There he was, the man, heading into a copse of silvery beech trees. She was no closer, and wanted to call out but didn’t dare. She lost sight of him as the path turned, and then she too was in the trees, between twisting trunks, beneath the canopy of pale, glittering branches. Her heel skidded on a patch of mud and she dropped to her bottom, books thumping on the ground. Suddenly he was in front of her – the man – only yards away. She saw his face, a glimpse of white, inked with eyebrows and eyes. He turned, left the path and strode up the steep slope. She watched him climb, weaving through the trees. The black shape came apart on the air: a thread that snapped and vanished.
Cloud cut off the light. The landscape faded. Eleanor sprawled, cold, bruised and breathless. Above her, the mesh of twigs blurred.
~*~
The next day, Eleanor returned to the old mill. She did not expect to see the man again, but couldn’t resist revisiting the place where she’d seen him first. She crossed the footbridge over the weir. The mill building was tall and narrow, end on to the river, its bleak front overlooking trees and brambles. A stony track climbed away on the other side.
The mill was closed and sinking into dereliction, the front door locked. Dead nettles grew in an abandoned hencoop.
Eleanor wandered to the outbuildings at the back, found the mill wheel lying on the ground in the back yard, overwhelmed by dead grass. The door to the larger outbuilding stood open, wedged by a broken wooden cog. When she stepped inside two doves flew up, wings clattering, to pass over her head and out of the doorway. Stone floor, low beams – a storage room she guessed, seeing a swirl of mouldering hemp sacks and an old broom hanging on two rusty nails.
The mill was gloomy in aspect, dreary, damp and hard to reach. If the man in black had been visiting the mill, perhaps he intended to buy it?
Eleanor walked to the rear of the house and peered through a window. She cupped her hands around her eyes and spied an old kitchen: a range with its door open, a litter of plaster on the floor and the encroachment of ivy on the ceiling. Beside the back door she saw a terra cotta pot, split by frost. She pushed the fallen pieces aside and picked up a key.
Rooks circled and cawed against the grey sky. Water rushed noisily over the weir. She saw herself, as though from the other side of the river, a slight figure dressed in mourning, beneath the old grey house and its backdrop of winter trees, her head in its poke bonnet, tipped back.
She remembered how the man had seemed to vanish, walking away through the trees.
The key lay on the palm of her hand. She closed her fingers.
~*~
Damp and earth, decaying leaves and old plaster. A tendril of ivy. Gravel crunched under her feet. Eleanor touched the top of the kitchen table, leaving a fingerprint in the dust. She drew a line, formed an E and spelled out her name. A single china plate, a solitary knife.
Through the window, the exterior landscape dimmed and flattened.
She wandered into the parlour, where two plump armchairs, strangely tide-marked, grey with dust, waited on either side of the empty fireplace.
Eleanor sensed a watcher – the house itself, aware of the disturber. The house was its own memory and she was an intruder, a breach in the integrity of the past.
She walked from the parlour to the hallway, then up the bare wooden stairs, to find two bedrooms – one with a large bed, one a nursery with a cot. Net curtains hung at the windows. In the nursery she pushed the net aside and stared outside, through glass veiled in dirt and specks of mould, to see the river.
A draught moved through the room, like a sigh. Eleanor dropped the curtain and glanced over her shoulder.
~*~
She locked the back door but took the key away with her, dropped into a skirt pocket. That evening, sitting with her aunt by the fire at home, the weight of it pressed on her thigh.
“Who used to live at the old mill along the river?” she asked. “The tall one by the narrow field, where the cattle were last summer.”
Constance turned her kind, horsey face to her niece.
“I’ve no idea. It’s been empty as long as I can remember. Why do you ask?”
“The other day, I saw a man walking away from it.”
Her aunt was stitching something, hands busy, a reel of thread in her lap.
“Perhaps someone intends to live there again,” she said with equanimity. “It is a waste, standing empty. So many years of neglect – the place looks decidedly unpleasant, but I’m sure that could be changed with occupation.”
