We fell through the doors of the Black Horse a little shaken. However, the shock that we both felt soon turned itself into an excited energy and we found ourselves alternating from drunken laughter and incessant giggling to sudden periods of silence and deep thought. We had shared something that evening and I was sure that the experience would feature heavily in all of Higgins’s future tours.
The rest of the evening in the bar was blurred to my memory; my only later recollections were brief and included brandy and laughter. What I did know was that my new acquaintance was fine company and I cannot recall any occasion previous to this night when I had enjoyed myself as much. By the end of the evening, the entertaining Mr Higgins and myself were on first-name terms and had arranged to meet once more, on the morrow, for another drink or two. Eventually, as the last of the customers left the pub, Miss Finnan let us know in no uncertain terms that she would be closing up for the night and that it was time for Mr Higgins to make his way home. This was despite our best efforts to charm ‘just one more cherry brandy’ from her.
I stumbled upstairs, following Miss Finnan’s directions towards my room, where I eventually found my bed, which sat underneath a low eave that I caught my head on twice. Despite the room initially spinning at a relentless rate, I found myself shortly asleep and dreaming of bushes, demons and the voice of the white-haired man.
5
The Devil in the Dream
I woke sharply to the sound of a bell ringing. I wondered why there was a bell as I had never been woken in this way before at my rooms in Paddington. As it rang on and the fog of my mind cleared, I remembered that I was not at home at all and it was the call to breakfast.
I tried to sit up but found that I had precious little in the way of physical control over my body. My first attempt was met by an involuntary groan which would usually only have been heard coming from someone at least thirty years my senior. I gave up on the task momentarily and, spying my waistcoat pocket watch on the floor not two feet from my bed, I tried reaching out; but the exertion of the act was immense. I sighed and reached again, spilling myself completely out of bed and rolling helplessly to the floor, my head finding a remarkably true aim on the floorboards below. I groaned again and, after pulling the watch free from the waistcoat pocket, found only that it had once again halted in its function and read twenty minutes past eight o’clock.
The bell rang again from downstairs, wielded with relish by Miss Finnan, no doubt in full awareness of the pain that it was causing to my fragile skull; it would not stop until I appeared at the breakfast table. I dressed as hastily as I could, taking a moment to gaze in horror at my reflection in the mirror: my eyes were as blank as a corpse’s, my skin pallid and soft. I promised myself that I would not imbibe any more drink until my return to London, and made my sorry way downstairs towards the dreadful ringing noise.
Miss Finnan stood with her hands on her waist, watching me as I entered the bar. She still held the bell, and I detected the hint of a smile on her usually glowering face. A place had been set for me at one of the tables and I pushed myself onto the bench behind it.
‘We have tea or we have coffee, which do you prefer?’ Miss Finnan had not removed her hands from her hips or her eyes from me since I had entered.
‘A coffee would be most gratefully received, thank you,’ I croaked, forcing a smile. This time her grin was evident.
‘I’ll return with it, and your breakfast.’ She swung round briskly, placing the bell upon the bar top with a final clang. The thought of food twisted my guts and made my mouth watery and bitter. I am sure that I had previously felt worse (I had had scarlet fever as a child from which I recovered slowly, being confined to my room for nearly two months); however, I suspected that even cholera would be preferable to the dry ache which permeated my head and body on that terrible morning.
The plate that Miss Finnan arrived with shortly afterwards could not have been fuller and, given my present state, less appetising: thick slices of toasted bread, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, pink and fatty bacon and two sausages which were cooked to bursting. This she slammed down in front of me with a large mug of coffee, before retreating behind the bar to watch with interest as I broke my fast.
The gaze of my torturer never left me, despite her attempting to give the impression of cleaning the other tables and polishing glasses and tankards. It would seem that she could not decide whether to be disapproving of my lack of appetite or pleased at my misfortune. With muscles tensed and a resignation that it may not be the last time that I saw this meal, I ploughed in and forced down the lot. The disappointment on her face was incalculable.
‘Very nice, Miss Finnan,’ I called to her. ‘Very nice indeed. Tell me, is there the possibility of another coffee? I feel that a breakfast of that quality should be given the pedigree it deserves and be washed down well!’
‘I’ll get you another straight away,’ she said, and at last the smile which appeared on her lips was not because of my suffering.
Despite my initial feint I still felt unwell inside. Another coffee and a wash followed by a walk in the fresh air would go a long way to returning me to normality.
At that moment Tom Finnan appeared through the door of the pub with a large wooden box full of vegetables and bread. He nodded in my direction.
‘Good morning,’ I called.
‘Morning,’ he replied. ‘I trust that you are feeling a little more stable than you were last night. My sister tells me that you were in the company of Mr Higgins; it takes a strong constitution to manage a night with old Edward and be able to stand straight the following morning.’ He placed the box on the bar and called to Miss Finnan, telling her that he was back.
‘I’m fine,’ I replied. ‘I have had a wonderful breakfast and am looking forward to getting out for a walk.’
