Ghosts of Yorkshire

by Karen Perkins

  ‘Auntie Verity has, and one of the builders did. He ran away scared, didn’t he, Mummy? I’m not scared though, not any more, not of her or the man. Or the ghost in our room at the hotel. I’m not, am I, Mummy?’

  William looked rather taken aback by this, but rallied valiantly. ‘It sounds like you’re a very brave girl – that’s a lot of ghosts not to be scared of.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it, Mummy? A lot of ghosts. They don’t scare me though.’

  ‘Okay, Hannah, how about we look at these pictures?’ Lara tried again to distract her daughter.

  Hannah’s babbling had at least given me time to recover my wits, and I turned my attention back to William. ‘I’m looking for a couple of dozen landscapes,’ I started.

  ‘Prints or originals?’

  ‘Prints – preferably related to the Brontës and the village.’

  William nodded and I realised he’d hear this criteria from most of his customers.

  ‘They’re to go in the guest rooms as well as the public areas,’ I continued, ‘and be available for sale to guests, so I was hoping we could make a sale or return arrangement.’

  ‘Sale or return,’ he repeated. ‘And when would you return them if they didn’t sell?’

  I stayed quiet, unprepared for this question, but he took pity on me and broke the silence.

  ‘I can’t do that I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘If I did I’d have prints hanging in every guesthouse and hotel in the dale, but I’d have no money coming in. This is how I make my living, I do need to sell my work.’

  He sighed and rubbed his hand over the dark stubble on his chin. I wondered if the growth was from overnight or if he had indeed shaved that morning, then caught myself and brought my mind back to the business at hand.

  ‘As you’d like a bulk order, I can offer you a 25 per cent discount on the lot, or you can buy half at full price, and I’ll let you have the rest on sale or return – but only for six months. If you don’t sell any, I’ll take them back, or you’d need to buy them.’

  ‘At 25 per cent off?’

  He shook his head. ‘One or the other, I’m afraid. It’s up to you and how many you think you can realistically sell.’

  I stayed silent, thinking.

  ‘And if she buys them at the discount, then sells, what would you offer at that point?’ Lara asked.

  William smiled, but didn’t take his eyes off me. ‘If you’re making sales, then we can definitely renegotiate.’

  He stared at me a moment longer, his colour rising once more. ‘When do you open?’

  ‘Easter,’ I said.

  ‘So you wouldn’t need them straight away,’ he mused, then met Hannah’s eyes – big, grey and round, staring back at him, full of hope – and his face softened, then hardened once more as he returned his attention to me.

  ‘Earnshaw did you say your name was?’

  ‘Yes, my father grew up in Keighley, but his ancestors came from this area. He always joked one of his relations inspired Emily Brontë’s Cathy.’

  ‘But you’re Verity.’

  ‘My middle name’s Catherine.’ I blushed; I hated admitting that.

  William nodded. ‘Well, you’re a local then.’ He smiled. ‘Tell you what, if you let me hang the pictures and have my card in the frame, I’ll let you have them for three months after opening, on spec. Then you decide which deal you want. Can’t say fairer than that.’

  Hannah clapped her hands, but was silenced by her mother’s hand over her mouth.

  I considered for a moment, then held my hand out. ‘Deal,’ I said. ‘Nice doing business with you.’

  He took my hand and I jolted at the sensation of our palms touching again. By the look in his eyes, he had felt it too.

  We let go at Lara’s cough and I wondered just how long we’d been standing in the gallery holding hands. I was surprised to hear myself say, ‘When would you like to pop in to have a look around The Rookery? We’ll be in tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow it is then, as soon as I’ve shut up shop.’

  ‘See you then.’ I hesitated, unwilling to leave, but eventually followed Lara and Hannah back out on to Main Street.

  Hannah ran on ahead up the steep hill and Lara linked her arm with mine as we followed far more slowly.

  ‘What was all that about? Why were you acting so weird in there?’

  ‘That,’ I said, ‘was the man I’ve been dreaming about.’

