Emily's Evil Ghost
by Geoffrey Sleight
Text copyright © 2019 Geoffrey Sleight
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and events in this narrative are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER 1
FROM family talk in hushed tones during my childhood, I knew strange events had taken place at my grandfather's country house, but little did I know on receiving an invitation to join him there, how frighteningly that past would come to life.
I'd not long been demobilised from the army at the end of the second world war, and returning from overseas to the bombed, rubble strewn streets around my home in London, the invite to his country retreat was welcome.
I remembered staying at his house with my parents as a child. That I'd woken one night to see standing at the end of my bed a young girl in a red frock and blue ribbon in her fair hair.
"This used to be my room," she said, then disappeared.
I got out of bed and called to my parents who were in a nearby bedroom.
"There was a girl in my room," I told my father, as he peered out and saw me. He took me back and looked around the room.
"I think you were dreaming Tom. Best to get back in bed and go to sleep again." He reassured me all was well.
While the vivid memory of that moment faded over the years, it always remained at the back of my mind. I knew I wasn't asleep when I saw her, and there was certainly no young girl living there at the time.
My grandfather sometimes came to stay with us for a while at my parents house in London, and I always loved his friendly company. But I sensed my father did not warm to him. Had they had a rift? I didn't know. In my tender years of childhood, grown-ups didn't convey their family feelings to the young.
Reaching adulthood, my job as a solicitor's clerk with the prospect of qualifying and starting my own practice was rudely interrupted by war service. By the end of it, years had passed since I'd last seen my grandfather. He was now in his mid-seventies, and as well as wanting to be re-united with him, it dawned on me that in the not too distant future the opportunity to see him again would be lost with his passing.
When I think back now to the events that happened on my visit, it might have been better for the past to have remained in the past. But hindsight is a wonderful thing.
After packing a suitcase, I set off for the 115-mile drive to my grandfather's house just outside a village called Bramthorpe in Dorset. With back pay from military service, I'd bought a Ford 8 car, now pride of possession, but the rutted roads as I neared my destination nearly shook me and the car to pieces.
This was remote countryside, but with outstanding views spanning meadows and hilltop woodlands. Vitalisingly peaceful and refreshing from the horrors of war.
The approach to the house was down a narrow lane so deeply potholed I feared the car would finally shatter. The forecourt of the house must have once been perfectly paved, but was now cracked and sunken virtually all over. It was a relief to get out of the car and ease my still shaking muscles and bones.
Glancing at the property, it had all the evidence of once being owned by a wealthy family. A grand home with pitched eaves, bright white render and tall sash windows boasting the structure's presence. Now the render was stained and dirtied with time, the windows rotted and flaking and the roof tiles broken in places with many of them missing.
I had no recollection of the building's look from childhood memory beyond knowing it was a huge house inside, with long corridors on the ground and upper floors. The one on the first floor was particularly memorable, containing the bedroom where I'd seen that girl appear in the night.
I looked around at the large landscaped gardens, and images of my grandfather playing games with me came flooding back. As I recalled the memory, the front door opened and he came out of the house.
"Tom," he greeted with a cheerful smile. "I'd hardly recognise you. It's been so many years."
I was a teenager of fourteen when we'd last met eleven years earlier at my parents' home in London. He had changed too, now with just thin wisps of grey hair each side of his head, but the hair loss compensated by a full, silvery beard. His friendly manner, however, remained unchanged.
"Don't see many cars round here," he said, inspecting my Ford. "Quite the man about town now I see." His remark demonstrated that civilisation still had a lot of scope to make inroads in this deeply rural setting.
Inside the house more long forgotten memories returned. The wide, wood panelled hallway, the chequered black and white tiled floor and spacious winding stairway. Now though the setting seemed more neglected. Maybe it was ingrained dust and a slight mustiness in the atmosphere, but hard to compare with recollection from childhood.
"Leave your bag in the hall. Come and have some tea and cake with me before I show you to your room," my grandfather put his arm round my shoulders and led me into the dining room.
Yet more memory came back. The wood panelling, the long mahogany table that once must have hosted many guests for dinner. Even the same portraits of hunting dogs and horses hung on the walls. But again the room looked scarcely cared for, a bit dusty, unpolished and neglected.
"Sit down and take the weight off," he smiled. "I'll fetch the tea and cakes."
As he left through a door that connected to the kitchen, I remembered the table used to have a full set of chairs along each side. My father had commented on the visit years back, 'Georgian chairs, they must be worth a fortune'. Now only three remained, grouped at one end. The place had obviously deteriorated a great deal since my last time there.
A few minutes later grandfather re-appeared with a pot of tea and cakes. We sat at the table and he asked after the family, my brother Alan, and mum and dad. Then he wondered how I'd coped with war service.
My memory of it was still raw, and I'd conditioned myself to looking forward rather than back.
