Stephen Read online

  Still sobbing, with my face in my hands, I sat all alone in Doctor Brooks' study. A fire was burning in the hearth, making the study the only warm room in the house, yet still I was trembling as I replayed Mrs. Brooks' madness over and over in my mind.

  Or rather, one particular part of the madness. Those who read chapter twenty-eight will know what I mean, and that image was spinning through my thoughts with such fury that nothing else could enter my mind. I do not know how long I spent sitting next to the fire, but I was so lost in thought that I even neglected to feel the pain from my broken finger.

  Finally I was jolted back to alertness by the sound of Doctor Brooks coming down the stairs. Turning to look toward the doorway, I listened to his slow, heavy footsteps, and then I saw his sloped shoulders as he stopped and leaned against the jamb. The man looked utterly exhausted, his large frame barely hanging from his bones. The fire was spitting and crackling, but I could hear Doctor Brooks' pained breaths, and it was almost a full minute before he stumbled forward and made his way to the cabinet in the corner, where he proceeded to pour himself a glass of whiskey. He looked like a man who, after a long fight, had reached the end.

  “Is she alright?” I asked, although I instantly flinched as I realized that the question was hopeless. “I mean, is she...”

  My voice trailed off.

  In truth, Mrs. Brooks had seemed so utterly lost, it was difficult to imagine how she could ever recover.

  “Is she still laughing?” I asked finally. “Or is she now more calm?”

  Doctor Brooks did not answer, not at first. He swallowed the whiskey in one gulp, and then he poured himself another.

  While I waited, I looked over at his desk, and I saw that the photograph of Hannah Treadwell still lay next to all the other documents. Doctor Brooks had covered it earlier, when I had made mention of its presence, but evidently he had uncovered it again since. Something about the previous governess, I fancied, held great meaning for him.

  “She is insane,” he said suddenly.

  I turned to him, and I instantly saw the fear in his eyes. The fire was casting dancing shadows across his face, but he himself seemed frozen.

  “She is completely out of her mind,” he continued somberly. “I thought I could save her from herself, I thought I could lift her from her troubles, but indeed she has sunk deeper into them than I ever thought possible. She is drowning in her own madness, in her own passions. I told her to constrict those passions, to keep them under control, but alas she could not.” He paused, before making his way unsteadily to the desk. “There is only one thing to do now.”

  After setting his glass of whiskey down, he opened one of the desk's drawers and took out a pearl-handled revolver, which he immediately began to load.

  “What are you planning?” I asked, filled with fright.

  I waited, but he did not reply.

  “Doctor Brooks? What are you going to do with that?”

  “I won't let her live like this,” he replied matter-of-factly. “I love her too much for that.”

  “No!” I instinctively hurried over and reached out, trying to to snatch the gun from his hands. I did not entirely succeed, although the weapon fell against the desk and he made no immediate move to pick it up again. I believe he was simply too exhausted. “You cannot!” I told him. “God forbids murder!”

  “There is no other option,” he said, although he sounded as if he had barely the energy to speak. “I must finish what I started. Anyway, it would not be murder, it would be mercy.”

  “You said she needed time to recover!”

  “I gave her that time, and she did not recover.”

  “Then call the doctor!”

  “I am a doctor.”

  “Call another doctor!” I urged him, with tears in my eyes. It was at that moment that something changed in me, that I began to consider the possibility that my deepest concerns might actually be correct. “What about the doctor who came out previously? Farrar, his name was, I believe. Why can you not call for him to attend?”

  “He would not understand. Nobody understands.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “My family has a certain reputation,” he replied. “Severine and I...”

  His voice trailed off.

  “This is not normal,” I whispered finally. “You can tell me that it is, until you are blue in the face, but I cannot believe that any of this is normal. If it were normal, you would let Doctor Farrar come back. If it were normal, people in Bumpsford would not have spat at us.”

  Ignoring me, he let out a pained gasp and slumped down into his chair. He seemed utterly defeated. After a moment he reached for the gun. Before I could try to stop him, however, he gave up on the attempt and sighed again as he leaned back.

  “Do you know why I hired you?” he asked, barely able to keep his eyes open, as if sheer exhaustion was dragging him down. “It was not because of your skills as a governess. There were many, many other girls who were better than you in that regard. No, I hired you because you had lived such a sheltered life. I realized that you would trust anything I told you, that you could be molded. Still, I worried that you would recoil in horror from the sight of Stephen, but then I saw you help that man in the street, the man who had suffered an accident. I saw how much you cared, even for a complete stranger, and I chose to gamble on the hope that you would also care for Severine, and for little Stephen. It was a risk, but I seem to have been mostly correct.”

  “I won't let you kill her,” I told him.

  “I no longer think I could even walk up the stairs to try,” he replied. “I am done. After all these years of striving to keep her happy, I need to rest.”

