Whisper Of Darkness

Once again she had the dining room to herself, the early sun highlighting the dents and stains that marked the heavy sideboard, and reflecting off windows grimy with the dust of months. However Mrs Harris filled her time, it was not in housework, thought Joanna grimly, realising that her mother would have dismissed the woman the minute she saw this place.

A congealing mess of bacon, sausages and broken eggs was set for Joanna’s inspection, and she heaved a sigh of impatience. She had explained she didn’t want the fried food, but the housekeeper had ignored her instructions. There was also toast—cold, she discovered, and tea instead of coffee.

It was too much. With a feeling of intense frustration, Joanna marched to the door, then stepped back in confusion as she almost collided with her employer. This morning he had not shaved as yet, and the shadow of his beard darkened his already swarthy skin. His black hair, and it was black, she saw, although streaked with grey in places, was rumpled, as if he had been threading his fingers through it, and he seemed to be wearing the same clothes as he had worn the night before. His scarred appearance seemed more obvious this morning, accentuated as it was by gauntness and exhaustion and a certain red-rimmed weariness about his eyes. She wondered for an awful moment whether he had joined the notorious Matt Coulston in his drinking bout, but there was no slurring of Jake Sheldon’s speech when he said harshly: ‘So you’ve decided to get up at last, Miss Seton. When you’ve had your breakfast, perhaps you and I could have a few words.’

Joanna glanced back at the table, and then took a deep breath. ‘As a matter of fact, I wanted to have a few words with you, Mr Sheldon,’ she stated, refusing to be intimidated by his grim countenance. ‘I’m afraid I don’t eat a cooked breakfast. I never have, and what’s more, I prefer coffee in the mornings, not tea.’

‘Oh, you do, do you?’ His expression had not changed, though she perceived a faint hardening of the curiously cat-like eyes. ‘Well, perhaps you ought to take that up with Mrs Harris. She’s the housekeeper around here, not me.’

‘Is she?’ mumbled Joanna, under her breath, but he had heard her, and the dark brows descended.

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

Joanna sighed. The last thing she wanted this early in their association was an argument about his housekeeping arrangements, and bending her head, she moved her shoulders in an offhand gesture.

‘Nothing,’ she said at last. ‘I—er—I’ll speak to Mrs Harris, as you say.’

He seemed loath to leave it, though without her contribution he had no choice, but as he turned away she ventured: ‘When will—er—Antonia be ready to start her lessons, Mr Sheldon? And where would you like me to conduct them?’

His frown was penetrating. A narrow concentration that made her wish she had waited for him to broach the subject. ‘You don’t know?’ he demanded. ‘Mrs Harris didn’t tell you?’

‘Tell me? Tell me what?’

‘Anya ran away yesterday evening. I’ve been out all night looking for her.’

‘No!’ Joanna was horrified. That explained the haggard appearance, the growth of beard on the jawline. ‘And have you found her? Do you know where she is? You should have woken me, I could have helped you.’

‘Really?’ His tone was sardonic. ‘When you’re the reason she ran away?’

Joanna flushed. ‘Have you found her?’

He heaved a heavy sigh. ‘I have a good idea where she is.’

‘Where?’

He hesitated, as if reluctant to discuss it with her, and then he shrugged. ‘There’s a shepherd’s hut, up on the fell. I know she goes there sometimes. It’s about two miles from here, but until the mist lifts we haven’t a hope in hell of finding it.’

‘You knew that—last night?’

‘I guessed, after searching the woods around the house, and enquiring in the village.’

‘Then why didn’t you——’

‘—go searching the fell?’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t know this area very well, do you, Miss Seton? When the mist comes down, and at this time of the year it inevitably does, the fells are treacherous to an inexperienced climber like me. Even the rescue teams can’t turn out in weather like that. They have to wait till the mist clears, till they can see where they’re going.’

Joanna glanced towards the windows. ‘But it’s clear now.’

‘It’s clearing,’ he agreed heavily. ‘As soon as I’ve changed my clothes, I’m going out after her. I only hope to God she got there in time.’

