Ghosts and Hauntings

by SIMS, MAYNARD

  “I’ve put you in the green room at the rear of the house,” Aunt Julie said. “It overlooks the garden so you will have the grounds to enjoy.”

  Now was a good opportunity to mention the chapel but movement spied from the corner of his eye diverted his thoughts. He turned away from his aunt to see who was there but all he caught sight of was a man’s back as it departed from the hall and entered what seemed to be the library.

  “Who is that?” he asked whilst pointing in the general direction of the figure.

  Julie didn’t so much as turn her head or glance where she was guided. “There is no one else here,” she said, rather too quickly.

  “But…” he began but tailed off when he saw the distress in his aunt’s face. “Perhaps I can take my bag to my room and then we can talk about what needs to be done.”

  She seemed relieved to change the subject and showed him up the grand staircase to the upper landing where his room was located. She left him to his unpacking.

  The room was huge, though properly proportioned. The four poster bed was laid out with several pillows and cushions. The wardrobe dwarfed the few items of clothing he had brought with him and the armchairs and desk would provide plenty of comfortable working space when he started on the matters in hand. A small side room had been converted into a luxurious bathroom en suite and after freshening up he walked to the window, which he opened, before peering out.

  The grounds were well tended, the lawns running to the horizon and the flowerbeds and bushes trimmed and neatly presented. He leaned out as far he dared to see if he could catch sight of the chapel that he suspected from the photograph in his uncle’s office was at the rear of the west side of the gardens but he could see nothing beyond the trees and bushes.

  He decided to meet his aunt as arranged in the conservatory. He wondered if he should mention again the man he had seen downstairs. He was sure the fellow had been taking a coat from the oak coat stand, but as he had already been wearing one this seemed strange, almost as strange as his aunt not wishing to admit his presence. Noble disliked the first thought that had come to mind when a man he had so clearly seen was so summarily denied, but grief did odd things to people and Aunt Julie would not be the first widow comforted inappropriately so soon after her husband’s death.

  As he placed one foot on the marble tiles of the entrance hall and as his other left the final step of the staircase he heard an engine revving and gravel being displaced as the tyres of a car spun at speed.

  He ran to the front door but it was heavy and unwieldy and by the time he had opened it sufficiently to get outside the car had all but gone. Almost out of sight, yet he was able to catch the rear of it as it sped away through the ornamental tress that lined the long and winding drive. He was sure it was an Alvis.

  Julie had prepared some tea and scones that she placed on a glass topped table in the warm conservatory. A varied and colourful selection of orchids graced the window ledges of the vast glass room and with the sun catching dust motes in the air and the soft classical music that played discreetly in the background Noble sat in his firm cushioned wicker chair and felt all was well with the world. He drew himself up sharply when his aunt began to outline her requirements, and the reasons behind his visit were all too briskly remembered.

  Nevertheless he felt he had to raise with her the issue that was troubling him. “We are quite alone in the house?”

  Julie hesitated in pouring the tea and Noble was sure he saw her hand shake, although it was barely a tremor. “I’ve been alone here since…”

  Conscious that her voice had cracked when she spoke, Noble tried a conciliatory tone. “It’s just that I was sure I saw a car leaving just now. And earlier…”

  “We sometimes get people, strangers to the area mostly, mistaking the house for one that is open to the public. That’s probably what you saw. A potential visitor who realised their mistake and retreated.”

  Noble took the proffered cup of tea and began the ritual of placing cream and jam in copious layers on the halved scone. “Earlier I was certain I saw a man taking a coat from the coat stand in the hall?”

  The sound of crashing china crockery as Julie dropped her cup and saucer broke through the background Chopin and left an echo of obstinacy in the air.

  “How clumsy of me,” Julie said, and busied herself with tidying the mess she had created.

  Flustered by her obvious discomfort Noble decided to leave the subject and get onto discussing the work that was required.

  They dealt with the funeral first, drawing up a list of people who needed to be invited, some who would find it hurtful to be excluded, and ended with arrangements for flowers, music, and readings.

  “You’ll do a reading, of course,” Julie said.

  “Oh, I didn’t…”

  “Adam adored you. He always spoke of you as the son we never had.”

  “Well in that case…”

  They agreed to attend the local funeral directors office the next day. Talk then moved onto the paperwork and the outstanding affairs that needed attending to, including the proving of the Will. Adam Noble had been a rich man and his widow was well provided for. In addition to the house, the upkeep of which was catered for handsomely, there was a trust fund that would provide more income than Julie was able to spend even if she were a profligate woman, which her nephew did not recognise her to be.

  No mention was made of the chapel except perhaps in an oblique reference as they stood in readiness for dinner.

  “What was my uncle working on when he…at the end?”

  “There was always more than one project on the go at any one time. He was absorbed for many months on some re-structuring of the gardens.”

  “I find that surprising. I’ve only glanced at them, in truth, from my bedroom window, but they seem magnificent.”

