Property of a Lady

by Sarah Rayne

  ‘You shouldn’t be teaching fiction, you should be writing it,’ said Nell, smiling. ‘I can just about accept the obsession theory once – for the child taken in the nineteen thirties. But I can’t accept there was a second weirdo in the nineteen sixties with the same obsession, and then a third one again this week. And it can’t be the same person – the gaps are too long.’

  ‘It’s not as far-fetched as believing in ghosts,’ said Michael, sounding defensive.

  ‘True.’ Nell did not know if she would rather think Beth had been taken by a madman obsessed with a Victorian murder and hell-bent on child mutilation, or by a ghost. She said, ‘Tell me about the papers you found. Wait a bit; I’ll top up my wine first. I don’t normally slosh vino at this rate—’

  ‘But it’s a three-glass problem, isn’t it? I’ll join you.’ There was a faint chink of bottle against glass. ‘Here goes with my findings,’ he said. ‘I’m condensing it a fair bit, and you can read the complete text when I’ve got it deciphered if you want – well, the photocopies. But this is the gist.’

  He had a clear, concise way with words which Nell would have expected. She listened intently and with deep interest to Harriet Anstey’s story – he had, as he said, written a precis, but he read sections of the actual journal to her. Nell found herself strongly drawn to Harriet.

  ‘I wonder if we could find out what happened to her,’ she said, when Michael finished.

  ‘Well, Anstey isn’t a very common name, and we know she lived in Cheshire. But it was only a few weeks before the outbreak of WWII, remember, and a lot of records were lost in the bombing.’

  ‘I’d like to think of her meeting someone to take Harry’s place,’ said Nell, thoughtfully. ‘And helping with the war that was coming – maybe running a canteen in the middle of Coventry while it burned or helping bombed out people in the East End. But I know that’s being ridiculously romantic.’

  ‘Actually, I thought the same,’ said Michael. ‘So I’m as bad as you.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a coincidence that she and Alice Wilson were about the same age, isn’t it?’ said Nell. ‘And they both lost someone to a war.’

  ‘Yes. Nell, I’ve just seen that we’ve been on the phone for an hour and a half – I’ve taken up your whole evening.’

  ‘That’s fine.’ Nell did not want to say she had not had anything else to do with her evening. She said, ‘Will you let me know about hearing from Jack?’

  ‘Yes, certainly. If I can’t catch up with them, they’ll be arriving here, though. I’ve booked them into the Black Boar – at least that might keep them clear of Charect House. I’ve booked a room there for myself as well.’

  ‘You’ll be here over Christmas?’ Nell had not expected this.

  ‘It seems like it. Most of the Oxford people go to families, so college is pretty dismal. My father’s lived in Manilla for the last five years – he works for the World Health Organization. It’s a nice place for him to live, but it’s a hell of a journey for me, specially at Christmas. Marston Lacy’s a walk to the end of the garden in comparison. So maybe we can meet for a drink or a meal over the holiday? We’ll hunt ghosts between eating plum pudding and scoffing turkey.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ said Nell. ‘I’m hoping to have a sort of Open Day at the shop on Christmas Eve – mulled wine and mince pies and music.’ It was part of a Chamber of Commerce project – most of the local businesses were participating, and she was going to have Victorian Christmas decorations in the shop. ‘If you’re around, you could look in,’ she said, hoping this sounded casual. ‘And the Harpers as well, if they’re here.’

  ‘That sounds nice,’ he said. ‘I will. Thank you. Goodnight, Nell.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  After he rang off, the flat felt annoyingly silent and lonely. Nell stirred the fire, which had become desultory, washed up the wine glass, and sat down again. It was ten o’clock. She switched on the television news, found everything too gloomy for words, and switched it off again. The book about Marston Lacy lay where she had left it, and she supposed she might as well finish reading the chapter. It had not looked as if there was much more of any interest about Brank Asylum, but she would make sure.

