The Feast of All Souls Read online

  ALICE DREAMT SHE stood on a bare hillside, under a grim sky. It was daylight, but the clouds were thick and heavy, black with rain. Below her, something moved. She couldn’t see it clearly, but it was big, with a pelt of black, bristling fur. She was already turning away when it roared; after that, she was running.

  It was behind her. As she neared the summit she knew there was no outrunning this, that her only salvation would be – what?

  There was something she had to see. She didn’t know what, only that it was here at the top of the hill, and that if she could see it she’d be safe.

  But she couldn’t. And then there was a roar, and a terrible shadow fell upon her.

  ALICE WOKE, BUT only briefly; she was asleep again in seconds, barely even opening her eyes.

  In any case she lay facing the wall, and didn’t turn around. So she didn’t see the small figures that stood beside her bed, watching her until dawn’s first light came to drive them away.

  Chapter Two

  The Confession of Mary Carson

  Liverpool, February 1888

  EVERY WORD I utter is to be recorded, verbatim. I know I have made this clear to Mr Muddock here; has he, in turn, made it clear to you, Mrs... Rhodes? Ah, I can see from your scribblings that he has. Very good.

  Every word is to be recorded, and the transcript typed. The subsequent fate of the document will be decided at a later date. My chief concern for now is that a record is made.

  You’re both ready to proceed? Very well, then.

  Although I was a clergyman’s daughter, I have never been inclined to dabble in theology; nonetheless it has occurred to me on many occasions in life that, perhaps, just as we are rewarded for our good works in Heaven, so we are punished for them here on Earth.

  I verge on blasphemy, perhaps. Those who know me would be shocked – to them I am a Godly and charitable woman – but in truth they know me not. None of them do, or have: neither my dear departed husband nor even my beloved children. If they but did they would turn from me, appalled. I have devoted the latter part of my life – that part following the events I wish you to record – to good works, much as I devoted my life prior to it. But how many good deeds are required to outweigh sins such as mine? In that year – Mr Muddock, Mrs Rhodes – I sinned most grievously; blasphemy is a mild offence to those for which I must answer.

  Life has, ultimately, treated me well. I am six and eighty years of age, with three children now full-grown and grandchildren almost beyond counting. I may even live to see my first great-grandchild, and I have been well-provided for in my dotage. Perhaps, if we are punished for good works, we are rewarded for wicked ones. After all, the way to God’s Kingdom is rocky and steep; nothing of value is obtained without hardship, so why should the way of virtue not be harsh and that of iniquity full of ease?

  This will be, for want of a better term, a confession of my sins. You are young, Mrs Rhodes, and appear reasonably innocent, while Mr Muddock, I know, is a man of the world, but I suspect both of you will have cause to be unsettled – or alarmed – by this account of mine.

  Among other things, you’ll both have cause to question my sanity; that cannot be helped. I can only imagine my own disbelief at such a tale, had I not experienced it myself. I do not ask you to believe. Only that you complete this transcription and preserve it safely until my decease, at which time you will follow whatever instructions I have made for its disposal.

  So, let us proceed. I shall begin with facts. My father was a country parson; of my mother, I have no memory. She never fully recovered from my birth, dying about a year later. My father always showed me great affection – tempered with a good father’s strictness – but my mother’s death had left a void in his life which fatherhood alone could not fill.

  Had he but married again, both our stories might have been different, but there could never be any other woman for my father. Instead, he devoted himself to a cause. Always sympathetic to the Abolitionists, now he gave freely of his time and wealth to them, which they found a great asset. Not only was he an eloquent writer and orator, but, tall and grey-haired as he was, looked as though he might have come down from Mount Sinai to utter God’s word. From childhood I was his helper; I grew to be his secretary and chiefest aide.

  Both within the Church and his congregation, his unwavering denunciation of slavery earned him enemies, and in time he lost his living. He found a post at a seaman’s mission in Liverpool for a time, before fellow Abolitionists supported him with donations to enable him to fully assist the cause.

