by Neil Spring
Looking back, it was inevitable that I would compare Wall with Price. Clearly, I didn’t know much about how to handle difficult, ambitious men.
I thought of Wall’s cautious warnings, his touching affection for me, his desire to ensure my well-being and the peculiar way he had made me feel.
Price’s voice, stern and commanding, jolted me back into the hallway. ‘Listen.’
‘I don’t hear anything,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Precisely. The house is calmer now. I suggest we all get some sleep.’
I was relieved to hear that. The rector shot me a troubled look and offered to bless our rooms one more time. Politely, I agreed.
We went back to the Blue Room, where Price was to sleep, but he noticed immediately that there was something amiss. We all followed his gaze to the pillow on the bed, the same pillow on which his head was shortly to rest. Something like a large coin lay there, glinting in the fitful light thrown off by the storm lantern. I was sure it hadn’t been there before.
Price picked it up, holding it up to the dancing light of his lamp. ‘It appears to be some sort of medallion,’ he said slowly, studying it. ‘French, I should say and very, very old. Minted in brass, I think.’
‘But where did it come from?’ asked Reverend Smith, frowning.
Price’s eyes met mine. ‘It’s an apport, Sarah,’ he said. ‘It must be.’ And a smile spread across his face.
Reverend Smith looked lost. ‘Apport?’
An apport, I explained to the rector, is an object produced by apparently supernatural means.2 Such things were usually the focus of the controlled seances we conducted back at the Laboratory, when flowers, jewellery and sometimes even live animals would ‘materialise’ in the presence of a medium. Never had we encountered a genuine manifestation of the phenomenon; every alleged manifestation we had witnessed had been debunked as the product of fraud.
‘May I see?’ I asked. Upon inspection, I observed that the medallion was octagonal, bearing on one side the head of a monkish-looking figure and the inscription ‘Vade retro me, satana’ On the other side of the medallion was the word ROMA, meaning Rome, which appeared beneath a design incorporating two impressive-looking human figures joined by a child. With the rector’s help we quickly deduced that the medal was probably Roman Catholic in origin. It was chilling to the touch. And I hated it immediately.
The rector was bewildered. ‘Whatever do you suppose it means, Mr Price?’
‘Perhaps it’s a clue, Mr Smith, to this whole peculiar business.’
With unmistakable relish, Price closed his hand around the medallion, a faint smile playing on his lips.
*
Although the summer storm soon passed, I slept fitfully that night, my bedroom serving both as a sanctuary from the rest of the house and as a prison.
The medallion we had found was lying next to my bed. Price had given it to me for safe keeping, but just knowing it was there in the room with me had destroyed any hopes of rest. We had heard the legends that connected the ghostly nun with a vague, monk-like figure and claims that the Rectory stood on the site of a thirteenth-century monastery, so this much made sense, but I failed to see how this English historical background connected with the French Catholic theme suggested by the medallion’s other engravings. I decided I would have it examined the instant we returned to London.
The sun had not yet risen when a sound from outside my door stirred me from my slumber. As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I became increasingly aware of padding feet approaching my bedroom. Alert, I pulled the musty bedclothes up to my face and sheltered behind them. There came a gentle rap on my door.
Sitting up, I waited, hoping to God the sound wouldn’t come again. But it did, louder this time. What was it Professor David Chipp had said about his stay in the house? That something in his room had pinned his shirt to the back of the door. This room … ? I speculated. Was it this room?
My heart was pounding. Alone, with the knowledge of what had happened earlier that night weighing upon me, the image of Harry Bull from the painting in the Blue Room loomed up in my mind.
And then, to my horror, I saw the door handle turning. It clicked, and the door swung slowly open. A swaying light entered the room; behind it, only just visible in the gloom, was a pale face with huge black eyes.
The sight of it made me cry out in alarm.
‘Shhh. Sarah, quiet now. It’s me.’
‘Harry?’
He shut the door.
‘I can’t sleep,’ he said wearily, ‘and my head feels ghastly.’
Price was prone to vicious migraines and it seemed that one was upon him now. In the flickering candlelight I saw that black patches had formed under his eyes, his cheeks were sallow and his high brow glistened with sweat.
‘I want to get out of here, Sarah,’ he groaned. ‘I don’t feel at all well. Let’s go, now!’
‘What?’ I exclaimed. ‘At this hour?’
He nodded and asked whether I would be willing to drive him back into Sudbury to catch an early train to Liverpool Street. Then he glanced back over his shoulder in the direction of the Blue Room. ‘And I certainly don’t want to go back in there.’
‘Harry, you silly goose! We can’t just leave. Poor Mrs Smith will wonder what has become of us.’
‘We’ll leave a note,’ he said briskly.
‘What time is it now?’
He sat down on the end of my bed, rubbing his eyes. ‘A little after two.’
‘A fiendish hour.’ I thought of the labyrinth-like network of lanes we would need to traverse to find our way back. ‘Harry, no, please just wait another hour. If you’re still desperate to leave then, I’ll come with you. But it’s far too early to leave now; there won’t be any trains at this hour anyway, not even the milk trains.’
