The Ghost of Emily Tapper

by Nita Round

  “It must be difficult.” Maggie sympathised.

  “Yes. Let me show you,” she said as she went into the lounge and pointed at the many pictures and portraits hanging on the wall. She stood in front of one particular painting, “Agnes Tapper,” she read from the label. “An ancestor, and not so far back in the scheme of things, and yet I know nothing about her. There are others, all here, and they are all strangers to me. A part of me is sad, because I don’t know them and I never will. There is no point missing something I can never replace. I was not a part of their lives, and now I owe them nothing. Perhaps, given time I might have a different feeling, but for now I am not sure how I feel about any of it.” She shrugged. “Do I seem cold and unfeeling?”

  “No, of course not. It will take a while to sort things out; perhaps your feelings will change when you soak up the family spirit.”

  “You look disappointed in me Maggie.”

  She smiled back. “No, I'm not disappointed in you.”

  “Then what is it?” She quirked one eye brow and gestured with both hands. “Tell me.”

  “I don’t want you to disappear too fast.” Maggie answered.

  “Why?”

  “Well,” Maggie rolled her shoulders as though she sought a diplomatic answer, one without emotional comment on the matter. “There is much for you to discover. There might be more reasons for you to stay.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as me, and I like your company for a start, so the longer you stay the better it is.”

  Emma stared at her, but whatever her thoughts, Maggie kept them to herself as she looked away. “It is so strange, standing here surrounded by these strangers who look like me.” She turned her attention to a picture on the opposite wall of a middle-aged woman with light brown hair, unexceptional except for her dark eyes. They stared out with such intensity they left her stripped to the core. Emma recognised those eyes, she saw them every time she looked in a mirror.

  “Maud Tapper, I think, your aunt,” Maggie said, “when she was younger.”

  “She is, was, a striking looking woman,” she admitted, “scary too.”

  “Yes, but fascinating. I didn’t know her very well. She kept to herself.”

  “Perhaps it should have been left to you. I think you’re more interested than I am.”

  Maggie laughed. “I don’t think so Emma. I think you want to know too. I have an advantage. Our families have been here a long time, and I grew up knowing about everyone.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Well, pretty much.”

  She nodded. “Come upstairs then. There are pictures everywhere and maybe you can tell me who they were. I’m so glad my aunt, or whoever, had the foresight to put information on the bottom, now at least I know when the pictures were taken, sketched, or painted and who was in them.”

  “Your aunt was very organised.”

  “Like a museum.”

  “You can work out your family tree from the information on the walls.”

  “Well, a few generations at least.”

  “See,” Maggie grinned, “half way to understanding your ancestors.”

  “Yeah...I wish it was warmer up here so I could stay and look around. When I’m downstairs cleaning and sorting things out I keep quite warm. But up here I freeze.”

  “It’ll be better when you get a fire going. The heat will circulate round and make the whole place warmer.”

  “If you say so.” Emma was not convinced. “And the dirt...I’ll be cleaning it up for weeks.” She tried, with varying degrees of success, to stop herself from wiping dust from every surface she passed.

  In the corner of the master bedroom a fireplace, blackened with use, looked like the major heat source upstairs, and a small fan heater under the nightstand stand offered a quick fix when needed. She noted the walnut wood wardrobe and matching dresser. This kind of furniture always sold well in those trendy shops hidden away in the expensive parts of town. She might keep them herself. They looked good, were in reasonable condition and a lot nicer than the chipboard rubbish she could afford. Pictures covered the walls here too, but above the fireplace were two paintings, the kind of art you’d see in an art gallery. They were large and imposing in such a small room. From the sound of Maggie’s indrawn breath, she had seen them too. “Would you take a look at those beauties?” Maggie said.

