by Paul Magrs
At any rate, I heard the same silly nonsense whispered around me as I took my place – very reluctantly – at a desk in the parsonage school room. It was murder being there, hearing the awful teacher – much worse than my own at home – drone on and on about things like Pythagoras and Daniel in the lion’s den. I simply contented myself with the thought that this was the room that Charlotte herself had once taught in. And I just knew her lessons would have been much more interesting.’
Here, Effie appears to have worn herself out with talking and regaling me with the tale of tonight’s journey into the past. She pauses for longer than usual, staring into my flame-effect electrical fire. For a moment I think she’s nodding off. Then she looks straight at me saying, ‘Do you think we could have a nip of sherry, Brenda? I’m feeling a bit chilly… and I might need a bit of fortifying before I tell you this next bit…’
I get up and bustle away to fetch her a drink. I’ll have one myself. It’s a rather long session tonight. How on earth does the Chauffear manage to cram all this life into such a short time?
§
‘So, the next place that the Chauffear leads my present day self is one particular night, several weeks into my life with my new aunts. In some ways I have settled in very nicely, adapting to their rituals and routines, and I can tell that Deirdre and Val are pleased with this. However, it isn’t as easy as all that. I am still prone to violent fits of temper and switches of mood. Some days I stomp around their house and along the cobbled streets of Haworth bristling with resentment and fury. Why do I have to be in this gloomy place? Why do I have to work like a servant for these women, and have to attend school with the boring, mulish local children?
‘Home in Whitby became a magical place. A paradise forever lost to me. I think of my family there with an unbearable sense of loss and alienation. I get a few scribbled notes from my aunts, but I can tell that they’re too busy with their supernatural goings-on to spend very much time fretting about their exiled little girl. And so I am furious, stomping about, just about striking sparks off the cobbles with my stout boots (which were bought for me by Aunt Deirdre, who decided I needed much more sensible footwear for the countryside.)
‘The countryside. Sometimes I love it and I can get giddy running about on the moors. The air is clean and fresh and I’m told I have pink cheeks now. I’m no longer the pale little wraithlike girl they met from the coach. It’s only a few weeks since I got here, so I can’t see how I could have changed that much. But perhaps I have. I can run further and faster, I cough less, I get fewer runny noses.
‘But even the improvements make me scowl resentfully.
‘And this one particular night that the Chauffear makes me visit, my older self sees my younger self sitting up in her bed at two in the morning. She’s had some kind of fracas with her new aunts. Something she wants to do and that they think is a bad idea. I look at that younger self and I can’t even remember what the argument over supper was about. The young Effie’s face is purple with crossness, however, so it must have meant a lot to her. Something about school, perhaps. Her aunts weren’t taking seriously the things she told them, about how she was jeered at and bullied at school. Yes, I remember Val looking worried and aching to make it better, but Deirdre was steadfast about my having to fight my own battles.
‘The Chauffear and I watch me sitting unhappily in the dark. The moonlight floods into the room and I remember how it used to keep me awake sometimes. In Whitby there were no problems like that, since I slept in a dark cupboard.
‘I’m hugging my velveteen Panda, and talking to him, telling him how unhappy I am here. How I’d like to slip out into the night and burn down the schoolhouse so I would never have to go back there again. That would stop them catcalling and going on at me. That would scare them, if they saw I could be as destructive as that.
‘I imagine my Panda counseling me in his gruff voice. ‘Well then, go on my dear. Why not? You must show these people that you mean business.’
‘Really, Panda? Don’t you think I’ll get into terrible trouble?’
‘‘No, no,’ he scoffs. ‘Who would think a little girl like you, could do such a terrible thing? An insignificant and scared little girl. They’ll never suspect you, my dear.’
‘I see the idea take light behind young Effie’s eyes. From across the room I can hear her heart beating faster and harder. And this is alarming, I can see the Panda’s snout moving as he talks. I can see his small arms patting her hand as he coaxes her into committing arson.
