I changed into the nightdress and sat, white and ghostlike, on the bed. Listened as the rain continued to pour and the wind rattled the shutters, just as if someone were on the other side, struggling to get in. No—I pushed the thought aside, even managed to smile at myself. I was thinking of theMud Man,of course. Understandable when I was spending the night in the very place in which the novel was set, on a night that might have materialized from its pages.
I tucked myself under the covers and turned my thoughts to Percy. I’d brought my notebook with me and now I opened it, jotting down ideas as they came to me. Percy Blythe had given me the story of theMud Man’s genesis, which was a great coup. She’d also answered the mystery of Thomas Cavill’s disappearance. I should have felt relieved, and yet I was unsettled. The sensation was recent, something to do with what Saffy had told me. As she’d spoken of her father’s will, unpleasant connections were being made in my mind, little lights turning on that made me feel increasingly uncomfortable: Percy’s love for the castle, a will that specified its loss if Juniper should marry, Thomas Cavill’s unfortunate death …
But no. Percy had said it was an accident and I believed her.
I did. What reason did she have to lie? She might just as well have kept the whole thing to herself.
And yet …
Round and round the snippets went: Percy’s voice, then Saffy’s, and my own doubts thrown in for good measure. Not Juniper’s voice, though. I only ever seemed to hearaboutthe youngest Blythe, never from her. Finally, I closed my notebook with a slap.
That was enough for one day. I heaved a sigh and glanced through the books that Saffy had provided, seeking something that might still my mind:Jane Eyre, The Mysteries of Udolpho, Wuthering Heights. I grimaced—good friends, all, but not the sort with whom I felt like keeping company on this cold and stormy night.
I was tired, very tired, but I warded off the moment of sleep, loath to blow out the lamp and submit myself finally to the dark. Eventually, though, my eyelids began to droop, and after I’d jerked myself awake a few times, I figured I was tired enough for sleep to claim me quickly. I blew out the flame, closed my eyes as the smell of dying smoke thinned in the cold air around me. The last thing I remember is a rush of rain slipping down the glass.
IWOKEwith a jolt, suddenly and unnaturally at an unknown hour. I lay very still, listening. Waiting, wondering what it was that had woken me. The hairs on my arms were standing on end and I had the strongest, eeriest sense that I was not alone, that there was someone in the room with me. I scanned the shadows, my heart hammering, dreading what I might see.
I saw nothing, but I knew. Someone was there.
I held my breath and listened, but it was still raining outside and with the howling wind rattling the shutters, its wraiths gliding along the stone corridor, there was little chance of hearing anything else. I had no matches and no means of relighting my lamp, so I talked myself back to a state of comparative calm. I told myself it was my pre-sleep thoughts, my obsession with theMud Man. I’d dreamed a noise. I was imagining things.
And just when I had myself almost convinced, there was a huge lightning flash and I saw that my bedroom door was open. Saffy had closed it behind her. I’d been right. Someonehadbeen in the room with me, was still there, perhaps, waiting in the shadows—
“Meredith …”
Every vertebra in my body straightened. My heart pounded, my pulse ran electric in my veins. That wasn’t the wind or the walls; someone had whispered Mum’s name. I was petrified and yet a strange energy gripped me. I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t sit the entire night out, wrapped in my blanket, wide eyes scanning the dark room.
The last thing I wanted to do was get out of bed, but I did. I slid across the sheet and made my way on tiptoe to the door. The handle was cool, smooth beneath my hand, and I pulled it lightly, noiselessly towards me, stepping out to scan the corridor.
“Meredith …”
I almost screamed. It was right behind me.
I turned, slowly, and there was Juniper. She was wearing the same dress she’d put on during my first visit to Milderhurst, the dress—I knew now—that Saffy had made for her to wear when Thomas Cavill came to dinner.
“Juniper,” I whispered. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been waiting for you, Merry. I knew you’d come. I have it for you. I’ve been keeping it safe.”
I had no idea what she meant, but she handed me something rather bulky. Firm edge, sharp angles, not too heavy. “Thank you,” I said.
In the half-light, her smile faltered. “Oh, Meredith,” she said, “I’ve done a terrible, terrible thing.”
Which was precisely what she’d said to Saffy in the corridor at the end of my tour. My pulse began to beat a little faster. It was wrong to question her, but I couldn’t help saying, “What is it? What did you do?”
“Tom is coming soon. He’s coming for dinner.”
I felt so sad for her then; she’d been waiting for him fifty years, convinced she’d been abandoned. “Of course he is,” I said. “Tom loves you. He wants to marry you.”
“Tom loves me.”
“Yes.”
“And I love him.”
“I know you do.”
And just as I was enjoying the warm, pleased feeling of having swept her mind back to a happy place, her hands leaped to her mouth in horror and she said, “But there was blood, Meredith …”
