Property of a Lady

by Sarah Rayne

  Anyhow, to conclude, what I do not believe is all that stuff about the fabric of time wearing thin, and it being possible to sometimes look through to other ages. (Except that if it were possible, Charect House would be the one place where I’d be able to do it.)

  8 p.m.

  Supper an hour ago in the Black Boar’s minuscule dining room. Plain cut off the joint and vegetables. Perfectly adequate. I’m not one for fussed-up food.

  I had a glass of beer in the bar afterwards. The local stuff is so fierce that it would peel varnish from wood, but I wanted to get into conversation with one or two of the locals. That’s always useful for picking up fragments of gossip. If ghosts are likely to walk anywhere, they’ll generally walk in a public house where the drink’s flowing. They’ll often take up permanent residence at the bar if you aren’t careful.

  I was ready to insert a carefully-prepared mention of Charect House into the casual bar-room conversation. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance. It seems a local child is missing, and the men were assembling in the bar to help with the search.

  ‘Evie Blythe,’ said one of them when I asked. ‘Only seven, poor little mite. Been gone since yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘How dreadful. Do they think she’s been taken by someone?’

  ‘That’s the concern. Don’t seem very likely, though. We don’t get much crime in Marston Lacy. Bit of drunk driving, the occasional housebreaking. Not many kidnappings. Still, there’re peculiar folk around these days.’

  An extremely elderly gentleman seated in a corner, mumbling beer and crisps through an overgrown beard, was understood to say there was evil everywhere in the world and always had been, you had only to read your Bible to know that. Sin and lipstick and modern music, that was where all the blame lay. He showed signs of becoming loquacious until somebody took another pint of beer over to him.

  A couple of policemen came in and spread out maps of the area. They divided the terrain and assigned two men to search each section. Torches were distributed, and the Black Boar’s manager came in with flasks of coffee for the searchers to take with them. I would have offered my help if it had been likely to do any good – appalling to think of a small child lost and helpless somewhere in the dark, or, God forbid, at the mercy of some pervert. But I had no knowledge of the area, and they weren’t likely to trust a complete stranger.

  But when the sergeant started telling the men to be sure to investigate all empty houses, I thought it advisable to enter the conversation and explain my presence. The customary reaction is usually derision or contempt. Men mostly laugh patronizingly, and women either shriek with pretended fear or want to involve you in intense conversations so they can relate their own encounters with the paranormal.

  Marston Lacy behaved slightly differently. At mention of the house’s name, an unmistakable stir of unease went through the listeners – exactly like one of those hammy horror films where the traveller enters the wayside tavern and innocently asks for directions to Castle Dracula. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Black Boar’s inhabitants had pelted me with garlic or started drawing pentacles on the floor.

  The sergeant was made of stern stuff, however. He merely said, ‘Ah yes, Charect House. Got a bad reputation, that old place.’

  ‘So I believe.’

  ‘I’d better have a note of your address, if I may, miss. Just routine, you know.’

  I supplied my name and address and added, perhaps slightly maliciously, that Mr Joseph Lloyd at the council offices would vouch for me. (He’ll hate it if the police do contact him and he has to admit the local authority called in a ghost-hunter! That’s a thought that gives me immense pleasure.)

  ‘And you’re actually going to spend the night at Charect House, are you, miss – uh, Dr Wilson?’

  ‘That’s the idea.’

  ‘They say William Lee’s been seen at Charect a time or two,’ put in the much younger police constable rather hesitantly.

  ‘More than a time or two from all I ever heard,’ observed somebody else.

  ‘Rot,’ said the police sergeant with determination. ‘William Lee’s dead and under the ground and been there more than seventy years, so let’s have no more nonsense about dead folks walking around. It’ll be clanking chains and creaking gibbets next,’ he said with an air of good-humoured exasperation.

  The young constable volunteered the information that they had, in fact, checked Charect House earlier in the day. ‘We went right through it, cellar to attic,’ he said.

  I heard one of the men from behind him mutter, ‘Rather you than me.’

