Christina gazed pleadingly up at her mother and asked if she could see. Inside the gilt frame was an old studio portrait photograph. It was of a girl about her own age with dark hair and a Mona Lisa smile. What on earth had possessed her mother to buy such a thing?
'Would you be a dear, Eva,.' she said. 'And hang it for me? It can go over there in place of that dreary watercolour.' Christina remembered how her mother had bought that dreary watercolour at a similar auction the year before.
'Of course, madam.'
'Thank you, Eva.'
With that, their mother left to take her nap. Eva busied herself taking down the watercolour and replacing it with the photograph, walking away towards the kitchen when she was done. Agnes said she was going to finish a letter she was writing to their grandmother and disappeared upstairs.
Christina was left alone in the hallway feeling a seething rage against everyone in the household, when she heard a whispering coming from nearby. She looked about her, but there was no one. Then she realised the sound seemed to be coming from the photograph in the gilt frame.
'Over here,.' it said quite clearly.
Christina's heart skipped a beat and she backed away to the other side of the hall, bumping painfully into the table. The girl in the photograph giggled.
'You needn't be frightened,.' she said.
'W-w-what are you?' Christina stammered.
'I will be your friend,.' said the girl. 'If you'll let me.'
'My friend?' Christina frowned. 'What do you mean? You're a photograph and I must be dreaming or feverish or something.' She put her hand to her brow.
The girl in the photograph giggled.
'I have the power to grant you three wishes,.' said the girl. 'There must be something you would like.'
'I must be dreaming,.' murmured Christina, pinching herself. 'I must be.'
'What are you doing?' said a voice behind her, making her jump. It was Eva. The girl in the photograph was a mere photograph once more.
'I was not doing anything,.' snapped Christina. 'And in any case I can do as I like. This is my house.'
'This is your mother's house, I think,.' Eva said, smiling and walking back towards the kitchen.
'So?' said the girl in the photograph. 'Is there nothing you wish for?'
'I wish that stupid Eva would leave me alone!' hissed Christina.
As soon as she said the words she felt a curious sensation, as if there had been a sudden change in air pressure. She felt light-headed and put her hand on the banister to steady herself. She blinked a couple of times to focus, but saw that the photograph was static once more. She clicked her fingers in front of the girl's face, but nothing moved.
Christina laughed nervously to herself. Perhaps she was coming down with something, after all. Could she really have hallucinated the whole thing? She shook her head and blinked again. Already the idea of it being a trick of her mind was easier to believe than that a photograph had actually talked to her. She laughed again.
The family were having dinner some days later when the doorbell rang. The girls looked at each other in wonder. No one ever called at this hour. Their mother frowned and stood up, wringing her napkin nervously.
'Now whoever can that be?' she said.
Eva had answered the door and they could hear a muttered conversation going on in the hall. Mrs Webster left the room and after exchanging wide-eyed glances, the girls followed her.
They found Eva in tears. The door was open and there were two stern-looking gentlemen in dark overcoats on the doorstep and a policeman standing behind them, looking back into the street.
'What on earth is going on?' said their mother. 'What is the meaning of this? Eva? What is the matter?'
'I am afraid Miss Lubanov must come with us, madam,.' said one of the stern gentlemen. Christina took a moment to realise that he meant Eva.
'Go with you?' said Mrs Webster. 'But why? I really must protest . . .'
'Please,.' said Eva. 'It is better I go. You have been so very kind, ma'am. I do not wish you to get in trouble for me.'
'Listen to her, madam,.' said the other man. 'She does not have the correct papers and she must go. You will only make trouble for yourself if you interfere.'
'Eva!' cried Agnes and she rushed forward to hug the maid. Eva had stopped crying now. She hugged Agnes and cast a hard glance over at Christina.
'Please, madam,.' she said. 'Do not try to help me.
You must look after yourself.'
'You poor dear girl,.' said their mother, hugging her. With that, the men took her away and ushered her into a waiting carriage. In seconds they were gone.
When her mother was upstairs consoling Agnes, Christina lurked about at the parlour doorway, working up the courage to step into the hall alone.
'You have come for another wish?' said the photograph.
Christina stepped nearer.
'I did not wish for Eva to be taken away,.' said Christina. 'I only asked that she would leave me alone. It's not my fault that she was taken away.'
The girl in the photograph smiled. 'And your second wish?'
