‘Clean and quick,“ he reminded me. He doubted me, I could tell from his voice.
I was going to kill the bird. I had decided to kill the bird. So, gripping the bird’s neck, I squeezed. But my hands would only half obey me. A strangled cry of alarm flew from the bird’s throat, and for a second I hesitated. With a muscular twist and a flap, the bird slipped from under my arm. It was only because I was struck by the paralysis of panic that I still had it by the neck. Wings beating, claws flailing wildly at the air, almost it lurched away from me.
Swiftly, powerfully, the boy took the bird out of my grasp and in a single movement he had done it.
He held the body out to me; I forced myself to take it. Warm, heavy, still.
The sun shone on his hair as he looked at me. His look was worse than the claws, worse than the beating wings. Worse than the limp body in my hands.
Without a word he turned his back and walked away.
What good was the boy to me? My heart was not mine to give; it belonged to another, and always had. I loved Emmeline.
I believe that Emmeline loved me, too. Only she loved Adeline more. It is a painful thing to love a twin. When Adeline was there, Emmeline’s heart was full. She had no need of me, and I was left on the outside, a cast-off, a superfluity, a mere observer of the twins and their twinness.
Only when Adeline went roaming alone was there space in Emmeline’s heart for another. Then her sorrow was my joy. Little by little I coaxed her away from her loneliness, offering gifts of silver thread and shiny baubles, until she almost forgot she had been abandoned and gave herself over to the friendship and companionship I could offer. By a fire we played cards, sang, talked. Together we were happy.
Until Adeline came back. Furious with cold and hunger, she would come raging into the house, and the instant she was there, our world of two came to an end, and I was on the outside again.
It wasn’t fair. Though Adeline beat her and pulled her hair, Emmeline loved her. Though Adeline abandoned her, Emmeline loved her.
Whatever Adeline did, it altered nothing, for Emmeline’s love was total. And me? My hair was copper like Adeline’s. My eyes were green like Adeline’s. In the absence of Adeline, I could fool anyone. But I never fooled Emmeline. Her heart knew the truth.
Emmeline had her baby in January.
No one knew. As she had grown bigger, so she had grown lazier; it was no hardship for her to keep to the confines of the house. She was content to stay inside, yawning in the library, the kitchen, her bedroom. Her retreat was not noticed. Why should it have been? The only visitor to the house was Mr. Lomax; he came on regular days at regular hours. Easy as pie to have her out of the way by the time he knocked on the door.
Our contact with other people was slight. For meat and vegetables we were self-sufficient—I never learned to like killing chickens, but I learned to do it. As for other provisions, I went to the farm in person to collect cheese and milk, and when once a week the shop sent a boy on a bicycle with our other requirements, I met him on the drive and carried the basket to the house myself. I thought it would be a sensible precaution to have another twin seen by someone at least from time to time. Once, when Adeline seemed calm enough, I gave her the coin and sent her to meet the boy on the bicycle. “It was the other one today,” I imagined him saying, back at the shop. “The weird one.” And I wondered what the doctor would make of it if the boy’s account reached his ears. But it soon grew impossible to use Adeline like this again. Emmeline’s pregnancy affected her twin curiously: For the first time in her life she discovered an appetite. From being a scrawny bag of bones, she developed plump curves and full breasts. There were times—in half-light, from certain angles—when for a moment even I could not tell them apart. So from time to time on a Wednesday morning, I would be Adeline. I would mess my hair, grime my nails, set my face into a tight, agitated mask and go down the drive to meet the boy on the bicycle. Seeing the speed of my gait as I came down the gravel drive to meet him, he would know it was the other one. I could see his fingers curl anxiously around his handlebars. Watching me surreptitiously, he handed over the basket, then he pocketed his tip and was glad to bicycle away. The following week, when he was met by me as myself, his smile had a touch of relief in it.
