The Dead of Winter Read online

  My bag was unloaded and I seemed to be handed from the care of one lawyer into the care of the other with detached efficiency. I felt as though I were a bundle of legal papers rather than a person.

  Having shaken Jerwood’s hand, Bentley held his hand out to me and, when I took it, he placed the other on top so that my hand was all enclosed in his, and he smiled at me, twitching and blushing a little, glancing nervously at Mr Jerwood, as if kindness were some sort of misdemeanour among lawyers. Jerwood, for his part, looked in the direction of the large clock and remarked that it was really time we ought to be going.

  ‘All will be well,’ said Bentley quietly. ‘All will be well.’

  But I was not in the mood for kindness.

  ‘Thank you for your services, Mr Bentley,’ I said coldly.

  I saw the look of hurt in his face and for a moment I felt a stab of guilt – but only for a moment. Mr Bentley smiled sadly, let go of my hand, tipped his hat and, saying farewell, walked away to be engulfed by the crowd.

  ‘I rather think Mr Bentley may be a good man,’ said Jerwood quietly as we watched him leave. ‘I fear they’re in short supply, so value them when you find them.’

  I saw no cause to value anything about my present circumstances and I resented this lawyer for trying to influence me one way or another. I was perfectly aware that Mr and Mrs Bentley meant well, but I was tired of feeling beholden to people of whom I had asked nothing.

  We entered the great station; I followed Jerwood, who strode with stately determination through the crowds. A locomotive belched out a plume of filthy smoke that sailed up towards the wide arch of the ceiling high above.

  We found our platform and boarded our train, and had barely seated ourselves before it lurched out of the station with a squeal of wheel rims and a whistle of steam.

  The journey to Ely was uneventful, and though I had travelled very little by railway and would normally have been much excited by such a trip, I sat in the carriage with the same dull disinterest as if I had been travelling by omnibus.

  Jerwood was quite talkative in a dry and formal way, though I gave him little encouragement. By and by I realised that his stiff manner was only a kind of awkwardness, and he seemed genuinely interested in me and in the answers I gave to his questions about my life. Much as it suited me to dislike him, I found myself warming to this stranger. In fact, it took all my willpower to maintain my sullen demeanour.

  Though initially undeterred, Jerwood eventually took his lead from me and we settled into a state of quietude. The lawyer began to read through a mass of papers he had pulled from his briefcase. I wondered if any of them concerned my fate.

  I looked out of the window, staring blankly at the passing view. Had the pyramids of old Egypt appeared on the horizon I should have paid little heed. I felt as though some part of me had died with my mother and that I would never again feel truly alive.

  Exhaustion wrestled with misery for supremacy of my thoughts, but it was exhaustion – perhaps mercifully – which came out victorious, and I sank into a fitful sleep, lulled by the movement of the railway carriage.

  My resting mind did not acknowledge the need for the barriers I had constructed while awake, barriers to those thoughts I found too upsetting to allow. Memories of my poor mother came to me uninvited, though once they came I would have done anything to be in their company for a lifetime and never to have woken up. Things hadn’t been easy after my father died, but we were often happy, just the two of us. When wake I did, it was as if our parting was newly forced and the pain as fresh as ever. Tears stung my eyes as soon as they opened.

  Only the desire not to appear weak and foolish in front of Jerwood dried my eyes. The lawyer was deep in the examination of the papers laid out on his lap and I looked out at the passing view.

  ‘We will soon be in Ely,’ said Jerwood, glancing up.

  I made no reply. What did I care?

  ‘A carriage will meet us at the station,’ he continued, ‘and take us on to Hawton Mere. It isn’t too far.’

  Again I made no reply. Jerwood shuffled his papers together and placed them on the seat beside him.

  ‘Michael,’ he said, ‘I understand that you must feel the world is against you –’

  ‘Do you, sir?’ I said, turning towards him, my voice choking a little. How could a man like that understand what I felt?

  ‘But you must realise that we are only trying to do what is best for you,’ he continued.