  4.

  ‘I clear this space of all negative energy and call in angelic light and love to fill this place,’ Lara intoned yet again, then held the smouldering bundle of sage under the tap before putting it into a bowl.

  ‘When it’s dry you can relight it and do the same again,’ she said.

  ‘Uh huh,’ I replied, my arms folded and my nose wrinkled in scepticism.

  Lara glanced at me, frustrated. ‘I thought you were going to try this, Verity.’

  ‘We are trying it.’

  ‘No, you’re watching me try it – again. This is your home, you need to embrace it or the intentions have no power.’

  ‘It’ll only work if I believe in it, you mean?’

  Lara sighed. ‘Essentially, yes.’ She held up a hand to forestall my mocking harrumph. ‘It’s all about intention. If you believe and mean the words, that gives them the power to manifest – become true.’ She paused and looked at me in exasperation.

  ‘Have you ever lost something?’

  ‘Of course I have.’ I laughed.

  ‘And what do you say to yourself while you’re looking for it? Say for example, you can’t find the TV remote, what’s running through your head while you’re searching?’

  ‘Um, where’s the bloody remote? I can’t find it anywhere. Something like that.’

  ‘And do you find it?’

  ‘Eventually.’

  ‘But not while you’re telling yourself you can’t find it, right?’

  I thought for a moment and relaxed a bit. ‘Well, usually I’ve given up, gone to get a cup of coffee or glass of wine, come back into the lounge and then I find it.’

  ‘Probably somewhere you’ve already looked, right?’

  ‘Well, yes, usually. That could just be age though.’ I laughed.

  Lara smiled. ‘Or it could be that you didn’t see it because you were telling yourself that you couldn’t find it, and you believed that.’

  I shrugged. She was starting to make sense.

  ‘Next time you lose something, instead of telling yourself you can’t find it, tell yourself it will be in the next place you look.’

  ‘If I tell myself that often enough, it will eventually be in the next place I look.’

  ‘But I bet you find it long before you give up, get a drink, then find it somewhere you’ve already searched.’

  I said nothing. I’d have to try it first.

  ‘It’s the same thing here – the cleansing we’re doing with the sage and candle is about setting your intention. In the same way as telling yourself you will find what is lost, you are telling yourself and anything listening that you want only peace here.’

  ‘Okay, I guess that makes sense,’ I admitted, ‘but do I really have to wave burning herbs around? I can’t imagine my guests enjoying the smell, it stinks like a doss house!’

  ‘Yes, unfortunate that burning herbs all smell the same – including cannabis, as Jayne so kindly pointed out before Christmas.’ Lara smiled. ‘No, just do the sage when the place is empty and you’re cleaning and airing the rooms anyway. The rest of the time use a candle.’

  ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘I’ll show you, we’ll do it now.’ Lara dug into her shopping bag and pulled out a small votive candle in a glass holder. She lit it and handed it to me.

  ‘I want you to move it in continuous clockwise circles,’ she said. ‘Get into every corner of every room, and spend a bit of extra time in the well-used places like I did with the sage: over your bed, the dining table, sofa, that kind of thing. And keep repeating the intent
ion.

  I nodded and started. ‘I cleanse this place of all negative energy— I feel like a right wally,’ I interrupted myself, self-conscious again.

  ‘No one’s laughing at you, Verity, and being a right wally may not be the best intention to set, no matter how apt it is at the moment.’

  I narrowed my eyes at her and she laughed.

  ‘Keep going. I did it and I’m none the worse for wear.’ She smiled to reassure me. ‘It doesn’t feel so weird after you’ve done it a few times. Trust me.’

  I held her gaze for a moment, then nodded. I did trust her, and I had no better ideas.

  I raised the candle again and started to move through the rooms, circling and chanting – with the odd prompt from Lara.

  ‘I cleanse this place of all negative energy and call in angelic light and love to fill this space.’

