Countess Lucy And The Curse Of Coberley Hall

by Guy Sheppard

  ‘What the devil is it, old chap?’ I whispered.

  Whereupon the shade before which the dog stopped to fawn grew longer and less distinct as troubled candles burned dreadfully low in their sconces. The greyhound sniffed the air which still stank of the fields. But this was not that smell. Rather, there floated with the adumbration the less sickening, metallic odour of dirt, decay, oil paint and old varnish. The odour floated pungently upstairs after which my indefatigable companion chose to run. I did the same.

  Whatever it was it wafted all along the landing. I slowed by the Cavaliers and looked for Lady Lucy in her picture. A candle guttered. She was gone.

  *

  In a dismal old pile like Coberley Hall, all notion of a party felt like the betrayal of a secret. Yet I did definitely hear, high in the west wing, the commotion of bothersome guests about whom I knew nothing. To ruin the occasion simply because nobody had had the decency to invite me was rather mean-spirited. No, really, it wasn’t.

  The greyhound sat whining at the door to the long gallery while I lifted its black iron latch with a soft bang. That meant a gap to which I and my companion could press our crooked noses somewhat obtrusively. At once, the objectionable music assaulted my ears. This played so livelily and heartily that I had not the courage to go in. With my hot eye all bloody spots and cobwebs, I blinked at the glow from the room’s innumerable candle-lit brackets and the logs on the fire. Wild reflections played over the plaster chains of flowers, leaves and scrolls on the dirty, coved ceiling.

  My attention soon fixed on a tall figure who, with a swish of long hair and a sweep of her green gown, laid a cushion flat on the floor at her toes. It was astonishing how dazzlingly her eyes gave off a glint of gold.

  Nor was her very old dress at all shabby but mixed gilding with silver as a seventeenth century embodiment of Spring. Beneath such finery she wore a white petticoat whose edge was worked with wild flowers. Her very dark curls tumbled down her back and carefully contrived lovelocks framed her forehead and cheeks, so that not a hair strayed out of place. Adorned with dropped pearl-earrings and glistening necklace, she had a way of considering Lord Hart as her subject with each sensuous smile. It was Marigold, dressed for a royal masque, at a guess.

  Meanwhile that stupid dog at my feet was going quietly crazy. I made to move but at once, as if on cue, a flute player blew furiously on his wooden pipe in my ear. Next up, Marigold started to pray. She thanked everyone for coming and announced that it was time to begin.

  ‘Come, spirits, join us.’

  James, Sara and Lord Hart sat on cushions on the floor in a ring before three differently coloured candles that burned on a cloth at their knees. Then Marigold spoke again.

  ‘We pray for protection from angry ghosts or demons and ask only that well-intentioned spirits join our circle.’

  Immediately Lord Hart leaned forward. His breathy lips disturbed the nearest flame. ‘Please ask her to call Philip.’

  Marigold closed her eyes and rolled her head. Given the strong smell of incense in the room, she seemed to be in a trance already.

  ‘Lady Lucy, we gather here tonight in the hope that we will receive a sign of your presence. Please feel welcome to join our circle when you’re ready.’

  There came no immediate answer. Then, on the Ouija-board an upturned glass moved from one letter to another.

  Sara gave a giggle but James looked serious. Neither appeared frightened or cynical. Obviously they had done this before, I decided, or they knew that if only one person was sceptical the power of the séance would be ruined.

  ‘Ask her to call my father,’ said Sara, impatiently.

  Again Marigold squeezed hands to harness the collective energy of the participants.

  ‘Are you with us?’

  She shivered and threw her head right back. Suddenly her eyes stared straight into space but appeared confused.

  ‘Is it him?’ asked Lord Hart. ‘Is it my brother?’

  ‘What about my father?’ objected Sara.

  But Marigold, being psychically gifted, only mediated the séance in silence.

  Then the candle for ‘NO’ flickered and went out.

  ‘What’s happening?’ demanded Lord Hart.

  ‘Yeah, does that mean that dipstick father of mine isn’t here, after all?’ asked Sara.

