by G. P. Taylor
‘This is not to my liking, Mister Barghast, not to my liking. I smell conspiracy and my eyes will not leave you all for the journey.’
Digitalis
AS the hour halved, Kate woke. The fire still crackled and spat in the grate and Thomas snored. In her sleeping she had heard music, notes tapped auspiciously in quick succession upon the magichord by her side. In the opening of her eyes it had ceased to be and the room was empty, and she felt as if she had been cheated of something wonderful. As she had slept the music had danced through her thoughts. Every note had been like the chiming of a summer bell and though the tune was indistinct, it reminded her of all that was good. In her waking she had thought of the day, months before, when she had stood by the dock-end in Baytown and watched the lasses slicing fish. They had joshed her for her dress – no lass wears men’s boots, they had rhymed, as the little ones had jumped rope and watched the elders stripping the fish of their scales. In her mind she sniffed, her senses filled with the scent of seaweed and salt spray. Her eyes imagined looking up to the high cliffs and the swirling seabirds.
Nothing they did offended her. Like mother, like daughter, was what she thought. She had followed the way of her father. Sea-boots, waistcoat, corn hat and a post to lean upon as she looked out to sea. It was always over the horizon that her life would be lived. It would not be the ways of fisherwomen that would fulfil her life. She felt different and knew that within she was. It was as if she had some nagging predestination of what her life would become, and that from an early age she was set apart, different.
Kate rested upon the bed and stared at Thomas. It was then that she heard the jingle of the magichord and sensed someone close by. Every inch of her body tensed, and her breath laboured as she fought the desire to scream. The room was filled with the scent of perfume, strong and bold. It smelt of frankincense and myrrh, Christmas cake and old sherry. There was a sudden and shrill icy blast that took the flame from the candle by her bed and dimmed the light in the room to a soft gloom, lit only by the flames of the fire.
From under the bed came the rustle of dried winter leaves being scattered across the oak beams. A seething breeze squalled through the floorboards like wind through rigging ropes far at sea. The leaves scraped the wood like dead fingers, tapping a tale of grief. From all around the buds of foxgloves fell about her as the odour of the murky, deep wood grew stronger. Instinctively, Kate wanted to close her eyes; she was now unable to move a single limb as the room was transformed into a dark woodland glade. Kate thought she saw the magichord grow into an old oak, gnarled and knotted. The firelight faded, dimming to a meagre glow. The leaves swirled about themselves, spiralling higher and higher as if the wind were breathing long whispers of a half-heard conversation.
From somewhere far away she heard laughter, coarse and cruel. She dare not look to right nor left, but kept her sight fixed upon the bough of the oak that now grew about her. What had once been the ceiling of the room had been replaced with a canopy of dead branches. There was no sky, just a grave thick mist that hovered above them.
In her trepidation, Kate became aware of someone standing near to her. She strained fearfully not to look, hoping against hope that she would be left alone. The music played gently, a flowing hand tracing over the keys like a butterfly breath. A warm voice began to sing the melody, and Kate pulled the covers close about her neck. The singing quickly turned to a child’s laughter as a cold hand touched her face. She turned – the room was empty. The forest had gone in the instant. Looking to the magichord she saw the ivory pegs moving on their own, each one tapped out in succeeding notes by an invisible hand. She watched, unsure what to do, more intrigued than frightened as the keys danced back and forth along the octaves. Kate gulped, unable find her voice.
The laughter came again, this time from the window, as suddenly the music stopped and the lid of the magichord slammed shut. The notes jarred loudly. A swirl of dust twisted by the bed as a jagged and unseen finger prodded Kate sharply in the chest. Again laughter, deeper, and groans as if tinged with pain. A shadow crossed the candlelight and for the briefest of moments Kate saw a dim outline of a girl. There was a bustle of skirts and scouring of crinoline as if the ghostly spectre were about to dance.
‘Thomas,’ Kate said shakily, ‘are you still sleeping?’ She hoped he would hear her voice. Thomas moaned in his slumber and returned to his snoring by the fire.
‘Look at me …’ came a whisper from by the magichord.
Kate turned and stared.
