The Coffin Path_'The perfect ghost story'

by Katherine Clements

  He shakes his head. ‘Will you leave the light to burn?’

  I nod, bending to kiss his cheek. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t be far away.’

  I sit awhile, till he starts to doze, then go down to the kitchen, seeking something to still my nerves.

  Agnes has the same idea. I find her settled in her chair before the hearth, intent on cutting short lengths of twine, a pot of caudle warming over the embers.

  I go to the casement and look out. The horizon is streaked with claret wine and violet, the glimmer of early stars. Somewhere out there Ellis Ferreby keeps watch.

  Is he scared up on the moor alone? He’s used to solitude and lonely nights on the fells – it is a shepherd’s life – but I’m glad of my warm hearth and bolted doors this evening. As far as I can tell, he’s told no one of the slaughtered lambs, or the coin he found beneath his bedroll.

  Though he’s kept his word, I still cannot find it in myself to trust him. He keeps himself so closed. I pray he does not know the power of our shared secrets because he could use them against me, if he so wished. I curse myself for allowing that to happen.

  When I told Ambrose about the lambs I saw fear shadow his face, like a kite swooping across the sun. He said nothing. To speak it would only make it real. But I sense a new wariness in him and two days ago I came across him at the White Ladies, when I thought he was safe at home with Dority. He was on his knees at the Slaying Stone, praying fervently. I turned away before he saw me and left him alone with God, swallowing the old regrets that threatened to overcome me.

  I pull up a stool. Agnes ladles a portion of caudle into a cup and hands it to me, then resumes her work. I drink it, relishing the comforting sweet savour of sack, honey and cloves, and pour more, desperate for something to stem the tide of my thoughts.

  Agnes watches me sideways, taking three twigs from a basket at her side. She snaps them into equal lengths and ties them together with the twine to make a small six-pointed star, like a tiny version of the cages we make to train the vegetables.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing more than any Christian soul would do.’ She sets another little construction down and fetches up another three twigs. ‘I’ll wind them with herbs . . . for protection.’

  I put my cup down, my throat suddenly squeezed. What does she know? ‘Why would we need such a thing?’

  She does not falter. ‘You may think so, but I’m no fool. I’ve still sight enough to see. That man, coming in here, covered with blood, looking like he’d done the slaughtering himself.’

  So, she’s guessed about the lambs.

  ‘How did you know?’

  She gives me a withering look.

  ‘You don’t think Ellis is to blame?’

  ‘I couldn’t say.’ Thirty years of isolation have made her mistrustful of strangers.

  ‘You don’t like him, do you?’

  She does not raise her eyes. ‘Let me tell you something, Mercy. There are more wicked things on these hills than even Pastor Flynn would have us believe.’

  In the past I would have dismissed such a comment. When I was young, I delighted in her tales, intrigued by the old ways she spoke of, the charms and amulets she would scatter about the boundaries of the house to keep out sprites and fairies. Like any child, I trembled beneath my coverlet to think of witches, demons and the Devil’s familiars – Father instilled in me a natural fear of such things. Once I discovered a pair of battered child’s shoes in a tangle of brambles and Agnes sealed them beneath a block in the hearth so that witches could not come down the chimney. I’ve not thought of them for years. As I’ve grown older and become taken up with the everyday concerns of flock and farm, I’ve seen the real horrors of life and thought her stories the fabrications of a lonely old woman. Now her words take on new meaning.

  ‘What do you mean by wicked things?’

  She puts her work aside and squints into the fading firelight. ‘You’ve always been the same,’ she says. ‘Concerned only with the sheep and the crops and the weather, thinking only of the next season, the price of fleece, the day’s tasks. And it serves us well – I see that. But it makes you blind. Sometimes you refuse to see what’s right under your nose.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘If it were not so, you wouldn’t need to ask such a question. You would know.’

  I’m struck by the sudden and pressing need to unburden myself. I’d thought that in keeping my counsel I was protecting Agnes, sparing her, but now I see my error. If anyone knows the truth in the tales, it is she. I should have come to her when this began.