  ‘I don’t want to go!’ I said. ‘I don’t want to spend Christmas with people I don’t know.’

  Even as I said the words I realised that, with my mother gone, there could be no other kind of Christmas now. Better to spend it with the Bentleys, though. At least I knew them a little and knew them to be kindly. Jerwood nodded, as though reading these thoughts.

  ‘I understand. It must be hard for you, I know,’ he said. ‘And I do sympathise, Michael. But give Sir Stephen a chance. He has made you his ward. It is not unreasonable for him to meet you, now, is it?’

  I shrugged and looked out of the window again. It did not matter what I said. I was going to Hawton Mere whether I liked it or not. Jerwood gathered up his papers and began putting them away in his briefcase.

  ‘About your guardian,’ he said as he put the case down at his feet. ‘I should warn you that Sir Stephen has not been well of late. I have known him for many years, ever since we were children in fact, and he is a good man, but he may not be quite what you expect.’

  I had actually given very little thought to what Sir Stephen may or may not have been like until that moment. Jerwood’s words did nothing to improve my enthusiasm for meeting my guardian.

  ‘Sir Stephen has the power to be a great force for good in your life, Michael,’ said Jerwood. ‘He made a promise to your father to help you and it is to his credit that he is honouring it.’

  ‘My father died and he is alive,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing he can do for me that will ever change that.’

  Jerwood saw that further conversation on the matter was useless and turned to look out of the window, as did I. The day was ending, and the evening light gilded the steeples and the bare branches of high treetops. It sent long blue shadows across the rich brown earth of ploughed fields that were speckled with crows. The sky was clear and the cold air seemed to seep through the glass of the carriage as night approached. By the time we reached Ely the light of day was all but extinguished.

  Chapter Three

  The ancient cathedral stood out against the dying light of evening, looking more like a formidable castle than a church. Its size and height were exaggerated by the fact that it sat atop a low hill that seemed a mountain in this flat fenland landscape, the great spiked tower bristling on the skyline like a giant’s crown.

  I waited next to my paltry luggage while Jerwood left in search of the carriage that would take us to Hawton Mere and my meeting with Sir Stephen. I suddenly felt chilled and weary and Jerwood must have seen this in my face when he returned.

  ‘Come along,’ he said quietly. ‘Our carriage awaits.’ Without another word, he set off, and I, fearing I would be lost in this strange place, picked up my bag as swiftly as I could and all but ran after him towards the carriage.

  The driver was a tall, thin man and he was standing immediately below a gaslight so that the shadow from his hat darkened his face to a point just above his mouth, a mouth which seemed to curl into a sneer as I caught his eye. He stepped forward at our approach and tipped his hat to Jerwood, who nodded back, passing him first his own bag and then mine, before climbing into the carriage, with me close behind. I thought I heard the driver say something as I passed him; or rather I heard him make some kind of noise. But it could likewise have been the horse.

  The driver whistled and flicked the reins and the carriage moved away, rattling through the town, its lanterns sending animated shadows leaping back and forth, and making the passing windows shimmer and flicker as though licked by the flames from some great
fire.

  Night was now in full spate and its inky waters had flooded the flatlands all about and they were black to the far horizon, where the sky was barely brighter than the land.

  I had never been to these parts before, but knew that they had been marshes centuries ago, drained and transformed into black-soiled farmland. Looking from the carriage window was more like looking out from a boat across a wide uncharted sea, so untroubled was it by any sign of human habitation.

  As on the train, I once more drifted on the edge of sleep. The rumble of the carriage wheels faded in and out of my consciousness: a sound like waves washing against shingle. I seemed to float on dark waters.

  I dreamt I was standing among the headstones in Highgate cemetery, looking down at my mother’s grave. Jerwood and Bentley were some yards away, whispering. Every now and again they would look towards me and laugh, their faces distorted and ugly.

  I was aware of a movement among the shadows to my left and turned to see a figure – a small figure – running between the gravestones, hiding and then running again. It was always, always, in shadow and I could discern no features at all.

