Free The Dead of Winter by Chris Priestley Page B

attacked her. He scratched her face and knocked her to the floor. It took my father and two other servants to hold him still. And all the time he stared back towards the priest hole.’
    I remembered my terror at being in that place – and that without knowing the terrible history of it – and had no difficulty understanding how Sir Stephen must have felt. I couldn’t help but have some sympathy for him.
    ‘Sir Stephen was never the same boy as he was before going in,’ said Hodges. ‘He has never been the same since. Father and son hardly exchanged a word after that and Sir Stephen took himself off into the army as soon as he could. He only came back for his father’s funeral.’
    Hodges swallowed as though tasting something particularly unpleasant.
    ‘What kind of a man would do that to his own son? I remember it like it was yesterday, Master Michael. A thing like that etches itself on to your brain.’
    He sighed and looked away towards the kitchen door.
    ‘I think the evil of it has etched into the very stones of this house.
    So it was with a heavy heart and with a goodly amount of trepidation that I made my way to the dining room that evening. But when I arrived I was relieved to find there was no sign of Sir Stephen, and at the end of the long table in that cavernous room was only one place setting, illuminated by a single candelabrum placed nearby.
    The rest of the room was so shadowy I could barely perceive the extent of it, save for vague and ghostly glimpses of painted portraits looking out from the deep-red walls. A log fire burned in a huge hearth. An ornate, but faded, tapestry curtain hung across the wall opposite me.
    Charlotte appeared through another door and told me that Sir Stephen was sadly still too unwell to meet me and would be eating in his room. I was to dine alone as she would be attending her brother and would eat later. With that, and her usual smile, she left.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    When I looked out of my bedroom on my return from dining I could not make out the moat below me any more, never mind the marsh beyond. It was like a solid mass – as if a high black wall had been constructed only inches from my window. The only thing I could see was my own troubled face reflected in the glass.
    For all the friendly overtures of Hodges and Mrs Guston and Edith, still I was heartily sick of this house. I was forced to re-read the letter Bentley had given me from my mother entreating me to accept whatever help that Sir Stephen was willing toprovide. Without it, I think I should have set off from that accursed place to take my chances on the open road.
    Tiredness crept up on me, placing a heavy burden upon my shoulders, and my legs almost buckled under its weight. I washed and undressed and climbed into bed, happy to have the warmth of the bedclothes wrapped round me and eager for the oblivion of sleep.
    Sleep came swiftly enough, but its hold over me was broken. I could not say what time it was I first heard the noise but, though I had cocooned myself in the bedclothes, not even the combined forces of pillows and blankets could block it out.
    It had begun with a low moaning. Or at least that was when I first became aware of it. When I woke, my skin was already clammy with sweat and my heart racing. The moaning sounded both far off and close by: it was muffled as though through distance and yet it seemed to emanate from the very fabric of the walls. It resonated and vibrated through the stonework, moving by degrees from moan to plaintive wail to a terrible despairing screech. I should have said it was more like an animal, but I don’t think an animal could ever produce a sound so pained and distraught.
    It was so utterly dark I could not see the bed I lay upon, never mind the rest of the room. I stared out like a blind man, the sounds growing in volume, exaggerated by the stillness around me.
    Surely that was a human voice? Surely that was a human cry?
    As always with noises in the dark, it was