by Sarah Rayne
At first I thought he was in the dream, and I think I smiled as I lay back in the deep old chair. It felt as if he was closer to me than ever before, and when I turned my head slightly, I became aware of a hand moving lightly over my face, tracing the features, exactly as he always did. If I opened my eyes he would be there – this time he really would, and the bloodbath of the Somme would never have happened . . .
That was when I opened my eyes.
And oh God, oh God, standing over the chair, his face inches from my own, was a man I had never seen in my life – a man with a very pale face and black shadows half-concealing the upper part of his face. He was leaning over me, and his hands were crawling over my face like spiders . . .
I didn’t scream, but it was a close thing. I gasped and started back though, and at once he flinched as if he had been burned. In that moment, I made to jump up from the chair, but it overturned and I fell backwards in an awkward jumble. By the time I scrambled to my feet, he had gone, but the door into the hall was swinging softly and slowly shut. Exactly as if someone had just gone through it and had pushed it closed.
I’m no braver and no more cowardly than anyone else, but I’m a modern female, and I refused, categorically and absolutely, to be frightened of something that had most likely been a dream. So I crossed the room and pulled the door open.
The hall was silent and still. Or was it? I glanced uneasily at the stair, then resolutely opened all the doors downstairs and looked inside. Nothing. So I went through to the back of the house, to the big stone-flagged scullery and the smaller scullery off it, which must have been a kind of laundry room. Lying across the cracked stones of the floor was a man-shaped shadow, and as I stood there, frozen with fear, it moved slightly. My heart leapt into my throat, and I thought – he’s here! He’s standing behind the old copper. He’s watching me – I can feel that he is . . .
And then a tiny breath of wind stirred the ragged curtains hanging at the small low window, and I saw that it was only the shadow of the copper itself, squat and thick, and that the movement I had seen had been the curtain.
I went back into the hall. The stair was wreathed in shadow, and as I hesitated, I heard a faint creak of sound above me. Someone stepping on a worn floorboard? Someone creeping across the landing? From where I stood I could see the huge damp stain on the far landing wall – the place where the wallpaper had blistered and formed the outline of a thickset man, his head slightly inclined forward. Tomorrow, in the bright daylight, I would tear that paper off. For now I would collect my bag from the library, lock the house up, and go back to the Black Boar. My friendly taxi was not due for another hour, but I no longer cared. I would walk back to the village.
I dived back into the library, slung my bag over one arm, and pulled on the jacket I had been wearing. The fire was burning quite low, but I dragged the old fireguard in front of it, although at that stage I believe I wouldn’t have cared if the whole place had burned to a cinder.
As I locked the door and prepared to go down the overgrown drive towards the lane, it was raining – a soft, thin rain that would drench me within a dozen yards. I didn’t care. I would rather catch a chill than remain in that house.
I reached the end of the drive and started along Blackberry Lane. Through the rain I heard, like a fading piece of music, the distant singing again. With the sound came the long-ago memory of Elvira in Brank Asylum, telling me there are some things human ears are never meant to hear.
Midnight
I’ve managed to eat a meal with reasonable normality at the Black Boar, and I’ve even made light conversation with one or two of the local people. It’s a very friendly place, this. I wish I could live here, I really do. But I know I can’t. Every time I entered that room I should feel those searching spider-fingers over my face, and I should see the man with the macabre shadowed face. Was he the one Elvira talked about all those years ago? The one she said had touched a black core of mankind’s knowledge?
Whatever he was – whatever I saw or heard today – I’ve made a decision. I shall put the house into as good order as I can manage. Tomorrow I’ll ask the solicitor to arrange for a local builder to inspect the place as soon as possible and tell me what needs doing and how much it will cost. Then, once the work is done, the house can be put up for sale. There’s sure to be a firm of estate agents who can deal with it, and they will advise as to what price to ask.