  It scampered in a crazed and zigzag path, which I realised, with dread, was bringing it closer and closer to where I stood. When it came to the nearest headstone, it stayed hidden and did not re-emerge. I looked to Jerwood and Bentley but they now stood as still as statues, as if the whole world had come to a halt. I edged forward to look behind the headstone; a shadow leapt towards me with terrifying suddenness, smothering me in darkness, and I awoke with a start.

  Jerwood nudged me and said that we should shortly be arriving at Hawton Mere and that if I looked I might catch my first glimpse of the house.

  I leaned out of the carriage window, the combination of the cold night air and the rain that was now beginning to fall making me squint. But I could see nothing but a vague shape up ahead, blacker than the blackness beyond. Even so, I could tell that the structure was of some considerable size. A mist was combining with the drizzle to blur what little I could make out.

  Just as I pulled my head back into the relative warmth of the carriage, the lanterns, whose glow did not extend much beyond the edge of the road, illuminated for a passing, startling moment a woman who loomed out of the night. Her arms reached out towards the carriage, her eyes wild and her face pale, her mouth wide with a cry that the rumbling wheels drowned out entirely. Despite the freezing temperature she appeared to be dressed in nothing but a linen shift and was soaking wet into the bargain.

  ‘Sir!’ I cried, turning to Jerwood. ‘There’s a woman, sir. By the road. I fear she may need some assistance.’

  ‘A woman?’ he said, springing forward and banging on the roof of the carriage with his cane. The driver immediately whistled to his horses and pulled on the reigns. The carriage came to a skidding halt and Jerwood and I both jumped out.

  Jerwood grabbed one of the lanterns and we walked back down the road. There was a ditch running alongside and I was sure that the woman had stood just on the other side of it. But there was no sign of her.

  We walked back and forth and peered into the gloom, lantern aloft, but there was nothing to see. On either side, the land fell away from the ridge along which the road ran: we might have been standing on a jetty surrounded by the sea.

  I stared forlornly into the dark, unable to comprehend how she could have disappeared so completely. With her dress so white and the horizon so unbroken, it was hard to see how she could have hidden herself or run off in such a short space of time. And in any case, her face was one of urgent expectancy, of one desiring help or sympathy, not of one who planned to run away.

  I turned from searching the darkness to find Jerwood standing in front of me, holding the lantern.

  ‘Are you quite certain you saw her?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir. Quite certain.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid there doesn’t seem to be any sign of her now,’ he said. ‘Jarvis!’

  The grim-faced driver had already climbed down and now walked towards us.

  ‘Did you see anyone beside the road?’ Jerwood asked.

  Jarvis shook his head. The sleet was turning to snow and his black coat and hat were speckled with white. ‘Not I, sir,’ he said. ‘I ain’t seen a soul since we left Hawton village. Who’d be abroad on a night like this if they didn’t have to be?’

  Jarvis turned up his collar and spat into the gloom, giving me a look that made it plain that he thought I was a fool and Jerwood only a little better for humouring me.

  ‘Hello!’ I called out. ‘Are you there?’ But there was no response.

  ‘Come,’ said Jerwood, putting his hand on my shoulder. ‘I think we should return to the carriage.’

  I shrugged him away.

  ‘But it’s beginning to snow. She will surely catch her death if she stays out here tonight.’

  ‘If we cannot see her, Michael, and she does not answer our calls, I’m not sure what more there is for us to do,’ he said. ‘You have been tired and dozing. Could you not have imagined it in the confusion between sleep and waking?’

  ‘No, sir,’ I said firmly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Michael. There really is nothing more to be done.’

  ‘But, sir,’ I continued angrily, ‘she was begging for our help. You can’t just leave her!’

  ‘Michael,’ said Jerwood, a touch of irritation showing in his voice for the first time, ‘if she wanted our help, why has she disappeared? Why beg for help and then hide when we stop?’

  I took another look into the darkness, to the spot where I had seen the woman, and then turned back to Jerwood, who was already walking towards the carriage with Jarvis. I had no answer to his question and yet it seemed wrong to leave.

