Inside the cottage, the old woman brought a blanket from her bed and spread it in a corner of the parlour. ‘You’ll be cosy enough there,’ she said kindly, beckoning the cumbersome shape away from the door. She waited until it seemed that her reluctant charge was made comfortable for the night. She was not unaware of the sad bleak eyes that followed her every move, and she knew the unhappiness she had caused. ‘I do love you,’ she promised, tucking the blanket round the grotesque limbs, ‘Mammy loves you more than anything or anyone in life, but… I have to be careful all the time. You see, my poor one… there are those who would harm you. And we must not let that happen!’ She bent to kiss the dark head. ‘Sleep well, child. Tomorrow we’ll find a fat rabbit for the pot.’
In her deepest slumbers the old woman had dreamed that she was forgiven. She imagined herself to be held fast in a loving embrace and all was well once more. When she awoke, to find that it was no dream and that the tormented child she had long adored was seated on her bed, holding her lovingly in its poor twisted limbs, her old heart was flooded with love. ‘Couldn’t go to sleep without a proper cuddle for your old mammy, eh?’ she said, relaxing into the embrace and wrapping her thin arms round the bulky distorted form. She had left the lamp burning in the parlour and now, with the adjoining door open, the soft light fell on the face above her. She was shocked to see that, though its embrace was tender, the face was devoid of expression. There was no love, no hate, only a kind of muted acceptance.
Slowly, the dark wondering gaze moved about the room, as though searching for something, before finally coming to rest on the old woman’s upturned face. For a moment it seemed content to have found something familiar, and the semblance of a smile shadowed its deformed features, the mouth opening to show a perfect curve of white even teeth. ‘That’s right, darling. Everything’s fine now… just fine.’ The old woman gazed up at the large loose features and could see only beauty there. ‘Go back to bed now,’ she urged. ‘We both need our sleep.’ The smile she gave was a mother’s smile, betraying the love which had grown stronger with the passing years. Suddenly, as she gazed fondly on this unfortunate creature she so idolised, the returning smile it had bestowed on her slid away. She moved to free herself from the arms which were locked about her small form, but she was caught in a tighter embrace. Tighter and tighter, like a steel band cutting her in half. She began to struggle. ‘No! You’re hurting me.’ Her voice was squeezed in her throat, emerging in short painful gasps. Her arms flailed the air, fighting and struggling, but they were puny and ineffective against the brutal innocent strength that held her captive. Horror stormed her mind, reason fled in place of panic and she could cry no more. Her bulbous eyes swivelled upwards, mesmerised by the dark merciless gaze that burned down on her. Excruciating pain rampaged through her body, as her ribs cracked and pierced her lungs. And still, she gazed up with hope. When her heart burst, there was a fleeting second of stark realisation before the enveloping tide, which was her own life’s blood, rushed through her. And she was no more.
Inside the cottage, the awful silence was impenetrable. Outside, in the blackness, the figure moved stealthily towards the cottage door, its approaching footsteps surprisingly light and hardly disturbing the night. The silence was broken only by the splintering sound of tearing wood as the door was forced open. The parlour was warm and cosy, just as the old woman had prepared it. The blanket was crumpled in the corner and the black dog stretched out on the straw mat before the hearth, its hind legs stiff and straight, the front paws resting on the brass fender, and its body warmed by the heat from the log fire. As the figure drew nearer, the dog made no greeting nor sounded any warning, its tongue lolled over its jowl and the startled dead eyes seemed to move in the flickering firelight, appearing to follow the hooded figure as it moved towards the half-open bedroom door, sweeping the lighted lamp into its hand as it passed the dresser. At the door, it drew back the hood from its face, surveying the bedroom and delighting in the carnage there. The old woman was still locked in a frenzied embrace, no longer recognisable but crushed and bathed in the blood that had oozed from her every pore. The one who had so cruelly taken her life stroked and pawed at her face, its whimpering pitiful to hear when she could not smile or reassure him in the way he had come to know.
The voice was soft and sinister, accusing. ‘What you’ve done is a bad thing. A terrible, bad thing. You could be locked away behind bars… hung by the neck, kicking and screaming until the life is choked from you.’ The stranger came nearer, the light from the lamp sending an eerie arc around the room, and the voice falling to an awesome whisper. ‘What you’ve done to her… that will happen to you.’
