The Haunting of Maddy Clare

by St. James, Simone

  She was tall and stylish, with the slim figure and long, slender legs that were the raging fashion of the time. She wore an expensive wrap, a perfectly vogue hat on her head, and looped in one slender hand was the lead of a small dog, who sat patiently by her ankles. As I watched, she handed Mr. Gellis a cigarette, then leaned forward to light it for him; her eyes, as they met his, were alight with intimate humor. She straightened and lit a cigarette for herself, still looking steadily at Mr. Gellis.

  I felt my stomach twist, but I knew the innkeeper was watching me, so I could not stand there forever. I pulled on my gloves and stumbled out the front door to the courtyard.

  Mr. Gellis turned as I approached. He had put on a cloth cap in the wet weather, and it only served to emphasize the squareness of his jaw, and the perfect set of his dark-lashed gray eyes under the brim. “Ah. Miss Piper.”

  “Good morning,” I managed.

  There was a brief, awkward pause. Mr. Gellis turned back to the woman, and for the first time he did not seem at ease. “This is my assistant,” he said.

  I blinked, stung, but did not move. I felt the warmth of my cheeks against the mist in the air, and hoped the low brim of my hat would hide the miserable look I knew was on my face. The woman regarded me with calm, and I saw she had a face that was nothing short of ravishing, her skin flawless white, her lips lush and beautiful, and her eyes heavy-lidded with the sort of sensuality Greta Garbo exuded, a world-weary, carnal knowingness that attracted men like flies. The dark hair visible from under the hat was crisply marcelled and complemented her creamy complexion. She held herself with careless confidence, her shoulders down, one hand lightly placed in the pocket of her wrap, so one could see the delicate suede cuff of her glove against the perfect whiteness of her wrist as it disappeared into her sleeve. Her other hand held the dog’s leash and the newly lit cigarette. She gave me a desultory smile.

  “I see,” she said, speaking not to me but to Mr. Gellis. “I didn’t know ghost hunters had assistants.”

  Was she making fun of him? Of us? With her dry tone, it was impossible to tell. Mr. Gellis looked at her and looked away. “In this case, yes. Miss Piper, this is Mrs. Barry—one of the local residents.”

  “How do you do,” the lady said smoothly.

  I had interrupted something; I could feel it. Mr. Gellis stared out into the drizzling rain, his body hunched with tension, his cigarette clutched between the curled second and third knuckles of his hand. I had not known he smoked. He certainly had not smoked at all during our long trip yesterday. It seemed I had not known anything. I looked at Mrs. Barry and thought of my stupid fantasies of the night before, and knew that in a world with such women, girls like me simply did not exist. I had always known it—why had I forgotten? I would never be such an idiot again.

  I found my voice. “I didn’t—I wasn’t aware that you knew the residents here.”

  Mr. Gellis did not turn his head, so Mrs. Barry answered me herself. “It is purest luck,” she said, tugging the leash gently as her little dog tried to walk away. “We met many years ago. Before the war.” She turned to Alistair. “New Year’s in ’fourteen, was it not?”

  Her tone was airy, but I saw her take him in, her eyes traveling his shoulders and the line of his profile, and I knew she knew the answer very well.

  “Yes,” he said, giving her only the briefest of glances before looking away again. “New Year’s in ’fourteen.”

  “And not again until I passed by this morning. Imagine my surprise.” She turned back to me, took a slow drag on her cigarette, and gave a smile with the corner of her flawless lip. “Life has such strange coincidences, doesn’t it?”

  Some sort of wrenching unhappiness flashed across Mr. Gellis’ face. He buried it quickly before turning back to us, but I had not missed it. “We should be on our way,” he said.

  “I wish you both luck,” Mrs. Barry said, her tone almost as neutral as if she were talking to the postman. “It’s nice to see you again, Alistair.”

  He nodded and walked away, plunging ahead into the mist as if setting off to sea. I hurried to keep up with him. Mrs. Barry soon disappeared in the white threads behind us.

  My misery was acute. I tried an awkward attempt to cover it. “I thought you said the locals would not be friendly,” I said, my voice a rasp.