"Lost some good friends during the final push in the desert," I told him, "I'll always remember them." He could see the experience had left an indelible mark on me, and guided the conversation away.
"Come on let's get you settled in your room," he said, after we finished our tea.
Mounting the steps leading to the first floor with its long corridors on each side, he led me to a room halfway down the left passageway.
"This will be familiar to you." He opened the door. It was. The very room where I'd stayed as a boy. The one where I saw the girl in the night. The memory had remained distant, but now for a moment I had an uneasy sense the girl was present. Invisible. Watching me. Swiftly I dismissed it as a silly memory briefly surfacing. If only it had stayed that way.
The room was virtually unchanged. The wood panelling, a large oakwood wardrobe, the chest of drawers, the window overlooking the forecourt and the same kerosene lamp on the bedside table. The lamp made me realise that like that earlier time, electricity still hadn't been installed in the house.
"Unpack your things and we'll go for a stroll in the garden. Then you can help me prepare dinner," he smiled, closing the door.
Four acres of garden extended around the property. Trees and shrubs dotted across the lawns and all looking in need of serious cutting and maintenance, unlike the neat, trim garden grounds I recalled. But I said nothing as we chatted on our walk.
"And do you have a young lady?" my grandfather enquired, after we'd talked a little more about the
recent war, and food rationing that was still affecting the country.
His question took me by surprise, I wasn't expecting to be asked about my love life.
"Well I'm friends with a lady called Ruth," I told him. "We met when I returned from desert operations. She was in the women's auxiliary service and now lives not far from me. We go out for dinner occasionally. Nothing serious," I played it down.
My grandfather gave a knowing smile, realising my modest, slightly embarrassed account of the relationship revealed a deeper feeling I held for the woman. He left the subject alone.
Since he'd been direct in asking about my personal life, I decided that perhaps I should be direct too concerning the family gossip about the house, but always in hushed, indistinct tones. It had long frustrated me never knowing exactly what strange events had happened there in the past.
"Can you tell me about the family history here?" I asked. "Things happened, I'm told, but I've no idea what."
My grandfather stopped walking and stared for a moment through the gap in a row of trees towards a distant view of meadows.
"Your father and mother no doubt, an aunt or uncle, all talking in whispers," he answered me after a long pause. "I know there's gossip in the family." He paused again, then turned to me. "Very few of them really know what happened. But after dinner tonight, I'll tell you a bit about past events here."
His enigmatic reply intrigued me, but he said no more as we made our way back to the house.
Freshening up before helping him to prepare dinner was not entirely civilised. The only running water for the property came from an outside tap at the back. There was a small ablutions room down the corridor from my room with a basin, mirror and water in a jug. Another memory that vividly returned from childhood.
The kitchen had hardly changed either, remaining steeped in earlier times. I peeled vegetables while my grandfather filled a chicken with stuffing and then tipped coal from a bucket into the glowing opening of the large, black metal cooking range. A dresser I remember containing cutlery and cooking pots was still there, and shelves with jars of herbs and spices, except most of the jars were now empty of any contents.
I finished preparing the vegetables and offered to help with the cooking.
"No, I'll see to it now. You go and relax in the lounge. Or take another stroll in the garden while it's still light," he said. "I'll call you when it's ready."
I entered the hall and walked down the long corridor to the lounge at the end. Memory was fuzzier here. It was not a room I frequented as a boy. Adults only mostly.
Another dark wood panelled room, with grim looking men and women peering from gold framed portraits made the place look strictly uninviting. I presumed they were past family members.
A light brown chaise longue stood in front of the bay window overlooking the grounds at the rear of the house. Unlike the bare wood floors in other rooms, a large oriental rug looking excessively worn lay underfoot.
One side of the room contained a large bookshelf, which mostly held works unfamiliar to me, weighty volumes of science, mathematics and physics. But a small section had a few mystery, detective and thriller novels.
I chose one at random and sat on the chaise longue to read it, but my mind couldn't concentrate and after a few pages I decided to go for another stroll in the garden. It was as if some intangible force was urging me on.
The day was starting to fade towards twilight when I stepped outside. Memories of being playfully chased around the garden by my grandfather when I was a boy reminded me of those halcyon days.
As I strolled in the peaceful surroundings, the corner of my eye suddenly caught sight of a figure a short distance away beneath a tree. I turned to look. A young girl stood there, perhaps no older than ten years, wearing a red frock and a blue ribbon in her fair hair. I backed away in shock. She was the girl I'd seen in my bedroom all those years ago. She smiled at me.
"It's been a long time since we last met, and now you're a grown man," she said. "I do hope you'll stay. There is so much I want to show you."
She remained smiling for a few more seconds, then disappeared.
Who was the girl? Had I really seen her? Was it my imagination? No, it was not. I was convinced the spectre had really been there, just as I remained convinced that I'd seen her in my bedroom all those years ago.