‘‘You stay here, Panda, where it’s safe. You can watch from the window. I’m sure you’ll see the fire from here…’
‘Then young Effie is out of bed and quickly pulling on trousers and a thick fisherman’s sweater, which is one of her favourites from home. It still has the scent of the sea about it, she thinks. The Whitby mist still clings to its threads.
‘Effie leaves Panda in her room, and the Chauffear and I creep after her down the rickety staircase, careful not to wake her carers. Down in the fragrant and shadowy store young Effie hunts out a large box of cook’s matches. She’s dead set on doing this and I feel almost proud of her unflinching determination. She finds the keys hanging where Aunt Deirdre always leaves them and, careful not to let the shop door go ting – she’s out in the street and free.
‘The cold of the night surprises her as she dashes across the cobbled road. Luckily, it’s not far to the churchyard and the schoolroom. She spares one glance backward to her bedroom window, and sees that Panda has positioned himself right on the sill. His black eyes stand out starkly in his moonlike face as he solemnly waves at her.
‘The Chauffear says not a word, but quickens his pace alongside me. I can sense an urgency about him. Almost an eagerness, which runs counter to his usual cool demeanour. All at once I know that we are nearing the climax of this evening’s visitation. He has brought me to the very thing that he wants me to remember. And I feel rather like you at this point, Brenda, because the memory is missing from my own head. Yes, I recall being so angry and frustrated one night that I wanted to set fire to the schoolroom. But I can’t remember actually setting out to do such a thing. I can’t remember hurrying through the churchyard like this in the middle of the night…
‘So the Chauffear is right. There are indeed things I need to be reminded of. Things I have somehow lost…
‘I can feel the chill, dashing after my younger self. I can feel the breezes and the springy turf between tall black gravestones. It is as if I am actually, truly here in the past, in this benighted place. The thin night air freezes my throat. My fingers are brittle and twiggy. The skies above our heads look like space itself, as if the earth’s atmosphere has been torn away, leaving us down here, barren as the moon.
‘Ahead of us young Effie has stopped in her tracks. She’s in the centre of the graveyard, almost hidden by the closely-crowded stones. Has she given up? Has she lost that spark of fury? Decided to turn back?
‘But then I see that she has bumped into someone. An adult. The game is up. She’s been caught running about in the churchyard at night. Some responsible adult will take her in hand, confiscate her matches, and return her to her home. I am almost disappointed, I realise. I too wanted to see the schoolroom burn down.
‘‘Who is it?’ I ask the Chauffear. We try to zigzag between the stones to see.
‘‘Don’t you remember, Effie?’
‘‘It’s all a blank,’ I tell him, and then gasp when I see a soft blue light emanating from the figure ahead. It’s a gentle radiance, surrounding the slim form of a young woman. Her hair is up and she’s in old-fashioned clothes, with skirts right down to the ground. She is beautiful, lit up like an angel, and she’s reaching out to the young Effryggia and talking to her in low, placating tones.
‘‘Don’t you remember communing with spirits?’ asks the Chauffear, almost mockingly.
‘‘I don’t, no
… not like this.’ I’m trembling all over in terror, but also… I think, joy. Because all of a sudden I think I know who this is, this ghostly form talking to my younger self.
‘So this is the night that they reached out to me. It’s starting to come back now. They reached out because they felt my presence. They obviously wanted to prevent me from burning down the schoolroom. With their strange powers they must have known it would make a nice little café one day, when the tourist industry eventually took off. However, they also wanted me for another reason.
‘This was the night the ground opened up and swallowed us, that ghost and I, and we fell as if down a rabbit hole: down, down, down to a destination deep underneath the sleepy town of Haworth.
‘I stood there with my spectral driver and watched young Effie get spirited away underground by the spirit of the young women. And curiously, I wasn’t afraid, for this is how it happened, although I couldn’t quite remember what I found down there. I was quite calm, in fact, as the graveyard sealed up again over the rabbit hole.