  He was quiet for a long moment as we walked, the wet mist creating damp goose bumps on my shins through my stockings. Finally he dropped his cigarette and looked at me, surprised, as if he had forgotten I was there. “Pardon? What’s that?”

  I looked away. “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all.”

  Falmouth House loomed in the fog before us soon enough. It stood in a small hollow, as if cupped in the palm of a hand, surrounded by tall oaks and a few poplar trees that broke upward out of the mist. It was white clapboard from the past century, its shutters painted glossy black. I noticed, as we approached more closely, that the heavy water in the air condensed and rolled down the lacquered shutters, as if they were weeping.

  I was struck again by the deep quiet of the countryside, the absence of any human sounds; my mind still expected the clamor of cars, voices, all the clatter of nonstop human movement. Here was only the hushed patter of the drizzle, the call of birds in faraway trees. The air was impossibly sweet, like wine. A crow called from somewhere, its voice dark and throaty.

  We ascended uneven steps to a stone porch and Mr. Gellis set down the suitcase containing the sound equipment. He looked at me briefly. “You must let me do the talking. I have experience with these situations.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  He knocked on the door, and we waited. I looked up at the house rising above me. It was not tall, two stories only, and it had no ostentation. It was a modest, faintly run-down house of whitewashed wood, the house that a long-ago farmer who had begun to prosper would aspire to.

  I could not see the barn from where we stood.

  The door opened and a woman met us—sixtyish, with wiry curled hair pulled strictly back and the complexion of her nose and cheeks splashed with red, as if the skin was irritated. She gave us a brave smile. “You must be Mr. Gellis, sir.”

  “I am,” said Mr. Gellis.

  “I’m Mrs. Macready, the housekeeper,” she said. “Please come in.”

  She showed us into a small sitting room off the front hall. Mr. Gellis introduced me, and set down his suitcase again. Mrs. Macready said she would send in Mrs. Clare, the lady of the house, and she left the room.

  Again we waited, in the small sitting room this time. Neither of us sat. An unlit fireplace did nothing to alleviate the damp chill. I looked at the cheap print of a gaudy pastoral scene over the mantelpiece and did not look at Mr. Gellis. The quiet stretched until Mrs. Clare came.

  She was older than Mrs. Macready: over sixty, I thought, or perhaps even seventy years of age. She was very small—slightly built, for certain, but also painfully thin, as if she had been ill. Her eyes, large and vivid blue even in her advanced years, were sunk slightly in her skull. She wore a modest blue wool dress that matched the color of her eyes and contrasted smartly with the white of her hair. She had her hands folded primly in front of her. “Good morning, Mr. Gellis.”

  Mr. Gellis introduced me yet again, and Mrs. Clare turned her bright blue gaze in my direction. “Ah,” she said softly. “You are the girl, then.”

  I nodded. I knew what she meant, of course; she had told Mr. Gellis he could not come to Falmouth House unless he brought a woman with him, and so I was an object of some interest to her.

  “Are you an assistant?” asked Mrs. Clare.

  “She is,” said Mr. Gellis before I could speak, and I remembered he wanted me to say as little as possible. I nodded at Mrs. Clare in agreement.

  Mrs. Clare looked from me to Mr. Gellis and back again. “Have you experience in this line of work?” she asked me.

  “She hasn’t much,” said Mr. Gellis, again before I could answer. “But I have filled her in on the de
tails.”

  Mrs. Clare’s gaze passed between us again, and this time I could see a glimmer of distaste. She seemed to straighten. “Let us sit, then,” she said. “We haven’t much time.”

  I followed Mrs. Clare’s lead and sat on the thin, uncomfortable sofa. Mr. Gellis chose a chair in the corner. He removed his cap and leaned forward, his forearms propped on his knees. “What do you mean, we haven’t much time?”

  Mrs. Clare sat on the opposite end of the sofa from me and gave a quick sigh. “We are in Falmouth House, Mr. Gellis, and you are of the male sex. I believe I have explained why this is a problem.”

  “I thought your manifestation only haunted the barn.”

