The Thirteenth Tale, Page 31

  As I write this I hear noises outside my room. The girls have come out of their hiding place and are creeping about the house. They have been done no favours, allowed to suit themselves like this. They will benefit enormously from the regime of order, hygiene and discipline that I mean to instil in the house. I shall not go out to them. No doubt they will expect me to, and it will suit my purposes to disconcert them at this stage.

  Mrs Dunne showed me the rooms on the ground floor. There is filth everywhere, all the surfaces thick with dust, and curtains hanging in tatters, though she does not see it, and thinks of them as they were years ago in the time of the twins’ grandfather, when there was a full staff. There is a piano which may be beyond saving, but I will see what can be done, and a library that may be full of knowledge once the dust is wiped and one can see what is there.

  The other floors I explored alone, not wanting to inflict too many stairs at once on Mrs Dunne. On the first floor I became aware of a scuffling, a whispering and smothered giggling. I had found my charges. They had locked the door, and fell silent when I tried the handle. I called their names once, then left them to their own devices and went on to the second floor. It is a cardinal rule that I do not chase my charges, but train them to come to me.

  The second-floor rooms were in the most terrible disorder. Dirty, but I had come to expect that. Rainwater had come through the roof (I expected as much) and there were fungi growing in some of the rotting floorboards. This is a truly unhealthy environment in which to raise children. A number of floorboards were missing, looked as if they had been deliberately removed. I shall have to see Mr Angelfield about getting these repaired. I shall point out to him that someone could fall downstairs or at the very least twist their ankle. All the hinges need oiling, and all the door frames are warped. Wherever I went I was followed by a squeaking of doors swinging on their hinges, a creaking of floorboards, and draughts that set curtains fluttering though it is impossible to tell exactly where they come from.

  I returned to the kitchen as soon as I could. Mrs Dunne was preparing our evening meal, and I had no inclination to eat food cooked in pots as unpleasant as the ones I had seen, so I got stuck into a great pile of washing up (after giving the sink the most thorough scrubbing it had seen for a decade), and kept a close eye on her with the preparation. She does her best.

  The girls would not come down to eat. I called once and no more. Mrs Dunne was all for calling and persuading, but I told her that I have my methods, and she must be on my side.

  The doctor came to dine. As I had been led to expect the head of the household did not appear. I had thought the doctor would be offended at this, but he seemed to find it entirely normal. So it was just the two of us, and Mrs Dunne doing her best to wait at table, but needing much help from me.

  The doctor is an intelligent, cultivated man. He has a sincere desire to see the twins improve, and has been the prime mover in bringing me to Angelfield. He explained to me at great length the difficulties I am likely to face here, and I listened with as much politeness as I could muster. Any governess, after the few hours I have had in this house, would have a full and clear picture of the task awaiting her, but he is a man, hence cannot see how tiresome it is to have explained at length what one has already fully understood. My fidgeting, and the slight sharpness of one or two of my answers entirely escaped his notice and I fear that his energy and his analytical skills are not matched by his powers of observation. I do not criticize him unduly for expecting everyone he meets to be less able than himself. For he is a clever man, and more than that, he is a big fish in a small pond. He has adopted an air of quiet modesty, but I see through that easily enough, for I have disguised myself in exactly the same manner. However, I shall need his support in the project I have taken on, and shall work at making him my ally despite his shortcomings.

  I hear sounds of an upset from downstairs. Presumably the girls have discovered the lock on the pantry door. They will be angry and frustrated, but how else can I train them to proper mealtimes? And without mealtimes, how can order be restored?

  Tomorrow I will start by cleaning this bedroom. I have wiped the surfaces with a damp cloth this evening, and was tempted to clean the floor, but told myself no. It will only need doing again tomorrow when I scrub the walls, and take down the curtains that are so thick with dirt. So tonight I sleep in dirt, but tomorrow I shall sleep in a bright clean room. It will be a good beginning. For I plan to restore order and discipline to this house, and to succeed in my aim must first of all make myself a clean room to think in. No one can think clearly and make progress if they are not surrounded by hygiene and order.

  The twins are crying in the hall. It is time for me to meet my charges.

  I have been so busy organizing the house that I have had little time for my diary lately, but I must make the time, for it is chiefly in writing that I record and develop my methods.

  Emmeline I have made good progress with, and my experience with her fits the pattern of behaviour I have seen in other difficult children. She is not, I think, as badly disturbed as was reported, and with my influence will come to be a nice child. She is affectionate and sturdy, has learned to appreciate the benefits of hygiene, eats with a good appetite, and can be made to obey instructions by kind coaxing and the promise of small treats. She will soon come to understand that goodness rewards by bringing the esteem of others in its wake, and then I will be able to reduce the bribery. She will never be clever, but then I know the limits of my methods. Whatever my strengths, I can only develop what is there to start with.

  I am content with my work on Emmeline.