‘I looked at the Chauffear and he told me it was time to come home again. His Limbosine was waiting for us on the cobbled high street. It was warm inside, with soothing music playing. He revved the engine and told me, ‘This is your last night ride with me, Effryggia Jacobs. I have shown you all I can. The rest you must figure out for yourself.’
‘I see,’ I said, even though there was so much I wanted to know and understand. For a moment I felt angry towards him, this man who had brought me out here and had given only part of the story. I was disappointed to have it all taken away just as we were getting to the heart of the mystery. But I also knew he was right. This was as much as he could show me. He had done his job. The rest of it I have to do for myself. And that’s what I have to do next.’
Effie sits back exhausted on the bobbly green armchair. Her voice is raspy and it’s almost six in the morning. I pour us some more sherry.
‘There’s something hiding from me, Brenda. Something I’ve been made to forget. Something that happened to me, when I was with that ghostly lady under the graveyard. And I need to find out what it is. Don’t you see?’
‘Of course I do,’ I tell her. I know what it’s like to have half-memories and tantalizing clues drifting through your head. ‘So where do we start?’
‘Good old Brenda,’ she grins, and sips her schooner of sherry. ‘I knew you’d be with me. We need to go to Haworth, Brenda. We need to investigate the place in the present day. And perhaps we can dig up some of these secrets from beyond the grave.’
Three
CHARLOTTE’S ANGELS
Robert thinks it’s a bad idea.
We’re having a nightcap in the bar of the Miramar. ‘I can’t believe you’d go swanning off again,’ he says. ‘You’ve only just come back from holiday. You and Effie have hardly been here.’
The worst thing about it is that I knew he’s right, in a way. In the time we have been back, Effie and I have done next to nothing about the various spooky phenomena going on at home.
‘And now Mr Danby has started a book club of his own at the Spooky Finger,’ adds Robert. ‘And we know no good can come of that. People are jumping off the cliffs in front of the Christmas Hotel! There’s all sorts needing your urgent attention, Brenda.’
I know all of these things, plus the fact that the Walkers are behaving strangely at the moment. There’s something rather peculiar in the air. But I also know that Effie and I are doing the right thing in taking this short trip to Haworth. Somehow my instincts impel me and I just know that it’s the right thing to do. It is the very thing that the Chauffear has obliquely suggested that Effie ought to do – in order to uncover some kind of secret from her childhood. Something vital needs sorting out, for all our sakes.
Because it’s Effie’s secret, I find I don’t want to go into all the details with Robert. Or with Penny, who comes to join us in the bar once her shift is over.
‘Have you heard this? About them going off for another little holiday?’
‘It’s not another holiday!’ I begin to protest, and then wonder about how exasperated Robert sounds. I’ve never heard him be quite so irked with me. He’s being almost unfriendly, with that scornful note in his voice. Maybe it’s been a long day for him. Or maybe it’s something else and he’s getting a little frustrated and impatient with running around with us old dames.
Penny is more sanguine about it all. ‘If Brenda thinks that this is something she ought to do, then I think she should. She knows best.’
Robert pulls a funny face at this and I think: He really is cross with me over something! Perhaps, after all this time, he’s starting to resent the fact that friendship with me means constant supernatural shenanigans and hardly a moment’s peace?
‘Look,’ I say, ‘I don’t need to explain everything now. But the fact is, poor Effie’s been nobbled three times by the Limbosine and found out a few interesting things about her past. We’re simply heading off on the coach to investigate. Somehow I feel it needs doing.’
‘It’s called female intuition, Robert,’ Penny laughs at him. ‘You wouldn’t understand that.’
He holds both hands up. ‘Okay! Okay! Do what you need to. I just feel like there’s something awful about to happen here. There’s a feeling of foreboding.’
‘Oh, you’re always like that,’ says Penny.
