The Diary Of Pamela D. Page 16

  ‘Even then, the doctors told him that she was clinically dead, that it was only a matter of time before her heart finally stopped beating of its own accord, like an old clock that winds down for the very last time until it finally stops, for ever.

  ‘But Pamela’s life was a succession of minor miracles, and against all odds, she began to rally. After three days, the doctors finally got it through their heads that she wasn’t going down without a good fight. And fight she did. Her back and neck were broken. They mended. She suffered massive internal injuries. But the bleeding slowed to a trickle, and then stopped altogether. And the swelling of her brain finally eased off, and she was not left a vegetable, as they believed she already was. They thought at the least that she was going to be paralysed. But she wasn’t.

  ‘She and Theo were married the following year, of course. Her best friend Tessa had married Thomas eleven months before because Pamela was in hospital for such a long time. And within a few years Dewhurst Manor was once again full of life and children and hope.’

  ‘But whatever happened to Albert Askrigg?’ her granddaughter said. ‘Nobody ever talks about what became of him.’

  ‘No? Well, that doesn’t surprise me. He was a very evil man who did unspeakable things, the sort of things nice people don’t talk about and prefer to forget.

  ‘But since you asked me, I’ll tell you what little there is to know.

  ‘Albert Askrigg fell off the balcony even as Pamela did. But when everyone went outside, he was gone. He had got up and run off-’

  ‘What? Anybody who fell that far and landed on the cobbles should have died, or at least have been seriously injured like great-great grandma!’

  ‘Oh, he was injured all right,’ her grandmother said. ‘We know that because he was seen limping towards the moor, leaving a trail of blood all the way, one arm twisted at a macabre angle. The police were hot on his trail soon after, and not just with a few constables crashing through the woods, but with the help of more than five-hundred volunteers, all of whom were keen on getting their hands on Mr. Albert Askrigg.

  ‘But they never found hide nor hair of him. Whether he crawled into some secret hiding-place and died, whether he managed to get away and flee to foreign parts, or whether the moor itself swallowed him up . . . we will never know, I’m afraid.

  ‘But Pamela, my grandmother . . . ’ The old lady chuckled to herself. ‘A good many people thought she had gone a bit dotty where Albert Askrigg was concerned. She believed, with all her heart and soul to her dying day, that Albert Askrigg was some kind of demon that had sprung up out of the moor, that he was the moor, in a sense. She believed, too, that Theo himself was a similar spirit.’

  She sighed, sadly. ‘After granddad Theo died, she used to take me out to the moor near Haworth, and say, “This is where your grandfather truly lies. And here, too, lies Albert Askrigg, two aspects of the wild moor, forever at odds with each other, yet forever in balance. Oh, it may not seem that way in the middle of winter, when the moor becomes an empty, bleak, inhospitable and dangerous gallows-feld, or in the middle of summer when it is full of life, beauty and colour. But the two taken as a whole are both as necessary to life as sun, water and air.”

  ‘Of course, I well knew that my grandfather was no ghost or spirit, for I had known him all my life until he died as a very old man. It was, I suppose, grandmother’s way of dealing with the trauma she suffered at Albert Askrigg’s hands. However . . . believe what you will. No one has ever answered the question of how Albert Askrigg knew what was going on in this house. As Pamela was to find out for herself, once she’d fully recovered, there are no secret passageways or rooms or anything else in this old house, and never have been.’

  The old lady took a long look around the sitting-room and sighed once more. ‘I well remember my grandmother and grandfather sitting in this very room, reminiscing about days gone by and the full and happy life they’d had together.

  ‘But these things go in cycles, as they say. Their children, my parents, almost managed to squander the entire Dewhurst fortune. They hadn’t had to work for it, and they became a spoiled leisure-class, who thought life consisted of spending money, and frivolous entertainment. There was almost nothing left of the family fortune by the time I came into the picture. But my grandmother was a shrewd woman, and took me under her wing. And by the time I was nineteen, like her, two generations before me, I was practically running the show.

  ‘Then, I grew up and got married, and along came another generation of spoiled leisure-class kids; your parents, not to put too fine a point on it. Just like my parents, they gave you a hard world to grow up in, what with their divorce and fighting over you kids and sending you away to those dreadful boarding schools. I have a very good idea how unhappy you were, and what happened there. It’s a good thing for all of us that your parents will be left with nothing more than an allowance.

  ‘But now, my dear, it’s all up to you to save the Dewhurst legacy one more.’ She smiled, a wise, thoughtful smile, full of memory.

  ‘In fact, I want you to have something. It has been in my possession for many years, now, and I think it’s about time it finally changed hands.’

  She handed the girl the diary she had been reading from, a small book bound in red leather that was at once very much worn and carefully preserved.

  Awed, the girl took it. ‘Gran, I can’t accept this from you! Not ever! I’m never going to be the sort of person who can take on that kind of responsibility. Besides, this book has always been your greatest treasure.’

  Her grandmother’s knowing smile put the lie to her uncertainty, and caused her to feel the first stirrings of the woman she knew she would one day become. ‘You can take it, my dear. You will and you must, for you are the sort of person who can take on that sort of responsibility. Us Dewhurst women have been doing so for generations. Besides, let’s face facts, my girl, I’m not going to be around for very much longer.

  ‘But not to worry about that just yet. No, the Dewhurst legacy will last just as long as we can keep producing women like Pamela. My grandmother is still here somewhere, you know . . . in this little book and in your spirit and in mine.

  ‘It’s true, this little book has meant a lot to me over the years. But you’re my greatest treasure; you always have been. And as for what the future may bring . . .

  ‘You’re young yet, child. You have all the time in the world.’

  Here ends The Diary of Pamela D.