Well, we’re almost there again. Tomorrow is the first day of Advent, the official time of preparation for Christmas. For many, it’s the commencement of a season of light, happiness and religious observance. But for us – at least for the purposes of this blog – it means that we start looking very seriously at spooky fiction.
So today, I’m not just going to talk about SPARROWHAWK,
my festive ghostly novella of 2010, I’m also going to post its opening three
chapters. The book is 40,000 words in length overall, and the chapters are
relatively short, so don’t worry about me giving too much away with that,
though hopefully you’ll find that there’s sufficient here to whet your appetite
to read the whole thing.
In keeping with the traditional ghost story theme (and
just so that today’s blogpost isn’t entirely about me), I’ll also be reviewing and
discussing, in my usual forensic detail, THE SILENT COMPANIONS by Laura
Purcell, a deliciously creepy and and enjoyable haunted house novel, with a
very traditional atmosphere, the sort you can’t help but be inspired by as
Christmas approaches.
If you’ve only checked in for the Laura Purcell review,
that’s fine. As ever, you’ll find it at the lower end of today’s blogpost, so
feel free to skip on down there right away and get stuck in. On the other hand,
if you’ve got a bit more time available, you might want hang around a little
and journey back with me to a bitterly cold December in a time of turmoil and
terror …
Mist things
During the ‘deep freeze’ December of 2009, I wrote the
novella, SPARROWHAWK, having wanted for some time to pen a Victorian chiller
with a Christmas theme. The fact that we had heavy snow that month and icy mist so thick and cold that you’d imagine almost anything could emerge from it, made it seem
easy. The words flowed so smoothly that as the story unfolded, it began to
escalate in length until it had soon surpassed the usual 20,000 words that you
get with a novella, and, finally clocking off at 40,000, was more like a short
novel.
The paperback edition was published by Pendragon Press, who did a
rather spiffing job. We sold a lot of copies straight away, there were some
great reviews, and the word got out fast. In 2011, SPARROWHAWK was short-listed for
the British Fantasy Award in the capacity of Best Novella but was pipped at the
post by my good mate, Simon Clark’s masterly HUMPTY’S BONES.
Later that year, I was approached by a respected film company, who were interested in adapting it as a festive TV fantasy with a
darker-than-usual edge, though sadly, thanks to the proposed cost of the
project (among many things, it contains an epic battle sequence), it didn’t happen – at least, it
hasn’t happened so far.
You may wonder why, when all this occurred nearly 10 years ago,
I’m talking about it now. But, to be honest with you, and even if I say so
myself, I think SPARROWHAWK is a bit of timeless tale. It’s won praise for being
more than just a ghost story. It’s been called a romance, a thriller,
a family drama, a historical adventure, and even an adult fairy tale, which has
pleased me no end because all of these threads were deliberately woven in at conception stage.
But ultimately, at heart, it remains a Christmas tale, and if that’s not a timeless
thing in itself, then I’m not sure what is. Our Great British love affair with the traditional
Christmas ghost story is as strong now as it ever was, so I don’t think I’m taking too much of a chance
that you guys will still be interested in SPARROWHAWK nearly a decade after it
was first published.
Very quickly, it is set in the year 1843, and concerns embittered
Afghan War veteran John Sparrowhawk, who is suddenly and inexplicably released from the debtors’ prison by the
beautiful and enigmatic Miss Evangeline. Penniless and alone in the world, Sparrowhawk takes
employment with his mysterious benefactor, agreeing to stand guard over a house
in Bloomsbury for the duration of the Christmas period.
But while London is gripped in the coldest winter in
living memory, Sparrowhawk soon comes to realise that both he and the object of
his protection are being stalked by a supernatural entity, whose terrifying
presence is only partially cloaked by the mist and the snow and the gnawing
winter darkness ...
I hope you enjoy these first three chapters sufficiently
to go and seek out the rest
SPARROWHAWK (chapters 1 / 2)
Miss Evangeline went there unwillingly. Debt was not a condition that would ever apply to her, but she derived no pleasure from the trials and tribulations of others. It was a wet and very cold November day when her carriage pulled up on the prison forecourt. She bade her coachman come back in half an hour, then produced her letters of introduction and gazed up at the awesome structure. It was an architectural monstrosity, somewhere between a castle and a warehouse. Its brick walls were black with soot and streaked white and grey by the flocks of dirty pigeons that roosted in its high, rotted gables. The few windows visible were tiny apertures, heavily barred.
A tall, brutal-looking turnkey passed her through the
first gate into a small entry passage, where her papers were examined. To the
left was the door to the warden’s house. Miss Evangeline wondered if it might
be politic to call there first and explain herself, but then she had second
thoughts. Why spoil that sanguine official’s day? In this small domain the
warden was king; it seemed a pity to remind him there were infinitely greater
powers. She took her papers back, and a second turnkey admitted her through
another gate. This second fellow, even burlier and more brutish than the first,
was entranced. Miss Evangeline was exceedingly pretty, with violet eyes,
rosebud lips, a pert, pixie nose and honey-blonde hair fashioned in ringlets.
Her slim figure was gorgeously clad in a pink bustled dress, high bonnet and
cashmere shawl.
The turnkey became ingratiating and asked if she would
like to come into their “lodge” for some tea, and maybe see “the portrait
room”, where they “sized up the new arrivals”. Miss Evangeline politely
declined, and so was shown through into the prison proper.
Here, a stench assailed her like offal or faeces. The transformation from broad daylight to dungeon-like darkness was briefly blinding. It was a warren of damp passages and dingy rooms, and already she was among prisoners. At first, they were shades: spectral figures drifting aimlessly, heads bowed. But as her eyes attuned, she was able to see them for the miserable, broken wretches they were. Most wore the clothing of gentlefolk gone to seed, though there were also paupers’ rags on view, bare feet, lengths of shin and wrist grown long past the extent of the childhood garb that clad them. Faces were haggard and pale, hair long and ratty, eyes red-rimmed. When Miss Evangeline asked an old man where she could find John Sparrowhawk, she was ignored. When she persisted, the man nodded at a stone stair dropping into darkness.
Here, a stench assailed her like offal or faeces. The transformation from broad daylight to dungeon-like darkness was briefly blinding. It was a warren of damp passages and dingy rooms, and already she was among prisoners. At first, they were shades: spectral figures drifting aimlessly, heads bowed. But as her eyes attuned, she was able to see them for the miserable, broken wretches they were. Most wore the clothing of gentlefolk gone to seed, though there were also paupers’ rags on view, bare feet, lengths of shin and wrist grown long past the extent of the childhood garb that clad them. Faces were haggard and pale, hair long and ratty, eyes red-rimmed. When Miss Evangeline asked an old man where she could find John Sparrowhawk, she was ignored. When she persisted, the man nodded at a stone stair dropping into darkness.