Joanna made a helpless gesture. ‘But—staying out all night!’ She recalled the anxious moments she had had climbing the stairs the night before, the anticipation of childish pranks meant to deter her from staying. And all the while Antonia had not even been in the house. She felt hopelessly inadequate to combat such determination. ‘Wouldn’t she be afraid?’

‘Anya?’ There was pride as well as anxiety in his voice now. ‘She’s not afraid of the dark, if that’s what you mean. And Binzer’s with her, wherever she is. He won’t leave her.’

‘Binzer?’ Joanna paused. ‘That’s a dog?’

‘One of the sheepdogs you saw yesterday,’ Jake agreed, expelling his breath wearily. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me——’

‘May I come with you?’ Joanna’s cheeks burned briefly as she encountered his sardonic gaze. ‘I mean—to find Antonia, of course.’

‘Call her Anya. Everybody does,’ he remarked flatly. ‘It may help you to get through to her, although I doubt it somehow.’

‘And may I? Come with you?’

‘Do you have any strong walking shoes?’

Joanna glanced down at the plain vamps she had worn for comfort. Obviously they were not suitable. ‘I have some desert boots,’ she murmured doubtfully.

‘Desert boots?’ He shook his head. ‘What are they?’

‘They’re suede; ankle boots. They’re quite strong.’

He looked at her for a disturbing moment, making her overwhelmingly aware of his opinion of her. She could almost feel his contempt scraping over her skin, and she realised how similar their situations were. He didn’t really want a young female, with no formal qualifications, teaching his daughter. He would much have preferred one of the educated ladies Mrs Harris had spoken of, whose references were no doubt exemplary. And she had never expected to find herself in this position, being forced to care for a problem child, when what she had really hoped for was some pleasant sinecure with a wealthy family, where she could continue to live the kind of life to which until recently she had been accustomed.

‘Very well,’ he said at last, striding towards the stairs. ‘Be ready in ten minutes. And bring a warm coat.’

The ten minutes gave her little time to eat any breakfast, or to complain about the choice of beverage. Instead, she scraped butter and jam on a slice of toast and carried it up to her room, deciding that now was not the time to cross swords with Mrs Harris.

The unmade bed gave the room an unkempt appearance, and after lacing on her boots she quickly shook the pillows and pulled up the covers. She doubted Mrs Harris would consider bed-making part of her duties, and as she had a couple of minutes to spare she contemplated a hasty appraisal of Anya’s room. Maybe if she could see her belongings, the things she cared about, she would have some idea of how to approach her, and swallowing the last morsel of toast, she left her room. In the hall outside she slid her arms into the sheepskin jacket she was carrying, and made a swift inspection of the doors available to her. Apart from her door, and the door into the bathroom, there were four other doors, and her brow furrowed as she realised she had no way of knowing which was the child’s room.

Biting her lip, she moved along the hall to the landing, and then glanced back. She guessed the two doors at the far side of the landing were more likely to be Jake Sheldon’s doors than any of the others, and on impulse she moved closer to the first of the remaining doors, and put her ear to the panels. The doors were old, however, and very thick, and she doubted she would hear anything through them. But like all old doors, they had keyholes, and squatting down on her haunches she applied her eye to the narrow aperture.

‘You’ve chosen the wrong room, I’m afraid, Miss Seton,’ remarked an ironic voice behind her, and she got to her feet in red-faced consternation to find her employer standing watching her from the head of the stairs. She had obviously been right in assuming one of the farthest doors was his, but she felt horribly embarrassed at being discovered in such a compromising position. ‘If I’d known you were interested, I’d have left the door open,’ continued the mockingly derisive voice, and her lips pursed as she strove for words to erase his contemptuous assumption.

‘I was looking for Anya’s room, as it happens,’ she declared, ignoring the sardonic twist of his mouth. ‘I didn’t know which room it was.’

‘This is it,’ he volunteered abruptly, brushing past her to open the door next to the one she had been investigating. ‘But I don’t really have the time right now to give you a conducted tour. However, if that really was your objective ….’ He gestured impatiently, and with high colour blooming in her cheeks, she stepped past him.