  Or rather, us, for I was his fervent ally. Do not mistake me: I still take pride in all I helped my father achieve, whatever the cost to myself may have been. And there was a cost. I turned down two offers of marriage as I grew older. My father, and the cause, needed me.

  In 1833, Great Britain abolished the foul institution of slavery. For my father it was an hour of triumph. Yet he had expended the fullest measure of his vital force in the cause of Abolition; overwork, and the harsh conditions in which we had lived, had taken their toll upon his health. Robbed of his purpose, he sank into melancholy and sickness, and three years after his triumph, he died, leaving me, at thirty-three, a penniless spinster.

  My father’s only assets were his prized books: tomes on theology, philosophy and rhetoric. I sold them and searched in growing desperation for work as a secretary or governess, without success. What work I found was a fitful, hand-to-mouth affair. I had to leave my father’s former lodgings for a squalid little room near the Docks, and cursed myself for not having accepted the marriage proposals offered to me; surely I could still have aided my father even while married.

  Matters began to look increasingly desperate, and it seemed only a matter of time before I must either starve or lower myself to the most shameful extremity any woman can. But then an old friend of my father’s, a Mr Unwin, came to my aid. Moved by my plight, he had made enquiries and learned of a position that had arisen in nearby Manchester, as secretary to a wealthy mill-owner. The post was well-salaried, and included board and lodging. Here, I hoped, was a position that might offer some measure of security, where I could hope to set aside a portion of my earnings to provide for the future.

  Mr Unwin wrote to the mill-owner, a Mr Thorne, and after a brief time the post was offered me. And so with some relief I packed my few remaining possessions into a small trunk and boarded the Manchester train the following day.

  I arrived in the city one cold morning in the March of 1837 and was met by a coach and four driven by a pock-marked, brutal-looking individual whose name I never learned. The city itself was a foul place – noisy and crowded, stinking and dark. The narrow streets ran with filth and clouds of smoke from home and factory chimneys fouled the air, sooted the walls black and murked the sky above it. And as the factories grew, so the city swelled and spread.

  Soon enough, we had cleared the packed, stinking streets of Manchester, and the carriage was travelling up Collarmill Road towards Crawbeck.

  My memories are half a century out of date and dimmed by time. I returned to Crawbeck only once after the events to which this Confession relates, and was sufficiently preoccupied that I failed to study my surroundings in great detail. Doubtless the march of so-called ‘progress’ had effaced much of its beauty and will have done even more so by now.

  At the time, though, as I recall, it was still mostly unspoilt. Crawbeck is built upon a hill about a mile to the nor’ nor’ west of Manchester, up which the sprawl of squalor and filth was only just beginning to spread. A few narrow, terraced streets stood on the lower reaches of the hillside, but these soon gave way to open heath, broken only by a handful of small villas.

  Beyond these there lay a further stretch of untouched land, and then at last a high wall which proved to girdle round the entire upper third of the hill. In this was set a pair of black wrought-iron gates; stencilled in gold lettering on each gatepost were the words SPRINGCROSS HOUSE.

  Beyond these lay a gravel drive, on e
ither side of which extended well-maintained lawns; beyond these were thick, almost jungle-like gardens.

  The coach rounded a bend in the drive, and I saw Springcross House for the first time. I suppose I ought to say that I had some premonition of ill-fortune – were I the narrator of some Gothic romance I certainly might, but I was, and am, nothing of the sort. I shall be honest – what point to a Confession if it is not? – and admit, though it pains me, that I experienced no such presentiment. If any emotion coloured my thoughts, it was a blend of excitement and hope: for here, at last, if I was fortunate, industrious and wise, was the security I had so long desired.

  Springcross House was a great grey edifice of ashlar stone, done in some imitation of the Greek or Roman style. Doric columns supported a marquee above the wooden double doors of the main entrance. Flanking these doors, mounted on fluted pedestals, were statues of lions rampant. Elaborate scrollwork surrounded the doorframe and windows.

