The woman walks towards me.
Her feet make no sound on the paving stones.
Dark eyes glower. She stretches out her arms.
She’s so close I can smell the musty lace on her black silk dress.
Ben begins to scream, great silent screams with his mouth wide open but no sound coming out. I scoop him up and just as I feel the woman bear down on top of me I duck underneath her arms and run.
I sprint from the garden and straight down the side of the manor with Ben wriggling in my arms and I don’t look back, I just keep on running down the main road and I know all of a sudden where I have to go cos I sent a card there. Mum gave me the address and although it’s a ten-minute bus ride I can’t hang around near the manor, I’ve got to get away as fast as possible so I just keep running and running until I’m up the garden path of that neat modern house in the quiet close and I’m ringing the bell with a finger that’s trembling so hard I can see about sixteen of them. A woman opens the door and there’s a man’s Geordie voice just behind her. I fall into the house and concerned arms shelter me and lead me, at last, into safety.
‘Take your time, lass,’ says the familiar voice. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
Chapter Fifteen
Sid’s wife makes me a sugary tea and fetches me some cotton wool to plug up my nose.
‘That’s it,’ she says in her gentle, firm voice. ‘Tilt your head forwards, Tabitha.’
Ben sits on my lap. I catch a glimpse of our reflections in the mirror. We both look dead pale, like it’s the middle of winter rather than a hot June afternoon.
‘I – I didn’t know where else to go,’ I stutter through wads of cotton wool.
She nods.
‘It’s quite all right,’ she says. ‘Sid and I’ve been expecting you, in a way. I ought to ring your father before we talk. He’ll be worried about you.’
‘I doubt it,’ I mutter, but she rings Dad and explains that I’m here and safe and that she will ring him again later.
She waits until I’ve drained my tea and goes into the kitchen to make some more.
Sid was stretched out on the sofa with a newspaper but he’s put that down and has come to sit next to me. His skin is still kind of grey and saggy, but not as grey as it was on the day I saw him collapse at the manor.
‘So you saw her,’ he says. ‘I did too. That day I had my heart attack, of course. But once before that, a few years ago. I’ve never forgotten it.’
I can’t speak for a moment. I’ve got a mixture of confusing feelings. I’m so relieved that somebody else understands and that I’m not the only one other than Sid who has had things happen to them at Weston Manor. But I’m scared too. Scared that what I saw must be real, or at least real enough for somebody as normal and alive as Sid to know all about it.
‘What happened?’ I say. I really don’t want to hear his answer. But I NEED to know. I need to know I’m not the only crazy person in the manor. Or maybe if Sid has seen something similar to me, I’m not actually crazy at all.
He gets up and puts his shoes on.
‘Let’s go outside and sit in the sunshine,’ he says. ‘Remind ourselves that there’s life and birds and summer going on outside. This isn’t a pretty story. Might as well have a pretty backdrop.’
I nod and follow him outside with Ben holding my hand as usual. He’s stopped shaking now but he’s very subdued. Not surprising, given the fact that both of us have just escaped abduction by a member of the undead in a black dress.
Mrs Sid brings out another tray of tea and a large chocolate cake and puts them in front of us. Then she places her hand on Sid’s shoulder for a brief moment, gives me a smile and vanishes back inside again to do some washing up.
‘I like your garden,’ I say.
It’s true – I do. It’s not huge, but divided up into sections with a pond in one, some decking in another and a rockery studded with tiny flowers in yet another. Birds hang and chatter from nut feeders and bird tables.
I think of the enormous grounds at Weston Manor with the kitchen garden and old stables and remains of greenhouses and the tiny pet cemetery which I haven’t really explored and I feel dizzy for a moment, so I look around Sid’s neat garden again and feel better.
My heart has stopped pounding quite so hard now and I just feel really tired and limp, like all my blood has turned to heavy lead or something.
I eat some of Mrs Sid’s gorgeous cake and feel a bit of life coming back into my body.
‘So tell me what you saw,’ I say.
Sid settles back in his chair and gazes off into the sky over my right shoulder for a moment.