Christina did not like the way she spoke to her. It was almost as if she did blame her, but was choosing not to say anything. After all, if she could grant her anything she wanted, Christina was hardly going to argue with her, but this time she was going to wish for something rather more useful than the absence of an irritating maid.
'I wish we were rich,.' said Christina with the imperious raise of an eyebrow she had seen her friend Penelope employ to such effect.
There was no reply from the girl. In fact there was no sign that the photograph had ever been anything other than simply that: a photograph. Christina walked away to wait and see what would happen.
Day after day went by but nothing changed. She had almost given up on seeing her wish fulfilled when the telephone rang one rainy Saturday afternoon.
Christina's mother had her back to her as she took the call and seemed to have to steady herself at one point, her hand clutching the back of a chair. She replaced the receiver and stood, head bowed, in silence for a moment.
'Mother?' said Christina.
Mrs Webster turned to face her daughter, tears in her eyes.
'Go and fetch Agnes, dear,.' she said.
Christina did as she was asked and their mother took them into the parlour.
'It's Grandmama,.' she said. 'Be brave, my chicks. I'm afraid . . . I am so sorry, but she has passed away.'
The news hit Mrs Webster especially hard, coming as it did so soon after Eva's deportation. Her mother-in-law could be a cold woman and had used the promise of her money as a kind of weapon, but she had been Mrs Webster's last link to her dear husband, Robert, who had died so long ago the girls could barely remember him. Christina was left feeling cold.
Later, when Agnes and Christina were alone together, Agnes said sharply, 'You never did like Grandmama!'
'She did not like me!' replied Christina.
Agnes shook her head in exasperation.
'You shall not make me feel guilty,.' said Christina. 'I am sorry Grandmother has died but, unlike some, I shall not pretend to be upset.'
Agnes took a sharp intake of breath and slapped Christina round the face with all the strength she could muster. The blow was sharp and stung Christina's face, bringing tears to her eyes and knocking her sideways on to the bed. When she looked up Agnes was gone. She rubbed the side of her face and ground her teeth together.
'I'm sick of her,.' she muttered. 'I wish I had my own room.'
The word 'wish' echoed in her head. Had she really wished her own grandmother dead? No. She had wished for the family to be rich, that was all. True, her grandmother's death did now mean they were rich, but that was hardly her fault. She was not to blame for how the wish was made real. When she looked up again her mother was standing in the doorway.
'Dear Christina,.' she said with more than a trace of surprise in her face and voice. 'Why, you are crying, sweetness.'
'Yes, Mother,.' she said. 'Poor Grandmama.'
'She is with the angels now, God rest her soul,. ' said her mother.
'How did she die, Mama?' asked Christina, sitting up. Her mother looked away for a moment and clenched and unclenched her fingers.
'She had a fall, my darling,.' she said. 'I had warned her so many times about that staircase but she would not . . .'
Christina's mother closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them a tear ran down her cheek. Christina got up from the bed and ran over to her mother, hugging her. Her mother stroked her hair and Christina clung on tightly, rejoicing in this new closeness between them.
Perhaps it was not too late to make amends. Christina had had a small taste of what it must feel like to be good, to be Agnes, and she liked it. Maybe it was not too late for her to change.
Agnes came back to the bedroom a little later to find Christina still sitting where she had left her. To her surprise, Christina opened her arms wide and said how sorry she was.
'Can you ever forgive me, Agnes?' she asked.
'Of course I can,.' said Agnes, embracing her.
'You're my sister. And I should not have hit you.'
'I deserved it,.' said Christina. 'I was being beastly. I've been beastly for a long time but I'm going to change, Agnes, I promise.'
The two girls clung tightly to each other until Agnes said that she felt tired and lay down on her bed. Christina sat by her, stroking her hair until she fell asleep.
Christina was suddenly aware of a harsh ringing sound - a sound she took a little while to identify as the doorbell. The room seemed to have become suddenly darker. How long had she been sitting there? She went dreamily to the landing to see Bertha, the new maid, answering the door.
Christina looked down the stairs as Bertha, looking very serious, went to fetch Mrs Webster, leaving two dour-looking men standing on the doorstep.
Christina's mother went to the door and, after a good deal of talking, showed the men through to the morning room. Christina tiptoed downstairs. She wondered who the men were, but only for a moment. It did not matter. Nothing mattered.
She stood in the hall and edged towards the photograph in the gilt frame. She knew exactly what she would wish for. She stood in front of the girl and the girl smiled back.