He had changed his clothes, that much was obvious, the rough checked shirt of the day before having given way to a slightly less coarse grey cotton. Over this he wore closefitting jeans and a dark blue corded jacket, and as she passed him the smell of his shaving lotion was strong in her nostrils. There was something intolerably disturbing about him, a kind of sexuality that was even accentuated by the hard masculinity of his scarred face. Certainly, Joanna had never experienced the kind of reaction to a man that he aroused in her, and she decided that it was his evident indifference towards her that was causing this totally unreasonable sense of awareness.

The room into which he had invited her to look was similar to her own, in that it contained the same outdated furniture, the same unimaginative decoration, and the same bare floor. What was surprising was that here, as downstairs, there were no dolls or soft toys of any kind, and the few books that were piled beside the bed were boys’ adventure stories, annuals and notebooks. The bed was unmade, obviously as Anya had climbed out if it after the punishment her father had administered the night before, and the whole room had a forlorn air, as if the state of mind of its occupant still lingered.

‘Well?’

Jake was apparently waiting for her to make some comment, and forgetting her recent resentment, she made a helpless gesture. ‘Doesn’t she have any toys?’ she asked, gazing up at him in her confusion. ‘No dolls or teddies, or games of any sort? I thought I might learn something about her by discovering the things she’s interested in, but there’s nothing here.’

Jake’s tawny eyes narrowed as they surveyed her upturned face, and belatedly she realised that he probably thought her attitude was a deliberate attempt to attract his attention. Suspicious of her, as he was bound to be after discovering her peering through keyholes, he no doubt considered her present behaviour as typical of her frivolity, and her lids lowered in anticipation of his denunciation. But no admonishment of that sort came, even though he did draw in his breath rather harshly. Instead, his tone was expressionless when he responded:

‘I wonder why you really came here, Miss Seton. Was it to help Anya? Or to satisfy my sister that I’m not impotent as well as intellectually deficient?’

Joanna’s lids flicked back then, but he made no attempt to pursue this outrageous statement. As she moved out into the hall again, to escape the unavoidable intimacy he had provoked, he closed the door behind them and moved past her to the head of the stairs. Then, as if feeling obliged to make some explanation, he added:

‘Since her mother’s death, Anya has had no interest in girlish things; I imagine spending so much time alone with me has retarded her natural development. Perhaps you’ll be successful in changing all that. Who knows?’

His eyes challenged hers again, and this time she forced herself not to appear intimidated. It was the first time she had heard his wife mentioned since Aunt Lydia had explained she had died in the same crash which had disabled her husband, and even though Joanna would have liked to have pursued that topic, she shrank from the unenviable task. Evading such a personal issue, she said:

‘But she has been to school, hasn’t she, Mr Sheldon? And there have been other—governesses.’

He shrugged, an eloquent gesture, which seemed to dismiss her words as of no account. ‘As you are aware, Miss Seton, none of them had any success with her. Schools demand too much discipline, and the women I employed to teach her seemed to regard her as being mentally subnormal.’

Joanna reserved comment. If yesterday’s little fiasco was anything to go by, they might well have had reason to suppose the child backward, and she had yet to make any real contact with her.

‘I really think we should be on our way,’ Jake added now, starting down the stairs. ‘Don’t look so alarmed, Miss Seton, I don’t expect miracles.’ He paused halfway and looked back at her. ‘But nor do I expect you to treat the job as temporary, something with which to fill your time until a more appealing proposition comes along.’

Joanna held up her head. ‘I wouldn’t do that, Mr Sheldon.’

‘No?’ He regarded her sceptically for another disturbing moment. ‘Don’t you think you’re going to find it rather—boring here, away from the company of your friends?’

Joanna forced herself to begin the descent. ‘You don’t seem to want me to stay, Mr Sheldon,’ she remarked quietly, calling his bluff, and without another word he turned away, his grim mouth evidence of the opinion she was confirming.

CHAPTER THREE

To Joanna’s surprise, a dusty green Range Rover was parked in the cobbled yard outside the house, and Jake indicated that she should get inside. As she did so, she noticed an old man leaning on the wall beside the gates, and guessed it was Matt Coulston even before Jake threw a terse instruction to him. Then he climbed into the vehicle beside her, slammed his door, and started the engine.

‘It’s two miles across country,’ he explained shortly, in answer to her silent enquiry, ‘but it’s more than twice that distance by road.’