  The semi-religious ceremony focusing on Elvira Lee was followed by a short paragraph introducing the next set of case notes. The author explained it was a mixture of material taken from the records of someone who had been Brank’s final patient and a written account provided by that patient. ‘She was the last patient to walk out through those doors,’ he said, sounding pleased at having hit on this phrase. ‘Everything in this account is reproduced with her full permission.’

  Nell rearranged the cushions in her chair, and began to read.

  ‘They said, two years ago, that I was mad. I can no longer judge if that’s true. But if mad means seeing things that aren’t visible to other people, and hearing things not audible to anyone – such as a fleshless voice, chanting a grisly old rhyme . . . Yes, if those things made for madness, then I certainly was mad for a time – possibly for all of the time I was in Charect House.’

  At these last words, Nell felt as if every nerve-ending in her body sprang to attention. Brank Asylum had closed at the end of 1966, and Alice Wilson had been at Charect House in the early 1960s. Was she making too many assumptions? But Alice had stashed her diary in the old clock, making some light remark about returning to reclaim it. But she didn’t, thought Nell. Did she encounter something that night that brought about some kind of nervous breakdown? Is this Alice’s account I’m reading?

  She glanced towards the phone, wondering if she dare ring Michael, but thought it was a bit late. And this extract might not be anything of any value. She would read it now, and if necessary she could email him.

  As she began to read again, the light from the table lamp mingled with the flickering of the fire, sending shadows dancing across the chimney breast, and she had the familiar sensation of unseen hands tugging her down into the past once more.

  EIGHTEEN

  ‘Occasionally, I worry that I might still be slightly mad – like a cracked piece of pottery – but the medics are being very breezy and cheerful, and saying I’m entirely recovered. Perfectly capable of going out into the world again, they say. It’s a cold and very large world beyond the walls of Brank Asylum, but I dare say I can put up a good enough show of sanity in front of most people.

  The doctors here never did put a label on what was wrong with me – I shouldn’t think there was a suitable label for it really. Instead, they talked about a breakdown from overwork and stress. Stress! Ha! I’ve never suffered from stress in my life, and as for overwork – I’ll bet I could overwork the doctors here into the ground any day.

  When I asked if they had any objection to my drafting out a few notes for this book that’s going to include Brank, they said not at all and added that writing was therapeutic, pronouncing this solemnly as if it might not have occurred to me.

  I’ve told the historian I’m as sane as he is (ha!), but that I unravelled a bit at the hem a couple of years ago. Like that sweater you’re wearing is unravelling at the hem, I said. (It was what we use to call Fair Isle, although I don’t know what they call it today. I dare say if he uses any of this stuff in his book he’ll leave that bit out.)

  If he does decide to put that in, I’d like it understood that I consider I was entitled to unravel a bit at the hem two years ago. I think anyone would have unravelled if they’d seen what I saw in that hellish house.

  The historian-cum-author can print this verbatim in his book if he thinks it will be of any interest, or it can be clipped to my medical records or flushed down the nearest lavatory for all I care. But perhaps if I write it down, it’ll drive the memories from my mind once and for all. Then I can draw a line under it and write QED. That which was to be proved. And now I’m reducing Charect’s darkness to a mathematical equation.

  Charect. It’s a very old form of word. In essence, it means an inscription, as in ‘
character’. But before the word became virtually lost, it signified something rather dark and often forbidden. I was allowed books while I was in Brank – and I found a number of interesting applications of the term. One fifteenth-century document recommends a specific charect to promote easy childbirth, while another was created as a defence against violent death, although there’s a counter-warning against that one, which says, “What wicked blindenes is this than to thinke that wearing Prayers written in rolles, thei shall die no sodain death, nor be hanged, or, yf hanged, shall not die.” That warning seems to have been issued after a charect was found on a murderer in Chichester Gaol in 1749. Curiously, it appears the man who possessed the charect actually did cheat the gallows, although there’s an ironic twist to the story. It seems the condemned man was struck with such horror on being measured for the irons in which his hanged body would later be displayed (they say the twentieth century is violent!) that he expired on the spot from sheer terror. Which goes to prove the old saying that the devil never keeps his side of a bargain.

