With the track and road leading from the house so rutted, I could run to the village faster than it would take me to drive. Within ten minutes, and nearly out of breath, I reached the phone box in the high street, but it was out of order.
A light shone from the baker's shop across the road. I could see a man through the front window sweeping the floor and ran across to him, knocking frantically on the locked door.
"We're closed," he called back.
"Please help me! It's an emergency," I shouted.
The man stopped sweeping and unlocked the door.
"What's up?"
"My grandfather. He's very ill. He needs a doctor," I blurted breathlessly.
"Right, come in and wait here. I'll call Doctor Marsh. You're Mr Roberts' grandson aren't you?" I nodded. He recognised me from the visit I'd made earlier with grandfather.
The man disappeared behind a door, returning a minute later.
"I've called the doctor. His wife says he's out on a call, but she'll send him round. Probably half-an-hour."
"Can I get an ambulance for him? Take him to hospital?" I was worried any time delay could be fatal for the man.
"The doctor will be quicker. It'll take ages for an ambulance to arrive from the nearest town hospital," the baker advised. I had no option other than to take the advice.
"Thank you," I said hurriedly, quickly leaving to be back at my grandfather's side.
CHAPTER 3
THE DOCTOR finished examining my grandfather. I'd carried him upstairs to his bed after returning to the house.
"He needs to be in hospital," said Dr Marsh, packing his medical instruments back into a case. He looked at me sternly through gold rimmed spectacles under a head of neatly side combed grey hair.
"What's wrong with him? I asked.
"I think it's his heart. The injection I've given him should ease the blood flow, but he needs more specialist help. I'll arrange for an ambulance to take him." The doctor closed his medical bag and I showed him to the front door.
"Make sure he stays warm until the ambulance arrives," he advised, then climbed into his car and drove off.
More than an hour passed before the ambulance came.
"Where's the hospital?" I asked the two attendants as they lifted him on a stretcher into the vehicle.
"St Luke's in Cloverbridge," one of them replied.
I got into my car to follow them, but their vehicle was able to deal with the rough surface roads better than mine, and was soon out of sight. Fortunately, I saw some road signs to Cloverbridge and finally reached the hospital.
"You can't see your grandfather right now," a nurse told me at reception. "The doctor is examining him. It might be some time before you can visit him. Probably tomorrow." She asked if I could be contacted by phone with any news. I told her the house didn't have one.
"Then you'll have to ring us from somewhere, or come here to find out how he's getting on," she replied.
I drove back in a mood of gloomy darkness matching the night all around, worried about my grandfather, and feeling daunted at the prospect of having no other living person staying in the large house. Only perhaps, the spectral presence of that evil girl for company.
Several times in the night I woke certain I'd heard a sound. Each time cautiously opening my eyes in dread of seeing a ghost in the room. But in the low light of the lamp I saw nothing from the world beyond.
Drawing open the curtains in the morning an overcast day met me, the garden trees and bushes agitated by a strong breeze. Much as I wanted to return home, I couldn't desert my grandfather and decided that for now I'd have to remain at the house and visit him regularly in hospital. I walked into the village to ask the baker if I could use his phone to contact the hospital.
"How's he doing?" the baker saw me approaching his shop and came to the door. He was happy to let me make the call. My grandfather's condition was stable, but he remained unconscious. I said I'd drive over next day for a visit. Then I called my father to break the news.
He told me he'd also go to the hospital tomorrow, but wouldn't be able to stay locally. My mother suffered from multiple sclerosis and needed his care for most of the time. My brother Eric had stayed in the navy after the war, and was presently at sea. My father said he'd send him a telegram from the post office.
"Everyone round here wishes your grandfather well," said the baker as I was leaving. The news of his illness it seemed had already spread. Entering other stores to buy some fresh provisions, the owners' goodwill amazed and heartened me, and I was offered free of charge ham, vegetables and fruit. The old man was obviously well loved by the villagers, the generosity now handed down to me. I felt disarmingly humbled and grateful.
Back in the house the absence of my grandfather pervaded. It was if the soul had been sucked out of it. The routine of lighting fires to warm the place, keeping the kitchen range alight with coal and preparing a meal was entirely new territory to me in this property largely lost in the previous century.
After the chores I took a stroll in the garden, warily half expecting to see a ghost suddenly appearing. Thankfully none manifested, though the sense of a presence continually pervaded.
As evening approached I cooked a ham joint and boiled some vegetables, but my appetite was not up to finishing the meal, so I relaxed in the sitting room, pouring myself a generous glass or two of my grandfather's brandy on a self promise of buying a new bottle for him.
The house was eerily quiet save for the crackling of the log fire, which bestowed a feeling of warming comfort in this lonely setting. How the place must have buzzed with family life and servants back in its wealthy heyday. Now a shell of its former self.