  But though I felt angry and ashamed to do so, I could hardly stay and look for her myself with no light to aid me, and so I followed and climbed alongside him in the carriage.

  We moved on and, seeing that Jerwood was neither going to look at me nor speak, I turned my attention to the window just as the carriage began to cross the bridge that spanned the moat. A single light glimmered in the blackness of the great walls of Hawton Mere, its golden glow reflected in the murky waters below. Then all at once it was gone, and we passed beneath the arch of the gatehouse and clattered out into the courtyard beyond.

  Chapter Four

  Jarvis jumped down and held the door open for us to leave the carriage. A manservant moved towards us, silhouetted against the lanterns that lit the courtyard.

  ‘Mr Jerwood, sir,’ he said, reaching for and taking the lawyer’s bag. ‘It’s good to see you again. And this must be Master Vyner,’ he added, looking at me. He was a thick-necked bull of a man, in his forties, about the same age as Jerwood. He wasn’t tall but as powerfully built as anyone I had ever seen.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jerwood. ‘Glad to see you too, Hodges.’

  ‘There was a woman out on the road,’ I announced loudly. If I could not convince Jerwood to do something, then perhaps I could rouse some action from the servant.

  ‘A woman?’ said the servant, turning to Jerwood. ‘Who was she, sir?’

  ‘Master Michael thinks he saw someone in distress,’ said Jerwood. ‘But we stopped to look and could see no one there.’

  ‘It could have been an owl, sir,’ the servant suggested. ‘You wouldn’t be the first person who’d –’

  ‘I did see someone!’ I said.

  The servant looked past me towards Jerwood. ‘There is a gypsy camp nearby, sir. I can ask there in the morning if you like.’

  ‘Thank you, Hodges,’ said Jerwood. ‘Will that satisfy you, Michael?’

  ‘But she might be dead by then,’ I said.

  ‘I really think we ought –’ Jerwood began.

  ‘You don’t believe me!’ I said angrily. ‘But she was there. I know she was.’

  In truth I could not have said why I felt so agitated and so bold in my expression of that agitation. I suppose it was, as much as anything, a child
ish outrage at not being taken seriously by these adults. I knew what I had seen. Why could they not accept that?

  I heard Jarvis snort as he led the horse away. Jerwood, the servant and I stood in awkward silence for a few moments, the gathering snow swirling around us. It was the servant who broke the spell.

  ‘I can’t send anyone out tonight, sir,’ he said. ‘The weather’s closing in and you can’t see your hand in front of your face out there. I’ll go to the gypsies myself in the morning, but they don’t take kindly to visitors after dark.’

  I stood there in hot-blooded frustration, but I knew there was nothing I could do.

  ‘My name is Hodges, Master Vyner,’ continued the servant. ‘Anything you need, you just ask for me. Let’s get you out of this foul weather.’

  With that he took my bag along with Jerwood’s and set off. Jerwood followed, and after a moment I did the same, entering through a large door bristling with nails and coils of wrought iron.

  As soon as I walked through that door I sensed it: a strange energy that filled the air and shone like a black light from every shadow. There was a whispering that rose and fell in volume – though I felt it rather than heard it. All my senses told me there was danger – deadly danger – and yet I saw nothing untoward, save for a grim and unwelcoming hallway.

  ‘You are to stay with us over the festivities?’ asked Hodges.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, while noticing how odd the word ‘festivities’ sounded in these surroundings. Could Hawton Mere ever be festive? It was hard to imagine.

  Garlands of ivy were draped here and there and sprigs of glossy green holly glistened in vases and on windowsills in preparation for Christmas, but these decorative touches seemed only to draw attention to the grim nature of this place – like tying a ribbon to a gravestone. What kind of place was this?

  My nightmare about the strange figure in the cemetery had no doubt unsettled my nerves, and those unsettled nerves had then been frayed further by the startling appearance of the woman on the road. But still I felt as though I had brushed against a strand of web and somewhere in the shadowy heart of that house a spider twitched. It was all I could do to stop myself from turning on my heels and running away. But where would I have run to?