  ‘Well, it was done to proper police procedure, and there was nothing to be found,’ said the sergeant, raising his voice as if to make sure no one missed the statement. ‘Nothing at all. Not William Lee, nor anyone else. It’s a bleak old place, though, I’ll say that for it.’ He looked back at me. ‘Best be on your guard.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘And if you see anything suspicious, send for us.’

  ‘Of course.’

  10 p.m.

  As is often the way, Charect House’s personality is entirely different by night. From being a rather forlorn old place, with sagging timbers and rotting floors, it’s become deeply forbidding. Even from the track leading up to it, it looked as if it was leaning forward to take a look at whoever was brave or foolhardy enough to approach it. But I’ve seen more glaring-visaged houses than you can shake a stick at, and I know it’s simply an illusion: the effect of shadows and clouds behind an erratic roofline. Prop up a sagging roof joist and nail a few tiles into their proper place, and everything’s rose-tinted.

  I bounced the estate car up to the front door and set about unloading the cameras and tape recorders. And now I’m inside the haunted house and night has fallen. That looks dramatic, written down, but when you get down to it, haunted houses are seldom very dramatic. They’re generally chilly, and the worst part of the vigil is boredom. That’s why I keep a journal to help pass the time.

  10.45 p.m.

  I’ve positioned the cameras and tape recorders all over the house – in the long drawing-room, in the dining room, and in the hall, where there’s a view of the stairs. There’s a smaller room, probably once used as a morning room, but I haven’t bothered with that. I haven’t bothered with the kitchens, either. But I’ve put cameras in the two main bedrooms. They all have light-sensitive settings, so that any movement within their range will trigger the shutter. I’ve got a Polaroid camera in here with me.

  There’s no power on, of course, but I’ve got a good supply of batteries for the recorders, which I’ll have to replace at regular intervals. For my own light I’ve got two electric torches and a couple of oil lamps – what used to be called bullseyes. I will do a good deal for the furtherance of the Society’s work, but I’m blowed if I’m going to sit all night in the pitch dark.

  There’s quite a lot of furniture in the house. I hadn’t expected that, and it means I can make myself reasonably snug – although I do draw the line at actually lying down in one of the sarcophagus-sized beds upstairs. I may be a cynic and a sceptic, but I’ve read all those gothic ghost tales about ravished marriage beds and spectral bridegrooms. Not that I ever got as far as a marriage bed or a bridegroom, spectral or otherwise, and I shouldn’t think I ever will, not now. Still, they say what you’ve never had you never miss, and I’m having a very full and interesting life without all that bouncing around in beds and having to put up with a man’s moods and wash his socks. (Although in the privacy of these pages, I’ll admit I wish my army captain and I had done some bed-bouncing before he went off to be frizzled to death by that wretched bomb. That’s what you get for trying to stay virtuous when all around you are flinging virginity to the winds. Ah well. Can’t be helped now.)

  More to the point, I’ve rigged up a makeshift desk in the drawing room – I suspect it was once a library, with all the shelves that are still in place, so I think I’ll refer to it as that for the rest of this report. I�
�ve beaten about three pounds of dust out of an old wing chair, and I’ll be perfectly cosy.

  I’ve put a large truncheon on the side of the chair – and never mind how I acquired it! If there’s a child-stealer prowling around and he lights on Charect as a likely lair, he’ll get very short shrift from me. On the other hand, if William Lee, dead for over seventy years, turns up, he’ll have to be given quite different treatment.

  Note to self: interesting to hear those references to William Lee in the Black Boar. I do know the house was built in the late 1700s by a John Lee of Shrewsbury, so William must have been a descendant. If the house passed down through the Lee family that would explain why I didn’t find any land transfers or transfers of title when I searched – at least, until after WWII, when the place seems to have been passed from one government department to another until it ended up with J. Lloyd’s council committee.

  11 p.m.

  I think one of the police searchers must have wound up the old grandfather clock while they were searching the house for the missing girl. It seems slightly whimsical of them, but you can never tell.