  We moved through the rooms, pausing in my bedroom to check on Hannah – fast asleep on my bed, exhausted from her insistence on running up Main Street ahead of us, then returning to chivvy us along up the steep slope.

  ‘Downstairs too?’

  ‘Every single room on every single floor,’ Lara said. ‘And every single day, too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You need to keep doing it until you fully believe in what you’re saying, until the intention of light and love is as much a part of you as the blood that runs through your veins. Then you’ll be safe.’

  ‘How long will that take?’

  No answer.

  ***

  ‘Still feel like a wally?’

  ‘No-no, I don’t. I feel weird, peaceful somehow.’

  Lara nodded, smiling.

  ‘Probably all the candle and sage smoke gone to my head!’ I joked.

  Lara’s smile grew wider, her eyes crinkling in honest pleasure. She said nothing, though, just poured us both a glass of wine. ‘I think we’ve earned this,’ she said. ‘Cheers.’

  We clinked glasses and drank.

  ‘What?’ I said, defensive again at the look in her eyes over the rim of her glass.

  ‘What do you think about a tarot reading?’

  ‘I don’t know, Lara, that makes me uncomfortable.’

  ‘You’re spending too much time with Jayne,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, nothing sinister about the cards, they’re just a tool to allow us to understand what our subconscious and intuition already know.’

  ‘Oh what the hell,’ I said. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound. Just don’t go telling me when I’ll die or anything like that.’

  ‘The cards don’t predict death,’ Lara said, ‘only the most likely outcomes of current situations.’

  ‘I thought there was a death card.’

  ‘There is – but it means change, a letting go of a way of life, not the end of a life.’

  I nodded. To be fair, I was intrigued by the tarot. Lara had never been wrong in the past when she’d persuaded me to sit for a reading. Something about them just unnerved me though, and I’d never embraced the cards.

  ‘Best to do it quickly before we have more wine,’ Lara said, and I laughed as she took another gulp, then I gulped myself, took the bottle and followed her to the table.

  As she unwrapped her cards from the silk purple scarf in which she kept them, I topped up our glasses.

  ‘Dutch courage.’ I shrugged at her frown and took a sip.

  She said nothing, but shuffled the cards, her eyes closed and face blank in concentration.

  I sipped again as I waited, then took the cards when Lara proffered them, and shuffled them myself as she instructed.

  Handing them back, she laid them out, face down in three columns of three cards each, then looked at me. ‘Ready?’

  I gulped my wine, noticing that Lara had drunk no more, then took another drink and set my empty glass down. ‘Ready.’

  Lara turned over the top row of cards.

  ‘This represents your past,’ she said, ‘and there are no surprises here – always a good thing at this stage.’ She smiled up at me and I refilled my glass.

  ‘Seven of Cups. That’s delusion, believing somebody who’s been lying to you.’

  ‘Antony,’ I confirmed, sipping again.

  Lara nodded. ‘Then the Three of Swords. Discord – that’s the divorce card – and the third one is the Tower. Your old life falling down.’

  ‘Sounds about right,’ I said, lifting the glass to my lips again. I quirked an eyebrow at my friend. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea? I think we’ll need more wine if it carries on like this.’

  Lara reached over and laid her hand over mine. ‘This is a reflection of the past, Verity. It’s nothing you don’t already know, and actually the Tower is a good card to end on.’

  I stared at the picture on the card. A bolt of lightning striking a tall, lone stone keep, fire spewing from the upper floors, stonework tumbling.

  ‘It means the slate’s wiped clean and you can rebuild, with stronger foundations. It means a new life is beginning.’

  I grinned, looking around me and opening my arms wide to indicate The Rookery. ‘Very apt.’

  Lara smiled and bent her head back to the spread of cards. ‘The next row is your present. The Fool, the Chariot and the Eight of Wands.’

  ‘The Fool, that sounds about right.’

