The Mistletoe Bride(23)

The house on the hill was burning.

Daphne pushed her feet into her travelling shoes, pulled her coat over her pyjamas and, not bothering who might see her, ran out of her room. Down the corridor, shouting to raise the alarm even though she didn’t know whether any other of the guests were in this part of the house. The blaze seemed to be inside almost, the orange glow reflecting off the glass surfaces, making it look as if the corridor itself, the doll’s house itself, the petrified birds, were on fire too.

Down the main stairs, struggling with the bolts on the heavy front door, Daphne flew out into the night. Still shouting, assuming others would hear and follow. Somehow, she thought she might be able to help. The sky was overcast now, grey clouds – or smoke, she couldn’t be sure – obscuring the face of the moon. She couldn’t even see the house, hidden between the trees and the curve of the hill, but Daphne ran over the lawns and to the track she’d seen from her bedroom window.

She couldn’t understand why no one else was out here. Surely the farm workers must have seen something. Her throat was raw from shouting and from the exertion of running. The muscles in her legs complained at the steep gradient of the hill, but Daphne forced herself on.

At last, she did catch a glimpse of someone. Some distance ahead of her, clearing the brow of the hill. She had no breath to call out – besides, she didn’t want to slow him down – but she hoped he’d had more success than her in raising help.

Still she kept going, long strides, half stumbling, half running, keeping the man in her sights. One of Teddy’s other guests? The closer she got, the more she felt sure she knew him – the cut of his jacket, his silhouette in the burning sky – and this time, she called out.

‘Please! Wait.’

He either did not hear her, or heard her, but didn’t stop.

Suddenly, between the trees, Daphne found herself in front of the house. For a split second, before she realised that everything was wrong, the only thought that went through her mind was how perfectly beautiful it was. The wooden painted façade and sloping red tiled roof and tall stack chimneys. The clock and the date: 1810. An exact copy of the doll’s house on the first floor of the Hall, in fact. Of course, that was why it had seemed familiar earlier. She frowned. No, that was ridiculous. It was the other way round. This was the original, the child’s toy the copy.

Then, a less welcome thought chasing hard on the heels of the other. The house was fine, utterly untouched, undamaged. How could that be?

Daphne felt a cold trickle run down her spine. There was no crackling of flames, no heat scorching the trees and her face, no sign that anything was wrong. The only sign of life was that one single flame, like a candle, shining in a room on the first floor.

She looked up and saw there was a peculiar translucent orange glow in the sky, behind the clouds, so she hadn’t imagined that. Besides, the man had clearly seen something too. Like her, had come to help. But where was he?

‘Hello?’

It didn’t occur to her not to go in. She took a step towards the front door, then another. When she tried the handle, it swung open to reveal red and grey tiles on the floor and a staircase straight ahead.

‘Is there anybody here?’

No one answered. She hesitated a moment more, then stepped into the entrance hall with its stone fireplace and marble mantel. She heard the ticking of the grandmother clock and, though there was no sign of him or anyone else, Daphne knew she wasn’t alone.

‘Where are you?’

Then, on the floor above, she heard a sound. A thud, like a piece of furniture falling over. And, in that moment between one beat of her heart and the next, she understood. Drawn inexorably now, Daphne went to the stairs and walked slowly up, heading towards the room on the first floor where that solitary flame still burnt.

At the top, she turned right and looked at the study door. It was ajar. Daphne carried on, one step further, another and another. Now the flat of her hand was on the wooden panel, pushing it wide open. Knowing – fearing – what she was going to see. A low armchair and brass table to her left, the folded letter there and the candle. Ahead, the chair kicked away from the desk. The photograph with her image in the tortoiseshell frame.

She could feel there was someone in the room with her. Slowly, she turned and saw the image that had haunted her for five years. Slowly, she raised her eyes and forced herself to see now, in this house on the hill, what she had never seen in life. Feet swinging in the air, hands limp and lifeless by his side, a man hanging, twisting in the still air.

‘No . . .’

Daphne clamped her hand to her mouth to stop herself from screaming. She couldn’t know whether he was a ghost or an imprint left in time, only that it was Douglas – her Douglas – just as he had been found, in the study of his parents’ house, five years ago. Douglas, who had promised to look after her, but who had been unable to live with his nightmares of gas and barbed wire and his friends lying dead in the trenches. Leaving a letter saying he didn’t want to be a burden, certain that she’d be better off without him, Douglas had left her to cope alone.