Free Whispers in the Dark by Jonathan Aycliffe

stiff, furnished rooms. I have never shared their fascination, but I suppose they look within themselves for memories of a past they never knew.
    I had arrived at the end of my road. I knew that if I were forced to turn back down that path and seek the open road again, I would have nowhere to go, that I would in all certainty die in a ditch somewhere.
    The facade was a long granite slab with high windows set on the ground floor and smaller, squarer ones on the first. In its center stood a rectangular portico of thick, evenly spaced pillars, topped by a pediment. Other than that, the house was devoid of ornament. Not even the clumps of ivy that rambled in patches over the stone could offset the impression of severity conveyed by its every angle. This was not the severity to which I was accustomed, the grim utilitarianism of the workhouse or the factory, but something of quite a different order.
    There was grandeur in it—for the house dwarfed everything around it—and a certain aloofness. Yet the severity of its lines suggested something else. Hauteur mixed with . . . what? Savagery? Not quite, something tamer than that, tamer and yet more ancient, if that were possible.
    Hesitantly I climbed the steps to the door. I stood there for a long time, suspended between conflicting fears. Several times I reached out for the handle that pulled the bell, and each time I drew away again. All the time, light was draining from the afternoon sky. I could feel the imminence of night. The cold had grown even more bitter. It was that which hurried my hand to the bell at last. I pulled it hard, a single, determined tug, followed by a long, scarcely bearable silence.
    And then, barely perceptible at first, I could hear footsteps coming nearer. The door opened soundlessly and I saw, framed in the doorway by shimmering candlelight, a tall woman dressed in black. Her waist was tightly clasped by a wide leather belt from which hung a huge ring filled with keys. In one hand she held a tall glass lamp in which a candle burned.
    “Well, girl, what is it? What brings you here?”
    Her voice was sharp and unwelcoming. I stammered my long-rehearsed reply.
    “Please, m-ma’am. I . . . I’ve come to see Mr. and Miss Ayrton. I mean Sir Anthony and Miss Antonia.”
    I think she almost laughed. There must, after all, have been much in my appearance and the directness of my request that was droll, even absurd. But if she felt any humor in the situation, she suppressed it readily enough.
    “Get on your way, you cheeky young baggage, before I tell Hutton to set the dogs on you.”
    “No, ma’am, please.” Fear overcame my hesitancy. “I’ve walked a long way. From Newcastle. I must speak with them. They’re my cousins. That is. . .
    She had been about to shut the door in my face, but at the word “cousins” she froze.
    “What? What did you say, child?”
    “I meant. . . My father was their cousin. So I suppose I must be. . .
    I think my accent had caught her ear. She looked me up and down.
    “Father? You say your father? What is your name?”
    “Charlotte, ma’am. Charlotte Metcalf.”
    For a moment something like real pity moved across her face. I could not understand the look she gave me. She frowned and pursed her lips.
    “Wait here, girl. Don’t move from that spot if you value your life.”
    She closed the door with a bang. I heard her footsteps move away across the black and white marble floor whose shining face I had seen through the shadows in the entrance hall behind her.
    It was growing very cold. I was so tired, I wanted to lie down on the doorstep and go to sleep. Even inside the partial protection of the portico, the biting wind found its way to me. Behind the house, a dog barked loudly, and I wondered if the tall woman had gone to set the beasts on me as she had threatened. Shivering, I waited. I had nowhere else to go.
    The door opened again. The woman in black was there again, her face still impassive, looking down at me as