Eleanor had been living with her aunt for six months, since her father, her aunt’s brother, had died. She’d lived in London all her life, and this new home, the village in the depths of the countryside, was not convincingly real. Mostly she existed from day to day, missing her father, her true home and friends, the noise and bustle of London life. She walked, and read, living in a a dream from which she might at any moment wake to resume her real life.
“How could I find out? About the mill?”
Her aunt put her embroidery down. “My dear, why are you so eager to find out?”
“I don’t know. It intrigues me – a mystery.”
Constance smiled. “Well then, I’ll make some enquiries. It stands in Northcombe parish – you might ask for information in the parish office, I’m sure someone will know about it, particularly if there’s the possibility of a new resident.”
She picked up her sewing again and began to talk about the troubles of a poor local family from one of the sunken cottages along the Bath road. Eleanor only half listened. In her mind she saw the man dressed in black, walking ahead of her along the path by the river.
~*~
Time and no time, hours and days. Never an end to it, or a beginning. Rooks circle the mill, the river never ceases. It is a day like no other, like every other. The trees change but the forest is always the same.
You grow inside my belly, your presence felt under my heart, a coiled, curved thing that pushes and prods. From time to time I feel your tiny foot press against me, the jab of an elbow, the butt of your soft head against my pelvis. This gestation is out of ordinary time. The measure of nine months has little meaning on the long journey from conception to birth. We shall never be more together, you and I, although I haven’t seen your face. We are two as one, two hearts in one body, flesh of my flesh. A little stranger knitted, brewed and stewed inside a blood-hot vessel, come from nowhere, reaching from the long, primordial past into a present and future. I shall see you soon, little one, I shall hold you in my arms when your long journey is over. For now, I am the air you breathe, the food feeding for bones, the cradle in which you sleep and dream and grow.
~*~
Eleanor walked along the path to Northcombe, with Constance and half a dozen books. They carried umbrellas against the showers. She glanced at the mill as they walked past.
After the lending library, they visited the parish office where Constance made enquiries about the mill. The young man behind the desk checked his records and gave them the name of its owner, a company based in Bath.
“Long Dene Mill – no one’s lived there for forty years,” he said, peering at a list of dates and figures. “The mills are not as prosperous as they once were. Most of the business has gone to the city companies. Long Dene was built as a paper mill in the seventeenth century by a Bristol merchant, but the last records we have report it was used for milling corn.”
“My niece saw someone walking away from the place,” Constance said. “We were wondering if perhaps someone was interested in buying it.”
The clerk glanced at Eleanor and then returned his attention to the huge, leather bound ledger on his desk, thick pages inscribed with years of elaborate copperplate hand-writing.
“Well I’ve heard nothing about that, but why would I? If you wish to make an offer on the place yourself, you should contact the owners directly.”
Before Constance could speak, Eleanor jumped in: “I would be most grateful if you would provide me wit
h a name and address,” she said. The clerk nodded, drew out a piece of paper and copied out the details. Her aunt’s face froze in an expression of surprise but she said nothing, only received the folded paper and pushed it into her handbag. Afterwards they walked to the Castle Inn for tea and cake in the lounge, by the fire.
“So, Eleanor, what is your plan?” Constance said with a conspiratorial smile, as she poured the tea. “Are you intending to make an offer for the mill? Don’t you think it rather dreary? I shouldn’t fancy living there myself.” She put the teapot down. “Or is it perhaps the young man who caught your interest? And I don’t mean the clerk, helpful though he might have been.”
Eleanor blushed. “I’m interested in the mill. I had a look around the other day, and I would like to know more about it. I’m sure there’s a story to it.”
She didn’t tell Constance about the key she’d found, and her theft of it.
~*~
Eleanor wrote a letter to the Bristol company, enquiring about the mill and hinting she was a prospective buyer. She asked the name of the last residents and if any other potential buyers had stepped forward.