  Lara ignored me. ‘The Fool means you’re at the beginning of a new journey, and judging by the Chariot that follows it, it’ll be quite a ride!’ She looked up and took a sip of her wine. ‘You’ll need willpower and hard work, but you have both of those in you in spades. And you’ll persevere.’ She spread her own arms out, repeating my earlier gesture. ‘I think this place will be a success.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that.’ I giggled, growing tipsy now.

  ‘Then this one.’ Lara tapped the Eight of Wands. ‘These are the arrows of love.’

  ‘The arrows of love? Christ, I don’t need any of that, thank you very much. Antony has very definitely rid me of any appetite for love!’

  ‘Really? Watching you in that art gallery today, I could have sworn I saw you salivating.’

  I blushed, but I wasn’t ready to talk about that – I needed far more wine before I could even start to get my head round meeting that man. ‘And what about the next cards, the future?’

  Lara unsuccessfully tried to hide a smug smile, then grew serious again. ‘The Moon, the Hanged Man, and the Lovers,’ she said as she turned the cards over.

  I stayed silent, my heart doing funny things at the appearance of the last two cards.

  ‘The moon is about your dreams,’ Lara said, eyebrows raised.

  ‘You’re joking!’

  She shook her head. ‘Pay attention to them, truths are contained within your dreams, truths you need to know and understand.’

  I sipped my wine, feeling unaccountably sober again. ‘And the Hanged Man?’ I almost whispered the words.

  ‘Does not mean death,’ Lara reassured, her hand once again atop mine. ‘It can mean sacrifice, or can be about perspective. Coming after the Moon card, I think it’s telling you to look at things in a different way. See how the man is hanging upside down from his foot? He’s telling you to be open-minded, don’t jump to conclusions, and look at things from every angle before acting.’

  I nodded then giggled again. ‘You don’t have to tell me what the Lovers means!’

  Lara tilted her head to her right shoulder. ‘Not quite what you’re thinking – it indicates choices to be made, although probably to do with a lover. It can often mean the start of a significant relationship.’

  I giggled again, my earlier protestations forgotten.

  ‘Verity.’ Lara grabbed my hand again and I winced at the strength of her grip. ‘Make the right choice – be very careful.’

  I wrenched my hand away. ‘Lara, what the hell?’

  She blinked a few times and looked confused, then gasped.

  Two balls of light hovered over the spread of cards on the table, then slowly moved around ea
ch other and rose to the ceiling, where they circled around the room.

  I jumped to my feet, Lara a split second behind me, when I spotted the hazy figure of the Grey Lady standing in the kitchen area, her back to us.

  Lara and I grabbed each other and stood frozen, fingers intertwined, and stared as the figure turned to look at us.

  She was petite, barely taller than Hannah, and very slender. Her hair – it was impossible to see the colour of it but it seemed dark – was bound up under a bonnet, but careless curls, not quite ringlets, escaped its confines and framed her bony, pinched face.

  Her gown was modest; the lace trimming the neck of it brushed the base of her skull, the sleeves puffed from the shoulders, and the waist was impossibly nipped in.

  Corset, I thought. She’s wearing a corset.

  The skirt bloomed large from the hips and brushed the floor – no, extended through the floor.

  I raised my eyes again to her face, and gasped. She was staring at me with such a look of pity and – sorrow – yes, that was it, sorrow, I felt tears prickle my eyes.

  She turned her face forward again and moved, very slowly, until the kitchen units, then the wall swallowed her up.

  She was gone.

  Lara dragged her hand out of mine and fell back into her chair – hard enough to hurt. She stretched out a shaky hand, took hold of her glass, and after a couple of attempts, drained it in one.

  I retook my own seat and stared at her.

  ‘Bloody hell, Verity,’ she said. ‘Tha-that was a ghost. That was a real ghost.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve never actually seen a ghost before!’

  5.

  The Reverend Patrick Brontë regarded the couple standing before him, and a rare smile flitted across his face as his eyes met the groom’s. The lad’s left it long enough, Haworth’s parson thought, but it’s good to see him wed at last.

  ‘Harry Sutcliffe, wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?’