The Haunting of Mount Cod

by Nicky Stratton

  Sybil Thorndike was back on the floor and Venetia and Sir Repton were chatting to one another over their bowls of tomato soup. Venetia seemed to have forgotten about him murdering her cousin and was discussing the latest episode of Who Do You Think You Are? that had featured an actress Sir Repton claimed to know.

  Laura noticed Gladys was looking put out. Failing to get a word in, she dipped and lifted her spoon with exaggerated pomp, her large manly hand gripping the utensil. A drop of soup fell and landed on the tablecloth. ‘Silly me,’ Gladys said, picking up her napkin.

  Sir Repton removed his glasses ‘Out, out, damn spot,’ he declared, as Gladys tried rubbing the stain.

  At that moment Mimi came to take away the bowls. ‘No prob, Mrs Free,’ she said, placing a clean napkin over the stain. ‘I taking laundry time.’

  ‘You are too kind.’ Gladys grinned up at Mimi.

  Laura had often wondered why Gladys’ parents had never taken her to an orthodontist – she was good looking as long as she didn’t let her teeth out.

  ‘I can’t imagine how I can have been so clumsy,’ Gladys continued.

  The incident had the effect of putting her back in the driving seat and it was not long before she had steered the conversation round to the subject of herbaceous borders. Sir Repton said it was not an area of garden culture he had given a great deal of thought to but that he would be keen to learn more.

  She was busy telling him about the benefits of early flowering lupins when Mimi returned with the main course.

  Sir Repton replaced his glasses. ‘Sole bonne femme, how delicious,’ he said, looking at the steaming plate that Mimi had placed in front of him ‘I haven’t had it in years. Not since we used to go to Wheeler’s after a performance.’ He picked up his knife and fork.

  ‘We are very lucky, Alfredo, our chef here, is a superb cook.’ Laura winked at Mimi.

  ‘I think it’s going to rain tomorrow,’ Gladys said. mashing a potato into the fish sauce. ‘It always does the first week of Wimbledon.’

  ‘Very bad for business,’ Sir Repton shook his head.

  ‘What business is that?’ Laura asked.

  ‘I run a wedding concern from my home at Mount Cod.’

  Laura remembered the confetti. ‘It must be the height of the season now, I should think.’

  ‘Ah, heaven’s drowsy with the harmony. Simply nonstop nuptials, I really should be there. I’ve recently had the chapel re-consecrated by Canon Frank Holliday, such a very dear friend and such a comfort since…’ He put his knife and fork down as his voice trailed off.

  Laura sensed self-pity. ‘So why aren’t you there?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Venetia pushed the last of the sauce round her plate with one finger. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said, licking it off.

  ‘Alas, I had to get away.’ Sir Repton leant sideways and picked up Sybil Thorndike by the scruff of her neck and put her back onto his lap. He stared morosely at the dog, tapping her birdlike scull with one bony cadaverous hand but he did not elucidate further.

  ‘Shall we take our coffee in the lounge?’ Laura suggested, thinking of Parker’s stolid, sensible rounded head.

  ‘But we haven’t time,’ Gladys said. ‘You can’t have forgotten, it’s the Horticultural Book Club.’ She turned to Sir Repton. ‘It’s my latest venture, purely plant-based literature. No more messing around with novels. I’ve always thought life was far too short for fiction.’ She appeared not to notice Sir Repton’s furrowed brow, and carried on regardless. ‘We’ve been reading Reggie Hawkesmore’s friend’s book, The Edible Tree. Reggie lives here at Wellworth Lawns you know. His friend has written about an explorer who survived for ten years in the jungle eating only bark. The Edible Tree is a fascinating and informative travelogue.’

  ‘Well Repton won’t have read it and I haven’t had a chance either,’ Venetia said. ‘You must tell us all about it tomorrow, Gladys.’

  ‘You watch too much TV, that’s your problem Venetia. Laura what about you?’ Gladys appealed.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m really not feeling up to it but I know it will be a popular evening.’ Laura felt guilty for not supporting her friend but she was thinking about the Brigadier’s diaries that she had discovered in an old tin trunk along with his service revolver.

  ‘Oh, but now I’m torn… Perhaps I could postpone the meeting.’ As Gladys squeezed her napkin into a ball, Strudel Black and Jervis Willingdale walked over to join them. Gladys introduced them to Sir Repton.