Finishing another brandy I left for bed. In the bedroom I constantly looked over my shoulder while undressing, wondering if the girl Emily would be standing behind me. It was a relief to climb into bed, free so far of any more visitations. How long I could put up with this tense uncertainty escaped me. But for now I had a duty to remain on hand for my grandfather.
******
I WOKE, certain of hearing voices. First instinct was to bury my head under the blanket praying that if it was a haunting it would go away. But maybe someone was breaking into the house? The property being isolated, thieves might think there were rich, easy pickings.
Dressing and taking the lamp, I entered the corridor. The voices of a man and woman grew louder from downstairs. I crept to the landing and looked over the bannister to the hall below. Candles flickering in wall holders lit the setting. I'd never seen them before. The man and woman came into view heading towards the stairway. They stopped at the bottom.
"Your daughter Emily is a wicked, wilful girl. I cannot educate her any further. I would advise you to send her to a boarding school for a strong dose of discipline," the woman spoke firmly. She wore a long, grey jacket and dress, her dark hair parted neatly in the middle.
"Miss Hemming," the man replied, "I employed you as governess to educate my children Emily and Edward. I told you Emily was a difficult child. I had every confidence you would bring her to heel." Dressed in a dark suit and wing collar shirt, I realised it was the same man I'd seen on the landing the other night consoling his daughter Victoria.
These were spectres again, rising from graves of the past. My heart began racing, yet I was captivated by the events unfolding.
"Well if Emily is not packed away to an establishment that will confine her outlandish behaviour, I shall have no option other than to hand in my notice," the woman began climbing the stairway.
My fascination turned to fear as I realised the ghost was starting to approach. A dead woman whose clothes and body began disintegrating as she neared, revealing her skeleton at every upward step. I backed away, seeing her skull face seeming to stare harshly at me. Then the hall and stairway fell into darkness. Only the light of my lamp lit the landing.
The apparitions had gone, unlike my furiously beating heart. Quickly I returned to the bedroom, wishing there was a lock
on the door. Not that it would keep out ghosts. But I wanted a solid shield to give me a sense of security.
How I wished for another glass of brandy from downstairs to help relieve the shock of seeing that ghoul, but dared not leave the room again that night. The supernatural gave me even greater terror than any enemy I'd encountered in war. In that, at least I stood a chance. But how could you hope to overpower ghosts? Intangibly invading your space and manipulating your mind.
So another uneasy night followed. I could only lightly sleep, if you could call it that. Waking at the slightest creak in the old property's timber joists and floorboards. The wind rattling the windows.
Though morning was a relief of sorts, from experience I knew visitations were not confined to the dark hours. I brewed myself a cup of tea in the kitchen. Then making my way across the hall to the sitting room, heard the sound of cartwheels and the trot of a horse's hooves coming to a stop on the forecourt. Opening the door, I saw a milk cart drawing up.
"Morning," a cheery man in a peak hat and striped blue and white apron greeted me, jumping down from the cart and grabbing a bottle of milk from the wagon.
"How's your grandfather doing?" he asked, handing me the bottle. The local news had obviously spread to him.
"Still in hospital. I'll be visiting him today," I replied.
The man smiled from his weathered outdoor face.
"Give him my wishes for a speedy recovery."
I nodded as he turned and climbed back on to the cart, shaking the horse's reins and setting off on his rounds again.
Soon he was gone, but the brief contact with another living person made me feel a little more at ease. And now with some fresh milk, I ate a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast before setting off for the hospital, hoping my car wouldn't shake to pieces on the potholed driveway and roads to Cloverbridge.
"Your grandfather is still unconscious," a nurse told me on arrival. "We've put him in a separate room from the main ward, so we can be sure he isn't susceptible to infections from other patients. He's in a very delicate state." The news was depressing. She led me down the corridor to the room.
"Please keep your visit brief and in no circumstances touch or breath over him," the nurse advised. "I take it you don't have a cold?"
I shook my head. We entered the room.
My grandfather looked a pathetic sight. Only his bearded, unconscious face was visible from the bedsheets. There was nothing I could do to console him. After a few minutes of watching him pityingly, I gave the bunch of grapes I'd brought to the nurse.
"Perhaps some other patients could enjoy these for now," I said. She smiled and took them.
"Ring us tomorrow, and we'll let you know if there's any improvement," she said. Making my way back down the corridor to leave, I saw my father approaching.
"Hello son," he reached out to shake my hand. "How is the old fellow?"
I told him. His expression dropped. I noticed he'd lost even more hair from his balding head since I'd last seen him and my mother only a few months ago. A few more lines under his eyes. The strain for him looking after mother in her illness was evident. I felt guilty that I wasn't being a more dutiful son, and resolved after this episode to pay more attention to them.
I waited while my father briefly visited his own father, then we found a cafe in the town to have early lunch together.
"Your grandfather and me didn't have the greatest of relationships," he confessed, his mood brought on by the fear that the old man might not have much longer in this world. I knew from some sixth sense atmosphere that existed between them, even from my boyhood, that there was a strain between them.