After she’d posted the letter, she returned to the mill. She carried a bunch of holly, which she placed on the kitchen table. The place seemed different. Although her name was still evident in the dust, the atmosphere had altered – perhaps because the sun was bright, shining into the kitchen, the parlour and the little nursery upstairs.
She opened the wooden shutters on the inside of another little room downstairs, tearing spider webs, causing dust and dried leaves to fall on her head and the desk. The invasion of light revealed a bookcase by the wall, with three swollen books, and a photograph in a frame on the wall. Eleanor took the picture down, blew off the dust and wiped the glass surface with her gloved hand. A young woman’s face emerged: a smooth, rounded face with serious eyes. She didn’t smile. The eyes stared out of the photograph. Eleanor began to rummage, pulling out the desk drawers, peering at papers. She didn’t find much: one old ledge full of accounts, its paper moulding along one edge, several scraps with scribbled figures, a collection of old quills and an empty bottle of ink. She turned her attention to the photograph again.
“Who are you?” she said. “Are you still alive? A stout old lady, with a pipe-smoking husband and lots of grandchildren?”
The question hung on the air, almost visible, a ribbon of words floating in front of her face.
Eleanor returned to the main bedroom with its view up the river. Apart from the old bed, the room was empty. Several window panes were cracked; tiny, faded roses on the wallpaper. Outside, by the river, the path led to Northcombe – and there he was, the man in black, striding away from the mill.
Eleanor held her breath. Where had he come from? She could see him clearly, square-shouldered, walking intently, heading across the narrow field to the path. She ran downstairs, out of the back door and over the bridge. There he was – ahead of her.
“Excuse me, sir! Hello!” she called. The man didn’t hesitate. Perhaps he didn’t hear her. He reached the path without so much as glancing back.
“Excuse me, sir! May I speak with you?” Eleanor began to run, picking up her skirts and hurrying across the field. She kept her eyes fixed on the retreating figure. Something wasn’t as it should be. The moving shape of black, like a cut-out pressed against the water-colour of winter woods: a shape now growing thin on the air, like smoke. He dissolved and dispersing. Eleanor stopped and stared. No ambiguity this time. He hadn’t vanished into the trees and the distance. He had simply – disappeared.
Eleanor hugged her arms around her body. She doubted what she’d seen. An illusion, a fantasy born of her overactive mind, the loneliness of the place, a need for distraction? Already her certainty was fading. She couldn’t have seen him. She had seen him. For several minutes she stared.
She looked back at the old mill, hearing the loud rush of water through the weir and the clamour of rooks in the trees. A dark shape waited at the bedroom window.
Eleanor tried to calm her breathing.
Someone in the house. She ran back, hurtled up the stairs, out of breath, heart galloping, but the bedroom was empty. An open curtain, mottled with damp and mould, stirred slightly as she entered.
~*~
Rain and more rain. January gales whip the house, hurl water over the roof and swell the river. For three days the storm has blown. Darkness wraps the place. The eight short hours of day are grey, occluded by dense cloud. The fires smoke and smoulder. The river rises.
I don’t go out, only wait, sitting long hours in the parlour. You kick under my ribs. My hips ache when I lie down and try to rest. My joints throb with constant pain. My belly is tight, striated with scarlet lines. I can hardly eat and in brief moments of sleep my dreams are disturbed. I wait to be delivered.
Your father returns from the storerooms drenched to the skin, carrying puddles on his boots. The storm billows round him and into the house as he comes through the door. The battle exhausts him, preserving the mill in the face of the weather.
The river is rising, he says. I’ve never seen it so high. I’ve opened the weir but it isn’t enough. Another day and the house will flood. I have to take you to the village.
I shake my head, fingers laced over my belly. I can hardly walk – how can I travel to Northcombe in the storm?
You can’t stay here. If the rain goes on, the river’ll fill the house.
Maybe the weather will break.
He shakes his head, pale and worried.