  ‘Lovely beehive,’ Venetia said, admiring the golden coloured creation on top of Strudel’s head.

  ‘Thank you dear,’ Strudel said. ‘I have discovered a new hairspray with lasting effect, but backcombing is the key. You should try it. Come over one afternoon and watch my video on Youtube.’

  ‘What a good idea.’ Venetia tucked the thin grey strands of her bob behind her ears as Strudel turned to Gladys.

  ‘We are very much looking forward to the book club,’ she said.

  ‘And I’ve had an idea for next month.’ Jervis tapped his nose with one finger. ‘There’s an excellent little book all about the meaning of flower species as tokens of affection.’ He put his arm round Strudel’s shoulder. ‘I can’t get enough of that scent of lavender.’ He plunged his nose into her hair, then adjusted his blue and white striped silk tie and turned to Gladys. ‘Come along, I’ll tell you all about it on our way to the recreation room.’

  As Gladys got up to go, she leaned over to Laura and whispered, ‘You’ll have to fill me in in the morning.’ Her warm breath tickled Laura’s ear. ‘I want nothing held back, and remember, I got here first.’

  Laura, Venetia and Sir Repton retired to the lounge and ordered coffee. It was unusually quiet as nearly all the female residents, who made up the majority of inmates at Wellworth Lawns, were attending the book club meeting. Laura had been once, granted before Gladys had taken charge and become so prescriptive in the reading list. She had been surprised at how quick the leap was from discussing the main tenets of the central character – in this case, Lawrence in Seven Pillars of Wisdom – to the merits of using unsalted butter in the making of a lemon drizzle cake.

  ‘Fearfully hot in the desert,’ someone commented.

  ‘Personally, I’d miss the rain,’ someone else had said.

  ‘Dry as a bone.’

  ‘No even a light drizzle.’

  ‘Mind you there’s nothing worse than a heavy drizzle…’

  By the time the coffee arrived, Venetia was looking precariously close to sleep and Laura was aware of leaving Parker alone upstairs for too long on his own. This could often lead to small acts of vengeance, the chewing of a slipper and suchlike. She decided not to beat about the bush.

  ‘So Repton, why have you left Mount Cod in the middle of the wedding season? Do they have very noisy parties?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yes, but I love to listen to the Tom Jones tribute act when he is booked. Jez Abelson is truly magnificent as the crooning Welshman. Such a charming young man – he almost reminds me of my youthful self.’ Sir Repton sighed. ‘The discos are another matter,’ he continued, ‘but I’ve learned to sleep through them.’

  His hand began to shake as he picked up his cup. ‘My housekeeper furnishes me with an excellent sleeping draught.’

  He tried to get the cup to his lips but failed.

  ‘No, that isn’t it,’ he said, putting the cup back in its saucer. ‘The problem is that I am being persecuted.’

  He looked up, his eyes wide and fearful. ‘A phantom by the name of Rosalind has come to haunt me.’

  ‘A ghost called Rosalind?’ Venetia brightened visibly.

  ‘An eighteenth-century serving wench; Canon Frank Holliday found evidence of her untimely death in the parish records. She fell from a window in the servants’ quarters on the third floor.’ He picked up the cup, but again his hand was shaking and he abandoned the idea. ‘A horse’s bit – a Pelham I believe the Canon said – and reins around her neck hast
ened the plummet. It was 1752.’

  ‘But surely Mount Cod isn’t that old,’ Laura said.

  ‘It was rebuilt in 1910, after a fire destroyed the original Elizabethan house.’

  ‘How thrilling.’ Venetia was quite alert now. ‘I saw a most enjoyable American documentary about ghosts the other night. Paranormal Activity, I think it was called.’

  ‘I can assure you this is a far from entertaining experience.’ Sir Repton shook his head and stroked the sleeping Sybil Thorndike on his lap.

  Laura looked out of the window behind him. It was getting dark outside and she could see the outline of the magnolia tree looming against the house. It’s glossy leaves trembled in a light breeze as dusk descended.

  ‘So what form does this persecution take?’ she asked, getting up to draw the curtains.