‘No … Here …’ The voice came again from the window.
Kate turned again.
‘Or here …’ whispered the unseen voice from next to her.
Kate couldn’t move. She could feel a presence close by and
see an indentation in the thick mattress. And then, inch by inch, a figure began to become visible. First the tips of her fine silver shoes, then the white leg stockings, then the bottom of a pink crinoline dress embroidered with a thousand foxgloves. It was an experience that was stranger than strange, to watch someone appear from thin air. Kate gulped and held her breath as the smell of perfume grew stronger and stronger. Finally, like a Cheshire cat, the face of a girl materialised at Kate’s side. She smiled and looked to be quite human, solid and very real. Kate couldn’t move. She was more fascinated than frightened. It was as if the spectre were more than a girl and that her features were but a childlike mask that hid someone within.
‘I was watching you sleep,’ the spectre whispered close to Kate’s face as she picked her white powdered nose and sniffed. ‘Wanted to wake you up but waited until he was away …’ She gestured towards Thomas who slept soundly on. ‘When did you die?’
‘I didn’t – well, not that I know,’ Kate replied, unsure what to say.
‘I thought the same. Didn’t realise I was dead for a week. Kept trying to speak to everyone and no one was listening. I even followed my coffin to the funeral and thought someone else had died. Mother crying, father crying, all of them sobbing. It was only when the priest said my name that I realised that all those morbid tears were over little me.’ The ghost paused as if to take a breath, her dark eyes searching the room as she continued to speak. ‘Strange thing, death. It’s at that time when you find out what people really think of you. All those salutations of how sweet, what a pretty face, how charming. If only they had said it to me when I was alive. Even if they were insincere, life could have been so much cheerier.’
‘So you are dead?’ Kate asked.
‘Buried and resurrected.’ The girl laughed as she pulled on her skirt and smiled. ‘You shine too much for someone who’s alive – sure you’re not dead?’
‘Alive … I hope.’ Kate shuddered as a tingle danced a deathly shimmer along her spine. ‘How can I see you?’
‘Because I want you to – well, for now anyway.’
‘I’ve never seen a ghost before. You’re not how I expected,’ Kate said anxiously as she looked the girl up and down.
‘Neither are you,’ the spirit said, then paused and looked at Kate quite strangely as if she attempted to peer inside her head. Kate shuddered as the ghost spoke again. ‘I knew you were coming. I listened to old Pallium as he made the bed and stacked the fireplace. It was him who brought me here.’ The girl pointed to a flaking portrait locked in an old gilt frame which hung on the plaster wall next to the magichord. ‘That’s me.’
Kate hadn’t noticed the picture before. It was blackened by fire soot, the face nearly invisible in the dark sky against which it was set. At some time, the portrait had been barred into the frame as if to imprison the girl within. The rusted spikes were roughly pinned into the gilt and looked as if they were the bars of a lonely prison.
The ghost caught Kate’s stare and knew her thoughts. She turned quickly to look at her; the spectre’s face blurred as she moved and trailed a glistening of tiny sparks as if she were on fire.
‘They thought it would keep me in, said I was a nuisance in my walking. Got a priest to pray upon
the portrait – that it would lock my spirit away. Somehow I found it easier to escape.’ The spectre looked at Kate and smiled as she touched the painting. ‘Zurburan was a master painter – so my mother said. Painted me when I was sick, caught me in the moments of death.’
‘Nice,’ Kate replied slowly, unsure what to say in conversation with a chattering spectre as she peered at the dim image that hung on the wall. ‘Did you live here?’
The spirit glimmered as if angered. Her face changed colour as she searched for the words in which to reply. Like a deathly vapour, its image began to fade as she spoke quickly, trying to tell all before she vanished completely. ‘Wherever the portrait shall go, so will I be,’ the ghost said feebly. The blush drained from her face and she wore the pallor of death. ‘That picture is my dwelling place, no paradise for me. I live within the picture. It is my prison and has been sold and resold many times. Some say it’s cursed. I listen to them, hear them screaming when I walk from it. Then it’s quickly vended and I go to yet another keeper. I’m a long way from home and wish to return. It has been so … so … long.’