“Down there?” she enquired.
“The Fair, miss,” the man said.
“The Fair?”
“Bartholomew Fair,” he added, as if this explained
everything.
Miss Evangeline nodded an understanding she didn’t feel
and descended the stair to a tunnel where water dripped incessantly, and strips
of dust-thick cobweb hung like pieces of tattered brocade. She glanced through
one door after another. Weak candle-flames revealed mouldy straw, black
ceilings, walls so damp they’d turned green. When she reached the end room and
found the person she was looking for, it was no surprise that she barely
recognised him; if anything could change a man it was this hellish place. He
was slumped in a corner, for there were no benches or chairs. A face once
tanned and neatly chiselled was now pale and drawn, dark with unshaved stubble,
framed on either side by a mop of lank hair hanging almost to his shoulders.
Eyes formerly hard as jewels had sunk into their sockets. The one-time strong
physique, so often resplendent in dress-uniform, was skeletal and attired
in a threadbare shirt and trousers caked with grime.
The first the prisoner knew of his visitor was her scent
– a faint floral odour, rose and jasmine perhaps. He stared up at her, bleakly.
If it seemed strange to him that so decorous a lady,
clearly one of status and breeding, had arrived unannounced in this place of
the forgotten, he didn’t show it. Perhaps his capacity to feel surprise had
been crushed out of him, along with his bearing and his manners – and his
ability to suffer cold. The temperature was almost sub-zero, yet, though his
skin was pale as ash and there was barely a scrap of meat on his bones, he
didn’t even shiver. She realised that his relatively brief incarceration –
brief compared to some of his fellow prisoners – had hardened him to a
frightening degree. Though of course the North West Frontier might also have
played its part.
“They call this part of the prison ‘Bartholomew Fair’,”
Miss Evangeline said.
“I know.” The prisoner got awkwardly to his feet. “I
imagine it’s a kind of irony.”
“Bartholomew Fair was notorious for its lascivious
pleasures.” She looked him over properly now that he was standing. “Have you
enjoyed much lascivious pleasure, Captain Sparrowhawk?”
“Not of late,” he said. “Are you offering some?”
She didn’t dignify that comment with a reply but surveyed
the room. In one corner, a cracked pot served as a latrine. A black beetle
clambered out of it.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“You may call me ‘Miss Evangeline’.”
“I may call you something else, miss, if you don’t cease
toying with me.”
She tut-tutted. “How ungentlemanly that would be. If you
don’t mind your tongue, sir, I might deign to believe everything they say about
you.”
“Were you a friend of my wife’s?”
“My relationship with your wife is of no consequence.”
“So, you were?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Are you another who blames me for her death?”
She raised a finely-drawn eyebrow. “Did you kill her?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why should I?”
He seemed confused. “Not everyone I know has that clarity
of vision. So why are you here?”
“I have a proposal for you, captain.”
“Ahhh … the army sent you.”
Miss Evangeline touched a handkerchief to her nose. The
smell of sweat and dirt seemed to get worse the longer she spent in this
necropolis. “The army?”
“As a honeyed lure.”
“I don’t understand.”
He chuckled. “Don’t tell me … Lord Ellenborough insists
that we retake Kabul, and he needs all the suicidal subalterns he can get his
hands on?”
Miss Evangeline shook her head. “The Afghan War is over.
The British recaptured Kabul, and General Pollock’s Army of Retribution laid
waste to the Afghan towns and villages on a wide scale, massacring the
tribesmen, both friends and enemies alike, as a stern lesson. The army then
withdrew to India, wreaking more slaughter on the way and losing countless more
of its own.”
“Bravo to General Pollock. The Duke of Wellington always
said the greater problem with Afghanistan was not getting into it but getting
out of it.” Sparrowhawk shrugged. “It makes no difference, miss. If your
paymasters think I’m going to return to the Colours after kicking my heels for
half a year in here …”
“I’m not trying to recruit you back to the Colours,
though I suppose my proposition carries a certain risk.”
“Why does that not surprise me?”
“We made a study of your military career before coming to
you, captain. It seems your reconnaissance skills as a scout and mapper
impressed General Elphinstone no end.”
If the average man on the street heard a lady talk thus,
it would be shocking and baffling to him. But Sparrowhawk had been around army
wives all his adult life, and his conviction grew about who had sent this
handsome messenger.
“You were highly valued by all your comrades,” she added.
“But not so much that any of my brother officers would
throw me a credit line when I most needed it.”
“Ah, well,” she sighed, “that is the way of the world.
Fall foul of Soho’s gaming tables, and one is apt to lose friends as quickly as
one loses one’s money.”
“Indeed? Well tell whoever sent you
here that it’s too late to buy me now. I owed only two-hundred pounds, yet not
a single one of my former comrades came to visit me, or even sent anyone until
this moment. And this, I learn, is because they want something.”
“You’re quite mistaken to think this an army matter,”
“So why do you keep using my military title? I resigned
my commission months ago.”
“I thought it might flatter you.”
He chuckled humourlessly. “What a miscalculation.”
“Yes, I fear so.” She sounded sad. “Perhaps you aren’t
the man for us after all.” She moved to the door of the cell but, before
leaving, added: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life in here? Because
that’s what it looks like. You’ve no income, no family …”
“No friends.”
“Captain … the party I represent is offering to pay your
debt, and all the interest you’ve accumulated on it. Not make you a loan, mark
you, but pay it off in full.”
Sparrowhawk leaned against a shelf, where his single stub
of candle burned. “I served king and country for seventeen years, miss, and
this is how they reward me. I don’t want another piece of that cake, thank you
very much.”
“The choice is yours, though I’m surprised. I hear you
once tried to escape?”
“Two months after I was first incarcerated … when I
finally realised nobody was even reading my letters, let alone planning to
reply to them. I made it onto the roof, but the turnkeys caught me. They beat
me black and blue and threw me in the strong-room.”
“You spent several days in irons, I believe?”
“It was more like several weeks.”
“Not a pleasant way to pass your time. A pity if it had
to happen again.”
And she took her leave.
