I stand by the gatepost, watching the cart trundle down the coffin path, past the black bones of the barn, cold and damp now in the rain, roof beams pointing skywards, like a fallen crucifix. Beyond that, up on the fell, lost in cloud, the flock is waiting for me.
Ellis, watching him go too, raises a hand in solemn salute. There is an ache in my chest. We both know we will not see John Bestwicke again. He looks at me and, for the briefest moment, I see real sadness in his eyes. Then he rests his hand gently upon my shoulder.
I am not alone, I think. I am not alone, because Ellis Ferreby is by my side.
Autumn
Chapter 26
Scarcross Hall is quiet.
Ellis checks the bolts on the front door and rattles the shutters at the kitchen window to make sure they are secured. Each night, when the rest of the household has retired, he paces the corridors, checking the catches and poking at embers, unable to rest until he is sure there is no danger. Only then can he creep silently to the small chamber next to hers and fold himself into the truckle bed to drift in half-sleep, wakeful and stirring through the small hours, knowing she is doing the same.
But tonight, as he crosses the hall and opens the dog gate to take the stairs, he notices a dim glow from beneath the door of Booth’s study. He expects to find an unsnuffed candle – the man has a habit of leaving them to burn – but the door opens and he finds himself face to face with Booth himself.
‘Ah, it’s you,’ the old man says, relieved.
Ellis waits, unsure how to respond.
‘Do you like brandy, Master Ferreby?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Booth steps back, beckons him. ‘Come. But keep your voice down. We must be careful not to wake the ladies.’
Inside, a lone high-backed chair, with elaborate carved armrests, is set before a dying peat fire. A single candle burns on the mantel. Though Ellis has included this room on his nightly rounds, he has done so quickly, furtively, and in darkness, with a sense of trespassing. Now, invited for the first time, he has leisure to take it in.
The flagstones are strewn with worn rush mats, crowded with boxes, chests and mismatched furniture. He notices several small piles of rocks on the floor: grey moorland gritstone, flints and stream-smoothed pebbles of the sort the boy, Sam, likes to collect. The walls are panelled, once brightly painted, now drab and smoke-stained. The rich tang of peat smoke cannot hide a denser, mildewed scent: he recognises the pervading reek of the house, dank and decaying, as if the damp of the moor has crept into the stones.
Booth drags another chair, similarly decorated but older still, the wood darkened and cracked with age, from behind his desk and places it next to his own. He indicates that Ellis should sit. Then he goes to a low chest and fetches a stoppered brown bottle. He picks up two pewter cups from a small cupboard in the wainscot and returns to the fireside.
‘Aqua vitae,’ he says, placing the bottle and cups on a low table between them. ‘Will you take some?’
‘Mistress Booth told me you don’t approve of drink.’
‘I don’t approve of drunkenness. That is not the same thing.’ Booth smiles conspiratorially and Ellis is compelled. The old man is clear-eyed tonight, the addled, absent look seemingly gone. He sees a flash of Booth as a younger man and wants to stare, wishing he could watch him unobserved.
Ellis takes a cup and drinks, enjoying the rare burn of the liquor as it heats his blood.
‘I’m glad to have this chance to speak with you,’ Booth says, sitting. ‘Something has been preying on my conscience.’ He takes a sip and leans back, holding Ellis in his gaze. ‘I should not have blamed you for the fire that night. And I’ve not thanked you for what you did for John Bestwicke.’
‘I did what any man would.’
Booth shakes his head. ‘You risked your life for another. Not every man would do the same. Many would fail such a test.’ He contemplates his cup for a few seconds, then drains it. ‘I’ll admit I know nothing of you, Master Ferreby, and for many years I’ve not had much to do with strangers. So much time alone makes a man suspicious. But your actions speak well of you. And Mercy tells me you’re a good man to have about the place. Now, I don’t know about that, but I trust my daughter and I’m grateful that you’ve chosen to stay when you needn’t. Others would have sought better wages elsewhere. It shows loyalty. It shows determination. But it occurs to me that perhaps you have some other motive for staying.’ Booth eyes him, then picks up the bottle and refills both cups.
