The Ghost of Fiddler's Hill: Corazon Books Vintage Romance

by Sheila Burns

  She said, ‘Sir Simon has told me about it, but I warn you, you are behaving very stupidly. It means that you will leave here without a reference and have considerable difficulty in getting another job, which is never too pleasant.’

  Lindy looked up. She said, ‘I’m going to marry him this week, Mrs. Burman. He has gone to London to see about a special licence.’

  To say that this was a shock to Mrs. Burman was putting it mildly. For a moment she quivered, then her common sense refused to believe it.

  ‘You know that he has been married before? Twice?’

  ‘Yes, he has told me.’

  Once more foiled, she dropped her eyes. ‘I think you will live to regret it.’

  ‘I think I shall not.’

  It was late afternoon when Lindy went out into the garden to get fresh flowers for the dining tables. The garden was gratefully pleasant, for the hotel was sheltered by Fiddler’s Hill rising behind it. Then she saw Alan coming to speak to her. The awful part was that she had forgotten him. She had thought he would have gone home by now, but not he! He walked ponderously, he had the air of the schoolmaster who knows that the pupil has done something wrong, and wishes to speak of it.

  ‘I’m sure you’re sorry you went out with that man last night,’ he said, ‘you must have the most awful headache.’

  ‘It’s better than I should have expected.’

  ‘I went over to visit a friend the other side of the county.’ He paused. ‘You know, Lindy, that young man is not the right companion for you. You should drop him.’

  She had to tell him some time and it was better to get it over and done with. She said rather slowly, ‘We are going to be married. He has gone up to London to see about a special licence, and we’ll marry as soon as he gets it.’ She could never have believed that Alan could change so rapidly; he went sheet-white. His eyes seemed to grow smaller than ever behind the gold-rimmed glasses. ‘You’re what?’

  ‘We’re going to get married.’

  ‘But you haven’t known him a week, he could have been married before for all you know.’

  ‘He has been married twice.’ If she did not tell him, somebody else would, and it was best to get it over. ‘He married a girl dying of leukaemia, and his second wife ran off with a Hungarian violinist.’

  ‘So that is the sort of man he is! Whatever has come over you? You will regret this all your days.’

  ‘I shan’t, you know. I’ve made up my mind.’

  ‘He’s dazzled you, just dazzled you. I never heard such a thing. I’d give my whole life to seeing after you, yet you turn me down. That chap’ll love you and leave you, clear off with a lady harpist perhaps. Who knows?’

  Gently she said, ‘Please Alan, I have a right to choose my own life, do leave me alone. You should never have come down here.’

  Rather tragically he said, ‘I came because I thought you’d be glad to see me.’

  They stood by a rockery bright with April flowers. Spring was here and it was the magical springtime of her whole life. I love Simon so much, she thought, and she was a changed personality, the woman who had been born last night sitting in the Jag. with him and listening to him talking. She knew that she loved him. She would be the chatelaine of the other Fiddler’s Hill.

  ‘Of course he’s rich, he has charm and is good-looking, and I am none of these things,’ said Alan, ‘but when he fails you, Lindy, and he will, my arms will be waiting for you. Do remember that.’

  Poor nice Alan. Poor, dreary, disappointing Alan, whom she could never really love. ‘He won’t fail me,’ she said.

  ‘I suppose all girls think that, but you know nothing of him. What he’s like in a temper, his people, what his home is like.’

  ‘His people are dead. It’s no use arguing, Alan, I want him. I just happen to love him.’ She turned away and walked towards the house, and he followed her. They passed pedantic General Smithers who at this hour took military exercise, walking up and down the pergola until he reckoned he had done two miles. There was old Lady Hutchings with her peke Toots going across the lawn to longer grass, for Toots was particular on this point. It must be long grass! Lindy could feel the routine of Fiddler’s Hill all round her, it pulled at her, but there was another Fiddler’s Hill awaiting her by the sea. A house which had stood there at the time of the Jacobean trouble with the Dutch, and where a ghost wept.

