Voices in a Haunted Room (64 page)

“I think,” continued my mother, “that we should go over there and see what is happening.”

“I shall come with you,” said Claudine.

Amaryllis suggested that we go too.

“There’s no need for you girls to come,” said my mother. “You go to bed.”

But we insisted.

Aunt Sophie was in the hall with Jeanne, Miss Allen and some of the servants. Aunt Sophie, wrapped in a heavy dressing gown in spite of the fact that it was a warm night, looked very ill. Jeanne was hovering over her anxiously. The men were not there.

“No news?” asked my mother.

Aunt Sophie shook her head mournfully.

“Where are the men?” asked my mother.

“They are searching with some of our people,” explained Jeanne.

“The house … the garden …”

“We’ve been over every inch of them,” said Miss Allen. “I can’t understand it. She was there, asleep in her bed …”

“Perhaps pretending to be asleep,” I suggested.

“I don’t know. She was there … I saw her when I looked in. It is terrible …”

“It was not your fault, Miss Allen.”

She looked at me gratefully.

“How can we know what is happening to that poor child?” said Aunt Sophie.

“She will be found,” Jeanne said soothingly. “She will be safe. No harm will come to that one.”

“Taken from me,” mourned Aunt Sophie. “Why is it that I cannot keep anyone I love? Why is life always against me?”

No one answered. There was a faraway look in my mother’s eyes and I knew she was thinking of the time when I was taken away by Dolly Mather. I had heard the story many times. And now Dolly’s child had been taken. Or had she gone of her own accord? I could not imagine Tamarisk’s being forcibly taken away. She would have screamed with all the strength of her lungs, which was considerable. But I could imagine her planning some devilment to teach us all a lesson, no doubt. She had been very angry about the party. She might have taken her revenge for not being allowed to attend.

My mother, who like me could not bear inaction, said: “Have the servants been questioned? Do any of them know anything?”

“They all know that she is not here,” said Miss Allen.

“Well, let’s do something,” said my mother. “Let’s have them in. Let’s question them.”

All those servants who were not out of doors searching for Tamarisk were commanded to come into the hall.

My mother said: “I want you all to think. Has anything strange happened in the last few days? Did the child say anything that might give us a clue as to where she may have gone?”

There was silence. Then one of the maids said: “She was always talking about being a witch.”

“She told me yesterday that she would put a spell on me if she didn’t get her own way,” said another.

“Yes,” I said. “She was always talking about being a witch. You don’t think she has gone to Polly Crypton’s place, do you?”

“Polly would have brought her home if she had. Polly’s a witch but a white one. She would do no harm to anybody … not lest they’d done her wrong,” said the cook.

“Perhaps we should send over to Polly’s to see?”

Two of the girls said they would go at once.

When they had gone one of the housemaids said: “She was always talking about the gypsies.”

“Oh yes,” I said, remembering the occasion when Leah came to tell our fortunes. There had seemed to be a special affinity between them then. Of course the child’s father was Romany Jake. “She wouldn’t have gone to the gypsies, surely.” I felt sure that if she had they would have brought her back.

“They say gypsies steal children,” said the parlourmaid. “They sell their clothes. Miss Tamarisk always had of the best. Mademoiselle Sophie saw to that.”

My mother cut in with: “Nonsense!” because she saw this talk was upsetting Aunt Sophie who had covered her face with her hands. Jeanne bent over her whispering in French that all would be well. Tamarisk would be coming through the door at any moment. She was sure of it.

My father and David came back with some of the men servants. One look at their faces showed us that the search had been unsuccessful.

Jeanne was telling Aunt Sophie that she would be more comfortable in bed and as soon as we had news it should be brought to her. If only she would go, Jeanne would make her comfortable. She could bring her something to soothe her throat.

Aunt Sophie shook her head. “How can I rest?” she asked. “How could I… until she is back?”

I went over to my father. I whispered to him: “I want to go to the gypsy encampment.”

“What?” he said.

“Don’t tell them here. It’s just a feeling I have. Will you come with me? Just the two of us?”