I saw from his reaction that he did not approve of my suggestion, but he knew me well enough to realise that I was not going to be bullied into this.
‘Very well,’ he said bleakly, ‘I’ll go back to my room.’ He stood up and turned to leave.
‘Harry, wait a moment.’
‘What is it?’
He looked down at me, his face still half-obscured in the shadows, and I searched his eyes for any hint that the same thought that was running through my own mind might be in his. I think he must have known that I did not want to be left alone in that room, but if he did, then he showed no sign of it. ‘Nothing,’ I replied quietly. ‘You should get back to your room now.’
I’m uncertain that the words convinced me, let alone him. I lay there, cold and miserable, as he crept back out onto the landing. Before closing my door, he turned and looked back at me.
‘Sarah?’ he whispered.
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you.’
‘What for?’
‘For being the wonderful friend that you are.’
‘Oh,’ I said, closing my eyes, ‘think nothing of it. Now be off with you!’
‘Come and wake me in an hour or two, all right?’
‘I will do. If I’m awake!’
He nodded and said softly, ‘Goodnight, Sarah.’
‘Goodnight.’
Long after those lonely words were spoken, my thoughts dwelt on the mercurial Harry Price. Then I remembered Vernon Wall, wondering whether he had made it back to the Bull Inn on his own, and confusion enveloped me.
If you have ever found yourself torn between two impossible options, one complicated but exciting, the other easy, so easy, and yet puzzlingly dull, then you’ll have some idea of how I felt at that moment.
How sad it is, I thought as I willed myself back to sleep, that we love what is hard and run from what is easy, and only look back when it is finally too late.
SÉANCE HELD IN
HAUNTED HOUSE
* * *
Mysterious Rappings in the Rectory of Borley
* * *
‘FORMER RECTOR’
HOW QUESTIONS WERE ASKED AND ANSWERED
; From Our Special Correspondent, Long Melford, Friday
An informal séance at the ‘haunted’Borley Rectory, as a preliminary to an orthodox one with a medium, produced astonishing results.
This took place in the presence of the rector and his wife, Mr Harry Price, Director of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, his secretary, and myself.
Mysterious replies to our questions were given by means of one, two and three raps on the back of a mirror in the room.
Light in the room made no difference.
The replies came clearly and distinctly. At times we lit the lamp and sat around the mirror with everyone in the room in full sight, but there was no hesitation about the answers.
EMPHATIC ‘YES’
The only unsatisfactory feature was our inability to get a complete message by spelling out words; the ‘spirit’ was either a bad speller or speaking in Hindu.
Our first attempts were naturally to ascertain the identity of the rapper. We asked if it were the nun in the old legend or one of the grooms, and a single rap denoting ‘no’ was the reply.
Then I suggested to Mr Price that he should ask if it were the Reverend H. Bull, the late rector. I had hardly finished the name when three hurried raps came on the mirror, which meant an emphatic ‘yes’.
The following dialogue then took place, sometimes with the lamp lit, sometimes in darkness: ‘Is it your footsteps once heard in this house?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you wish to worry or annoy anybody here?’
‘No.’
‘Do you object to anybody now living in the house?’
‘No.’
SMOKING DURING SÉANCE
‘Do you merely wish to attract attention?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you worrying about something you should have done when you were alive?’
‘No.’
‘If we had a medium here, do you think you could tell us what is the matter?’
‘Yes.’
There followed a series of questions dealing with the late Mr Bull’s private affairs, to which no answer at all was received.
The whole proceeding was entirely informal, and we even smoked and chatted as if we were in the Rectory drawing room instead of the room that is supposed to be haunted.
The worst part about these ‘manifestations’, from the rector’s point of view, is that Borley is fast becoming a show place for the whole of Suffolk and Essex.
Crowds of visitors arrive on foot and by motor car to see the alleged haunted house.3
* * *
Notes
1 Henry F. Lyte, 1847.
2 Apport phenomena were first observed by Dr G. P. Billot. In Recherches psychologiques ou correspondence sur le magnetisme vital entre un solitaire et M. Deleuze (Paris, 1839), he describes a session on 5 March 1819 with three somnambules and a blind woman. He writes: ‘Towards the middle of the seance, one of the seeresses exclaimed: “There is the Dove, it is white as snow, it is flying about the room with something in its beak, it is a piece of paper. Let us pray.” A few moments later she added: “See, it has let the paper drop at the feet of Madame J.” Billot saw a paper packet at the spot indicated. He found in it three small pieces of bone glued on to small strips of paper, with the words ‘St Maxime, St Sabine and Many Martyrs’ written beneath the fragments.’
3 Daily Mirror, 15 June 1929.
– 18 –
THE BREEDING OF SECRETS
‘You slept well, I hope?’ From across the breakfast table, Mrs Smith’s gaze swept from Price to me, then back to Price, as I buttered a slice of blackened toast.
‘As well as can be expected,’ I muttered.
‘Well, I hope it was warm enough for you, Mr Price.’
‘I slept with my clothes on, Mrs Smith. Absolutely nothing could have induced me to get undressed in that bedroom.’
