To Gabe, the visit seemed pointless—what could he do that medics hadn't already tried to make her communicate? But Eve had been adamant: if he wouldn't go, then she would, taking Cally along with her. Somehow she had got it into her head that the old lady must have the key to the evacuees' mysterious deaths back in 1943, that only Magda Críbben could know why the children had drowned so needlessly in Crickley Hall's cellar. Rightly or wrongly, Eve—strongly influenced by the psychic, Lili Peel—thought that the answer might help the troubled spirits of the children who haunted Crickley Hall pass on peacefully It was all nonsense to him, but what harm could visiting Magda do? It would at least appease Eve to know—or to think— he took the matter seriously. Gabe mentally shrugged: no harm at all, he told himself.
The nurse he was following interrupted his thoughts. 'You have been informed of her condition, haven't you? You understand she won't speak to you?'
'Uh, yeah. I just figured it would be nice to see her. Family thing, y'know?'
The nurse, whose plastic nametag over her left breast named her Iris, nodded her head. 'Family is important,' she pronounced sagely.
She had an ambling gait that made Gabe want to stride ahead of her. It wasn't that he was impatient; it had more to do with being keyed up.
Although he certainly had been informed of Magda's state, Gabe had no idea of what to expect. In the photograph salvaged from its hiding place behind the cupboard, she appeared to be in her forties (although Percy had assured Gabe and Eve that Cribben's sister was in her early thirties: she just looked ten years older), a stiff, austere figure with a granite-like face, her eyes black and intimidating. She'd be in her nineties, and her once dark hair would be white or at least grey. He wondered if her hard features would be softened by wrinkles, if her rigid bearing would be mellowed by time. Would her heartless glare now be subdued?'
Gabe and the nurse passed by doors on either side of the corridor, some of them open to reveal sparsely furnished rooms, taken up mostly by narrow beds. They seemed empty of residents at the moment, but as they walked by one closed door near the end of the passage, it crept open a few inches. A small woman, whose unkempt grey hair hung over her creased face in thin straggles, peered out at him with watery eyes and he felt uncomfortable under her scrutiny. He heard a small, crusty snigger come from her, and then he was past the door.
The nurse turned to face him outside the open doorway of the next room, the last room along the corridor.
'Here we are, Mr…?' she said, eyebrows raised, questioningly.
'Caleigh,' he supplied for her.
'Yes, of course, you said before. Mr Caleigh. Magda's inside. We always have her door open so we can keep an eye on her. Not that she's ever any trouble. Magda's as quiet as a mouse—quieter, actually—and rarely moves from her chair once she sits there after breakfast. We have to come and fetch her at mealtimes, but apart from that she stays in her room all day long. Never socializes with the other residents. She has her own little toilet and washroom, so she comes out of her room only to eat and when it's her bath day.'
Iris spoke in a normal voice, not bothering to lower its tone in deference to the woman on the other side of the doorway and Gabe wondered if Magda was deaf also. Couldn't be. The nurse or receptionist would have mentioned it otherwise. He guessed that if any resident, or patient, was always passive and silent, they would probably end up being treated as an imbecile or vegetable.
Stepping up to the doorway and looking over the nurse's shoulder, the engineer immediately set eyes on Magda Cribben.
Although there was an easychair in the room, the aged woman was seated on a hardbacked chair by the tidy bed.
'Now, I'll leave you to it,' said Iris, moving aside to let Gabe through. 'It's all right, she will hear you, but don't expect a response. If she does speak, believe me, we'll all come running. They tell me she hasn't spoken a word since the last world war, even though there's nothing physically wrong with her. Not a peep, not a whisper.'
She called into the room, this time using a louder voice. 'A gentleman has come to see you, Magda, isn't that nice? He's a relative from America and he's come all this way to visit you, so be nice to him.' The nurse winked conspiratorially at Gabe, but he did not react. 'Go right in, Mr Caleigh. You can pull the armchair round or sit on the bed, whichever you prefer.'
With an unconvincing smile, she ambled away, back in the direction they had come.
Gabe entered the room.
