by Cat Knight
A dream from far away was drifting into her mind. She was in an old-fashioned carriage, pulled by horses. The dress she wore was a soft blue and sewn of silk. She knew it to be one of her favourites. Her hands went to her hat and adjusted it slightly as she peeked out of the carriage window, making sure she wasn’t being followed. Discretion was of profound importance. Belle felt a surge of excitement at what was about to happen. She had waited all week, and now the day was here again. Thomas would help her talk to her dear Elizabeth, maybe like last time, her little girl would send a message from heaven. Thank God she had found Thomas. It was divine intervention how they had met. God had sent him in her path. And that very day the depression began to lift …
A soft nuzzling disturbed her dreams as Rolf licked and whined at her neck. Belle resisted returning. It was so real, so exciting. It was what she wanted more than anything.
“Belle dear, Belle” Camille was shouting into her ear and shaking her by the shoulders.
Frowning in befuddlement she opened her eyes to find herself at the bottom of the stairwell being surveyed by two sets of worried eyes.
Pulling herself from the floor, Belle looked around. Her throat still burning and dry. “Oh, I need some water, what happened? I must’ve fainted.” Camille put her arm around her nieces back and led her to the kitchen where Belle drank two glasses of water.
“Are you sure you’re OK dear?”
Camille grabbed a hold of Belle’s face, peering into her eyes. Satisfied that Belle was really alright she released her hold. “What happened? Perhaps you should sleep in the living room with me tonight. I’m just reading at the moment, but I’ve got a game happening in a couple of hours. I’ll be quiet about it I promise, but I’m worried about you.”
“Auntie – I heard you outside my door, right before I got up. Were you checking on me?” Camille looked at her blankly. Belle tried to prompt her to an answer. “I heard the footsteps like I do every single night and you stopped outside my door just a few moments ago.” Camille shook her head, a perturbed look settling over her face. “Remember I told you about it, I asked you about seeing a doctor for your sleeping issues. You aren’t sleepwalking are you Auntie?”
Camille’s face creased into deep furrows. “No of course not. Not unless I go ahead and put myself right back where I left myself, which might change from night to night. But tonight, I was sleeping right in that chair over there.” She motioned to the recliner with its cushions and crocheted blankets. “It’s all the moving things – I told you not to do it.”
“Oh Aunty, you aren’t saying you believe that stupid old ghost story, are you?”
“Well I wouldn’t know much about ghosts and such things dear. And I won’t be considered a batty old lady. All I can tell you is… I just find it’s best to leave things as they are. The house seems happier that way.”
“That’s ridiculous Aunty, how can you say such things.” Camille sighed and looked away, a red watery hue shining in her eyes. Belle gulped hard. “I’m sorry Auntie, I didn’t mean to…”
“You’re welcome to stay as long as you like dear, but be it on your own head if you meddle in…. things. I’m not a stupid old woman, I’m just telling you how it is. I’m going to catch up on forty winks now. You’re welcome to join me if you wish.” Camille turned and returned to her chair in the living room, a sulky hurt expression on her face. A huge pang of remorse flooded through Belle. She would embarrass the older woman no further with her questions.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
She woke late that day, which wasn’t ideal. Two hours lost from her usual routine of sitting at her laptop and grinding through piles of images and paragraphs, Belle was three coffees down before she felt the grogginess caused by the disturbed night’s sleep begin to lift. A half-finished article about Norman architecture sat in front of her on the glowing screen of her computer, but Belle had not the energy to deal with it.
“Oh, bugger it, I’m not doing it,” she exclaimed under her breath.
Since her walking boots were drying out by one of the ancient radiators she was left with little to do as an excuse for not working other than roaming the house, dust-cloth hanging out of the pocket of her jeans and arms laden with boxes. Camille had evidently taken the car and gone out for a while, so Belle was free to do as she pleased without her aunt’s strange neurosis regarding moving things to stop her.