The whimpering became a kind of muted screaming, and when those hauntingly beautiful eyes looked up for salvation, they saw only a face that was hard, a stranger’s face, a face to be afraid of.
‘I don’t want you to cry.’ The voice gave an order. The crying stopped. ‘I want you to listen… very carefully. I really should tell them what you’ve done… let them take you away and kill you.’ In the deliberate pause the chilling words echoed in the air. ‘But I won’t do that… not if you do exactly as I say. You see, there are plans to be laid… wrongs to be put right. And you can help me.’ The stranger gazed at the pathetic creature crouched there and, for a fleeting moment, the gaze became a fixed study in madness. ‘Pengally!’ The soft word issued in a hiss of loathing. ‘Pengally!’ A wave of rage darkened the stranger’s face.
Presently, when the stranger was composed enough to ask in a quiet voice, ‘You will help me, won’t you?’ the dark lolling head nodded furtively, its staring eyes bright with terror. ‘Good! Then you will be safe… for as long as you’re useful.’ The mocking laugh filled the room, unnerving the only one to hear it, and making the wretched soul cling more desperately to the old woman’s broken remains.
Part 3
1920
Dark Stranger
Most gentle are the souls who seek rest;
Most evil are those who crave revenge.
J.C.
9
‘The girl’s been made to manage long enough… she’s at breaking point.’ John Blackwood had seen it happening, ever since poor Hannah Pengally had collapsed in mind and body some two years back. Now he was not prepared to hold his tongue any longer. It was he who had carried Scarlet in from the fields a week ago when she had crumpled, exhausted, to the ground; he who had toiled alongside her on a freezing January morning a month since, when the frozen Brussels sprouts they were picking stuck to her small hands and peeled away the skin from her fingertips. Only he knew how her strength was drained, for she confided in no one. He had seen it with his own eyes, yet she never once complained. Scarlet was strong and wilful, and even though she might be brought to her knees by the weight on her shoulders, her spirit would never be broken. John knew that, and he was filled with admiration. He chose to ignore his wife’s warning to ‘let well alone, or you’ll lose your own place at Greystone House’.
‘I don’t need you to tell me my business, Blackwood.’ Vincent Pengally was in a particularly surly mood this morning and did not take kindly to the likes of John Blackwood poking his nose in matters that didn’t concern him. ‘Get about your work!’ he snarled, beginning to stride away.
‘Hear me out, Mr Pengally. You’ll have her sick on your hands if you’re not careful.’ John hurried after him, stepping back a pace when, suddenly, the other man stopped and rounded on him. Quickly, he spilled out what was on his mind. ‘I know it ain’t my place to tell you, but if you can’t see what’s right under your nose, I’m obliged to speak out, come what may.’ He was surprised at his own boldness, but he stood his ground all the same, rubbing his hands together and stamping his booted feet on the ground, to send the blood more furiously round his shivering body.
‘Get on with it, man.’ Pengally’s breath turned to clouds in the bitter February air.
‘It’s too much for a young ’un… taking over her mammy’s duti
es this long while… working on the land till all hours, and caring for poor Mrs Pengally into the bargain.’
‘The girl’s fifteen in a few weeks. She has no more of a workload than any of us… she’s of strong Pengally stock and up to her tasks.’
‘But she’s only a girl, don’t you see?’ The homely fellow was exasperated by Pengally’s attitude. ‘You’re asking her to take on all of her mammy’s duties, besides her own… and to do a man’s job in the process.’
‘What are you suggesting? Are you asking me to pay a labourer’s wages to work alongside you?’ Vincent Pengally’s face was as black as thunder. ‘If the work’s become too much for you, you’ve only to say, Blackwood… shouldn’t be too difficult to replace you.’ He knew that was not true. John was a first-class worker and a reliable employee, and though he wouldn’t admit it Pengally knew also that what John Blackwood said was the truth. He had seen for himself how Scarlet was beginning to buckle beneath the heavy burden which had fallen on her back.
‘There is a better solution,’ John suggested, ‘and it wouldn’t cost as much as a labourer’s wages.’
