The Sweetest Dark

CHAPTER 3




Mine was the final stop of the line. By then there were only two of us left in the compartment, me and a slouched, elderly man with a tweed cap pulled down low over his ears, a cane and valise propped by his feet. He’d been snoring for the past two hours, even through the lurching stops and starts.

Beyond the glass of my window the night was now amethyst. Infinite amethyst, deep and dark with a ripple of stars winking over the obsidian break of the forest paralleling the tracks. I found that depth of purple sky mesmerizing. Nights in the city were always gray or black or the color of the streetlights. Always. So I wasn’t sure why this particular hue—those stars, the jagged line of trees—was so familiar. I must have imagined it this way, I decided. I read so much. I must have read of amethyst nights and imagined it.

“Bournemouth, end o’ the line,” called the stationmaster from past my window, clumping along the wooden platform as the train hissed to a halt.

I stood, stretching the ache from my shoulders, and found my suitcase. A glance back at the snoring man showed he was already up and shuffling out, so I followed him, my case bumping against my knees.

A waft of damp air hit me as I exited, stirring the loose strands of hair that had pulled free of my chignon. It wasn’t balmy precisely. It was April, so it wouldn’t be, even here. But it carried the promise of warmth, smelling strongly of the salty channel and of the coming summer that only waited to bloom.

I took it in with wonder. I could taste the sea, I realized. I could taste it.

“Last stop, miss,” barked the stationmaster, now paused before me. “Everyone off. Even little girls, eh?”

I had lingered too long on the steps leading down to the platform. In my chagrin, I jumped over the last two rungs, landing smartly on both feet, but the man was already pacing off.

I walked slowly away from the train, looking around the platform.

Someone was supposed to meet me. Director Forrester hadn’t known who, but he had been reasonably certain—those had been his exact words, reasonably certain, mumbling to himself as he’d ruffled through all the papers on his desk, because surely they could not expect you to find it on your own, no, indeed; I cannot seem to locate the telegram that says so, but—that someone from the school would meet me here and take me on the rest of the way to Iverson, which apparently involved traveling by foot and carriage and maybe even a ferry. I was as unclear on the exact location of the school as the director had been.

I prayed he was right, that someone would come. I didn’t have enough money left for another cab.

But … the station itself seemed closed, its curtains shut, its windows dark. That by itself wasn’t too surprising; in London the streetlamps were extinguished at six and windows were papered in black to block any little leaks of light. No one wanted to guide the Germans’ nighttime bombs. Yet the train station’s windows weren’t papered. There was simply no one left inside to turn on the lights.

I did hear music playing from somewhere, lovely and haunting, muted. Perhaps the stationmaster had left on a phonograph in his office.

The platform was virtually empty. There was no one at all to my left, toward the end of the train, and only a pair of porters unloading a stack of luggage far up by the front, near the first-class compartments, threading in and out of a single pool of light cast from a lamppost nearby.

The stationmaster had aimed their way. After a few more minutes of glancing nervously around the deserted platform, I did the same.

Before I’d gotten far, a new cluster of people approached the growing wall of trunks. There were four of them plus the stationmaster, their hats and shoulders stroked with gold from above. One of the newcomers was a man of about forty in a long taupe coat. The other three were younger people more my age, two boys and a girl.

Or not quite my age, I amended to myself, as the nearest of the boys noticed my approach. They were all taller, probably a few years older. And much, much better dressed than I.

The boy who’d seen me had sandy hair and heavy-lidded hazel eyes; they looked me up and down without interest before he turned his attention back to his companions.

“… to Idylling,” the second boy was saying to the long-coated man. “Is it really just you, George? I mean, look at all this. Chloe alone brought enough trunks to fill three autos.”

“Armand!” protested the girl, with a sort of trilling little laugh. “Honestly!”

“Not to mention Laurence’s and mine,” the boy went on, speaking over her. “No, there’s no hope for it. There’s not room for all of us. We’ll have to motor there without you.”

“My lord, I don’t believe His Grace will—”

“Right, well, what Reginald doesn’t know won’t hurt the rest of us, will it, old chap? I’ll send Thomas back for you with the auto as soon as I can. You can wait here with the baggage.”

