Sarah Rayne - What Lies Beneath

Ella gasped and it was as if the sound of her gasp released the frozen terror and she was finally able to move. She tumbled across the room and out into the clean sweet evening. As she ran across the lawn she risked a quick glance over her shoulder to see if he was coming after her. No, it was all right. She ran as fast as she could towards the side entrance, out through the little latched door, and along the lane to Mordwich stile, where her mother was waiting. She looked back twice more but the lane was deserted, and Ella reached the stile safely. There were pains in her chest from running so hard, but she did not care. She sank down on the grass, sobbing and shaking, but after a moment managed to gabble out to her mother that she had got the scarf and the hankie, and please could they go straight home.

Neither of them spoke on the way back to their cottage, but as they crossed Mordwich Meadow, Ella risked a glance at her mother. You killed that woman, she thought. I had my eyes shut when you did it because I was frightened so I didn’t see you do it, but I heard it. I know what happened.

It was then that the really scary thought came into her mind.

The man had been in the house all the time. He would have heard the shouting between the old woman and Ella’s mother. Had he been standing in that big cold-looking hall, watching? If so, he too would know what had happened.

They had their cocoa and biscuits, and Mum began to look a bit better and to stop speaking slurrily.

They washed up the cups as they always did – Ella’s mother said it was slovenly to leave dirty china in the sink overnight – and as they were putting them away, she said, ‘Ella, when you went back for your scarf, what did you see in that room? I know it was dark in there, but did you see anything at all?’

Ella thought about saying she had not seen anything, but somehow the words came out before she knew it. ‘I saw the old woman sitting in the chair,’ she said.

‘Ah. I thought you might.’

‘I’m not absolutely sure, but I think she was dead.’

Her mother took so long to answer this that Ella began to think she was not going to say anything at all. But she sat down at the little scrubbed-top table, gesturing to Ella to sit down with her. ‘Yes, she was dead,’ she said. ‘She was very old and very bitter and unhappy. She fell back and knocked her head on the mantelpiece. She was ill anyway – she had been for years and she might have died any day at all.’ She reached out to take Ella’s hand, which was not something she often did. ‘I didn’t kill her,’ she said. ‘Was that what you were thinking? It was an accident.’

Ella said she knew that, of course.

But I don’t know it, she thought, not really. Because before I closed my eyes I saw your face, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget how you looked.

Mum was saying, ‘But the worry now is that if anyone were to hear about what happened – that we were in the house with her when she died… People aren’t always kind, Ella, and a lot of people in Upper Bramley – and all the villages – have been very unkind to me. One day, when you’re older, you might understand. When I was young they used to call me cruel names.’

Barrack Room Brenda, thought Ella, still not speaking. I’ve heard that one at school more than once.

‘What I’m trying to say is that if people heard, they’d believe the worst of me.’

‘They’d think you killed that woman.’

‘Yes. D’you know what happens to people who kill?’

‘Um, well, prison, I s’pose.’

‘Yes,’ said Mum slowly. ‘Yes, that’s right. Prison. For a very long time. Years and years.’

‘What would happen to me?’

Mum took even longer to answer this. Then she said, ‘There’s only you and me, you see. We haven’t got any family you could live with. I’m afraid you’d be put in a children’s home.’

‘Like Bramley Gate?’

‘Yes. Probably it would actually be Bramley Gate.’

‘Oh,’ said Ella blankly. She had seen the Bramley Gate children sometimes. When they went anywhere they walked in what was called a crocodile, led by a cross-looking woman who had a face like granite. They were silent and they all looked sad, and they wore horrid scratchy-looking grey uniforms, with their hair cut in ugly pudding-basin styles. Sometimes a group of them had to come to Ella’s school for an exam and the boys mimicked them behind their backs. The girls said they looked like ragbags and told each other they would die if they had to go round looking like that. Remembering all this, Ella knew she would hate being in Bramley Gate more than anything in the world. She would hate Mum being in prison, as well, of course – she reminded herself how bad that would be – but she did not think she could bear living in Bramley Gate.

There was something else, as well. If Mum went to prison everyone would know. They would point to Ella and say, ‘That’s the daughter of that murderer. That’s Brenda Ford’s girl – Barrack Room Brenda, they used to call her.’ And they would tell each other it would be better to steer clear of Ella Ford. ‘Because you know what they say: like mother like daughter.’

And Ella would grow up with no life and no friends, permanently dressed like a ragbag, sneered at and made fun of… She dragged her attention back to what Mum was saying – something about being sure no one had seen them that evening.

‘No one saw us go into Cadence Manor and no one saw us come out,’ she was saying. ‘So there’s no reason why anyone will ever know the truth.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Ella obediently.

Lying in bed, later that night, she thought: but someone does know. The man from the church knows. He was in the house all the time – he must have heard the shouting. What if he tells people he saw it all, that he saw Mum lunge forward, her fists raised? Would people believe that? Ella thought they would believe a grown-up – especially someone from Cadence Manor – rather than a little girl from a cottage.

Was there a way she could make sure he never told anyone?

It was about a week after that terrible evening that Ella’s mother showed her a piece in the newspaper – the Bramley Advertiser it was called. It had local news in it, photographs of people getting married and stories about people in the villages, and lists of babies born or people who had died.

On one of the pages was a smudgy photograph of a lady with a severe expression and a long elaborate gown, standing outside a house that Ella recognized at once. It was Cadence Manor, only it was not Cadence Manor as it was now, but years and years ago when it had been tidy and nice, with lots of people living there. The newspaper said the lady in the photo was Lady Cadence – Serena Cadence – shown in her heyday and in the heyday of the Cadence family. Ella looked up the word ‘heyday’ in her school dictionary and it meant a time of great success or happiness.

The paper also said Serena Cadence had died at the family home, where she had lived a retired life for many years because of suffering from a long and debilitating illness. The long illness must be the marks on her face; Ella shuddered, remembering them. What kind of illness gave you marks like that? She looked up the word ‘debilitating’ as well. It meant something that made you very weak. But Lady Cadence had not been so weak she could not scream and threaten people with her walking stick.

The newspaper said there would be a private funeral service but also a public memorial service at St Michael’s church, and told readers how Lady Cadence had been a lovely and gracious lady who had lived through stirring times and led a full and interesting life.

‘Did she do that?’ said Ella. ‘Live through stirring times?’