Sparrowhawk was left staring at an empty doorway,
wondering if he’d imagined her final comment. Could he bear to be put back in
irons, to be left in pitch-darkness, to be closed in a den so deep and foul
that the rats were bold enough to nibble his toes even while he was awake? He
had no intention of serving his country again; on that he was final. He had no
country, anyway. As far as he was concerned his life was over, even if he was
only thirty-four.
Yet for all that bravado, Sparrowhawk still couldn’t lift
himself from the mire of self-pity. During his months of imprisonment, he’d
tried not to be resentful. He’d exercised every ounce of will he had to tell
himself that this was nobody’s fault but his own, that he had been frivolous,
that he’d gambled with foolish extravagance. But then another voice – booming
in his ear like cannon-fire – reminded him that he’d played and squandered no
more than countless other young gentlemen newly released from war. Of course,
unlike his fellow rakes and ne’er-do-wells, Sparrowhawk had had no-one to bail
him out. Not that this was the real issue. The real issue was should he even be
here? Was it right that a man honoured for gallantry in countless battles on
the Sub-Continent, and wounded on the retreat to Jellalabad, should be locked
away in this dismal place? On the day of his arrest, he’d asked
them this and they’d only sneered, calling him “a legend in his own mind”. He’d
fought with the bailiffs, blacking both the tipstaff’s eyes, and they’d
threatened to use that against him, saying that if he didn’t come quietly
they’d summon the peelers and he’d face a criminal charge.
He walked to the door and peered along the passage. It
was empty. Miss Evangeline had already ascended to the upper levels. Even now,
the turnkey on the front gate would be turning the lock for her. With a curse,
Sparrowhawk hurried in pursuit. From the top of the stair, Miss Evangeline was
visible at the far end of the next passage. Her bright, fashionable clothes
stood out in this place where ‘colour’ was a meaningless term.
“Miss!” Sparrowhawk shouted. If she heard, she didn’t
look round. The gate was closing on her back when he reached it. “Miss, wait!”
Miss Evangeline glanced through the bars.
“What is this proposition you offer?” he asked.
She eyed him dubiously. “You’re not quite the man I
expected, captain. Are you sure you’re fit for duty?”
“I thought you said there was no soldiering involved?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I would not be asking you to
rejoin the army.”
Sparrowhawk clutched at the bars. “Why are you playing
games again? Are you here just to torment me?”
“This is no game, captain, I assure you. I need to know –
and mind you tell me the truth now – are you sure you wish to work for us? It
will be very dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” He laughed and sniffed at the tainted air.
“You smell that? … it’s the River Fleet. It runs directly below us. If you
think it stinks now, wait ’til high summer. In fact, summer is when this place
is at its best. It swarms with vermin, the air’s thick with bluebottles. We
have outbreaks of cholera, jail fever. Every whore in this place is riddled
with pox, but a man has needs, doesn’t he?”
She didn’t flinch at the ugly notion.
“We abound with blaggards,” he said. “Every fellow robs
another if he can. Many are taken out of here dead, and there is little or no
investigation. So, don’t advise me about danger, please.”
She pursed her lips, before saying: “I can have you out
of here in the next couple of days. In the mean time, is there anything you
need?”
“A couple of pounds wouldn’t go amiss.”
“Not starting where we left off, captain?”
“My chummage has gone up this month.”
“Chummage?”
“It’s what we debtors have to pay for the privilege of
being here.” He gave a wry smile. “Believe it or not, we have to pay for the
right to lodge. Then of course there’s food and water, candles and coal … which
also cost, and at a mark-up. The turnkeys do very nicely, let me tell you.”
For the first time, Miss Evangeline looked shocked.
Sparrowhawk knew what she was thinking: that such a thing wouldn’t be tolerated
even in Newgate, where only hardened felons were held.
“Here.” She pushed a small purse through the bars. “It’s
all I have on me.”
“My thanks.”
“Thanks for nothing … call it a down-payment. If you
succeed in the task we give you, we won’t just pay your debt. There’ll be a
significant recompense. But trust me, captain, you’ll have earned it. I must go now.” Miss Evangeline moved away.
“You’ll hear from us very soon.”
Sparrowhawk opened the purse; it contained four sovereigns,
which was much more money than he’d seen in several months. His eyes bulged as
he turned such riches over his hands. Then he glanced up and caught the turnkey
eyeing them enviously. Clenching his fist, Sparrowhawk made to throw a punch
through the bars. The turnkey went for his truncheon, but Sparrowhawk merely
laughed, a sound that no-one in that place of lost and hopeless souls could
remember when they’d last heard. The other prisoners watched in wonder as he
made his way back to his cell, laughing all the way.
I
It was early in the morning, November 30th 1843, when
John Sparrowhawk was taken from the Fleet Prison.
It was a bitterly cold day, the eaves of the surrounding
tenements hung with icicles, the muddy gutters of Clerkenwell crackling with frost.
The sky was pale grey, dots of snow spiralling down. The coachman was
suitably attired: coated, gloved and muffled around his lower face. With his
topper pulled down, only his nose was visible. He said nothing but waited
patiently. The door to his carriage, which was painted all over with black
enamel, stood open on a plush interior.
Sparrowhawk, who’d emerged from the prison with a small
sack of belongings and a blanket wrapped around him, climbed inside. The prison
gate clanged shut, and the vehicle sped away. They drove straight to
Westminster, halting at the rear of a tall, narrow building, which Sparrowhawk
recognised as the hydropathic baths. Here, an attendant was waiting, a big,
raw-boned fellow with thick, red whiskers and braces over his linen undershirt.
The tattoos on his brawny arms indicated a military background. When he spoke,
it was with a Highlands accent.
“Captain Sparrowhawk, sir,” he said. “My name’s Angus.
I’m to look after you today.”
Sparrowhawk was led inside. He undressed in the changing
room and was given a loincloth and robe. He then watched bemusedly as Angus
took his ragged prison garb out into the yard and poked it, piece by piece,
into a lighted brazier.
“Filth, sir,” Angus said by way of explanation. “No state
of mind or manner of speech sets the poor man apart from the rich man as much
as filth. We are like two nations in Britain today, those who are clean and
those who are filthy. The sooner we break this barrier, the sooner we break the
divide in our society.”
Sparrowhawk was then sent into the first caldarium, a
bare brick chamber with a tiled floor. He took off his robe and sat on a bench.