  Nevertheless, he found the strength to reach across the desk and take the photograph of Hannah Treadwell, and as he stared at the picture I saw tears in his eyes.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered finally. “I am so sorry, Hannah. I should never have given in to my desires. I should have held them back, the way I held them back for so many years. It was just one moment of weakness. That was all. I was strong my whole life, and then in one brief moment of abject weakness I let myself break, and everything flooded out. But you were right, Hannah. You were right all along, from the very beginning. If I had listened to you, none of these awful things would have happened. I no longer even have the right to look upon your beautiful face.”

  With that, he hesitated for a moment before turning and tossing the photograph into the fire, where it quickly burned to nothing. He sat still for a moment, watching the flames.

  “What happened to the previous governess?” I asked, my chest tight with fear now. “Please, I want to know before I leave.”

  I waited, but he merely watched the flames.

  “What happened to her?” I asked again. “Doctor Brooks, I cannot stay here. I am sorry, but I must leave tonight, and I shall never return. Before I go, however, I must know what happened to Hannah Treadwell.”

  “She killed my son,” he whispered. “Our son. Severine's and mine.”

  “Why?” I asked, shocked to have my suspicions confirmed. “Why would anybody kill a child? The whole idea is inhuman!”

  “Hannah put her hands around his throat, just three weeks ago, and she throttled him.” He paused. “She said that he was an abomination, and in that assessment she was right. Hannah was a good woman, right up until the end. She was what I needed, and I saw that in her from the beginning, but this house got to her. It gets to all of us in the end. She spent too long in the company of madness, and she went mad herself.”

  He reached under the pile of papers and slipped out another photograph, this time one that looked even older.

  “But why did Hannah kill Stephen?” I continued. “Please, at least tell me that. Why did she think he was an abomination?”

  “Look at us,” he replied, still staring at the new photograph, which I could not quite see from where I stood. “So happy. So young. So carefree.”

  I was about to ask wha
t he meant, but instead I stepped around the table until I was able to make out the image. I saw a picture of two young children, a boy and a girl, smiling at the camera. They were holding hands, standing outside the rear of the house, but it took a moment before I noticed that the girl was marked by a harelip in the exact same location as the mark that affected Mrs. Brooks.

  “We denied it for so long,” Doctor Brooks continued, “and I even married Hannah to try to put a barrier between us, but when you try to suppress passion like that, it only comes out in other forms.”

  “Married Hannah?” I whispered. “How could you have married her? She was the governess.”

  “Hannah Treadwell was my wife,” he replied, before running a fingertip against the face of the girl in the photograph. “And Severine is my beautiful, beautiful sister.”

  Feeling an instant knot of revulsion in my belly, I took a step back. I wanted to tell him that it could not be true, that I did not believe him, but somehow deep down I instantly knew that he was telling the truth. Indeed, now that I look back, I find it hard to believe that I had not understood the connection sooner.

  “By the time Hannah realized,” he continued, “it was too late. Perhaps she suspected something improper between Severine and myself. Perhaps she wondered why I let my sister still live with us. Perhaps she thought any passion would go unrealized. She was wrong. One night I was weak, I allowed Severine to finally seduce me, and that single union produced a child. Hannah was determined to bury all signs of madness. It was barely three weeks ago that she stood screaming at me in this very room, and then she went to the nursery. Before Severine and I could stop her, she had...”

  He let out a faint, horrified gasp.

  “I cannot stay here!” I stammered. “I just cannot!”

  Filled with the sense that I would die if I remained in that house for a moment longer, I rushed out of the study and headed straight for the front door. When I tried the handle, however, I found that the door was locked and that there was no sign of the key. I next ran through to the kitchen, only to find the rear door in the same condition. At this, filled with an increasing sense of desperation and panic, I attempted to open one of the windows, only to discover that this too had been sealed shut.

  Convinced that I had to be able to find a way out of the house, I went from room to room, trying every door and window I could find. I was already starting to realize, however, that Doctor Brooks had sealed the house shut. Indeed, by the time I got back to the hallway, I was attempting to think of some way I might be able to force the front door open. I ran forward and tried the handle again and again, until it began to come loose, and in truth I was not thinking straight. All that mattered, at that moment, was getting out of the house.

  “I am so sorry, Hannah,” I heard Doctor Brooks say. “May God have mercy on the souls of us all.”

  And then I screamed, as I heard the most tremendous blast coming from the study.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The impact had blown the top of Doctor Brooks' head clean away, leaving only a meaty stump that crowned the mid-line of his face just above his lower jaw. Blood was sprayed across the wall behind him, and more blood was dribbling freely down his chin and splattering onto the desk.

  And then, after a few seconds of silence, his lower jaw twitched and something like a sigh bubbled up from his exposed windpipe, and then his body slumped back in its seat.

  It did not move again.

  All I could do was stare in horror. The man's right hand lay on the desk, still partially holding the revolver. The blast had been so sudden and so loud, and the subsequent silence of the house now seemed that much more real. At the same time, the blast had sounded not like a gunshot at all, but rather like an explosion of immense pressure. After a few seconds I realized I could hear a series of faint tapping sounds, and I supposed that drops of blood had now run all the way down the doctor's side and were hitting the wooden floor.