The ghost slid from the bed as if drawn back to the picture. She looked no more at Kate but gazed at her own deathly portrait.
‘So where are you from, what’s your name?’ Kate asked, her lips trembling as the ghost walked from her towards the wall. ‘Come back … Speak to me …’
‘Again … Sometime soon … Tell no one …’ The words were spoken without a movement of the lips, and then she blew a kiss.
‘Now,’ said Kate, trying to seize her before she disappeared. With one hand she grabbed at the pink dress and for a brief moment took hold by her fingertips.
Her words were of no use. There was a swish of crinoline and a twirl of dust. The magichord shook momentarily as if it too was bewitched and the ghost began to fragment. As if made of melting ice, all her form subsided to nought. With a sudden gasp, the girl was gone.
‘Tell no one …’ came the voice again from all around her.
Kate lay back on the bed, staring at the portrait. The dark eyes of the girl stared back to her. She heard a sudden rush of footsteps outside the room that stalked along the passageway. Thomas stirred from his sleep.
‘Did you say something, Kate?’ he asked.
‘It’s just Jacob Crane,’ Kate said, wanting to keep the ghostly visit a secret for fear of not being believed. Crane tapped on the door and walked into the room.
‘Thought I heard you playing that old magichord,’ Crane said as he smiled at them both. In his hands he carried a large bowl of steaming water and two folded towels. ‘Quite a talent-ed lass when you want to be, eh, Kate? Get washed and I’ll see you both in the scullery.’
‘I don’t like this place, Kate. I saw a face in the fire. It was Demurral,’ Thomas said.
‘It was a dream, nothing more. He’ll never find us here,’ she replied.
In a short while, Thomas opened the narrow stairway door and stepped into the scullery. All had changed. Pallium sat at the table, the money gone and the floor swept. A fire burnt brightly in the hearth and the room smelt of fresh lavender. Pallium smiled as if he had been stuffed and then given the expression of a tight grimace. His eyes signalled to the world that despite his waxen appearance he was still alive; they danced across the room, inviting all to see what had been done. Pallium’s achievements were but vainglory, as it was Jacob Crane who scurried about the room like a vimful housemaid.
‘My dear friends, you look so clean and hungry too,’ Pallium said unctuously as he sipped the glass in his hand and swallowed slowly. ‘I decided – err, we decided – that I had worked for too long and had neglected many things. It was Jacob who reminded me that there was more to life than counting coins.’
Pallium looked disheartened, as if something had been taken from him. His fingers twitched without the coins to count. The half-smile broke at the edges of his mouth and his lip quivered slightly.
‘Fine thing you’ve done, Pallium. A very fine thing. Can’t be spending all your life locked in here counting money,’ Crane said.
‘Good to have you here, Jacob, and I’m sure that Galphus will agree.’ Pallium coughed the words as he pulled his coat about him.
‘Where can we meet this great Galphus?’ Crane asked, putting the brush against the wall and looking at all he had done.
‘The Salamander Inn would be a place to start. He will be taking breakfast there. I could introduce you.’ Pallium looked at them one by one and smiled again.
‘Such a seer of the future would not need to be introduced to the likes of us. He should know our very thoughts before they trip from our tongues,’ Crane said.
‘That he will, I am sure, for he is not just a mender of soles but a maker of them.’
‘What does he do, Mister Pallium?’ Kate asked, not wanting to be left out, the thoughts of the ghostly visitor still fresh in her mind.
Pallium waved his arms waving excitedly as he blurted the words. ‘Galphus is a man of business transactions and has the desire to prosper. He is cordial, jovial and greatly avuncular. To be in his presence is something beyond the imagination.’
‘Then we must meet him,’ Crane said, wiping the dust from his hands and slipping on his frock coat. ‘I have always wished for an uncle, especially one who is jovial! Perhaps he will take me under his wing, as he has you, and I too may prosper. The Salamander Inn shall be visited with haste and we all shall eat merrily.’
Thomas slapped his hands against his chest and turned to Kate as if he wanted to push her from the house and into the street. He grinned at the thought of food, as his stomach rolled over for yet another time. He was sure that in the distance he could hear the chiming of a church clock.
