The Coffin Path_'The perfect ghost story'

by Katherine Clements

  ‘“Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us . . .”’

  Then, as suddenly as it had begun, there is silence. I feel the moment that it leaves, like the unclenching of a tight grip, an exhalation of long-held breath, and I know that it is over.

  Some time near midnight, after hours of prayer, Agnes and Father are persuaded to their beds. Sam, lulled by the sleeping draught, has not stirred. When I look in on him, there’s no sign of disturbance. The chamber is chill, still perfumed with the underlying taint of burning, but Sam is peaceful.

  I go back to the hall. Ellis is there, leaning against the wainscot next to the hearth, as if he’s been waiting for me. He’s swept the broken glass into a pile by the window. All is quiet. A cutting night breeze whistles through the broken panes, and the bitter snow-bound air is sharp on my tongue. I go to the window, compelled to look out into the night, but afraid of what I might see. There is nothing, save the snow and the pale blue moon. Whatever was out there has toyed with us enough for tonight.

  I turn to face Ellis, ignoring my frozen, prickled skin, and nudge the shards of glass with my toe. He knows what I seek and comes towards me, opening his palm. He has collected the stones, each a small round pebble, worn and stream-smoothed, the kind you find in the becks. Among them, three golden discs, patterned with strange horned figures. I pick out the coins. They are cold as midwinter on the moor top.

  Ellis watches me in silence. I meet his gaze, waiting for him to speak, waiting for him to voice the fearful ungodly thoughts that poison my mind, waiting for an answer to the question I asked of him. He places the rest of the stones on the table, takes my hand in his and folds my fingers to cradle the coins. With the breath of the moor winding about us he looks at me as if he does not know what to say, eyes all confusion, then pulls me towards the staircase.

  When we reach the door to his chamber, he pauses. I think: this is it. He will give me his answer now and I will take him into my bed, both of us finding the sanctuary we yearn for in each other.

  But instead he brings my fingers to his lips and places a single kiss, gentle, chaste, all the wild passion of our moment before the fire gone.

  He releases me. ‘I cannot,’ he says quietly.

  Then he turns, goes into his chamber and shuts the door. I hear the latch fall.

  I stand, dumbstruck, as my heart splinters, to lie among the glass on the stone flags of Scarcross Hall.

  The next morning is dull, the sky heavy with cloud. Sleepless, I step outside at dawn, before the others rise, and taste the coppery tang of the snow-cloaked hills. The world is eerily quiet. There is no birdsong. Protected by the boundary wall, the snow is only ankle-deep at the front of the house. I stop outside the big window. On the glass I find small, child-sized handprints, etched in the frost. And there, in the snow, a set of child’s footprints, leading from the window out through the gate and away towards the coffin path. There is a second set – larger, an adult’s this time – following alongside.

  Two hours later, I discover that Father is gone.

  Chapter 40

  As he follows her out onto the fell, the snow starts to fall again. At first the flakes are large and lazy, drifting as if a host of angels had shaken their wings, but soon they come thick and fast, settling on frozen ground and beginning to cover the tracks they are following.

  A lone crow flaps in the willow copse, making a ragged, mournful cry as they pass. On far-off slopes he glimpses grey specks in the snow; sheep huddled under gorse bushes and beneath the crags. There is no scurry of small creatures through the heather, the moor birds are long since flown and the few that remain find shelter in the valley. Even the becks snaking down the hillside are silvered and solid.

  She walks ahead of him, bundled in layers of wool, snow up to her shins, leather-gloved hand gripping her crook. She does not look at him. She has not looked him in the eye since last night. She has closed in on herself, seeming to have no other thought than for Bartram Booth.

  He cannot blame her. He expects – even welcomes – the shunning because he deserves it. She gives nothing away but he knows she must be smarting the same as he. His own feelings are a blizzard.

  He is angry with himself, for his recklessness, for doing the thing he swore he would not do but, at the same time, he clings to the memory, savouring it: the taste of brandy and tobacco on her lips, the hot, slick wetness of her tongue. She has not mentioned it again – the thing she said. She has been silent and grim since Booth was found to be missing. But the question she asked of him hangs in the air between them and twists in his stomach, like the gripe.

