Darkwater

twelve

The fire spat, but still the cottage was cold. Pulling her woolen shawl tighter, Sarah propped a few more sticks on the flames and then the last of the sea-coal, kneeling on the old rag rug with the holes in it.

Under blankets, her father coughed.

They had brought his bed into the kitchen, nearer the warmth, but it was still far too drafty. She could feel the raw wind whistling and gusting in all the chinks, and the back door had rattled and banged all night. One tiny rushlight guttered on the table.

“Sarah.”

She hurried over. “Papa? I’m here.”

“A drink. Please.”

She poured the water and held it to his dry lips. He sipped it, one hand frail as a claw holding on to her wrist. When he leaned back he was sweating, despite the chill, his breath caught like a fluttering bird in his throat.

He gasped, “She should never have fetched you.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“You have your new life now, away from this . . . slum.”

Even now, she thought, he was bitter. She sat on the rough blanket; he looked away, restless. Despite his sunken cheeks, his white hair made him look more lordly than ever. For a second she imagined him warm and safe in Azrael’s sitting room, his feet on the footstool, the porcelain tea-service on the table. It was where he ought to be.

“Listen,” she said, almost angrily. “You must come back to Darkwater with me. The doctor says there’s every chance of a good recovery if you had—”

“I will never set foot in that place. Not while he’s there.”

She knotted the ends of the shawl. Then she said, “What if he wasn’t there?”

He turned, his chest rising with the effort of breathing.

“What?”

“If he wasn’t there. If he’d gone. Would you come then?”

Driftwood crackled and spat.

Her father drew himself up, a pitiful, stubborn effort. “Sarah. I will not enter the Hall unless this . . . interloper admits it was never his in the first place. Unless he restores what is ours with every apology. Legally.” He slumped back, suddenly gray. “And that he will never do.”

He coughed, and she helped him up, feeling the tension knotted in his frail shoulders, the sickening knowledge of his ruin, that he never allowed to leave him. It was a while before she spoke again.

“Papa. Was your father as cruel a man as people say?”

Surprised, he stared at her, the gold silk of the dressing gown dirty at his neck. “Cruel? He was firm. He had to be.”

“He evicted families who couldn’t pay. Killed a man.”

Impatient, he shook his head. “The people here are weak, my girl. Feckless. Living among them, I can see that even more clearly. For centuries the Trevelyans were the only law in these counties. We had to take the lead. Stand no nonsense. Generation after generation, we had to commit the criminals to the gallows and uphold the rights of property. If they hated us for it, it was the price we paid. But we too, we’re getting weaker. Just like all the rest.”

His voice was a whisper.

“Or being purified,” she said.

“What?”

“Nothing. Something Azrael said. Go to sleep now.”

He lay looking up at her, uncertain, suddenly childish. “If I do, will you still be here?”

She picked up his thin hand. “Yes. Till the morning.”

The carriage was waiting.

How Azrael had known when to send it she didn’t know, and she didn’t recognize the coachman either, but she climbed wearily in and slammed the door, pulling the window blinds down.

The horses snorted, moving off with a jolt and a chink of harness. For a while she sat there, too tired to think and yet feeling remote and grand. She knew she enjoyed feeling that.

They clattered noisily through the village, through the first swirls of snow that spun from the bleak dawn sky, and in the cold creaky darkness she leaned forward and lifted one corner of the blind. She saw how the village women plucked their children anxiously away from the coach; how the wheels splashed the fishermen working at their nets. They scowled and swore. How did they feel about Azrael? She knew they had stupid, superstitious ideas, but it struck her now that he was a good landlord, generous to his tenants. No one had been turned out because they couldn’t pay. It was more than her family had ever done.

She was so tired. Rubbing her face with her hands was no help. She was shivering now, and the fast rattle and jolt of the coach made her feel sick, until the crunching under the wheels went suddenly smooth and she knew they were racing up the long rutted curve of the drive.

She pulled up one blind.

The morning was gray. Darkwater Hall rose up through the gusts of snow like a fortress from some old gothic manuscript, and as the coach swept around she saw how the gargoyles spat and snarled in their ferocious stillness, a silent malice.

Jumping out, she ran up the steps, snow stinging her cheeks. Scrab had the door open. “Thought you’d be back,” he jeered.

She ignored him and ran, up the great stairs, under the portraits of her long-dead family, along the corridor, through the whole library wing, setting all her carefully ordered stacks of catalogued papers fluttering and spilling in a sudden draft.

Then she flung open the door.

Azrael was looking in the wall safe. It was empty.

“Where’s the jar?” she asked, breathless.