Hiding the pregnancy was not difficult. But I was troubled during those months of waiting about the birth itself. I knew what the dangers of labor might be. Isabelle’s mother had not survived her second labor, and I could not put this thought out of my head for more than a few hours at a time. That Emmeline should suffer, that her life should be put in danger—this was unthinkable. On the other hand, the doctor had been no friend of ours and I did not want him at the house. He had seen Isabelle and taken her away. That could not be allowed to happen to Emmeline. He had separated Emmeline and Adeline. That could not be allowed to happen to Emmeline and me. Besides, how could he come without there being immediate complications? And although he had been persuaded, though he did not understand it, that the girl in the mist had broken through the carapace of the mute rag-doll Adeline who had once spent several months with him, if he were once to realize that there were three girls at Angelfield House, he would immediately see the truth of the affair. For a single visit, for the birth itself, I could lock Adeline in the old nursery, and we might get away with it. But once it was known there was a baby in the house, there would be no end of visits. It would be impossible to keep our secret.
I was well aware of the fragility of my position. I knew I belonged here, I knew it was my place. I had no home but Angelfield, no love but Emmeline, no life but this one here, yet I was under no illusions about how tenuous my claim would seem to others. What friends did I have? The doctor could hardly be expected to speak up for me, and though Mr. Lomax was kind to me now, once he knew I had impersonated Adeline, it was inevitable that his attitude would alter. Emmeline’s affection for me and mine for her would count as nothing.
Emmeline herself, ignorant and placid, let the days of her confinement pass by untroubled. For me the time was spent in an agony of indecision. How to keep Emmeline safe? How to keep myself safe? Every day I put off the decision to the next. During the first months I felt sure the solution would come to me in time. Had I not resolved everything else, against the odds? Then this, too, could be arranged. But as the time grew nearer, the problem grew more urgent and I was no nearer a decision. I veered in the space of a minute between grabbing my coat to go to the doctor’s house, there and then, to tell him everything, and the contrary thought: that to do so was to reveal myself, and that to reveal myself could only lead to my banishment. Tomorrow, I told myself, as I replaced my coat on the hook. I will think of something tomorrow.
But then it was too late for tomorrow.
I woke to a cry. Emmeline!
But it was not Emmeline. Emmeline was huffing and panting; like a beast she snorted and sweated; her eyes bulged and she showed her teeth, but she did not cry out. She ate her pain and it turned to strength inside her. The cry that had woken me, and the cries that continued to resound all around the house, were not hers but Adeline’s, and they did not cease till morning, when Emmeline’s infant, a boy, was delivered.
It was the seventh of January.
Emmeline slept; she smiled in her sleep.
I bathed the baby. He opened his eyes and goggled, astounded by the touch of the warm water.
The sun rose.
The time for decisions had come and gone, and no decision had been made, yet here we were, on the other side of disaster, and we were safe.
My life could go on.
FIRE
Miss Winter seemed to sense the arrival of Judith, for when the housekeeper looked around the edge of the door, she found us in silence. She had brought me cocoa on a tray but also offered to replace me if I wanted to sleep. I shook my head. “I’m all right, thanks.”
Miss Winter also refused when Judith reminded her she could take more of the white tablets if she needed them.
When Judith was gone, Miss Winter closed her eyes again.
‘How is the wolf?“ I asked.
‘Quiet in the corner,“ she said. ”Why shouldn’t he be? He is certain of his victory. So he’s content to bide his time. He knows I’m not going to make a fuss. We’ve agreed to terms.“
‘What terms?“
‘He is going to let me finish my story, and then I am going to let him finish me.“
She told me the story of the fire, while the wolf counted down the words.
I had never given a great deal of thought to the baby before he arrived. I had considered the practical aspects of hiding a baby in the house, certainly, and I had a plan for his future. If we could keep him secret for a time, my intention was to allow his presence to be known later. Though it would no doubt be whispered about, he could be introduced as the orphan child of a distant member of the family, and if people chose to wonder about his exact parentage, they were free to do so; nothing they could do would force us to reveal the truth. When making these plans, I had envisaged the baby as a difficulty that needed to be resolved. I had not taken into account that he was my flesh and blood. I had not expected to love him.