  “Yes.” A number of wild thoughts ran through Emma’s mind, but the most dominant emotion was confusion. She had seen them already, but the significance of these old antiques didn’t register until now. They were old, like seeing an old master in a portrait gallery, but now it wasn’t so much the style of the artwork, but the subject of the paintings. She didn’t speak for a while, her attention focussed on the picture. “I can’t believe my eyes. This is incredible.”

  “Yes,” Maggie answered.

  “Maggie?”

  Maggie moved her eyes from the portraits and faced Emma, and they stared. The hair, the eyes, the same chin. “Maggie, why is there a picture of you in my aunt’s bedroom?”

  Maggie’s voice grew hoarse. “I could ask the same thing. The other picture is the spitting image of you.”

  “It’s not. It’s the eyes, those deep brown and intense eyes. Tapper eyes. They are very distinctive. We Tappers all look alike you know.”

  “No, that’s not it, look closer.”

  Emma looked. Tapper eyes for sure, and they drew you in until you failed to look at anything else. They were her eyes too, and when she forced herself to look elsewhere, she saw more. The cheekbones, the shape of the face, even the hair colour and style. There was no denying the fact the face in the portrait was a close match to the face she saw in the mirror every day. “All right,” she admitted. “I see the resemblance and you know who these are, don’t you? These old faces are yours and mine?”

  Maggie grinned. “It’s a long story. These pictures are not supposed to exist and my ancestors have argued about this long and hard, generation after generation.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Maggie turned to the paintings, her long fingers caressed the sides of the frames. “I have read all of the documents about these and no one has ever seen proof of them. But now, here we are and I am the first one to see them. And I still can’t believe they exist.”

  “So, if it isn’t you?”

  “This is where it gets interesting.”

  “I think I’d like the short version then.”

  Maggie laughed. “I think it is my great-great-great-great grandfather, give or take a few greats. Charles Magwood Durrant.”

  “And the other picture?”

  “Well she would be Emily Tapper.”

  “My aunt?”

  “Well, Emily Tapper is your great-great-great-great-great grandmother, or something like that, and the resemblance between you is amazing, better than I could imagine. It’s like she is reborn.”

  “So you must be Charles reborn?”

  Maggie chuckled, but she did not answer.

  “Any way, why are these pictures in my aunt’s bedroom?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Another one? You do like your long stories Maggie Durrant.”

  “Yes, but it is cold here. I would rather be comfortable when I start talking. We can talk over dinner later. You will still have dinner with me? I haven’t put you off?”

  “Of course. I said I would, and nothing will change my mind.”

  “Excellent.”

  “I do look forward to another evening in your company.” Emma hoped her feelings were obvious.

  “So formal.”

  “For now.”

  Maggie handed her a small key. “This is the key to the kitchen at the back of the courtyard. I have things to do for the moment and I don’t want to make you wait outside for me. Let yourself in and make yourself at home.”

  Emma looked at the key. “Thank you. Do you often give the key to your house to anyone you meet?”

  “Only the
attractive ones.” Then Maggie winked. “But don’t use all of the hot water. After a few hours at the farm I stink and need all of the hot water I can get.”

  Emma laughed. “All right. I’ll save you some.” “It’s a date.” “It is.”

  Chapter Eleven

  EMMA OPENED THE front door and dragged several bags of rubbish outside. With no place else to dump them, she abandoned the bags of trash on the weed-covered front garden. As she worked, she was aware of curtains twitching in several of the nearby houses. It was amusing the first few times. She had never considered herself to be worthy of such attention, but then it wasn’t funny anymore. “Enough,” she grumbled in the kitchen and threw her bright yellow marigolds into the sink. She untied her apron and draped it over a kitchen chair. “Let’s make it easy for them.” She wondered, for about three seconds, whether she should change into something presentable, or clean at least. She decided not to bother. If they wanted to take a good look at her then they could do so, all messy and dirty.

  She grabbed her handbag and left the house. She didn’t bother locking the door, with such attention from the neighbours no burglars would dare try to get inside her house. Her stuff was safe here. Then she marched off, her back ramrod straight, in the direction of the nearest side street. She had no idea what she might find, but it was time to explore any way.