‘It’s OK,’ I tell him, ‘I’ve seen the scariest things I’ve ever seen over the past few weeks. I don’t think that I could really be much more scared.’
Sid nods and slurps from his cup.
‘I was going upstairs one morning to unlock Lady Thomas-Fulford’s bedroom,’ he says. ‘Done it every day for fifteen years. Didn’t think much of it. But when I started to climb the stairs it went ice-cold, like. Freezing, it was.’
I clutch Ben. I can feel myself getting cold just listening.
‘I carried on up,’ he says. ‘Just as I got to the top a woman came out of the library, crossed the landing and went straight through the door of Lady Thomas-Fulford’s bedroom.’
‘Through?’ I say. ‘Like – through the wood?’
‘That’s it,’ says Sid. ‘Exactly. She were wearing a long black dress with a kind of bustle thing on the back. She didn’t look at me and I didn’t see her face, thank the Lord. Just disappeared into that bedroom.’
I feel sick now. I can see what he’s describing as clearly as if it had happened to me.
‘What did you do then?’ I say. I have visions of Sid bolting downstairs and running out of the entrance hall at Weston Manor and straight down the outside steps and off down the drive, never to be seen again. And yet – he was still working there when my family moved in.
‘I went upstairs and I unlocked that bedroom door,’ says Sid.
I shoot him a look of horror.
‘But how could you?’ I stammer. ‘I mean – she might have been in there.’
‘She might, but she wasn’t,’ says Sid. ‘It’s my job to unlock those bedrooms, so unlock them I did.’
I gaze at Sid with a new respect.
‘No way would I have done that,’ I whisper.
‘Well, when I came back downstairs I was dead pale, like,’ says Sid. ‘Dawn asked me if I’d seen a ghost!’
I give a shaky laugh. Then I tell Sid about everything that’s happened to me at the manor. I tell him about the ladies I saw playing croquet and the ladies chatting by the fireplace and in the graveyard and the day I saw the house with the fire blazing in the grate and the woman in the dining room sobbing and the heavy footsteps on the stairs and the sounds of bells ringing and the weird smells in the morning room and even in my own bedroom. Then I take a deep breath and tell him what happened to me and Ben today in the walled garden.
He listens without speaking, looking me straight in the eye, only moving a hand to bring his cup to his lips from time to time.
Mrs Sid creeps out while I’m talking and puts a couple of tiny tablets on his plate. He gulps them down without his eyes ever leaving my face.
When I’ve finished I feel tired but better. It’s good to get it all out at last.
‘Funny place, old Weston,’ says Sid. ‘Did you know that my mother used to work there? Many years ago. She was one of Lady Thomas-Fulford’s servants. After Lady Thomas-Fulford died, she carried on working there. I used to play on the servants’ staircase as a little boy in those days. One day I was walking down the stairs when I heard footsteps right behind me, coming down the same way. Strong smell of perfume. I turned round but there was nobody there. Another time I was playing on my little bike in the main entrance hall and I remember going ice-cold and something pushing me on the bike. I never saw what it was.’
I
shiver again, a great big shudder that is so violent that Ben nearly falls off my lap.
‘What did you do?’ I say.
‘Ran home and didn’t go back inside the place for over forty years,’ he says. ‘But then the security job came up and I’ve always had a fondness for the place. Yes, really,’ he adds, seeing my astonished face. ‘It’s a one-off, Weston. You won’t find anywhere like it.’
‘Thank God,’ I mutter. Sid smiles and shakes his head at me.
‘Eleanor Thomas-Fulford was devoted to the manor,’ he continues, pouring me more tea. ‘She didn’t want to die and leave it. And her only son was a huge disappointment, so she didn’t want him to inherit the house either. That’s why she left it to the council instead. He was furious, as you might imagine. Some people say that he’s still hanging around the manor too, see. He plays tricks – shouts, turns lights off, that sort of thing.’
I remember the tug on my jeans and the shouting and the cough in my ear and my hand trembles on the cup and saucer.
