“Oh dear!” Evelyn said, covering her mouth with her hand.
“I think there is some truth in it. Have you seen the baker’s wife? And the owner of the haberdashery shop? Not to mention the local butcher and the postman.”
“No, I have never noticed, but I shall make a special note to look out for it in future.”
“You’ll see I’m right. There are the usual crop of ghosts – both likely and unlikely – ranging from an imp who can change form and become a butterfly, a snake or a beautiful young woman with flowing raven hair, depending on what time of the year it is and who sees it. Whichever version you see is guaranteed to be the last thing you witness.”
“Sounds a bit gruesome.”
“All true. Allegedly. Then there’s old Aloysius Monkton. The last squire of Thornton Wensley. He is supposed to walk up our lane after dark on fine summer evenings. He enjoyed hiking on the moors, and you can often hear his dogs barking, as he loved to take them with him. Gerald told me they sound like wolves. There are no reports of actual wolves in this area, of course, but you never know…”
“It all sounds far more exciting than I thought. Or maybe daunting is a better word.”
“Oh, it’s all a lot of hokum, but around the fire on long winter’s evenings, what else are you going to do but see who can come up with the most outlandish ghost story?”
“Where our cottage is concerned, I don’t think you need to use too much imagination. Do you think there is really something wrong with it, Matthew?”
Matthew gave her a long, studied look. “Let me put it this way. I have seen enough in my life to make me believe there are some things best left alone and some things we will never explain, for all our science and evolution. Our ancestors knew more about these elemental spirits than we do. It seems the more advanced and civilized we have become, the more we have lost touch with nature and the forces surrounding us. Now I have thoroughly bored you.”
“No, no. You haven’t, I assure you. I find this fascinating. What have you seen that has led you to this conclusion? Has anything happened in your cousin’s cottage?”
“Not since I have been living there, but, like you, I have only been here a short time. Gerald told me shortly before he and his family moved to Wiltshire, he heard noises at night. At first he thought nothing of it. Old houses make all sorts of creaking and groaning noises as the timbers settle and so on, but one night, he awoke to hear someone coughing downstairs. Thinking there might be an intruder, he moved as quietly as possible out of the room and down the stairs. His wife and two young boys slept on, apparently oblivious to everything. The more he descended the stairs, the louder the coughing grew. It sounded like someone in real pain. A consumptive perhaps. The curtains were open, and a full moon lit up the backyard and the moors beyond. Gerald tiptoed into the living room, and there, surrounded by an aura of silver moonbeams, stood a female figure. Gerald couldn’t stop a cry escaping him at the unexpected sight, and the apparition vanished.”
Goosebumps broke out on Evelyn’s arms, and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. “What a terrifying experience. And his wife and children knew nothing of this?”
Matthew shook his head. “The next morning Gerald asked them if they had heard any noises in the night, and each said they hadn’t. In fact his wife said she had experienced the best night’s sleep she could remember for months. The boys, too, said they had slept soundly.”
“How strange. It’s almost as if that’s too much of a coincidence.”
“Which is what Gerald thought.”
“And he told you about this before you moved in?”
“Yes. It didn’t worry me unduly, because I’m prepared for it. If indeed it happened at all. And clearly the ghost meant him no harm. As for my own experiences, I had occasion to stay with an uncle and aunt in Harrogate. I would have been about ten years old, recovering from chicken pox. The house was older than ours. Built in the reign of Charles II, I believe. My elder brother was away at boarding school, and my parents were in Africa, so I was pretty much left to my own devices. I no longer felt poorly, the spots weren’t troubling me as badly, and I had grown bored of my own company. The house had an extensive attic running the full length and breadth of the building, and I had been expressly forbidden from going up there. Telling that to a ten-year-old boy – especially one with too much time on his hands – is a recipe for disaster. The weather had been consistently poor, with showers and storms practically every day. On yet another rainy day, my aunt and uncle were out, the servants were all occupied with their tasks, so I crept up there. Usually, they kept the door locked. The housekeeper kept the key in her pantry, but today, for some reason, it was open. I made my way up the stairs and entered a world that would have kept any child engrossed for hours if not days. Old rocking horses, a massive dolls’ house, armies of tin soldiers, every toy you can imagine lay up there, long discarded and dusty. Cobwebs brushed my face, and soon I must have been coated in a layer of dust myself.