  It would solve everything. She is offering him all the things he wants most. But at what cost? If he agrees he will never be able to tell anyone the truth.

  Would it be so great a sin? Can he live the rest of his life under the shadow of such a secret? Would he pay for the lie when the final judgement is upon him? But, he reflects, his whole life has been a lie, so what difference would it make now?

  She stops up ahead to catch her breath and checks he is still following. Her cheeks are flushed, snowflakes settling on strands of hair come loose from her hat. Her mouth is fixed, eyes cold and grey as the winter sky. He wants her. He wants to possess her – her and everything she stands for.

  ‘The snow is covering the tracks,’ she says, ‘but no matter – I know where they will lead.’

  There is only one place that Bartram Booth would seek. He looks ahead, up the fell-side, to the line where the moor begins. Everything is a sea of white, swirling flakes hiding the stones from view, but he knows they are there, pale statues, wreathed in a winding sheet of snow.

  She turns away. ‘Father . . .’ she whispers, to no one but the moor, and sets off again.

  Father. There is so much contained in that breath of a word – all the love, protection and guidance he never had. He had a father once but he does not like to think of him. Now, as he struggles in her wake, he’s back there: a campfire, stuttering and hastily lit, the stench of men – sweat, shit, liquor and tobacco – the scratch of a lice-ridden blanket as he curls up in the shadows, keeping out of sight, a child known only as Boy.

  ‘Go find your father,’ Betsy had said, taking another man by the hand and leading him into the tent.

  He followed his nose, because that’s where his father could usually be found – on the other side of the camp near the cooking fires and the beer barrels, furthest from the officers’ tents, where small trestles had been set up in a makeshift drinking den. He lingered by the cavalry horses, stopping to stroke the velvety muzzle of his favourite, a fine-limbed bay belonging to the captain, but was chased away by a groom. So he dawdled from fire to fire, watching men eating, arguing, smoking and sleeping, looking for Briggs. Some of the soldiers worked into the night, sharpening knives or cleaning muskets. Others gathered in groups, talking, eyeing the camp whores with hitched skirts outside their tents, listening to the animal grunts of fornication from within. Everywhere the familiar smell of unwashed bodies, the stench of carelessly dug latrines and the putrefying flesh wounds of the dying.

  As usual his father was drinking, gaming with the men of his troop, and the one with the black beard who smelled of rotting gums and seemed always to win. Boy wandered over, hovering at his father’s shoulder, reading his cards.

  ‘What are you up to?’ His father was already drunk – he knew that because the man turned and put his hat clumsily on Boy’s head. The bedraggled plume of feathers in the hatband dangled like a shot pheasant.

  He said nothing.

  ‘Spying are you, Boy? Working for the enemy?’ He aimed a punch at Boy’s shoulder, a little too hard to be playful. Boy ducked and the other men laughed. His father didn’t like to be laughed at: when he tried again, Boy took the hit and smiled along with the rest.

  ‘Well, make yourself useful,’ his father said, pus
hing a large pewter tankard towards him, slopping the last dregs of ale. ‘Fill this.’

  Boy took the mug and filled it at the tap. ‘For Briggs,’ he told the man who asked for payment, and was waved away.

  A shout went up from the table as Boy returned. His father cursed. Boy could tell he was losing by the tone of his voice – that sharp edge cutting through the slur of drink.

  ‘You sons of whores! We play again!’

  ‘Come now, Briggs, you’ve nothing more to lose. Shall I take next month’s pay too?’ the black-bearded man said.

  ‘No,’ Briggs replied, as Boy put the drink on the table. Briggs slapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ll play for the boy.’

  A chorus of laughter.

  ‘I mean it. I’ll wager the boy.’

  ‘What use is that scrap to me?’

  ‘He’ll fetch and carry for you. He’ll do as he’s told. He’s a good boy, aren’t you?’ His father looked at him and Boy gave a cautious nod. It was always best to agree with Briggs when he was drunk, no matter what.