He was Emmeline’s, that was reason enough. He was Ambrose’s. That was a subject I did not dwell on. But he was also mine. I marveled at his pearly skin, at the pink jut of his lips, at the tentative movements of his tiny hands. The ferocity of my desire to protect him overwhelmed me: I wanted to protect him for Emmeline’s sake, to protect her for his sake, to protect the two of them for myself. Watching him and Emmeline together, I could not drag my eyes away. They were beautiful. My one desire was to keep them safe. And I soon learned that they needed a guardian to keep them safe.
Adeline was jealous of the baby. More jealous than she had been of Hester, more jealous than of me. It was only to be expected: Emmeline had been fond of Hester, she loved me, but neither of these affections had touched the supremacy of her feeling for Adeline. But the baby… ah, the baby was different. The baby usurped all.
I should not have been surprised at the extent of Adeline’s hatred. I knew how ugly her anger could be, had witnessed the extent of her violence. Yet the day I first understood the lengths she might go to, I could scarcely believe it. Passing Emmeline’s bedroom, I silently pushed the door open to see if she was still sleeping. I found Adeline in the room, leaning over the crib by the bed, and something in her posture alarmed me. Hearing my step, she started, then turned and rushed past me out of the room. In her hands she clutched a small cushion.
I felt compelled to dash to the cot. The infant was sleeping soundly, hand curled by his ear, breathing his light, delicate baby breath.
Safe!
Until next time.
I began to spy on Adeline. My old days of haunting came in useful again as from behind curtains and yew trees I watched her. There was a randomness in her actions; indoors or outdoors, taking no notice of the time of day or the weather, she engaged in meaningless, repeated actions. She was obeying dictates that were outside my understanding. But gradually one activity came particularly to my attention. Once, twice, three times a day, she came to the coach house and left it again, carrying a can of petrol with her each time. She took the can to the drawing room, or the library or the garden. Then she would seem to lose interest. She knew what she was doing, but distantly, half forgetful. When she wasn’t looking I took the cans away. Whatever did she make of the disappearing cans? She must have thought they had some animus of their own, that they could move about at will. Or perhaps she took her memories of moving them for dreams or plans yet to be realized. Whatever the reason, she did not seem to find it strange that they were not where she had left them. Yet despite the waywardness of the petrol cans, she persisted in fetching them from the coach house, and secreting them in various places around the house.
I seemed to spend half my day returning the cans to the coach louse. But one day, not wanting to leave Emmeline and the baby asleep and unprotected, I put one instead in the library. Out of sight, behind he books, on an upper shelf. And it occurred to me that perhaps this was a better place. Because, by always returning them to the coach house, all I was doing was ensuring that it would go on forever. A merry-go-round. By removing them from the circuit altogether, perhaps I might put an end to the rigmarole.
Watching her tired me out, but she! She never tired. A little sleep went a long way with her. She could be up and about at any hour of the night. And I was getting sleepy. One day, in the early evening, Emmeline went to bed. The boy was in his cot in her room. He’d been colicky, awake and wailing all day, but now, feeling better, he slept soundly.
I drew the curtains.
It was time to go and check on Adeline. I was tired of always being vigilant. Watching Emmeline and her child while they slept, watching Adeline while they were awake, I hardly slept at all. How peaceful it was in the room. Emmeline’s breathing, slowing me down, relaxing me. And alongside it, the light touch of air that was the baby breathing. I remember listening to them, the harmony of it, thinking how tranquil it was, thinking of a way of describing it—that was how I always entertained myself, the putting into words of things I saw and heard—and I thought I would have to describe how the breathing seemed to penetrate me, take over my breath, as though we were all part of the same thing, me and Emmeline and our baby, all three one breath. It took hold of me, this idea, and I felt myself drifting off with them, into sleep.
