I had not noticed until now, as I cycled along the avenue of chestnut trees, how seedy and run-down our home had begun to look. Its grass uncut, its hedges untrimmed, its gravel unraked, and its windows unwashed, the place had a look of neglect that snagged at my heart.
Not that it was Father’s fault. His lack of ready funds had caused him to narrow his personal world until there was little left to him but his own small study: a little haven—or was it a prison?—in which he could insulate himself from a demanding world behind a barricade of ancient and changeless postage stamps.
Nor could Dogger be blamed: He did as much as he was physically and mentally able. Sometimes, when he was up to being gardener, the house and its grounds looked as spruce as they did in those long-gone days when they had been photographed for Country Life. At other times, functioning simply as Father’s man was more than enough of a strain on his shattered nerves, and I, for one, gave thanks that Dogger was able even to manage Father’s boots.
His camp stool was nowhere in sight. Dogger had vanished to wherever it is that he vanishes.
As before, it was a matter of getting across the foyer and upstairs without being seen. If Daffy or Feely saw the state of my clothing, it would be a matter of seconds before Father had been tattled to, and if Father himself were the first to catch a glimpse of my filthy condition … well, I shuddered at the very thought of the tongue-lashing.
Thankfully, my mackintosh, having been washed by yesterday’s rain, was spotless. I turned up the collar and buttoned it from top to bottom. Who knows? I might even be praised for dressing warmly and keeping dry.
My feet were the only problem. Not only were they bare, shoeless, and sockless, they were also caked with the reeking remains of Cassandra Cottlestone.
I bent at the knees until the hem of my coat was touching the floor tiles, then waddled awkwardly across the foyer like a penguin, or perhaps like Mr. Pastry making his exit at the end of his pantomime, “The Passing Out Ceremony.” I must have looked as if I’d been sawn off at the knees, or driven into the ground like a tent peg.
I was halfway up the stairs when I heard footsteps in the upstairs hall.
Curses! I thought.
Legs appeared between the upper banisters: legs wearing black trousers.
A moment later, the rest of Dogger appeared.
“I shall be up directly with the hot water,” he said quietly from the corner of his mouth as he passed me on the stairs.
The man was uncanny.
I was soaking in my tin hip bath, trying not to think too hard about the various bits that were floating to the surface of the steaming stew. The hot water, in addition to my fatigue, must have caused me to nod off. One instant I was wrinkling like a dumpling and the next I was again at St. Tancred’s, sitting on the organ bench.
I watched with fascination as long white fingers stroked the keys, illuminated only by a pair of candles, one at each end of the music rack.
The rest of the church was in darkness.
Black notes flying across a white page. Black shadows of the hands flying like spiders across white ivory.
I recognized the music as Chopin’s funeral march: Feely had played it just two weeks ago as old Mrs. Fuller was led down the aisle for the last time.
Dum-dum-da-DUM, dum-da-DUM-da-DUM-da-DUM.
It had such an air of finality about it. Once you’re sent to the grave there’s no going back. Unless you’re dug up again, of course.
“Feely,” I said with a shudder, “do you think—”
I turned to look at my sister—but it was not Feely beside me on the organ bench.
The black, piggish snout turned slowly toward me in the darkness, its glassy eyes brimming with blood. Even before it spoke, I could smell its filthy rubber skin, the graveyard reek of its hot, rotting breath.
“Harriet,” the thing croaked. “Ha-r-r-i-et.”
I awoke screaming, my hands flailing the water and my feet thrashing. I leapt out of the tub, sending a tidal wave splashing onto the floor.
My teeth were chattering. My skin, in spite of the now tepid water, was icy cold. I lurched across the room, struggled into my bathrobe, and collapsed into a huddle on the bed.
It was all I could manage. My breath was still coming in ragged gasps, my heart pounding like a madman beating away on a drum.
There was a light knock at the door, but I could not find within myself whatever it took to answer. After a few moments, it opened slowly and Dogger’s face appeared.
“Are you all right?” he asked, sizing me up as he came across the room toward me.
I overcame the iron muscles in my neck just enough to nod stiffly.
Dogger touched my forehead with the inside of his wrist, then placed a thumb under the angle of my jaw.
“You’ve had a fright,” he said.
“It was a dream.”
“Ah,” he said, wrapping a quilt round my shoulders. “Dreams will sometimes do that. Lie down, please.”
As I stretched out on the bed, Dogger placed a pillow beneath my feet.
“Dreams,” he said. “Very beneficial things, dreams. Most useful.”
I must have looked at him with begging in my eyes.
“Fright can be remarkably healing,” he said. “It has been known even to cure gout and to alleviate fever.”
“Gout?” I murmured.
“A painful disease of elderly gentlemen who love their wine more than their livers.”
I think I smiled, but my eyelids were suddenly made of lead.
Iron neck, leaden eyes, I thought. I’m growing stronger.
And then I slept.