Autumn Softly Fell

A CLOCK STRUCK
twelve.

Dorothea Ryan turned and twisted in her sleep, the sound of the clock haunting her dreams. Each stroke came from an immense distance, grew louder, reverberated in her head, and then dissolved to make way for the next. It was only after the twelfth and last stroke that she woke with a start and sat up.

Her dream shredded, disappeared. She looked around. This was not home. It was nothing like Stepnall Street. The bed in which she was lying was huge, the mattress springy, the sheets crisp and white. Such a bed had never been known in Stepnall Street. But even more startling was the profound and uncanny silence.

Where was she? And why was she here?

She knit her brows, thinking back. They had set off on a journey, she remembered, her and her papa.

‘Where are we going?’

He had not answered. He was like that sometimes, shut away inside himself.

‘Mrs Browning will wonder where we’ve gone.’ They had left without a word to anyone. It had troubled her.

She cast her mind back to the railway station, a cavernous place with an echoing roof and crowded platforms. She had run, following her papa’s coat tails, dodging the people who towered over her. There had been a metal monster – that was how she had put it to herself – hissing, belching steam, giving off an acrid smell. She had never seen a locomotive up close before, had never travelled by train. She had found that she did not like it. The railway carriage
jerked and jolted, rattling, trundling, while outside the winter dusk closed in. She had pressed her face against the cold glass, looking for lights; but there had been nothing, just the reflection of their compartment and – beyond that – a black emptiness. Her papa had not spoken as the journey went on and on. In the end, she had curled up on the seat and gone to sleep.

Sitting now in the plush bed, she wondered where her papa was. Why did no one come for her?

She pushed back the bed clothes and slid out of bed. The air was chilly. She shivered. But she was used to the cold, took no notice. Someone had undressed her last night, she discovered, and had put her into a nightdress. It was several sizes too big for her. She had to hold up the skirts as she walked across the carpeted floor (carpet!).

No one lived in this room, she felt sure. It was too clean, too silent, too impersonal. The furniture was old, just as the furniture in Stepnall Street was old, but this furniture did not look as if it was about to drop to pieces. There was a wardrobe (empty apart from a pair of men’s shoes), a wooden stand with a pretty china basin (no water) and a long table against the wall with drawers and a mirror. No fire burned in the fireplace but then there was never a fire in the room in Stepnall Street either.

She pulled aside the heavy curtains (such curtains!) and looked out of the window, not knowing what to expect. In Stepnall Street, if you peeled back the brown paper and looked out past the window frame, there was a view of soot-stained walls, gaping windows, slanting roofs. Chimney stacks were etched against the
smoke-smudged
sky. Down below was the courtyard with its puddles, its piles of rubbish, its slimy cobbles.

But here…. Her eyes widened as she tried to take it all in. A cold grey morning. A vast cloudy sky. Wintry fields stretching into an unguessable distance. Trees. Hedges. No houses, except far off and to the right there was a glimpse of a tower. A castle? A church? To the left was a hill, leafless trees on top like spiky hair on a big round head. Directly below her was a circular space of gravel surrounding a tall spreading tree. The sight of the gravel nudged her memory: a
crunching sound as she walked, the feel of it beneath her feet, the way the little stones worked in through the holes in her boots….

They had left the train, walked a long way. It had been cold and dark. She had been dead on her feet. Her papa had picked her up and carried her and she had slept again. What had woken her was the sound of a bottle falling –
chink!
– to the ground. Her papa had stopped, sank to his knees, and she had rolled out of his arms onto loose stones and cold compacted earth.

Sitting up, rubbing her eyes, she had looked around. No street lamps, no buildings, no people; just a row of trees on either side, the tops of them like black spikes jutting into the paler black of the sky. It was then – she remembered – that the clock had struck, the clock that had haunted her dreams. The sound of it had been faint, distant, but had carried clearly in the terrible silence. Twelve o’clock. Midnight. It had seemed somehow ominous. As the last stroke died away she had sat on the cold ground shuddering. The wind seethed in the trees. Her papa gasped for breath as he groped for the fallen bottle. When he found it, he shook it. Liquid sloshed.

