The Women of Heachley Hall

by Rachel Walkley

  ‘Let me explain, will you?’ He hurried towards the cabin, stumbling on a root in his haste. ‘There is something I want to show you,’ he called over his shoulder. Now it was my turn to force my jelly legs to respond.

  A rush of blood pumped to my head, pounding against my temples. Anxious, afraid or excited? I had no idea how to tell the difference. I’d a puddle of adrenaline in my stomach and it controlled my emotions, bathing me in a confusing cocktail of sensations. I followed him more on automatic pilot than anything else.

  He held the door open for me and offered me the bench. I sat and crushed my hands between my thighs. From out of the Carr tin, he extracted the letters, selected one and laid it on the table next to me. It was the last letter Kit had written to Beatrice: the letter of rejection.

  He perched on the opposite bench and without touching the note, pointed a long, trembling finger at it. ‘The man who wrote that letter was a selfish coward. He refused to stand up to his father or risk his inheritance to keep the woman he believed he loved. He threw her and the child she carried in her belly away – his baby. A young, foolish man who seduced a pretty girl with little care for her future. They talked of eloping in the heat of passionate love-making, but when his father found out, the heartless wretch demanded an end to their scandalous affair or else Heachley would not be his.’

  I swallowed hard. ‘She died in childbirth.’

  He flinched, turning away for a moment before facing me with those sad eyes I’d come to see too often – were they really Christopher’s?

  ‘I…I’d already regretted mm…my decision by the time word reached me that day, the day of the fire.’ He’d shifted his perspective, stuttering over the words. He forced the alien pronouns out. ‘Regrettably, not due to my devotion to her, but because I believed somebody might tell her family.’

  Her gypsy family. ‘You feared them?’

  ‘She was beautiful – dark eyes, jet black hair and the skin of a moor: rich and honeyed.’ Charles hung his head and hid his eyes. ‘She’d chosen Beatrice as her name because it hid her identity. Her father and uncle travelled afar to find work as thatchers. Her mother, long dead. They put her to work as a maid and my father employed her. It meant she had a roof over head and security. I ruined that sanctity.’

  ‘Her honour, too, no doubt.’ I touched the note. ‘Christopher could have been a better person.’

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered, keeping his head bowed. ‘It took me a long time to learn that.’

  ‘He died in a fire.’ I pushed the note across the table towards him. ‘Which means, if you are him, you’re a ghost. I don’t believe in ghosts.’ My voiced warbled. My faith in that belief was slipping away fast.

  He continued, unperturbed by my lack of conviction, and he spoke as if from a great distance: a forgotten past lying dormant in his mind.

  ‘She tried to reach me before she entered the workhouse, but I barricaded myself in the house, obeying my father’s wishes. I was not to leave the house. In the village during the weeks of my confinement, rumours had spread, no doubt put about by the servant who betrayed us.’ He leapt to his feet, unable to meet my eyes this time, his hands briefly clenching into fists. ‘I hid in shame behind the curtains. My family and servants bravely went to church the morning she died – it was a Sunday – and I was left behind. My anguish grew with the realisation she might have lived if she’d remained at Heachley, if I’d insisted on keeping her by my side. The child, too.’

  ‘Possibly,’ I murmured, remembering the newspaper article about the treatment of pregnant women in the workhouse where Beatrice had died.

  He swayed back and forth. His pasty skin was drawn tight over his cheekbones turning down his lips. An expression of agony or a grimace of disgust?

  ‘I refused to answer the door. I heard a man’s voice ranting, berating me. I heard, but didn’t see.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Her father.’ He’d lowered his voice and I struggled to hear him.

  ‘He blamed you?’

  ‘Worse.’ He buried his face in his hands and released a low sob.

  ‘Charles?’ Not Christopher, not while I harboured doubts.

  He sniffed and uncovered his face. ‘He cursed me.’

  ‘Cursed you?’ I cast my mind back to when I’d first told Ruth about living in the house. She’d used the same words.

  ‘I’m unable to leave Heachley until I find love again. I’m stuck here forever, never ageing. Unable to die. My body stuck in time while the world moves forward relentlessly.’

