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CHAPTER IV.

IN WHICH BED-TIME STORIES ARE TOLD AND NIGHT IS EXPLORED AT ENSOR HOUSE.

‘W hat were your first charges like, Fred?’ Andrew asks that very night after prayers. ‘Your absolute first. Do you remember? You are so very old.’

He sits upright in his bed, his darting eyes wary, presumably from the conviction that the devil is in the vicinity, a common threat wielded by adults against misbehaving children.

‘Why, two sweet girls about your age. Twins, as a matter of fact,’ I reply while I tuck him in tightly, my hands gripping the sheets as they did when I tucked in the twins, their hair freshly braided and their hands bound to prevent them from indulging in self-abuse.

Their widowed father had caught one of the pair absent-mindedly scratching at herself whilst his old hunting dog sniffed between her legs and grew concerned that the compulsion would spread to the other twin. He was encouraged in this line of thinking by his doctor, who warned that if her behaviour were left untreated he would one day find both daughters in one of the very brothels he frequented. Whoring daughters are far worse than a sickly or a dead daughter, the latter of which ultimately graces a family with an aura of martyrdom. Worse, even, than a hysterical daughter one can quietly hide away in an attic or asylum.

And so, at the tender age of nineteen, the stink of the Hopefernon moors still clinging to my dress, I would wind a length of butcher’s twine around each sister’s wrists in the way a cook would truss a chicken, under the scrutinizing gaze of my employer.

‘Tell me a story, Fred,’ Andrew says mid-yawn, rolling over on his side. ‘Tell me a story about the twins.’

I settle into an armchair beside his bed, away from the candlelight. ‘Two little girls, joined in lust,’ I begin.

‘What is lust?’

‘I ask that you do not interrupt.’

‘All right.’

‘Two little girls, joined in lust. Both alike in dignity.’

‘Is that Shakespeare?’

‘They lived in a great big house, far, far away from here. Alone with the servants, for their mother was long dead, and their father was often away . . .’

Andrew’s eyes flicker, his breathing deepens. I can already gather, from our time together today, that Andrew is not the type of child to allow itself to be taught. The lone moment he was docile was when Mr Pounds walked in during our afternoon lessons and leaned against the farthest wall to watch me teach. Like so many boys of his ilk, Andrew is angry, but too lazy to do anything truly dangerous about it. He would sooner rip the fringes off window curtains than strangle his sister. He is predictable in his sleepy privilege.

I resume, in a low, soft voice, my story of the twins. Although I am sure he can no longer hear me, perhaps my words will leak into his dreams. ‘One day, after years of good health and cheer, they both dropped dead,’ I say, watching his chest rise and fall. ‘Instantly, as the clock struck one in the afternoon, as they recited their French lessons. Slumped onto their blackboards like folded bedsheets. Their distraught father blamed an old family curse and instructed the servants to pray for his daughters’ souls . . .’

Their souls, as soft and unsuspecting as plump, round little robin hatchlings held inside sweaty fists.

Andrew’s eyes are closed. His eyelashes, strands of golden thread, rest upon his cheeks.

I picture the twins’ blood, smeared into their braids so neatly, as if each scarlet hair had been painted by hand.

IN DRUSILLA’S CHAMBER on the other side of the nursery, her head barely visible atop a knoll of plush bedding, she interrogates me with a thoroughness her parents lacked.

‘Why did you leave your previous post?’ she asks, business-like over the ruffled neckline of her nightdress.

‘My charges were all grown-up. They left for school.’

‘Oh. And what about the ones before them?’

I hesitate at the memory of scraped knees and tousled hair. ‘They went missing,’ I say.

‘Hmm.’

‘They were prone to run off. They were very naughty.’

Then Drusilla says, with no reasonable preamble: ‘ I should like to grow up to be very rich.’

I smile at her blankly. ‘Would you, now?’

‘Yes. I would like a large house and many servants, who would tend to me as they would their own daughters.’

A stirring of Darkness hot under my cheeks, in my breath – ‘I suppose you believe you shall inherit from your father?’ it asks through my mouth, conjuring an image of a doting Mr Pounds showering her with wealth and affection.

Drusilla frowns. ‘I doubt there will be much left for me by the time Father has died,’ she says. ‘But one day I shall marry a man who will buy me a large house and many servants.’

She relaxes into her bedding and the Darkness settles within me, unthreatened.

‘Tell me a story about my husband,’ she drawls, her mind already in sleep, her body decaying into it swiftly.

‘One day,’ I whisper – so faintly it could be a private prayer – ‘Drusilla will marry a rich man, a very rich man. He will own steeds made of velvet and thoughts carved of marble . . .’

Drusilla is asleep. I lean over her to confirm it, closer than I could ever get while she is awake, no matter my curiosity, for social punctilios prohibit such things. Smooth, flushed cheeks and the fairest of hairlines – and one single freckle at the corner of her mouth which many men shall one day tediously find attractive.

I can just see her husband now, formed by my words, whispered along with them into the sombrely lit apartment. ‘He will have coarse hands and smelly hair and Drusilla will trust him with her sadness and he will lock her up in a yellow bed-room in a country home, and in this room she will bleed onto her childbed linen, her voice ragged from screaming. The staff will remember her as “melancholy”.’

When both children are asleep, I lick their little fingertips, one by one, and blow out the candles.

IN THE DEAD of night, I slip out of bed. I light a tallow candle on a brass chamberstick and embark into the dark maw of the house, the small flame burning through the passageways like a bout of dyspepsia. The clammy soles of my bare feet stick to the floors, leaving a trail of momentary footprints.

Like many old houses, Ensor House has suffered a series of sporadic and disparate renovations which have resulted in staircases leading nowhere and doors concealed inside wardrobes and under wall hangings. I discover one such door, hidden behind a medieval arras depicting a hunting scene and camouflaged within the wall panelling. Crawling through the child-sized doorway, I ascend a set of cramped stairs to a secret garret. The room is windowless and bare but for a rusted tin tub. This must be where the Poundses have stowed their generations of female hysterics through the ages.

Downstairs, I creep into the master bed-chamber, hand cupped over the candleflame. Mr Pounds is snoring profoundly, sunken into the kind of tranquil sleep afforded by the ownership of several mills.

In his wife’s chamber, beside his, the lump that is Mrs Pounds stirs. ‘Mother?’ she asks, eyes closed.

‘Yes,’ I say. I draw nearer, and the candlelight illuminates Mrs Pounds’ face more than her husband or children ever will. She clears her throat weakly, which I take as my cue to leave.

As I walk past the gallery, Grandfather Pounds’ eyes follow me, bulging in their oil-painted sockets.