  The black-bearded man sneered. ‘That’s not what you’ve said before.’

  ‘He’ll fetch your ale, clean your boots, bring you women. Show him the back of your hand and he’ll do anything you ask. Anything at all.’ Briggs raised a brow.

  ‘You can’t do that. It’s not fair on the child,’ another man said.

  ‘I can do what I want with him. Who else is there to answer for it?’

  ‘Betsy will have your balls.’

  But the black-bearded man was interested. ‘I’d have to feed him, clothe him.’

  ‘Ah, he looks after himself. Eats scraps. Doesn’t cost me a penny.’

  ‘You can’t wager your own son.’

  ‘He’s not my son.’

  ‘But what about Betsy?’

  ‘He’s one of Betsy’s castaways. God knows where he washed up, but he’s not my blood, or hers either. But he’ll do as he’s told. You can do what you want with him. I care not. Be glad to be rid of him.’

  Boy watched, wide-eyed, as the two men shook hands. Surely they could not be talking about him. But the black-bearded man studied him, a sly, greedy look in his eye. He watched as they began to turn cards, heard the raucous laughter and the back-slapping but he didn’t understand what was happening because there was a buzzing in his head and a hollow feeling in his chest, as if the heart had fallen out of him . . .

  When they near the White Ladies she tries to run, but the snow binds her. She stumbles and falls. He tries to catch up with her, to reach the stones first, to save her from what she might find there. Through the whirl of snowfall, he sees a pinpoint of black, stark against winter white.

  ‘Please, God, no . . .’ she says, as he draws closer. Then she puts her hands to her face, covering her eyes as if she cannot bear to look.

  It is Bartram Booth, of course, leaning against the Slaying Stone, where Ellis had found Sam those few weeks before. The snow is already settling on his coat like a shroud.

  ‘Fetch a horse.’

  She has gathered herself but her voice is strangled. She squats next to the body of Bartram Booth, gently dusting snowfall from his shoulders. The old man clutches a small leather shoe in one hand. It is a child’s, finely wrought and embroidered. Impractical. He remembers that shoe. He has seen it before. When Mercy sees it, the life seems to go out of her.

  ‘I won’t leave you here alone,’ Ellis says.

  ‘I’m not alone.’ She lifts her fingers to Booth’s face and tries to close his eyes. The lids are frozen in an unseeing stare and will not move. Her hand trembles before she snatches it away.

  ‘It would take me hours, even if a horse could get through the snow,’ he says, trying to reason with her.

  ‘Do as I say. I’m still your mistress. Fetch a horse.’

  ‘No. I won’t leave you. It’ll be dusk soon.’

  She stares at him, nostrils flaring. ‘You dare to disobey me?’

  He crouches next to her. ‘I don’t want to find two bodies on my return.’ The snow is still coming down. In less than an hour the light will start to fade. ‘We need to go.’

  ‘I won’t leave him here.’

  He puts a hand on her shoulder and feels her flinch. ‘If we don’t leave soon, we won’t reach the Hall before dark. No one can survive a night on the moor in this weather.’

  ‘I’ll not leave him.’

  He searches about, desperate to find something, anything, that might be of use, but the moor is swept clean by the snow. He curses himself for lack of foresight. He would give good money for a length of rope or a canvas. The turmoil of mind that consumes him has prevented any useful thought.

  ‘Then we take him with us,’ he says.

  He pushes his crook into Mercy’s hand and levers the old man forward to slide an arm behind him and gain purchase. Booth is too bulky in his thick coat, so he unfastens the buttons to peel it off. Perhaps he can use it to fashion a sled. Beneath, Booth is wearing nothing but a thin nightshirt. The man never had a chance.

  He tugs and struggles to pull the coat off, Booth’s limbs stiff and awkward. The leather shoe in Booth’s hand tumbles to the ground. He sees Mercy look away, notices her lip tremble, but she does not break, and does not pick it up. She takes the coat and steps aside to make space for him to stand and hoist the body onto one shoulder. He slips and staggers under the weight – though Booth is shrunken with age, he is not a small man. Still she does not crack to see her father so mauled and degraded.

