“Mama!” Crain cried.
I realised I had lost sight of Simon. I turned towards the piano, half expecting to catch him in the act, though the room was even darker than before. But then the servants’ door opened, and slammed violently. I looked towards it, feeling some dark shape rush past me. Constance stifled a scream, and squeezed my hand hard. The other door opened and also slammed shut. The candles guttered once more; my own went out altogether. Now I saw Simon’s shadowy outline, striding towards the door from the direction of the window—had he been there before? He secured the door, and stood beside it like a sentry.
“She always played in here,” Crain said. “I can feel her presence now.”
“There is another spirit here,” Madame Farr said, sounding drowsy. “M? Yes, it is Mary. Mary Watson.”
I tensed at once. So far I had seen nothing that could not be achieved by a stage magician—I could not fully explain how it was done, but that did not mean the explanation was a supernatural one. But now I was reminded of the materialisation in my room, and how I had still not discovered any rational cause for it.
“Mary has a message for John.”
“Does she?” I asked, hardly concealing my incredulity. “What message?”
“It is about your decision. She says Mr Sherlock Holmes will lead you… oh dear. She says he will lead you to certain death!”
There were gasps from the ladies present.
“She wants you to stay with her. She is not yet ready to leave your home. She waits for you there, and always will.”
“Mary would not ask such a thing of me,” I said, my defiance drawing stares from the other sitters. “She would not ask me to spend my life in mourning.”
Madame Farr squeezed her eyes as though in pain. “No… you misunderstand… She… does not want you to waste your life. She wants to be… part of it, and wishes you all the joy. But if you leave your family home, she fears she cannot watch over you. Mary is your guardian angel, Dr Watson.”
“So I must stay away from my friend, and instead live alone? What sort of advice is—”
I could not finish. The window flew open abruptly, letting in wind and rain. The candles all blew out, leaving us in near total darkness but for the faint glow of moonlight from outside.
“Do not break the circle!” Madame Farr shouted again. “Dr Watson’s anger has created a disturbance. It will pass. Mary… can you return? Can you give your dear husband a sign that will calm him?”
Simon grappled with the windows as if they were struggling against him, and finally wrenched them shut. I felt something soft brush my cheek, and from the murmuring all around I know the others experienced it too. Simon dashed around, little more than a shadow, until finally a candle was lit. And in its light, we all gasped, as a great cascade of small objects floated dreamily down upon the table.
A snowstorm of white lily petals.
I trembled. Judith squeezed my right hand reassuringly, though it did not comfort me at all. If even part of this séance was genuine, I had allowed anger to become an impediment to communing with dear Mary. And if it were not genuine, then Madame Farr was taking me for a fool.
“Mary’s strength is fading,” Madame Farr said. “A materialisation can be a terrible strain on the spirit’s power. Lady Sybille guides me elsewhere, through the halls of twilight.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Simon came around the table and lit the candles.
Madame Farr spoke again. “I sense a spirit trying to make amends for some slight in life. Someone here lost their father after having harsh words. There was no time to make peace with him before he passed, and it has weighed on this person’s mind. No? Does this not sound familiar?”
It could easily have been me again, but I said nothing—more than enough attention had been placed on me for one evening.
“There is… an inheritance involved,” Madame Farr went on. “Or rather… an investment?”
Mrs Langton glared daggers at her husband. Langton himself looked as though he really had seen a ghost.
“Surely someone—” Madame Farr began when no one answered.
With a great flash of light and a violent hiss, the brazier in the centre of the table fair erupted. We all cried out in alarm as flames leapt forth, and sparks flashed upwards. Now the circle was well and truly broken, as we all shot up from our seats. Crain called for a blanket to smother the flames, but Madame Farr bade us all stop.
“It is Sybille!” she cried. “The red woman, red from fire. She has always been the mistress of this house, and she wishes to send a message.” Madame Farr convulsed, and coughed. When she drew herself upright, her eyes were glassy, her face solemn. When she spoke, her voice was different again—sultry and low, somewhat hoarse. “I am a woman wronged,” she croaked. “I am innocent of the crimes of which I was accused. I am a protector of this family. I send a sign, that no harm may come to any who believe in my power.”