“Sir,” broke in the stationmaster from behind them, just outside their ring of light. The other four angled as one to see him, still brushed in buttery gold. The stationmaster rocked back on his heels. “We closed for the night five minutes past, sir.”

“Ah,” said the second boy. He had longish chestnut hair that touched the top of his starched collar; much of his face was obscured by the brim of his hat, but I saw him tug at his lower lip in thought. Even to me, it looked utterly contrived. “I see. Perhaps, though, you might make an exception tonight? For the duke?”

“The duke, sir?”

“Well, the duke’s son,” said the hazel-eyed boy, sounding impatient. “Lord Armand, of course.”

“Station closes at ten sharp,” said the stationmaster. “Rules, sir.”

“Now, really,” began the boy named Laurence, and in his clipped voice he was speaking very quickly, but curiously enough I no longer heard what he was saying, because just then the other one—the Duke of Idylling’s son himself, I supposed—had caught sight of me hanging back in the shadows.

He had been reaching into his inner coat pocket for something. I saw dimly and without surprise that it was a wallet, and while still holding it he pushed up his hat, staring at me intently. His skin was pale as ivory, his eyes were blue and heavily lashed, quite as striking as a girl’s.

The line of his lips began to flatten into an expression that might have been pain or irritation or perhaps pure distaste.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

Laurence and the stationmaster, who had been working themselves into an actual argument, fell silent. The trilling girl leaned past the duke’s son to get a better look at me, the lace wrap around her neck and shoulders prickled with light. She was as stunning as I’d expected, dark hair, dark eyes, a rosebud mouth puffed into a pout. An overripe scent of jasmine and sugar surrounded her like a cloud.

“Oh, Mandy, do send her off,” I heard her plead under her breath. “Tell her we haven’t any pennies to spare.”

I spoke to the dark-haired lord. “I’m going to Iverson. To the school. Can you give me a lift?”

Laurence snorted and the girl looked truly appalled, but Lord Armand only stared at me harder.

“What’s your name?”

“Eleanore.”

This bit of information didn’t seem to satisfy him. He took off his hat with his free hand, and for one wild and unlikely moment I thought he was going to offer me a bow, but instead he pushed his fingers through the shiny brown hair that had been mashed to his forehead.

“I haven’t got a trunk,” I said into the silence. “Only this.” I tapped the toe of my shoe against my suitcase. “So I won’t take up much room.”

Chloe raised a hand to her mouth; her snicker was still loud enough to hear.

Yet I held on to that steady blue gaze. From the cut of his clothes to the angle of his chin, Lord Armand of Idylling was every inch an aristocrat and no doubt used to people of my class scraping low whenever he passed by. I wasn’t going to be one of them. There was something about this young man, some indefinable thing that felt like—like a living snake poised taut between us. A real, electric, dangerous thing, and if I dropped my gaze, it would turn on me, and I would lose more than just this moment.

“How about it?” I said, trying to sound confident but instead managing something barely above a whisper.

The pressed shape of his lips began to loosen. He opened his mouth, maybe to speak, but before he could, a new voice chimed in.

“No need, m’lord.”

I didn’t have to look away first; Lord Armand did. His gaze cut to someone behind me.

“Hastings,” greeted the boy, strangely flat, and when I turned around fully I saw that the new person who’d spoken was my fellow passenger from the train, the snoring old man, standing now motionless beneath the awning of the station roof. “How … nice to see you again.”

“Aye. I’m here for the gel.” The man curled an arm toward me. “Come along, miss. Haven’t got all night.”

I flicked a last glance at Armand, who was scowling faintly. None of the others were looking at me at all.

I picked up my case again and walked away.

The elderly man didn’t wait for me to reach him. He limped off into the amethyst-and-star night without another word, his cane tapping emphatically with every other step.

I was feeling my way down the platform stairs when I heard the imperious tones of Lord Armand lift sharp behind me.

“Eleanore who?” he called.

Bugger him and his gorgeous eyes and his snide friends and his chauffeured motorcar. I kept walking.

“Eleanore who?” he called again, much louder.

