The Secret of Crickley Hall

by James Herbert

  He splashed through more puddles on the flagstones, but hardly noticed them now as he moved through the darkness, the light on the landing above too feeble to provide much guidance. He was tempted to find the main light switch by the kitchen door, but if the chandelier came on it would shine through the doorway to where his family slept; he still didn’t want to wake them, no point, Loren might freak.

  Gabe could just make out the solid blackness that was the open cellar door and as he watched, the white shadow slipped through and disappeared down the steps. Reluctant to lose sight of it completely, he quickened his pace, bare feet now slapping on dry stone. As he went, he swung his head round as if to catch whoever was observing him unawares, but there was nobody on the stairway or on the landing above. Nobody that he could see, that is. Still the feeling of being scrutinized persisted, although he seemed to have left the smell of corruption and soap behind.

  As he approached the cellar door (which he remembered having locked yet again before turning in for the night), a different smell wafted out to him. This was of dampness and mould, of cobwebs and dust. He could hear the busy rush of the river beneath the house rising from the well below. Cautiously, he peeked through the opening.

  Although the darkness was complete at the bottom of the steps, he just caught sight of the lighter shadow moving into it. Gabe reached in and turned on the narrow stairway’s light, a naked low-wattage bulb covered in grime. The journey down into the cellar looked uninviting, for the blackness there had hardly receded; instead it seemed to be pushing against the lowest step like a threatening tenebrous tide.

  Without giving himself time for further reflection, the engineer began to descend, one hand brushing the wall as he went. He was soon on the last stair and the pitchy blackness spread out before him. Breathing in stale air, he reached round the wall on his right, fingers searching for the light switch. Found it, flicked it on.

  Just in time to see the nebulous white shadow flow over the well’s low circular wall and drop out of sight.

  The cellar was by no means well-lit, for the naked hanging lightbulb, like the one over the steps, was dimmed by years of dust; there were corners and niches that were impenetrable. The opening to the boiler and generator room next door was a black void.

  Gabe returned his attention to the well, anxious not to lose sight of the thing he’d followed. Wary of debris scattered around the cellar’s floor, he went to the well’s low stone wall and peered into its depths. Although he heard the endless roar of the river below – its noise was amplified by the acoustics of the circular shaft – it was like looking into a bottomless pit. Of the white shadow he had followed there was no trace: it seemed to have been absorbed into the umbra. Unconsciously, he leaned further over the lip, his shins pressing against the wall, and stared into the dense blackness below. Gabe had never before suffered from vertigo, but a sudden dizziness came upon him; it was as if the blackness was sucking him in. An iciness seemed to reach up for him, freezing his very bones, and his breath was released in vaporous clouds. He almost toppled, but caught himself just in time, and staggered backwards, away from the opening.

  Gabe stood there, a foot or two away from the wall, and he inhaled a deep breath of musty air in an effort to calm himself.

  He heard a noise that had nothing to do with the pounding of the river beneath the house. It was a scuffling noise and it had come from somewhere in the spacious underground chamber. Something dragging.

  Gabe squinted his eyes, trying to discern anything that might be concealed by the shadows there. It was too dark, though. Someone was using the shadows as a cloak. Just as he had been certain he was being watched upstairs, he was sure that somebody lurked just out of sight.

  ‘Someone there?’ he barked with a gruffness he hardly felt.

  Only the sound of rushing water came back to him.

  Moving slowly, Gabe edged round the wall of the well, a path that took him closer to the source of the scuffling. There it was again! He hadn’t been mistaken. Someone – an intruder – was hiding from him. Maybe they’d seen him come out onto the landing earlier and ducked through the open cellar door before he came downstairs. But then Gabe had gone straight to the cellar, so the intruder must have escaped down the steps, any noise they might have made covered by the sound of the river rising from the well.

  Again! Feet scraping on concrete. From right there, inside the opening to the boiler room where the weak overhead light couldn’t reach. His eyes might have been playing tricks on him, but he was sure something had moved in the darkness. Dark upon dark.