“I discovered a box. Brightly colored. It was called The Garden of Bewitchment, and I opened it to find a board and all manner of items to decorate it with. A small wooden manor house with windows made of magnifying glass so when you looked through them you could see an entire room, exquisitely furnished with characters that seemed to move with your eyes. Trees made of some unusual, springy material. You used these to build the perimeter of your garden. A rockery, a pool so lifelike you felt your fingers would get wet if you touched it. The surface looked like it had been made of glass or crystal, and it sparkled in the light coming in through the attic windows. There were so many parts. Soon, my garden began to take shape with the manor house in its designated spot at the heart of it. I placed a bird’s nest in one of the taller trees and fancied I could hear the birds chirruping. I put delicate, exquisite butterflies on the leaves of sunflowers and hollyhocks, and my nose detected the perfume of sweet peas, which I had planted next to a wall. A greenhouse contained so many pots of tomatoes, aromatic herbs and scarlet geraniums, and a box hedge gave off the scent of summer. Oh, yes, Evelyn, I believed I could smell all these things, that it wasn’t called The Garden of Bewitchment for nothing. Time flew by, and I lost all track of it. The light began to fade, and I realized my aunt and uncle would be back at any moment. I left the garden where it lay and hurried to greet them.”
“What a wonderful toy. Did you ever go back up there?”
Matthew’s face darkened. “Oh, yes. The very next day. Yet again the weather was inclement and my aunt and uncle were visiting friends in York. When I had made sure I wouldn’t be spotted, I raced up to the attic and negotiated my way back to where I had left the garden. The sight that met me will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
“Oh, my heavens, what was it?”
“The garden had died. The pool had dried up. There was no sign of the glassy surface that looked so much like water. The trees were withered, and the birds lay dead on the ground. I picked up the house and peered through. Or tried to peer through. Every window had been blacked out somehow. I could see nothing. As if the house had died too. When I went to replace it on the board, it crumbled in my hands until only dust remained. Weeds grew where the flowers had bloomed. Ground elder had choked every last one of them, but this too withered as soon as I touched it. The beautiful, enchanted garden had died.”
“How extraordinary. What did you do then?”
“I picked up the pieces as best I could to put them back in the box, but each one met the fate of the house, until the box was full of dust and ash. Even the bright colors of the box itself had faded to a muddy brown. I sat and cried. Yes, a ten-year-old boy, brought up never to blub. I sobbed my heart out for the destruction of so much beauty.”
“Did you ever find out what caused it?”
Matthew shook his head. “Maybe exposure to the air had destroyed it. I asked a science teacher once a few years later, a
nd he didn’t even believe me about the garden in all its glory. He told me to be careful to draw the line between fact and fantasy. But the story doesn’t end there.”
Evelyn, by now riveted, sat further forward.
“When I had pulled myself together and dried my tears, I remained kneeling on the floor, the box in front of me. I think by that time I had prepared myself for almost anything, but even in my tormented state I couldn’t believe my eyes when one of the edges of the box lifted, followed by another and another until it became obvious that something inside the thing wanted to push the lid off, although for what purpose I could only wait and see. I watched in increasing horror as something curled its way out and upward. Tentacles, shaped like a climbing plant. Convolvulus maybe, or ivy. But not green – jet black. It stank like sour milk. The sourest you can imagine. It grew and grew upward so fast, and the nursery story of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ flashed into my mind. Only this was no beanstalk. Not unless the Devil has one in Hell. I saw and heard a black vulture issue a raspy, hissing cry, sprang to my feet and raced out of there as if Lucifer himself was behind me. At the foot of the stairs, I turned the handle, but the door wouldn’t open. Maybe the housekeeper had remembered she had left it unlocked the day before and had come to rectify her error. I yelled, no longer caring if anyone heard me. I could hear the beating of wings. At any second the vulture would attack me. Then the door flew open, I fell out, and it slammed hard behind me. That’s the last time I ever ventured into the attic.”