The hot, dry air from the furnaces entered through vents near his feet and
swirled around him. It was the first time he’d been properly warm for nearly
three months, but the painful tingle in his numbed extremities soon faded and
he began to relax, imagining the dirt with which he’d been ingrained running
away in trickles of sweat. After ten minutes, he went through to the second
caldarium, where the temperature was much higher. Now he sweated feverishly,
but it relaxed him even more. Prolonged extremes of heat may be uncomfortable
to many, but when you’ve been exposed to gnawing cold for so long – when you’ve
slept under threadbare rags in a place where your vaporous breath hangs over
you all night like a frozen shroud, when you’ve lived in a room where the damp
on the inside walls regularly glistens with ice – you learn that you can never
have too much of a good thing.
The atmosphere in the third caldarium exceeded 160
degrees. Even Sparrowhawk was only able to remain in there for a short time,
but now his body was almost cleansed. The pores in his skin could breathe
again. His hair, once filled with dust and spider-webs, was a wringing mop. He
ran his fingers through it, rubbing his scalp with a scented salve that Angus
had given him before entering, the burly Scot having promised that it would “do
for all his ticks and lice”.
After the caldaria came the frigidarium, or cooling room,
which contained the plunge pool. Here, he swam naked for a short time, before
traipsing into the hammam, which was arched and decorated in the traditional
eastern style. He lay face down on a wicker couch.
Most of the time in the Fleet Prison, there was naught to
do but sleep. For many inmates this became pathological – it was simply too agonising
to be awake. But in truth you never really slept. You were always half aware of
your decayed surroundings, of the vermin scurrying over your prone body, of the
vile wretches who might sneak upon you and pillage your paltry wares. You
rarely, if ever, woke refreshed, before having to stumble through yet another
torturous day in a state of semi-torpor. Now at last, Sparrowhawk did sleep –
or at least he was preparing to. When a pair of gentle hands began to
manipulate his neck and shoulders, he all but sank into himself. Light, nimble
fingers – he imagined they belonged to a woman, though of course such a thing
would be most unseemly – worked expertly to loosen his knots of muscle.
“Miss Evangeline?” he breathed, delighted by the mere
thought.
He pictured her leaning over him, clad only in petticoats
and a bodice, the latter unlaced, the former clinging with sweat, her blonde
ringlets hanging damp around her pretty face.
And then she dug her nails in, deeply.
He winced and grunted, but she dug all the harder, and
suddenly there were claws affixed to his shoulders – not hands, but talons,
which burrowed through the wasted flesh, rending and tearing at it viciously. Sparrowhawk knew the Turkish massage could be robust, but
this was too much. One claw fastened onto the side of his neck and started to
squeeze. Again, sharp nails cut into him, clamping his throat, constricting his
breath.
“Good God!” he gasped, twisting where he lay and looking
around.
No shampooer was present. Sparrowhawk lay alone.
He jumped up from the couch. The hammam was empty. One
passage led off towards the smoking area, the other back to the frigidarium,
the doorway to which was filled with opaque mist undisturbed by the passage of
anyone. A bad dream, he reflected. Surely no surprise after his ordeals of
recent times? But when he touched his neck and shoulders, they were aching and
bruised. He felt wheals in the skin.
Angered, he went through into the frigidarium.
The plunge pool, the little he could see of it in the
rolling vapour, was a glassy sheet; not a ripple broke its surface. There was
no sound, save the dripping of condensation on the tiled floor. When he went
back into the hammam, Angus had appeared, carrying a sponge thick with lather
and a bundle of fluffy towels.
“Ready for your shampoo, sir?” the Scot asked.
“I thought I’d already had it,” Sparrowhawk said.
“Not got around to you yet, sir. I have a couple of other
customers to attend to as well.”
“You have no other shampooers?”
“None on duty today, sir.”
“You wouldn’t by any chance employ a woman here?”
Angus looked shocked. “To work on a gentleman, sir? We’d
have the police calling!”
“There are no women here at all?”
“Not today, sir. It’s gentlemen only today.”
Sparrowhawk said nothing more. He allowed himself to be
‘shampooed’, as the owners of these exotic establishments referred to it, this
time properly, and if the Scot’s vigorous attentions to his shoulders and neck
caused him to flinch, he said nothing about it.
When his session was over, he was shown to a private
room, where he was able to shave and don a suit of gentleman’s clothes awaiting
him on a hanger. In the inside pocket of the green frockcoat, he found a
leather wallet containing £30. He was able to tip Angus from this,
the overall fee apparently having been paid in advance by someone else.
Outside, it was snowing heavily and settling even in the
midst of London’s swarming traffic. Across the road there was an inn, and in
its downstairs window, lit by the ruddy flames of a log fire, Miss Evangeline
waited at a private table.
“You look much better,” she said when he entered. She
indicated that he should sit. He noticed that knives, forks and napkins had
been laid out for them both.
“These clothes are a little big on me,” he said
self-consciously.
“No matter. Your frame will soon fill out now that you’ve
returned to normal life.”
She’d dressed today in purple satin, her bonnet lavishly
decorated with bows and ribbons; she looked quite dazzling. Somewhat cowed by
this, Sparrowhark removed his topper, and sat, regarding her warily. It all
seemed terribly unreal. Two days ago, he was a pauper who couldn’t even afford
his own freedom. Yet now he wore new leather shoes and white nankin trousers!
His wallet clinked with silver!
“You’ve done so much for me that I can’t
imagine what service you’re expecting in return,” he said.
“I’ll tell you duly,” she replied. “But first let us
eat.”
Miss Evangeline was a remarkable woman in more ways than
one. Despite her looks and youth – she was somewhere close to thirty, yet with
the freshness and vitality of a schoolgirl – she was of a strong, independent
spirit. Not only was she here in the middle of London without a chaperone (he
assumed – a glance around the crowded interior revealed no-one showing interest
in them), but she took it on herself to order their meal and, without
consulting her male guest, asked also for a jug of mulled wine spiced with
orange and cinnamon.
When the repast was set out, a haunch of venison with a
bowl of boiled potatoes and steamed carrots, Sparrowhawk gazed at it
uncomprehendingly. For a man who recently had gnawed on black bread and drank
melt-water from a cracked pipe, the aroma was almost overpowering. But how had
such a change come about?
He failed to understand, and when he didn’t understand something it frightened him.
He failed to understand, and when he didn’t understand something it frightened him.
“Miss Evangeline,” he said, “do you know who I actually
am?”
“Of course.” She carved him a portion of meat, ladled it
with gravy and added vegetables. “Take some advice, if you would, captain.
Though you may strongly be tempted, pray, do not wolf your food – your innards
will be weakened by the rubbish you’ve been living on in the Fleet.”
“Are you sure you know who I am?”
“I’m fully aware of your history.” She served herself a
daintier portion.
