Cumbrian Ghost Stories

by Tony Walker

‘And when he said that, your father punched him. It didn’t look like he was much used to punching people and Reverend Keen was more shocked than hurt, but he wiped the blood off his mouth and asked us to fetch the police.’

  ‘It was terrible weather. Much like we have now and the mist rolled down from the fells and hung in patches in the village. Rather than wait for the police, your father left. He didn’t know what to do. He probably didn’t care.’

  ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘Well they say, he fled into the hills, not knowing where he was going, up the steep slopes, plashing through the becks.’

  ‘But they found him?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, they did not. We presumed he was lost in some bog. But he was never found.’

  ‘Never found?’

  ‘No.’

  I pushed my hand through my still damp hair. No trace of my mother or my father left on this earth. It took away my foundations. I didn’t belong anywhere. I had no roots. I nodded. ‘Thank you, Mrs Thwaites. Thank you for telling me this.’

  She stood. ‘I fear I have upset you. That was never my intention, but I have a reputation as a plain-speaking woman.’

  She showed me to the door. I took my sodden coat and put on my shoes. My hat was still wet too. She was kind now. ‘I’m sorry for your trouble, Mr Starkey.’

  ‘Thank you.’ And at the door, I paused at a thought. ‘But at least you see her. At least there’s something of her left.’

  ‘Aye, even if it’s a ghost.’

  But what was she warning me about?

  I went back to the Cavendish Arms, pushing through the door, drenched. It was just before lunchtime. The fire was on because of the cold and the barman stood waiting for my order. Though it was early to be drinking, I ordered a beer.

  He pulled the pump and filled the dimpled pint glass with local brown ale and handed it to me. I pushed bronze pennies towards him and grunted my thanks, then went to sit, slumped at a scarred wooden table in the corner. I sank half my pint in one gulp as a terrible thirst possessed me. The rest took only two more swigs and then I went back to the bar. ‘Another pint, please,’ I said as I thrust the foam-stained glass across the counter.

  The barman didn’t say anything as he filled up the glass with beer, but I could tell he was judging me. This pint went down more slowly as I sank into the beer and into my ruminations. I went into a daze, my fist folded around the dimpled glass, still partly full.

  A man was sitting at the table in the corner. I hadn't seen him come in. He was tall and thin with brown hair that looked like my own. He wasn't wet though. The corner was dark and it was difficult to see him clearly. Then I saw he wore a clerical collar. As he drank, I noticed he had a distinctive gold signet ring on the little finger of his left hand. Perhaps he was one of the clergy at the Priory, I wondered what his excuse was that he was drinking so early, but then I saw he had no glass.

  I stared at him, but he was half in shadow. I went to the toilet, half thinking of talking to him to ask if he'd known my father, but he was far too young. When I returned, he was gone.

  The fire crackled and then the door opened, letting in more wind and rain. I turned bad temperedly to see who was disturbing my moody reverie. It was the man from the café. He must just wander the village with nothing to do, wasting his time on tea and ale. He didn’t seem to notice me but went up to the bar. ‘Ow do, John? Areet?’

  ‘Champion. Usual?’

  ‘Aye, pint o’t good stuff.’ This man, Joe, stole a glance at me but I turned away back to my beer, thinking of getting my third pint, the alcohol making my head swim already.

  I needed another drink. I stood, steadying myself and stepped the few paces to the counter. The barman gave me a small smile.

  ‘Another pint, please,’ I said.

  He nodded and took my glass from where I’d placed it, then lined it up with the pump and pulled back on the handle to fill the glass with more ale.

  The dishevelled man, Joe, said, ‘I like a man who likes a drink.’

  I grunted, but he persisted in his conversation. ‘Didn’t I see you in the Bluebell Café earlier?’

  I nodded. The barman handed me my pint, and I paid. I made ready to walk away but Joe said, ‘Mind if I join you?’

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but he followed me anyway and sat down.

  He took a sip of his beer and wiped the foam from his top lip with the back of his hand, then pushed back to make himself comfortable. ‘They say you’re here looking into family history,’ he said.