  ‘Is that you?’ repeated Marigold, in response to someone only she could interpret. ‘Lady Lucy, is that you? Do you have a message for us tonight?’

  The music in the room took on fresh significance for her. Her voice changed and she began to exchange ripostes with somebody:

  ‘This dance I can no longer go.

  Pray you good madam why say you so?

  Because George will not come, too.

  He must come to, he shall come to,

  And he must come whether he will or no.’

  His lordship made no protest and neither did I. To deny the request to dance was to invite, if not ire exactly, then censure from the other participants.

  Soon the songstress resumed her ditty:

  ‘Welcome George, welcome, welcome.

  Shall we go dance this once again?

  Welcome, welcome, oh welcome dear,

  And thank you so much for this dance.

  Kiss me, kiss me…’

  Next minute, I saw Lord Hart open his mouth to speak. With his partner on his right side he inverted his hand to touch the tips of her fingers, bow and honour her, I fancied.

  ‘Madam, what good does it do the dead to dance with the living?’

  Marigold yielded to the voice within her. She could speak but not own the words spoken.

  ‘Sir, you are the cheefe architecte, overseer and Mr of my works for the pfecting of my heart’s desire.’

  ‘What about my love?’

  ‘Sir, I would have that thing without which I cannot live.’

  ‘Just tell me it isn’t Philip.’

  ‘Without sum acquaintaunce with astronomie and the courses coelestiall you shall not enter into my depe secretes.’

  ‘Damn it, madam, did you not make me a solemn promise?’

  ‘As did you, to procure my captaine.’

  ‘Forgive me, countess,’ replied Lord Hart hastily. ‘How in heaven’s name can this be in any way Christian?’

  ‘The worst I know and feare not.’

  ‘You’d cheat a man of his own soul?’

  Which was when I became aware of Marigold’s bizarre behaviour. She began to roll her eyes most wildly. From one earlobe dangled a drop-pearl earring with its tassel of human hair. As she lifted her gaze to his lordship and smiled, it gleamed and glistened. Then again, the ring looked less like a love token than a trophy. By wearing the clothes of the dead she could better voice their spirit.

  ‘Sir, it is the subversion of good order, of all equitie and justice to bring someone back from the grave.’

  ‘God knows, I never imagined that you would use my own loss against me,’ said Lord Hart.

  ‘The human heart does not receive its disturbance from the heavens.’

  ‘Is it even in some small part my Philip?’

  ‘Are you saying you do not value derely what I have already given you?’

  ‘I can’t bear the thought of some bogy man.’

  *

  It had to be approaching midnight. Already a wearisome foreboding and morbid fascination started to weigh heavily upon me at the progress of the séance. I could disregard my shudder of fear, but not of repugnance. That Lord Hart’s denial and longing were in tune with his illness was obvious, but less so his bitter disappointment. It seemed that Countess Lucy had failed to effect some purpose, though what the exact nature of that purpose might be I found it hard to countenance. At the same time, the possessed Marigold had his full attention when she turned to mock him in the voice from ‘the other side’.

  ‘Better that you lock all doors. When finding here an impossibility of entering, this bogle or bugbear will go away, God willing?’

&nbs
p; ‘Not that! Not ever!’

  ‘Sir, think againe on the acts that were donne in your name, lest you deny me once too often.’

  ‘What good is one man’s likeness in the shape of another? He’s a monster!’

  ‘Sir, grete greif frees many a demon.’

  ‘Damn it, I must know if he’s human?’

  ‘Sir, none of your stakes and pitfalls can help you now.’

  ‘Do you even know the difference between accident and design, good and evil?’

  ‘The Divel would have of us our souls for his paines only to survey and restore our lovers in the forms we conceive and plot them.’

  ‘As I thought, you’d cheat me?’

  ‘Sir, this daie long ago when I viewed Captaine Digby’s face on a ring, since stolen, I made a rude tricke thereof, in a manner of a portrait with mine own hande, at which time the Divel being present, and being a soldier himself, as I remember, did offer me to make the same more parfitlie. Never would such a man in his sky collared gowne and his sylke doblett better adventure the practising this art.’