“Jones,” yelled back the man ahead of me; he’d paused at last to let me catch up. “Eleanore Rose Jones!”

A carriage with a pair of horses and a driver waited at the end of a graveled lot. It was a big carriage, the old-fashioned kind that was entirely enclosed, a bit like a fairy-tale pumpkin transformed into a coach. Which was fortunate, because horses always hated me. No matter how gently I spoke or how quietly I passed by, to a one they hated me, and venturing too close meant nearly always a bolt or a lunging bite.

We crunched along the lot, countless little stones grinding beneath the soles of my feet. A long, gleaming automobile had been parked at an angle in the exact middle, clearly waiting for trunks and lords.

“Mr. Hastings?” I said after a moment.

“Aye.”

“My middle name isn’t Rose.”

Funny that I couldn’t see him smile, but I thought I sensed it anyway. “No? What’s it, then?”

“I haven’t got one,” I admitted.

“Well, I’d say Rose is as fine a name as any, ain’t it?”

I saw his point.

• • •


The interior of the carriage was not nearly as musty as I’d feared it’d be. In fact, it was luxurious, far nicer than the London hansom I’d been in so many hours past. The seat cushions were plush and newly padded, the walls had been papered in silk, and a pair of folded fleece blankets had been left out for me to ward off the chill.

Since Mr. Hastings had climbed up outside to sit beside the driver on his perch, I drew one blanket over my shoulders and the other across my lap. I wasn’t terribly cold, but they were so soft. As the carriage rolled away from the station, I rubbed a velvety edge slowly over and over the back of my hand.

For each tiny, merciful gift from life, I was grateful.

The blankets at the Home had been of boiled wool. There was a fleece coverlet at the nurse’s station, but you had to be white-knuckled, wishing-you-were-dead sick for her to offer it, and usually it smelled like iodine.

I’d kept the curtains opened and the window cracked. I craved that outside air, which still tasted of wonderful salt to me.

A motorcar roared up behind us, its reflective lanterns splashing a feeble illumination along the fence posts lining the bend in the road. The horn bugled twice before the car sped past, spitting pebbles in its wake. Chloe’s laughter was full and loud as they vanished into the dark ahead.

The dust settled, and the horses pulling our carriage only plodded on.

I didn’t feel sleepy. I should have; I should have been exhausted, actually. In my excitement over leaving the Home I hadn’t slept much the night before, and certainly today had dragged on long enough. I removed my hat and rested my head against the seat’s back, closing my eyes, listening to the sounds of the shore and the horses and the country night.

We bumped over a bridge spanning a river, waking wooden thunder from each and every plank.

I’m not sure when I began to grasp that I was hearing more than just those ordinary noises. Ten minutes later? Thirty? It came upon me gradually, the awareness that the phonograph music from the station was still playing, even though we were no longer anywhere near it.

I opened my eyes. I sat up. Was I dreaming?

It was still playing.

I slapped my cheeks with both hands, pinched my arms. I was asleep, this was a dream, I needed to wake up, because this was not happening.

But it was.

“No,” I muttered, caught somewhere between anger and disbelief. “Not again.”

I searched the carriage, pulling up the cushions, running my hands along the smooth walls, the door latch, the window frames, the floorboards. I found nothing new, nothing to explain the slow, sweet music that was playing very markedly all around me.

And it was around me, not merely inside my head. I was not imagining it. I’d never heard this composition before, this wistful combination of notes that swelled and subsided but never fully ended. It was not entirely unlike the music emanating from metals or stones but was far more complex than that. More a symphony than a single song.

I dropped my head into my hands, squeezing my eyes closed, trying to find some peace. I’d been doing so well. I’d been recovering. I hardly ever noticed the silent stone-music any longer, and when I did I was able to shut it out, distract myself with other matters until it went away.

I could do this, I thought grimly, looking up again. I can do this.

Oh, really? mocked the whispery fiend in my heart.

In the frigid depths of Moor Gate, strapped to their drowning chair, I’d made a vow to myself never to speak of the music or the voice again. Never to acknowledge anything that made me any different from anyone else.

Ever.

“I will do this,” I said out loud, my jaw clenched so tight it ached.