I feel guilty when I think of Father, who had that lifetime dream of owning this house, but I know I shall never be able to live in Charect House. I’m glad to think I need only stay here another two or three days before I return safely home to Cheshire.
SIXTEEN
Michael came up out of Harriet’s story with the feeling that he was emerging from a deep lake. Harriet’s story was absolutely classic ghost-tale material: it had every ingredient, right down to the ticking clock in the corner of the firelit room. Still, if you were going to discover a ghost, you might as well do so in the grand style.
It also struck him, very forcibly, that Alice and Harriet, both around the same age when they came to Charect, had each lost a lover to war – Alice’s fiancé had died in Hiroshima, Harriet’s in the Somme. Had that created some kind of bridge for whatever was in the house? And how about Nell, whose husband had been killed in a motorway pile-up? Did that put her in the same category?
It was twenty past two. Michael switched off the bedside light, hoping the images that had haunted Harriet all those years ago would not haunt him. But there were no troubling images or dreams, and he set off after breakfast next morning, reaching Oxford and his rooms just after eleven. He put Harriet’s journal in a desk drawer where Wilberforce could not wreak havoc with it, then looked for Jack’s mobile number. Now that he thought about it, he was not at all sure he actually had it, and an hour’s search finally convinced him he did not, unless Wilberforce had eaten it in an absent-minded moment. Jack and Liz would have long since left for the cousins’ house in New Jersey, but he dialled their home number anyway. It rang four times, then the voicemail cut in:
‘Hi, this is Liz and Jack Harper’s number. Sorry we can’t take this call, but leave a message and we’ll get back. Here’s the cellphone number.’
Michael almost toppled backwards on to the floor trying to find a pen to write the number down, finally scribbling it on the back of an envelope. But when he called, it, too, went to voicemail. He left a careful message saying he was sorry to hear about Ellie and hoped the stay in New Jersey would put things right. He was just reinforcing an email sent last night, he said. Charect House had hit one or two unexpected problems, so it wasn’t really going to be practical for anyone to live in it for a while.
‘So please ring me as soon as you get this and I’ll explain properly.’ He added his direct number at Oriel College, in case Jack had not taken an address book with him, and remembered to add his own mobile as well.
Then it occurred to him it was possible to dial remotely into a phone to pick up messages and that Jack might do so, so he rang the home number again and left the same message there. It was annoying that he could not ring the cousins in New Jersey, but although he had met one or two of them at Jack and Liz’s wedding – including Liz’s redoubtable godmother – he had no idea of any surnames. But Jack and Liz were both efficient; one of them would ring him as soon as they picked up the message.
It was now one o’clock, and he phoned Nell at the shop. She sounded pleased to hear from him. She was fine, she said, and Beth had gone happily off to school that morning.
‘Although I had to beat down the impulse to run after her to make sure she was safe. Shouldn’t you be lecturing or studying or something at this time of day?’
‘I’ve got a tutorial in half an hour,’ said Michael, ‘but I’ve found something out, and I think you might be able to track it to its source.’
‘What have you found?’
He took a deep breath. ‘I’ve found Elvira.’
Even over the phone
he was strongly aware of her reaction. She said, ‘Where? How?’
‘I’ll tell you properly later if that’s all right. I’ll have a bit more time this evening.’
‘I’ll be in all evening,’ said Nell. ‘What d’you want me to track down?’
‘Have you ever heard of a place called Brank in that area? Brank Asylum it used to be. Maybe it’s just known as Brank House now.’
‘No. But I can look for it.’
‘I can’t tell you much about it, other than I don’t think it was very far out of Marston Lacy, and it certainly existed around 1905.’
‘Nineteen oh-five,’ she said. ‘All right, I’ve got that.’ And Michael had a sudden pleasing image of her in her shop or the sitting room on the first floor, her face serious as she wrote down the details. ‘Was Elvira in an asylum?’
‘It seems like it. I’ve even got her date of birth. She was born in 1880, and she died in Brank Asylum in 1937.’