  Suddenly, realizing I had been inadvertently holding my breath, I let out a shocked gasp and took a step back, bumping against the locked front door in the process. I had seen the bodies of the dead before, of course. Not just Stephen, but bodies back at the convent. These had always, however, been the bodies of people who had died fairly peacefully. I had most certainly never before seen anyone who had been killed by a revolver, and the sheer amount of blood was making me feel faint.

  Looking back, I suppose I was in an advanced state of shock, which explains why I finally slithered down against the wall and sat on the cold wooden floor, unable to stop staring at the doctor's body.

  The house itself had fallen completely silent.

  May God have mercy on the souls of us all, I thought, remembering his last words and hearing them echoing over and over in my mind. May God have mercy on the souls of us all. May God -

  And then, suddenly, something bumped in one of the rooms upstairs. I looked up toward the landing, just as I heard the creak of the nursery door starting to swing open.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Scrambling to my feet, I stumbled across the hallway and into the dining room, and then I quickly made sure that I was hidden from sight. Stepping around the side of the dresser, I turned and looked back toward the open door through which I had just passed, and I listened to the sound of footsteps moving slowly but steadily down the main staircase. I felt absolutely terrified, but too scared to move an inch, as the footsteps finally reached the bottom of the stairs and moved toward the study.

  And there they stopped.

  But only for a moment. The steps resumed after just a few seconds, and I heard Mrs. Brooks making her way into the study and over – I assumed – to Doctor Brooks' desk, where she stopped once again.

  And then silence.

  I waited, and I waited and I waited, but for several minutes there was now not a sound in the whole house. It was as if I was entirely alone, although I knew full well that I was not alone. Without even thinking, I began to back away until I bumped against the wall, and then I froze as I realized that the sound would surely have given away my location. Still, I heard no more footsteps, so I knew that she had to still be at the desk. Supposing that I might yet be able to force the back door open, I turned and began to make my way across the room, intending to reach the kitchen.

  Suddenly, however, my right foot caught the edge of the table. I began to fall, and I let out a startled cry as I stumbled forward. Finally I slammed into the wall, just about managing to steady myself, but then I froze as I realized that I had now most definitely reminded Mrs. Brooks of my presence.

  A moment later I hear footsteps walking calmly across the study.

  I instinctively rushed through the next doorway and into the reading room, where I once again froze. I could hear the footsteps coming closer, and finally they stopped just as they seemed to reach the door on the other side of the dining room. That would mean there was a little more than a room between us, but I was terrified of seeing her again. Filled with a sense of absolute panic, I could think only of escaping Grangehurst.

  I waited, once again holding my breath, but now silence had returned to the house. Or at least, that is what I initially believed, before I realized after a few seconds that in fact I could hear a very faint shuffling sound coming from one of the adjacent rooms. With a growing sense of fear, I finally understood that Mrs. Brooks was coming toward me, and that she was trying to do so without alerting me. Whereas my efforts at stealth had been hopelessly cack-handed, hers seemed rather effective.

  I turned and ran across the reading room and into the conservatory, and from there I quickly rushed through the door at the far end and hurried along the narrow stone corridor that finally led to the darkened kitchen. I tried to be quiet, but panic drove me onward at such speed that I knew I was making a noise. Rushing to the back door, I tried the handle as quietly as I could possibly manage.

  I could barely think straight, but I was determined to find a way out of the house. Finding the door to be
an impassable obstacle, however, I made my way to the nearest window and then removed a hairpin from my pocket, and I began to try picking the lock. If I had been able to open a door in that manner, I realized, perhaps I would also be able to open a window. The pain in my broken little finger did not help, but pure fear drove me to keep working. As I struggled with the lock, I glanced at the reflection of the dark room in the window, and I saw that there was no sign of Mrs. Brooks in the farthest doorway.

  “Please,” I whispered, looking down at the hairpin again as I tried furiously to get the lock open, “Lord get me out of here.”

  I glanced at the reflection again, but still I saw only the empty doorway leading into the corridor.

  One more miracle, I remember thinking. Just one more.

  “Deliver me from this place,” I continued, mumbling under my breath in the hope that the Lord would hear me, “so that I might be saved, and so that I might save others.”

  I glanced at the reflection.

  There was still no sign of her.

  I looked back at the hairpin, then back at the reflection again.

  Suddenly Mrs. Brooks was right behind me, staring straight at me.

  Startled, I turned and ran, scrambling across the darkened kitchen and bumping against the doorway as I hurried through to the corridor. I did not dare look back; instead, I ran and ran and ran through doorway after doorway until I suddenly came to a halt and found that I was back in the study. Somehow I had managed a complete circuit of the house's ground floor without finding a single exit.

  Doctor Brooks' body was still in the chair, although blood had finally stopped dribbling down the sides.

  Suddenly I heard footsteps nearby. I turned and looked around, but in my panic I could not determine whether Mrs. Brooks was approaching the door that led from the hallway or the door from the other corridor. Terrified in case she appeared at any moment, I finally hurried around the back of the desk and ducked down behind the dresser in the corner, squeezing myself into the tight space so that I would not be seen from either doorway.