Is this Booth’s attempt to take the measure of him, now he’s part of the household? So be it. Ellis leaves the silence to be filled by the hiss and grunt of the fire, the gust of wind in the chimney. He has no need to defend himself.
‘Will you take a pipe?’ Booth asks.
‘Gladly.’
Booth stands, groaning as he straightens, then hobbles over to his desk. As usual it is covered with papers, wooden boxes, several quills and a stained inkpot. He takes up one of the larger boxes and returns, laying it open on the table. Four unused clay pipes nestle bowl to bowl, their clean white stems reminding Ellis of flesh-stripped ribs. He thinks of the small scorched bones of the lamb, burned and buried up at the White Ladies. Booth takes out a smaller box, opens it, and Ellis catches the strong, earthy scent of tobacco.
Booth fidgets, searching the floor near his chair, kicking and upturning a pewter tankard. A puddle of liquid soaks the matting, the smell of piss rising, but Booth ignores it. He goes to the desk and begins to shuffle through papers, muttering to himself. ‘Bring the candle, will you? I cannot find the tapers.’
Ellis stands, takes the candle from the mantel and joins him. Amid the jumble of news books, pamphlets and scrawled ledgers, he notices a number of maps, crudely drawn and sparse in detail.
Booth is distracted, turned away to search for the tapers on a sideboard, and Ellis has a few moments to study the largest map. Across the top of the paper is the inscription Scarcross Hall, but he would know that anyway: here is a building with a central hall, a squat wing at either end, and here another, smaller, rectangular, where the barn once stood, and several more nearby – the stables and outbuildings. A faint line winds away from the house – the coffin path. He runs his finger along it until it meets with another to form a cross. Beyond that, a stretch of white space and a little dotted circle: the White Ladies.
‘You’re interested in my maps, I see,’ Booth says, at his shoulder.
‘This is Scarcross Hall, as the birds must see it.’
‘It’s strange, is it not, to see our little world so reduced, all God’s creation represented by a few lines on a piece of parchment?’ Booth points to the collection of buildings. ‘Here, the very walls in which we stand, this room no bigger than my thumb. And here,’ he traces the line of the coffin path to the crossroads, ‘our link to the wider world. To think that all our friends, all good news and bad, comes to us and leaves us by this faded trail. How insubstantial it seems.’
Ellis runs a fingertip along a broken line that encircles the land and buildings, runs down into the valley and up the fell-side, almost to the circle of stones.
‘Ah, now! That marks the boundary of my land.’ Booth spreads the paper and lifts the candle so that light falls across the page. ‘It’s too dark for me, but you have younger eyes. This shows everything I own, everything I’ve worked for. It contains everything most dear to me. How strange to think so.’
Ellis finds himself entranced. Out on the fell, it’s impossible to tell where the Booth land begins and ends. The common grazing on the moor top, the boundaries with other farms, are not marked out by walls, byres or brooks: they are kept by promises and ancient knowledge that passes from father to son and cannot be written down. This is the land that bred her, the land she loves and fears in equal parts, and it cannot have edges because, out there on the moor, it seems boundless and untameable.
He has a sudden urge to snatch up the paper and toss it onto the fire, and another, competing, to steal the thing away, to hold the knowledge close, to translate it to heath and beck and crag. ‘The Scarcross land stretches further than I thought,’ he says, feeling a flush of heat rise to his cheeks. ‘And yet it does not seem big enough.’
Booth looks at him, surprised. ‘You have it exactly. Ah! Here they are.’ He brandishes several thin rush lights. ‘Come, take a pipe.’
Booth says nothing more until he is seated with a smoking pipe in hand. Ellis watches as little curls of tobacco flare and float upwards, dying as quickly as they are lit. ‘How many acres is the farm?’ he asks, when his own pipe is burning, the charred, woody smoke curling in his nostrils, the taste bitter on his tongue.