‘That sounds like a good plan,’ he said, coming over to my table and sitting opposite me. ‘I feel I must apologise; I did not play the role of gracious host when you arrived last night. Talk of ghosts unsettles me – something that I am forced to tackle now that I am living in this village. My name is Tom Finnan.’ He reached his hand over the table and I received it gratefully.
‘I am Samuel Weaver, and there is no need for apologies. We all have our own beliefs and they should be respected. I promise to keep any of my conversations with spirits away from you for the remainder of my stay. For someone with an aversion to the spirit world, this does seem a strange place to make your living,’ I added, and he smirked at my observation. ‘Tell me, have you been here long?’
‘Less than a year. We previously ran a place in Essex and before that in London. I wanted this pub, though, and negotiated with the previous landlord. I was able to persuade him, eventually.’
‘But why Pluckley?’
‘I have interests in the area. Nothing related to the supernatural, trust me.’ He paused for a moment and sipped his coffee. ‘And what do you do for a job? When you’re not chasing things that don’t exist.’
‘I am an illustrator, of books; nothing interesting really – technical manuals, instructional material, the odd medical book.’ The lie came fluidly to me; I had used it before.
As we continued talking, I found that I actually liked the man; there was an effortless charm about him which made for a perfect landlord. Eventually he finished his coffee and excused himself.
‘I have a meeting later this morning and need to prepare for it,’ he said, looking at his watch.
‘Oh,’ I remembered, retrieving my own watch from my pocket. ‘What is the time now?’
‘Twenty past eight,’ he called over his shoulder, before disappearing into the kitchen.
An ironic grin spread across my face and I hurried upstairs to wash and freshen myself.
***
An hour later, from my vantage point at the window in my room, I saw Tom depart. I grabbed my jacket and satchel and hurried down the stairs, shouting my goodbyes to Miss Finnan and telling her that I would return late
r.
I kept a safe distance from Tom and saw that he had not walked far, only to St Nicholas’s Church some fifty yards away. He was met by a short, thin man with wire-framed spectacles which sat upon his nose precariously. I assumed he was the verger, Mr Williams. The men shook hands and spoke for a few moments before stepping inside. On their disappearance I hurried up the path through the graveyard and made my way to the side of the church. Standing on a pile of yet-to-be-laid gravestones, I peered in through the window. Although the glass was stained, and my view of the inside of the church distorted, I could see that the men were alone inside and stood by the pulpit in discussion. Tom’s arms waved in the air in an animated fashion and there was no way in which I could understand any part of their conversation. Eventually they stopped and Williams led him to the back of the church.
I ran to the front, tried the handle and found that it was unlocked. I needed to get closer to them as the content of their conversation intrigued me. The discovery of any knowledge at all could be of use when I finally broached the subject of Finnan’s dealings with Sibelius Darke. I pushed at the large oaken door of the church and stepped inside.
The church was large, and my footsteps echoed around the walls despite my best efforts to remain quiet. I had decided that if they were to appear and confront me regarding my business in the church, I would say that I was a God-fearing man and visited churches on a daily basis wherever I found myself. This was not true, as I admit that this was the first time that I had stepped into a church building since leaving my father’s guardianship in York. Being raised within a religious family and devout spiritual surroundings had done nothing but repulse me, and I railed against any form of religion.
I could hear the low murmur of voices from a door at the end of the church, voices which quietened to silence as I approached. I stood and waited for their conversation to begin again; however, it did not. After some time I grew weary of waiting any longer and gently knocked upon the door. There was no answer. I knocked again, a little more insistently this time, and called out for attention. Still there was no reply. My hand settled slowly on the handle of the door and, apologising for interrupting, I opened it and found that it was not a room at all but a steep stairway leading down to the crypt.
I stood for a moment and listened for any hint of sound. There was none, and so I stepped lightly down the stone stairs and into the darkness. I found neither Tom nor Mr Williams present and, as I walked around the tombs which lined the low-ceilinged room, I saw that there were no other exits.
Perhaps they had come out of the crypt when I had run to the front door? It was a mystery, to be sure. I hated mysteries. I noted the metal plates which lay upon the stone burial plinths and saw that the majority of them were members of the Dering family. Higgins had mentioned to me last night that both the Red and White Ladies were entombed within this crypt, their bodies held within oak-and-lead-lined coffins in an attempt to preserve their beauty forever. I felt a dark urge to pull the stone lids from one of the coffins. I was sure that, no matter how beautiful these ladies may have been in life, they would be nothing more than bones and dust now. I resisted the urge and walked towards the stairway again, noticing as I went a yellow shield with a black cross upon the wall of one of the arches. The same symbol was evident on each of the Dering coffins and I took this to be part of their coat of arms.
Angry at losing the men, I gave up on my search and left the church. I would return to the Black Horse later in the afternoon in the hope of seeing Finnan again.