“Miss Evangeline, I’m not just a war veteran and a
debtor, I’m …”
“You’re a widower,” she interrupted, glancing up at him.
“Which is a surprise to no-one who knows you. You may not have murdered your
wife, captain, but she died because you were an absolute swine to her.” She
watched him without blinking. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
For some unfathomable reason, it didn’t surprise him that
she knew so much about him.
“I neglected her,” he admitted.
“Oh, I think you did a little more than that.” Miss
Evangeline sat back in her chair, still watching him. “Such a sweet girl,
Leticia, and so in love with you … to be repaid the way she was.”
“I didn’t, I never …” How often he’d used this defence,
yet even when there was no-one to use it against save himself, it had never
sounded genuine. “I never harmed her physically.”
“No, but you didn’t love her. And you rarely hesitated to
show it.”
He shrugged, indicating that he didn’t feel he was
totally to blame. “I’d had no option but to marry her.”
“You impregnated her, did you not? After the Grand
Christmas Ball at Horse Guards.”
“Marrying her was the honourable thing.”
“Even though her family, the Frodshams, didn’t want that
for her? They disliked you so much as a military dissolute that they’d rather
have lived with their daughter’s shame.”
“They didn’t know me properly.”
Miss Evangeline considered this. “Sometimes our
reputations are not the whole story, I’ll give you that. But what else were
they to think, given that your own family had barely spoken to you in nearly
two decades? Remind me what happened to the child.”
“The child?”
“The reason you married Leticia.”
“It … he died during birth.”
“That must have been a blow to you both. Did you try for
another?”
He wondered how she could ask such impertinent questions,
much less how he could be answering them like this. And yet there was nothing
intense in her gaze – she hadn’t mesmerised him or hypnotised him. But she held
him all the same with those lovely violet eyes.
“We didn’t exactly try,” he said.
“You weren’t close physically?”
“Sometimes.” He smiled with distant fondness, recalling
his late wife’s excitable manner and the delight in her face after the doctor’s
next visit. “Leticia never had a problem getting with child.”
“No,” Miss Evangeline said. “It was the delivering that
was the problem, wasn’t it? Your second child was a girl. I understand that she
too died while trying to be born.”
“Yes.” It surprised Sparrowhawk that he was suddenly
blinking away tears. He hadn’t thought there were any tears left in his body to
cry.
“How did you respond to that, captain?”
“I left.”
“Left?”
“I went abroad with my regiment.”
“Hmm.” Miss Evangeline pondered. “An odd thing for a
husband to do with his wife in such a pitiful state.”
“There was war. I was being deployed to Afghanistan.”
“Ahhh now … Captain Sparrowhawk, our relationship will
not blossom if you lie to me. You weren’t being deployed to Afghanistan, were
you? You volunteered.”
“I had skills that were needed.”
“Nevertheless, you volunteered. No-one would have thought
the less of you if you hadn’t gone.”
“I had no idea how badly Leticia was hurt.”
“What did you expect?”
“She only took ill after I’d left.”
“Almost straight away after. When it suddenly dawned on
her that she would not be seeing you again for a very considerable time.”
He regarded the victuals on his plate. The meat was
cooling, the gravy congealing. For months he’d been gaunt with hunger, watering
at the gills just imagining food – but now he had no appetite for anything.
“If you know all this about me,” he said, “why on Earth
are you employing me?”
“Why indeed? Well … as I said before, Captain
Sparrowhawk, you may be a very inadequate man. But on the other hand you were a
very good soldier. And it’s the soldier we’re interested in at present.”
She raised her goblet in toast to him. But she wasn’t
smiling. And only now did he fully understand that, whatever she had in mind
for him, it would be no jolly holiday.
II
That night, Sparrowhawk suffered another strange
occurrence, this one of an even less benign sort – as Miss Evangeline had
forecast that he probably would.
“You must protect someone,” she said during the
afternoon, as they drove towards an address in Camden Town that had been rented
for him.
“Who?” he asked.
“Nobody of significance. Just an ordinary man.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He lives in a house in Bloomsbury. It’s not important
that you know his name. All that matters is that he’ll need protection during
the first three weeks of December.”
“Only the first three weeks?”
“Yes. From that point on, others will take charge.”
Sparrowhawk pondered this. “Who wishes him ill?”
“Again, I can’t give you a name. But three individuals
will attempt to attack him at his home during the hours of darkness.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“Three visitants – each of a distinctly unpleasant nature
– will come. They will come separately, and each will make one attempt to enter
the premises. You must stop them all.”
“Miss Evangeline, I need to know more if I’m to do a
proper job.”
“I can’t tell you any more at present but take
this.” She handed him an envelope.
“There are several addresses in here. Inns and eating houses where you might
contact me during the course of the mission. There is also a residential
address where you might find me quickly should the need arise, though I can’t
stress enough that this must only occur if it is absolutely necessary. There is
also the address of the man you must protect. Keep vigil at his house every
night from tomorrow onward until December 21st, and if he is unharmed by that
date your task will be complete.”
Sparrowhawk opened
the envelope. Inside, as she had said, there was a printed card bearing various
addresses. The two that interested him most were Miss Evangeline’s ‘residential
address’, which was 13, Rislington Row, Eastcheap, a surprisingly seedy
district in his opinion, and the address he was to defend: 48, Doughty Street,
Bloomsbury.
“It would help immeasurably if I knew the opposition,” he
said.
“I can only tell you that they will strike hard and in,
shall we say, unusual ways. It’s also possible that you won’t see them until
they are right upon you, so you must be watchful all the time.”
He gazed at her. “This is ridiculous. An enemy whose
strength and disposition are unknown to me? An enemy I can’t even see…?”
“How often did you see the Ghilazi tribesmen until they
were ready? When you set out from Kabul to Jellalabad with more women and
children in your column than fellow soldiers, had you any idea you’d be facing
a foe fifty thousand strong?”
He hesitated to reply as unpleasant memories were
stirred. Outside, it was already growing dark.
Snow fell heavily and steadily,
London’s workers thronging through it as they made their way home wrapped in
plumes of smoky breath.
Fleetingly they were wraiths: ragged stick figures trudging through a dark and desolate land. It was the retreat from Kabul all over again, the British army and their dependents straggling for miles along icy, muddy tracks, frozen and starved, incessantly harried by packs of Afghan horsemen, their corpses littering the wayside.