With that, Madame Farr removed the lace mitten from her left hand, stretched over the table, and thrust her hand and sleeves into the flames. Constance Langton screamed.
Simon reacted quickest, pulling the medium back. Madame Farr blinked, and stared at each of us in turn. Her hand was outstretched to the light, and was entirely untouched by flame!
“What has happened?” she asked.
Her question was answered by a blood-curdling scream, a loud crash, and the sound of shattering glass. It came from the door to my left—the servants’ entrance. I was now fully alert, my heart pounding in my chest, and I was first to rush to the door. It was not closed as I had thought, but perhaps six inches ajar. I threw it open fully, and could only gape in amazement, as I am certain we all did.
A maid was upon her knees on the floor of the hall, a silver tray before her, a mountain of broken glassware spilled from it. She quivered in fear, her eyes turned towards a narrow corridor that ran beneath the servants’ stair, and which was almost fully in darkness. And in the mouth of that corridor, plain as day, was a woman in red.
Her back was to us, and she swept silently away into shadow. Her gown was large and old-fashioned, like something from a painting by the Dutch masters, with voluminous loose sleeves, and a great bundled-up skirt that trailed behind her. Her hair fell in dark curls down her back, tumbling from beneath a large black veil, and adorned with red ribbons. She was there for but a moment, then was gone. I turned back to the room, and from the looks etched on the faces of the party, I knew they had all seen it. Madame Farr and Simon exchanged a glance, which was hard to discern by candlelight, but which I took for genuine confusion.
“Well, don’t just stand about!” Langton cried. “We all saw the ghost. Let’s go and catch her!” And with that, he was shoving past me into the hall, leaping over broken glass. There was a cry of glee from the room, and Mrs Langton followed her husband, then Crain after her. I urged my limbs to life, and ran after them.
We squeezed through the passage shoulder to shoulder, almost falling over each other in our haste. There was one store cupboard leading off it, into which a person would barely be able to squeeze, and then the corridor took a sharp left turn, and terminated abruptly at a solid wall. Langton began to press upon the wood panelling, rapping on it for any sign of ingress, but was quickly confounded.
“Where did she go?” he asked.
“There is only one place she could go,” came a breathless voice. We all turned to see Lady Esther, the last of all of us to reach the door. “Once upon a time, before I was born, there was a door in that wall. A door to the Red Tower.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE CURSE OF THE CRAINS
“Would anyone care to explain what we just saw?” Langton said.
“I’ve never seen her before,” Lady Esther said, at last catching her breath, “but I can only imagine that was Lady Sybille.”
“The family ghost?” Langton said, incredulously. “Come now, it’s just a silly legend.”
“Not a legend,” Crain said solemnly
. “A curse.”
“Oh, come now!” Langton laughed. “Enough is enough.”
“It’s true,” Crain said in earnest. “Father never speaks of it, but Mama was always very respectful when mentioning Lady Sybille. Esther and I got the full story from our nanny, who rather liked to scare us silly with such tales. It was only later, when we were old enough to consult the family history, that we learned it was true.”
“Go on.”
“Lady Sybille was the wife of Edmund, the Eighth Lord Berkeley, during the time of the Civil War. Edmund wasn’t a nice fellow by all accounts—legend has it he mistreated his wife terribly, and so she secretly plotted against him with one of Cromwell’s spies. One fateful night in 1643, she waited until her husband fell asleep, and stabbed him to death. She attempted to escape the manor, to take secret intelligence to her co-conspirators, but was captured by a royalist patrol. The records state that her white dress was stained entirely red with blood.”
“Blood, not fire, as Madame Farr suggested,” Esther interrupted, to the annoyance of her brother.
“When they entered Lord Berkeley’s bedroom,” Crain went on, “they found such a scene of carnage that it resembled a charnel house—as though Sybille had been in the grips of madness when she’d attacked her husband. You can guess, of course, where the bedroom was.”