I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon revisiting the spots to which I had been introduced by Higgins the previous evening. At each of these I made a sketch of the area, sometimes inserting the ghosts which Higgins had assured me were often seen there. At Frith Corner I drew a few sketches of the Devil’s Bush with the figure of the white-haired man floating on top of it. In daylight the bush seemed completely ordinary. I did not have anything near a rational explanation for what I had seen the previous evening; perhaps it was merely an illusion fuelled by cherry brandy and high spirits.
My image of the devil’s appearance at the bush completed, I then moved on to the dead oak tree at the other side of the road. Here I drew a few pictures of the highwayman Robert du Bois, jumping out to terrorise travellers as they passed, then surrounded by an angry mob and pinned to the old oak tree which had been his hiding place, and finally returning as a spirit to haunt the descendants of those who murdered him. I knew for a fact that my employer, old Mr Purkess, had a particular fondness for tales of highwaymen; and the right pictures, combined with the words, would act as safely ‘banked’ pieces for the paper, which could be rolled out on quiet news weeks.
My drawings finished, I decided that before returning to the pub I would head east out of the village, in the direction in which Higgins had said the manor house, Surrenden, stood. It was not a long walk and I found the manor easily enough, as there was a large wall surrounding the grounds which obscured any view of the house itself. I followed the wall until it finally reached a large set of iron gates which stood between two pillars. Atop each of the pillars sat a large stag’s head, carved in sandstone and staring out towards all who approached; I found myself thinking of the grotesque deer painted in blood upon the wall of the house in Paddington. Underneath each stag’s head were the newly carved words ‘Domini Mortum’; my Latin, although a little rusty, told me that the words meant something such as ‘Lords over Death’, an odd inscription for a country house indeed. I found myself thinking of Mary Pershaw laid upon the floor, her chest opened up and her heart staked to the wall. I would be returning to London the following day and foremost in my mind was to find Abe Thomas to see if there had been any further developments.
I stepped up to the gates and stared through at the winding path, which I assumed led up to the big house, and thought back to my conversation with Higgins in the pub, during which he had told me that for years the manor had been owned by the Dering family. They were no longer in residence, however, and another titled family had taken ownership shortly before Higgins had arrived in Pluckley himself. Higgins was vague regarding their identity, merely saying that it was some toff from the city who had bought the country seat with winnings from a card game.
Hunger gently nudged me and I took a quick sketch of the gates, complete with their adornment and inscription, for no other reason than that they intrigued me, and set off back to the village and the Black Horse.
***
I was met, as I stepped through the doors, by the unnatural sight of Miss Finnan’s smiling face.
‘Is your head recovered enough to deal with a beer?’ she asked. I paused for a moment, thinking about the time of day and the temptations ahead to continue drinking.
‘I think it best if I forced myself, Miss Finnan. I always find that the best way to deal with fear of the unknown is to crash onwards and deal with the consequences later.’
She returned shortly with a full mug and, although the first few tentative sips sent shudders through my body, I found that it was not the painful experience that I had feared it would be.
When Miss Finnan offered me another drink, I politely declined and instead went upstairs, where I lay on my bed gently dozing for a time. I do not know for how long this was as I had long since given up on trying to ascertain the time and had instead decided to enjoy my break away from the deadlines and constraints of London life.
As the evening began and the noise grew in the bar downstairs, I decided to wash and return to my hosts. Tom had not been in the bar earlier, his sister letting slip that he would often go missing for the day to somewhere unknown to her. I still had hopes of breaking down his defences further to find out more of his involvement with the child murderer Sibelius Darke.
I was not disappointed when I entered the bar; Tom Finnan stood behind it busily serving drinks when I walked in. He saw me and nodded hello, shaking his cupped hand in my direction to offer a drink. I pulled up a stool at the b
ar and tried my hand at conversation with him whenever he was available. Over the course of the evening, I discovered little from him, yet found myself having to provide a glut of false biography to him; he was indeed the epitome of a good barman.
My efforts had just begun to grate a little with me when a hand slapped firmly upon my shoulder and I turned to see the ruddy, smiling face of Higgins.
‘A large brandy with a beer to wash it down with, Tom, if you please,’ he said. ‘Samuel, we have business to discuss.’
I stood and followed Edward over to a table tucked away in a dark corner of the room.
‘I’ve given some thought to our… experience last night at Frith Corner,’ he said, his voice low. ‘Something about what or who we saw has niggled at my mind.’
‘I can assure you, Edward, it has not sat easy with me either,’ I said. ‘It is not every evening that the devil is conjured and tries to speak to you.’
‘Well, that’s just it, you see. That is it exactly, old man. I don’t think the devil appeared to us at all.’
‘Do you mean we imagined it?’
‘No, we saw what we saw; I just don’t think that he was the devil. In fact, I think that I’ve seen him before, somewhere else.’
‘Where?’
‘In a dream, Samuel. In a dream.’
I laughed loudly and all the eyes in the room drew to me.
‘Higgins, you are a joy,’ I hissed. ‘A spirit appears before us after I called for Satan to come forth, and you claim that it is an old friend whom you met one night whilst asleep. What next? Are you going to tell me that you commune with Napoleon and Julius Caesar is a drinking companion?’
Domini Mortum Page 7