  I nodded. ‘I suppose. How do you know?’

  He laughed. ‘This is Cartmel. Everybody knows everything. Strangers at this time of year aren’t common— especially since the War.’

  ‘I see.’

  There was a long pause. The sound of more rain on the window. The sound of the fire stirring as it burned.

  ‘Just, I knew your father,’ he said. ‘I was sexton, see.’

  He pronounced father with a short–a—the way North Country people do.

  I shot him a glance. ‘You knew him?’

  He nodded. ‘I was just a young man, but he was always civil to me.' He sipped his beer. ‘Terrible what happened to him.’

  ‘In what way terrible?’

  He narrowed his eyes as if sizing me up and wondering what I knew and whether he would upset me. ‘Running him out. The new Rector was cruel to him. Always was, a cold man for a man of God that one. Not like your dad. He was decent. He was a good-looking man too. Always dressed nice.’ He smiled. ‘I remember his ring. I remarked on it. An antique signet ring with a bloodstone in it. He said it had come down to him through his family.’

  I said, ‘Did you know my mother?’

  He nodded. ‘Lisa. Aye, I was at school with her—here in the village. Pretty lass, clever too.’

  ‘She killed herself,’ I said coldly.

  He took a sip of beer. ‘Aye, I know.’

  I said, ‘Because of me.’

  He shook his head. ‘Hardly. You were gone. Don’t be blaming yourself for things like that. It was the new Rector who was to blame, if anyone.’

  I grunted. ‘Feels like it was my fault.’

  ‘It’s not.’

  The beer loosened my tongue. I spoke more emotionally than I had if I was sober. I felt the sadness flood me. ‘I always knew there was something wrong with me. Like there was something missing. I’ve lived my life like there’s been a hole running right through me. Like I didn’t have a right to be here on this earth, or to breathe even.’

  ‘Don’t be talking like that, lad. That’s daft.’

  I sat back. I’d already drunk half of my third pint. ‘I’m just being stupid. Pay me no heed.’

  He sat looking quietly, his compassionate eyes a contrast with how he looked as a tough countryman.’

  With a hollow laugh, I said, ‘I found my mother and father and lost them in the same day.’

  ‘You never lost them. They’re always with you.’

  I wasn’t listening, I said, ‘If I just had something of theirs. Something tangible. Something that would root me. But my mother’s ashes are scattered who knows where and no one knew where my father went.’

  Joe nodded. ‘He was up on Cartmel Fell.’

  ‘You know?’

  ‘Almost certain. I saw him leave the village. That’s where he was headed.’

  ‘Which direction is Cartmel Fell?’

  ‘North of the village, but you don’t want to be going up there in this weather. You’ll come to no good.’

  I remained silent. I didn’t care. I’d come to Cartmel looking for myself and now I found I was nothing at all.

  Then he stood, embarrassed by my emotions. ‘Thank you for your company,’ he said. ‘Have a safe trip home.’

  Joe left, leaving the pub and that left me alone. I stood and went for another pint.

  The day was dark. The night came early in the winter and the heavy curtain of clouds of rain brough
t it earlier. The barman had put the lights on even though it was hardly one o’clock.

  The barman said, ‘Are you sure, sir? This is your fourth, and it’s only early afternoon.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I said. ‘Get me another drink.’

  He shrugged and poured the beer.

  I lingered over this beer. I’d come to try and root myself somehow by learning about my family, but there were no roots to be found. My parents were dead and had left no trace. One burned and scattered to the winds, the other sunk without a trace in the sucking bogland of the Lake District.

  I don’t know how or when the thought first came to me, but before I’d finished that fourth drink. I had resolved to kill myself.