  The clock stands in the corner, and it’s ticking wheezily to itself as I write this. It’s a florid, quite ugly, piece of Victoriana, but the ticking is rather a companionable sound.

  It was at this point Nell knew she could not read Alice’s diaries here, not in this room with the clock ticking scratchily to itself, and not in this house at all.

  With extreme care she folded the papers into her bag, got up from the dusty floor, and went out.

  FIVE

  It was several hours before she was able to read the diaries. Beth was home from school at four o’clock and wanted to do her homework before her permitted television time. At some stage in the next few years she would no doubt become recalcitrant, listening to incomprehensible music and rebelling against every kind of authority, but at the moment she was seven years old and diligently bent over a page of sums. Nell supervised the sums, agreed they were boring, but explained they could come in useful, then sat with Beth to read the allotted chapter of a book for next day’s reading class.

  It was eight o’clock before Beth was finally in bed, with the array of fuzzy animals who kept her company and the curtains left slightly open.

  ‘So I can watch the moon go over that tree before I go to sleep,’ she explained. ‘Then I can say goodnight to the moon an’ he can say goodnight to me, then everything’s safe.’

  ‘You’re safe anyway,’ said Nell, wanting to hug the small figure tightly to her, but knowing Beth would shy away as she nearly always did from any physical demonstration.

  Tonight though, Beth did not immediately lie down. She looked at Nell from the corners of her eyes and said, ‘I s’pose nobody can get in here? While I’m asleep?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ This sounded slightly worrying. Nell sat on the edge of the bed, prepared to talk about it as much as Beth wanted. ‘We’re absolutely safe. All the doors are locked.’

  ‘What about that, um, thing. The rhyme?’

  ‘What rhyme?’

  ‘The one about the dead man knocking on the door.’

  Something cold and extremely unpleasant prickled across Nell’s skin, but she said, as lightly as she could, ‘Darling, that sounds horrid. Where did you hear that?’

  ‘I can’t remember. But the dead man knocks on the door an’ there’s a spell that means all the locks open, on account of it being a dead hand that’s knocking.’ Beth was huddled against the pillows, hugging her knees, not looking at Nell. In a small, scared voice, she said, ‘I thought – s’posing Dad tried to do that? I’d want him to come back, but not – um, not as a dead person knocking to come in.’

  Nell thought, oh God, if he came back I wouldn’t care what he was – just half an hour with him would be enough . . .

  She said, ‘Beth, darling, dead people never come back. Never. And if Dad ever did, he wouldn’t come in a scary way. I promise you he wouldn’t. What he might do is be in a really nice dream, where he’d tell you he loved you and missed you.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ said Beth, having considered it. ‘I think I’ll go to sleep, in case he does that tonight, shall I?’

  ‘That’s a really good idea. Don’t forget to say goodnight to the moon.’

  ‘I’ll wait until he’s over that tree,’ said Beth. ‘G’night, Mum.’

  Nell left the low landing light on for Beth and went down to the sitting room. The house was a shop in the main street, with a large flat on the first and second floors. She liked it very much; she had looked at a number of different areas to find the exact right property. She needed to go on working – partly for the money, but also for her own sanity – but she also wanted to be at home when Beth finished school each day. Living over the shop solved that.

  The ground floor had two deep bow windows for displays, with the shop behind it and a tiny office. Upstairs was a long L-shaped living room, part of which overlooked the main street, with a kitchen behind. The second floor had three bedrooms and a bathroom.

  Nell washed up the supper things, thinking about what Beth had said. The dead man knocking on the door. That was an eerie concept, however you looked at it, and whatever your beliefs. She might have a word with Beth’s teacher tomorrow, to make sure there was no macabre local rhyme doing the rounds in the playground. Older children sometimes deliberately scared younger ones.

  For now, though, she would light a fire and curl up with Alice Wilson’s diaries. It was still a delight to have an old-fashioned fire, although it was a bit of a nuisance to have to sweep out the ashes next morning. But tonight she would enjoy the crackling flames. She poured a glass of wine, curled up in the deep sofa, and reached for the yellowing pages.