Something woke me. Like a cat I was alert before I ever had my eyes open. I didn’t move, kept my breathing regular, and watched Adeline from between my lashes.
She bent over the cot, lifted the baby and was on her way out of the room. I could have called out to stop her. But I didn’t. If I had cried out, she would have postponed her plan, whereas by letting her go on with it, I could find out what she intended and put a stop to it once and for all. The baby stirred in her arms. He was thinking about waking up. He didn’t like to be in anyone’s arms but Emmeline’s, and a baby is not taken in by a twin.
I followed her downstairs to the library and peeped through the door that she had left ajar. The baby was on the desk, next to the pile of books that were never reshelved because I reread them so frequently. Next to their neat rectangle I saw movement in the folds of the baby’s blanket. I heard his muffled half grunts. He was awake.
Kneeling by the fireside was Adeline. She took coals from the scuttle, logs from their place by the hearth, and deposited them haphazardly in the fireplace. She did not know how to make a proper fire. I had learned from the Missus the correct arrangement of paper, kindling, coals and logs; Adeline’s fires were wild and random affairs that ought not to burn at all.
The realization of what she intended slowly unfolded in me. She would not succeed, would she? There was only a shadow of warmth in the ashes, not enough to relight coals or logs, and I never left kindling or matches in reach. Hers was a mad fire; it couldn’t catch; I knew it couldn’t. But I could not reassure myself. Her desire for flames was all the kindling she needed. All she had to do was look at something for it to spark. The incendiary magic she possessed was so strong she could set fire to water if she wanted to badly enough.
In horror I watched her place the baby on the coals, still wrapped in his blanket.
Then she looked about the room. What was she after? When she made for the door and opened it, I jumped back into the shadows. But she had not discovered my spying. It was something else she was after. She turned into the passage under the stairs and disappeared.
I ran to the fireplace and removed the baby from the pyre. I trapped his blanket quickly around a moth-eaten bolster from the chaise lounge and put it on the coals in his place. But there was no time to flee. I heard steps on the stone flags, a dragging noise that was the sound of a petrol can scraping on the floor, and the door opened just as I stepped back into one of the library bays.
Hush, I prayed silently, don’t cry now, and I held the infant close to my body so he would not miss the warmth of his blanket.
Back at the fireplace, head on one side, Adeline surveyed her fire. What was wrong? Had she noticed the change? But it appeared not. She looked around the room. What was it she wanted?
The baby stirred, a jerk of the arms, a kick of the legs, a tensing of e backbone that is so often the precursor to a wail. I resettled him,:ad heavy on my shoulder; I felt his breath on my neck. Don’t cry. ease don’t cry. He was still again, and I watched.
My books. On the desk. The ones I couldn’t pass without opening at random, for the pleasure of a few words, a quick hello. How incongruous to see them in her hands. Adeline and books? It looked all wrong. Even when she opened the cover, I thought for one long, bizarre moment that she was going to read—
She tore out pages by the fistful. She scattered them all over the desk; some slid off, onto the floor. When she had done with the ripping, she grabbed handfuls of them and screwed them into loose balls. Fast! She was a whirlwind! My neat little volumes, suddenly a paper mountain. To think a book could have so much paper in it! I wanted to cry out, but what? All the words, the beautiful words, pulled apart and crumpled up, and I, in the shadows, speechless.
She gathered an armful and released it onto the top of the white blanket in the fireplace. Three times I watched her turn from the desk to the fireplace, her arms full of pages, until the hearth was heaped high with torn-up books. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Woman in White… Balls of paper toppled from the height of the pyre, some rolled as far as the carpet, joining those that she had dropped en route.
One came to a stop at my feet, and silently I dropped down to retrieve it.
Oh! The outrageous sensation of crumpled paper; words gone wild, flying in all directions, senseless. My heart broke.
Anger swept me up; it carried me like a piece of flotsam, unable to see or breathe; it roared like an ocean in my head. I might have cried out, leaped like a mad thing from my hiding place and struck her, but I had Emmeline’s treasure in my arms, and so I stood by and watched, trembling, weeping in silence, as her sister desecrated the treasure that was mine.