  Gabe wasn’t sure what to do. His instinct was to get the hell out of there, lock and barricade the cellar door and call the police. But he couldn’t be sure there was someone there. Maybe the quiet scuffling he heard was nothing more than dirt falling from the cellar wall or ceiling, the house itself settling. Maybe the intruder was no more than a mouse or a rat. Yet, just as he’d felt eyes on him minutes before, he could feel a presence lurking there, hidden in the darkness. And it wasn’t a mouse or a rat. This was something bigger. He was certain of that too.

  His mouth felt dry and adrenaline pounded through his body. ‘Okay,’ he muttered to himself, talking up his courage, ‘let’s see what you got to offer.’

  He half crouched, his muscles tensed, fists clenched, and prepared to rush the shadows and drag out whoever was there. He felt the energy surge.

  ‘Right!’ he yelled, but just as he lunged forward a fierce light came on from behind him.

  ‘Gabe!’ It was Eve’s voice. ‘What are you doing?’

  Almost thrown off balance, he wheeled round. He raised a hand to shield his eyes against the bright glare and waited for his heart to stop pounding.

  ‘Gabe, why are you down here?’ Her voice was full of concern, bewilderment too.

  ‘Eve,’ he managed to utter, ‘shine the light through the doorway.’ Gabe pointed as he half turned away from her.

  ‘What?’ She was even more bewildered.

  ‘Quick, shine it through the doorway!’

  She did as she was told, even though mystified. ‘What’s the matter with you, Gabe? There’s nothing there.’

  Gabe snatched the torch from her and crossed to the opening. The beam lit up the next-door room, revealing the boiler and generator, the old mangle and blade sharpener, the pile of logs and the coal heap, odd pieces of junk that littered the dusty floor; but no one hid here, it was plain to see.

  He finally let go of his breath.

  45: THURSDAY

  It was morning and Gabe sat at the kitchen table, on his second cup of coffee after breakfast and wishing he hadn’t given up smoking. Loren had left for school and Cally was at the table with him, enthusiastically crayoning in a horse he had sketched for her (being an engineer, his version of the animal was more mechanical than it was graceful), telling her it was the horse he used to ride in his cowboy days. Cally was colouring it a bright shade of purple.

  Eve tapped on the window to get the attention of Percy, who was working outside on one of the garden’s flowerbeds, hood pulled up over his cap against the steady downbeat of rain. The gardener straightened and looked her way. She mimed drinking a cup of tea and he gave her a thumbs-up before making his way to the kitchen door.

  Gabe was hunched over his coffee, both hands wrapped round the mug as if for warmth, and he appraised Percy silently as the old man stamped his wet boots on the doormat. Shrugging back his hood and removing the flat cap, the gardener nodded respectfully at him.

  ‘Hey, Percy,’ Gabe greeted in a low but friendly growl.

  ‘Yup,’ Percy replied.

  He immediately seemed to sense the frosty atmosphere between Gabe and Eve, taking them both in as he stood awkwardly on the rough mat.

  ‘Sit down, Percy, and I’ll bring your tea over,’ Eve told him and the old man mumbled something incoherent as he pulled out a chair from the table. ‘Would you like some toast?’ she pressed him.

  ‘No, missus, I’m
all right.’ Orlroit. He smiled at Cally and touched the top of her head gently, but she was more interested in giving her purple horse a yellow mane. Eve put the cup and saucer before him on the table.

  ‘Nasty weather, huh?’ said Gabe by way of making conversation. He and Eve had barely spoken a word to each other that morning and had not even mentioned his excursion into the cellar last night. Down there, he had explained that he had followed a ‘white shadow’ and she had seemed to take some satisfaction in the fact that at last he was treating the strange phenomena in Crickley Hall seriously. As for something hiding in the boiler room, he himself had eventually surmised it had probably been a small animal, a rodent, whose scuffling was made louder and more sinister by the bare brick walls and concrete floor and ceiling. Eve had told him something had disturbed her sleep – a noise, instinct, she didn’t know what – and when she had gone out onto the landing she had seen the light from the open cellar door below. She had gone next door to rouse Gabe and, on seeing the bed was empty, had assumed it was he who was downstairs. She had grabbed the flashlight from their bedroom and followed.

  They had both returned to their separate beds, too weary – the comedown after the high adrenaline flow – to discuss whether Crickley Hall was truly haunted, should they stay or leave, and what did it all mean. Neither of them slept much that night.

