Chapter Nine #3
‘That night with the playing cards. I heard what Reacher said about me, after I left. And not a word from you in my defence. Hurt my feelings a bit, that did.’
Arabella swallows. ‘Then I am sorry for that as well. I only agreed to shut him up, but that doesn’t mean I was right to do it.’
‘No,’ I accept. ‘Well, thank you for this. I’ll add it to the collection.’ Fold the needlepoint embroidery and tuck it into my pocket.
Arabella is standing now with her back to the shelves, leaning partly against them. One of her hands fiddles with a small wooden toy behind her – a camel, I think – as she speaks. ‘They’re silly really, aren’t they?’
‘Not at all. Your work’s beautiful.’
‘I would have liked to be an artist.’ She knocks the camel over, glancing back at it a second in surprise, as if she hadn’t realized she’d been playing with it.
‘My brother Harry went to the Slade School – this was before the war, of course. He adored it. And what stories about all those bohemian types! I had a notion I would follow him there, but my parents didn’t like the idea.
Especially after … Well, then Mummy and Daddy died, and it was just one blow after another. ’
I remember Harry from the Epstein bust. He of the fishy lips.
Arabella sighs. ‘He did such lovely watercolours. You’ll have seen them around the house? He died during the war. The bloody Krauts hit his troop ship. All that talent, gone. And for what?’
‘But you still have talent,’ I say, nodding at her. ‘Why waste it here – on me, of all people? You could go to the Slade now. What’s stopping you?’
‘Oh no, it’s too late for me.’
I can’t hold in my disbelieving laugh. Impossible to imagine having all of this – privilege, title, a great big house – and being too scared of my own shadow to make the most of it.
I just don’t know what can be going on inside her head.
‘You’re always saying that,’ I tell her.
‘It’s ridiculous. You’re still young, Arabella.
No – you are. So why are you so afraid to live your life? ’
She looks away from me. ‘I’ve already told you.’
‘The curse, is it?’ When she doesn’t reply, I take a step away, shaking my head. I’d thought we’d been having a proper conversation. But it’s my own fault: I should know better by now. ‘Every time I think we’re getting somewhere, you and I …’
She looks back to me, eyes wide in alarm. ‘No, Vee, come back.’
I don’t come up close again, but I pause my retreat.
‘I need you to understand about it,’ she says.
‘It isn’t an excuse, or something I have made up.
It is as real as the brick and mortar of this house.
Since that night with the hare, every three years, the owner of Harfold has died suddenly and unexpectedly.
You must have seen them for yourself in the graveyard today.
Freak accidents, unprecedented illnesses.
First my father and mother, then Rex, then Harry, Stephen and Charlie.
It’s followed the line of inheritance exactly. ’
‘Arabella, I—’
‘You’re not listening,’ she interrupts. ‘Charlie died in 1923. Next year will be three years since then.’ She’s looking at me with such intensity, her whole body leaning forward and her eyes unblinking, fixed on my face. Desperate for me to hear her. ‘It will be my turn.’
‘Arabella,’ I try again, stepping once more into her space.
‘I’m so sorry that’s all happened to you.
I can’t even imagine what it’s been like.
But I promise you, it’s just a string of horrible, horrible coincidences.
’ I reach out to take one of her hands, pressing it gently.
Look into her eyes. ‘There’s no such thing as curses.
Or if there is, they come from our own imaginations.
You think you’re cursed, so you live like you’re cursed.
But that means that you can decide to change it. ’
She sighs again, dropping my hand. ‘Believe me, I want nothing more.’ Her pupils flit down. Looking at my mouth.
I raise my eyebrows. Heartbeat in my throat. ‘Nothing?’
She lunges at me, almost violently; grasps my face and pulls it to meet hers, mouth landing hard on mine.
Her breath is fast in an animal desperation, nails digging sharp into my cheeks.
The urgency of a moment we have both been dancing around for so long.
I put my hands to her shoulders and shove her back against the shelves.