  “And so they are, but Adam had it in his head that we needed to remove…well re-position really…let’s not discuss that now. Will you be ready to eat by eight?”

  That was as close to the issue that they got that first night.

  After a fine dinner, and with his aunt taking early to her bed, Noble opened the French doors of the dining room and took an Armagnac and a Cuaba onto the patio. There was a small oval iron table with two chairs shielded from the house by a hedge of Fuchsia magellanica, and there he sat while he enjoyed the warmth of the late evening.

  His thoughts were tranquil enough, planning as he was the visit to the funeral director in the morning and the systematic sorting through the files that he was sure would take several days. He could think of far worse ways to spend his time.

  If he was troubled by the possibility his aunt was less than forthcoming with the truth about a gentleman caller then he allowed it to fall to the far corners of his mind. She was an adult and sensible one. If she had reasons to entertain a…friend…at what might seem an inopportune time, then Noble was inclined to remember advice his own father had given many years before, about never really knowing what went on in other people’s lives, and what went on in a marriage was the business of two people and their God and no other.

  It was the sound of a footstep breaking a twig that brought his thoughts to the here and now. He jumped to his feet and walked across to the edge of the lawn where he had a clear view over the grounds, up until the point they were swallowed by the trees and the darkness.

  There didn’t seem to be anyone there and yet he had clearly heard wood cracking. Then he heard another sound, what seemed to be feet running across grass. He walked quickly, reluctant himself to break into a run, and was soon on the outer fringes of the trees. There was a quarter moon, and the sky was cloudless, but still there was precious little light by which to see into the thick stand of beeches, surrounded as they were at their bases by bushes and ferns and viciously thorned pyrancantha.

  He strained his ears for further noise and was about to turn back to the house when he heard, very faintly, a door open and then close again. Noble skirted the copse
of trees and around the outer edges he found a path, overgrown though it was, which led to a part of the garden that would not have been visible from the house, not even from the top windows.

  He walked the path, inhaling smoke from his cigar at intervals, and sipping the last of his brandy, until he stood before a small stone and brick built building that was all but obscured by vines and nettles. It had the appearance of a miniature church, though fallen into disuse many years ago.

  There was something about the atmosphere of the place that disturbed him and he was reluctant to approach the building. His cigar suddenly burned his fingers as the glowing tip got too close to his skin and he dropped the cigar with a curse, making sure, nonetheless, to stamp it out with his foot.

  As he looked up again he was certain he saw the door of the building close, although in truth he had not noticed it had been open. He moved a little closer and it was then that he could see there was a fairly newly beaten track through the long grass leading up to the door.

  His natural instinct was to open the door and see what was within. Again, a sense of unease prevented him, and he rationally told himself it would be too dark to see anything and he needed to talk with his aunt about what this place was before he stumbled about disturbing things.

  His walk back to the house was a nervous one as he imagined he could hear footsteps keeping pace with his own, and yet, when he paused to listen for them he heard nothing, save, on one occasion, the loud cry of a barn owl out hunting for the night.

  The funeral director’s offices were located on the High Street and after parking the car in the allocated spaces behind the address they walked onto the street.

  They were surprised to find the front door wide open and to see a man, dressed as one expects a funeral director to be dressed, jogging back towards them, breathless and red faced.

  “It’s Mr. Dean,” Julie said. “He is the grandson of the original owner.”

  As the grandson was a florid faced man in his late fifties it gave credence to the longevity of the firm.

  “Mrs. Noble,” Dean said as he neared them.

  “Are you all right?” Noble said.

  Struggling for breath, Dean managed a weak smile and a gesture that indicated they should enter the premises, and he followed.

  When they were seated on comfortable chairs, albeit surrounded by the sombre paraphernalia of a funeral, Dean apologised. “I am ready for your visit, despite appearances, it’s just that I couldn’t let him get away with it.”

  “Get away with what, Mr. Dean,” Julie said.

  “Bold as brass he was.”

  “Who was?” Noble said.

  “Thief. Good mind to call the police, not that they will catch him I dare say.”

  Noble looked at his aunt and almost in unison they said, “Who?”

  “I always leave the door unlocked, makes sense, people like to be able to come in and see us during what is generally a difficult time for them. This fellow, I caught him out of the corner of my eye when he walked past the window but I didn’t give it any thought. Next thing I know the door is open and he’s helping himself to one of our best black funeral overcoats. Off the rack and out the door before I realised what was happening.”

  “I take it you didn’t catch him?”

  Dean shook his head. “They’re not inexpensive these coats I can tell you.”

  “Did you get sight of him? What did he look like?”

  “That was the odd thing. He came in and went out so quickly I couldn’t get a chance for his features to register. And once I was outside and giving chase the truth is I was chasing shadows. I couldn’t even see him.”

  “Most disagreeable,” Julie said. “But I suppose we ought to get onto the matter of poor Adam’s…”

  Dean made a visible effort to compose himself and adopted a suitable expression of sympathy and professional courtesy. “And in this hot weather I don’t even know what he’d want with an overcoat.”