  ‘Folks is gettin’ fretful,’ said Percy in response to Gabe’s remark on the weather.

  ‘Oh?’ The engineer’s thoughts had already drifted.

  ‘Worried ’bout what the rain’s doin’ to the moors.’

  ‘Has there been a flood warning?’ Eve asked anxiously.

  ‘No, not yet there ain’t.’

  ‘But they’ve taken precautions should it ever happen again, haven’t they, Percy? I read about it in a book I got from the village store. A flood could never do the same damage as last time.’

  ‘So they reckons, missus. Sometimes, though, nature has its own ideas.’

  Gabe didn’t like the subject; there were more immediate things to worry about. ‘Percy,’ he said more casually than he felt, ‘tell us a little about the guy who owns Crickley Hall. You said Temple or something like that was his name.’

  ‘Templeton. Mr Templeton.’

  ‘Okay. You told us he was never happy here . . .?’ It ended as a question.

  ‘No, he never were. S’why they up and left. But I think that were more to do with his wife, Mary, than anythin’ else.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Had no kiddies, there were jus’ the two of ’em an’ Crickley Hall’s too big for jus’ a couple on their own. Needs a family, like yours.’

  Percy blew into his teacup, then sipped from it, the saucer held below to catch any drips as usual. He looked directly at the American.

  ‘What makes yer ask, Mr Caleigh?’

  Somehow Gabe knew it wasn’t an idle question. But it was Eve who replied.

  ‘We wondered why the Templetons no longer used Crickley Hall themselves nowadays. Is there a reason?’

  Percy placed the cup back into its saucer and then both on the table.

  ‘Mr Templeton’s wife became poorly almost as soon as they moved in all them years ago. She never took to the place, an’ I think he didn’t either ’cause of her.’

  ‘D’you know why she didn’t like it here?’ asked Gabe, more than interested.

  Percy gave it some thought. ‘Mr Templeton, he told me his wife felt there was a bad atmosphere ’bout the house an’ it made her depressed, like. She’d heard the rumours, y’see, ’bout Crickley Hall bein’ haunted an’ all, an’ mebbe she took it too serious. Anyways, t’weren’t long afore she took to her bed. Small things at first – colds, headaches, backaches, them sort of problems. Then they discovered she had cancer, bad cancer – if there’s any of the good kind.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘They left. Moved out. Mr Templeton took his wife to London for specialist treatment, but she died anyways, only weeks later, we heard. An’ Mr Templeton, well he never came back ’cept fer one day months later. Wouldn’t sell the place though.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Gabe. ‘Why was that?’

  ‘I asked him that very same question the day he returned to sort out things with the estate agent who he wanted to take charge of the prop’ty. After his good lady died, that were.’ Percy nodded to himself as if remembering that very day. ‘I were workin’ in the garden as usual an’ Mr Templeton, he came out to see me, mostly to let me know I were bein’ kep’ on as gardener an’ maintenance even though he wouldn’t be livin’ here no more, but also ’cause he often like to jus’ stop an’ chat with me awhile. Always had done, said it took his mind off other worries jus’ chattin’ ’bout the garden an’what needed doin’, ’bout the weather or local people, any old thing that weren’t important like. When he told me he weren’t comin’ back to Crickley Hall no more an’ that the estate agent feller – a Mr Cardew it were at that time – he had instructions to let the prop’ty whenever there were any interest, I says to him, why don’t you sell up an’ forget ’bout the place. I knew him an’ his wife had never been happy here, y’see, so I were wonderin’ why he didn’t just get shot of it.’

  He looked first at Gabe, and then at Eve, as if to make sure they were paying attention.

  ‘An’ he told me,’ Percy continued, ‘lookin’ back at the house as he says it, “Percy, livin’ in Crickley Hall fer too long will destroy a person’s mind. The house’s got a secret that’ll forever haunt it.” That were the word he used, haunt. And he were haunted by it, I could tell. I thought of them poor little mites who had died here years afore, an’ I knew he were right. The secret is what really happened to ’em. How could they all’ve drowned in a buildin’ as solid as Crickley Hall? What was the authorities, who came after the flood, what was they hidin’ from the local people? An’ I, like I told your missus t’other day, think they were terrified if what really happened to them kiddies that night of the flood became known, people in the cities would never allow their children to be evacuated, even though the war were still goin’ on. They might figure the children safer at home with their mums and dads.’