  She found Main Street tucked away at the back end of town. It was out of sight of most traffic and she guessed it was used by the locals rather than out of towners. Unlike the glass and shiny advertising of towns, these were small, and quaint houses converted into shops so they blended pretty much with all other buildings. The whole street looked quite charming, and it all fitted together. For such a small place she was surprised at the choices available, and there was pretty much everything anyone could want. A butcher supplied meat and fish, a baker the bread, a small hardware store had enough to get anyone out of trouble, and a little supermarket sold pretty much everything else. A café, with a small table and two chairs outside, was busy inside, and at the end of the street was an almost invisible pub. Above the door, a small sign swung with a gentle creak on the afternoon breeze, and the doors were ajar. The Castle Coomb Inn was open for business and Emma was more than a little tempted to indulge in a large gin and tonic or two. Instead, she went to the supermarket.

  An ancient old crone sat behind the counter watching daytime television on a tiny screen as she talked with a silver-haired woman. They were chatting away, their voices loud, and their conversation energetic until Emma stepped through the door. Voices on the television laughed, but in the silence of the store, the canned laughter sounded hollow and false. Their eyes followed her around, but Emma was getting used to people looking at her, so she ignored them and hummed the chorus from Lakme. The volume of the television dropped to the point Emma’s humming seemed loud. She carried on. They could all do with a little culture.

  Into her basket she dropped a small carton of milk, a packet of crackers, a small slab of mature cheddar, a smaller wedge of stilton, and most important of all, a couple of bottles of wine. The choices were not brilliant, but she had seen worse.

  “Hello,” she said with as much cheer as she could muster.

  “Hello. Passing through are you?” the shopkeeper asked.

  “Not at all,” she said with exaggerated cheeriness, “I’ve moved in. Well kind of.”

  “The Tapper house isn’t it?” the other woman chimed in.

  “Yes. It is,” Emma said, turning to the other customer. “You must have seen me arrive last night.”

  “Aye,” she said. “I did. And who you be?”

  Blunt, Emma thought to herself. “I’m Maud Tapper’s niece.” As the words came out of her mouth the air turned frosty.

  The shopkeeper stared at her over the rims of her glasses. “Well, Tapper, I hope you’re not here to cause our Lord Magwood no harm. If you have mischief in your heart, leave now.”

  “Lord Magwood?”

  “Aye, from up the Hall. Lord Magwood Durrant you would say.”

  “I see. Maggie.”

  “That would be Lord Durrant to the likes of you.”

  “It’s all right. She, the Lord Durrant, asked me to call her Maggie.”

  The woman almost choked. “Too kind for her own good that one, and she takes good care of the estate and the people in it. Not like the brother. I’m surprised she doesn’t give up, or go mad. With her family misfortunes, it makes her very special. But you already know this, being a Tapper and all.”

  “Know what?”

  “Shush,” the other woman interrupted, and her eyes hardened in warning.

  “You and your curses, child. Do you not feel guilty at the harm you have piled upon the poor girl, her father too?”

  “What are you talking about?” Emma asked intrigued.

  “Come to gloat I bet,” the other shopper chipped in without answering. “You should be ashamed.”

  “Curses? Gloat? I have no idea what you are talking about. I like Maggie. I think she’s a wonderful and genuine woman. In fact, we’re having dinner later. No mischief in dinner is there?”

  The two women looked at each other and a whole world of unspoken meaning passed between them. If Emma had thought the air turned chilly when she said she was a Tapper, then the atmosphere turned arctic at the mention of dinner.

  “That’ll be eighteen pounds and twenty-seven pence.” The storekeeper’s eyes narrowed, “If you’re taking wine for Lord Magwood to drink, then she won’t like it much, she prefers this.” She pulled a bottle from under the counter and placed it where Emma could see. “This is her favourite wine see.”