  Through the nightshirt, he feels the press of bones, the shift of slack flesh. How strange, he thinks, that this is the closest he has ever been to him, and will ever be, in the indignity of death.

  There are moments when he falls, when the body slips from his grasp and sprawls, limbs splayed like a carcass ready for butchering, or when they have to drag Booth by his arms or carry him between them. At one point when he falls, he finds himself suddenly face to face, the dead lips almost pressed against his own. But, through it all, she says nothing.

  By the time they reach Scarcross Hall, the light is almost gone and every part of his body is screaming. His feet are frostbitten. Every step is a torment, every breath a dagger.

  Agnes must be watching for them from Sam’s bedside because the door flies open when they are still a hundred yards away and she comes running, stumbling and sliding in the snow.

  ‘Go back inside!’ Mercy shouts, but it’s useless. Nothing can spare the old woman. Agnes sinks slowly to her knees, as if her legs have given out, skirts ballooning, making an anguished howl, like a fox caught in a trap.

  Mercy reaches her, cradles her, rocking her to and fro as though she is the mother and Agnes the child, while Agnes lets out the despair that Mercy will not.

  Midnight. The witching hour.

  Despite his aching body, Ellis cannot sleep. He is too aware of the corpse on the other side of the wall: Bartram Booth laid out upon his old bed, in his old bedchamber, hands folded neatly across his chest, limbs thawed only to be locked in the grip of death.

  He sits on the edge of the narrow bed, leaves the candle burning, listening to the night-time shift and sigh of the house. The snow is falling, the wind eerily still. There is no moan in the chimney, nor rattling at the casements, but Scarcross Hall is never entirely silent, and with each creak of floorboard, each scratch in the walls, he is listening, waiting.

  He reaches beneath the bed and pulls out his pack, rummages through his few belongings until he finds the little scrap of cloth that holds the key. He unwraps it, dangling the leather cord so that the gold glints in the candlelight. Then he cradles it in his palm, runs a fingertip around the delicate metalwork, the curled letters, the arrow-straight backbones and the fat round bellies of the double B.

  Bartram Booth has taken his secret to the grave. Who, now, is left to tell the truth? He
supposes he should feel something – grief, perhaps, sadness at least – but there is a lack of these things. He cannot grieve for a man he does not know, a man towards whom he feels only bitterness and blame. But he does know how it feels to lose the one you love most. He knows how it hollows you out. There is a space where such sentiments should be and where, instead, she fits.

  Though she thinks she does not show it, her suffering is writ in the crag of her brow, the desolation in her eyes, her bone-hard silence. He would save her that pain, if he could. He would take it as his own, if it were possible.

  There is a gentle rap upon the door.

  Quickly, he swaddles the key in its ragged cloth and places it back under the bed, heels the pack beneath too, stands and goes to answer.

  She is standing there in the dark, in her white nightgown, hair loose about her shoulders. He is always stirred when she shows the woman in her, but now she looks like a girl, fragile and forsaken. Her eyes are red-rimmed, shot through with blood from crying, her cheeks blotched and tear-streaked. She is defeated after all.

  There is a brief moment of confusion when he is unsure what she wants. He almost expects anger or accusation, but then she comes towards him and presses herself against his chest. She rests her head on his shoulder and his arms go round her and he feels tears soak through his undershirt to his skin. She does not sob or wail, just sinks against him until her arms creep around his waist and press into his back, pulling him closer.

  She is perfectly still while he holds her. He feels her heartbeat racing alongside his own. She raises her head and meets his eye and in that single gesture he sees the open, broken heart that she is offering him and he knows he will take it.

  Chapter 41

  I rise early, slipping silently from Ellis’s bed, making sure he does not stir, and go straight to Father’s study. It’s as cold as an ice house. Shivering, I lay the fire, bring a lit taper from the embers in the kitchen hearth and coax the kindling to flame.