Booth seems not to hear. ‘Can you keep your silence, Master Ferreby? I think you can. You do not seem the chattering sort to me.’
‘You’re not the first to say so.’
‘Then I’ll tell you of the plan I have for Scarcross Hall. Mercy will fight against it, of course, but it will be better for her in the end.’ Booth squints at him through red-rimmed eyes. ‘Can I trust you?’
Ellis recognises the signs of a man not used to drink. ‘Why would I spill the secrets of the man who keeps me in brandy and tobacco?’
Booth laughs. ‘Indeed. Here, have some more.’ He takes up the bottle, leans forward and pours clumsily.
Ellis holds his eye for a second, feeling a flutter of portent.
‘There are men – rich men – looking to buy land,’ Booth says. ‘These men are sending agents about the country, looking for places where they might acquire it. Now, this is harsh land, as you know, and it’s not an easy living, but it’s still worth something, and with the house it would bring a tidy sum. My daughter would have enough to settle elsewhere – to try a different sort of life. She’s not too old to do that, is she? She’s not too old to start again?’
Ellis shakes his head. Why is Booth telling him this?
Booth goes on: ‘I must prepare for the day I leave this life – no, do not protest, Master Ferreby. I’m an old man and my health is not what it was, there’s no sense in denying it. That day will come soon enough. But when it does, God forgive me, Mercy will discover I’ve not been entirely truthful with her. I’ve let her believe that all in my possession, everything on that map there,’ he flaps a hand towards the desk, ‘will come to her. But, my dilemma is, I must leave Scarcross Hall to a male heir. And I do not have one. So, what am I to do?’
Ellis’s heart is thumping. Booth looks at him, bleary-eyed now, as the brandy takes hold. He seems suddenly older, worn down.
‘I always thought she would take a husband, you see. Then, in time, a child would come. A boy. But she has always refused. And now the hand of time is upon us. She’s no longer so young.’
‘Does she not know this?’ Ellis asks, recalling his conversation with the Garricks some months ago and Dority’s fierce insistence that Booth would do right by his daughter.
‘I never thought there was need. I never doubted that there would be a grandchild to take my place. And now I find I do not have the heart to tell her.’
Ellis knows why. It would break hers.
‘She will fight against my decision, but I can see no better path. Besides, I think it best to give her a new start. That was my hope when I first came here. I wanted to be somewhere I was not known. And it worked, for a while. I made a good life for us here. But now . . . things have changed.’
‘How so?’ Ellis asks carefully.
Booth draws on his pipe, frowns. ‘I was a much younger man then. I thought I could keep the past at bay. I believed that, with God’s blessing, it was possible here. I find I no longer have the same convictions.’
There is a pause and Ellis waits in silence, hoping for more, but it does not come. He may not have such a chance again to ask the questions that run through his mind, but he must be cautious. ‘Why the need for such a place?’
Booth sighs. ‘I sought peace. The first time I came here I felt the presence of God. Somehow, the divide between the corporeal and the spiritual seemed more fragile here. I thought there was nothing between a man and his Saviour on these moors. It was during the wars and that kind of peace was hard to find back then. I could not stand the idea of another town – all those people bickering and blaming – and I could not bear to stay where I was.’ He stops suddenly, takes a deep draw on his cup. ‘Tell me, were you ever a fighting man, Master Ferreby?’
‘Never.’
‘I thought not. You’ve the look of a shepherd, not a soldier. Let me tell you this: war turns a body into someone he is not. I came away to forget that time and to make a new man of myself. A quiet life . . . a godly life – that’s all I wished for, for myself and my child.’
‘I thought you did not fight in the wars.’
‘Not by choice. I did not seek it out. I did not offer myself up for King or Parliament, as others did. But then the war came to me.’