  She could not ask Alan to tea, because the staff might not do that, but he booked a dinner, and she felt that was the end.

  Simon came in just before dinner. He flung off a suede driving coat and turned to her.

  ‘It’s all right, sweet, they were wonderful. It all comes of dealing with the same firm, I suppose, and they’ve had me before. There was some difficulty because you are still a minor, but I managed to get in touch with your father. Please don’t be worried, all these things can be managed and it is too easy.’ Then, ‘I want a word with you for a moment.’

  He came to the far side of the reception desk and brought a small case out of his pocket. ‘You’ll want this, and I do so hope it fits you. It’s the outward and visible sign of a bond between us.’

  It was a small velvet case, and she opened it to see a big diamond solitaire ring blinking at her. She knew that it must have cost hundreds, and the gleam went into her heart.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she whispered and was carried away by the supremeness of the moment. It was almost as though she were uplifted out of herself.

  ‘Then don’t say it, just wear it.’

  She slipped it on to her finger, a brilliant flashing solitaire, strangely alien to hands which had never known rings before. It was at this moment that Alan came out of the dining-room where he had been eating. Somehow the sight of him made her resolve absolutely final.

  Chapter Seven

  Alan returned to his job at the end of the long week-end and Mrs. Burman maintained her frigid calm. Nothing happened in the hotel, when perhaps everything happened in Lindy’s own heart. Doubt. Fear. Terror at times lest later she would discover that the dream was in ashes. She was still afraid.

  On the Wednesday afternoon Davies appeared on his bicycle carrying a parcel which was badly wrapped up in brown paper. He said that he wished to speak to her ‘private’. Mrs. Burman was away and it was easy to take him into the inner office. He had brought her a wedding present, something which he wished her to have, only she’d better keep it dark! She would have done that anyway for she realised what was afoot. When she opened it, she found inside a very attractive silver teapot, bearing the initials A.M. and obviously something that Davies had ‘come by’. She did not know what to do. It was, as she said, far too good for her and most awfully nice of him, but she did not think that she ought to accept it. He insisted that it was all above-board and quite clean, whatever she thought, and enthusiastically pressed it on to her. In the end she took it into her little room, realising as she did so that, in but a few hours from now, she would have left this place for ever to go to another Fiddler’s Hill.

  On the last evening Mrs. Burman said, ‘I may not see you in the morning, so I’ll say good-bye now, I wish you well,’ and she said it in a voice which meant nothing of the kind.

  ‘Thank you.’

  That night Simon came back from London and had the special licence in his pocket. He walked across the moonlit yard with her to her stable room last thing and told her the plan. It was one of those starry nights which come so glowingly with April. He had arranged for them to be married first thing tomorrow, in the little church which stood on the edge of the hotel grounds, and then they would set off for the other Fiddler’s Hill.

  She said rather hesitantly, ‘I ‒ I’ve got no clothes, only just what I stand up in.’

  ‘I thought that might worry you, and I have a friend who runs part of a big store in Oxford Street. I hope they are all right, I had to guess at your size, and there is a little mink jacket, she thought you would like that.’

  A little mink jacket! She ha
d never thought of such a thing for herself, it seemed unbelievable. He lingered with kind arms about her, and the stable yard became a garden of Eden.

  ‘I ‒ I pray nothing’ll go wrong,’ she whispered.

  ‘How could it? We are the two luckiest people in the world, in love.’

  ‘We know so little about each other.’

  ‘I know enough, I feel. Perhaps I ought to tell you again that I can be difficult, perhaps all men are. I have strange moods of my own, quiet times when I don’t want to talk, when I want to be alone. On the other side of me I’m madly impulsive.’ That was, of course, the side she knew ‒ and loved. ‘I’m daring in some ways, a hermit in others. It ‒ it’s difficult to explain.’

  ‘I’ll try to understand.’