  Percy gave a sigh, his gaze introspective.

  ‘Mr Templeton told me I still had my job fer as long as I wanted. Much as he didn’t like Crickley Hall, he didn’t want the place to go to ruin. Cleaners were paid to come in once a month, keep it liveable, like. Mr Templeton didn’t like to see anythin’ rot away, even if he didn’t care for it hisself.’

  ‘Did Mr Templeton ever tell you things had happened here he couldn’t explain?’ Eve asked quietly.

  The gardener turned in his seat to face her. It was a moment or two before he responded.

  ‘Not sure what yer mean, missus.’

  ‘He told you Crickley Hall could destroy a person’s mind. He must have had a reason for saying that.’

  Percy pondered and Gabe groaned inwardly. Surely she wasn’t going to tell the old man about the things that had been happening to them since they’d arrived here? But the doorbell startled them all, so intrusive was its ring.

  Eve glanced at Gabe and he rose from the table. ‘On it,’ he said, glad of the interruption.

  He went out into the hall and to the front door, opening it. A woman whose face was vaguely familiar was on the doorstep, an umbrella held low over her head. She was wearing a stern expression and a bright scarf; it was the blue-and-yellow scarf that he remembered.

  ‘Mr Caleigh. We met on Saturday. I was with my husband.’ The words were spoken quickly and brusquely.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, recognizing the vicar’s wife. ‘Mrs, uh, Trevellick.’

  Her piercing eyes regarded him sharply, her thin unrouged lips set in a straight line across her face.

  ‘Can you tell me the meaning of this?’ she snapped at him, slapping the folded newspaper she carried in her free hand against his chest.

  Surprised, he took the newspaper from her and unfolded it. The banner told him it
was the North Devon Dispatch and the front page headline said in caps: COUNCILLOR RESIGNS OVER EXPENSES.

  ‘Sorry, I—’ Gabe began to say, but she snatched the journal back impatiently.

  ‘Page five.’ Awkwardly using both hands, umbrella resting on a shoulder, she pulled open the newspaper. Rain spattered its pages as she thrust it back at him.

  On page five was a photograph of a surprised-looking Eve standing in the kitchen doorway. It was inset against a larger shot of Crickley Hall itself, which must have been taken from somewhere near the bridge. Gabe quickly read the headline beneath: CHILDREN CLAIM SEEING GHOST IN MANOR.

  His jaw dropped. So much had happened when he’d arrived home yesterday that Eve hadn’t mentioned any journalist and photographer having been to the house. Surely she hadn’t given them an interview.

  Before he could read on, the vicar’s wife was berating him again. ‘Do you realize how irresponsible you’re being?’

  ‘Look, I don’t know anything about—’ he began, but once more she interrupted him.

  ‘Police called to the house, children making up stories about Crickley Hall. A ghost, indeed! And you have to blab it all to the newspapers!’

  ‘Now wait a minute—’

  ‘Do you realize they’ll probably track down a poor sick old lady just to dredge up stories that should have been laid to rest years ago! You’ve started up all the silly rumours again. The whole county will have a field day. There’s nothing people like more than a ludicrous haunted-house story. Crackpots will come from miles around just to see the place and take photographs for themselves. Those children the article mentions were drowned in the flood, there’s nothing more to it than that!’ She was almost spitting at him.

  He skimmed through the story: Seraphina, 12, and Quentin Blaney, 14, while visiting – visiting? – an old manor house called Crickley Hall, near the harbour village of Hollow Bay, had been confronted by the ghost of a nude man . . . house flooded, water everywhere . . . another ghost in the cellar . . . hadn’t seen this one clearly but knew it was there . . . Gabe remembered last night and the fear he’d felt himself because he thought there was something there in the cellar with him, out of sight in the shadows of the room next door. In the light of day he had questioned his own susceptibility, wondering if the noises he’d heard had merely whipped up his own imagination, causing him to think he was not alone. But then, he had followed the mist from upstairs, the thing he called the ‘white shadow’, so what was that all about?