Kate held her place, unwilling to move. It was as if she wanted to speak, to hold Pallium in conversation for a moment longer. Her eyes glanced quickly from Crane to Pallium and then to Thomas, betraying her agitation.
‘Mister Pallium,’ she said, her voice croaking with indecision. ‘There’s a picture in my room – where did it come from?’ She asked the question quickly, wanting to rid her lips of the words before she could think of their consequences.
Pallium nodded his head slowly back and forth as if he mulled the question in his mind like a morsel of chocolate. He smiled, then frowned, his forehead wrinkled like the eyelid of a tortoise. He looked to Crane as he began to speak like an excited child.
‘Wonderful picture, Galphus bought it for me and as soon as I saw her face I fell in love. Never was there one so pretty, but beauty like that comes at a great price.’ Pallium stopped for a moment and thought, his eyes withering within their frames. ‘Not a question I would have expected. If you had asked about the magichord I could understand, for it is a fine piano, but the picture?’
‘It was that she looked so young … And the bars across the frame. I have never seen the likes before.’ Kate stumbled in her answering.
‘Nor will you again. The portrait is unique. An ageless painting of that which will age no more.’
‘Did you know the girl?’ Kate asked.
‘Not for even a minute of a day. Galphus had the picture delivered. She looked so lost and I wanted to give her a home. I find her entertaining.’
‘And I find my stomach screaming to my wits,’ Crane interrupted. ‘Kate loves to talk, Mister Pallium. It is the finest thing she does.’
The Delightful Mister Ergott
THE baying of the coach hounds quickly ceased as the wheels of the heavy carriage began to turn slowly through the rutted mud that led from the inn to the open road. The light of the morning grew brighter but was shielded from the earth by thick, dark clouds that glimmered just brighter than dusk. The coach trundled on, gathering speed as the lamps flickered.
Beadle pulled the blanket about him and wrapped the oilskin around his shoulders. The first shards of hail began to fall like teeth of ice, clattering upon the stacked baggage that was strapped to the roof. Raphah and Beadle were perched high
above the ground in their one-guinea seats outside the coach, exposed to the driving hail that began to tear at their skin. Together, they swayed on a thin running board above the ground that whisked ever quicker beneath their dangling feet. To the front the driver cracked the whip above the horses’ heads and the bugler called the hounds to his side. The beasts ran in and out of the spinning wheels, yelping with discontent; some dashed ahead, snapping at the horses legs’ and splattering through the deep puddles of the narrow road.
Beadle could feel a tingle of excitement growing within as the carriage sped onwards. His heart leapt in his chest and he smiled, rubbing his hands. Faster and faster they went, gaining speed with each yard. The hail beat down as the squall from the Fell burst like a dam above them. All was glistening white as hounds wailed and cried, struck by stones of ice, and the horses snorted steaming breath as they lathered on. Relentlessly the coach went on in the dark of morning, buffeted this way and that as it pounded the road. The storm broke harder. Wind whipped the horses with icy fingers that stripped the dying leaves from even deader branches.
Beadle gasped as the breath was taken from him. He pulled the oilskin to cover his face and keep off the gale. Without a word, he and Raphah slipped from their fragile seat to the lee of the cases and huddled together, shaken by the coach.
‘Do you think he will follow?’ Beadle asked Raphah as they were beaten against the baggage and twisted in the oilskin by the rocking of the carriage. ‘I keep thinking I’ve got away. That now I’m on the coach to Peveril, I am free. With every yard of every mile, another step away from Demurral.’ He tried to smile, but the happiness of his escape suddenly faded. An uncertain thought of the pursuer began to grow uneasily in his mind. ‘Never thought I’d face him again, never. Never thought I’d ever, ever see you – and look at us now.’
Raphah didn’t speak. He pulled the oilskin over their heads and braced himself for the journey. Above the sound of the rumbling wheels and the snorting horses, he could hear the heated conversation through the leather hatch by his feet. Bragg shouted with moans of complaint with every stone and rut that jolted him from his seat.