Joanna nodded, looking out of the side window as they turned out of the gates, but she was aware of the old man’s inquisitive stare as the Rover bounced up the track towards the road. It was a cool autumn morning, but the sun was quickly warming the ground, dispersing the heavy dew, and causing wisps of steam to rise from the hedgerows. It gave an added depth to the gold-swept landscape, the bare fells responding with shades of green and purple and dark sienna. She had heard of the beauty of the Lake District, but this was her first experience of it, and her antipathy towards her employer melted beneath its insidious appeal.

Through the copse, Jake stopped the Rover and got out to open the gate, but after he had driven through, Joanna pushed open her door. ‘I’ll close it,’ she said, jumping down on to the track, and then flushed impatiently as her boot landed in a muddy pool. Still, she ignored the stains it splattered on the leg of her pants, and climbed back in again after completing her task, jaw clenched, ready to do battle if he made any sarcastic comment. He didn’t, though she thought she detected a faintly ironic twist to his mouth, but she relaxed again as they reached the lane and turned towards Ravensmere.

Ravensmere was one of the smaller lakes, and the village of the same name nestling at its foot was small and compact, with narrow streets running down to the lakeside. There were two hotels facing the jetty, and several cottages advertising accommodation, and rowing boats pulled up on the shingle, deserted now that the season was virtually over.

Jake drove along the lake shore, skirted the village, and after driving across a narrow hump-backed bridge, emerged on to the road to Heronsfoot. The traffic was brisker on this stretch of highway, connecting as it eventually did with the main trunk road south, but presently they turned off again on to a lane that gave way to a hikers’ track, winding steadily upward until they reached a shelving plateau. Looking across the wide expanse of the valley spread out below them, Joanna suddenly realised that the stream at its foot was the same stream she had seen from her bedroom window at Ravengarth. They must have driven round in a semi-circle, and they were now some distance up the fell that faced north-east across the valley.

‘Recognise it?’ Jake said, reaching round into the back of the vehicle and pulling out a pair of thick leather gloves. ‘Here; put these on. You may have to use your hands, and I’d hate that soft white skin to get blistered.’

Joanna pursed her lips and looked at him, but he merely dropped the gloves into her lap and thrust open his door. The draught of cold air his exit permitted to enter the car made her realise how much colder it was here up on the fell, and with a grimace she put on the gloves and joined him outside.

‘Ready?’ he asked, looking down at her quizzically, and she nodded her head.

‘As I’ll ever be,’ she responded, holding out her hands for his inspection. ‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll have a major accident with these? They’re far too big for me!’

‘They’re not for climbing,’ he retorted, turning up the collar of his jacket. ‘Going up it’s quite easy, but coming down on loose shale can overbalance you. It’s easier if you squat on your hands.’

Joanna hunched her shoulders. ‘If you say so,’ she submitted, and with a faint arching of his brows he strode away.

They climbed a rocky incline and started up a steeper slope of scree, where tiny springs provided natural irrigation for the gorse and heather that grew on the lower slopes. A few stray sheep voiced their objections as they trotted out of their path, and a hawk hanging in the air some way above them seemed to be speculating on their possible destination.

Joanna was panting before they had climbed a hundred feet. Shopping expeditions in Oxford Street and disco dancing until the early hours were poor substitutes for real exercise, and she was glad Jake was ahead of her and therefore could not hear her laboured breathing.

About halfway up the slope, another outcrop hid the roof of a wooden hut, and Jake glanced round to see if she was with him before vaulting over the projecting face. The mist was still lingering above them, veiling the upper slopes like a shroud, and it was not difficult to imagine how easy it would be to miss their way in its blanketing folds. Struggling up behind Jake, Joanna was selfconsciously aware of her red face and trembling knees, and she guessed he was not deceived by her attempt at composure.

‘This is it,’ he said, and she glanced round automatically, alarmed to see how small the Range Rover looked from their superior height.

‘Is—is she there?’ she asked, striving to regain her breath, and he shrugged his broad shoulders before swinging down the narrow gully.

Joanna heard the dog barking as Jake approached, and presently a small figure appeared from behind the hut. Her own relief was tempered by the realisation that she was about to be properly introduced to her charge, but Jake had evidently no such misgivings. He swung the child up into his arms as the dog appeared to leap excitedly about them, and then after a brief conversation which Joanna could not hear, he turned with the child still in his arms, to climb the track back to where she was waiting.