  “I see,” Emma muttered, “then I’ll put one of these back and I’ll take one of those then.”

  “Very well,” she said, her eyes shining. “Make it twenty-five pounds twenty-six pence.”

  SOMEWHAT NONPLUSSED, EMMA walked from the shop with her few items and wandered down the street without paying much attention to the direction in which she headed. Houses grew more spaced apart, moving from tight little terraces crowded together, to larger semi-detached houses, and then houses far enough apart to have spurs of grass between them. At the end of the road, a little further ahead, the lychgate to the churchyard and cemetery stood all quiet and alone.

  Emma would have turned around then, but there was a single Land Rover outside the gates. “Maggie?” she whispered, but there was no one in sight. For a moment, and it was a single moment, Emma toyed with the idea of flipping around and going straight home, but she was here now, might as well go and have a look.

  Dozens of old tombstones surrounded the squat church. To the right of the church, and through a small enclosure, lay the modern graves. To the left, the older graves. Weeping angels looked down on worn stone, and crosses eroded by wind and time pointed in every direction except straight up. In the distance, Maggie kneeled at a grave and placed white roses against the headstone. Emma watched for a while, until Maggie stood up, walked to another grave, and placed red roses against the headstone. This she repeated, putting red roses at several graves and white roses at several others. When Maggie ran out of roses, Emma found a place to hide in the cemetery. Now was not the time to be intrude on Maggie’s grief. Besides, she didn’t want Maggie to think the new Tapper was stalking her.

  Emma strolled around the cemetery after Maggie had driven away. She had to know what Maggie was doing, and it was easy to find where Maggie had been. Emma stepped through the gap in the edge into a small walled enclosure. She noted the places where roses had been placed, but two stood out more than the others did. A neat and scripted headstone, covered with red roses, marked the resting place of Maggie’s father and mother. Her father had died young, aged thirty, and some years later his wife joined him with a heart broken from losing him. They left behind a young daughter and a son. “Oh, Maggie.”

  Yet the grave with the most flowers stood almost hidden in the corner of the churchyard. A dozen pure white roses, in a sma
ll stone vase, stood bright against the green hedge and the small weathered headstone.

  Emily Tapper. Departed this life,

  aged sixteen in the year of our Lord 1643

  Beloved daughter of John Tapper and Mary Tapper

  She read the headstone several times. This was where it all started. She knelt by the grave, her thoughts in turmoil. “Hello grandmother, several times removed,” she said. “I don’t know if I need to say how many greats there are, but if you were here right now, I would call you grandmother.” She ran her hand over the rough stone, pitted by age and the weather, “Hello grandmother, I’m back now. I’m home.”

  Chapter Twelve

  WEASEL WAS NOT one to take the direct route anywhere. Some might say it was because his motives were not always the most virtuous, and they would be right. Weasel prided himself on being a professional, anything less and he would be straight back into a cell. Instead of taking his own car and parking it close to his goal, he walked to the local train station, bought a ticket to the city, and made sure he was seen on the CCTV. Then he took the city train, the one due to stop at every station between here and the end of the line. At the next station, he disembarked. It was a small station and they didn’t have cameras. There, he put on leather gloves and helped himself to a beaten up old Ford from a backstreet he knew to be free of security cameras.

  He drove through the mountains, toward Castlecoombe, but took a narrow road around the north side of the Inger. At the far side of the Castlecombe valley he turned in to a disused logger’s service road and at the end parked up in a small layby, hidden amidst trees and bushes. It was a great place to leave the car. Much used by dog walkers and mountain walkers, no one would care at all about yet another fell walker parking in the middle of nowhere. He waited for a while, in case anyone else pulled up, but no one did. It was almost lunchtime and a little late in the day for serious walkers to make a start, too early for them to be on their way back. The more he looked around the spot, the more he approved. Gravel would hide his footprints, and although there had been heavy rain of late, the ground was already drying out. If anything, the bright sun made the whole thing very pleasant.