Betrayal (20 page)

L
ittle by little, I was coming back to life. All around me, the school was recovering too, slowly getting used to the shocking news that Mrs. Hartle’s body had been found out on the moors. We fell back into some kind of routine, the only difference being that Miss Raglan was no longer around. The students were told that she had suddenly had to leave due to urgent family reasons. She wasn’t missed. Miss Dalrymple and the others kept quiet, ashamed or embarrassed. Or biding their time, perhaps.

The days crept past, and Wyldcliffe Abbey School for Young Ladies carried on in the only way it knew how—with rules and order and calm English self-discipline. For once I was glad of the rigid routine that had enabled the school to survive so long in a changing world. It helped me
to get through each day with something like normality. The visits and inquiries from the police and press were hard to ignore, though, as plans were made for an inquest into Mrs. Hartle’s death. The funeral would be held later, when all the investigations were over.

We managed to get hold of the newspapers and read everything we could about the case. The authorities were suggesting that the High Mistress had suffered some kind of breakdown. She must have been hiding out in the caves on the moors for weeks, they speculated, then had a fatal heart attack as she was wandering in the storm.

Sometimes reality is just too hard for people to accept. This story would do as well as any other. Something for the headlines, until the next sensation came along. Something for Celeste and India and the others to gossip over, then forget.

In those quiet, drifting days, Helen and Sarah and I stayed close together, united in grief and love. Whatever had happened, whatever we had lost, we had one another, and nothing would ever break that bond. With each passing day, the weather grew warmer and brighter, and the hills echoed with the sound of newborn lambs bleating to greet the bright and mysterious world.

The following weekend, Harriet’s mother came to take
her home. I went to say good-bye in the black-and-white-tiled hall as they waited for the taxi to arrive. A fire was crackling in the grate and a bowl of roses glowed on the long polished table.

“Mum, this is Evie, the girl I told you about. She was my friend here.”

Harriet looked different, thin and tired, but the strained, hysterical look had left her. She didn’t know that she had been controlled by a warped mind and used as a pawn in an insane game. She didn’t remember the dreadful paths that Mrs. Hartle had sent her down. She only knew that she had come to boarding school and had not fit in, that she had been nervous and anxious and overwhelmed by homesickness. Harriet’s eyes shone as she introduced her mother to me. Mrs. Templeton was rather like Harriet, sallow and thin and eager to please.

“Thank you so much for being kind to Harriet,” she said apologetically. “I had no idea she would be so homesick and upset, starting all that sleepwalking business again.”

I felt like a fraud. I hadn’t really been so kind. But Harriet’s mother waved away my embarrassed denials.

“No, Miss Scratton says you’ve been wonderful. It’s funny,” she added, glancing at the marble steps and the trophy cabinets and the antique prints on the walls. “The
school hasn’t changed at all. But being back here…well…it makes me remember how lonely it could be.”

“Yes,” I said. “Wyldcliffe can seem very far from home sometimes.”

“Guess what, Evie? Mum’s going to start working part-time so she can be with me at home and send me to a local school in London. Isn’t that great? Not that I won’t miss you,” Harriet hurried on. “And you will write to me, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks! Tell me if you see Lady Agnes’s ghost, won’t you?” She laughed and pulled her mother by the sleeve. “Come on, the taxi’s here. I can’t wait to get home.”

They bustled into the car and drove away. For a second I wished that I were still twelve years old and that my mother could arrive and make everything right. I remembered how close she had seemed to me that night out on the hilltop. I tried to send her a message.
I’m okay, Mom
, I told her.
I’ll survive….

“What are you thinking about, Evie?”

I jumped and turned around. It was Helen.

“Mothers,” I said softly. Our eyes met and I read the flash of pain in her face.

“Do you still miss not having her?” she asked.

“Of course. And I miss Frankie too. But I’m fine. I really am.”

“I know. And you’ve got your dad too. That makes all the difference.”

I looked at Helen curiously. She was holding a letter in her hand. “Miss Scratton gave me this. It was sent to her so that she could pass it on to me.”

I reached out and hugged Helen tightly.

“I’m so, so glad,” I said.

She smiled, and her fragile beauty shone like a flower opening in the sun. “Me too. I’m going to write back. Where are you off to?”

“Oh…I’ve got a riding lesson. I’d better go.”

I walked outside and made my way down to the stables. This would be my last lesson with Josh before his mother came back to work, and my stomach was twisted with nerves. A couple of days ago I had given him the torn fragments of Agnes’s diary to read, and Sarah had promised to tell him the rest. He deserved to know the truth, but I didn’t know whether he would think I was lying or crazy. Either way, I had to face him.

Josh was waiting for me in the yard, holding Bonny by the halter. I swung into the saddle and he grinned. “My mother will be impressed. I’ve turned you into a passable rider. Anyone would think you’d been at Wyldcliffe for years.”

“Thanks.” I smiled. “At least, I think that’s a compliment.”

“Where’s Sarah?” he asked, as I rode into the paddock and he strode along next to me.