At last she was satisfied with her pyre. Yet whichever way you looked at it, the mountain in the hearth was madness itself. It’s all upside down, the Missus would have said; it’ll never light—you want the paper at the bottom. But even if she had built it properly, it would make no difference. She couldn’t light it: She had no matches. And even if she had been able to obtain matches, still she would not achieve her purpose, for the boy, her intended victim, was in my arms. And the greatest madness of all: Supposing I hadn’t been there to stop her? Supposing I hadn’t rescued the infant and she had burned him alive? How could she ever imagine that burning her sister’s child would restore her sister to her?
It was the fire of a madwoman.
In my arms the baby stirred and opened his mouth to mewl. What to do? Behind Adeline’s back I softly retreated, then fled to the kitchen.
I must get the baby to a place of safety, then deal with Adeline later. My mind was working furiously, proposing plan after plan. Emmeline will have no love left for her sister when she realizes what she tried to do. It will be she and I now. We will tell the police that Adeline killed John-the-dig, and they will take her away. No! We will tell Adeline that unless she leaves Angelfield we will tell the police… No! And then suddenly I have it! We will leave Angelfield. Yes! Emmeline and I will leave, with the baby, and we will start a new life, without Adeline, without Angelfield, but together.
And it all seems so simple I wonder I never thought of it before.
With the future glowing so brightly it seems realer than the present, I put the page from Jane Eyre in the game bag as well, for safekeeping, and a spoon that is on the kitchen table. We will need that, en route to our new life.
Now where? Somewhere not far from the house, where there is nothing to hurt him, where he will be warm enough for the few minutes it will take me to come back to the house and fetch Emmeline and persuade her to follow…
Not the coach house. Adeline sometimes goes there. The church. That is a place she never goes.
I run down the drive, through the lych-gate and into the church. In the front rows are small tapestry cushions for kneeling. I arrange them into a bed and lay the baby on them in his canvas papoose.
Now, back to the house.
I am almost there when my future shatters. Shards of glass flying through the air, one breaking window then another, and a sinister, living light prowling in the library. The empty window frame shows me liquid fire spraying the room, petrol cans bursting in the heat. And two figures.
Emmeline!
I run. The odor of fire catches my nostrils even in the entrance hall, though the stone floor and walls are cool—the fire has no hold here. But at the door of the library I stop. Flames chase each other up the curtains; bookshelves are ablaze; the fireplace itself is an inferno. In the center of the room, the twins. For a moment, in all the noise and heat of the fire, I stop dead. Amazed. For Emmeline, the passive, docile Emmeline, is returning blow for blow, kick for kick, bite for bite. She has never retaliated against her sister before, but now she is doing it. For her child.
Around them, above their heads, one burst of light after another as the petrol cans explode and fire rains down upon the room.
I open my mouth to call to Emmeline that the baby is safe, but the first breath I draw in is nothing but heat, and I choke.
I hop over fire, step around it, dodge the fire that falls on me from above, brush fire away with my hands, beat out the fire that grows in my clothes. When I reach the sisters I cannot see them, but reach blindly through the smoke. My touch startles them and they draw apart instantly. There is a moment when I see Emmeline, see her clearly, and she sees me. I grip her hand and pull her, through the flames, through the fire, and we reach the door. But when she realizes what I am doing—leading her away from the fire to safety—she stops. I tug at her.
‘He’s safe.“ My words come in a croak, but they are clear enough.
Why doesn’t she understand?
I try again. “The baby. I have saved him.”
Surely she has heard me? Inexplicably she resists my tug, and her hand slips from mine. Where is she? I can see only blackness.
I stumble forward into the flames, collide with her form, grasp her and pull.
Still she won’t stay with me, turns once more into the room. Why?
She is bound to her sister. She is bound.