  The rain hit me as I stepped out of the pub door. The cloud was low, draped like a curtain holding me back from heaven, dropped like a sentence from a hanging judge. I had no clear idea of where I was going, just that I had to get out of Cartmel. That part was easy, after a few rows of houses the village gave way to wet fields, damp hedges ragged with briars and last years dead musk roses. Blackthorn, Hawthorn and Elder blocked my way as I pushed through a disused field opening. The land sloped up, and the mist was thicker as I climbed, out of breath, feet sodden in the tussocky grass. I surprised a sheep that started away, unused to anyone out in such weather. My breath was ragged now as I pushed up the hillside, through a stand of trees, squelching into bog marked by bulrushes.

  I just wanted to die. A man without rights. No right to be here. No heritage, no history. This would be my death, just like my father, to stumble in the fog from a ledge, to drown in a sucking pool, thick with weed. The cold would do for me, leaching my warmth, cooling my blood until I lay glassy-eyed, a curiosity for sheep until a raven plucked out my eyes.

  I saw her by the rocky outcrop, half hidden by mist — made of mist maybe but nothing solid. She tried to catch my eye, but I knew she was dead. Just a ghost of imagination. I watched my feet, not her, and walked on, planting my feet, one by one on the rough ground. I was climbing. I don’t know how far I had walked.

  And there she was again, as if wanting my attention. I lifted my head and was about to speak; but what would I say to this girl—my mother far younger than I was now.

  I paused, but she did not speak and neither did I.

  But she wanted me to pay attention.

  I shook my head. This was to be my end. There was no comfort. It was me who had caused their trouble. I could make it good in no other way than by ending myself here.

  The mist swirled around. Crows called from obscured trees. Waiting.

  Tears burned my cold cheeks, and she was still there as I breathed in and out, labouring to climb a rough rocky path. And there she appeared, right in front of me, as a barrier. She didn’t want me to go on; I knew that. She didn’t want me to kill myself. But what mother would want the death of her son; even if she had never really met him.

  She looked so kind and young. But it was a vision. A regret only. And with that thought she vanished.

  I stepped on and climbed up. I went higher. At times , I was on my hands and knees as I scrambled over the slippery rock, grabbing handfuls of rough grass to tug myself up. That went on until sensing something, I stopped. I stood on a hard broken ledge and felt the void in front of me. I couldn’t see it but I felt emptiness. There was a drop just in front of me, hidden by fog. I inched forward until my toes were on the edge of the drop.

  So this was it. Some intuition told me my father had taken the same path. That he had fallen to his death from this rock, on a day such as today, wreathed in rain, weighed down with despair.

  And so would I.

  She appeared by my side.

  I knew she was there, but I didn’t look; I only stared ahead into the mist. Into the mirage of solidity that would not bear my weight, but would give way and I would fall to break on the rocks below.

  She turned to face me, still not speaking.

  And then she took my hand. Like she was my mother, a thing she had done at my birth, taken my little hand in hers. And her hand was warm, not cold. Not the chill of death but the warmth of life.

  She said, ‘I love you, my son.’

  But it was too late. I had already stepped out.

  Joe found me. He thought he knew where I’d gone and he found me in the mist. As I lay in the boggy ground, I knew I’d broken my leg, but I was alive. And there by my outstretched hand, was a glint of gold. My falling into the bog had disturbed the mud and moss and brought this thing to light, its gold untarnished by the years it had lain there.

  ‘My goodness,’ Joe said, reaching over for it. ‘That’s your father’s ring.’

  He placed it in my hand and I gazed at it while we waited for rescue. ‘My father’s ring?’ I said, amazed.

  He nodded.

  It had come down the generations. My father and mother had never forgotten me. Even beyond life, there is love.

  13

  The Demon Clock of Mosedale

  John inherited the clock from his Uncle Max. Max wasn’t a person people warmed to, and the old man died little mourned and John was his only family. The funeral was dismal. They held it in the Masonic Lodge, up on Meeting House Lane, if it was a masonic lodge. Perhaps it was something weirder.

  The clock was all John got - the men in creased suits and glasses from Max’s little club got the house and all its contents - the dog-eared books and his broken, mildewed furniture. They were welcome to them all, John thought. The house had always given him the creeps - that old brooding grey house that sits above Penrith on Beacon Edge.