“The Red Tower,” I muttered.
“It wasn’t called the Red Tower back then,” Crain said.
“There has been more than one historian who questions how Lady Sybille could wreak such havoc alone,” Esther interjected. “And whether she was fleeing the scene of a crime, or fleeing for her life. Ironically, it was only months later that much of the county fell to the parliamentarians anyway, making her situation all the more pointless.”
Crain shrugged. “Edmund Crain had been the highest authority in a region beset by turmoil, and now that responsibility fell to his eldest son—from Edmund’s first marriage, you understand. He condemned Lady Sybille as a traitor and murderess, and worked up the guards into a frenzy. She was given a rudimentary trial—if you can call it that—right then and there, at the scene of the crime. She was found guilty, a noose tied about her neck, and then she was thrown from the tower window. Records on the matter are scant, but local lore says she died slowly, and her body was left out for the crows as a warning to any who might sympathise with her. Indeed, in the days that followed, several servants who had supposedly helped her liaise with the parliamentarian spy were rooted out of the household. Anyway, it is said the red ivy that now clings to the walls began to grow the day Lady Sybille’s body was cut down, and that it continued to grow despite all attempts to cull it.”
“What rot!” said Langton.
“That part is doubtless an embellishment. What cannot be denied is the testimonies much later, of great and sober men, that led to the establishment of the family curse. Our great-great-great-uncle, Godfrey Crain, was a minister, and a well-respected one. One stormy spring evening, on a night much like this, he heard the sounds of a woman sobbing, coming from the tower. When he investigated, he said a ghostly woman, dressed all in red, flew down the stairs of the tower, passed right through him, and fled the house. Several servants claimed to have seen the ‘red lady’ sweeping across the grounds before vanishing into the storm. That very night, Godfrey’s father passed away in his sleep.
“The next time the ghost was seen was in 1775, shortly before a fire broke out in the east wing, claiming the life of our great-grandfather. The fire supposedly started mysteriously, in the cellar of the Red Tower, and it weakened the foundations before it was exhausted. Afterwards, during the rebuilding, Grandfather—then a young man—wanted to tear the whole tower down, but the rest of the family advised against it. Superstition, you see. He decided not to restore the lower level at all, refusing to spend a single penny more than was necessary on it. And so he had it sealed up, as you can see, presumably on the grounds of safety. He wouldn’t want his children and grandchildren coming to mischief down there, after all.
“The most recent sighting was by a doctor, visiting the manor to deliver a baby—the child of my grandfather’s first wife, Lady Elizabeth Berkeley. Upon entering the house, the doctor passed comment that he had seen a woman in a red dress at the window of the tower room as he had alighted from his carriage. This caused great consternation in the household, and a search was conducted, though of course no one was found. Lady Elizabeth died in childbirth that very night, the baby with her.”
After a long and deathly silence, Langton asked, “What are you saying? That one of the Crains is going to die tonight?”
Crain looked very grave indeed, his pallor now ghostly. “That would seem to be the indication, yes.”
“Unlike my dear brother, I don’t believe a word of it,” Esther declared.
“Sister, do not tempt fate. This particular spirit should be treated gently.”
“Lord Beving is right,” Madame Farr said, her eyes closed, hands raised, as if in prayer. “I sense a great power in this house. I do not believe spirits have the power to kill, not even the most vengeful spirits, but their sudden manifestation can often presage disaster.”
“Can’t you ask her what she’s presaging?” Esther mocked.
“That’s enough, sis. This is serious,” Crain snapped.
“What? That’s why she’s here, isn’t it?”
“It’s true, Crain,” Langton said. “We’ve just sat through an hour of table-rapping, and just when we actually have a ghost to talk to, your friends here clam up tighter than a muckworm’s hat-band.”
“Then I propose we coax Lady Sybille out of hiding,” Esther declared.
“How?” Langton asked.