  ‘And the house ‒ Fiddler’s Hill. Some people feel that there is something strange about it, almost ghostly. I find it warm and friendly, and I believe that you will love it as I do.’

  He paused a moment, then he spoke more quickly. ‘Remember that this Fiddler’s Hill has been a ruin, almost down when I bought it, and it has risen again on its own ashes. That gives a strange quality to the house where you will be mistress.’

  ‘I shall love it, I’m sure. I’ve got to love it,’ and tonight with the stars and the strong scent of daffodils nearby, she believed that nothing could change the happiness she felt at this moment.

  He said, ‘My own dear one! Do you know that night when I came here first I saw that big swinging sign which said Fiddler’s Hill Hotel. An omen, something of home. I turned in at the gate, and the car collided with the wall, but I knew that fate had turned me to the hotel, and when I saw you at the desk I knew that you were fate.’

  ‘I wonder.’

  The church clock struck the warning for midnight.

  She turned and kissed him quickly. ‘We must not meet before we meet at church,’ she whispered, and turning fled from him and into her stable bedroom.

  There was a big parcel on the bed which bore the name of a famous shop. She opened it, half afraid. A mink jacket, soft as silk. A soft pale blue woollen dress against which her light red hair would look lovely, she knew; Simon must have told his friend of the red hair. Silken underclothes and stockings. A second frock of floral silk, green like weed on a country river, and patterned with a tracery of forget-me-not blue. They were the sort of lovely things that she had never had, and touched now with reverent fingers. They were her future.

  She was half-dressed next morning when Davies appeared bringing her a breakfast tray as though she were a guest.

  ‘I brought you this, miss,’ he said beaming.

  ‘How good you are!’

  He said haltingly, ‘I suppose Sir Simon wouldn’t be wanting a first-class, all-round chap to come along and be his handy-man, like? I’d do anything, not mind about the hours, or that, always ready to please.’

  She read the truth behind those pleading eyes. ‘You are into trouble again, Davies?’

  ‘Only a little spot of bother, like,’ and he grinned. ‘People are that misunderstanding! I like Essex, was born there.’

  ‘I’d like you to be with us, and I’ll speak to Sir Simon about it,’ she said.

  ‘I could come straight away. There’d be no bother. I don’t have to give notice nor nothink.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  He has been up to no good again, she told herself, and I do so hope it isn’t that teapot.

  She dressed slowly.

  She had never thought that she would wear a frock like this soft blue one, or a mink jacket. She went round the side of the hotel to the car where Simon was waiting for her, and they did not say a word. They drove round to the little church at the far end of the grounds. The building itself was veiled by the thickening trees, and she saw that the graves in the churchyard were wreathed with spring flowers. A woodpecker tapped in those trees.

  They went into the church hand in hand, and she saw the priest waiting for them, after which it seemed that she went into a daze. She would never remember the details, but perhaps no bride ever remembered those. She knew what was happening, but it was far from her, never near. His words. Her words. A dreadful solemnity, yet a wonderful sense of emotion within. A consciousness of supreme joy.

  It was only when they were signing the register that she saw someone else coming into the vestry and knew that Davies must have been in the church all the time. Simon turned to him.

  ‘We wanted another witness,’ he said, and handed Davies his gold pen.

  She was married. It had all happened so suddenly, and she was surprised that she did not feel different, yet she was different in an unbelievable way. They went out to the waiting car with Davies standing there holding open the door for them.

  Simon had a wallet in his hand and he brought out a wad of notes for Davies. ‘Now you follow along after us, because you’re coming into our service. Steal from anybody else in the world whom you wish, but if you value your life, not from us. Understand? If you do steal from us you’ll get it hot and strong.’

  Davies grinned. ‘Righty-ho!’ he said.

  They drove away and she looked back at Fiddler’s Hill in the valley behind them, then they covered the miles quickly. They travelled fast and lunched as soon as they got through London, when there was countryside in sight. It was different country from Sussex and Surrey, with no undulating hills and deeply lush valleys, yet somehow it had a personality which Lindy liked.