He sucks at his pipe again but it is spent. He lays it aside and swills the brandy. ‘I’ll never forget that day. Nor will any who were witness. They rode through the streets, cutting down anyone in their path. Punishment for defying the King, they said, for defying God. They slaughtered any townsman who dared raise a sword. They killed women and children in the marketplace. I saw a man with a child’s head on a pike. I ask you, what kind of man does that? And what kind of devil allows it? I’m not squeamish, Master Ferreby, but the things I saw that day still haunt me. And afterwards it was never the same – it never could be the same.’
Ellis swallows hard. ‘Did you lose people?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your wife?’
Booth’s eyes dart to his, face made younger by the vigour of anger. Then he looks away. ‘My wife had already left us, God rest her soul.’
A sudden flurry of wind sends a belch of smoke down the chimney and into the room. The house creaks, timbers groan. Booth turns his face towards the ceiling and Ellis becomes aware of a low, rhythmic tapping from above. He’s not sure whether it has been there all along. He’s still unused to the myriad noises of the sleeping house. He shivers, pushing away unbidden suspicions.
‘Tell me, Master Ferreby, do you think the dead can return?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Pastor Flynn tells me they can do so, if God wishes it. He also tells me the Devil sends demons to mimic the dead, to play tricks upon the living, to taunt and tempt us. “So,” I asked him, “how do we know the difference? Which manifestation should we heed and which cast out?”’ Booth drains his cup and reaches for the bottle again. ‘Do you want to know his answer?’
Ellis nods.
‘He did not know.’ Booth leans back in his chair, resting the bottle in the crook of his arm. ‘For once, I outwitted him – he did not know at all!’ Booth laughs, chuckling at first, then louder, until his eyes water and he sounds crazed, unhinged. There is no mirth in it.
Ellis has never heard him laugh before – he realises he has not heard anyone laugh like that since Henry Ravens left – and it stirs something in him, pulls at threads of memory buried so deep he did not know they were there.
Booth gathers himself, wipes his eyes, solemnity returning. He splashes brandy into his cup and offers more to Ellis. ‘You know the stories about this place, I suppose.’
‘I’ve heard tales.’
‘Folk hereabouts like to dwell on such things. Lord knows I’ve tried to quell the talk over the years. I’ve tried my best to protect my family. But now, what hope have I? With the things that have happened of late . . .’
There is defeat in his tone, that of a man beaten by his burdens. But Ellis feels no sympathy. He feels the stirring of old emotion, the shift of something dark, deep inside.
‘It was one hundred years ago this very winter when that poor f
amily died here,’ Booth goes on. ‘You can see the headstone in the graveyard if you so wish, and the year is there, writ plain as day: 1575. That’s when they were buried, of course, in the spring. I choose not to draw attention to it. And you’ll say nothing of it – not to Mercy nor to Agnes. We cannot have the womenfolk any more riled up than they already are.’
Ellis nods assent.
‘Flynn knows, of course, and I asked him – is that why? Is that why they’ve come back? He had no answer for me. He thinks I’m losing my mind.’
‘Who has come back?’
‘Do you think I’m losing my mind, Master Ferreby?’
‘Do you speak of the family who died here? Do you believe their spirits have returned?’
‘I said, do you think I am mad?’
‘That’s not for me to say, sir.’
‘They can take me. They can carry me down the coffin path, but they’ll not have my daughter.’ Booth’s eyes are as black as the shadows. ‘I’ll sell. Then she’ll be forced to leave. She’ll hate me for it, but it’s the only way to keep her safe.’
As he watches Booth stare into the fire, the melancholy of drink upon him, Ellis is struck dumb by his own conflict, by the questions burning like the peat in the hearth. He does not trust himself to speak. Is it a coincidence that Booth has chosen him to be the keeper of this secret? Is it the brandy talking, or is it his way of saying the things he cannot say, of acknowledging the past?
When Ellis leaves, he takes the stairs and stands for a moment outside Mercy’s chamber. There is no chink of light beneath the door, no sound from within. He wonders if the door is locked and waits, hesitating, willing her to wake. Then he turns away, and goes into the small, windowless room next to hers, where he lies on the bed and waits for dawn.
The Coffin Path_'The perfect ghost story' Page 19