  After the funeral, the shabby grey men from the Lodge invited the few mourners to the house for tea and tongue sandwiches. They ate them in the living room, looking out at the rain-smeared roofs of Penrith through the dirty windows of old Max’s house.

  “Your uncle’s friends aren’t very friendly,” said Sarah as she looked at, then discarded, the tongue sandwich with its cheap white bread and basic supermarket spread.

  “I didn’t know he had any friends to be honest,” said John, sipping his tea from the surprisingly un-chipped bone china cup.

  “UHT milk,” she said. “Tastes nasty. Don’t drink it. I’m glad we left Jess at home.”

  “Anyway, there’s our new possession,” said John, pointing towards the clock where it stood in the corner of the dreary, uncarpeted room.

  “It isn’t going,” said Sarah.

  John murmured. “Hmm. You’re right, but I’m sure it can be fixed. It’s probably valuable you know.” He leaned forward and read the maker’s name from the dial. “Nathaniel Pilkington of Appleby, 1805”

  When the clock arrived at the lovely converted farmhouse in Mungrisdale, it was still early in the day. Dr John Eliot was getting ready to go to work. His wife opened the door of their country farmhouse and watched while the workmen moved the clock into the hall and carefully set it up. John was upstairs shaving. As John had suspected, they could fix it. The men were specialists in antiques and they arranged the weights and pulleys and made sure it kept good time. John looked in on his way to toast and coffee in the breakfast room, but Sarah had it all under control. By the time the family had finished their breakfast, the men had installed the clock and left.

  Sarah told him she didn’t like it.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “It gives the house gravitas. We can always sell it if you really don’t like it. Give it a chance though; you may learn to love it.”

  “I don’t like its ticking,” she said.

  “That’s totally irrational.”

  Their daughter Jessica was standing at her mother’s knee. She said, “It smells funny - like old rags.” Then she pointed at the cat, “and Timmy doesn’t like it either; he’s scared.” John looked at the tabby which was sitting grooming itself on the stairs. It didn’t seem particularly bothered by the clock. Jessica was projecting her fears onto her pet, but then he was prone to seeing things that way — it came from his training as a psychiatr
ist.

  His wife Sarah, beautiful, blonde, 42, with a mind that liked cryptic crosswords and was good at jurisprudence, leaned in and gave him a kiss on his way out to the hospital. “You go now or you’ll be late for work; just because we’ve got the day off, doesn’t mean you can linger.”

  John took the kiss. He stroked her hair. “But I like to linger. It’s not fair! Anyway, what are you up to today?”

  “I’m taking Jessica and her friend Rachel to the petting farm.”

  “You get on with Rachel’s mum, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, Sally will meet us for lunch. We have a day of leisure while you go off and heal crazy people.”

  John picked up his coat and went out of the door. His C-Class Mercedes was parked on the gravel drive outside. They’d lived in that house among the mountains for about two years and he loved it — they all did. John worked at the local secure psychiatric unit about twenty miles away. Sarah worried it was a dangerous job, but John didn’t take any risks; there were protocols and safety measures to protect the staff. It was true that he worked with people who had committed shocking, violent crimes, but it paid the bills and gave him a certain power and prestige, which, though he didn’t like to admit it to others, made him feel he’d done well for himself — and for his family. His old dad would have been proud of him — had he lived — and, who knows, John felt maybe he even helped some people.

  When John got home that night, Jessica was tired after her trip to see the animals. They ate chicken parmigiana and John and Sarah had a glass of Italian white wine - a Gavi - while Jess had guava juice. Her parents put her to bed after dinner and they sat watching TV. All was well until around 8 pm, Jessica came down, carrying her blanket.

  “Daddy,” she said, “There’s a nasty smell in my room.”

  John got up. He was used to his daughter’s tricks to avoid going to bed. He gathered Jessica in his arms. “Come on, pumpkin, time for you to sleep.”

  Jessica smiled as he picked her up, but then she corrected her expression and gave a sulky frown. “It’s true. There is a smell.”