Evelyn sat in stunned silence as Matthew, seemingly relieved to have divested himself of this fantastic story, leaned back against the rock.
Evelyn recovered herself sufficiently to speak. “That is some story.”
“And I will gladly swear on a stack of Bibles it is as true as the air we are breathing.”
“And you never told anyone? Your aunt and uncle?”
“Apart from the skeptical science teacher, you are the first person I have ever told. But I think you can see now why I retain such an open mind, and am cautious in dealing with anything of a…supernatural nature.”
“This all makes my experience, and Claire’s, tame by comparison.” Evelyn felt ashamed as if she had made a huge fuss about nothing.
“No, no, Evelyn. Yours was as real and terrifying for you as mine was for me. Over the years I have ventured into many toy shops and asked the shopkeeper if he stocked The Garden of Bewitchment, and no one has ever heard of it. I have been anxious to trace any others so they can be destroyed. Where it came from I have no idea, and I certainly didn’t want to talk to my relations about it. That may even have been the reason they didn’t want me to go to the attic in the first place. They were certainly adamant about it. They would not have appreciated such a breach of trust on my part, and I would probably have been sent packing, never to return. I liked them, and the house, for all it contained something evil in the attic, held a constant source of fascination for me.”
“So did the…thing…ever come down into the main house?”
“Not that I know of. For all I know it’s still there, festering away. I visited on a number of occasions over the following years until my uncle died and my aunt went to live with my cousin Adele. The house was sold and I lost touch. Whether the new owners ever experienced anything or even went up there, I have no idea, and now my aunt is dead too, so the story is over as far as I am concerned. As to the vulture, well, I have learned black vultures do indeed emit a raspy, hissing cry and are indigenous to parts of the United States and South America. Certainly such a creature does not belong in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The plant, on the other hand, is a complete mystery, and, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I am forced to concede its origins are supernatural.”
Sitting here, in brilliant sunshine with a moorland breeze keeping the temperature at a pleasant level, Evelyn contemplated what she had just heard. A few days ago, she wouldn’t have given the supernatural a second thought. She would have dismissed it as impossible. Preposterous even.
Now the impossible had become the likeliest explanation.
Chapter Four
Ev thinks I’m going mad, and maybe I am, but I know Branwell has visited me as much as I know whatever tore my room apart was not him, nor anything to do with him. She, who has never had a young man in her life, never enjoyed the attentions of someone who truly cares for her…until now, that is. Who is Matthew Dixon, and why is he here? When we were growing up, there were plenty of eligible suitors beating a path to our door, but she would entertain none of them. Now, he only has to walk past the cottage and she is all of aflutter. What curious set of circumstances has brought him here to cross our path in this manner? I am not at all sure I like it, or him. As for Branwell, he has told me not to trust him. Ev and I have always had to be wary of gold diggers, and, for all Mr. Dixon’s protestations of inherited wealth, I see no sign of it. He lives alone in a cottage belonging to his cousin. A ‘grace and favor’ arrangement if ever I saw one. Perhaps I should engineer a meeting with him. Alone. Gauge for myself what his intentions are towards my sister. For what affects her must certainly affect me too.
Claire set down her pen and closed her diary, taking care to lock it before tucking it into the little secret drawer of the bureau. Ev must never read that. These were her private thoughts, ones she shared with no one. Ones she would never share with anyone.
