"Because of the bad thing," a m.u.f.fled, rasping voice said suddenly.
Tanya stood stock still, watching Fabian for a reaction. There was none; he had not heard. Turning slowly, she moved back to the crib. Her eyelids twitched as she drew nearer. There was a series of small movements and then a small, pinched face appeared from within the stuffing of the bear in the crib. Its skin was dusty and grey, and Tanya found it impossible to tell whether it was male or female. Her eyes were drawn to the creature"s protruding, rodentlike front teeth.
"Bad thing," it croaked, eyeing her reproachfully. "The bad thing that happened here." With one suspicious eye firmly on Tanya, the creature delved into the depths of its nest and pulled something out. "Long time ago. Long, long time."
Bile rose in Tanya"s throat when she realised that the thing it had retrieved from its nest was a half-eaten mouse. "What bad thing?" she whispered to it, careful not to let Fabian hear.
"Not telling," it muttered nastily. The sound of crunching bones reached Tanya"s ears and she backed away from the crib. The tangy, metallic scent of blood followed her.
"Let"s get out of here," she said, as the creature chewed and sucked. "This room has got a nasty feel to it."
Fabian closed the door quietly and the two of them headed back to the servants" staircase. Tanya stepped through gladly but Fabian paused, shining the torch around one last time before leaving the room.
"What"s that?"
"Fabian! Let"s go!" Tanya hissed, but Fabian went past the crib and peered at something on the wall.
"Oh," he said. "It"s just an old embroidery."
"What does it say?"
"I can"t read very well in this light," said Fabian, removing his gla.s.ses and polishing them.
Tanya walked over, ignoring the muttering from the crib, and squinted at the cross-st.i.tch on the wall. It was white, or at least it had been once, and embroidered on it were pale pink roses and the words: Congratulations on the birth of your daughter, with a date underneath.
"That"s unusual," said Fabian, once he had replaced his gla.s.ses. "The date of birth is the twenty-ninth of February, which means the baby was born on the extra day of a leap year."
Tanya frowned. "February twenty-ninth is my mother"s birthday."
"Oh," said Fabian. "This must have been your mother"s nursery then." He sn.i.g.g.e.red suddenly. "Does that mean you only have to buy her a birthday card once every four years?"
"No," Tanya replied, shaking her head. "We celebrate her birthday on the first of March, although she always jokes that I"m older than her."
In silence they went back through to the darkened pa.s.sage. The next door they tried must have had a newer lock, and Fabian"s technique was rendered useless as there was no key on the other side. They did manage to open a number of other doors, though most turned out to be empty rooms or contain nothing of interest.
When they came to Amos"s room, the television was blaring on the other side of the door. They crept past, trying to ignore the old man"s rants and mutterings.
Down on the first floor there were fewer rooms that remained a mystery, as this was the floor where everybody except Amos slept. The last door they came to was just before a flight of steps leading down to the ground floor, and it was unlocked. Inside, the light streaming through the windows dazzled their eyes. The ivy had been trimmed back and the room was well maintained. Dust sheets covered every item of furniture, which Fabian immediately set about throwing off. A huge four-poster bed stood in the middle, surrounded by spectacular carved wooden furniture. A luxurious fur rug lay before the fireplace and a double portrait of a stern-looking man and a young woman hung above the mantlepiece.
Tanya"s eyes widened. "Whose room is this?"
"This must be the Elvesdens" room," said Fabian. "I"ve heard Florence talking about it before, but I"ve never been allowed to see it. It was the bedchamber of Lord and Lady Elvesden. That"s their portrait."
Tanya studied the painting above the mantlepiece and took a sharp breath as she looked into the eyes of her ancestors. It was the first time she had ever seen a picture of them.
Edward and Elizabeth Elvesden, read the inscription in a bra.s.s plate on the frame. The man"s surly eyes seemed to bore into her and the woman looked as though she must have felt uncomfortable in his presence. With a jolt Tanya noticed a silver charm bracelet on the painted woman"s wrist; the same one that was now fastened on her own, two centuries later. She looked down at it, sparkling in the sun. She"d polished it until it shone. Beautiful though it was, it was an unsettling feeling to be wearing the jewellery of a dead ancestor.
"How come it"s been kept like this?" Tanya asked. "With all the original furniture and everything?"
"I don"t know . . . I suppose because they were the first owners of the house. Elvesden was one of the richest men in the county this house was even built to his specifications. A few years ago Florence used to make a bit of money from showing people around it"s a listed building, you know. This must have been one of the most important rooms in the house."
Tanya stared at the portrait. "They made an odd couple."
"They were, by all accounts," said Fabian.
"I wonder what they were like. I wonder if they were happy here."
"I doubt it."
Tanya looked at him curiously. "What makes you say that?"
"Well, you must have heard," said Fabian. "They hadn"t been married long when it happened."
"When what happened?"
"I thought you knew," said Fabian. "About Lady Elvesden?"