This time my heart made no reply.

For the rest of the ride I stared straight ahead into the dark, a fold of fleece pressed to my lips. I thought about rivers, and I thought about sheep, and I thought about the kaiser and the smell of London and how the Home had looked after the bomb had detonated inside its rotting walls, the red-brick dust coating everything and the water line spewing and all the rubble of the desks and chairs and the scorched books flung every which way like burning paper birds. That initial shock of displaced air. All the screaming children and then the dreadful calm afterward, when we realized we couldn’t flee anyway because there was nowhere else for us to go.

When the carriage finally rolled to a halt, I fancied I had things in hand. The symphony had not ceased, but I was ignoring it. It wasn’t really there, and if it was, it was the result of someone else’s madness, not my own.

One of the horses let out an unhappy whicker, and the carriage rolled back some. I heard for the first time the driver’s low voice, not so much words but a soothing string of sounds, and the horse subsided.

Mr. Hastings was talking now, but I didn’t bother to try to make it out, nor did I bother to wait for him or the driver to climb down and open the door for me. I grabbed my case and had my other hand on the latch as soon as the wheels stopped moving. I was hungry and on edge and more than ready to be free; I leapt out onto fresh gravel, into the purple dense dark.

For a horrible instant I thought they had played a joke on me and we had driven in a great circle, because it seemed I was standing where I had been when I first entered the carriage, right back outside the station with its phonograph after all.

Amethyst sky, silver stars. A ragged black line of trees stretched beyond me.

Then the horses began to snort and stomp. When I turned about, I saw the castle.

Iverson.

It actually was a castle, high and wide and utterly ominous, a series of narrow windows glowing amber against the stone. It had round towers with peaked roofs, heavy arches set deep into the sides, and a notched edging along the top just visible from where I stood. It loomed over me, over all of us, eating up the stars.

The horses whickered again, one louder than the other. It turned into a squeal, climbing higher and higher, and over it rose Mr. Hastings’s voice.

“Get back there, will you, girl? You there! Eleanore Jones! Get back, I say!”

I retreated hurriedly into a hedge, then stumbled around it; I’d thought he was addressing the horse.

From behind the hedge I heard the driver once more, still speaking so soft, but it worked, because the squealing stopped and within a minute the snorting, too. I peered cautiously past the foliage to see Mr. Hastings limping my way, his white hair poking out from under his cap and his hands knotted into fists.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted, an instinctive reaction to being caught in the wrong by an adult. Old lessons, scored deep into my bones: Duck your head, apologize at once, perhaps they’ll let you skulk by.

But Mr. Hastings only paused, looking at me there six feet away with my side pressed against the thorns of the prickly hedge. I had nowhere to skulk.

“Gah,” he said, or something that sounded like that. He shook his head, and his voice seemed to gentle. “She’s a good ’un, the old mare, but every living thing has its limits. You’ll need to learn better, city girl. Keep clear of the beasts, you hear?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, as if that had settled things between us, and jerked his chin toward the castle doors.

“Ready?”

“Yes,” I said again, which was an absolute lie.

He stumped off. I began reluctantly to follow.

“Wait,” called the driver from behind us.

I swiveled, hearing footfalls approaching lightly. Against the stars all I could see was that he was blond and broad-shouldered, moving with the kind of grace that bespoke a natural athlete, someone who probably ran and rode horses and swam leagues in the ocean every bloody day.

In two breaths he was before me, still in shadow, lifting something round between us.

“Your hat,” the driver said.

I took it from him, and our fingertips brushed.

With that mere glancing touch, the music I’d been attempting so hard to repress flared to life, a brilliant, beautiful explosion of sound that filled my body and flooded my senses, wiping away everything else like chalk from a slate board. I was suffused with a pleasure so profound, it robbed me of sight and speech; I was only blind aching bliss, and for all I knew I was moaning with it, just like the whores on the street corners back in St. Giles, and, God help me, I didn’t even care.

Hello, screamed the fiend inside my heart. Hear me, hear me at last, hello!

“Hello,” said the driver, his voice reaching through the notes to pull me back down into the trembling, stunned husk that was my flesh. “I’m Jesse.”