Chapter Eight
In the moonlight,
In the starlight,
She was gone.
The next morning I made my way to the drawing room before breakfast. It was strange to see it in the daylight, with the early morning sun streaming in through the bay windows. Outside, the sky was now a clear blue after the storm. I didn’t touch the piano but I made a promise to myself that it would be repaired and tuned, that the whole room would be kept clean and the silver polished. This was no longer a place bound by death. It should be filled with light and life: it should be lived in.
I went down into the reading room and it was unchanged from what it had been before, or almost unchanged. The book of poetry lay open at a different page, one unmarked by long exposure to the air. I picked it up. It was now open at sonnet number ten. There I read:
Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
…
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
…
There's nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
I put the book down and as I was leaving, I whispered,” Farewell Sarah. May flights of angels wing thee to thy rest and may God hold thee close to His heart.”
Florence was waiting for me in the kitchen and when I made my way back there I could see her noting which part of the house I had come from. I hoped this wasn’t going to turn into another lecture. As it happened, it didn’t. She made no direct comment about Sarah or the drawing room.
Instead, she commented on the weather. “That was a real storm we had last night,” she said simply. “We don’t get too many like that, luckily.”
“No, it was pretty wild,” I agreed. “I’ll go and check on the sheep and the fences after breakfast.”
She nodded absently, picking up the teapot to pour herself a cup of tea. “Did you hear the piano last night?” she asked casually. “I thought you might have, a bit, in the storm. It could be the sort of time you might. But then I’m not sure.”
“It stopped,” I said shortly, not wanting to discuss Sarah.
“It stopped when the storm stopped?” she suggested.
“No, before that,” I said.
“I see,” she said, pausing for one long moment, still holding the teapot. Then she became brisk and business-like. “Well, that’s that then.”
She put the teapot down and smiled at me. Now, Florence is a good lady and I love her dearly, but she rarely smiles. So, that was a bit of a surprise and more than a little worrying.
“I need to go into town to get some things this morning,” she said. “You could come with me, if you like. After you’ve finished checking the farm, of course.” In all my time at the farm, I had not yet gone into town, except to go to mass on Sunday. This wasn’t a great lack in my life, since Cerberus isn’t much of a town. Apart from the church, it’s just a hotel and a few shops clustered at the top of a cliff and overlooking a small, natural harbour. Normally, I would probably have given it a miss but that morning I needed a distraction and, anyway, there was something curiously deliberate in Florence’s invitation.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll go and check for storm damage and get back to you.”
As it happened, we had been lucky in the storm. The sheep had all sought shelter in the trees that lined our fences and the only flooding was in a swampy area that we kept fenced off anyway. So it wasn’t much more than an hour later that I was sitting next to Florence in her old town car; a diesel hybrid that you had to drive yourself. I wondered how she still had a permit to operate it.
In town, Florence did most of her shopping in the General Store, where she clearly knew the old lady, who ran the place. They were obviously old friends. They chatted for about five minutes over every little thing Florence bought. I was rapidly deciding that going into town was a mistake. Watching sheep graze was way more interesting than this and, for those of you who haven’t done it, watching sheep graze isn’t great.
After she’d finished buying stuff, she and the store lady decided to leave the store in the care of her assistant and go and get a coffee. I was in luck, however. Florence had no intention of inviting me along.
“I wonder if Liz is around,” she said to the store lady. “I thought she might be able to show John around the town.” The store lady almost seemed to be expecting this question and I wondered if there wasn’t something more to this, something they had cooked up between them. It occurred to me that this might well be the ‘other arrangements’ that Florence had talked about.
Whatever, the store lady turned straightaway and called out, “Liz! Can you come down?” I heard footsteps on the stairs at the back of the store and then – Sarah walked into the room. She was dressed in a tee shirt and shorts rather than a long nightgown but it was as if Sarah had stepped through time into the twenty first century. Only, it wasn’t Sarah. This girl’s hair was darker and her eyes were brown. Her skin was lightly tanned and she was a little taller and heavier built. Still, the resemblance was close enough to leave me momentarily stunned. I don’t think I made a good first impression. In fact, I think she thought I was some sort of weirdo, standing there like a stunned mullet, because a shy smile played around the corners of her mouth, as if something had amused her and she was trying not to show it.
Florence introduced us. “Liz, this is John, my great nephew. He lives with me now. John, this is Elizabeth Carew. Sarah Carew, the girl I told you about, is her great, great, great, great grand aunt.” Liz rolled her eyes at this but Florence ignored her. “Liz, would you like to show John about the town?,” she asked. “He’s still new to the area.”
“Sure,” she said, shrugging casually. “It won’t take long. There’s not all that much to show.”
There wasn’t and it didn’t. There was the old hotel on a corner; some fast food places on another; the general store; the bakery; the old church; some houses, most of which were only used during the holidays; and that was about it. We ended up down at the harbour, walking out along the jetty. In a burst of uncharacteristic gallantry, I had bought us a couple of ice creams.
“So,” I said. “You’re related to the Carews who used to own our farm.”
She nodded. “Yeah, when Sarah and her dad died, my great, great something grandmother was already pregnant. She sold the farm and moved into town to live on the proceeds, not that she got that much for it.” She frowned at me as if expecting me to make restitution for my family’s meanness. I didn’t bite. “When he got old enough, her son; my great, great something grandfather; bought the general store and we’ve been there ever since. Although my family lives up in the city now. I’m just down here for the holidays.”
“So, you know about how Sarah and her dad died?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “The whole Sarah story is a big family legend. To tell you the truth, I’m a bit sick of hearing about it.”
“Well,” I said without thinking. “You do look a lot like her.”
“How do you know…” She stopped and looked at me, her eyes growing wide. “Oh my god! You’ve seen her! So it is true. She does haunt the old house.”
I looked out to sea to hide the tears that suddenly came, unwanted, to my eyes. “Not anymore,” I said.
Liz was quiet for a while then and I could feel her watching me closely as I continued to gaze out to sea. “There are some,” she said softly, “that are afraid of ghosts, even the ghost of a young girl. They say that they can steal your soul.”
“No,” I said, never once taking my eyes from the horizon. “That’s just silly. No ghost, or spirit or hobgoblin can take your soul.” I paused, and when I continued, my voice was high and breaking. “But sometimes a ghost can give it back to you.” I could feel Liz starring at the back of my head, not saying anything. Then she turned and started to walk down the jetty again, eating her ice cream. I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes and followed her.
�
��You must tell me about it sometime,” she said.
I did, but not there and not then. I told her about it in the drawing room one evening, when the room was flooded with moonlight.
In the Moonlight, In the Starlight
I saw her, in the moonlight,
In the starlight,
In the drawing room.
On the piano, softly playing.
A mist was she, a shadow,
And the moonlight,
And the starlight,
Passed through her.
From her eyes came tears, gently flowing,
They caught the moonlight,
The starlight,
And their light flowed softly
Down her cheek.
Softly, she played her sorrow,
Gently, she played her anguish,
Softly she played,
Gently she played,
And in the moonlight,
And in the starlight, I listened.
Her sorrow was deep,
Her anguish great,
And I, sorrowing,
Called upon my God,
Lord, I cried,
Release her from her suffering.
In the moonlight,
In the starlight,
She was gone.
The Haunting of Sarah Carew Page 8