Joanna felt an unbearable sense of disquiet as they approached. She half wished she had not succumbed to the anxiety in her employer’s face and had waited back at the house, but it was too late now to have such thoughts. Instead she endeavoured to adopt an expression that was neither severe nor ingratiating, and squashed the unworthy suspicion that in Jakes’s shoes she would have shown a little more anger and a little less understanding.

He set the child on her feet beside Joanna, and she looked down at her somewhat unwillingly. She could not forget their previous exchanges, in the copse and in the hall at Ravengarth, and she was quite prepared to meet aggression with aggression. But Anya’s expression was almost angelically mild, and encountering wide blue eyes, innocent of all malice, Joanna wondered if she could have mistaken the child’s character entirely. But how was that possible? She had been greeted with a shotgun, and no matter how obedient Anya appeared now somewhere behind that disarming gaze lurked another, less agreeable, personality.

‘Anya wants to apologise, don’t you?’ prompted Jake now, pushing his hands into his jacket pockets, and the girl, if she really was of the feminine gender, nodded.

She was smaller than Joanna remembered, or perhaps in retrospect she had just appeared taller, and her night in the shepherd’s hut had not improved her grubby appearance. The cap she had been wearing the previous afternoon was still pulled down about her ears, making the ends of her dark hair stick out almost comically at the sides. She wore an old anorak, with leather patches at the elbows, jeans, and an old woollen sweater, with cuffs that hung down over her wrists. Wellington boots completed her outfit and Joanna found it amazing that a girl of her age should care so little about how she looked.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Seton.’ Anya was speaking now, and Joanna was amazed at the attractiveness of her voice after the coarse language she had used the day before. ‘It was silly, running off like that. It didn’t solve anything.’

Joanna digested these words rather doubtfully. There was something wrong here. She didn’t know why she felt so sure, but she did. Last night Anya had been slapped and put to bed after behaving quite appallingly. She had sobbed and screamed, and shown every indication of anger and resentment, even to the extent of actually running away. Now she was apologising, saying she was sorry, that she had been silly, that it hadn’t solved anything. Solve was a curious word to use. Finding any kind of solution in the circumstances had an ominous ring to it, and Joanna looked rather blankly at her employer, wondering if he had detected anything unusual about his daughter’s behaviour. But he apparently had not. He was obviously waiting for her to make the next move, and with a grimace she said:

‘You didn’t expect me to leave, did you, Anya? I’m not that easily deterred. Your father and I only want what’s best for you, and I’m sure you’re not going to disappoint us.’

Joanna didn’t quite know why she used that particular approach, or indeed why she should attempt to antagonise the child with her first words. She was aware that Jake was looking at her in some irritation, and evidently he would have preferred a more conciliatory tone, but Joanna had already sensed that with Anya, one had to stay one jump ahead. Even so, she felt a certain ripple of apprehension slide along her spine as she glimpsed the sudden anger that filled the child’s eyes, and guessed that her deliberate linking of herself and Anya’s father had aroused that instinctive response. So she was right, she thought, without any of the exhilaration she should have been feeling. Anya was only bluffing, but what kind of an advantage did that give her?

‘I think Anya is beginning to realise that these stupid, childish pranks are just a waste of time,’ Jake pronounced heavily, his breath vaporising in the chilly air. ‘She’s growing up. She has to learn to take responsibility for her actions. And now I suggest we go back to the car. Anya needs some hot food and a change of clothes, and then perhaps we can start behaving like civilised people.’

Joanna was glad of the leather gloves going down the hillside again. She was not used to the steepness of the slope, and she soon learned the advantages of squatting down on her heels and controlling her slide with her hands. Anya, of course, had no such fears. She and the dog, Binzer, bounded down the loose shale with complete confidence, and even Jake kept his balance without apparent effort. It was a little annoying for Joanna to have to complete her descent under Anya’s intent appraisal, but she managed to get to her feet near the bottom and meet the girl’s gaze with bland enquiry, hoping the trembling uncertainty of her knees could not be detected.