stayed a month and then vanished. That was all they knew.

  I crossed the river into Newcastle on the High Level Bridge, taking the Ha’penny Lop, the old horse-drawn brake that was still used then and for many years afterward. We all got down at the far end in sight of the castle, and I set off with my three shillings in my pocket, aware of how little I mattered in anybody’s course of things. I kept imagining footsteps behind me: Mrs. Moss, coming to reclaim me and the priceless belongings I had stolen from her; Mrs. Venables, indignant, resourceful in her search for revenge; Mrs. Lincott, cold, disdainful, aloofly calling me back to her scullery. At every corner,

  I expected to see them waiting. If I saw a policeman, I would shrink aside, as though I were the most sought after of criminals.

  I recalled—already a distant memory—trips to town with my mother, when we would go shopping in Fenwick’s or Bainbridge’s. Afterward she would always take Arthur and me to Tilley’s Cafe in Blackett Street. Everywhere we went, shopkeepers and waitresses would treat us with enormous respect. I thought then that that was just how people were, that they would always treat me so if I smiled and said “please” and “thank you” as I had been taught.

  Now, making my way through the city without fine clothes or a carriage waiting to take me home, I saw how things really stood. No one made way for me, no one lifted his hat as I passed by. Once, a stall holder clipped me round the ear as I stood looking at the pies he had for sale, telling me to “get on out of it.” I passed the door of Tilley’s Cafe and knew they would not even let me inside.

  I spent that first night in a cheap rooming house in Black Boy Yard, off the Groat Market. The room was crowded and dirty, and the thin blanket they gave me was barely adequate against the cold, but I lay there with a growing sense inside me of something I could scarcely name, something I now know must have been freedom, an awareness that I had, in the spacc of a few hours, taken control of my own destiny.

  The next day I devoted to getting free of the city. I followed the instructions Annie had given me, asking directions a piece at a time until I got myself onto Claremont Road. From there I took the long road north through Kenton toward Ponteland. I was tired and hungry, and my feet ached terribly, but I was on my way. The smoke and clamor of Newcastle were behind me now. Before long, I was in open countryside, still heading north—walking, I hoped, along the very road Arthur had taken all those months earlier.

  I spent my second night at Woolsington, in a cold shed full of turnips. In return for sixpence, a farmer’s wife prepared a meal for me, the first hot food I had eaten since leaving the workhouse.

  When I set off the next morning, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. Clouds lay motionless all across the sky. In every direction, the countryside had turned dark, there were shadows behind every hedge and in every thicket. A cold wind moved in from the north, hampering my progress. The wings of blackbirds tangled through the sky. I saw men and women in the fields—old men, old women—tout very far away, beyond the rea
ch of my voice, stooped over strange instruments, intent on some dark labor that I could not comprehend.

  The farther I walked, the more desolate the landscape grew. Nowadays people make that journey with their children, in large cars, cocooned against the cold and the dark. They drive on smooth, black roads, each one as long as all the roads of my childhood strung together. They carry National Trust cards in their wallets and copies of road maps in the glove compartments of their Volvos. Their worst fear is that they will run out of petrol on the long stretch from Otterburn to Belsay. And what is it they fear? That they may be forced to wait for an hour or two until one of the road clubs sends a man in uniform to their ignominious rescue.

  I neither despise nor envy them. They work hard, they are entitled to their weekend outings, their souvenir mugs, their potato crisps. And if the price they have to pay for that is some sort of inner desolation of which they may not even be aware, some loss of self, some unawareness of place and the passion for place, perhaps it is not too high a price for the comfort they feel.

  The price I paid for walking in those fields was higher, and I never felt comfort or peace or oneness with nature. That is all a game. Do not believe everything my generation says. I knew only fear there, a sense of disquiet. Every coppice I passed seemed alive with mingling shadows. But it was not just shadows. It was presences. It was the knowledge that here, where green fields gave way to moor, I was more vulnerable than ever. Something was waiting for me, something I could neither name nor envision. But I knew, as I turned each corner of that road, that it was hiding, biding its time.

  I reached the village of Kirkwhelpington early on the third day. “Barras Lodge, near Kirkwhelpington” was the address I still remembered my mother writing on the envelope when she asked my father’s cousins for help. It was a small bleak hamlet on the edge of nowhere, with an ancient parish church, a school, and very little else. The world seemed to end here, in scrub and moor and forest.