"All I know is that she lived here when the house was first built, and that she and her husband had one son," said Tanya. "Why? What else happened?"
"She died in a lunatic asylum in London when she was twenty-three."
"What . . . what made her go mad?" Tanya asked, unable to tear her eyes away from the troubled young woman in the portrait.
"There"s a bit of a dispute as to whether she was mad at all," said Fabian. "She kept journals split them all up into parts and stashed them around the house apparently. And she was quite clever about it too. One part was found sewn into a dress she"d owned. Another was hidden behind a skirting board. But several parts were never accounted for. They"re believed to have been found and destroyed by her husband."
"Why did he destroy them?" Tanya asked. "What did they say?"
Fabian shrugged. "Florence won"t disclose exactly what was in the journals to anyone although thanks to a leak there"s a pretty good idea. In fact, the diaries were a big part of the reason she stopped allowing the public to view the house. Do you remember when the old stables in the courtyard were pulled down, a few years back? Well, halfway through the job one of the contractors found a segment from the diary wedged into some of the old stonework. He was immediately removed from the premises with strict instructions not to repeat anything he might have read, though if you ask me I think Florence paid him to keep his mouth shut. Of course, it ended up getting out eventually."
"What did it say?"
"Put it this way, it didn"t look good. Elizabeth had been visiting the local wise woman, or cunning woman as they were known back then, to learn about herbs and medicine and such. Apparently, she had a gift for healing and wanted to develop it something that was frowned upon by a number of the townsfolk. There was always talk of witchcraft whenever the wise woman was mentioned. It was a time when superst.i.tion was still rife. The world was still home to witch-hunters and persecution, although the worst of the witch-hunts were over by then. Lord Elvesden knew that it was only a matter of time before disaster struck, and he was right. He forbade Elizabeth to have any dealings with the wise woman, fearing she"d fall under suspicion herself and be hanged as a witch. But Elizabeth continued to do as she pleased. She had little regard for rules and never seemed to care what others thought. She had always been looked upon as eccentric, and this didn"t help her case at all.
"Eventually, as Elvesden predicted, something happened which placed the two women under suspicion. The wise woman was also a midwife. But then a child she had delivered died shortly after being born. The death was followed by a spate of illnesses. It was enough to set tongues wagging. Soon there was talk of witchcraft. The wise woman was run out of town, forced to take residence in the woods. After that she was pretty much left to herself, except for a few townsfolk who sympathised with her and took her food when they could. Without their help she probably would have moved on. Mad Morag is said to be one of her descendants."
"So what happened to Elizabeth?"
"She wasn"t so lucky," said Fabian. "Children called her names in the street. People crossed themselves when she pa.s.sed them. She was even spat at. Yet through it all she appeared unfazed, even continuing to research the practice of healing by herself. Her husband wasn"t a fool, he could see what would happen if she didn"t start to behave in a more acceptable way but Elizabeth would have none of it. His opposition only made her more determined. And so eventually, Lord Elvesden bowed to pressure from his advisors and had her committed."
Tanya was aghast. "He put her in an asylum for researching herbs?"
"It didn"t take much in those days," said Fabian. "Women had no rights back then. Everything was decided by their fathers or their husbands. Women could even be considered mad if they"d had a child out of wedlock. Many an innocent, perfectly sane woman was locked up and left to rot in an asylum on their husband"s say-so . . . and well, if they weren"t mad when they went in, they usually ended up that way."
"So . . . that was it?" said Tanya. "She went mad and died in there?"
Fabian looked almost apologetic then.
"I can"t believe Florence hasn"t told you any of this."
Tanya felt an impending sense of doom.
"Any of what?"
"Tanya, Elizabeth Elvesden didn"t just die in the asylum. She took her own life. She hanged herself."
8.
LIZABETH ELVESDEN"S SUICIDE PLAYED on Tanya"s mind for the remainder of the afternoon. After going back through the servants" pa.s.sage, she made an excuse to Fabian that she was feeling unwell and headed downstairs, intending to go for a walk outside by the brook to clear her head. A burning curiosity had ignited inside her. More than anything she wanted to see Elizabeth"s journals and to learn the secrets her grandmother was so eager to keep hidden. Did they have something to do with the "bad thing" the fairy in the nursery had spoken of?
As she pa.s.sed the library she was so caught up in her own thoughts that she almost didn"t notice the hushed voices that were coming from the other side of the door, that is, until she heard her name mentioned.
". . . I don"t want her here, you know that," said her grandmother.
"The sooner she leaves the better," said another voice, unmistakeably Warwick"s. "We can"t have her here, it"s just not an option."
Something possibly a chair sc.r.a.ped over the floor, blocking out the next few words.
". . . In the woods today," Florence hissed.
"It"s lucky I found them when I did," said Warwick.
Tanya stood motionless outside the door. Her grandmother"s low voice continued on the other side, oblivious to her new audience.
"I should have listened to you before."