  All the same, there was a strange air of restraint about the building. Men like Mr Thorne, I knew, were nouveaux riches – parvenus who’d but lately dragged themselves up from the gutters of their birth – and often proved to be of low and vulgar taste, made all the more unpleasing by the scope to indulge it afforded by their newfound wealth. Mr Thorne, it seemed, was not of their ilk: the building spoke of wealth, indeed declared it, but without vulgar ostentation. There was something almost austere, even ascetic, about it.

  A footman helped me down from the carriage. The double doors opened and servants emerged to carry my few cases into the house. The coach clattered away as I was helped up the steps. Beyond the doors, the entrance hall was a bright, circular space, lit by day by a skylight above and by night by a huge crystal chandelier. Staircases rose to the left and right, to a landing that ringed the hall and looked down on it.

  A tall man in his forties stepped forward to greet me. “Miss Carson? I am Kellett, Mr Thorne’s butler.”

  Mr Kellett was not unhandsome; he was also well-built, presentable and well-spoken, but something about the man immediately inspired my dislike. And nor, I could tell, did he like me; he eyed me rather as my father’s cat would have another tom appearing in the old vicarage garden. Perhaps he feared a new secretary might become privy to secrets he was not, and pose some threat to his territory. I curtseyed. “A pleasure, Mr Kellett.”

  His lips formed a faint smirk: perhaps he recognised what an innocent he had in me. “Mr Thorne is presently away,” he said. “We expect his return this afternoon. In the mean time, your room has been prepared.”

  I was ushered up the winding staircase to a large bedroom at the back of the house, decorated in white and green, with an adjoining bathroom and water closet. Bay windows and a balcony overlooked the gardens I had observed earlier. Peering out, I saw that lush vegetation grew thick around the back of the house. A large ornamental pond, complete with a fountain, lay almost immediately below.

  “Pray make yourself at ease, mistress.” Kellett gave me a smile and a low bow. “Mr Thorne will see you on his return.”

  It must be admitted that I did not – could not – ‘make myself at ease’ at Springcross – not then, at least. I was used to small, familiar places – the old vicarage near Burscough, the missions and lodging-houses that had been our home thereafter. This place was vast, pristine, and unwelcoming, and Kellett had scarcely bothered to veil his dislike of me, while the other servants had remained expressionless and aloof. Wherever I had gone, I felt as though I would have drawn some withering or pitying glance. The day, at least, was mild and without rain, so I sat out on the balcony, reading a novel I had brought with me.

  As afternoon wore towards evening I heard a clatter of hooves and rattle of wheels; I quickly roused myself, bringing in my chair, shutting my windows and completing a hasty toilet. As I did, I heard the opening of doors, running footsteps and raised voices, but none called for me. With little better to occupy my time, I took up my novel again, until, at length, came a gentle tapping at the door. “Come in,” I said.

  A maid entered: a plump, sallow-faced creature with a permanently sullen expression. “The master’s home, miss, and would like to see you.”

  “Of course,” I said. My stomach was a pit of tension, try to hide it though I might; I was suddenly conscious that my dress, while clean, was several years out of fashion, that my stance and carriage might be deemed to lack the necessary poise. These and a dozen other reasons why Mr Thorne would dismiss me on sight and cast me back into penury suggested themselves almost at once. I composed myself as best I could and followed the maid down the staircase to the ground floor and my new employer’s study.

  This was, oddly, the first place in Springcross House where I felt remotely at ease, for it reminded me greatly of my late father’s study – albeit much larger. It had the same deep, rich-coloured wood panelling, the same fire roaring in a grate, the same high shelves stacked with leather-bound volumes. However, it also boasted several stuffed animals under glass, which my father had never been able to abide. A fox, a hare, a wolf, a huge owl, all gazed at me with yellow and amber eyes lit by reflected firelight.

