The Song of the Siren Read Free

lovely old place, the vaulted roof was quite magnificent and the panelling on the walls was beautiful; at one end of the hall were the screens, beyond which were the kitchens, and at the other end was the minstrels’ gallery. It was supposed to be the haunted part because one of the owners whose husband had been involved in the Rye House Plot had tried to hang herself over that gallery; the rope was too long and she injured herself and lived in lingering agony afterwards. At least that was the story I heard.
    I remember one occasion when I entered. Beau appared there dressed up in a female costume he had found in the house. He liked to frighten me.
    Now as I came in, my eyes immediately went to the gallery. They always did, and I thought, as I had a thousand times, how happy I would be if I could have seen him, if I could have had some indication that he was somewhere, that he would come back for me.
    But there was nothing. Just silence and gloom, and that terrible oppressive atmosphere, that sense of brooding evil. I went across the hall, my footsteps ringing out on the stone pavings of the floor, and up the stairs, past the empty gallery.
    I opened the door of the bedroom which we had made ours. The bed looked impressive with its velvet hangings. I began to think of the people who had died in that bed; then suddenly I flung myself down on it and buried my face in the velvet bolster.
    “Oh, Beau. Beau, where are you?” I cried. “Why did you leave me? Where did you go?”
    I started. I sat up in bed. It was as though I had been answered. I knew I was not alone. Someone was in the house. It was a movement. A footstep? Was it a footstep?
    I knew the sounds of this house, the creak of the old wood, the protesting groan of a floorboard. I used to be afraid when I lay on this bed with Beau that we would be discovered. How he had laughed at me. I think he rather hoped we would be. Once he said: “I should love to see Prim Priscilla’s face when she saw me in bed with her daughter.” Yes, I did know the sounds of the house and I now had a firm conviction that I was not ajone in it.
    A wild elation possessed me. My first thought was: He has come back.
    ”Beau!” I called. “Beau! I’m here, Beau.”
    The door opened. My heart leapt and I felt that it would suffocate me.
    Then I felt furiously angry. It was my half sister, Damaris, who had come into the room.
    “Damaris!” I stammered. “What... what are you doing here?”
    My disappointment sickened me and for the moment I hated my sister. She stood there, her lips slightly parted, her eyes round with astonishment; she was not a pretty child; she was quiet, obedient, and had a desire to please, which our mother said was “engaging.” I had always found her rather dull; I ignored her in the main, but now I positively hated her. She looked so neat and clean in her pale blue gown with its sash of a slightly lighter hue and her long brown hair hanging down in loose curls. There was a certain amount of curiosity in her expression which was rapidly replacing the concern.
    “I thought someone was with you, Carlotta,” she said. “You were talking to someone, were you not?”
    “I called out to know who was there. You startled me.” I frowned at her accusingly.
    Her mouth was a round O. She had no subtlety. Perhaps one should not expect it of a child of ten. What had I said? I believed I had called out Beau’s name. Had she noticed it? I felt certain she had never heard of Beau.
    “I thought you said something like Bow,” she said.
    “You were mistaken,” I told her quickly. “I said: ‘Who’s there?’ “
    “But...”
    “You imagined the rest,” I went on sharply. I had risen from the bed and gripped her none too gently by the shoulder so that she winced a little. I was glad. I wanted to hurt her. “You have no right to come here,” I said. “This is my house and I came to see that it was all right.”
    “Were you testing the bed?”
    I looked at her