  From there they went to the Registry Office and registered the death, accepting several copies of the Certificate.

  The solicitor’s were next where the Will was discussed and the necessary arrangements taken to ensure probate could be applied for with a minimum of fuss. The solicitor was an old family friend who would complete the issues relating to the Trust, and he had little objection to Noble dealing with pressing matters at the house.

  Consequently Noble spent the afternoon writing letters to various offices that needed to know and enclosing copies of the Death Certificate for bodies such as the bank, utility companies and insurance firms.

  The files were in good order, as he had expected of his uncle, and progress was efficient and swift. It was when he turned to Miscellaneous that he became bogged down. There were pages of notes, letters and even drawings all relating to the same subject. They were vaguely connected to the changes to the grounds that his aunt had alluded to but they seemed to have a very specific purpose. That purpose seemed to begin with a casual exploration of the possibilities but had built into what looked dangerously like an obsession.

  His uncle had become obsessed with removing the old chapel at the bottom of the garden.

  Noble found Julie sitting once more in the conservatory where the early evening sun was still welcoming enough. Her eyes were closed when he entered and he nearly left again. Then she opened her eyes, smiled at him and said, “You’ll have found out by now then?”

  “What will I have found out, aunt?”

  Julie sat upright in her chair. “What drove him to an early grave?”

  “Let us not forget his heart…”

  “Was damaged but not fatally, not until the last attack of course. What we have to ask ourselves is what caused that final and fatal coronary?”

  “Overwork, stress and good living?”

  “His obsession, that’s what killed him. The other things would have got him in the end but that…that chapel, did for him.”

  Noble sat opposite her and poured himself a glass of lemonade from the jug ion the small table between them. “When you first asked me to come you mentioned ‘the chapel issue’. What’s it all about?”

  Julie closed her eyes, laid her head against the back of the chair and sighed. She delayed a response for so long that Noble wondered whether she had drifted to sleep, he knew she had been prescribed tranquilizers by the doctor. Then she spoke.

  “You know the house has been in the family for centuries. Originally, and for a few hundred years, Church service was enjoyed at the local parish church, St Andrews. It suited the family and it suited the Church. If the lord and lady of the manor were numbered amongst the congregation then it tended to attract more people from the village than might otherwise have come along. It was an agreeable arrangement that seemed to be endless.

  “Until, that is, the late 19th century, when Alistair Noble inherited the house. He had vaguely modern ideas about worship, though, in truth, his beliefs were about as far from the modern and enlightened as it is possible to go. Anyway, it was during his time that the chapel was built in the grounds of the house; at the end of the formal part of the gardens and before the woods take over.

  “He commissioned a builder from over the county boundary to construct ‘a place of worship big enough for the family to gather and pray and yet small enough to keep our thoughts and spirits contained within.’ I’m quoting that from the family archives; Adam had them out all the time for the last few months.

  “The vicar of St Andrews at the time, a Paul Melton, was a constant visitor to the house, pleading with Alistair, begging him to stop work on the construction. His protests fell on stony ground. Alistair was determined to proceed and the more vociferous Melton became, supported by the villagers, the more obdurate Alistair was.

  “Little was known about the builder, he brought labour with him as no one locally would help. The stone was brought in by horse and cart and construction continued night and day, lanterns used to illuminate the work in the dark.


  “Alistair blamed the vicar and the arguments became quite heated when things began to go missing from the site and building work was interfered with.”

  “What sort of things went missing?” Noble said.

  Just then the telephone rang and Julie went to answer it. When she returned she said, “That was Mr. Dean, the funeral has been arranged for the day after tomorrow. Do you kind if we postpone this discussion for another time? I’m rather tired and I need a lie down.”

  Noble stood. “No of course not. We’ll go out for dinner tonight, my treat for you putting me up. That restaurant we passed today in town looked suitable.”

  Before it got dark, and dusk was only beginning to threaten, Noble decided he had to see the chapel. He left the house and took the same route over the lawns and past the trees as he had taken before.

  When he reached the rough path, little more than a track, that led to the overgrown and rather eerie part of the gardens his pace slowed. There was something claustrophobic about the place that reminded him of the one occasion when he had visited ancient catacombs in Italy. Interesting though the history undoubtedly was he could not remove from his thoughts the cloying stench of death and the dozens of souls that had been shut away for eternity.

  The track to the door of the chapel looked slightly more worn than previously. At the edges some of the bracken had been broken as if someone or something had brushed against it.

  The door was closed but there was something dark lying in front of it, partially hidden by the undergrowth and the clinging vines. Noble was reluctant to approach the building, he was finding the shadows less than welcoming and the damp coldness in the air was at odds with the warmth he knew existed away from here.

  He tentatively moved closer to the door and bent down to prod the small pile of darkness with his foot. It was soft and yielding. It was a black overcoat and Noble realized it was the stolen coat from the funeral directors.