Fleetingly they were wraiths: ragged stick figures trudging through a dark and desolate land. It was the retreat from Kabul all over again, the British army and their dependents straggling for miles along icy, muddy tracks, frozen and starved, incessantly harried by packs of Afghan horsemen, their corpses littering the wayside.
“If all I have to do is stand guard at night, I can manage
that,” he finally said.
“There is one other thing, captain – this man must not
know you are there.”
“Come again?”
“He must never be aware of you.”
“But that makes no sense.”
“Watch the house. Do not under any circumstance announce
yourself. If you do that for any reason – any reason at all – I will bill your
bail straight back to the debtors’ court and you will be re-arrested and forced
to serve the remainder of your sentence.”
Sparrowhawk was baffled. “Won’t it help him to know? Give
him some reassurance that he’s safe?”
“He needs no reassurance because he doesn’t know that he
is in danger. If you inform him, however, things may alter dramatically and for
the worse.”
Sparrowhawk peered out into the winter gloom.
At length, he said: “No.”
She glanced round at him. “Excuse me?”
“I won’t do it.” He shook his head, quite firmly. “You’re
asking too much. Taking me from the frying pan into the fire and expecting me
to thank you for it. Miss Evangeline … I’m a soldier, not a night watchman. To
give an adequate level of protection, I need intelligence on my enemy. I don’t
consider that an unreasonable request, and if you and your masters do, I think
I’m better off in the Fleet than serving whatever futile cause you’ve been
trusted with.”
She regarded him carefully and sighed. “The most I can
tell you is that this man is engaged in a project on our behalf – very secret
and very important. This is why you must guard him. The party I represent would
have a difficult time if this project were interrupted.”
“You said I’d be recompensed. How much?”
“Your lodgings are paid for in advance – at least until
Christmastide is over. Plus, you’ll have living expenses throughout December. A
final fee will be paid to you on completion of the work, but that will of
course depend on your performance.”
“No man ever agreed to such a thing.”
“No man ever was released from the debtors’ prison
without having paid a penny of the debt himself.”
Their carriage trundled beneath a brick arch and arrived
in a courtyard surrounded by tall, narrow buildings. Some of the lower windows
were broken and boarded. Only a few of those upstairs had lights in them.
Sparrowhawk made to climb out, but Miss Evangeline put a hand on his arm.
“Stay alert, captain. Even during daylight when you’re
off duty. Once you’ve been identified as a threat, you too may receive unwanted
visitors.”
“Your concern charms me.” He jumped down into the snow.
“I’ll keep an eye open.”
“Keep both open. This enemy is very clever.”
“They’ll need to be cleverer than this morning.”
“This morning?” She sounded puzzled.
“Some wretch tried to strangle me in the bathhouse. But
all they managed to hurt was my pride because I was caught napping.”
“Then it’s begun already.” She looked troubled, even
alarmed.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Just tell these people
– I understand espionage and I refuse to believe you haven’t got a channel of
communication to them – that the next one who comes had better be
armour-plated. I won’t be caught twice.”
But later that night it wasn’t quite so simple.
Sparrowhawk’s quarters were a suite of three drab rooms,
which he found at the top of a damp, rickety stair. They were clean enough, but
only minimally furnished, with frayed rugs over their bare floorboards.
However, there were two fireplaces, both stacked with coal and kindling, and in
the bedroom a narrow but comfortable bed, which looked and smelled as if it had
been made up with fresh bedding. Alongside it was a dresser, and on this a bowl
of water – and if the water had frozen over, which it had, Sparrowhawk didn’t
suppose he could really lay the blame for that at the door of his benefactors.
There was also a wardrobe containing several changes of clothing. None of these
were expensive; in fact, all erred towards the rougher, readier end of the
market – which made sense. It would be less easy for a dandy to blend into the
city’s dark places.
The third room was a small scullery. It wasn’t exactly crammed to bursting, but there were pots and pans in there, cutlery and various tinned consumables on its shelves, plus a stack of candles. Some thoughtful soul had also left him a pipe, a wedge of tobacco and a small bottle of French brandy. As promised, there was enough money for him to get by over the next few days.
The third room was a small scullery. It wasn’t exactly crammed to bursting, but there were pots and pans in there, cutlery and various tinned consumables on its shelves, plus a stack of candles. Some thoughtful soul had also left him a pipe, a wedge of tobacco and a small bottle of French brandy. As promised, there was enough money for him to get by over the next few days.
He lit a fire in the living room, boiled himself some
porridge, pulled the easy chair in front of the flames and set a match to his
pipe. His preferred means of smoking was the cigar – in particular the Cuban
cheroot – but his funds didn’t run to such luxuries at present. Gradually the
room warmed, and he found himself sliding into a snooze.
The December wind wailed in the chimney, causing the
flames to flare in the grate. Beyond the curtained casements, he imagined
billions of snowflakes tumbling over the jumbled roofs and chimneys of London.
By now, it would be unbearably cold in the bowels of the Fleet. Many of its
inmates would not survive these bitter months; each morning they’d be brought
out blue in the face, rigid as boards, and tossed like trash into a pauper’s
grave. Harsh, unrelenting cold was something he’d become accustomed to during
his sojourns along the Khyber Pass, but there was no guarantee that he himself
could have avoided such a fate if he’d stayed in prison. His good fortune to be
taken from that place of desolation could not be overstated, but then he
recalled Miss Evangeline’s concern when he’d told her about the incident in the
bathhouse, and he wondered about the nameless foe that alarmed her so much.
And that was when he heard the first creak on the stair.
It was nothing, he surmised – a shutter tapping in the
blizzard, woodwork contracting with the cold. But then a second creak followed,
and a third. They were footfalls.
Sparrowhawk leapt to his feet.
The door to his apartment was closed and locked, but so
was the door downstairs, the outer door connecting with the courtyard. Nobody
could have entered unless they had a key. He briefly relaxed. Miss Evangeline
probably – she’d told him that she was the only other key-holder to this
property. But now more footfalls ascended. And these weren’t the dainty treads
of a lady – they were heavy, uncoordinated clumps, made by more than one pair
of feet.
He grabbed the fire-poker and stood ready.
That these people, whoever they were, had caught up with
him in the Turkish bath didn’t say much for Miss Evangeline’s level of
security. But their closing in on his private lodgings, and so quickly,
suggested that it was virtually nonexistent. He would have to take that up with
her. He moved to the door. Putting his ear to the wood, he now heard only
silence on the other side – almost as if whoever was out there was aware that
he was listening and had paused – only for them to abruptly proceed again,
clumping, stumbling loudly, maybe seven or eight pairs of feet all at the same
time. Sparrowhawk pictured boots, caked not just with ice and snow but with mud
and blood, bound with filthy, gangrenous rags.