"Tom," I heard my grandfather calling from the house. The call hardly registered on me. I stood mystified by the vision I'd seen and the girl's words, 'there is so much I want to show you.' Show me what?
"Dinner's nearly ready," shouted my grandfather, unable to see I was about a fifty yards from the front of the house, standing behind a line of bushes. The second call shook me out of my trance.
"Coming," I replied.
He served the meal in the dining room, and was obviously a good cook, the chicken and vegetables prepared to perfection. But the vision and words of the girl continued to haunt me.
"Are you alright?" he asked after a while. "Looks like you have something on your mind."
"No, I'm okay," I said, finishing the meal and resting my knife and fork on the plate. I was reluctant to tell him what I'd seen. Although certain of the girl's appearance, I didn't want to give my grandfather the impression I had an overactive imagination. Even now I was beginning to doubt myself. Maybe some subconscious boyhood memory had resurrected itself in the setting of the house.
After dinner my grandfather invited me to relax with him over a glass of wine in the sitting room. Burning logs flickered in the fireplace, warming the chill evening air that now penetrated the old building.
As well as the glow of the fire, two kerosene lamps lit the room perched at each end of the mantelpiece, with two more on corner shelves. Several framed portraits of woodland pastures were hung on the walls. We sat in armchairs facing the fire.
"Glad you enjoyed the meal," he said.
"It was perfect."
"Good. I've had to learn a few culinary skills since my wife Mary died. She was an amazing cook."
I waited as my grandfather reflected on the past. I'd never known my grandmother. She had died a year or so before I was born.
"Strange events have happened in this house," he said, suddenly reviving from his thoughts. "I know there's been plenty of family gossip over the years."
For a second I was thrown, not expecting this turn of conversation.
"People went mysteriously missing from here. Family members and staff," he paused briefly, glancing at me.
"My father was a wealthy man back in earlier days. Did well from his stock market business investments. We had servants and a governess to educate me and my sisters," he said, taking a sip of wine.
"First a young man from the village went missing. Then the governess. A little time after that my sister Victoria disappeared." He took another sip.
"Of course there were village rumours, but there wasn't a proper police force like today. We had a village constable who also doubled up as one of two volunteer firemen, with nothing more than a shack to house the fire engine. Even that was only equipped with buckets and a small water tank." My grandfather smiled at the memory of such an inadequate set-up.
"The constable came here a number of times to look into the strange disappearances. But my father being a wealthy man had a much higher class status than a lowly policeman. The constable's enquiries amounted to him having a swift look round the house and grounds, and departing with much embarrassment at having the audacity to suspect that a wealthy man could ever be party to criminal activities." He grunted an ironic laugh at the memory, shaking his head.
I listened to him totally fascinated. It was all a revelation to me.
"A couple of years later, when I was sixteen, my father sent me away to naval college. He thought a naval career would be good for me. Make me a strong man. I loved it. Training ship exercises off the local coast at Dartmouth. I was set for the navy. Then at eighteen, I was called home. My mother had mysteriously disappeared. My father was dist
raught. So was I."
He gulped his wine at the memory, finishing the glass and reaching for the bottle between us on a small side table.
"Want some more?" he offered me a refill, but I'd hardly drunk mine, so entranced by his tale.
"In fact it destroyed my father. At about the same time his business investments had taken a turn for the worse, and he asked me to forget a naval career, but instead help him in a strategy to recover his investment losses." My grandfather grunted again at the memory.
"I had no skills in it. Money was bleeding away. We had to dispense with staff and a year later my father died. A broken man at the loss of my mother, who we both loved dearly, and the collapse of his business investments. Only two of us remained. Me and my younger sister Emily."
"That's heartbreaking," I said, learning of family life that was completely unknown to me, as well as my grandfather's suffering.
"All water under the bridge now," he said.
"Didn't you ever find out what happened to everyone who mysteriously disappeared?" I asked.
He turned his head to look at me, the gaze in his eyes steeped in the distant past, with no hint of an answer to my question. Then he stared at the fire again, continuing his tale.
"Emily and me had a little money left, but running a house this size, maintaining it without servants and paying for general building repairs was costly. Then I met your grandmother, Mary, whose father owned a local ironmongery store in the village. A little later Mary and I married. Her father also owned the local grocery store and sold the business to me at a preferential price. It earned enough for me and your grandmother, beautiful young woman she was, to live sparsely at this house. But we were happy."
He stood up and tossed another log from a bundle on the side of the fireplace into the glowing embers of the fire. Then settled again in the armchair.
"My sister Emily hated the prospect of me bringing my wife to live in the house with us. Shortly before my marriage she left, and I never heard from her again. The rest you know. Your father was born and lived here, helping me in the shop until he was eighteen, and then went on to get a job with an insurance company in London." He paused again, gathering his thoughts.
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