  Alice Wilson’s diary: Charect House, 10.30 p.m.

  The old clock’s ticking quietly away to itself in the corner, and I’m not sure that it’s quite as companionable as I thought. In fact, a couple of times I’ve felt like hurling something at its smug, swollen face to shut it up. But here’s a curious thing – twenty minutes ago I approached it with the intention of stuffing my scarf into the works to stop the mechanism, but when it came to it I couldn’t. I can’t explain it – but when I bent down and unlatched the door and saw the pendulum swinging to and fro, I was seized by such a violent aversion that I couldn’t even touch it.

  Now that it’s night the house feels colder than it did this afternoon, but before leaving the Black Boar I put on a couple of extra sweaters and a fleece-lined jacket, together with thick flannel trousers and woollen socks. I’ve caught more colds than I can count over the years by spending the night in icily-cold houses, waiting for ghosts who never turn up, so now I swathe myself in layers of wool. I look like a roly-poly Mrs Noah, but there’s nobody to see me except the occasional spook.

  11.55 p.m.

  I have a feeling that something’s starting to happen. It’s not anything I can easily describe on paper, but it’s as if something’s disturbed the atmosphere. As if Charect House is enclosed in a glass bubble, and something outside is chiselling silently at the glass’s surface, to find a way in. Or even as if the tape recorders might be picking up sounds that humans aren’t supposed to hear. Like the singing of mermaids or the sonar shrieks of bats. Or the hopeless sobbing of tormented souls, unable to leave a beloved home . . .

  (This last sentence was barely legible, having been impatiently scored through, as if the writer had been exasperated at her sudden display of nerves, or perhaps even embarrassed by it. The next section was written clearly and decisively, as if the pen had been firmly pressed down on the page with the aim of dispelling any weakness.)

  12.15 a.m.

  We’ve passed the witching hour – although it always amuses me that people set such store by midnight, as if ghosts have wristwatches and check them worriedly to make sure they aren’t missing an appointment to haunt somewhere. ‘Dear me, I see it’s five to twelve already, I’d better be off or I’ll be late for the moated
grange . . .’

  What I will admit is that there can sometimes be a vague eeriness about the crossing of one day to the next, or one year to the next, as if something invisible’s being handed from one pair of hands to another. And I have to say that when the old clock in here chimed twelve a short time ago, it startled me considerably. (It’s somehow not a very nice chime either, although that’s probably due to rust in the mechanism.)

  It was shortly after the chiming of the clock that something happened.

  I’d been reading (J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, just for the record) with my notebook and pen on the chair arm. Actually, I was almost falling asleep: what with the sweaters and the two oil lamps, I was comfortably warm and feeling drowsy. Also, I’d had a slug of whisky to help keep out the cold.

  I must have been on the edge of sleep when something jerked me back to consciousness, and I sat up sharply, trying to identify what it was. I waited, listening. Sounds outside? Yes. Someone was walking very quietly and very stealthily around the outside of the house.

  The chances were that it was a curious local skulking around, or teenagers playing a trick: ‘There’s a ghost-hunter up at Charect – let’s give her a real scare.’ At any minute a garishly-painted mask might thrust itself against the French window, or a white-sheeted figure, wringing its hands and moaning, would prance across the gardens.

  But for all that, I was slightly unnerved. I flatter myself that if ever I met a real spook I’d cope with it, but prowlers and housebreakers are a different pair of shoes entirely. And there was that business of the missing child to take into account.

  After a moment I quenched the oil lamp. Its light died, but it hissed to itself in the shadows, like a coiled serpent. There was a pale blur from the French windows, where the faded curtains were partly open. The footsteps came again, and a flickering light showed in the monochrome tangle of the gardens. It was a smeary kind of light that didn’t look like an ordinary electric torch, and I reached cautiously for the Polaroid. If there were any spooks that would show up on film, J. Lloyd and his council might as well have their money’s worth. And if it did turn out to be some sick-minded child-stealer, then his features would be recorded and his capture made easier.