She glanced at the clock. Five past three. If he was as much a creature of habit as he appeared to be, he would be passing their door within the next fifteen minutes or so. With Ev out buying groceries, Claire would have just enough time to get herself ready and go out.
She tried to tidy her hair, but, as usual, it refused to stay pinned no matter how many clips she used. Her dress had creased too. Never mind, her light summer coat would cover it. One look confirmed her fears. She would merely be swapping one set of creases for another. Did men even notice such things? How did Evelyn always manage to look immaculate, whereas the best she could manage was to resemble a sloppily made bed? Thank goodness Branwell didn’t seem to mind. Claire’s cheeks burned as she remembered that he normally saw her in her nightdress anyway, and it didn’t matter if that was a little crumpled.
Hurriedly she pushed the thought aside and secured the straps of her pattens over her shoes. Who knew how marshy the moors would be? Even after a few days of sunshine and no rain.
With one last adjustment – this time of a wayward hat seemingly hell-bent on falling off – Claire opened the front door. Matthew Dixon had already passed and was making his way up the lane. Claire quickened her step until, slightly breathless, she caught up with him.
“Mr. Dixon,” she called, trying not to breathe heavily. He stopped and turned, recognition dying in his eyes as he focused on her. “Evelyn?” he asked uncertainly.
“Oh, no, dear me, no. But a lot of people confuse us. We are identical. At least we were born identical. Ev is my sister. I am Claire Wainwright.” She stuck out a slightly grubby gloved hand, which he took gently in his.
“A pleasure to meet you,” he said, his eyes not leaving her for one second. “Please forgive me. I don’t mean to stare, but I haven’t met identical twins before, and the likeness is truly remarkable.”
“I quite understand. It happens a great deal. Well, when I go out, that is. I expect Ev told you I tend to stay at home a lot, and I am intensely shy.”
He looked as if he didn’t know whether, or how, to answer.
“It’s quite all right, Mr. Dixon. I know my sister is overprotective of me. As a child, I often took sick, and she is more like an older sister than a twin. She used to nursemaid me, you see. Just the two of us in our room, day after day, while I recovered from my latest ailment.”
“But you are quite well now?”
“Oh, yes, strong as a horse. Much stronger than Ev thinks I am anyway.” Claire warmed to him. He had a kind smile and deep-set eyes radiat
ing warmth. No wonder her sister was so smitten. Not that Claire would be jealous of anyone her sister took a liking to, unless they happened to look anything like Branwell, of course.
But Mr. Dixon did look a little like Branwell. Or Claire’s version of him anyway.
“Is your sister not accompanying you today, Miss Wainwright?”
“Oh, please, call me Claire. No, she is out buying provisions. If you like, I would be happy to accompany you on your walk.” Did he just hesitate? Why did he keep staring at her in such a fashion? A wave of uncertainty spread over Claire. He seemed charming enough, but could it all be an act? He smiled and the moment passed.
“I should be delighted. I had hoped you would join your sister and me for our picnic yesterday, but she informed me you were indisposed.”
“Not really indisposed, just a little… Oh, nothing really, but I didn’t really feel up to being sociable.”
“Your sister told me of the unnerving experience you had.”
“Did she?” Ev had no right! Claire fought to retain her composure.
“I do hope I haven’t spoken out of turn. She is very concerned about you.”
Claire swallowed acid. “As I mentioned, she is overprotective of me. It was a peculiar experience, but I am quite over it now.”
An awkward silence followed. Claire wondered whether she should apologize for taking offence so easily. After all, it wasn’t Mr. Dixon’s fault if Ev betrayed a confidence. But Claire didn’t feel sorry. The thought of these two gossiping about her behind her back filled her with righteous anger and fueled her rapidly cooling feelings toward Mr. Dixon.
They walked on, without speaking, for a few minutes until they crested the hill and reached some crags that looked almost as if someone had fashioned them into stone chairs.
The Garden of Bewitchment Page 5