“Jar?”

“With the two boys inside.”

“Ah.” He locked the safe. “That will come later. Now, how is your father?”

“Worse.” She came over and picked up a small crucible, looking at its fine cracks and seeing nothing. “All right,” she said. “You win.”

“Win?”

“Yes. I’ll make your agreement.”

He sat down, smiling a little in surprise. “I see. This makes me very happy, Sarah.”

Clumsy, she turned the crucible in her cold fingers and it fell, smashing into white porcelain slivers with a crash that made her heart leap. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s nothing.” Azrael touched the remains with his foot. “Scrab will clean it up. Give him something to do. But Sarah, you should not be so nervous.”

“I’m not,” she snapped.

He nodded. “So. Tell me what you want.”

She took a deep breath. “I don’t know who—what—you are. I do know you have power, over our lives, over the way things happen. I want my father to come back here, back to his home, and he won’t unless the estate is ours again. I want you to give us back the estate.”

For a moment she expected him to laugh, but his smile was wry and grave. “I see. And, on your side . . . ?”

“A promise. That things will be different. That we’ll make up for the past. We’ll treat the people fairly, I swear we will.”

“You might. But your father?”

“My father has learned his lesson.”

“Indeed?” Azrael looked politely dubious. “What I see is a man who never leaves the cottage. Who lets his sixteen-year-old daughter do the work he cannot bear to think of. Does he love you more for what you do for him, Sarah, or is he secretly ashamed of you? Or of himself?”

She looked at him. “That’s not fair!”

“Maybe not. But your father. Tell me, Sarah, has he even been humbled? Has living for fifteen years in a slum made him more sympathetic to the poor, feel more for their terrible struggle? Will he be generous with the wealth of Darkwater? Or will he just gorge himself on comforts, spend on luxury, make up for lost time? Will he even remember the Marthas and the Emmelines?”

She shrugged, miserable.

“Yes.” Azrael kicked the fragments sadly. “I think you know the answer to that as well as I. How can I give the tenants another selfish master, just to please you?”

The silence was intense. Into it she said, “I have something else I can offer.”

“And that is?”

He was waiting for her to say it. So she said it, harshly.

Squashing down her fear, telling herself he was mad.

“My soul.”

Azrael gave the smallest of sighs. He limped to the window and leaned on the gleaming brass of the telescope. She could almost sense his pleasure.

“My father will die . . .” She took one step after him. “Unless he comes back.”

Azrael gazed out at the wintry sea. “Have I treated you well?” he asked softly.

Surprised, she said, “You know you have.”

“Then I won’t fail you now. But . . .” He held up his hand as she came forward. “There are conditions. These things have rules. You have to work for it. How long do you think it would take to make up for the oppression of centuries?”

She laughed, scornful. “Another hundred years might do it.”

He nodded. “You think I’m making fun of you. But a hundred years it is. You have the estate for that time. Use it well, Sarah. At the end of the time I will come for your soul.”

The room was utterly silent.

She stared at him, at his grave dark face with its neat beard, a cold unease like a thread of ice inside her. For a moment she knew with certainty that he was some vast, eternal power. And then she knew he was a madman, and felt utterly stupid. “You really believe that,” she whispered.

“Humor me.” He went to the desk, took a sheet of paper and a pen, and began to write, the swift, sloping writing she knew so well. As she watched, she rubbed sore eyes, bewildered.

“You’re tired,” he said, without looking up.

“I stayed up with Papa all night.”

“Scrab will bring us breakfast. And then you should sleep.” He came over. “After you’ve signed this.”

It was written in red ink with a seal. It said:

I, Sarah Trevelyan, the undersigned, hereby accept from the hand of the lord Azrael the freehold and properties of Darkwater Hall from this day forward for the period of one hundred years. In return I pledge to him the eternal possession of my immortal soul.

“This is stupid,” she said, terrified and confused. “I just want . . .”

“Sign it.” He put the pen in her hand. “Trust me, Sarah.” The room was chill. Snow clogged the sills. The door creaked as the cat slid in.

“I just want to bring my father home,” she muttered.

“I know that. Sign it.”

“The cottage is too cold for him! He wasn’t brought up to it.”

He took her hand and guided it to the paper. “There. Just your name.”

“And you’ll really go?”

“The Hall will be his. Legally. If you sign.”

She shook her head, unbearably weary, and laughed an exasperated laugh. “I don’t know what to make of you. I think we must both be mad.”

“If we are, it doesn’t matter,” Azrael said.

So she put the paper on the bench and signed it.

Sarah Trevelyan