•
Who is this man? He was a stranger, she'd never seen him before, and he was certainly no relative because she had none. Only Augustus, her dear brother, gone now, gone a long time ago. Perhaps that was for the best—they would have persecuted him if he hadn't drowned. But she did not want this strange man in her room; he wasn't even smartly dressed. Nobody ever came to see her, no, nobody ever came. Except for that one time, but it was long ago and in a different place to this, somewhere where they kept her locked up and where they were always asking questions—questions, questions, questions! But she never let them know, she never answered their silly questions—that would have been too dangerous—and eventually they had given up. Yes, he had visited her there—not this man, but the one who knew everything. He had come to her out of curiosity, not for love. Years ago that was, but she remembered it clearly as if it were yesterday. The doctors didn't know it but her mind was still razor-sharp—how else could she have kept up this pretence?—her memory unimpaired. Oh yes, she remembered the other man quite clearly.
'Ms Cribben, my name is Gabe Caleigh.'
Who? She didn't know anyone called Caleigh. Did she? No, she would have remembered. She wasn't stupid as everyone thought she was. Just because she wouldn't speak, it did not mean she'd forgotten how to. Oh no, that would have been too risky. Did they still hang people these days? She couldn't be sure. And she certainly couldn't ask.
The stranger had made himself comfortable now, he's sitting on the edge of the bed— her bed. Who had given him permission? Improper, that's what it was. Most inappropriate behaviour, a strange man alone with a poor defenceless woman who could not even protest! The very idea! It was a good thing the door was open or he might have tried anything. On her bed, indeed! Such insolence, such bad manners.
She wouldn't let him know she was cross, though. She would not reveal her outrage. She wouldn't even look at him any more.
'Currently I'm living at Crickley Hall with my family.'
Crickley Hall! There it was. He would try to trick her, he'd ask about the house, what happened there…
'Do you remember Crickley Hall, Magda?'
Oh such atrocious manners. He was addressing her by her Christian name as if he were a friend or an acquaintance. Trying to be familiar because he wanted to ask her questions. But no, she wouldn't be tricked, she wouldn't speak to him, no, she'd not say a single word. He wasn't even English, he was what was commonly called a Yank. The Yanks were coming to help Britain fight the Germans. No, no. The war had ended, hadn't it? It was over a few years ago. Ten? Fifty? A hundred? It was a long time since, if she remembered correctly. And she did remember correctly, didn't she? Yes, she did, more than anyone else would ever know.
'When you were in your thirties you lived in the house called Crickley Hall with your brother, Augustus Theophilus Cribben.'
He knows something! He knows something about Augustus and he's trying to trick me into telling him about what happened that time in Crickley Hall. That horrible night when the river broke its banks and the river beneath the house rose up through the well. She had escaped just moments before the flood had come, when Augustus was—no! She must not even think of it! Her heart was pounding and he might hear it. It would give her away. She must calm herself, reveal nothing in her expression. 'That the time may have all shadow and silence in it.' Shakespeare wrote that. See how acute her memory was? After she had been found the next morning, they had explained what had befallen Augustus and the children—what they thought had befallen them—but she had not betrayed herself, she had not shown any emotion, even though inside she had been devastated, her heart and soul left raw and damaged. She had been cunning, though: she had pretended to be in deep shock. No, that wasn't quite true—she had been in deep shock—but she had fooled them all, the doctors who had examined her, the police and the various officials. Even the pious prig, the Reverend Rossbridger (yes, see how sharp her memory was?) had been duped when he had come to the hospital, pleading with her to save her brother's righteous name (and, of course, his own by association). He had wanted her to refute the outrageous but necessarily covert report and the rumours that followed it, stories of how Augustus had shut the orphans in Crickley Hall's cellar on the night of the flood. Surely Augustus would not have acted so wickedly, Rossbridger had pleaded. The guardian has cherished those unfortunate children. Certainly he was firm with them, but he was loving also, and taught them the way of the Lord. Speak out, dear Magda, the old fool had begged her, defend your brother's honour. But she would not speak out, the truth would only defile Augustus's good name even more.