Treading the stairs up to the third floor Bell walked along the hallway, through to the west wing, a sense of guilty excitement tingled through her. This floor held eight bedrooms and most were shut up tight. She hadn’t explored the house since she was a child, and most of these bedrooms had never seen the light of day as far as Belle knew. With the thrill of forbidden fruit, Belle turned the knob and pushed against the door to the corner room, it refused to move, so Belle put her weight against it with her shoulder. It opened with a slight thunk as the timbers had swollen with the dampness, and grated against the push, finally separating.
Excitement fluttered in her belly, this was the largest of the bedrooms, the master room. The one with the windows that gave a magnificent view out over the entire gardens.
Belle had looked at the windows daily, wondering what lay in these rooms after all of these years. If they were anything at all like the downstairs cabinets… stuffed with antique treasures... Her eyes adjusted to the gloom as slivers of light broke through the darkness. Walking in, Belle shut the door behind her and went over to the curtains, pulling their moth eaten red velvet aside, just enough to let adequate light in. The chances that Camille would see movement in the room were slim, especially if she didn’t mess too much with the curtains.
A resplendent four-poster bed stripped of any bedding or upholstery, stood against one wall, with a large deep wardrobe against the opposite side. Both were covered in dust. Belle’s excuse to herself, for snooping, was that she would suss out all of the available space with which to store Camille’s boxes, but now, standing in the grand old room with its stately furniture, Belle forgot all about them.
An enormous chest of drawers sat next to the door. She pulled them out to find rusty nails, old doorknobs and mothballs. Pushing the drawers back in, she went to the wardrobe and opened the carved door.
“Holy shit.” Belle murmured, pulling out delicate bags hung up by woodworm-ridden hangers. Once unbuttoned, they revealed the resplendent stitch-work of dresses and nightgowns of over a hundred years ago.
“Ho-ly shit.” Belle’s breath came in short gasps. The fabric felt rich and opulent beneath her fingers, its colours still vibrant, and although occasionally dotted with mould in places they were, mostly unmarred by insects. Belle had seen antique clothing in second hand shops and specialty vintage clothing stores, but none of the quality was as this.
“Oh My God! WOW, Amazing….” Unknown Items cluttered the floor of the wardrobe and Belle pushed the dresses aside to see what treasure existed there. Mouldering hatboxes were stacked high some of them with hats inside. Although anything younger than the 1700’s generally had Belle less interested than the older span of history, but the preservation of some of the pieces excited her immensely.
She opted to pull everything out, laying it on the bed and inspecting each one individually, but by the time she’d reached the bottom of the heavy dark wood wardrobe, something else had caught her eye. A circular hole at the bottom of the space. Belle grabbed her phone and shone its light into the cavity. It was definitely an opening to something. She reached in, her upper torso disappearing entirely into the wardrobe and pulled hard.
The false bottom of the wardrobe came up with a creak and a puff of dust.
Several spiders scuttled away into cracks and breaks in the wood. It was better than she could have hoped. An Ivory, oak and tin box, ornately and finely decorated, glittered at her from the bottom of a hidden drawer. She gathered it in her arms and ran over to the bed with them. Prising the lid off revealed tarnished, but nonetheless genuine, jewellery hidden away for over two centurie
s. A silver and gold chain set with opals caused Belle to draw her breath in. On top of it sat a tiny bracelet decorated with precious stones.
Belle lifted the delicate silver filigree into her hands. A wave of the deepest sadness washed over her, it punched her so deeply she bent forward with the burden of it and eventually forced herself upright, breathing rapidly. Tears brimmed in her eyes as the softness of a child’s hands seem to touch her face, but no, that wasn’t right… it was the memory of a child. The memory of a dearly loved child missed so sorely that the grief ravaged Belle’s heart.
Belle wiped away the tears that dropped. You can’t think straight you are so tired, she told herself. Slipping the bracelet back into its protective box, she picked up the opal necklace.
A teardrop stone opal set in white gold which hung on a delicate chain. Biting her bottom lip, she hesitated just a moment before walking over to a large mirror in the far corner of the room.