  But then I don’t know how to start. I don’t know how to confess the things I’ve heard and seen. I want to tell of the feeling that plagues me, of eyes watching, of someone there, just out of sight. I want to speak of the noise I’ve heard from the bedchamber, that dreadful, dull thunk that plays out in my dreams, like my own heartbeat. And the footsteps that sound like Sam, the child who has begun to inspire such conflict of maternal protection and peculiar wariness. But how can I say these things? How can I express them when I cannot explain them to myself?

  Agnes sits back, fixing me with her wise grey eyes. ‘The other day I went to take your father his dinner. Lord knows, he’ll not come into the kitchen for it, these days, and if I didn’t take it to him he’d let himself starve. But he wasn’t in his study. I could hear you walking about in your chamber above. And I could hear Sam, running to and fro. So, I went upstairs to find you both. Well, there was no one there. You were out with the flock, your father was in the garden and Sam was with him. When I went out to fetch them he said he’d been there all morning, smelling the roses, of all things.’

  I’m not as surprised as I should be. ‘Who do you think it was that you heard?’ I’m a child again, pulling at her skirts, asking why the rain falls from the sky. There is a tight feeling in my chest, a sensation that I’m on the cusp of something bad. I’m dizzy, as though I’m high on the precipice at the crags, looking down the steep sweep of the vale. I want answers, yet I fear them.

  She sighs, takes a draw on her cup. ‘I’ve never said aught to you, but when we first came here – you’re too young to remember – I didn’t like the place. It seemed to me that we weren’t wanted. It was always cold, even in summer, and folk stayed away. We saw no one from one month to the next. Even so, I always felt there was someone else here, someone watching. I’d turn a corner and catch a glimpse from the corner of my eye. I’d hear strange footsteps when there was no one about. And, once or twice, my things went missing only to turn up in places I’d not put them. I accused Bartram of playing tricks but, no, he was not one for jokes in those days.’

  Despite all her stories, she’s never mentioned this before. The echo of my own experience causes strings of dread to tug at my heart.

  ‘I heard things I didn’t much care for – at market, at church. People will talk.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Tales of those who lived here before us.’

  ‘The family that died?’

  ‘Not just those poor souls, but folk that came before them too. Tales about this house, and the White Ladies, and the ill fate of any poor body who tries to make a life here. I was sure the stories must be made up just to scare children home to their beds by nightfall. Even so, something in them had me fearful. Those first few winters were bleak. I don’t mind saying, I almost left, but you were still in your cradle. I couldn’t leave you alone, and Bartram wouldn’t hear of it. Then, as the years went by, he roused himself, employed Sutcliffe to manage the farm and began to grow the flock. The war ended, the men came back to farm the land and make families again, and I told myself it was just stories. I’d heard too many silly tales about this place, and allowed myself to believe them. I told myself that for a long time, and I’ve had peace enough. There’s been nothing to change my mind, till now.’

 
; ‘So, what has happened?’

  She looks at me with her shrewd gaze. She has more to tell.

  ‘Please, Agnes.’

  Without a word she reaches into the pocket tied at her waist. She brings out a coin.

  I know before I see the glint of gold, the strange markings.

  The third will seal a sinner’s fate . . .

  My stomach tilts and knots. I flush cold. ‘Where?’

  ‘Beneath my pillow,’ she says.

  I sit for a moment, then get up and pace the kitchen. I go to the window, trying to ignore the scouring sickness in my gut. The sky has darkened and I see nothing in the panes but my own reflection. I have a strong urge to close the shutters, to bar the night.

  ‘Dority told me of the coin she found in Sam’s bed,’ Agnes says. ‘And another, offered to Sam by the new man.’

  I’d thought I was keeping the secret so well. ‘Who else knows?’ I ask.

  She shrugs. ‘Dority is loyal to this family. She wouldn’t say a word to anyone. She only spoke to me because she thought I already knew. You have the other two, haven’t you?’

  Of course – I’d told Dority that I’d spoken to Father and returned the coin she gave me. She would have assumed that Agnes knew. I’ve been caught out.