‘Fifty-seven. No age at all,’ said Nell. ‘The poor woman. And asylums were grim places then, weren’t they? Well, they’re grim places in any era. But it might make it easier to trace her. I’ll see what I can turn up.’
‘I’ll phone around eight if that’s all right.’
‘Miracles might take a bit longer than that,’ she said, and he heard the smile in her voice. ‘But eight will be fine. Even if I haven’t found anything out I’d like to know what’s behind this.’
‘I’m looking forward to telling you,’ said Michael.
‘I’m looking forward to hearing.’
As he put the phone down, it occurred to him that there could sometimes be a remarkable intimacy in a phone call. All physicality was absent, and everything became concentrated into your voice and the voice of the other person. And barriers were lowered.
He got through the tutorial, had a cup of tea with a colleague in the History Faculty, then thought he could allow himself a couple of hours with Harriet Anstey’s journal. As he took the handwritten pages out of the desk, he found he was smiling at the prospect of discussing Harriet with Nell.
22nd February 1939
8.45 a.m.
Despite what I happened at Charect House, when I awoke this morning I found I was smiling at the prospect of returning there. And today is the day of the builder’s visit, arranged by the solicitor. I’ve had breakfast – beautiful fresh eggs from some nearby farm – and I’m about to go downstairs to await the taxi.
2.00 p.m.
It took considerable resolve to go into the library, I have to admit that. It had to be done though, and eventually I drew a deep breath and opened the door. I have no idea what I expected to see, but there was nothing there. Whatever unquiet dream had surrounded me two days ago it had left no trace or taint. The library was bland and silent, save, of course, for the steady ticking of the old clock in its corner.
The builder arrived at eleven, trundling up the lane in a noisy and battered-looking lorry. He was a lugubrious person, given to gloomy silences as he surveyed a wall or a section of roof. He made copious notes in a small book, shaking his head dolefully, and my heart sank lower with each room we visited. I asked about the dripping tap or gutter I heard on my arrival, but he didn’t seem to find anything to account for it. The plumbing would all have to be ripped out, though.
‘Old soft-lead pipes, you see. Can’t have those any longer.’ The water tank, when he finally tracked it down, almost rendered him speechless, but he rallied and said it could be replaced with a nice modern one, sited in the roof or one of the attics.
We tramped up to inspect the attics on the crest of this idea, and that was when we found the worst of the neglect.
The attics are vast, and several roof joists seemed to have fallen in, so there were piles of rubble everywhere.
‘Wattle and daub, these walls,’ said the builder dolefully. ‘Horsehair and lime in the main. I’m surprised to find such penny-pinching work in a house of this age and size.’ He looked so disapproving, I wondered if I should apologize.
‘Really, of course, the whole place should be pulled down and something built on the site. Couple of nice modern villas, that’s what I’d have. Sell one at a very nice profit and live in the other.’
‘It’s certainly a thought. But I think I’d like to just put it into some kind of order and sell it in the ordinary way. I’m only here for another few days, so if you could let me have your estimate fairly soon I’d be very grateful. I’m staying at the Black Boar.’
‘Tomorrow morning do you? I could work out some figures and bring them along first thing.’
‘That would suit me very well.’
This time it was the ringing of a phone that jolted Michael out of Harriet’s world and into the present. He swore, then remembered it might be Jack returning his call and snatched up the phone.
It was not Jack. It was the Dean’s office, reminding him about the Dean’s end of term lunch next week. Would he be attending – he had not yet let them know. Oh, he would? Excellent. They were promised they would be given a goose this year; it was nice to have a goose at Christmas, wasn’t it?
This innocent remark upset Michael’s gravity so much that he had to cover the receiver with his hand, and the voice on the phone had to repeat the next question, which was whether he would be bringing a guest.
‘Probably not,’ said Michael, repressing a sudden picture of himself walking into the Dean’s lunch with Nell. It was an attractive idea, but it was not really practical. He could not ask her to drive all the way to Oxford just for a couple of hours, and then back again. She would have to leave her shop unattended, and she would have to make arrangements about Beth. No, it was not practical at all.