“What’s on your mind?”

“Something. I’m not sure. Please don’t ask questions. Just come with me.”

My mother looked at us questioningly.

My father said quietly: “Jessica has an idea.”

We went out together.

“You’re not dressed for the saddle,” he said.

“No, let’s walk. We may find her on the way. Please …”

“I know I have to obey orders, General.”

“Father, I’m terribly afraid.”

“Of what?”

“That the gypsies may have had something to do with this.”

“You mean you think they have taken her. They wouldn’t dare. Kidnapping! It could be a hanging offence.”

“I don’t think they would care about that. Besides, they would say she is one of them.”

“Good God,” he said.

And we walked on in silence.

The night air was still balmy as the day had been so hot. It seemed a very long time since I had been sitting in the garden listening to Edward’s proposal.

At length we came to the clearing in the woods. There were no caravans there. My father went over to a pile of ashes. He knelt down and touched them. “They are still warm,” he said. “They can’t have gone long.”

He stood up and we faced each other.

“Why?” he said.

“Leah,” I said. “I may be wrong, but it did occur to me. She was very taken with the child … and the child with her. There was an affinity between them. I believe Leah loves the child’s father, and because of that she wants his child.”

“You’re romancing, my dear.”

“Maybe … and then maybe not.”

“What do you propose we do now?”

“We could send after them. They’ve gone to the West Country. We’ll see if Tamarisk is with them.”

We went back to the house. I dreaded reaching it for something told me that when we did we should hear that there was no news of Tamarisk.

And it was significant that the gypsies should have left just at the time when Tamarisk disappeared.

Everyone was talking about Tamarisk’s disappearance. It seemed a foregone conclusion that she had been stolen by the gypsies, or more likely gone of her own free will. One of the maids remembered that she had seen the gypsy woman talking to the child on the edge of the garden. Miss Allen confirmed that on the previous day she had insisted on walking to the camp, and when they were there she had talked to one of the gypsy women who had shown her inside a caravan.

It was too much of a coincidence that they should have gone at the very time Tamarisk disappeared.

Aunt Sophie was stricken with grief. She had been suffering from a cold before Tamarisk’s disappearance: now that turned to bronchitis. She would not eat; she could not sleep. She just lay in bed crying for the child.

My mother and I went over with Amaryllis. We were deeply shocked. She just lay in her bed, her hood slightly awry so that we could see the beginnings of those sad scars which she had been so careful to hide; now she did not seem to care.

Two days had passed and there was no news of Tamarisk.

My father and David had gone in search of the gypsies but they had disappeared completely and left no trace. It seemed very clear that Leah had taken Tamarisk away.

It was difficult to believe that the gentle girl could be capable of such an act, but I remembered the knife in her belt and the way she had looked at Tamarisk. I was sure she had loved Romany Jake; it was natural; he was the man who had risked his life for her sake. I believed that she would be capable of deep emotions, passionate hatred, passionate love.

And she had wanted the child. So she had lured Tamarisk away from us. I was equally sure that Tamarisk had not been taken against her will.

I thought of Romany Jake sitting in Dolly’s kitchen singing of the lady who had left her fine home for the gypsies.

That was what Tamarisk had done.

As the days dragged on and we had given up hope of finding Tamarisk, we became very concerned about Aunt Sophie.

We visited her every day. Jeanne was in despair.

“She cannot go on like this,” she said.

Poor Aunt Sophie was sunk in melancholy. Someone from the family was there almost throughout the day. We would sit by her bed, saying nothing. She just lay there staring into space.

Jeanne was always trying to tempt her with some special dish. Poor Jeanne, she herself looked weary and older.

It was about four days after Tamarisk’s disappearance. I had gone over to Enderby to be met by Jeanne. She was pale and there were shadows under her eyes.

I said: “How is she?”

Jeanne shook her head.

“I used to say how much good the child did her. After she came she was happy as she had never been before. Now I would to God there had never been a child. Then we should be as we were before her coming.”

“Do you think she will ever come back now?”