  I nod. ‘I suppose you think I should return them to Father.’

  Agnes considers, then shakes her head. ‘When we first came here, I told him this house had its secrets. I warned him. And he flew into one of his rages and forbade me ever to speak of such things again. Promised to cast me out if I did. Seems no sense in changing that now.’

  ‘But what if he’s seen things, or knows things? He’s been so strange of late. Is that why he was so keen for Pastor Flynn to visit?’

  She lowers her eyes. ‘To my mind, a life of prayers and fasting never did anyone any good. He’s so changed in this last year. His mind is all adrift. I’ll not speak of it to him. I’ll not make him unhappy. But you must do as you see fit.’

  ‘No, you’re right. We mustn’t worry him. We’ll keep this between us.’

  She holds out the coin and I know she’s asking me to keep it safe. I take it. It’s as cold as hoarfrost. There’s one thing I cannot fathom. ‘Why have you never told me this before? Why have you kept quiet for so long?’

  ‘Like I said, your father forbade it. Besides, the Devil feeds on fear – what sense is there in inviting him to sup?’

  ‘The Devil? What business would the Devil have with us? We are godly people.’

  She raises an eyebrow. Though she never speaks of it, I know she questions my conscience.

  ‘There are many kinds of devil, Mercy. There are those that dwell inside, poisoning a body from the core. We can try to cast them out with prayer and fasting and good deeds, but some are too strong. They might lie quiet, sleeping, waiting for their chance, but we cannot escape them. They will always be part of us. Well, this house is the same. I knew it then and I know so now. There is some kind of devilment here.’ She pauses, looks at the golden coin in my palm. ‘I always knew, deep down, it would come for us in the end.’

  Summer

  Chapter 16

  Ellis takes the coffin path to the crossroads and, from there, follows the track that leads down into the valley. Garrick’s cottage is set snug against the hillside, sheltered from the worst of the weather and far enough from the path to avoid notice by the beggars and vagrants that sometimes come to Scarcross Hall, seeking charity. He has seen it from a distance, its grey slate tiles and chimney coil of peat smoke visible from the moor top, but has never visited.

  He was surprised when Garrick suggested it: supper. Dority has killed a chicken.

  A welcome change, then, from the bread, cheese and broth that is staple at Scarcross Hall. He wonders why he has been singled out. Garrick does not seem the type to be familiar with the workers, not garrulous, like Bestwicke, or boastful, like Ravens, and in no need of their approval because he already has Mercy’s good opinion.

  Ellis’s natural instinct is to keep his own company and folk usually understand this: if you make no friends there is nothing to tie you to a place, no regret when the time comes to move on. He has lived most of his life in this way, refusing the invitations of farmers’ wives, rejecting the hand that has sometimes been extended. But he is curious and, he reasons, what is the harm this time?

  It is a pleasant summer’s evening. For three weeks Nature has treated them well, bestowing the sunshine needed for the grass and grain to ripen and the lambs to flourish. Now, the sun is gilded, sinking slowly to the west, and the air is still warm. Cuckoo-spit clouds glow rose-petal pink. Rooks muster in the treetops, their squabbles echoing in the valley. Above him, swifts wheel and peep, plying their deadly trade with the insects. The ground has dried at last, the endless marsh and spring-silvered mud of winter firmed beneath his feet. The heather is budding and the willows shiver with new leaves.

  As always, his eye is drawn to the flock scattered over the hillside. The lambs are fattening, fleeces growing to curl. They have lost a few to grass sickness, and one drowned in a beck, but there has been no repeat of the carnage he found at the White Ladies. No more limp, mauled bodies spilling blood.

  She has not mentioned it again, the killings or the coin, though the men are instructed to carry the pistol with them on their nightly vigil. He dislikes the gun and, when it is his turn, has begun hiding it beneath his bedroll. He does not think that the rusted old flintlock will protect him against anything he might encounter on the moor.

  He noticed Bestwicke’s reaction when the gun was first given into his hands – Never thought I’d have cause again – and supposes that the man knows all too well how such instruments hold a certain power, a power that can drive a man to recklessness and catastrophe. He assumes that Bestwicke must have been witness to such things in the wars, though he does not ask with which end of the barrel the old soldier is more familiar.