  Goose bumps prickled up my spine. ‘Christopher died in the fire. You,’ I briefly shut my eyes, ‘You died.’ I reiterated.

  He nodded, a strange acknowledgement of what he claimed to be the truth, one I fought to believe.

  ‘I don’t remember the fire. But these—’he rolled up his sleeves uncovering the white whorls on his skin,’ – are scars. Something happened. When the fire started, I stayed and let it burn. I wanted to die, perhaps. That angry voice triggered a deep regret at my actions. In a rash moment, I cared not to live as Christopher any longer.’

  ‘Or you fell asleep and a spark leapt out.’ I drew the familiar picture of my own absentmindedness and saying it, I knew it didn’t fit with what he described.

  ‘Does it matter?’ He pressed the heel of his palms into two harrowed eyes, ‘Because the reality is I can’t leave Heachley. I’ve not left this estate in over one hundred and fifty years.’

  I shook my head in disbelief – why not simply walk out the gate? ‘Then where were you after Felicity left? Why didn’t you know she’d not come back from the hospital, that she’d died?’ Flaws, there had to be flaws in his tale, something to end the illusion of Kit living in the cabin.

  ‘I only exist in corporeal form when the house is occupied by females – women, girls. The moment a man or boy steps through the gate, I disappear.’

  ‘To where?’ I scoffed. Tony. Bert, too? Had they not seen him at all, not even working in the garden?

  ‘I don’t know, but not here. Whenever you leave, so do I. When you return I do too, and always in the closet or the cellar.’

  ‘What?’ I gaped as I mentally scribbled a list of unexplained events. All those strange noises echoing about the house. The ash-like dust that seeped through the floorboards and came out of the cellar and closet connected the house back to where the fire had raged. The handle on the inside of the closet door and the bolt missing off the cellar door – had he done those alterations? ‘The closet door sticks.’

  ‘I know,’ he nodded. ‘When you and Ruth came back from the village, I couldn’t get out of the closet. My fear of being stuck there, not knowing how long I’d be there or having you find me trapped inside. I panicked. It’s not like me. I’ve learnt to be patient and stay calm. So, while you made bonfires, I fitted a knob on the inside to help me open it. The bolt on the cellar door, I removed that too for the same reason. You saw, or heard me, I think. You called out to me as I hid in the dark cellar.’

  I glanced up at the makeshift roof. What he said made sense. He offered substance to his story and the more the evidence fitted with what I’d seen, heard, almost sensed, the more his story convinced me.

  ‘You disappear?’ I rose and crossed the room. Reaching out I prodded him. Beneath my finger was hard muscle. Tentatively, I touched the back of his hand and although not warm, neither was it icy cold. I wrapped my fingers about his wrist, feeling for his pulse. There it was, plodding along at a steady pace, most unlike my racy one. He had all the attributes of a living person: breathing, pumping heart and warmth. ‘You don’t walk through walls or float about?’

  Charles smiled. His expression was a welcome display of charm and pleasantness, the very thing that drew me to him each time we shared the same space. ‘No. I’m quite un-ghostlike, am I not? But when the house is empty, that is what I become. I lose sense of time and emotion. I am lost; a spirit somewhere.’

  ‘This curse keeps you here and you can never,
ever leave?’

  ‘I can be released,’ he admitted.

  ‘What? How?’ I straddled the bench with my legs, determined to keep track of his convoluted tale. ‘The man, Beatrice’s father, cursed you never to leave until you find love again. That’s what you said.’

  The tension returned; he’d shrunken, hunched his shoulders down to avoid eye contact. ‘That love would have to be reciprocated, given freely and consummated.’ A whisper. The last word hurried out of his lips to the accompaniment of an embarrassed flush around his cheekbones.

  ‘Consummated?’ I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘The passion of physical love; proof beyond the emotion.’

  Sex. I wanted to laugh at his poetical expression, but his serious face, the tautness around his mouth, held it in check. ‘And if you did?’

  ‘Then, I assume, I’d be gone. Free. However, the curse extends to my lover; she would be left heartbroken and alone.’

  Decades of celibacy. Not once had he – it was my turn to blush. ‘And you’ve not sought this freedom?’