‘Papa? W—where are we?’

‘Not far now, Dotty. Not far to go.’ He had tipped the bottle back, gulped. She had smelt gin, the smell she hated, but out in the silent, empty night its familiarity had almost been comforting.

‘I’m cold, Papa.’

‘Cold, are you? And we’ve forgotten to bring your coat.’

‘My coat’s in the pawn shop.’

‘So it is. Well, then, we couldn’t have brung it anyhow.’ Another swallow of gin. ‘Gee up, Dotty. We must be nearly there now, if the man at the station told us right.’

He had scrambled to his feet, pulling her up after him, and they had walked up the long path or track or road between the sighing trees until they came to the gravel.

Those little stones,
she thought as she stood by the window,
will still be in my boots.
But when she looked around the room, her boots – and the rest of her clothes – were nowhere to be seen.

She turned back to the window. Her breath steamed up the glass. She thought about the house she had seen as she stood in the cold
and dark on the gravel – a house so huge that she had for a moment believed it must belong to giants. The low branches of the spreading tree had seemed to be reaching to grab her as she followed her papa, stumbling towards the steps that led up to the front door. A golden glow had spilled out from the fanlight. She had heard faint sounds from within: music – a piano, perhaps? – and voices, many voices.

Her papa had banged on the door as if he had no fear of the giants. She had shrunk against him, clutching his threadbare coat. He had swigged gin, waiting.

She found herself shivering now. She was actually here, inside the big house, the house that had filled her with foreboding. She was here, and she was alone.

Trapped?

She turned away from the window, faced the door. Was it locked? Was she a prisoner?

She fought back panic, tried to be sensible.
One step at a time,
Mrs Browning always said, and whatever else Mrs Browning might be (one could not call her a motherly woman), she was eminently practical. One thing at a time. First: try the door.

She crossed the room, took a deep breath, put her hand on the handle. The door opened, squeaking faintly. She looked out into a gloomy anteroom. There was a door to the left, closed. There was a door to the right, ajar.

Dorothea hesitated. What next? Think of Mrs Browning. One step at a time. Find her clothes, then find her papa. After that, they could go home together, back to Stepnall Street.

It was a sensible plan, quite within her limits. But….

She hesitated, staring at the ajar door and the glimpse of corridor beyond.

There had been a man. An angry-looking man. She did not want to meet him again – even if he was her uncle. (Could it be true? Was he really her uncle?)

She shut the bedroom door, leant against it, her heart beating. The angry-looking man had not been on his own last night. There had been lots of people – hundreds of them, it had seemed – and all of them neat and polished and wearing the most wonderful clothes.
They had gathered round Dorothea and her papa, staring in
consternation
. But it had been the angry-looking man she had noticed most: a tall, burly man with streaks of grey in his black hair, and a great bushy moustache that all but hid his mouth.

‘Gee up, Dot! This here’s your uncle what I told you about. A very fine gent. Did I not say as much?’

If he had been anyone else, she would have called him a fibber, for her papa had never said a word about any uncle. Perhaps he had forgotten. Grown-ups often were forgetful – especially after they had been drinking gin. Gin made them forgetful and clumsy and quarrelsome.

She remembered the way her papa had looked at her, shaking his head and talking to himself (that was due to the gin, too). ‘Breaks my heart, so it does. But I can’t see no other way around it, and that’s the truth.’

There had been tears in his eyes, which had been the most
frightening
thing of all – more frightening by far than the giant house or the angry man or the hundreds of watching eyes. She had never seen her papa cry, had not believed it possible, for he was the bravest man in the world.

The memory of the tears galvanized her. She straightened up, wiped away tears of her own, turned once more to face the door. It was no good
shilly-shallying
(as Mrs Browning would say). It was time to be as brave as her papa. (‘Him? Brave? Ha! I’d as soon call a mouse fierce!’ That was Mrs Browning too. But what did she know? She was only the landlady. That was what Papa called her, anyway:
the landlady
).