  Garrick’s cottage is like so many others on the lip of the moor: a laithe house with two rooms below, two above and a small barn attached at one end to shelter whatever livestock might be afforded. There is a single, mournful goat tied to a stake. A clutch of scruffy chickens scratch and argue. Flint is tethered on a long rope and starts to bark as Ellis approaches, bringing Garrick outside. Sam is sitting on the wall, kicking his heels. He jumps down and runs off into the trees without a word.

  Garrick, though, greets him like a friend.

  The wife is small and slight with the narrow shoulders and hips of a girl. She has neat, delicate features and, creeping from beneath her cap, hints of abundant, tawny hair. She lacks colour, he notices, and grey shadows cup her feline eyes. She blushes when he takes her hand, which makes her prettier. He thinks of a kitten, something sweet and harmless, to be petted and coddled. But as the evening progresses he feels her watching him, appraising him, and realises there is more to her than that. She, like her son, regards him warily, with judgement. Of course, Garrick would not choose a stupid woman, though a biddable one, perhaps. He wonders what it would take to make her flex her claws. He must be sure to remain guarded.

  The chicken is eaten and good ale has been supped. Matters of farm and flock have been discussed. Sam is lured indoors by hunger and the smell of roasted meat, but he wolfs his food in silence, then creeps upstairs to bed. Ellis should leave, but is surprised to find he does not want to. He has never really known the simple pleasures of hearth and home and is fascinated by the way husband and wife are together, following each other’s thoughts, anticipating each other’s actions in a kind of synchronicity: Dority will fill Ambrose’s cup just as he finds it empty; Ambrose moves aside to let her tend the fire. The little exchanged glances loaded with unspoken meaning.

  ‘Where are you from, Ellis?’ Dority leans forward, elbows on the tabletop, eyes keen.

  ‘No place in particular,’ he replies. ‘I’ve
travelled a lot.’

  ‘But where were you born? Where are your family?’

  ‘I’ve none to speak of.’

  ‘Your parents?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Oh . . . I see.’

  ‘Not many who choose a shepherd’s life have steady work to keep them settled, like your husband.’

  ‘That’s true. Master Booth has been good to us. Mercy too. We owe them so much.’

  ‘The mistress is a friend to you?’

  ‘Ambrose has known her a long time, since childhood. They grew up together.’

  ‘I’ve worked for Bartram Booth since I was ten years old,’ Garrick says, ‘and I’ve never known a fairer man.’

  ‘I’ve heard he was different back then. People were scared of him.’

  Garrick considers. ‘It’s true he’s got a fearsome temper on him, but he’s mellowed with the years. He used to be out with us most days, but it’s been a long while since. These days, he likes to keep himself warm indoors and leave the mistress to run the place.’

  ‘She seems to like it that way.’

  ‘Scarcross Hall is her home,’ Dority says, ‘and her whole life. She would make any sacrifice to keep the farm profitable.’

  ‘But she has no man to help her.’

  ‘She has Ambrose.’

  ‘I mean, she never married.’ He voices it as a statement but she takes it as a question.

  ‘No. She’s chosen not to.’ She shoots a glance at Garrick, who avoids her eye, reaches for the jug and begins to fill their cups. It is fleeting but he catches some meaning in her tone. He allows an uncomfortable pause, hoping she will fill it with explanation, but she does not.

  ‘A man might think there would be suitors enough for the heiress of Scarcross Hall,’ he says, thinking of Ravens. He wonders for the first time how many like him have come before and feels a flicker of jealous disgust at the thought.

  ‘Once perhaps . . .’ Dority is studying the cup in her hands, refusing to look at him. She must know about Ravens, he thinks, if she is as good a friend as she claims to be. ‘But Mercy is a singular sort. She knows that to marry would change her standing. As it is, she is Bartram Booth’s only child, so she will inherit, but if she were to marry, her husband would own Scarcross Hall.’ She stands and begins to gather the plates.