The Thirteenth Tale

I went to get the ladder from the shed to trim the big bowler hat, and the ladder was gone. The boy I didn't like was in the kitchen garden with the rake. I went up to him, scowling. 'Where's the ladder?' It was the first time I had spoken to him.

He ignored my brusqueness and answered me politely. 'Mr. Digence took it. He's around the front, fixing the roof.'

I helped myself to one of the cigarettes John had left in the shed, and smoked it, sending mean looks to the boy, who eyed it enviously. Then I sharpened the pruning shears. Then, liking the sharpening, I sharpened the garden knife, taking my time, doing it well. All the time, behind the rhythm of the stone against the blade, was the rhythm of the boy's rake over the soil. Then I looked at the sun and thought it was getting late to be starting on the large bowler hat. Then I went to find John.

The ladder was lying on the ground. Its two sections made a crazy clock-hands angle; the metal channel that was supposed to hold them at a constant six o'clock had been wrenched from the wood, and great splinters protruded from the gash in the side rail. Beside the ladder lay John. He did not move when I touched his shoulder, but he was warm as the sun that touched his splayed limbs and his bloodied hair. He was staring straight up into the clear blue sky, but the blue of his eyes was strangely overcast. The sensible girl deserted me. All of a sudden I was only myself, just a stupid child, almost nothing at all.

'What shall I do?' I whispered.

'What shall I do}' My voice frightened me.

Stretched out on the ground, with John's hand clutched in mine and shards of gravel digging into my temple, I watched time pass. The shadow of the library bay spread across the gravel and reached the farthest rungs of the ladder. Rung after rung it crept up the ladder toward us. It reached the safety catch.

The safety catch. Why had John not checked the safety catch? Surely he would have checked it? Of course he would. But if he did check it, then how… why…?

It didn't bear thinking about.

Rung, after rung, after rung, the shadow of the bay crept nearer and nearer. It reached John's worsted trousers, then his green shirt, then his hair-how thin his hair had grown! Why had I not taken better care of him?

It didn't bear thinking about. Yet how not to think? While I was noticing the whiteness of John's hair, I noticed, too, the deep grooves cut into the earth by the feet of the ladder as it lurched away from under him. No other signs. Gravel is not sand or snow or even newly dug earth. It does not hold a footprint. No trace to show how someone might have come, how they might have loitered at the base of the ladder, how, when they had finished what they came for, they calmly walked away. For all the gravel could tell me, it might have been a ghost.

Everything was cold. The gravel, John's hand, my heart.

I stood up and left John without looking back. I went around the house to the kitchen garden. The boy was still there; he was putting the rake and the broom away. He stopped when he saw me approach, stared at me. And then, when I stopped-Don't faint/ Don't faint 11 told myself-he came running forward to catch me. I watched him as though from a long, long way away. And I didn't faint. Not quite. Instead, when he came close, I felt a voice rise up inside myself, words that I didn't choose to say, but which forced their way out of my strangled throat. 'Why doesn't anybody help me?'

He grasped me under my arms; I slumped against him; he helped me gently down to the grass. 'I'll help you,' he said. 'I will.'

With the death of John-the-dig still fresh in my mind, the vision of Miss Winter's face, bereft, still dominating my memory, I barely noticed the letter that was waiting for me in my room.

I didn't open it until I had finished my transcription, and when I did, there wasn't much to it.

Dear Miss Lea,

After all the assistance your father has given me over the years, may I say how glad I am to be able in some small way to return the favor to his daughter.

My initial researches in the United Kingdom have revealed no indicationof the whereabouts of Miss Hester Barrow after her period of employment at Angelfield. I have found a certain number of documents relating to her life before that period, and I am compiling a report that you should have within a few weeks.

My researches are by no means at an end. I have not yet exhausted my investigation of the Italian connection, and it is more than likely that some detail arising from the early years will throw up a new line of inquiry.

Do not despair! If your governess can be found, I will find her. Yours sincerely, Emmanuel Drake

I put the letter away in a drawer, then pulled on my coat and gloves. 'Come on, then,' I said to Shadow.

He followed me downstairs and outdoors, and we took the path along the side of the house. Here and there a shrub grown against the wall caused the path to drift; imperceptibly it led away from the wall, away from the house, to the mazelike enticements of the garden. I resisted its easy curve and continued straight on. Keeping the house wall always on my left meant squeezing behind an ever-widening thicket of densely grown, mature shrubs. Their gnarled stems caught my ankles;I had to wrap my scarf around my face to avoid being scratched. The cat accompanied me so far, then stopped, overwhelmed by the thickness o(the undergrowth.

I kept going. And I found what I was looking for. A window, almost overgrown with ivy, and with such a denseness of evergreen leaf between it and the garden that the glimmer of light escaping from it would never be noticed.

Directly inside the window, Miss Winter's sister sat at a table. Opposite her was Judith. She was spooning mouthfuls of soup between the invalid's raw, patched lips. Suddenly, midway between bowl and mouth, Judith paused and looked directly toward me. She couldn't see me; there was too much ivy. She must have felt the touch of my gaze. After a moment's pause, she turned back to her task and carried on. But not before I had noticed something strange about the spoon. It was a silver spoon with an elongated A in the form of a stylized angel ornamenting the handle.

I had seen a spoon like that before. A. Angel. Angelfield. Emmeline had a spoon like that, and so did Aurelius.

Keeping flat to the wall, and with the branches tangling in my hair, I wriggled back out of the shrubbery. The cat watched me as I brushed the bits of broken twig and dead leaves from my sleeves and shoulders.

'Inside?' I suggested, and he was more than happy to concur.

Mr. Drake hadn't been able to trace Hester for me. On the other hand, I had found Emmeline.

THE ETERNAL TWILIGHT

In my study I transcribed; in the garden I wandered; in my bedroom I stroked the cat and held off my nightmares by staying awake. The moonlit night when I had seen Emmeline appear in the garden seemed like a dream to me now, for the sky had closed in again, and we were immersed once more in the endless twilight.

With the deaths of the Missus and now John-the-dig, an additional chill crept into Miss Winter's story. Was it Emmeline-that alarming figure in the garden-who had tampered with the ladder? I could only wait and let the story reveal itself. Meanwhile, with December waxing, the shadow hovering at my window grew always more intense. Her closeness repelled me, her distance broke my heart, every sight of her evoked in me the familiar combination of fear and longing.

I got to the library in advance of Miss Winter-morning or afternoon or evening, I don't know, they were all the same by now-and stood by the window to wait. My pale sister pressed her fingers to mine, trapped me in her imploring gaze, misted the glass with her cool breath. I only had to break the glass, and I could join her.