  “Maddy is not a manifestation.” Mrs. Clare seemed to find the word insulting. “She is a spirit, as I have much occasion to know. And yes, she stays in the barn, but she has an awareness of what goes on in the house as well. A man in the house will upset her. It’s best if we conclude our meeting and you return to your inn before she discovers you’ve been here.”

  “What does she do when she’s upset?”

  Mrs. Clare looked out the window at the dripping trees. “She can make things very unpleasant. In a variety of ways, I suppose. She gets—agitated.” She looked at us again. “That is not what I wish to discuss right now, however. We have other ground to cover.”

  “Certainly,” said Mr. Gellis. His voice was gentle, but I sensed he was not exactly agreeing to leave the topic alone. “What is it you wish to discuss?”

  Mrs. Clare looked at him squarely. “After you contacted me with your inquiry, I researched you, Mr. Gellis. I read your books. They gave the impression that you are a man of some intelligence and compassion, instead of a thrill seeker. That is one of the two reasons I agreed to this meeting at all. I expect discretion. I don’t want Maddy turned into an object of public curiosity, or a tourist attraction. She is nothing of the kind. She would hate it, and—this may sound strange to you—she does not deserve it. You cannot imagine exactly how difficult a life she led. I want her to have a measure of peace.”

  “You are protective of her.” Mr. Gellis could not keep the surprise from his voice.

  Mrs. Clare smiled thinly. “Perhaps it’s strange to you. But then, Mr. Gellis, for all your experience, you have not seen a situation like ours. You have not seen a spirit like Maddy’s before. Alive, she came to us as a stray—she appeared on our doorstep one rainy night, injured and unable to speak. She had been abused beyond any sort of average comprehension. My husband and I took her in. I tried to heal her for seven years.” Mrs. Clare looked down at the hands clenched in her lap. “I tried my best, as did Mrs. Macready. But we failed. Perhaps success was not even possible. I will never know that. And since she died, Maddy has only gotten—worse.”

  Mr. Gellis had pulled a small notebook and pencil from his coat pocket and was writing. “You mentioned your husband, Mrs. Clare. May I speak with him as well?”

  “He passed on in ’fifteen, the year after Maddy came to us. Our only son died long ago. There is only Mrs. Macready and me.”

  “I see.” Mr. Gellis made a note. “And what was the second reason?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He looked up at her. “You said there are two reasons you allowed me to come. One was the impression you received from my books. What is the other?”

  Mrs. Clare turned her gaze to me, then back to Mr. Gellis. Her eyes, behind their brittle dignity, were tired and sad. “The other reason is that I’ve come to realize we need help here. Rather desperately so, I’m afraid. I cannot stand it anymore. My health has suffered. I don’t know how it’s done—whether you can banish her, or simply persuade her, or even if it’s possible—but Maddy has to leave. She has to go. I want your young lady to do something about it.”

  My cheeks prickled as all attention in the room turned to me. I stayed silent.

  “Miss Piper does not have experience with that sort of thing,” said Mr. Gellis with a frown.

  “I can’t imagine it takes any sort of training.” Mrs. Clare’s tone was haughty. “Simply ask her, or tell her, to leave. Over as many visits as it takes.”

  “It may not be possible,” he protested.

  “It is not optional, I’m afraid, sir. Unless Maddy is gone by the time you leave, you do not have permission to publish your findings.”

  Mr. Gellis’ expression, normally so easy and handsome, was bemused and even a little angry. “That’s unheard of. I can’t guarantee that kind of thing. I do not have control over the supernatural.”

  The request made sense to me; if Mrs. Clare wanted privacy and discretion, yet she had invited someone here who intended to put Maddy in a book, it only followed that she expected that Maddy would be gone by the time the book was published, or it would not be published at all. But I kept silent.

  “That is just as well, sir, as you will not be in contact with Maddy anyway. Your assistant will be.” Mrs. Clare turned to me. “I have begged her to leave, of course. So has Mrs. Macready. But she doesn’t listen to us. I’m not certain she knows we’re here. That’s why we called in the vicar, and we all know what a disaster that was. I feel so terribly sorry for her—but I’ve done all I can. She needs to go. Do you understand?”

  I pressed my knees together. “I understand,” I whispered.