  Her sister is a more difficult case. Violence I have seen before, and I am less shocked than Adeline thinks by her destructiveness. However I am struck by one thing: in other children destructiveness is generally a side effect of rage, and not its primary objective. The violent act, as I have observed it in other charges, is most frequently motivated by an excess of anger and the outpouring of the anger is only incidentally damaging to people and property. Adeline’s case does not fit this model. I have seen incidents myself, and been told of others, in which destruction seems to be Adeline’s only motive, and rage something she has to tease out, stoke up in herself, in order to generate the energy to destroy. For she is a feeble little thing, skin and bone, and eats only crumbs. Mrs Dunne has told me of one incident in the garden, when Adeline is known to have damaged a number of yews. If this is true it is a great shame. The garden was clearly very beautiful. It could be put to rights, but John has lost heart over the matter, and it is not only the topiary but the garden in general that suffers from his lack of interest. I will find the time and a way to restore his pride. It will do much to improve the appearance and the atmosphere of the house, if he can be made happy in his work, and the garden made orderly again.

  Talking of John and the garden reminds me – I must speak to him about the boy. Walking about the schoolroom this afternoon, I happened to come near the window. It was raining, and I wanted to close the window so as not to let any more damp in; the window ledge on the inside is already crumbling away. If I hadn’t been so close to the window, nose almost pressed to the glass in fact, I doubt I’d have seen him. But there he was: a boy, crouching in the flower bed, weeding. He was wearing a pair of men’s trousers, cut off at the ankle and held up with a pair of braces. A wide-brimmed hat cast his face in shadow, and I was unable to get a clear impression of his age, though he might have been eleven or twelve. I know it is common practice in rural areas, for children to engage in horticultural work, though I thought it was more commonly farm work they did, and I appreciate the advantages of their learning their trade early, but I do not like to see any child out of school during school hours. I will speak to John about it, and make sure he understands the boy must spend school hours in school.

  But to return to my subject: where Adeline’s viciousness to her sister is concerned, she might be surprised to know it, but I have seen it all before. Jealou
sy and anger between siblings is commonplace, and in twins rivalries are frequently heightened. With time I will be able to minimize the aggression, but in the meantime constant vigilance is required to prevent Adeline hurting her sister, and this slows down progress on other fronts, which is a pity. Why Emmeline lets herself be beaten (and have her hair pulled out, and be chased by Adeline wielding the fire tongs in which she carries hot coals) I have yet to understand. She is twice the size of her sister and could defend herself more vigorously than she does. Perhaps she flinches from inflicting hurt on her sister; she is an affectionate soul.

  My first judgement of Adeline in the early days was of a child who might not ever come to live as independent and normal a life as her sister, but who could be brought to a point of balance, of stability, and whose rages could be contained by the imposition of a strict routine. I did not expect ever to bring her to understanding. The task I foresaw was greater than for her sister, but I expected far less thanks for it, for it would seem less in the eyes of the world.

  But I have been startled into modifying that opinion by signs of a dark and clouded intelligence. This morning she came into the classroom dragging her feet, but without the worst displays of unwillingness, and once in her seat, rested her head on her arm just as I have seen before. I began the lesson. It was nothing more than the telling of a story, an adaptation I had made for the purpose of the opening chapters of Jane Eyre, a story loved by a great many girls. I was concentrating on Emmeline, encouraging her to follow the story by animating it as much as possible. I gave one voice to the heroine, another to the aunt, yet another to the cousin, and I accompanied the storytelling with such gestures and expressions as seemed to illustrate the emotions of the characters. Emmeline did not take her eyes off me, and I was pleased with my effect.

  Out of the corner of my eye I caught a movement. Adeline had turned her head in my direction. Still her head rested on her arm, still her eyes appeared closed, yet I had the distinct impression she was listening to me. Even if the change of position was meaningless (and it was not; she has always turned away from me before), there is the alteration in the way she held herself. Where she normally slumps over her desk when she sleeps, in a state of animal unconsciousness, today her whole body seemed alert: the set of the shoulders, a certain tension. As if she was straining towards the story, yet whilst still trying to give the impression of inert slumber.

  I did not want her to see that I had noticed anything. I continued to look as if I was reading only to Emmeline. I maintained the animation of my face and voice. But all the time I was keeping an eye on Adeline. And she wasn’t only listening. I caught a quiver of her lids. I had thought her eyes closed, but not at all – from between her lashes, she was watching me!

  It is a most interesting development, and one which I foresee will be the centrepin of my project here.

  Then the most unexpected thing happened. The doctor’s face changed. Yes, changed, before my very eyes. It was one of those moments when a face comes suddenly into new focus, when the features, all recognizably as they were before, are prone to a dizzying shift and present themselves in an unexpected new light. I would like to know what it is in a human mind that causes the faces of those we know to shift and dance about like that. I have ruled out optical effects, phenomena related to light and so on, and have arrived at the conclusion that the explanation is rooted in the psychology of the onlooker. Anyway, the sudden movement and rearrangement of his facial features caused me to stare at him for a few moments, which must have seemed very strange to him. When his features had ceased their jumping about, there was something odd in his expression too, something I could not, cannot fathom. I do dislike what I cannot fathom.