“She’s riding up on the moors with Cal. Miss Scratton said it was okay.”

“So is his family staying in Wyldcliffe?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure. There’s still so much rumor and gossip about them—all those horrible animal killings that Mrs. Hartle was behind.” I halted and looked at him steadily. “That is, if you believe what Sarah told you.”

Josh rested his hand lightly on mine. “I believe you, Evie. I know this valley. I know it hides many secrets. Besides, I knew you were in trouble all along. And so this guy, Sebastian…he’s…”

“He’s dead,” I said briefly. “It’s all over.” There was a yawning hole where my heart had been, but I wouldn’t cry. Sebastian wouldn’t want that.
When I am dead, my dearest, sing no sad songs for me….

Josh tightened his hold on my hand. “Evie, I know you won’t want to hear this yet, but you know that I…I can’t help wondering if there’ll ever be any hope for me.”

I felt a wave of panic rise up in me. “I can’t; it’s too soon. I don’t think I can ever…love…again. What you’re saying…it scares me.”

“I’m not asking for love. It’s just that I really like you, Evie.”

“And I like you,” I said, feeling awkward.

“Well, that’s a start, isn’t it? We can be friends. Love doesn’t have to be painful, Evie. It doesn’t have to be this
big, tormented passion. It can be easy and simple, like sunshine in the morning, or like walking on the beach and listening to the waves.”

There was a lump in my throat. Sebastian and I had never made it to that beach, to that place of warmth and sunshine. We would never see the dawn rise over the ocean. Sebastian had given himself to the night, but he had finally escaped from the darkness, and I could too.

“I’d like…I’d like to be friends.”

“Then let’s be the best of friends,” Josh answered. “Let’s live one day, and then another and another. And maybe in time, the sun will smile on us.”

I pressed his hand gratefully. “You’re so good, Josh.”

“No, I’m not. I’m just crazy about you.” He lifted my hand and kissed it gently, then stepped back and smiled up at me. “There. That wasn’t so terrifying, was it?”

I looked into his face, full of life and hope and courage. I had no idea what the future held, but I realized that I was no longer frightened. No, I wasn’t frightened at all.

T
here were still a few weeks left before the end of term. We had exams to look forward to, and concerts and the handing out of class prizes and awards. But first there was one other ritual we had to get through.

The funeral was a rather grand, pompous affair. Students, parents, mistresses and school governors, the local mayor, and other dignitaries were all crammed into the little stone church to bid farewell to Mrs. Celia Hartle, the High Mistress of Wyldcliffe. I sat at the back with Sarah. I didn’t want to look at the coffin, piled high with costly lilies. Instead I focused on where Helen sat with her head bowed at the front of the church, flanked on one side by Miss Scratton, and on the other by a tall, blond man, who kept glancing down at Helen’s pale face in wonder. Every
ending was also a beginning….

The vicar spoke of loss, and of hope. The words rolled over me like a cleansing wave.

“‘I am the resurrection and the life,’ saith the Lord; ‘he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die…’”

I stood up quietly and slipped unnoticed out of the church. It was still early in the morning and there was somewhere I had to go. As I climbed above the sleepy village on the familiar path over the hills, someone came to join me. We walked in silence, stopping only to collect a few early wildflowers that were growing in the shelter of the hedgerows. A bird sang high overhead, and the lambs called for their mothers.

As we walked over the brow of the ridge toward the old hall, I knew I would never be that innocent young girl who had arrived in Wyldcliffe so many months ago. I had seen the darkness and I would never be able to forget it. But I had also known love, and it had taught me that knowing another person’s heart was the greatest adventure life had to offer. I had known what it was like to get up in the morning and rejoice, simply because Sebastian walked upon the earth. I had looked up at the wide blue
sky and seen the sun shining especially for me, because I loved him.

And now, finally, I was ready to say good-bye.

I knelt at Sebastian’s grave. Soon, the mound by the headstone would be no longer bare, but threaded with tender green roots and moss. I gently traced the outline of his name on the stone with my fingers.
In Memory of a Beloved Son, Sebastian James Fairfax…

My beloved.

I would always love him. My first, my dearest love.

The wind whistled over the hills like the distant echo of the sea. I placed my simple flowers against the headstone and stood up. There was no need to say anything, no need for words or promises. I had been true to Sebastian. There had been no betrayal between us. When I saw him again—and I knew that one day I would—we would meet as creatures of eternal light. There would be no trace of shadow left. The darkness was over. He was free.

And I was free too. Free to grieve and free to live. I had to live, for Sebastian’s sake as well as my own. My heart had to be big enough for whatever was waiting; I couldn’t allow it to be broken. I was Evie Johnson, I was sixteen years old, and life hadn’t finished for me yet. It was just beginning.

“Time to go, Evie,” said Josh quietly.

I turned to him and smiled.

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We walked down the hill together, back to the school where my sisters would be waiting for me. It was a new day, and our faces were toward the sun, and we didn’t look back.

Jacket photographs © 2010 by Jamie Chung

Jacket design by Amy Ryan