  What’s interesting on a purely local level is that a seventeenth century source states a charect can be used as a defence against: “Witchcraft, evil Tongues, and all efforts of the Devil or his Agents who walk the world seeking prey.” Is that why Charect House was so named? It wasn’t always called Charect – I discovered that early on. Its original name was Mallow House. That’s a lovely name for a house – it’s a deep purple name, redolent of scented summer nights with pale lilac flares in the dusk . . . There was a mallow at the house – I remember seeing it. But the house’s name was changed in 1890 – one of the older attendants in Brank says her father told her how the name was changed to give the house protection from what walked there.

  “Did it work?”

  “They say not. They say whatever haunted that house, still does.”

  It does, of course. I was haunted, that night. And I think that whatever haunted me is still there.’

  A log broke apart in the fire, making Nell jump. She watched the cascade of sparks die away before returning to the printed page. Could it really be Alice who had written all this? The style was very similar to that of the journal Nell had found.

  But I won’t cheat and turn to the end though, she thought. I’ll read properly and objectively, all the way through.

  ‘I always believed the real haunting started when I set the old clock going. I do know that sounds peculiar, but it’s how it seemed at the time, and the years have done nothing to alter my opinion.

  It was shortly before two a.m. when I saw the figure at the top of the stairs in Charect House. At first I tried to pretend it was simply the huge damp stain on the wall, but deep down I knew it was not. I can still remember how I ran back into the library and slammed the door, my heart pounding so hard that I’m surprised I didn’t drop down dead of a heart attack there and then.

  I sat in the library for a long time, huddled into a corner of the window seat, trying to summon up the courage to go back out to the hall. All around me the house was silent, but every so often a tiny creak sounded in the hall, and I knew he was out there. Do ghosts walk? I don’t mean in the haunting sense, I mean really physically walk across a floor, causing worn floorboards to creak? I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now, but I know that on that night something walked across the old floors of Charect House, and it didn’t do so silently.

  The grisly old clock chimed two a.m. as I crouched there irresolute. (Me, irresolute! Never before, and I hope never again.) I hated the sound of that clock: it was distorted and uneven, as if it was struggling to make itself heard from beneath a murky lake. When I remember that night, the sound of that clock ticks and chimes slyly through the memories. I waited for the faint reverberations to die away, and that was when I heard the other sound. Not soft, stealthy footsteps this time, but something quite different. Somewhere in the house, something was tapping on a wall.

  It’s extraordinary how chilling it was. For a moment I thought it was part of the knocking I had heard earlier – the knocking he had made on the window and the door, asking to be let in – but I knew almost in the same instant that it was not. This was a light, panic-filled tapping – a trapped-bird sound. Except that whatever was making it was certainly not a bird.

  That was the point at which I knew I should have to go out into the hall. I would have to see if I could capture that figure on film and those tapping sounds on the tape recorder. I buoyed myself up by thinking about the paper I would write afterwards for the Society for Psychic Research, and how people would say, “Goodness, imagine that sensible Alice Wilson – lifelong disbeliever and cynic! – writing such an account.” Perhaps some of them might even say that it must have been a remarkably convincing encounter to affect me so strongly, and speculate as to the truth of it.

  I set off up the stairs, the camera around my neck, the heavy-based torch grasped firmly in my right hand. For a relieved moment I thought he had gone, then I saw he was still there, turning his head this way and that, as if searching for something.

  I was shaking so badly that I couldn’t operate the camera shutter, but as I tried to force my hands to behave calmly, he began to sing, very softly:

  “Sever quickly the dead man’s fist—

  Climb who dare where he swings in the air,

  And pluck five locks of the dead man’s hair.

  Then twist into wicks,

  With the grease and the fat,

  One on the thumb and each finger to fix.”

