Property of a Lady(60)
The window.
He turned back to Harriet’s description of the small space in which she had been imprisoned. He would deal, afterwards, with the question of why and how she had been imprisoned. For the moment he would focus on the practicalities. On the window. A tiny, round window, she had written. Barely a foot across, hardly more than a ventilator.
A round window. Round. His mind presented him with the memory of the small window that had been uncovered when the builders broke through the attic wall. It had been small, but it had been a traditional oblong, perhaps eight by ten. He had looked through it on to the shrubbery directly below. He had not seen the kitchen garden, as Harriet had. Because the window she had looked from was on a different part of the house?
He switched on the computer and, after a few false attempts, found the photographs he had mailed to Jack and Liz. Which one was it Jack had joked about? ‘You should have told your girlfriend not to stand at the window while you photographed it,’ he had said.
Michael opened the first three, and then, suddenly and heart-stoppingly, the one he wanted was there. The slightly shadowy figure of a dark-haired female, one hand raised as if waving to someone on the ground. Or was she trying to bang on the glass to attract attention? It was exactly as he remembered it. What he had not remembered, though, was that the window itself was round. And he was as sure as he could be that he had not seen a round window anywhere inside Charect House.
He sat back, his eyes still on the screen, remembering how he had been vaguely surprised when the demolished wall had disclosed such a small space, and how he had expected it to be larger. Jack, working from a ground plan the builders had supplied, had seemed to expect it to be larger as well.
Was it possible there was another attic? An attic that had a small, round window?
‘Well, Michael, you’ve handed me an odd one with this,’ said the head of the History Faculty. ‘Where on earth did you dig this up? Oh God, you didn’t actually dig it up, did you? Because it smacks of mist-shrouded graveyards and heroines walled up in crumbling dungeons, and—’
‘Did you manage to decipher any of it?’ said Michael, who had spent a virtually sleepless night before delivering the remaining pages of the diaries to the History Faculty Head at half-past eight, and had paced the college impatiently until lunchtime, waiting for the results.
‘Only about three-quarters, but enough to get the gist of it.’ He reached for a large envelope on the edge of his desk. ‘I’ve put a rough transcript in here for you, but some of it’s guesswork. Michael, tell me you haven’t been cavorting around sepulchres in your spare time? Or was it a macabre treasure hunt you went on for Halloween?’
‘It’s something that turned up in an old house a friend’s renovating.’ Michael had to restrain himself from snatching the envelope out of the man’s hands.
‘Oh, I see. Simple as that. Interesting though. It’s a genuine document, then?’
‘You tell me.’
‘I haven’t done any dating tests – you didn’t give me time – but I can do some if you really want. It seemed authentic, though.’
‘That’s what I was afraid of,’ said Michael and managed to get out of the office before he was asked any more awkward questions.
He had hoped there would be a message from Jack when he got back to his rooms, but there was not. Still, it was only twenty-four hours since they had set off for New Jersey. Plenty of time for Jack to check phone messages and call back.
He got through the afternoon’s session with a group of first years on the structure and origins of iambic verse, and by six o’clock was seated at his desk, taking Owen’s semi-guesswork transcript from the envelope.
The light is fading, and I only have twelve matches left. I’ve counted them several times – it’s something to do.
I’ve shouted and banged on the window at intervals, but it’s no use. My voice is so cracked and dry that I don’t think anyone would hear me.
I think it might now be Saturday evening, which would account for no one being here. Whatever day it is, no one has heard.
But I’m not alone in the house. Every so often I’m aware that someone’s out there. Like the way your skin prickles before a thunderstorm. Each time that happens, I wait, listening, and presently I hear the attic stairs creak, and a slow tread comes across the floor. I’ve tried calling out in case it’s a tramp or a gypsy looking for a night’s shelter, but there’s no response. But whoever is out there doesn’t go away. Whoever is there, stands on the other side of the wall for a very long time.
Have to stop writing now – light almost gone. I’m so thirsty . . . My head throbs agonizingly, and I can hear the blood pulsing in my temples. Or is it the hammer-blows of the old clock ticking away . . . No, stupid, the clock’s all the way down in the drawing room, I couldn’t possibly hear it up here.
I have the feeling that Harry is quite close to me tonight.
Owen from the History Department had added a note of his own at this point:
Michael – sorry, impossible to make out the next few sentences. The words clock and singing seem to be indicated, though. Best I can do. O.
The transcript resumed on what seemed to be Sunday morning, with a faint light filtering through the tiny window into Harriet’s prison.
Grey light coming in now. Good. Another day – a day when I’ll be rescued. Head throbbing as if it’s swollen to three times its normal size. Is that lack of air?