The Woman In The Mirror: A haunting gothic story of obsession, tinged with suspense. Rebecca James
curtsey to the king.
‘Speak of the devils,’ she says, ‘here they come now. Would you like to come and meet them, miss? Edmund and Constance de Grey. They’ve been so looking forward to this.’
The twins run straight into me, their arms around my waist. It almost knocks me over. I laugh, as if being greeted by dogs, friendly, tails wagging, craving attention.
‘Miss Miller, Miss Miller, what a delight!’ The girl looks up at me, impossibly pretty, her grin wide to expose a row of little teeth, as neat as a bracelet. A velvet clip holds her blonde ringlets back and her blue eyes are shining. She has the face of a doll, precise and sweet, with a dimple in her chin that you struggle not to press with your thumb. She is the loveliest thing I have ever seen.
‘Oh, call me Alice!’ I say.
‘May we play with her, Father?’ the boy says, and only then do I realise that the captain is present, his cane in hand. It must be an effort for him to stand because he lowers himself into a chair by the fire. ‘May we please?’
‘Be gentle, Edmund,’ he answers.
Looking at Edmund, it is impossible to imagine the boy being anything but. For all their twinship, the children do not look alike. Edmund has been blessed with copper curls, a crop of them that shine like burnished gold. Across his nose is a light dusting of freckles, and his skin is porcelain-pale and smooth as cream.
They are a pair of angels. Constance tugs my hand and I crouch so I can look up at them both. I have never seen two such innocent faces, shining with happiness and every good thing. ‘I have something for you,’ Constance whispers. Edmund nudges her: ‘Give it to her, silly!’ Constance fishes in the pocket of her dress.
It’s a chain, woven out of grass. The thought is so pure and touching that for a moment I don’t know what to say. Nobody told me how enchanting these children were, not my contact in London, not Tom, not Mrs Yarrow, not even Jonathan de Grey. But enchanting they are, smiling down at me, awaiting my response.
‘How clever of you,’ I say, admiring the grass. ‘And how kind.’
‘Put it on, put it on!’ Constance helps me.
In a flash I am reminded of another time, another bracelet, somebody else helping me to fasten the clasp. That bracelet was gold, and if I concentrate hard I can feel his thumbs on that part of my wrist, over my pulse, his skin warm against mine…
‘There!’ cries Constance triumphantly.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘doesn’t that look splendid.’
‘Capital!’ agrees Edmund.
‘Miss Miller is going to be tired,’ says their father. I glance at him, and for an odd, unaccountable moment the four of us seem absolutely right, together in this dim hall, with Mrs Yarrow hanging dutifully back, as if we are the family, and I am the wife, and I am the mother… The impression vanishes as soon as it appears.
‘She says we can call her Alice!’ says Constance, tugging at my hand once more, her fingers looped through mine. It’s infectious, I’ll admit, and I laugh. It sounds unfamiliar in my throat, girlish, as if it’s a younger me making the sound.
‘Very well,’ says the captain. ‘Alice,’ he pauses, tasting my name: I see him taste it, ‘will be tired. You’re to let her rest this evening. Tomorrow is another day.’
‘But we can’t sleep,’ objects Edmund. ‘We want to play with her – please, Father? Please may we play with her, please?’
The captain stands, his cane striking the floor in a deafening blow. Mrs Yarrow gasps. I get to my feet. The children drop my hands.
‘Do I need to repeat myself?’ the captain says.
Edmund shakes his head.
‘Did you hear me the first time, boy?’
The child nods.
‘Then I neither expect nor welcome your protest. You are to follow my instructions to the letter, do you understand? And, from tonight, you are to follow Miss Miller’s.’ He turns to me. ‘Miss Miller, if you would…?’ I try not to feel afraid, for the growl of his voice and the thunder of his cane casts a shadow across the house.
‘Up to bed, children,’ I say softly. ‘Cook will bring you some cocoa.’
The children retreat, sloping upstairs like kittens in the rain. It troubles me to see the spirit pinched out of them. It troubles me how fast the captain’s temper caught light. Now he bids us goodnight and slips away to another part of the house.
‘The captain prefers the children to be seen and not heard,’ says Mrs Yarrow.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I rather got that impression.’
*
Morning arrives with a burst of sunshine. I wake in my four-poster bed, shrugging off a deep, dreamless sleep, the likes of which I haven’t had since before the war, and go straight to the window to welcome the day. Despite the thick drapes, sunlight razes through the cracks like an outline of fire. I pull them open and let it in. The sea is green today, light, sparkling green, and the sky above a hazy blue. I prise open the window, a hook on a rusted latch, and a draught of fresh, salty air hits my nostrils. I feel like a girl on Christmas morning. I cannot wait to see the twins once more.
When I tie back the curtains, I spy that painting again – the little girl looking out of the cottage. She has one hand flat against the panes, a detail I hadn’t noticed yesterday. The hand is raised as if in greeting or acknowledgement. Or warning.
A bell sounds downstairs. It makes me jump. I feel as I did at Burstead, late for breakfast, the house matrons stalking the corridors with their starched bosoms and shrill whistles. ‘Come on, Miller! Get dressed, Miller! What are you doing, girl?’
In minutes I’m downstairs – but the bell wasn’t for me, of course, it was for the children. Mrs Yarrow has bowls of porridge steaming on the table, decorated with honey and walnuts. ‘Did you sleep well, miss?’ she asks me.
‘Very well, thank you.’
‘You didn’t hear the dogs?’
‘What dogs?’
‘We’ve got a wandering madcap,’ she rattles cutlery out of a drawer, ‘Marlin, they call him. Well, he’s got these giant hounds and walks them on the cliffs at night.’ She lays the spoons on the table. ‘God knows why, miss. And they make the most terrible noise, howling and yowling and yelping at the moon. It used to keep Madam awake something rotten. The children, too, when they were babes. Luckily he doesn’t come as close to Winterbourne as he used to, since the captain and he had words. But do you know what this man Marlin said to the captain? He said: It’s your house that makes my dogs afraid. It’s your house that’s the trouble. So the captain says not to bother walking them round here again, if that’s the way he feels. But still he does.’
‘Is he a local man?’
‘Lived here for years. Not the most sociable person you’ll meet.’
‘I do like dogs. What breed are they?’
The cook goes to the bell a second time, rings it. ‘You won’t like these ones, miss. These aren’t right. They’re great snarling things with huge teeth, and paws that could fell a man in a stroke. To think of them being scared by a big old house is a nonsense. The captain chooses not to let it vex him, but I hate to hear them at night.’
‘I didn’t hear them.’
She turns her back. ‘You must have slept soundly.’
We are interrupted by the children’s arrival, a tornado of gold and copper and neatly pressed shirts and shorts,