‘Her ladyship had a lot of servants too,’ says Sid. ‘She treated them very harshly. Made them wear blue serge uniforms, which was most unusual in those days. Most of the servants in the big houses wore black and white.’
I sit up straight, my eyes bulging.
‘I saw one of them!’ I say. ‘I saw one of the servants!’
‘Aye. You probably saw Mary-Anne Green,’ he says. ‘Captain Jack got her pregnant and then refused to support her. Lady Eleanor paid her just enough money to buy her silence. They couldn’t have lived with the disgrace, you see. They were a grand society family.’
I think of the woman sobbing in the corner of my bedroom and for a moment I feel sorry for her, before remembering that actually she’s supposed to have been DEAD for years and years. I shudder again.
Then I remember something. ‘Why do I keep smelling lavender?’ I say.
Sid smiles, although his smile is weary, like he doesn’t really want to drag up all this stuff.
‘That’ll be Lady Eleanor,’ he says. ‘She loved lavender. The house was always full of it. You’ll have seen that it still grows all over the garden.’
I nod and chew my lip. Ben is getting fractious and wriggling about too hard. He probably wants to go home.
If we even still have a home.
‘She’s not happy,’ Sid is saying. ‘Lady Eleanor. She’s not happy to have died and left Weston. She’s been known to pop up on the anniversary of her death.’
As soon as Sid says that I remember the date on her gravestone.
‘It’s today, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘Twenty-sixth of June.’
‘Aye,’ Sid replies. His face looks old in the harsh sunlight. Then it lights up.
‘Her half-sisters were great fun, though,’ he says. ‘Lucinda and Rose. The twins. I remember them coming back to the manor as old ladies. Delightful, they were. I went to both their funerals in the 1950s. They tend to pop up at the manor just before Lady Eleanor makes an appearance.’
‘I saw them,’ I whisper.
‘Aye, pet,’ says Sid. ‘I know you did. I was there that day in the hall, remember? Dawn saw them as well, but she didn’t want to frighten you.’
He leans back and sighs. Mrs Sid comes out with more tea for me and a glass of something for her husband.
‘I know it’s a bit early for a drink,’ she says. ‘And the doctors have said you’re not to have too much of it. But I reckon you could do with a drop.’ Sid reaches up and squeezes her arm.
I wait as he downs the drink in one. He makes a smacking noise with his lips and then places both hands on the table with his arms stretched out straight. He looks me right in the eye. I clutch on to Ben because I feel dizzy.
‘So she doesn’t appear all the time?’ I say. ‘Lady Eleanor.’
‘No, lass,’ he says. ‘Things have been quiet for a while. Not so many sightings of her over the last few years.’
‘But – I keep seeing her,’ I say.
Sid rubs his eyes and leans back in his chair.
‘Some people have a sort of gift, I suppose,’ he says. ‘You’ve heard of the Stone Tape Theory?’
I look puzzled so he sighs and tops up my tea.
‘It’s when spirits kind of get recorded into the walls of houses where they’ve lived,’ he says. ‘And if there have been strong emotions involved, it only takes a sensitive soul with a particular gift to step into the building and catch past events just sort of replaying themselves as they’ve done for hundreds of years. You’ll probably find that somebody else in your family has that same sensitivity, pet.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘My gran. She’s always seeing things that aren’t there.’
‘Or maybe,’ says Sid, ‘maybe they are.’
I sit silent for a moment, digesting all this.
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘If your gran has the gift, it’s quite likely that your mum does too.’
Mum! But she never seems to see or hear anything. And she never really talks about what’s been happening to me at the manor.
Ben has given up wriggling and fallen asleep with his thumb in his mouth.
‘So maybe I’m sensitive, like my gran,’ I say. ‘OK. I get that. But it’s like Lady Eleanor wants something from me! Why has she come after me, and what does she want? I don’t understand! And why do I see her, when Mum and Dad don’t?’
When Sid looks at me this time his eyes are full of pain and sadness and something else.
Pity.
Yes, that’s it. He looks sorry for me.
‘We’ll talk more tomorrow,’ he says. ‘I reckon that’s enough for you to deal with today.’