'You do not look very happy,.' she said.
'I wish,.' said Christina, ignoring the girl. 'I wish that everything was as it was before my mother brought you back from the auction.' Christina closed her eyes as she made her wish, but opened them almost immediately when she heard the girl giggle.
'You look silly,.' she said.
'Why haven't you granted my wish?' said Christina with a frown.
'I have granted you three wishes, as I promised,. ' said the girl. Like a flash of lightning exploding in her head, Christina remembered her wish to have a room of her own and a scream rang out through the house, hanging in the air like gun smoke.
The morning-room door burst open and one of the men ran through, followed by Mrs Webster. They ran pell-mell up the stairs as Bertha appeared on the landing, screaming once again and pointing hysterically. The second man stood over Christina, an odd expression on his face, his hands clenched and the muscles of his jaw twitching.
Christina could hear footsteps and muffled voices coming from her and Agnes's bedroom. Why was that silly maid screaming so? She put her hands over her ears. Then she saw the photograph in its gilt frame. It became suddenly clear what she had to do if she was going to keep her promise to Agnes, if she really was to be a better person.
Christina lurched forward and grabbed the photograph, smashing it against the banister. The crash shocked the maid into silence. Christina's mother stood at the top of the staircase and gasped as she saw her daughter standing in the hallway, the gilt frame in her hands and shards of glass strewn about the floor.
'That will be enough of that, Miss Webster,.' said the man standing with Christina's mother. 'Please ensure that she does not hurt herself, Sergeant.'
'Sergeant?' said Christina, as the man next to her stepped forward, towering over her ominously. 'Mother? Who are these men?'
'They are policemen,.' said Mrs Webster, her body shaking, her face chalk white, her fingers clenching themselves repetitively into fists. 'Christina,.' she said, her voice dry and rasping. 'What have you done? What in heaven's name have you done? These men came to tell me such awful things and now . . . now your dear sister Agnes is . . .'
'Me?' said Christina. 'Nothing, Mama. It was the photograph. It was evil and I have destroyed it.'
'What photograph?' asked her mother, edging towards her down the stairs. 'What are you talking about?'
'The photograph!' said Christina, getting angry. Her mother could be so infuriating sometimes. 'The one you brought back from that stupid auction. In a way all this is your fault, Mother. If you had not been so . . .'
'But I never bought a photograph,.' she said. 'I bought a mirror.'
Christina looked at her mother in utter confusion and then down at the floor, at the dozens of jagged pieces of glass reflecting back at her. There was no photograph. There had never been a photograph.
She took this fact in just as the men came forward and grabbed her, holding her wrists and making her drop the gilt frame to the floor. As they led her away she began to remember.
It had been her that had sent the note to the police about Eva not having the correct papers to stay in the country. She had overheard her mother and Eva talking about it.
She remembered, too, how she had secretly visited her grandmother, getting in by the garden door, and persuaded the old woman to show her something in her bedroom, only to push her down the stairs and sneak out before any of the servants realised she had even been there - or so she had thought. But a neighbour had seen her and called the police.
She remembered holding the pillow down on Agnes's face and how her hands had searched blindly for Christina's arms and clutched at them, trying to pull them off, until finally they had grown limp and fallen lifeless at her sides.
Christina did not hang for her crimes as she might have done. It was decided that she was not of a sufficiently sound mind to be labelled a murderess. Her mother's inheritance was put to good use providing the best care at the very best asylum, and Christina's last wish was granted. She had a room of her own for the rest of her life.
Uncle Montague leaned forward, the firelight dancing in his eyes, smiling rather inappropriately considering the grimness of the tale he had just finished.
I looked across to the gilt frame hanging on the wall. If my uncle truly did believe that this frame was haunted in some way - that this frame was really the frame in the story and that story was true - then why on earth would he choose to have it on the wall of his study? I told myself that it spoke more of the irrational state of my uncle's mind than it did of the object, and yet once I turned away from the gilt frame, I had no desire to look again.
I licked my lips, my mouth feeling strangely dry, and my uncle offered me another cup of tea, which I gratefully accepted. All this tea, though, had its inevitable effect, and I excused myself in order to pay a visit to the lavatory.
In truth, I was never very keen on leaving my uncle's study alone and so put off such visits until I was on the point of doing myself some sort of mischief and almost had to run down the dark corridor to what my uncle always called the 'water closet'.