Blind and with my lungs burning, I follow her into the smoke. I will break the bond.
Eyes closed against the heat, I plunge into the library, arms ahead of me, searching. When my hands reach her in the smoke, I do not let her go. I will not have her die. I will save her. And though she resists, I drag her ferociously to the door and out of it.
The door is made of oak. It is heavy. It doesn’t burn easily. I push it shut behind us, and the latch engages.
Beside me, she steps forward, about to open it again. It is something stronger than fire that pulls her into that room.
The key that sits in the lock, unused since the days of Hester, is hot. ft burns my palm as I turn it. Nothing else hurts me that night, but the key sears my palm and I smell my flesh as it chars. Emmeline puts out a land to clutch the key and open it again. The metal burns her, and as she feels the shock of it, I pull her hand away.
A great cry fills my head. Is it human? Or is it the sound of the fire itself? I don’t even know whether it is coming from inside the room or outside with me. From a guttural start it gathers strength as it rises, reaches a shrill peak of intensity, and when I think it must be at the end of its breath, it continues, impossibly low, impossibly long, boundless sound that fills the world and engulfs it and contains it.
And then the sound is gone and there is only the roar of the fire.
Outdoors. Rain. The grass is soaked. We sink to the ground; we roll in the wet grass to damp our smoldering clothes and hair, feel the cool wet on our scorched flesh. On our backs we rest there, flat against the earth. I open my mouth and drink the rain. It falls on my face, cools my eyes, and I can see again. Never has there been a sky like it, deep indigo with fast-moving slate-black clouds, the rain coming down in blade edges of silver, and every so often a plume, a spray of bright orange from the house, a fountain of fire. A bolt of lightning cracks the sky in two, then again, and again.
The baby. I must tell Emmeline about the baby. She will be happy that I have saved him. It will make things all right.
I turn to her and open my mouth to speak. Her face—
Her poor beautiful face is black and red, all smoke and blood and fire.
Her eyes, her green gaze, ravaged, unseeing, unknowing.
I look at her face and cannot find my beloved in it.
‘Emmeline?“ I whisper. ”Emmeline?“
She does not reply.
I feel my heart die. What have I done? Have I…? Is it possible that…?
I cannot bear to know.
I cannot bear not to know.
‘Adeline?“ My voice is a broken thing.
But she—this person, this someone, this one or the other, this might or might not be, this darling, this monster, this I don’t know who she is—does not reply.
People are coming. Running up the drive, voices calling urgently in the night.
I rise to a crouch and scuttle away. Keeping low. Hiding. They reach the girl on the grass, and when I am sure they have found her I leave them to it. In the church I put the satchel over my shoulder, clutching the baby in his papoose to my side, and set off.
It is quiet in the woods. The rain, slowed by the canopy of leaves, falls softly on the undergrowth. The child whimpers, then sleeps. My feet carry me to a small house on the other edge of the woods. I know the house. I have seen it often during my haunting years. A woman lives there, alone. Spying her through the window knitting or baking, I have always thought she looks nice, and when I read about kindly grandmothers and fairy godmothers in my books, I supply them with her face.
I take the baby to her. I glance in at the window, as I have before, see her in her usual place by the fire, knitting. Thoughtful and quiet. She is undoing her knitting. Just sitting there pulling the stitches out, with the needles on the table beside her. There is a dry place in the porch for the baby. I settle him there and wait behind a tree.
She opens the door. Takes him up. I know when I see her expression that he will be safe with her. She looks up and around. In my direction. As if she’s seen something. Have I rustled the leaves, betrayed my presence? It crosses my mind to step forward. Surely she would befriend me? I hesitate, and the wind changes direction. I smell the fire at the same moment she does. She turns away, looks to the sky, gasps at the smoke that rises over the spot where Angelfield House stands. And then puzzlement shows in her face. She holds the baby close to her nose and sniffs. The smell of fire is on him, transferred from my clothes. One more glance at the smoke and she steps firmly back into her house and closes the door.
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