Chapter Sixteen
I stay the night with Sid and Mrs Sid because I just don’t want to go home.
There are things I’ve got to face. But I don’t want to face them.
Not yet.
Mrs Sid is really nice and she makes me a huge cooked breakfast and then a faint colour comes back into my cheeks at last. Jake texts me and Mrs Sid invites him to come round to visit and we have a good time playing board games and chatting, but all the time there’s like this undercurrent of tension and Jake gives me these sideways, shifty looks like he’s trying to work out who I am. Sometimes I catch Sid looking at me with that strange expression again and my stomach shifts and churns, and for a moment I feel cut loose, like all my roots have been snipped with big scissors and I’ve been left naked and adrift in a big sea of dark stuff.
After Jake goes, Ben and I are sitting out in the colourful little garden and sharing a glass of coke when Sid comes out, looking all serious.
‘There’s something else,’ he says. ‘Something I should tell you, so that it all makes more sense.’
My insides contract. I kind of don’t want to know any more about the manor. I don’t think I can take it, but Sid’s been so kind that I nod and try to look open and interested.
‘The little baby I mentioned,’ he says. ‘The one born to the servant girl. Lady Eleanor adopted him,’ he says. ‘She adored him. Treated him as her own son.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘That’s kind.’ I’m wondering why Sid looks so worried.
‘He died,’ says Sid. ‘Little Albert. Got rheumatic fever and died just after his fifth birthday.’
I’ve gone cold from head to foot.
‘The grave,’ I manage through dry lips. ‘I saw the grave.’
Sid looks at me. ‘Lady Eleanor never got over it,’ he says. ‘Ever since then she roams about the manor, although we’d seen hardly anything until your family moved in. Some say she’s looking for her lost child.’
The hair on my arms stands to attention. I put my fork down on the plate of uneaten cake in front of me. For one second I feel that buzz in my ears again and smell the rosemary and lavender from the manor walled garden.
‘But why’s she after me, then?’ I say. ‘I don’t understand.’
And it’s true – at that moment, my head is muddled and nothing makes sense.
Sid leans fowards and rests his elbows on his knees so that he can gaze straight into my eyes. ‘Now, Tabs,’ he says. ‘You know why, lass. Yes. You know.’
And I shiver, but after a moment I get it and I nod.
The next day Dad turns up at the door to take me home.
There’s somebody else standing right behind him. Somebody smiling at me with her arms held out.
‘Mum!’
She folds her arms around me and buries her chin in the top of my head. It feels so good that I never want to let go. Ben joins in the hug and we stand there on Sid’s doorstep hugging in a little world of our own while Dad hovers all awkward to one side, making apologetic grimaces.
Sid gives Dad one of his wise looks, but says nothing.
We’ve already agreed that there’s not much point me telling my parents about everything I’ve experienced at the manor.
‘People that don’t believe will just tell you you’re mad,’ says Sid. ‘Trust me, I know! That’s why over the years I’ve kept quiet about it. But you know it well now, lass, don’t you?’
We exchange smiles.
‘Are you sure I can’t persuade you to come back to work?’ Dad is asking Sid.
Sid catches my eye.
‘You know,’ he says, ‘I’ve been meaning to take early retirement and treat my missus to one or two of them foreign holidays that everybody takes. So – no. I don’t think I will.’
Dad nods, even though he looks sad. I feel sad too. I’m going to miss seeing Sid.
And now Mum and Dad are bundling me into the car to take me home and they are thanking Sid and Mrs Sid. She’s kissing me and she holds my hand firmly, just for a fraction longer than necessary, and our eyes meet as I sit in the back of the car and I get a lump in my throat because Sid and his wife have helped me feel sane again.
Well – almost.
We drive back to the manor and Mum and Dad make a real effort to talk to one another in kind voices and I know it’s all for my sake, so I smile and try to chat about school and Jake and normal things even though it’s hard. When I see the squareness of the manor loom up in front of us a shadow falls across my heart but I keep the smiling up so that they don’t notice.
The Haunting of Tabitha Grey Page 12