Ornaments rattle in panic. She gasps, then the shock on her face turns to a grin.
I kiss her again, press my body tight against her.
The slide of silk under my palms. Her mouth open, teeth on my lips.
We’ve both been so lonely, in our own ways, but we’ve found each other now. A shared decision to let this in. ‘Forget the past,’ I whisper against her. ‘This right here is all that matters.’
We must sleep, because I wake in Arabella’s bed – alone, but with the sense that she’s only just left me.
A hollow of warmth where she lay. The room is a pre-dawn dark, our candle long since gone out.
I get up, shuddering when the cold bites at my naked skin.
Kick around on the floor at random until I feel fabric.
One of Arabella’s housecoats. I pull it on, the material falling chill and heavy around me. A waft of stale sweat and mildew.
I tiptoe out into the corridor, moving carefully to avoid the many barely seen obstacles. One hand to the wallpaper as a guide, its surface rough and smooth, both at the same time. Painted by hand in China, I’ve been told at some point.
‘Arabella?’ I call softly, but she’s not here either.
Peek into my room, finding it empty but for the glint of reflected moonlight from the dead eyes of Charlie’s teddy.
I pause to listen outside Reacher’s door too, in case she’s gone to see him.
But no: I can hear his beastly snores even from out here.
Finchley the chaffinch is silent tonight.
As I move on to the landing, instinct makes me turn my head to look into the closed wing.
There – the faintest twinkle of yellow light.
What business can Arabella have in there at this hour? And – trying not to feel too insulted – what’s important enough for her to abandon me in her bed?
Creeping softly into the disused corridor, beyond where I’ve been before in Arabella’s company, I feel the air temperature drop even further.
The light whispers from around a door down the far end, which stands slightly ajar on its hinges.
Every now and again, the beam is disturbed by a moving shadow.
I approach, holding my breath, and press my eye to the crack.
As with the chamber of the dead Lascy parents, this room is mostly bare, just a few objects of furniture shrouded like spectres in white sheets.
Bare floorboards. Walls covered in peeling blue-and-white paper.
Brown circles on the ceiling from historic damp.
A lamp has been placed on the floor by the shuttered window, and Arabella kneels beside it, facing away from where I stand.
Whatever she’s doing down there is obscured by her torso.
There’s a wooden rattle, then she stands upright, brushing her dust-thick hands on her nightdress.
‘You’re not as stealthy as you think,’ Arabella says, causing me to jump nearly out of my skin. She turns to me with an amused smile. Gestures to the space around her. ‘This used to be mine.’
Taking this as an invitation, I step inside. ‘You slept here, did you?’ Desire for old comfort bringing her here tonight. The glow of past festivities when her family were all still alive.
‘I come here sometimes to remember. Childish, really.’
Now she’s upright, I can see the small, low cabinet behind her, the dark gloss of its wood reflecting back the lamplight. Whatever she’d been doing just now, it must have involved whatever’s inside this. I nod to it. ‘What’s in there, then?’
She glances behind her, frowning as if confused. ‘In there? Nothing, as far as I can remember.’
‘I thought you were …’ I trail off.
‘Oh, I was looking for a favourite book, that’s all. No idea where I’ve put it. Maybe you were right about having a tidy.’ She speaks easily, her movements loose and relaxed, but I’m sure there’s something she’s not saying. Tight strain at the very corners of her eyes.
My toes are turning numb against the bare wood floor. I cross my arms, fighting back a shiver.
Catching this, Arabella purses her lips in concern. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. Will you come back to bed?’
She floats toward me, reaching out to wrap me in her arms. Her body feels coal-hot. Despite my suspicion, I can’t help but soften, letting her kiss first my cheek, then my lips. Her fingers stroke, soothing, against the back of my neck, and I slip my arms about her waist. Pull her closer.
When I open my eyes, I can still see the cabinet over her shoulder. Our legs reflected in the dark wood, elongated and warped into one combined mass.