  She dozed a little. Curiously enough today had been enormously exhausting. Then they came to the old city of Colchester perched high, and Simon proudly told her that here once a Caesar had trod.

  They turned on to the coast road, flattish, with not so many trees, and faintly the salty flavour of sea itself. Lindy felt tired now, and suddenly apprehensive in a way that she had not expected. Possibly getting married was a strain, a contract which one feared might go wrong, yet how could it go wrong when they were so much in love?

  She wished that Simon would talk to her. If he talked she would have been happier, but maybe this was one of his quiet moments which he had spoken of last night? Maybe she had to learn to put up with a man who did not chatter but had patches of silence.

  Rather helplessly she said at last, ‘This is our wedding day,’ and turning clasped his hand on the wheel. ‘Oh Simon, love me for ever, for that is all I ask.’

  He said, still looking ahead as he drove, ‘That is written inside your wedding ring. Love me for ever. Did you guess?’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘You mustn’t take it off. It’s unlucky to take it off.’

  ‘And I will love you for ever.’ Her voice had sunk down into a whisper.

  Now they were coming nearer to the sea. The distance had a cobalt haze on it, whilst to the left there was the first sight of the backwater, and marshland, and the sound of bird life. It was quite flat now, and the trees were bent forward, pushed this way by the prevailing wind. Ultimately they came to a seaside town, and now she knew that the hyacinth mist on her right was not mist at all, but water. THE SEA!

  The town was small and squalid-looking. Little shops everywhere, cafés for the summer, when they would be full. A church to the right, and an old-time esplanade of Victorian boarding-houses, now posing as private hotels.

  They drove through the town and came to a road with sea to the right and estuary to the left. Ahead were more houses, a separate little cluster of them, and then the road began to climb again, up a hill which had real trees.

  ‘This is Fiddler’s Hill,’ he said. ‘In a moment you’ll see the house.’

  She leant forward eager to see it as it first came into view. She saw the wild land which topped the cliffs, and the earthy cliffs sloping down; to the left the square gaunt box of a mansion, darkly grey. It was not what she had expected it to be, it had about it a quality which arrested her attention. She leant further forward to see more of it, and instantly knew that it was sinister. She was appalled by it. Even worse ‒ much worse �
�� she feared it.

  Chapter Eight

  Lindy now stayed silent.

  They turned away from the heath-like waste land and in at the wide gate. She saw that an avenue of budding trees seemed to be almost welcoming, and that there were crocuses, scillas and primroses growing in the grass beneath them. It was very pleasant. The road curved round, and now they came to the façade of the house. It was indomitably grey, a colour which she detested, but the big doors were studded, and there were curtains at the long windows.

  He stopped the car and got out.

  He scooped her up in his arms and carried her across the one wide step.

  ‘It’s an old-time custom,’ he told her, and kissed her before he set her down.

  They went inside into the hall.

  It was a very high hall going up to the top of the house, and on the right there rose a magnificent stairway of shallow gentle stairs. The carpet was deep amber, a glorious warm colour, and it curled round with the stairs and went on higher and into the distance. She stood there uncertainly. It was at that moment that she heard the sound of a woman crying.

  ‘It always makes that noise when the wind is in a certain quarter,’ Simon said. ‘Don’t be silly! It doesn’t mean a thing. Come along in and have a drink.’

  They went across the hall. A big Persian rug sprawled on light oak so polished that one could have used it as a mirror. Now she could see that the stairs curled easily round and round far away to the top. Simon led the way and opened the door on to an octagon-shaped room. It was the dining-room. It was painted a creamy white, with a darker skirting, and had red satin curtains from ceiling to floor. She went across to the long windows, and now she could see that the sea ran on one side of the house, and the estuary lay on the other. To the north there was the wild land, moor-like, with gorse bushes ablaze in their springtime glory. Yet so wild. It looked as if no man had ever trodden there. This waste land ran far ahead to the point where the earth ended and the sea came round to feed the estuary.