Slipping the opal around her throat Belle let it hang between the lines of her V-neck. Something about the way that the dim light of the day outside caught the stone, captivated her. It was no more than a blink, but what she saw for a split second in the mirror had her pulling back and gasping.
For the time it took to just blink an eye, a dark brown ringlet of curls framed her face instead of her own blonde ones, the necklace, resplendent on a soft white neck.
Chapter Six.
Moving slowly away from the mirror and back toward the bed, Belle returned the clothing to the wardrobe and packed the jewellery away, back in its box. She would not mention this, not any of this, to Camille. Camille had made her position on the matter clear, and there’d be no telling what hell would break loose if she told her about this stuff and what she’d done, how she’d disturbed it. The only problem was, Belle was in love with the necklace. She hadn’t wanted to take it off. Despite the moment of weirdness, the necklace felt right. Struggling with choices Belle made herself drop the box back in the hidden drawer, but before she closed the door on the wardrobe she had fished the necklace back out and clasped it around her neck concealing it under her jumper.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sitting in the kitchen with a piping hot cup of tea and sweet biscuit, Belle was deep in thought, tracing her hand over the hidden necklace. A sudden buzz from her phone, had her visibly jumping as it brought her back to the immediate moment. ‘Unidentified Caller’ blazed out as her phone continued to ring.
Despite changing her number the minute she left London, her gut twisted in knots at the idea that maybe it was Rowan on the other end, sobbing and begging for her to come back. She really couldn’t face that conversation with him, not yet.
Finally, she stabbed the green button to answer it and brought it to her ear, hand shaking slightly.
“Hullo?”
“Hey, is this Belle? It’s Sam, from yesterday.”
“Oh, hi! How are you doing?” she asked, relief rushing from her lips and a smile playing at one corner of her mouth.
“Yeah, I’m alright actually. Just thought I’d give you a ring and see if you were home. I’m in the neighbourhood- Cardinham that is- and I just wondered if you’d like me to pop over and have a look at that garden.”
“Any excuse for a free cup of tea, huh?”
“Absolutely.” She heard the smile in his voice. “Ferncoombe Manor, yeah? I should be there in about fifteen to twenty.”
Belle moved outside and examined the garden, he’d have his work cut out she thought. She broke into a wide smile, oblivious to how her steps took on a different energy. Belle was delighted, thrilled even as she walked around the garden imagining how the flower beds would be brought back to life within just a few short months.
She didn’t have long to wait until a small transit van pulled up on the driveway. Gravel ground beneath its wheels and the sound of reggae and dub played softly over the hum of the engine until she watched Sam remove the keys and step out, waving.
“Well hey there! Look at you!” Sam gushed, going down on his knees as Rolf bounded forward with an almighty racket of barking. “Oh, what a handsome boy! Yours or your aunt’s?”
“My aunt. There’s no way that I could keep a dog like this in my little flat in London,” Belle pointed out. As though to prove her point Rolf turned and ran back into the house, heralded by a clattering as he knocked over the umbrella stand on the way.
“He’s great. Who needs a flat in London when you’ve got a dog like that.” The shrill cry of the kettle called them into the kitchen and Belle took her aunts best china, squirreled away in the back of the cupboard and poured tea for them.
“So, this is it, then?” Sam asked, when they finally emerged from the kitchen, several cups of tea downed and a couple good slices of pound cake consumed. They looked around the landscape of crumbling stone and overgrown green, Belle nodding.
“Yes. This is it. Think it’s saveable?” Belle asked as they stepped between the deep flowerbeds, almost totally colonised by weeds at this point. Sam shrugged.
“Anything’s saveable. I’ve worked on some real hot messes in my time. I like it better that way, makes a challenge.” He tugged at some of the thick stems that had shot up between the cracks in the stone. “It won’t be cheap even with mate’s rates though, I’m afraid.”