  All ideas of using the camera fled, and I began to back away. As if the movement was a cue for which he had been waiting, he began to descend the stairs. He came slowly and warily, lifting one hand aloft, in the way people used to lift an oil lamp aloft. But it was not a lamp he carried.

  Dear God, I can’t believe I’m writing this, and I certainly don’t expect many people to believe it, but—

  In his hand he clutched a second hand – a dreadful, misshapen dead hand, with glimmers of light oozing greasily from each fingertip.

  The hand taken at the midnight hour from the gallows tree.

  For the second time that night I ran away. This time I didn’t run into the library though – I wasn’t going to risk being trapped in there – I ran along the passage leading to the kitchens. My feet rang out eerily on the stone-flagged floor, but I reached the main scullery safely and tumbled inside, dragging the door shut. It was dark, but it was not absolutely pitch black: moonlight trickled in from the small, grimed windows.

  Where now? Opening off this room was a smaller one, with a deep, old sink and an ancient copper boiler. A door opened off that room to the side gardens of the house. I had locked that door earlier, and the key was in my bag in the library. But had he got in by this door? He had caused a door somewhere to open – fly bolt, and bar, and band – but which door had opened to his words? And would it have stayed unlocked?

  The singing was suddenly nearer, and I dived across the floor and into the old scullery, which was at a lower level than the rest of the house and had three worn stone steps leading down into it. The stench of clogged drains and damp reared up to meet me like a solid wall, and black beetles and spiders scuttled away from my footsteps, but if the room provided an escape route I would not have cared if it smelt of a charnel house or if the Pied Piper’s battalion of rats inhabited it.

  The garden door was directly ahead – a solid, old door with a tiny, glazed panel at the top. I don’t remember crossing the scullery, but I do remember how I felt when my hand closed round the handle. Because I knew at once the stubborn old lock was still in place, exactly as I had left it.

  I tried to dislodge it, of course. I threw my entire weight into forcing that door open, but nothing short of a battering ram and four men would have opened it. Or, of course, the key. But the key was in my bag in the library on the ring with the others.

  Behind me the door to the main kitchen opened, and the greasy light I had seen earlier cut through the darkness.

&n
bsp; I shrank back, then darted behind the old copper. It was thick with cobwebs and verdigris had eaten into it in places. The smell of mould and dirt was almost overwhelming.

  He stood in the doorway, still singing softly, and it seemed that the words and the cadences of the song floated across the air in filaments of light, turning the cobwebs into spun gold and scattering tiny specks of soft light everywhere.

  “Sleep all who sleep . . . Be as the dead for the dead man’s sake.”

  And here’s the most frightening thing yet. I felt my eyelids becoming so heavy that the compulsion to let them close – to slide down into sleep – was impossible to ignore. His voice and the light he carried with him are the last things I remember . . .

  When I woke it was to find myself on the attic floor, half lying against a wall. Of the macabre figure, there was no sign, and the house was silent, save for the maddening ticking of the clock downstairs.

  I lay where I was, memory unrolling in front of me like a ribbon of road at night. Had he brought me up here, that figure? Why?

  It was at that point I realized it was not the ticking of the clock I was hearing. It was the tapping I had heard earlier on. It was up here. Someone was behind the wall.

  That’s where they say they found me. Huddled on the attic floor, exhausted and severely dehydrated, my fingernails torn and bleeding.

  I think I tried to tear down the wall – when they found me I was sobbing and insisting someone was trapped there. But after the ambulance people had given me some fluids intravenously and got me a bit warmer before trundling me off to a hospital, I understood that it was impossible for anyone to be behind the wall. It was part of the house – the plaster was cracked, old and discoloured. What I thought I had heard would have been a bird or a rat in the roof void, they said. And it’s the logical explanation, of course.

  My memory of that night isn’t absolutely clear, even now. It’s blurred, like trying to see through one of those Victorian fogs where insubstantial shapes, fuzzy at the edges, come and go. The memories come and go, and sometimes they’re startlingly – frighteningly – clear, but at others I can’t make out what they are at all.