Raising the poker to his shoulder, he backed into the
room, pushing the chair out of his way to give himself space. It occurred to
him that if they were armed – maybe with the new Brunswick rifles – they could
shoot clean through the door, so he stepped to one side. But again, the feet,
now apparently at the top of the stair, halted.
A prolonged silence followed.
Despite the fire, Sparrowhawk felt an eerie, penetrating
chill. He hardly dared breathe as he strained his ears. Why were they waiting?
Were there more of them yet to come up? He realised that he would have to take
the initiative. Whoever they were, they were bottled up on the narrow stair. If
he acted now he could meet them one at a time instead of all at once. And the
first to be flung back down would take several of the others with him. Sparrowhawk
advanced to the door, wiping his moist palms on his waistcoat. He paused one
more time to listen – still there was silence on the other side. He couldn’t
imagine who they might be. They could be half-dead with cold for all he knew. Their clumsy ascent had indicated men exhausted or disoriented. As bewildered
as he was frightened, he turned the lock and yanked the door open.
The landing beyond was empty.
He stepped forward and peered down the stair. It was
pitch black down there, but pale light, reflecting from the gas lamp in the
snowy courtyard, poked in pencil-thin shafts around the outer door. No skulking
or crouching figures blocked it.
Sparrowhawk’s hair prickled. He knew that he hadn’t
imagined those clumping feet. His years of front-line service had allowed him
to distinguish between dream and reality. He rushed to his mantel, took a
candle, lit it and went back to the stair. The flame cast luminescence all the
way to the bottom. There was definitely nobody there, though when he sniffed
the air, he fancied there was a vague, unpleasant smell reminiscent of rotting
flesh.
He descended. The outer door rattled as the wind battered
it. But this too was locked, and not just by his key. Both the upper and lower
bolts were rammed home – exactly as he’d left them earlier. No-one could have
entered, and certainly they could not have entered and left again.
Sparrowhawk returned to his rooms, closing and locking
the door behind him. He wondered briefly about the assailant in the bathhouse
and how strange it was that he too had vanished without trace. And then he
spotted the large bold message, which, in his brief absence downstairs, had
been inscribed on the wall above his fireplace. He approached it slowly, eyes
goggling – before going around the rest of his rooms like a whirlwind,
searching every nook and cranny but finding nothing. He checked all his
windows, but they too were locked. Outside, the streets were deserted. Scarcely
a track – either of man, animal or cartwheel – was visible in the crisp new blanket
of snow.
On legs so shaky they could barely support him,
Sparrowhawk moved back to the fireplace. The message had been made by a finger
dipped in ordure or blood, or a foul mixture of both. It read:
SEASON’S GREETINGS
(Okay folks, that’s all. Hope you enjoyed. If you want to read the rest, just follow the links ...)
###
THRILLERS, CHILLERS, SHOCKERS AND KILLERS …
An ongoing series of reviews of dark fiction (crime,
thriller, horror and sci-fi) – both old and new – that I have recently read and
enjoyed. I’ll endeavour to keep the SPOILERS to a minimum; there will certainly
be no given-away denouements or exposed twists-in-the-tail, but by the
definition of the word ‘review’, I’m going to be talking about these books in
more than just thumbnail detail, extolling the aspects that I particularly
enjoyed … so I guess if you’d rather not know anything at all about these
pieces of work in advance of reading them yourself, then these particular posts
will not be your thing.
Outline
A nightmare tale told in three parallel strands.
In the 1860s, Elsie Bainbridge, a burned, mute and
seemingly deranged woman, lies in a secure ward in St Joseph’s, a lunatic
asylum deep in the English countryside. Here, the attentive Dr Shepherd
provides her with an empty diary and encourages her to jot down the terrible
events that led to the destruction of The Bridge, the stately residence she
once called home, and her resulting mental collapse. The doctor is certain
that only by giving her own twisted account of these incredible events, can
Elsie prove to the authorities that she is clinically insane, and thereby evade
the gallows. Despite this, Elsie resists for as long as she can, unable to
revisit the horrors that have recently ruined her life, but in due course,
inevitably, she succumbs.
Thus begins the second strand in the tale, with Elsie
Bainbridge, now half a year younger, but pregnant and recently widowed,
arriving at The Bridge, her late husband’s neglected country estate, in company
with her self-confident younger brother, Jolyon Livingstone, and the cousin of
her late husband, Sarah Bainbridge (who is even more grief-stricken than
Elsie, as she has now seen everything that once belonged to her family pass
into the hands of an in-law).
The Bridge is a drear, decaying edifice in a remote and
desolate location, to which all kinds of unedifying legends are attached. The
staff, used to having things their own way, are openly hostile and
uncooperative, while the local villagers, who live in a permanently
impoverished state, dislike everyone at the local manor house and blame them
for all their ills, the direct cause of which, they suspect, is witchcraft.
Already traumatised at having lost her husband, and worn
out by her pregnancy, Elsie struggles to adapt to this terrible environment.
But when Jolyon returns to London to run the family business, the situation
worsens as she and the ultra-timid Sarah begin hearing strange sounds at night.
They trace these to a locked attic, which no one seems willing or able to open,
though when Elsie manages this, she finds that it contains a 17th century
diary, and a so-called ‘silent companion’: a flat, lifesize figure made from
painted wood, depicting a child that is alarmingly similar in appearance to
Elsie, herself, when she was young.
From here on, the terrors mount. There are more
and more eerie noises in the house, while the silent companions, inexplicably,
begin to multiply, appearing all over the building, at the ends of corridors or
looking down from internal balconies, always, it seems, watching. The
increasingly distraught Elsie thinks she recognises some of the persons they
represent, while others are complete strangers, yet all are chilling in the
intensity of their stares … and could it be Elsie and Sarah’s imagination, or
do these horrible figures actually move around the house on their own when
no-one is looking?
The 17th century diary, meanwhile (the third strand in
our story), tells its own tale of menace, following the declining fortunes of
Anne Bainbridge, whose husband, Josiah, is a country gent of minor importance
in the years leading up to the Civil War. His one chance to impress comes
unexpectedly, when King Charles I opts to visit The Bridge, the ancestral
Bainbridge seat. Anne prepares The Bridge thoroughly, as any good chatelaine should,
planning to treat her royal guests to a magnificent masque, but she has a dark
and guilty secret: her habitual use of rural magic, which as a Christian woman
she is certain will bring retribution on her at some point. Anne has called on
the dark arts several times in the past to gain advantage, on one occasion to
impregnate herself when she’d supposedly turned barren, the result of which was
Hetta, her curious young daughter, who has beautiful ‘pixie’ looks, but is mute
and distant, makes friends with outcasts and oddballs (like the local gypsies),
and seems to possess a detailed, self-taught knowledge of herbal lore.