He rang off and picked up Harriet’s journal again. The entry he had been reading looked as if it ended on the next page; he flipped over a couple of the remaining pages and saw with a sinking heart that they were badly faded and spotted with damp. Large sections looked as if they might be illegible. Damn.
But he would read to the end of the current entry.
22nd February, cont’d
The builder’s visit has cheered me up, and I’m able to view the house with a friendlier eye. Also, if I’m to have work carried out, I ought to be on hand to supervise it. I shan’t understand the technicalities, of course, and I dare say I’ll be shockingly overcharged for some things. But I think I need to be here.
Can I face that? Another two or three weeks at the Black Boar? More of those friendly little journeys along Blackberry Lane? There’ll nearly be wood anemones and primroses in the meadows by then.
After the builder went, I walked through the gardens. I might even start to put them into some order while they get on with the house. I looked for the apple tree Elvira talked about, but it’s not there. It’s possible to make out traces of what might once have been a small orchard, but it’s difficult to be sure of anything. It’s like stepping through a ghost world, where nothing is quite alive, but nothing is entirely dead. There’s the remains of a huge mallow though, and also a lilac bush, and I think with a little work the gardens could be made beautiful.
I believe I can stay here a little longer, after all. I’ve listened very hard, but there’s no hint of the faraway singing I heard last time. There’s certainly no hint of any intruders, either. I’m becoming more convinced than ever that my experience that afternoon really was a dream. And I do like it here, I really do.
So perhaps I shan’t pack up and leave.
Nell had stopped thinking she would pack up and leave Marston Lacy. This was nothing to do with having met Michael Flint, although it had to be admitted she had enjoyed his company. But it was important to remember that the two of them seemed to have fallen into a very bizarre situation, and that people thrown together in bizarre and unreal situations were apt to become very close, very quickly. There were astonishing tales of how people in hostage situations, or people trapped in lifts, became lovers. Not that Nell was intending to become anyone’s lover, and cer
tainly not Dr Flint’s.
This absurd possibility having been put firmly in its place, she commenced the search for Brank Asylum, so as to have some information when Michael phoned. She started with the local phone book, looking for Brank Asylum in the business listings. Nothing. Fair enough, thought Nell, who had not really expected the place to be listed, and she turned to the classified section, for hospitals, clinics and health authorities. Again nothing. What else? Was it worth trying a Google search? She tried it anyway, and again drew a blank.
This almost certainly meant Brank Asylum had long since ceased to exist. It might also mean it never had existed at all – that Michael had found a false trail. But Nell thought he would be too accustomed to research not to tell fact from red herring. She spent half an hour polishing up the inlaid table, enjoying the scent of the beeswax polish. The table could stand in the smaller of the two bow windows, where people could see it from the street. She would try to pick up a really nice chess set to put on it. For the moment she placed a jar of sunflowers on it. It looked very good indeed. Nell tidied away the beeswax and polishing rags, and sat down to think about Brank Asylum again.
Presumably, it had been a very large, fairly important building, and large, important buildings in small rural areas do not, as a rule, vanish without leaving some imprint on their surroundings. Stories grow up about them – fragments of their histories become woven into the local folklore. If Brank had existed, its ghost – no, not that word! – its shadow-self should still lie on the air of Marston Lacy. Nell glanced at the clock, saw it was three o’clock and, remembering it was half-day closing, headed for the local library, which helpfully remained open until six each day.
There was a small section for Local History, and Nell opened one book after another, trying not to get sidetracked by the alluring photographs and fragments of information. Charect House was mentioned once or twice, but only briefly, and there did not seem to be any information Nell did not already know. The house had originally been known as Mallow House, it had been built by the prosperous Lee family of Shropshire, and it had not been used as a family residence since the death of William and Elizabeth Lee towards the end of the nineteenth century.