  ‘To seek what I desire would be unfair; I’ve learnt that lesson the hard way.’ Picking up the note, he placed it inside the tin and closed the lid.

  ‘Over a hundred and fifty years and nobody tempted you?’ I cringed at my own words. I didn’t want to ask. My body, flooded with racks of adrenaline, could barely cope with the shock of what I was hearing never mind whether I should believe a word of it. I’d yearned for months to be something more to him than a friend. Now, my feelings for Charles were in turmoil.

  He avoided making any eye contact with me and fidgeted with the tin’s lid. ‘Yes, I know the irony. But the reality is this house rarely had the occupancy of entirely women; men – the masters and servants – were always here, so I kept disappearing. I rarely had the chance to get to know women, nor they me, and if I did, well…it wasn’t as I expected it to be.’

  ‘Until Felicity.’

  ‘Yes, Felicity,’ he paused, clearing his throat. ‘And you.’ Finally, he glanced up and showed me two focused eyes; no tears or redness, nothing emotional. Yet, they weren’t lifeless.

  ‘When Felicity was here, you lived in this cabin and not the house?’

  ‘How could I claim my place in the house I should have inherited? How to explain,’ he said, fingering the tin that contained the last mementos of Christopher, the heir apparent. ‘What would it do to have people know my predicament? To have me turned into a freak show?’

  ‘The tenants who came and went, you’ve always been their handyman or gardener?’

  He nodded. My interrogation seemed to relax him, help him open up. My questions were practical, not personal.

  ‘Yes, what else could I do? I would appear on the doorstep and offer my services. Fortunately, the remoteness of the place and the changing occupants helped provide a cover story. I simply left no trace of my past in the house, so nobody suspected my time here had been more than a few years.’

  ‘Like you did with me. Every time I went to bed, you returned here to this lowly shack, pretending you lived elsewhere. My God, your vagueness drove me nuts.’

  A gentle grin spread over his face. ‘I know. Sorry.’

  The box. The beautiful decorations that hid the inquisitive mind of a lonely woman. I’d underestimated my great-aunt. ‘Felicity worked this out, who you were. She started to collect things: the Chindi box contained newspaper cuttings about the fire and the death of Beatrice. But she lost interest, probably a long time ago.’

  ‘Because once she confronted me a few months after she arrived here, she had the answers. I told her everything.’

  I rose, uncomfortable with the realisation of exactly how long he’d been here with Felicity – not a few years, but decades: she’d arrived in the mid-1960s, while my grandmother lived here. The idea freaked me out.

  ‘No,’ I said empathetically, pacing the small space next to the table. ‘This can’t be true. You’re imagining this all. You found stuff in the house and believed it.’ I tried to ignore his increasingly tortured expression. ‘You mentioned reincarnation, perhaps this is a fixation about that or maybe you’re an amnesiac who has adopted these memories based on scraps of paper.’ I lifted my hands in despair. I had to rationalise the excuses for his peculiar behaviour because the alternative – his version – was preposterous.

  I stormed out of the hut.

  ‘Miriam, please wait.’ He ran after me and caught hold of my hand, gently tugging on it. ‘Let me answer your doubts.’

  ‘How?’ I snapped and shook free my hand with an irritated jerk of my wrist.

  ‘Walk with me to the gate. Please, trust me,’ he implored, pressing his palms together as if in prayer.

  ‘Okay,’ I shrugged, striding off ahead of him until he caught up.

  We walked side by side, weaving in and out of the trees, but staying close to the wall. For a while we covered the ground in silence, my thoughts jumbled up and incoherent. I replayed the last few months, dissecting our encounters, recalling the fragments of conversation.

  ‘It can’t be reincarnation,’ he said abruptly. ‘I remember only one childhood.’

  It seemed Charles had the same idea. ‘I see,’ I murmured. ‘Go on.’

  ‘And I’ve no need to eat or drink. My hair doesn’t grow beyond the length I had on the day of the fire. I don’t shave either.’

  Not once had I actually seen him drink the coffee I’d given him. I’d only seen the empty mugs in the sink. He’d declined all my offers of food and I’d assumed he stoically worked through the day with no need for it.