This is the age of witch-hunting, of course, but though
the local villagers harbour suspicions about Anne and her little goblin, Hetta,
they won’t dare say anything. More problematic is the attitude of Josiah, a
muscular Christian in his own right, who also hates and fears witches. If he
has any concerns about his wife and daughter, he keeps them to himself until
the time of the king’s visit draws near, at which point he decides that Hetta
is an embarrassment and must stay out of the way.
Anne is heartbroken for her daughter, but also fearful
that God’s punishment is now looming, especially when Hetta withdraws into
herself, becoming surly, truculent, and surrounding herself with an eerie cadre
of brand-new friends, the Silent Companions …
Review
When I consider the traditional English ghost story, it
invariably makes me think isolated manors, cold, misty landscapes, a vengeful
entity, and, quite often, some nervous, damaged individual, either male or
female, lured far from civilisation to meet this nemesis – and all of it set in
that ageless if generic Victorian/Edwardian time-loop.
All these criteria are staples of the classic spooky
tale, and whether dated or not in the 21st century – and that’s very
subjective! – they surely can’t help but infuse a majority of us with a deep
sense of foreboding, picking at what appear to be our deepest fears.
If you include yourself in that majority, then The Silent
Companions is a book for you. But be warned from the outset, this is a
seriously frightening foray into the genre. When Laura Purcell embarked on this
novel, there was no intent to produce a ‘Gothic romance’, a ‘period mystery’ or
a ‘supernatural thriller’. The Silent Companions is out-and-out horror.
Yes, it might have the trappings of an archetypical ghost
story, something you’d expect to read in a firelit drawing room some snowy
Christmas Eve (as I did), but the ghastly evil at The Bridge comes at us and
our isolated heroine, Elsie, with a malicious brutality reminiscent of the
merciless spirit in Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black, the manifestations growing
steadily more disturbing (even if the early ones are done ultra-subtly), until
it becomes obvious that an appalling crescendo will soon be reached.
Moreover, any suggestion that the malignancy here is
perpetrated by a human hand is jettisoned early on by the presence of those
awful watching figures, the titular Companions. Though the actual secrets of
The Bridge are never given away until the very end of the novel – masterly
writing by Laura Purcell, to protract the mystery to that length! – the
possibility always remains, mainly due to Elsie’s increasingly unreliable
state, that there is a psychological factor here too, the sort found in Shirley
Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, though readers with faint hearts should
take no comfort from this, as it only serves to boost the nightmare.
As a story, The Silent Companions is filled with
fascinating characters. No-one here is stock or run-of-the-mill, not even
lesser characters like the two maids, Helen and Mabel, who provide realistic
portrayals of churlish and impudent ex-workhouse girls, while housekeeper, Edna
Holt, instead of being a typical trusty stalwart of the older staff, is another
difficult presence, harbouring thinly-veiled resentment of her youthful new mistress.
The book’s three leads are equally well-drawn.
Elsie herself is stronger and grittier than the average
Victorian-era heroine, very much a high-handed lady of the period – dressing
well, minding her manners and casually ordering her servants around – but also
one who is risen from nothing and the daughter of abusive parents. Her father a
factory-owner, she grew up amid the smoke and ashes of London’s industrial
quarter, an early life from which she bears both mental and physical scars –
which, in its turn, has marooned her somewhere between the two worlds of the
establishment and the underclass, meaning that she’s able to draw friends and
allies from neither. This has toughened her, of course, though not to a silly degree.
Elise is a feisty woman by the standards of her time, but when the haunting at
The Bridge commences, she wilts like all the rest.
This is all in stark contrast to Sarah Bainbridge,
Elsie’s ‘Plain Jane’ cousin-in-law, and a neurotic, self-pitying individual,
who, convinced that she has been left on the shelf, cuts a pathetic figure in
whose support Elsie simply can’t trust. Of course, as is regularly the case in
this novel, the still waters that are Sarah Bainbridge could run deceptively
deep.
Anne Bainbridge meanwhile, the mistress of the house in
the 17th century, is a different animal again. A beautiful and respected
lady-of-the-manor, she dominates her immediate world with an authority that
Elise could only dream of, but nevertheless lives in dread of her even more
powerful husband, Josiah, to the point where she can barely raise an objection
to his callous mistreatment of their ‘faerie child’, Hetta. She also fears God,
certain that he will plunge her into Hell for those dabblings in the dark arts,
and perhaps even more so, His servants on Earth – the witchfinders – who will
punish her equally severely if her tricks are discovered. Anne, the second most
important character in The Silent Companions, is another mother caught between
two opposing forces, and another commanding presence who in the end wields such
little real command that her world will be consumed by elemental forces beyond
her control.
I don’t want to say too much more about The Silent
Companions, because this is a book of very well-kept secrets, which will
intrigue and enthrall you as much as frighten you, and keep you guessing to the
very last page. Suffice to say that the two strands, both the 17th century and
the 19th century stories, while running parallel to each other, dovetail
repeatedly and perfectly, in the end creating a single narrative which is
presented to us in the most sumptuous, readable prose, and filled not just with
eeriness, but with moments of spectacular terror.
Overall, one of the most satisfying ghost stories I’ve
read in quite a long time.
As always at the end of one of my reviews, I’m going to
do my bit to lobby for a TV or film adaptation by nominating the cast I would
choose should such a fortunate circumstance arise … and given the dearth of
recent Ghost Stories for Christmas productions by the BBC, there ought to be a
vacant slot on the horizon soon! So, here we go; feel free to disagree or
agree, as the mood takes you.
Elsie Bainbridge – Tamsin Egerton
Anne Bainbridge – Christina Cole
Sarah Bainbridge – Lily Cole
Josiah Bainbridge – Ben Barnes
Jolyon Livingstone – Freddie Highmore
Dr. Shepherd – Bill Nighy
Edna Holt – Penelope Wilton
One of the most important characters in The Silent
Companions is undoubtedly Hetta Bainbridge, but as she’s a very young child, it
would be well beyond my ability to find someone adequate for the role. So
that’s one part I’ll happily leave to the official Casting Director (he or she
will doubtless be glad to know).