Tomorrow then. Tomorrow I’ll take you.
Outside the wind howls. Rain splatters into the chimney. The fire smokes and sparks.
~*~
Every day of the following week, Eleanor returned to the mill – a compulsion she couldn’t resist.
She saw him again, the man in black, several times. Standing at the window where she’d seen the silhouette, she watched him disappear half way across the field. Another time he made it all the way to path and walked out of sight. Once he only reached the footbridge before dissolving into air.
Her name, written in dust, disappeared from the table.
Sometimes, on revisiting, items in the kitchen were rearranged. The knife would rest upon the plate, and the following day would lie at its side. The photograph of the woman returned to its hook on the wall. The chairs in the parlour shifted slightly, leaving tracks in the dirt.
Eleanor wasn’t afraid. This house, the story she was seeing in captivating glimpses, became more significant than her other life – aunt, village, books. She had a feeling – if she could step through, squeeze sideways, she would find herself wholly in the other place, where a man walked to the path and a woman watched at the window. She felt her presence in the real world grow thin. Her aunt seemed far away, even as they conversed over dinner. She lost her appetite. Faraway Constance worried and tried to cheer her up, suggested Eleanor involve herself in the society of the village. But Eleanor shook her head, idled and daydreamed. She was becoming insubstantial. When Constance went out, she headed for the old mill with the stolen key in her pocket.
~*~
Sky of slate and iron. Eleanor hurried through the mud, carrying her umbrella. The first fat spots fell as she unlocked the door and stepped inside. She felt the embrace of the house, the dusty air, the perfume of plaster and damp. In the kitchen and parlour she observed the tidemarks on the walls, salty residue erupting from the paint and peeling paper. In the kitchen, the plate lay shattered on the flagstones. Remaining items of crockery had shifted on the dresser. The doors on the range hung open.
She wandered around the house. The beds had moved too, just a little, as though a giant had picked up the place and given it a shake. Eleanor could sense something more – a prickle in the air, an itch, a frost. She was close.
The rain began to fall in earnest. Soon a sheet of grey water curtained the house. She could hardly see beyond the parlour window to the world outside. Somewhere in the kitch
en, water dripped through a hole in the ceiling, an echoing note. As water seeped, further drippings began. Eleanor sheltered in the corner of the parlour, feet tucked up on a chair. The room grew darker. She closed her eyes, imagining the river flooding its banks, flowing through the mill with a load of sticks, branches, mud, manure and garbage, all the weight and cold of it.
A long, unearthly cry rang through the house. Eleanor opened her eyes. She stood up and waited for the second cry, low and animal, causing her nerves to jangle in sympathy. She pushed open the parlour door and climbed the gloomy stairs, one slow step at a time. She passed from daylight into dusk.
Peering through the doorway, Eleanor saw the bedroom lit by an oil lamp. A woman lay in the bed, hair unpinned, sweaty faced. Beside her the man in black fretted.
“It’s too late! Too late now. I can’t move!” she said, before the pain overwhelmed her again and she curled up, clutching the blankets. The man stood helplessly, cupping his hands, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
When the woman surfaced from the pain, she grabbed his hand.
“Fetch help,” she said. “Go to the midwife. Bring her.”
“I can’t leave you alone!”
“You must go. I can’t bear this. I’m going to die, the baby will die. You must go.”
The next pain came and she rolled over on her front. Blood shone on the front of her nightdress. The contraction drained the last drop of colour from her face, and then her skin seemed to grey.
“Go through the wood and across the field,” she said. “You’ll be quicker. But go, please, now, I beg you.”
The man’s eyes were glazed. He could hardly move, transfixed by the sight of the woman’s suffering. He still hesitated.
“James, go!” she said.
The spell broke. He kissed her hand and hurried out of the room. He passed through Eleanor. She felt nothing, but he shivered and glanced around him before going downstairs. He tugged on his coat, boots and hat, and left through the front door.
Hauntings Page 14