  Above the fireplace was a portrait of a tall, upright man in evening-dress, with long, reddish-brown side-whiskers and a stern, commanding countenance; he had something of the air of an Old Testament prophet. If that was Arodias Thorne, as I guessed, then he had so much in common with my late father, at least in his own estimation. But my father, I knew, would never have commissioned such a monument to vanity. Even had an admirer gifted him with it, he would have consigned it somewhere out of the way where neither he – nor, could he help it, anyone else – would behold the wretched thing.

  In one corner of the room stood a wide mahogany desk on which rested decanters and crystal goblets, pens and blotter and inkwells, journals and ledgers, all neatly arranged and stacked. Again, I could not help but note the contrast between this and my father’s study; my father’s effects had lain all a-muddle in a sort of genial disarray, but everywhere one looked here was absolute order: a place for everything and everything in its place.

  Beside the desk, gazing out of a mullioned window at the afternoon sky, was a man with greying hair. He had not turned around at my entrance or the door’s closing, or at my footsteps on the wooden floor; he merely stood, hands clasped behind his back, as I approached the desk.

  “Miss Carson, sir,” said the maid.

  “Very good, Boswell. Dismissed.” The man did not turn round. The maid scurried out, glad, I felt, to be gone.

  “Mr Thorne?” I said.

  “Who else might I be, Miss Carson?” He turned, and I saw I indeed faced the man from the portrait, which I also saw had contained considerably less flattery than I might have supposed. While not particularly tall, Mr Thorne was imposing (and once again, despite myself, I was reminded of my father; however much I strove to resist the impulse to contrast my employer with him, I met with little success).

  I still see him now, with absolute clarity. He had a strong face, high-cheekboned and Roman-nosed, with a high forehead that denoted a powerful intellect. The eyes were a dark grey in colour, like cold iron or the clouds of a gathering storm. His height aside, the greatest difference between Mr Thorne in the portrait and in the flesh was that wrought by age. His hair was now almost entirely iron-grey, the lines about his eyes and mouth more pronounced and the lips, while still full, were thinner, and firmly set. Even so, there was still an impression of virility and strength.

  “You are Miss Mary Carson,” he said, in a cultured, sonorous voice, “formerly of the village of Burscough and the city of Liverpool. I am Arodias Thorne, formerly of the village of Browton and now of Springcross House, Crawbeck.” He motioned. “Please. Sit.”

  I did as he instructed. He sat behind his desk and studied me. Firelight gleamed in his eyes, as in those of the stuffed beasts elsewhere in the room.

  “You are well spoken of, Miss Carson,” he said. As I say, many such captains of industry were men w
ho’d risen to great wealth from the lower stations of society, and were apt to bear the lowly stamp of their origins. Arodias Thorne, however, had gone to great pains to eradicate all hint of such from his speech; it was almost too precise, in fact, perhaps because a style acquired late in life never sits as easily upon a man – or woman – as one learned from birth. I remember, too, how still he stayed – at that interview, and subsequently – when speaking. As with the ordered neatness of all around him, all was ordered and controlled, as if in fear of what might, at a moment’s laxness, be let slip.

  “I am glad, sir,” I said. Mr Thorne permitted himself the barest shadow of a smile.

  “You would not be here were it otherwise, Miss Carson. I have no doubt of your qualities, as regards the post, but have heard only the barest details of your career.” His eyes did not waver from mine, nor blink. “Perhaps you would be kind enough – in your own words, of course.”

  How much did he know? I was hard put to believe that Mr Thorne would engage someone – especially in so responsible a position as this – without fully acquainting himself with their history. Perhaps it was a test, to see what I might try to hide. So I told my tale with my head held high – although it occurred to me, as I spoke, that Mr Thorne might hold my father’s campaign for Abolition as a black mark, or my impoverished circumstances as a badge of shame.

  “So,” he said when I had finished, “you have laboured long and hard to bring about Christ’s Kingdom on Earth, Miss Carson. A thankless task, as you have learned: it has left you penniless and a spinster.”

  I was too shocked by such bluntness to speak. Mr Thorne raised a hand.