  ‘She inflicts unmitigated terror upon me.’ Sir Repton shifted in his chair. ‘Often in the middle of the night.’

  ‘I thought you said you took something for insomnia?’ Laura said.

  ‘Rosalind can penetrate the deepest slumber, but it is not only at night.’ He pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped a drip from his nose. ‘I have found bloodstains on the carpet in the library. And then, alas poor Yorick…’

  Venetia and Laura stared in anticipation.

  ‘Yorick?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Our saluki had gone missing – I had even put a poster in the village shop before we found him dead in the billiard room.’

  Laura picked at one of Parker’s short grey hairs that was caught in the dark wool of her skirt. ‘Was the dog old?’

  ‘Of a certain age, but he had been purposefully shut in. He never was a one to whine or bark and had quietly passed away from dehydration.’

  ‘Surely it must have been some sort of unintentional oversight.’

  Sir Repton’s nostrils flared. ‘It was the hand of Rosalind I can assure you; she knew I never went in there. My late wife Matilda was not overly fond of the dog; granted he never quite got the hang of house training, but it was not an end he deserved, even she would have seen that.’

  ‘I remember so clearly the last time I saw Matilda,’ Venetia said. ‘She was wearing a lovely oatmeal coat. I saw one like it the other day on the shopping channel.’

  ‘How long ago did your wife pass away?’ Laura asked. ‘You see I myself have recently lost the man I was to marry and find I often have vivid memories of our days together. So vivid in fact that at times I think I may be hallucinating.’

  ‘Oh Laura, the Brigadier, he was so… masterful. The tragedy of it.’ Venetia sank her head into the back of her chair.

  ‘But to get back to the story, what possible reason could this serving wench have for killing the dog?’ Laura asked.

  ‘I believe it to be part of her plan.’

  ‘That is?’

  ‘I have yet to ascertain her true motivation. My bowels are aquiver just thinking about it and I feel I may have missed some signs. A dampness in the air. The lingering waft of ale. An unexplained hint of corsetry. These all may have been clues.’

  Laura frowned. This was too much. ‘The lingering waft of ale?’

  Sir Repton delved into the breast pocket of his jacket and took out a battered photo. ‘A simple aroma could be a portent. I feel it in the hinterland of my digestive organs, that Rosalind is now threatening me and that I am in mortal danger.’ He handed Laura a picture of the saluki. ‘Being alert at all times is exhausting.’

  ‘And how long has this been going on?’ Laura handed the photo to Venetia.

  ‘Longer than I at first imagined I believe. I can recall an unexplained smell of rosemary in the dining room over a year ago. She may well have left a tussie mussie.’

  ‘A what?’ Laura asked.

  ‘A nosegay.’

  ‘A nosegay?’ Venetia looked mystified.

  ‘And recently I have cast my mind back to the day of my wife’s passing and I distinctly recall a strange smell emanating from her bathroom. Carbolic soap was not a cleaning agent she ever used. Of course at the time I was preoccupied with the tragedy that had occurred.’

  ‘You mean the ghost had been in the bathroom with your wife?’ The man was without doubt, deranged. Laura turned to her friend for support.

  Venetia had a far-off look in her eyes. ‘This is all too much for me.’ she said, handing the photo back to Sir Repton. ‘Have we missed the darts do you think?’

  Ignoring Venetia, Sir Repton leant forward towards Laura. ‘That is exactly what I mean,’ he said. ‘Rosalind, one way or the other, was instrumental in Matilda’s drowning in her bath. Then she killed the dog and now she’s after me.’

  Chapter three

  Laura was sitting up in bed eating breakfast whilst reading the Brigadier’s diary when she heard a knock on the door. She was half way through 1939 – he must have been about ten. The black ink of the Brigadier’s childish writing stared out at her as she read the only entry for that week, “Mummy put olive oil in my ears.” Poor chap, his hearing was no good even then.

  She heard another knock and Venetia came rushing in.

  ‘We must go to poor dear Repton’s aid,’ she implored. ‘He is being tormented by this awful creature Rosalind. She is hellbent on evil.’

  Parker snuffled out from under the bedclothes and bounded over the pink satin eiderdown to her as she perched on the end of Laura’s bed.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune in a week,’ Laura said. ‘I thought you’d be pleased after what he did to Matilda; drowning her in her bath like that. What did you say he was, a murderous psychopath?’