  We stared at each other for a few seconds, each as awkward as the other, then rather abruptly he left.

  I wish Mrs Dunne would not move my books about. How many times shall I have to tell her that a book is not finished until it is finished? And if she must move it, why not put it back in the library whence it came? What is the point of leaving it on the staircase?

  I have had a curious conversation with John the gardener.

  He is a good worker, more cheerful now that his topiary is mending, and a helpful presence generally in the house. He drinks tea and chats in the kitchen with Mrs Dunne; sometimes I come across them talking in low voices, which makes me think she is not as deaf as she makes out. Were it not for her great age I would imagine some love affair going on, but since that is out of the question I am at a loss to explain what their secret is. I taxed Mrs Dunne with it, unhappily, because she and I have a friendly understanding about things for the most part, and I think she approves of my presence here – not that it would make any difference if she didn’t – and she told me that they talk of nothing but household matters, chickens to be killed, potatoes to be dug, and the like. ‘Why talk so low?’ I insisted, and she told me it was not low at all, at least not particularly so. ‘But you don’t hear me, when I talk low,’ I said, and she answered that new voices are harder than the ones she is used to, and if she understands John when he talks low it is because she has known his voice for many years and mine for only a couple of months.

  I had forgotten all about the low voices in the kitchen, until this new oddness with John. A few mornings ago I was taking a walk just before lunch in the garden when I saw again the boy who was weeding the flowerbed beneath the schoolroom window. I glanced at my watch, and, again, it was in school hours. The boy did not see me, for I was hidden by the trees. I watched him for a moment or two; he was not working at all, but sprawled across the lawn, engrossed in something on the grass, right under his nose. He wore the same floppy hat as before. I stepped towards him meaning to get his name and give him a lecture on the importance of education, but on seeing me he leapt to his feet, clamped his hat to his head with one hand, and sprinted away faster than I have seen anyone move before. His alarm is proof enough of his guilt. The boy knew perfectly well he should be at school. As he ran off he appeared to have a book in his hand.

  I went to John, and told him just what I thought. I told him I would not allow children to work for him in school hours, that it was wrong to upset their education just for the few pence they earn, and that if the parents did not accept that, I would go and see them myself. I told him that if it was so necessary to have further hands working on the garden that I would see Mr Angelfield and employ a man. I had already made this offer, to get extra staff, both for the garden and the house, but John and Mrs Dunne were both so against the idea I thought it better to wait until I was more acquainted with the running of things here.

  John’s response was to shake his head and deny all knowledge of the child. When I impressed upon him the evidence of my own eyes, he said it must be a village child just come wandering in, that it happened sometimes, that he was not responsible for all the village truants who happened to be in the garden. I told him then that I had seen the child before, the day I arrived, and that the child was clearly working. He was tight lipped, only repeated that he had no knowledge of a child, that anyone could weed his garden who wanted to, that there was no such child.

  I told John, with a little anger that I cannot regret, that I intended to speak to the schoolmistress about it, and that I would go directly to the parents and sort the matter out with them. He simply waved his hand, as if to say it was nothing to do with him and I might do as I liked (and I certainly shall). I am sure he knows who the boy is, and I am shocked at his refusal to help me in my duty towards him. It seems out of character for him to be obstructive, but then I suppose he began his own apprenticeship as a child and thought it never did him any harm. These attitudes are slow to die out in rural areas.

  I was engrossed in the diary. The barriers to legibility forced me to read slowly, puzzling out the difficulties, using all my experience, knowledge and imagination to flesh out the ghost words, yet the obstacles seemed not to impede me. On the contrary, the faded margins, the illegibilities, the blurred wor
ds seemed to pulse with meaning, vividly alive.

  While I was reading in this absorbed fashion, in another part of my mind entirely a decision was forming. When the train drew in at the station where I was to descend for my connection, I found my mind made up. I was not going home after all. I was going to Angelfield.

  The local-line train to Banbury was too crowded with Christmas travellers to sit, and I never read standing up. With every jolt of the train, every jostle and stumble of my fellow passengers, I felt the rectangle of Hester’s diary against my chest. I had only read half of it. The rest could wait.

  What happened to you, Hester? I thought. Where on earth did you go?

  Demolishing the Past

  The windows showed me his kitchen was empty, and when I walked back to the front of the cottage and knocked on the door, there was no answer.

  Might he have gone away? It was a time of year when people did go away. But they went to their families, surely, and so Aurelius, having no family, would stay here. Belatedly the reason for Aurelius’s absence occurred to me: he would be out delivering cakes for Christmas parties. Where else would a caterer be, just before Christmas? I would have to come back later. I put the card I had bought through the letterbox and set off through the woods towards Angelfield House.