“I’m going to sleep in the tower room tonight. The room where my great-great-great-great-grandfather was brutally murdered.”
“You will not!” Crain snapped. “I forbid it.”
“When the ghost appears, someone dies. That’s the curse, isn’t it, James? But we’ve just been told that you and I will live long and happy lives, and that Lady Sybille protects us. So what danger can there be for me?”
Madame Farr looked unsure of herself. “I have sensed nothing of the sort, but…”
“But? I would ask you to be very sure before you say more, Madame Farr. Are you suggesting that my father’s life is in danger this very night?”
“I… no. I would not suggest such a thing.”
“Well, I do suggest it,” Esther said. The sharp intake of breath that followed was Crain’s.
“Sis!” he said.
“I know full well what Madame Farr is after. We’ve all been treated to an extraordinary show tonight, but the game is up. If Watson’s friend Mr Holmes were here, I’m sure he would have this lot exposed before breakfast.”
“Exposed?” Madame Farr seethed.
“Yes, Madam, exposed. If any ill fate befalls my dear father tonight, it will not be the work of a ghost, but of mortals. Mortals who seek to quicken my brother’s inheritance so that they might profit by it.”
“Sister, that’s enough,” Crain snapped. “We have spoken of this before.”
“And our disagreement was never settled. So perhaps you and I should make a little wager, brother?”
“That is most improper talk for a lady.”
“The circumstances are improper, and I am Lady Esther Crain, am I not? I can make the rules.”
“Very well. What would you like to wager?”
“That all talk of spirits and curses is utter nonsense. If anything terrible is likely to happen, it is in that room. I shall sleep there, alone, with the only key. None shall enter, none shall leave.”
“And what will it prove?”
“That there are no such things as spirits.”
“But we have all seen one. We have seen… her!”
“No, we saw someone. I don’t know how the trick was done, but I am certain it was a trick.”
“This is madness.”
“Loo
k, James, let me put it another way. If I see a ghost in that tower tonight, then I will wholeheartedly embrace Madame Farr’s methods, or may God strike me dead.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say—”
“But,” Esther interrupted, “if I experience nothing, even after everything we’ve seen and heard tonight… then I shall be for evermore a sceptic, and you will just have to disown me when the time comes, for I shall go to whatever lengths it takes to shake this silliness from your head.”
Crain looked angered by that. “Well, damn it all!” He glanced apologetically to the other ladies. “Stay in the room, and see where it gets you. I hope the bally woman in red scares you silly.”
“And about that wager,” Esther smirked. “Cousin David will adjudicate, I’m sure. I rather fancy you could all place bets on whether I stay the whole night, or whether I run screaming from the room at the first creaky floorboard.”
“Yes, we could draw lots on the hour you back out!” Langton said, a little too eagerly for my tastes. “What o’clock are we now? Half past one? We shall start the sweepstake at two.”
“Better make it three, cousin,” Esther said. “The room will have to be prepared first. No one has slept there for an age.”
Much excited chattering erupted, until footsteps creaked on the stairs. We all turned sharply to see Melville approach. I could barely repress a scowl when I saw Esther’s maid behind him.
“What the devil is going on?” he asked sternly. “There’s a maid down there in hysterics, and an awful mess.”
“Geoffrey, dear,” Esther said. “I’m glad you’re here. I have a lot to tell you, and very little time…”
* * *
It took some while to prepare the tower room fit for Lady Esther’s habitation, by when we were all weary indeed. We had been given a time to meet at the tower—three o’clock. I took to my room, hoping to snatch a catnap, but my mind was too troubled. There was quite some commotion in the corridor outside for a time, as the guests chattered excitedly, drew their lots for Langton’s sweepstake—which I had no interest in joining on the grounds of poor taste—and dashed back and forth. Eventually all fell still again, until some few minutes later, when I heard a faint noise, like a scratch upon wood near my bedroom door. I rose at once, and saw shadows move hurriedly away from the crack of light beneath the door, which shone now upon a folded note.
Sherlock Holmes--The Red Tower Page 9