"About what?" Warwick asked gruffly.
"Moving. I"ll do it this time once she goes back. It"s getting too much. It"s eating away at me. I"ve been a fool to stay here."
"You"d really move away?" Warwick continued. "Leave all this?"
"I think I"m going to have to," Florence said, and it sounded like there were tears in her voice. "I don"t want to but I don"t see any other way."
"But you love this house. I thought you"d never part with it."
"I do love this house I always will. When she was born I had such dreams . . . how all this would be hers one day. But now . . . how can it be? How can I let Tanya inherit?"
"Have you ever thought about telling her the truth?" Warwick asked.
"How can I?" Florence was fl.u.s.tered now. "I"m a coward. I know I am. I was a coward then and I"m a coward now . . ."
Footsteps neared the door. Tanya crept back to the stairs in stunned silence. She remembered once hearing a saying that eavesdroppers seldom heard any good of themselves, and it had proved right. She wished with all her heart that she had not heard what had been said, but now she knew she would never forget.
She wasn"t welcome. She had pretty much guessed that anyway, but to hear it actually being said was a different thing altogether. There was no going back. It could never be unsaid. She was not wanted. She was a nuisance. An inconvenience. Her grandmother hated her. Hated her to the extent that she was willing to give up a house she loved rather than see her only granddaughter inherit.
The landing was silent as she made her way upstairs, her walk forgotten. Even the lodgers in the grandfather clock did not utter their usual insults. Above on the second floor, she could hear Amos pacing as he often did at that time of day. She shut herself in her room and lay down. Her head swam with her grandmother"s words. She hugged her knees to her chest, trying to squash the sickening feeling away, but it remained, along with the haunted sensation she had brought back with her from the two rooms she and Fabian had seen.
Lifting her wrist, she studied the bracelet miserably, wondering why her grandmother had given it to her if she disliked her so. She remembered her grandmother"s words about the belief that charms such as these would offer protection. In turn, she studied them, imagining that each had a story to tell about their original owner, and allowed her to glimpse through a window into the past. Tanya picked through them one by one. Some were easy enough to make a.s.sociations with: a heart for love, and a ring for marriage. A key for home, or security, perhaps. A mask . . . a love of theatre? Most were odd and a little unsettling: a sword and a dagger amongst them. And one made Tanya"s throat constrict as though a strand of the manor"s ivy had snaked around it. A tiny, engraved cauldron, for which there was only one a.s.sociation she could think of: witchcraft.
Whatever the mysteries behind the bracelet, there was one thing Tanya was certain of: that it could not have granted Elizabeth Elvesden any protection or luck at all.
At dinner, Tanya ate with a good appet.i.te that was unexpected given the events of the day. Afterwards, her grandmother transferred the plates to the sink and replaced them with a huge basin of fresh strawberries and a jug of thick cream.
"Oh," Warwick groaned, prodding his stomach but eyeing the strawberries longingly. "I couldn"t eat another thing."
"Nonsense," said Florence. She set a bowl of strawberries in front of him and ladled them with cream.
Out of the corner of her eye Tanya noticed the lid to the tea caddy lifting, and then the wizened little brownie that lived there peered out. His screwed-up face was like a walnut, half hidden beneath a pile of s.h.a.ggy, matted hair. The clattering of the dishes had woken him. He shot a disgruntled look in Tanya"s direction, then leaned over and stirred the contents of the sugar pot with his cane before vanishing back into the tea caddy.
To her dismay, Florence then turned and reached for the sugar, sprinkling some on her strawberries and cream before pa.s.sing it around the table. Tanya immediately handed it to Fabian. There was no way she was using it after the brownie had touched it and no one present knew her well enough to know whether she would normally add sugar to her strawberries anyway.
Warwick was the first person to take a mouthful. His expression quickly turned to one of disgust. He spat into a napkin.
"It"s salt!" he said, reaching for the water jug.
"Are you sure?" said Florence.
"Of course I"m sure!"
Fabian"s hand was frozen in mid-air, his mouth slightly open. His eyes were fixed on the spoon in disappointment.
"Who was the last person to refill the sugar bowl?" said Florence.
"I was," said Tanya, guiltily. "I filled it this morning."
Florence s.n.a.t.c.hed the ruined desserts away and began sc.r.a.ping them into the bin. "For goodness" sake, try to be more observant!"
Tanya bit her lip in anger. She was only glad that Warwick had been the first to taste it. She was furious with him for telling her grandmother about the incident in the forest when he had given his word that it would go no further. She was furious with them both for the callous conversation she had overheard earlier.
Now in a foul mood, Warwick excused himself. Florence left soon after.
Fabian leaned over and prodded Tanya in the side.
"That was definitely sugar in the pot this morning. I had some on my cornflakes."
Tanya stared at him.
A lazy grin spread across Fabian"s face. "So when did you switch it?" he asked.
"What?"
"To salt. When did you switch it?"