  ‘Should I even give a damn about your lover? Give me back my beloved Philip!’

  ‘And if he should have no harte, either?’

  ‘Did not the Devil keep his promises to you, then?’

  ‘Sir, I understood not them all, nor looked for so many, nor of that sort.’

  ‘He forgot to tell you that the dead can’t remember the dead or the living?’

  ‘Sir, he who has no harte is nothing pleased with love, he is but a fetch of the one we loved.’

  ‘Then the dead are lost to us forever?’

  ‘Though my harte is upon the rack betwixt hope and despair, I am proposed, God willing, to still hold out for more.’

  ‘Liar. You’d have this fetch of yours haunt me in the likeness of my brother?’

  At that moment the flautist blew furiously for the invisible dancers. My own head whirled to keep pace with the abrupt change in tempo.

  ‘What are a few Divel’s delusions?’ said the countess. ‘What is it when a man is forced to make windows into his own soul, to remind him with whom his salvation doth lie?’

  ‘I didn’t ask to be damned by my own flesh and blood,’ replied Lord Hart sourly.

  ‘Now it is nothing in comparison to what it will be if you don’t give me your love.’

  ‘All I ask for is a living, breathing Philip.’

  ‘And blind you to each other in a world that is everafter darke, like mine?’

  ‘Madam, what manner of person are you?’

  ‘Sir, a woman may only view in a mirror what she already is.’

  ‘You raise ghosts, not men.’

  ‘I think you doth find me unfeminine and fearsome.’

  ‘Still you taunt me with your impossible scheming.’

  ‘Still I allow you to live in my house at my convenience.’

  His lordship slumped forward on his cushion. Reflected in his eyes was a terrible panic.

  ‘I think you love to see grown men cry. Would you bind us all to your own sorcery?’

  The countess spat and hissed furiously.

  ‘Would you call me witch? I hear so many credible words of such from you, as alloweth not reason to doubt of it.’

  At that moment the greyhound pushed open the door at which I spied, then trotted across the room as far as the séance. There, it sat regarding the proceedings with fresh interest. As did I.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Lord Hart. ‘Take someone else. Take Walker!’

  ‘And if he proves repugnant to my nature?’

  ‘But his loss is as great as mine.’

  *

  I leaned past the door foolishly much further, forgetting to silence its creaking hinges as I listened. Even a doomed man could not easily hold back when the exact nature of his doom was a mystery to him. But the séance was far from over. Marigold laughed. It was a laugh whose icy melody cut me to the quick with its exultation and scorn. With that one brief response to the mention of my name she showed a revulsion from any human joy or amusement. Again she spoke with the voice of another.

  ‘To what sort shall you rank me? Would you have me tell him of those stolen and lost, or shew him again the face of his pretty wife in a glass, and cause his beloved to be brought back at his command, as would you your brother? Did I not warn you of the price we must all pay? Better I kepe both your most mournful, loving hartes for eternitie.’

  ‘Let Walker do your bidding, not Philip,’ cried Lord Hart angrily.

  ‘Sir, I ought to expresse, what man or woman I would have to be allowed my bedfellow. For, I will not bring in place a person ignorant of depe and violent loss, or skill of paine and hartache. They must understand adversity and be well instructed in the answeres of regret and greif…’

  ‘To hell with your necromantic experiments. How can one broken heart mend another?’

  ‘What nobler love is there than sorrow?’

  ‘Madam, no amount of heartache will ever be sufficient for your foul transplant. Are you strong enough yourself?’

  ‘Sir, would you do as I did and sign in your own blood a contract with the Divel and so grant him your soul in exchange for some arcane knowledge of love after death?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t. I can’t. I won’t.’

  ‘You grow sick and discontented and yet still I will persuade you to weep for me.’

  ‘If you’re not a witch then what are you?’

  ‘Sir, if you pursue this wrong course you prevent that which I might, upon good reasons, do myself. So, I shall make of you such a precedent as your traitorous soul shall repent.’