  Mr. Gellis looked from Mrs. Clare to me, and back again. “I still have a great many questions about this manifestation. I need details. How often she appears, what she does. There may be a pattern. And I need to know more about what she was like in life.”

  “You’ll have all of that, Mr. Gellis. But your assistant should see Maddy first.” Mrs. Clare closed her eyes briefly, as if tired, and opened them again. “It will be so much easier if she has simply seen her. You must go back to the inn and leave your assistant here. I will send her to you when she is finished.”

  Mr. Gellis stood, obviously reluctant to be banished to the sidelines. “I’d like an interview with both yourself and Mrs. Macready. They will be separate, and quite lengthy. I would like your promise on this before I go.”

  Her mouth pursed, but she nodded. “Very well. Tomorrow. I will make sure Mrs. Macready is apprised. Now, please—you must go before she notices you.”

  Mr. Gellis looked at me with a question in his eyes. I nodded at him; I was so terrified, I could not rise from the wretched sofa, but I would not let him see it. I was as ready as I would ever be.

  “Send her to me, then,” he said, and he left the room.

  Chapter Five

  Mr. Gellis had prepared me for the use of the sound recorder on the previous evening. He assured me he would take care of the technical preparations, including the winding of wire on the two large reels, and its threading through the complex parts between. We had opened the suitcase and he had shown me what to do, his agile hands pointing out the interlocking pieces, and the activation switch I would need to move from OFF to ON. The machine ran on a battery that lasted some twenty minutes—not long, Mr. Gellis said, because the battery had to be made small enough for the machine to be portable. My instructions were to place the recorder in the center of the barn, turn it on, and attempt to draw the ghost as close to the machine as possible in my twenty-minute span.

  I had received similar instructions for the camera. I had seen cameras, of course, though I had never owned one. Again Mr. Gellis patiently explained the workings of it. He himself took the idea of capturing the ghost with some cynicism; he had never succeeded in doing so, mostly because of the limitations of the technology. The camera required a large amount of light to take a photograph, light that was rarely available in the dim houses he had investigated. Ghosts were inevitably chased away by the flashes required to get a proper picture, and in any case the bright illumination of the flash would wash out, in his opinion, any delicate ghostly image that was present in the first place. It was his frustration with the camera that had led to his commission and purchase of the special sound equipment, at great cost. He was v
ery excited about the possibilities of capturing his ghosts by sound.

  I picked up all this technology—the camera on a loop of cloth about my neck, the recording machine in its suitcase—and stood. I was trembling with fear, but there was nothing for it. I had been hired for this one task, after all, and there was nowhere to go but forward.

  But Mrs. Clare stood and looked only at me. Mrs. Macready came back into the room, and the two women stood together. Now that Mr. Gellis had gone, neither seemed in much of a hurry. And now I was ready to go, my courage screwed up as high as it would ever be.

  Mrs. Clare’s gaze traveled me up and down, cool and assessing and, I thought, not entirely disapproving. “My dear, I hope you are more intelligent than your employer makes you out to be. You look perfectly terrified.”

  I said nothing.

  “She should be there,” said Mrs. Macready. “Sometimes she’s quiet, but not these days. I heard her in there yesterday. I’ve removed the lock from the door.”

  “You heard her?” I said. “Do you not go in?”

  The housekeeper looked pained, with a deep, heartfelt grief. “I can’t bear it,” she said simply.

  “Don’t judge her too harshly,” said Mrs. Clare, and it took me a moment to realize that she spoke of the ghostly Maddy, not Mrs. Macready. “She may try to frighten you—play tricks. She likes to do that. She doesn’t mean anything by it. If you knew her in life, you would understand how truly harmless she is.”

  “You defend her, and yet you wish to be rid of her,” I said.

  A look crossed Mrs. Clare’s eyes that mirrored the grief on her housekeeper’s face. “Come to me after you’ve been in the barn,” she said. “Perhaps then you’ll understand.”

  The barn was only a small distance behind the house, down a rough-worn path. The mist had not dissipated; it curled around my ankles and calves as I walked, and I was glad I had kept on my coat and hat against the chill. There was no sound but the scratch of my footsteps and the dripping of water from the trees. I longed to hear even a single birdsong, but none came.