“Are we mates now, Sam? Is that it?” Belle grinned cheekily, earning one back in turn.
“Well, you’ve made me a cuppa and listened to me spout off for an hour. I’d say so.”
They shared a moment of silence, listening to the birdsong of the garden. Belle almost couldn’t bear to break the quiet, but in the end Sam did it for her.
“That’s another thing I meant to talk to you about. There’s a local historic society in Bodmin that I go to once a week, they take all types. Writers, enthusiasts, even simpletons like me,” he joked. “Next meeting is the day after next. What do you say?”
“Oh, I don’t know, actually finding a group of people that share my interests in this wasteland of green?” Belle winked. “Sounds good to me.” The sound of the rover hurtling up the drive caused them both to stop and turn as Camille pulled up. “Hey, Auntie, I missed you,” Belle fibbed, “Where’d you get to?”
“Oh, my monthly bridge game dear, over at Fiona Bellamy’s house… Oh, hello!” Sam had been partially hidden behind a granite statue and Camille instantly fluffed herself up to her full, not-so-impressive height. “Who’s this? Have you been making friends, Belle?”
“Auntie, this is Sam.” Sam stepped forward with a smile and shook Camille’s small hand, bowing his head slightly.
“It’s wonderful to meet you, Miss… Mrs?”
“Oh please, call me Camille,” she gushed.
“Sam’s a landscape gardener, Auntie. I met him at Lanhydrock. He thinks he might be able to do something about bringing the garden up to its former glory.” Belle motioned around them. Camille seemed somewhat taken aback, blinking up at Sam and her niece respectively.
“Well I’d welcome him to try. I’ve never had much problem with my little jungle, but I suppose it would be nice. What are your rates, dear?” Belle let the two of them talk, going off away to properly survey the little world around her, when a flash of movement in the master bedroom caught her eye. Looking up at the window, she was certain, she had seen something.
Chapter Seven
No. No. This is really stupid, “Rolf, come here boy”, her voice trembled slightly. “Wanna go inside?” Belle and Rolfe walked back into the house and Belle began to ascend the stairs, heart in her mouth. Nothing would be there, she knew it. It was probably just Sam’s comments from the other day, along with what seemed to be her heightened emotional state of late. Anyway, she wasn’t going to wonder and worry about it, she would make sure there was no one or no ‘anything’ untoward in the house, and then she would forget about it.
Rolfe trundled along behind her, heels padding more and more reluctantly the closer they came to the end of the hallway until he sat on his hindquart
ers and refused to budge. Belle barely noticed as she absentmindedly ran one hand over the hidden necklace. A frown had formed between her eyes and she huffed in annoyance at the dust motes. She was certain it was causing her sore throat.
Putting her shoulder against the door this time it swung wide, and Belle fell forward into the room. The sun was hitting the glass and creating long shadows that shimmered with the gentle breeze as the curtains fluttered. That’s all it was, that was all she had seen.
Belle rubbed at her throat again thinking that she didn’t recall leaving that window open, truthfully, she didn’t even recall opening it at all. But she must have, how else would it have opened up. This room needed a good airing out anyway.
She must have done it subconsciously because she could barely breathe from the staleness of the room, and it was obviously affecting her health if you could tell anything by the way her throat was tending to dryness lately.
Tingles ran over Belle’s scalp as she surveyed the condition of the furniture. What was Camille thinking keeping everything all closed up, left to succumb to layers of dust and neglect. Walking over to the windows, she surveyed the gardens. Yes, she could see how well they would look in the spring with new bulbs peeping through.
Already a colour scheme was forming in her mind. She would talk to Sam about that, in due course. Leaving the window open, she walked back down stairs to join the others, in the garden.
“Belle!” her aunt called. “I’ve decided! This nice young man will indeed have an excuse to visit us bachelorettes!”
“Sorry?” Belle looked back absentmindedly to meet Sam’s smiling face. She’d been thinking of all she needed to get done in the house. But she would definitely start with her bedroom.