He shakes his head very seriously. ‘No, I can sense that something rather terrible is going to happen, fairly soon. I had… a visitation last night, when we were closing up the basement bar. I was in what used to be the office of Sheila Manchu, when she was manageress here. And I swear truly, Brenda and Penny, I had a visitation.’
‘What does that mean?’ Penny was starting to laugh.
‘He’s serious,’ I say. ‘What was it, Robert? What did you see?’
How pale he looks! After everything he has encountered in our adventures! This visitation really unnerved him, it seems. ‘Sheila Manchu manifested herself right in front of me. The same old Sheila as she used to be. All blowsy in a feathery, silky nightgown, her hair all bouffanted up and masses of make-up on. She was looking straight at me and I nearly died. I thought she had come back from the other side for revenge. Remember how we just left her down in Hell that time? We all managed to escape, but Sheila was too late and we had to leave her there. Well, I’ve felt guilty about that ever since.’
‘You sent your former boss to hell?’ Penny gasps.
‘Long story,’ I tell her. ‘Robert, did she say anything? Could you communicate with her?’
He looks sickly now, as he recalls the weird scene. ‘She couldn’t quite focus on me. She opened her mouth and only managed to get one sentence out before she vanished again, right before my eyes. She cried out in this terrible voice, as if the words were being wrenched out of her by ghastly force. ‘Tell those two old ladyfriends of yours they will soon be joining me in Hell…!’
‘And then suddenly she was gone. I stood there shaking for several moments.’ Poor Robert then looks at me, with all this worry and concern welling up in those dear eyes of his. And I think, how on Earth could I ever have imagined he was getting fed up and cross with me? Of course he’s right on my side. And he always will be.
‘Oh my god,’ Penny says. ‘That must have been horrible. And Brenda…! Do you think she meant you and Effie? Could it be true? Sheila Manchu is going to drag you back down to Hell?’
I look at the fretful young faces before me at our bar table and I make a stab at bravado. ‘Of course not! It’s all rubbish! Why would Sheila ever do me harm? And I’m not scared, anyway. Look at all the things we’ve fought and defeated here in Whitby, working altogether! Nothing can get the better of us, can it? What about Goomba, the evil bamboo monster from another dimension? What about Kristoff Alucard and his army of the undead? And Karla Sorenson, screen siren and devil worshipper? We’ve seen them all o
ff! And they were much more tangible and lethal than any of this nebulous stuff. These silly warnings and threats can’t do us any harm. No, really, we oughtn’t to get so worried…!’
At this point I run out of steam and hurriedly finish off my drink in order to hide my nerves. Because the truth is that I suddenly find myself somewhat discombobulated by all of these surely not-unconnected prophecies.
I say a swift good night to Penny and Robert – who both look only slightly emboldened by my little speech – and then I tear off out of the Miramar, bustling toot-suite down the hill.
It should be a balmier night, after the lovely sunny day we’ve had. But there’s an ill wind in the sycamore trees that line these winding streets. The leaves are rattling as if it’s autumn already. The breeze lifts dust from the gutter and it comes in fierce gusts. I find myself struggling downhill, as if some unseen force were pushing me back.
The thing was, back then, talking with Robert and Penny, I was trying to reassure them by reminding us all how many terrifying encounters we have come through and survived. But all I could think was how, in each and every case, we had almost come a nasty cropper. It was more by luck than judgement that we survived in any of those uncanny escapades.
No matter. I’ve got to be strong and be a leader for this little team of mine.
It’s at this point that I’m stopped in the dark street by a Walker. He jumps out of the bushes and I find myself squawking in his face.
He’s a long, gangly streak of nowt, this vampire. I could fettle him fairly easily if this became a punch-up or a bloody struggle to the death, but the wretched thing has the advantage of surprise on me. Soon as I stop screeching I adopt an aggressive stance and prepare to give him a walloping.
But the young Walker just stands there insolently. Hovering several inches off the pavement to make himself look taller. His tracksuit is scabby with grave mould, I realise. It’s an aroma that always nauseates me.