  ‘That was before.’

  ‘Before what?’ Laura put the diary down on top of the morning’s paper that lay open beside her. ‘You know he’s making it up. The ghost is pure fabrication and if it isn’t, he’s only getting a dose of what you said Matilda predicted would happen if he bumped her off. No rest for the wicked and all that.’

  Venetia patted Parker’s head. ‘I think I may have got it wrong about that. It’s as Repton says, the ghost is the one who is responsible for Matilda’s death.’

  ‘You mean he didn’t murder her?’ As Laura pulled at a piece of croissant, Parker abandoned Venetia and trampled over the newspaper to beg for a morsel.

  ‘Now I think about it, it was my daughter who told me Repton did it and you know how unreliable she can be.’

  ‘But Angela’s a vicar isn’t she? Why would she lie?’

  ‘She can be prone to exaggeration…’

  Laura drew in a deep breath. Dear Venetia, her mind wandered in any direction it felt like, often new theories on almost any subject formed by the last TV programme she had been watching. ‘Well this is a turnabout to be sure but I’m not convinced. I think there’s something very fishy about Sir Repton.’

  ‘You’re talking about my cousin, Laura.’

  ‘He’s not your cousin, Matilda was.’

  ‘He told me to think of him as my cousin, now that we are all alone in the world.’

  ‘You’re not all alone in the world. You’ve got me and your daughter Angela for starters.’

  ‘But aren’t you the least bit curious about his spectral experiences?’

  ‘I don’t believe a word of all that nonsense and I’m beginning to find his histrionics mildly irritating. He’s just a lonely old fool using the idea of a haunted house as some sort of ridiculous seduction ruse.’ Laura gave Parker a piece of the pastry. ‘A serving wench somehow killing Matilda, not to mention the dog, I ask you? You and he are both as bad as each other. If it weren’t for the fact that you are only related by marriage, I’d say it ran in the family.’

  ‘Don’t be unkind Laura, it doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about him but with you I fear it’s as Gladys says, you watch too much TV. It overexcites your imagination. Anyway his supposed mental torture isn’t enough to stop him chatting up Gladys and myself, if I’m not mistaken by his dubious technique. Have you forgotten that bit as w
ell? Murdering his wife so he could find a younger model. Not that Gladys and I are exactly brainless teenagers.’

  ‘I think you and he would be very well suited. Oh wouldn’t it be lovely! Never forgetting the dear Brigadier of course.’ Venetia lay back on the end of the bed and closed her eyes.

  ‘What an old romantic you are,’ Laura said. ‘But really, I can see straight through his ludicrous pigeon-chested soliloquies, pretending to direct them at that dachshund of his.’ Laura was reminded of the afternoon that she and Gladys had been walking back down the hill past the larch spinney where the family pets of Chipping Wellworth were buried. They had been discussing The Edible Tree. Gladys was explaining how the explorer had eventually died of, in effect, self-mummification due to the extreme cleansing nature of the forest tree bark, when from behind a hedge Sir Repton had appeared clutching the dachshund in his arms. He had attempted to engage them with the rendition of a Shakespeare sonnet.

  ‘Mind you,’ she continued. ‘I’ve never seen Gladys behave like such an idiotic schoolgirl. She’s quite beguiled by the old charlatan.’

  ‘But Laura, I sat with him in the garden yesterday. He’s so afraid. He knows he must go back to Mount Cod.’

  ‘Why does he have to go back? He’s not short of money now is he? I thought you said Matilda was loaded?’

  ‘I always thought she was, but perhaps I was mistaken about that too. Perhaps he needs the money from his wedding business. Whatever it is he feels he must be there. He’s asked me if I can persuade you to come with us and see that he’s not making it up about the ghost. Then at least we can tell the police or something.’

  ‘You haven’t said you’d go have you?’

  Venetia’s bottom lip quivered.

  Laura sighed. ‘If he’s so convinced the ghost is putting him in mortal danger, you might be putting yourself in harm’s way too. Have you thought of that?’

  Venetia’s lip quivered further.

  Laura laughed and reached for her friend’s hand. ‘Really, he’s making it up.’ She gave it a friendly squeeze. ‘There must be someone else who can look after him.’