The Dead of Winter by Chris Priestley

round spectacles. They were tinted deep blue; I could not see his eyes. He noticed that I was looking at them.
    ‘I have developed an aversion to light,’ he said, seeing my expression. ‘It is quite a view, is it not, Michael?’
    I had to confess it was. The land was so flat for miles around that the vista seemed endless, the horizon as white and flat as a frozen ocean – as though we stood in the crow’s nest of a ship trapped in ice.
    ‘My forefathers built this house for its strategic value – the marshes and the moat are its protection. But it doesn’t make the house very hospitable.
    ‘I was born here,’ he continued. ‘I played in the courtyard as a child. My sister and I ran about this house. When my father was away, there was occasionally laughter, even joy.’
    I tried, unsuccessfully, to imagine either Sir Stephen or Charlotte as happy, laughing children.
    ‘I used to play with Hodges,’ said my guardian with a loud laugh. ‘Think of it! We were inseparable. We still are, I hope, though things perforce have changed between us. But he is a good man, Michael. Don’t be taken in by that gruff exterior.’
    ‘I never doubted it,’ I replied, though this was not quite true.
    ‘Charlotte used to play with us as well, I think,’ Sir Stephen went on, giving himself up to the memories. He took off his tinted spectacles and rubbed his eyes, trying to remember.
    ‘No, no,’ he said, replacing his glasses. ‘I can’t recall.’
    He looked back down at the courtyard.
    ‘Ah, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘Where would I be without her strength? Where? She is too devoted, I often think. I know that she feels she cannot leave me, and yet I worry that I have stopped her from partaking of life’s joys – a husband, a family.’ At these words Sir Stephen’s smile disappeared and he turned to stride across to the other side of the tower, standing with his back to me as he stared out across the marshes. The sky was now an ominous grey and the wind felt chill.
    ‘We have a good deal in common, Michael, you and I,’ he shouted, without turning round.
    ‘Sir?’ I replied, wondering at how he might have reached such a conclusion.
    ‘You and I have known great sadness,’ he said. ‘I also lost my mother when I was still relatively young, and I thought I should never know suchpain again, but it was eclipsed when I lost my dear wife.’
    He turned to face me as I approached him. His long face looked even paler now against the darkening sky and his tinted spectacles created the illusion of eyeless sockets.
    ‘She was such a lovely creature,’ he said. ‘So warm. So
happy
.’ He gave the word ‘happy’ a peculiar stress, as if he were describing an exotic spice. ‘She seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of happiness and, for a while, I didn’t feel the dejection that had plagued my youth. But all happiness is finite, Michael.’
    I needed no reminding of that! He turned back to gaze between the battlements, staring up at the sky as though looking for something. He took a small bottle from his pocket, removed the stopper and took a swig.
    ‘Laudanum,’ he said, as he put it back in his pocket. ‘Dr Ducharme does not approve, but Dr Ducharme can go to hell.’
    Sir Stephen looked at the lead beneath his feet for a moment and then back to me.
    ‘Do you sleep, Michael?’ he inquired suddenly.
    ‘Here, sir, do you mean?’ I asked, a little puzzled.
    ‘I rarely do,’ he said.
    He lurched towards me.
    ‘They think I’m mad, you know. Because I hear things. But you hear things too, don’t you, Michael?’ He peered into my face. ‘Don’t you?’
    And it was then that, for all Charlotte’s urging, I was suddenly struck by the simple fact that Sir Stephen deserved to know the truth. I knew what it was like to be disbelieved and it seemed unfair to pretend that I was also deaf to those noises.’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
    Sir Stephen smiled. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you. So like your