“She has gone with the gypsies. She is her father’s child. Her mother was a strange and unhappy girl and with the gypsy her father, it is small wonder that she was rebellious. There is something wild about her. But we loved her and she was everything to Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle always wanted children. If she could have married and had them I think life would have been very different for us. Life is cruel. There she was … a young pretty girl. She goes out one night… one night only … and there is that terrible disaster and that is the end of the life she knew. A fresh one starts … a life of bitterness and regrets. Oh, it is so cruel. My poor, poor one. How I wish I could bear it for her.”

“You have always been so wonderful to her, Jeanne. My mother always says you are one of the rare people, for people are rarely so good.”

“She is my life, my child, you might say.”

“How I wish that wicked girl would come back. She plagued us all with her presence, but never as she has now by her absence.”

“Ah, if she would only come in at that door now. That would be enough for Mademoiselle. Then I could start feeding her … making her well again … make life good for her. But the child will not come.”

“Shall I go and sit with Aunt Sophie for a while?”

Jeanne nodded. “She seems listless but perhaps she is happy to know that we are all so concerned for her.”

So I went into that room and I sat there by the bed and I thought, There is something evil about this house. It was supposed to be haunted. Terrible things had happened here. My mother told me how surprised she had been when Sophie had decided to take it. They had said then that she had been bewitched by the melancholy of Enderby, the gloom which hung over it. The personality of the house was like that of Aunt Sophie.

But Jeanne had brought her impeccable French taste to the house. She had subtly changed the furnishings. She had made discoveries in the house and changed it a little. And Aunt Sophie had been happier here than she had since her disfigurement when she had lost her fiancé and the happy future to which she had looked forward.

But Aunt Sophie was doomed. Those she had loved, she said, were taken from her. Her fiancé was lost to her, although it was she who had refused to marry him, so my mother told me. He would have gone on with the wedding; but he had married my mother instead. Then there was Alberic, the French spy who had come into her life and whom she had loved—so Jeanne told me—as her son. He had died—murdered, said Aunt Sophie; meeting his just deserts, said my father; it was Jonathan, my father’s own son, who had killed him and lost his own life in similar fashion.

So many tragedies! Yes, there was something about the house, I could feel it… in this very room.

A disembodied voice floated up to me.

“Is Mademoiselle all right?”

It was Jeanne speaking through the tube in the kitchen—a weird device, I had always thought it, connecting the two rooms. It always sounded odd to me, unnatural, even though I understood how it came through.

Aunt Sophie stirred a little.

“Am I all right?” she said. “I shall never be all right. Life is too cruel. Jessica, why do you sit there? Why don’t you go away. Just leave me in my misery.”

“Oh, Aunt Sophie, we are all so anxious about you. We all want you to be well.”

“I lose all those I have loved. There is something fatal about my loving. I just have to love and they are taken from me.”

“Oh no, it is not so, Aunt Sophie.”

She raised herself a little. “Yes, yes,” she cried vehemently. “There was Charles. He was so handsome. And he is long since dead. He married your mother. Charlot and Claudine were the result. I loved Charlot. Where is Charlot now?”

“He has his vineyard in Burgundy. My mother longs for the end of the war so that she can visit him … or perhaps he will soon come to us.”

“Oh, the war will be over. Your mother will see her son. Everything works well for her … whereas for me …”

“Oh, Aunt Sophie, you are here with your family. You escaped with Jeanne. No one could have a more devoted friend than Jeanne. She at least is something to be grateful for.”

“She is a good woman. I am devoted to her… but she is here with me in my prison. Charlot… Claudine … they might have been my children. But life is always against me. True, I escaped. I came here. I found this house. I thought life would be a little kinder to me … at last. Alberic came. He was a beautiful young man… always so eager to please me. And … they murdered him. I was fond of Dolly and she went with that gypsy and she died. But she gave me Tamarisk. I thought then I could be happy. I had this little girl to bring up as my own … mine at last. And now … she is gone. You see, whatever I do, whatever I touch, brings desolation. It is time I gave up the struggle, Jessica.”