I allowed myself the tiniest of smiles.
Since sunrise, Price had complained about a pain in his arm. He was keen to return to London, but I persuaded him that we should at least call upon Miss Ethel Bull and hear for ourselves her account of the ghostly nun. We might have done just that too, were it not for the unruly disturbance which suddenly broke the morning peace: men’s voices, loud and accusatory, outside the house.
‘Infernal racket!’ Mr Smith cried, standing up. ‘Whatever next?’
We followed the Smiths briskly through the hall and out on to the gravel driveway, whereupon Harry cried, ‘Sarah, look out!’
An empty wine bottle hurtled past and shattered next to the front door.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ raged Price, coming to my side.
His question was directed at a mob of youths and labourers, all rather odd-looking people, who had gathered at the main gates to the property. ‘Leave us in peace!’ one of them shouted. Another was brandishing a pickaxe.
‘There we are,’ said Price to Reverend Smith. ‘Vernon Wall’s gift to you, sir. They’ve come. And they’ll keep coming until they get what they want.’
‘Well, what do they want?’
‘The truth. Or at least their version of the truth.’
With alarm rattling his words, the rector turned to me. ‘My dear, do you think you could drive to the police station and summon some protection for us?’
‘But of course,’ said Price. ‘It’s the very least we can do.’ Though somewhere between bidding farewell to the Smiths and unlatching the gate and driving down into Long Melford he changed his mind and asked me to stop the vehicle. ‘You go, Sarah. I’ll get the train.’
‘But what about our visit to Miss Bull?’
‘It’s only two stops away. I’ll call on her on my way.’
‘Harry, this is ridiculous! What’s wrong?’
The passenger door slammed behind him.
‘So I’ll see you back in London, Harry?’
He nodded once, but did not look back.
*
Feeling genuinely concerned for the Smiths, who I imagined were still stranded on the rectory lawn beating away the milling intruders, I drove at speed to the nearest police station, where the local constable reassured me a colleague was already en route for Borley.
Even so, the least I could do was find Vernon Wall at the Bull Inn and ask him to respect the Smiths’ privacy in his future writings. I also wanted to see him for personal reasons.
‘Sorry, Miss, ’fraid you missed ’im,’ said the stocky woman on reception at the ancient Bull Inn. Her gaze lingered uncomfortably around my neckline. ‘He not long left for the early train for London.’
God, I thought, please not the same train as Price! That wouldn’t be pretty.
‘You all right, Miss? You look a bit funny. Cup of tea, maybe?’
Trying to ignore her greasy hair and a lingering scent of musk, I told the receptionist I would like that very much and took a seat in the front bar beneath crooked timbered ceilings next to the widest stone fireplace I had ever seen. As I gazed out through the window at Price’s cherished saloon, memories of the preceding night’s affair swirled down upon me.
I had gone to his bedroom, as he had requested, at a frightfully early hour and found him – as I knew I would – fast asleep. This is embarrassing to admit, but instead of returning to my room I sat for a time watching him sleep in milky darkness; watching the rhythmic rise and fall of his wide chest beneath the sheets, difficult to see but oddly gratifying.
He must have heard me because soon afterwards his eyes flew open, his face grimacing with alarm. Then his vision adjusted, he recognised me, and his face melted into a mask of warm appreciation.
‘I’m Ruth, by the way.’
The husky voice pulled me back to the Bull Inn with its leaded windows and suits of armour. From the corridor which presumably led down to the kitchen I caught a scent of bacon and eggs. Apart from the burnt toast I hadn’t eaten anything that morning, and now pangs of hunger were pulling at me. I considered ordering something, but the broad-fa
ced woman from reception who had returned with a wide tea tray was clearly more interested in the saloon just beyond the window than in serving me. ‘That fancy motor car belong to you, does it?’
‘My friend, actually. I’m looking after it for him.’
She nodded, laying the tea tray in front of me. ‘Don’t get many cars like that round ’ere, that’s for sure. Only the big families like the Bulls ’ave ’em.’
My ears pricked up. ‘You knew the Bull family?’
‘Aye! Most round ’ere did. Best thing they ever did, leavin’ that damned old house.’
‘Borley Rectory?’
She nodded. ‘Few people round here talkin’ ’bout anything else, not since ’em reports of ghosts in the papers. Mike Oldman in town’s thinkin’ of startin’ one of ’em tour buses, you know? Reckons he can make a few bob. Wouldn’t catch me goin’ up there, I can tell you.’
‘You believe the stories, then?’
‘Believe would be puttin’ it a bit strong,’ she said, catching herself, ‘but you do hear some tales, horrid stories of somethin’ that walks in the grounds of that place … Some years back there was a man who came into town, said he knew the Bulls, was at university with one of the family. He stayed here, in fact, in the room over the hall – said he was the headmaster of some posh school somewhere.’
I wondered if it was David Chipp, the academic who had written to us a few years before. ‘Do you remember his name?’
She hesitated, casting her mind back. ‘No. But I do remember him saying he wanted to spend a night up there, parked in the lane next to the Rectory, outside the church.’ She shook her head. ‘What a mistake that was.’