She opened the door – it squeaked again – picked up her skirts, crossed to the door on the right, the one that was ajar. She looked out.

A long, wide corridor stretched ahead. There was a carpeted floor and painted walls, the carpet clean, the walls without a stain. There were pictures – such wonderful pictures – beautiful landscapes. She would have liked to examine them closely but there was no time to spare. All seemed quiet and deserted as she stood hesitating in the doorway; but at that moment, from a remote distance, there came
the sound of a door closing. So she wasn’t alone. There were other people (who?). But what a vast place this house must be! It would take her days – weeks! – to find her way round. If she wanted to track down her clothes – and her papa – then she must start looking at once.

She slipped past the door and hastened along the corridor, her bare feet making no sound on the carpet. Soon she came to a wide flight of stairs going down. She remembered the stairs. Last night she had been half-dragged, half-carried up them by a girl in black and white clothes. On and on they had climbed, as if climbing the Tower of Babel up to heaven itself. But at least she now had some idea where she was. If she followed the stairs down she might – might! – come to other places from last night: the hallway with the front door, or the big room where the hundreds of people had been.

Her foot was poised to take the first step when a sudden sound made her freeze: the sound of footsteps, coming up. Without
stopping
to think, Dorothea dashed back along the corridor to hide behind a cabinet. Peeping out, she saw a bald, elderly man come puffing and panting up to the landing. He was carrying a black bag, seemed preoccupied. He did not pause to look round but went away along the corridor, turning into a room on the left. He shut the door behind him.

All was quiet again. Dorothea let out her breath, eased herself out of her hiding place. It was time to press on.

She set off down the stairs, trailing one hand along the banister. After a time she came to another landing, a different corridor. This one was more luxurious than the one above, the carpet thicker, the paintings even more grand. The stairs carried on, however, and down she went with them.

On the next half-landing, her courage failed. She had come a long way from the room where she had slept – miles, it seemed. She could not have felt any lonelier and more exposed had she been standing in the middle of a moor. And as she shilly-shallied – she couldn’t help it – she noticed a picture on the wall above her: a red-faced man in a white wig staring out across the centuries – staring, she was sure, directly at her. She cowered down, but the self-important eyes
seemed to follow her, seemed to demand to know who she was and what she was doing in this house –
his
house.

Tears pricked her eyes again. She was ashamed, crying like a baby when she was as old as eight. But this was an awful place, an unfriendly place. She could not imagine why her papa had brought her here.

She was not sure how long she spent shilly-shallying but suddenly she heard noises below. Wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her oversize nightgown, she crawled to the edge of the half-landing and then slid down first one step then another until she could peer between the banisters and see what was happening.

Below her was a wide, tiled hallway. An ornate clock was slowly ticking. There was a table with a vase of flowers. Her eyes were drawn, however, to the front door – the door with the fanlight, the door through which she had entered the house last night. It was wide open and people were coming in. There must have been a dozen or more, all wrapped up against the cold, wearing hats, scarves, gloves, boots. The ladies had furs, the gentlemen Norfolk jackets. There was much rubbing of hands, stamping of feet, puffing out of cheeks. As they began to divest themselves of their outdoor things, two girls in black and white came running to assist. They were dressed in exactly the same way as the girl who had taken Dorothea up to bed last night.

Servants,
Dorothea said to herself:
maid servants.
And there was a man servant, too, tall and smart. But taller still was the daunting figure of the gentleman who – by all accounts – was her uncle. Those dark, angry eyes, that deep booming voice – she remembered him clearly from last night.

Several people were talking at once but Dorothea’s attention was drawn to someone else she recognized from last night, a gracious lady who was getting on in years. She must be forty at least.

‘It’s far too cold to be outside on a day like this,’ she said as she unwrapped herself; ‘but you men
will
have your sport. How did you get on, Henry?’