  ‘The mist?’ I asked, as we crossed the newly mowed front lawn. Tony had gone, leaving us alone. I would need to call by and thank him, but not yet.

  ‘I think it protects me. I don’t understand it. I’m not afraid of it, quite the contrary.’

  We’d reached the gate and as we stepped closer, he slipped his hand into mine. Neither warm nor cold, it was a hand without callouses, unlike a workman’s. Rather, I felt the smooth skin of a gentleman’s palm.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel any pain. You’ll find me again.’

  I held my breath and looked straight ahead. He squeezed my hand, his grip firm and present. I lifted my foot over the threshold, past the gateposts and in that instance, my fingers held nothing. Halting by the roadside, I tried to calm my breathing, aware of no sounds other than my rasping. I turned to where he’d been – next to me, right there, in my shadow.

  Spinning around, I looked everywhere: down the lane, up the drive, and across the hewed grasses.

  Charles had gone.

  ·•●•·

  The gravel flew up beneath my feet. I ran, my heart pounding, and almost skidded on the slippery stones. Slowing up I jogged the last few yards to the back door. For a few breathless seconds I paused by the cellar door, listening for footsteps or any sounds of movement. Silence. I walked through the disused scullery, the cavernous kitchen with the Rayburn belching out a heat and into the hallway.

  Charles was seated on the bottom step of the stairs with his hands loosely clasped together between his knees. He gazed towards the upper storey and sighed. ‘Closet this time. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, where I end up.’

  Shocked, but not surprised at my discovery, I perched next to him. My stomach churned itself into knots of anxious bewilderment. He had disappeared from my side, there was no mistaking it – Charles was some kind of ghost or supernatural being. For months I’d been fooled by his ability to come and go, never noticing it as unnatural. Strange, but not implausible.

  ‘The first time you came,’ he said, as if to read my thoughts, ‘I was upstairs. I darted between the rooms, trying not to bump into you. The suddenness of my reawakening gave me no chance to appreciate the empty house. The moment I had the opportunity to escape you, I ran outside into the woods and hid. Then, when you moved in properly, I stayed out of sight while you and Ruth cleaned up. I’d realised by then that Felicity ha
d gone.’ He wiped away an invisible tear from his wan cheek.

  I’d missed the obvious clues, but they were there. ‘You hummed the tune on my radio while I took a bath.’

  He paused to recollect, then a swift nod of his head confirmed my suspicions. ‘A little too boisterously, obviously. I would never have, you know, intruded while you bathed. The plumber left so I came out of the closet.’

  ‘You banked the fire during the night?’

  He’d a sheepish expression. ‘Yes. I forgot to show you how to do it. I didn’t think you’d notice.’

  How often had he crept about the house at night, altering things? ‘One night, I woke to hear noises in the attic, it seemed to be right outside my door.’

  He paused to recollect. ‘I knew you were keen to find that box of Felicity’s. I foolishly thought I could intercept it by trying to contact the nursing home manager myself. Standing in her old bedroom, which I confess I did from time to time, I hatched this stupid plan. I tried to find the care home’s telephone number and gave up. Truth be told,’ he grinned for a second, ‘I’m terrified of the telephone.’

  ‘The box?’ I had to know – was he trustworthy? Ghosts were one thing, but dishonesty about his relationship with Felicity was intolerable.

  I didn’t resist when he sandwiched my clammy hand between his larger ones – I needed that physical connection again. His hands shook; an uncharacteristic, perceivable quaking. I guessed he knew why I’d asked the question. He cocked his head and stared right into my eyes with an intensity that sent shivers sailing across my skin.

  ‘Honestly, believe me, I’ve never looked inside it. I saw it in the library a few times, when she left it out, but I never intruded or rifled through her things. When Maggie brought the box back here, I panicked. I feared it might contain the truth about me – an unequivocal statement. I’d no idea of her plans for this place. Truly, I did not. She never discussed her will or legacy.’

  I slipped my hand out and hugged my knees. Great-aunt Felicity had resilience, years of knowing who he was and never saying a word to anyone. ‘Felicity stayed for your sake.’ My remarkable aunt. I regretted calling her senile.