‘Go on.’ His patience was coming to an end.
‘Another woman… to help in the house, and with your good wife.’ John saw the thoughtful look on the other man’s face and he was encouraged. ‘Domestics can be got for a few shillings. A good ’un can take a load off your daughter’s shoulders… it’ll cost you next to nothing.’
Vincent Pengally stroked his chin, then began hurrying away towards the smithy. ‘I’ll give it a try,’ he called back. ‘Have a word with Mrs Blackwood… I won’t pay silly wages, mind!’
‘No sir!’ John ran after him. ‘Ada has her own work cut out… what with baby Trent an’ all. It’ll have to be somebody else, I’m afeared.’
‘Then get your wife to find “somebody else”! She can manage that, can’t she?’ Pengally snapped, casting a scathing glance at the man running alongside him.
‘Oh, aye! She’ll manage that, right enough.’ John stopped, letting the other man go and drawing his breath with difficulty after trying to match those long angry strides. Still, he was glad he had persevered, and he was sure that his Ada would find somebody suitable. She knew a great many folk in the village of Dunster and, if there was even the slightest chance of someone being found to work at Greystone House, his Ada would ferret them out. He returned to his work with a lighter heart.
It had taken John Blackwood a long time to work up enough courage to tackle the blacksmith like that, risking losing his job and all… but, thankfully, it hadn’t come to that. And, after all, he felt he owed Scarlet so much more. What an impatient and surly fellow that Pengally was though! John leaned on his fork and glanced towards the smithy. ‘Most miserable peculiar bugger I’ve ever come across!’ he muttered, shaking his head at the way a man like that could make enemies. He recalled some of the strange and disturbing incidents that had taken place at Greystone House over the past two years, ever since Hannah’s illness. All of the chickens slaughtered; the kitchen teeming with rats when Vincent Pengally came down one morning; the forge already burning white-hot when Silas opened the smithy, and on the smithy door the drawing of a life-size body swinging from a noose.
The constable had blamed it on visiting ruffians, and Greystone House was kept under close watch for a while. Recently, things appeared to be back to normal, and the disturbances had ceased. All the same, the strange happenings had put the fear of God into John. These dark nights, he was thankful to hurry home to his little cottage, and to the loving arms of his wife and child. He shuddered inwardly as he remembered that it wasn’t only fear of the unknown that drove him quickly home every night. It was fear of the ungodly. On the night she was taken ill, Hannah had made some wild and terrifying claims of a ‘dark figure’ floating towards her and ‘whispering’. It was all dismissed as being the wanderings of her poor mind. But once, just once, in the winter of last year, John had worked late crating up vegetables in the shed. It was when he was stumbling home across the moonlight familiar path that he saw it – a dark lone figure outlined against the moon and walking the ridge above the house. It was only a fleeting glance; then it was gone. It was enough! John made no mention of it to anyone because he was convinced that his sanity would be questioned, just as Hannah’s had been. For weeks following, his eyes had often turned to anxiously scour the ridge, but he had seen nothing since to cause him alarm. Now he’d come to wonder whether he really had seen a ghost, or only a figment of his imagination, excited by Hannah’s ramblings. He began to doubt that he had seen anything at all. All the same, these days he made sure that he walked the path home in broad daylight. Just in case!
‘You don’t look well, child.’ Hannah’s weak blue eyes roved over Scarlet’s lovely face. She was instinctively alarmed by the weariness there. The luxurious dark eyes were subdued and tainted by the deep shadows beneath, and the high cheekbones were drained of colour, making them seem painfully prominent. ‘Not well… not well,’ she repeated in an odd parrot-fashion, at the same time falling back into the pillow, where she began to feverishly plait the bedraggled strands of her fair hair.
‘Oh, Mammy! Must you do that?’ Scarlet took Hannah’s frail hands in her own. ‘You’ll only tangle it and make the brushing harder.’ Getting Hannah to sit still while she brushed her hair was difficult enough. Sighing, Scarlet reached down to collect the wooden tray from Hannah’s lap. ‘At least you’ve managed to eat all your porridge this morning,’ she remarked, ‘Let me get you washed and tidied… then I’ll leave you to rest awhile.’ She took the tray to the dark oak dresser, where she exchanged it for a bowl of warm water. ‘I’ll not take long,’ she reassured the watching woman. ‘There’s so much work to be done, I don’t know where to begin!’