  ‘I have no more grief to give you. Let me die and be done with it.’

  ‘Sir, only the living can weep for the dead.’

  *

  An exhausted Marigold slumped forward, said no more. But I did, I swore. Every man had a right to feel outraged when he overheard himself being bartered like merchandise, the more so when the reason for that barter was some phoney séance. The flautist began to blow a fresh tune even as I burst in.

  Instantly the group broke circle. The moment they stood up and turned to flee, the spirit energy was lost completely.

  James and Sara dodged by me with embarrassment written all over their faces.

  Startled myself, I tried not to startle. I set my eyes firmly on Lord Hart. If vaguely the ancient planks beneath my feet protested, I paid no heed. His face was a mask of deceit and clever stratagem in the presence of his adversary. Clothed in his white suit, he stood before the fire where he coiled and uncoiled his long thin arm to conjure fantastic shapes with a poker.

  ‘Oh, there you are, old chap. Come in. Don’t be alarmed. We were just trying to contact our loved ones.’

  I was still looking everywhere for ‘the countess’. Now, no matter how obvious the proceedings, I urgently needed to discover what he had done to become so in thrall to any medium. I needed reassurance that he and I were not in anyway bound together other than in this world since no longer did I dare doubt the truth to nature of our shared vision.

  ‘You haven’t nearly told me what the hell is going on, George. That was your ex-mistress, wasn’t it? If so, where did she go?’

  ‘Oh, she knows every hidden door in these walls.’

  ‘Because this house is haunted, Marigold thinks she can use Countess Lucy’s spirit to make contact with your brother. Isn’t that rather dangerous? You should be careful when opening a portal – it enables the dead to return to the realm of the living.’

  ‘Oh, she’s forever taunting me with her silly antics, the devil she is. Please don’t take on so. She only does it to impress. She thinks she can scare me with her jealous rendition of the countess. She’s provoking me with the ghost she says has come between us.’

  I had been wrong about any ethereal music. In one corner an ancient wind-up gramophone squeaked to a halt at the end of its recital.

  With that, Lord Hart jerked his arm at me quite involuntarily. Slow to
react at first, I nevertheless caught tight hold of the poker before either of us got hurt. By bursting in upon him like that I made the situation very awkward for us both. For a second, he seemed likely to unleash a tirade. Instead, he stared at me with his saucer eyes like a frightened child, only to be seized by violent, successive muscular contractions. Shouting his name did me no good. No matter what I did, he started fainting and fitting.

  I managed to sit him back down in his chair by the fire where he spat and panted.

  Pretty madly.

  But not long could I gain his attention. He was lost in some spasmodic horror he alone could imagine. At the same time, the greyhound sat observing us curiously from the foot of the other, empty chair. He growled and guarded it closely, as if commanded.

  Really, I could not waste any more of my time. I ran out the room and, leaning over the stair rail, bellowed to James and Sara to come quickly.

  24

  The most unreasonable man would have retired to bed with less fuss. Instead Lord Hart refused all help and shut himself in his room for the rest of the night. I did likewise, but not before I fetched a bottle of claret from the cellars. The greyhound returned to keep me company and watched while I drank myself into oblivion. It was two a.m.

  In the darkness I could sense eagle-eyed wyverns eyeing me from the bedside curtains. When a man was guarded by such grotesque tapestries he could be forgiven for having a few reservations about such horny-toed friends, he could find it hard to believe that anything that grim could choose to owe him any allegiance. Not that I drew the drapes quite shut all round me. Of proper sleep it was too pointless to think.

  I could estimate the increased warmth that came with my confinement but not my apprehension.

  So it was I drew on my cigarette to muse on Lizzie.

  Day 4. April 5. 2014.

  Very woozy. Sick when she left her bed. Lethargic. Given up? Won’t eat. Try tea and biscuit. Negative. Not like her usual self at all. Hits me that she really is wasting away. Impatient with her. Won’t help herself. But how can I tell what it must feel like to be told that no one can save you?

  Day 3. April 6. 2014.