‘Leave me be. Go away… and lock the door so no one can get in.’ Hannah fought against Scarlet’s gentle handling of her.
Undeterred, Scarlet rubbed the bar of soap against the wet flannel, working up a lather and washing it firmly over her mother’s frail, parchment-coloured skin. ‘It’s no good you carrying on like this every time I wash you, Mammy,’ Scarlet protested. ‘It has to be done, so you might as well let me get on with it… and stop your fussing.’
When it was over, and Hannah’s wispy hair was brushed into a soft cloud about her face, Scarlet was thankful to see her close her eyes and drift into a gentle sleep, her delicate hands lying demurely on the covers across her breast.
In that moment, Scarlet felt her weariness engulf her. She was so very tired. Life was hard, and she couldn’t see it getting any better. She had hoped for so long that her mammy would fully recover, but now she despaired of that darling woman’s fragile state of mind. There were times when she seemed lucid and Scarlet’s hopes were raised, then spitefully dashed as her mammy slid away into that dark private world of her own, where no one else could follow.
Scarlet glanced around the tiny room, at the pretty chintz curtains which she herself had hung in her efforts to brighten up the place. She looked at the peg-rug mat that she had brought from her own room, and at how the dark dresser and wardrobe sparkled from the beeswax she had painstakingly polished in. In the months when they were available, flowers were brought in and placed where Hannah could see them; they brought a splash of colour and the scent of perfume with them, and still Scarlet saw the room only as her mammy’s prison. Hers also! These past two years life had seemed to stand still, quietly draining Scarlet’s spirit, until now each day was no more challenging than the one before. Something in Scarlet seemed to have died. Something precious, and irretrievable.
‘Oh, Mammy… if only I could talk to you, and have you hold me like you used to,’ Scarlet murmured, bending down to kiss that small ethereal face. But she knew that such pleasures were gone, never to return. She felt bitter and cheated, and desperately sad. Once she had nurtured hopes of escape, but now it seemed an impossible and empty dream. Scarlet had even come to chide herself for such selfish tho
ughts. Her mammy needed her. How could she even think of deserting her? She could not. But knowing that only made her heart ache all the more. In a few weeks she would be fifteen years old. She thought she might as well be fifty, for all the difference it would make!
Later, when Hannah was peacefully sleeping and the house was made clean and tidy, Scarlet put on her outdoor boots, together with the thick fisherman’s pullover that came down to her knees. She was glad of the work that seemed never-ending, for it kept her from thinking too deeply.
As she closed the door behind her, Scarlet’s haunting dark eyes were drawn towards the smithy. She imagined how Silas would be labouring over the forge, stripped to the waist, with his bare flesh glistening in the fierce fire’s glow. In her mind’s eye she could see his dark head bent at his work, and those scathing violet eyes, so devastating in their beauty that even the thought of them gazing at her made her heart turn somersaults. If only things could have been different, she thought, Silas might have been her salvation.
Instead they were both more damned than ever. Oh, how she loved him, wanted him every waking moment. But he was not for her, she knew that now. Her father was not the only barrier between them. It went far deeper than that. The pain of their impossible love was rooted in a time she would never understand. Neither could she understand her instinctive horror of Silas. It was just there; instilled in her from the very beginning and she could not rid herself of it. Always there had been this terrible conflict inside her, the horror which fascinated, and the adulation which had become a fierce overwhelming passion. ‘Oh, Silas… Silas!’ she murmured now, a great sadness in her heart. For some inexplicable reason, Scarlet was convinced that she and Silas were destined never to be truly together. At long last she had come to see the harsh truth of it, but she could never easily accept it, and she would never forgive the cruel fate that had decreed it. And now that Silas was a man in his own right, Scarlet had grown increasingly afraid that soon he would be gone from Greystone House and the iron hand of her father, to make a life for himself in a more peaceful and loving haven; a life without her. How the thought snaked at her and tormented her almost beyond endurance! How she loathed Silas for it!
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