"I know he's always been kind to you," my father said as we sat together at a table in the cafe, "but he was quite strict to me when I was a boy. And things also soured between me and my mother." He took a bite of his ham sandwich and chewed for a moment.
"At the earliest opportunity I left home. Then not long after I married your mother," he continued.
"That house was not a happy place. Sometimes I thought I saw ghosts, but in the blink of an eye they were gone. If they were there at all that is. Strange, unpleasant events took place there."
For a moment my father's face wrinkled in a deep frown as if he was recalling a traumatic memory. I'd been wondering if I should tell him of the unearthly events I'd witnessed, but didn't want to put further weight on his mind. There was enough present worry about mother's health.
"There's a lot of guilt in that place." He took a drink of his tea.
It began to dawn on me that the heaviness of guilt hanging over the old house was now beginning to reveal its sins and secrets to me in a terrifying manner. My thought of finding different local accommodation to stay while my grandfather was in hospital was beginning to waiver. Although I didn't wish to see any more ghostly spectres, were they urging me to know their story so they could finally lay to rest in peace? And could I leave without knowing the hidden truth of events there? It was unlikely my father would tell me, even if he knew. The subject beyond enigmatic references was a no-go area with him.
"Anyway, I'd better get home to your mother," he interrupted my thoughts. "She's not too bright at the moment with her condition." We finished our lunch and left the cafe.
"I'll stay here until grandfather's well again, and let you know how he's getting on," I said as we hugged each other farewell. "Tell mum I'll be over to see her soon as I can."
I felt sad at the parting and returned to the house not in the best of moods. Unlike in London, where as well as the bombed rubble some entertainments could still be found in theatres, cinemas and nightclubs, nothing like that existed to distract the mind from worry for a couple of hours in this isolated area.
My salvation was thinking about the woman I'd set my heart on. Ruth. We'd made no firm commitment and weren't tied exclusively to each other, but I felt a bond was growing between us. Being tied to the house here, however, wasn't exactly helping to bring our relationship any closer.
I looked around downstairs to see if my grandfather had any stationery so I could write her a letter. Finally I found a door which opened into a study. Letter paper and a fountain pen rested on a mahogany bureau.
My words said nothing about the strange events I'd witnessed, but that I was holding the fort here for my grandfather and hoped soon to return so we could meet again. I sealed the envelope and left it on a small side table in the hall to post in the village next day.
Then I made sure the kitchen grate was replenished with logs so it would be hot enough to cook a meal that evening.
Thoughts of that bizarre scene I'd see in the garden a couple of nights ago came back as I stepped outside for a fresh air walk in the garden. The gazebo. That well where Emily and the boy, Edward, who I now felt certain was my grandfather in his youth, had disposed of the unfortunate fiancée Percy.
Neither well or gazebo appeared to exist in the garden now. But I decided to look around the extensive grounds just to make sure I hadn't missed seeing them.
It was hard to get precise bearings. The layout of trees and bushes in that unearthly encounter had not been foremost in my mind leading up to the poor man's murder. It took half-an-hour to make sure I'd covered every part of the grounds. Neither well or gazebo were in sight.
Walking back towards the house, a broad elm tree, which halfway up had branched into two large trunks, caught my eye. Memory flashed back. In that scene as the youngsters dragged Percy's body close to the well, there was a smaller tree nearby with a split trunk, but it would have grown considerably in over sixty years since my grandfather was a youth.
A large cluster of rhododendron bushes obscured the view of the well from the house in that earlier setting I also recalled. Now they were gone. But the elm tree remained, taller and more widespread. It gave me a bearing of where the well would once have been positioned.
I walked the twenty or so feet across the lawn to the spot. The grass layer was as flat as its surrounds. Perhaps there'd never
been a well there at all, and the whole episode was a figment of my imagination. If I told anyone what I'd witnessed, they'd think I was a penny short of a pound.
Nevertheless, I was determined to investigate. There was an old garden shed at the back of the house and I made my way to it.
It was filled with gardening equipment including a petrol mower. And to one side were shovels, spades and garden forks. I selected a robust spade and returned to the spot where I calculated the well may once have existed.
Beginning to dig, at first I only uncovered soil and began thinking it was a pointless exercise. Then the spade hit something hard. A little more digging and scraping started to reveal a solid surface.
As I scraped more earth away, a large circular layer of concrete came into view. Standing back, the horrifying vision of Percy's body being tipped over into the depths of the well haunted my mind. There had been a well here, and now it became more obvious and convincing that his remains, whatever they might be now, lay in the watery depths beneath this cap of concrete.
The foot or so of soil that had hidden the covering was enough to allow grass to root and give the appearance of nothing beneath the surface. Whoever had done it, gave deliberate thought to erasing the existence of the well.
Should I inform the police about my suspicion of a body laying perhaps a hundred feet below in its depths?
"What makes you think there's a body down there?" I imagined an officer asking.
"Well, I saw this supernatural event where two youngsters disposed of a man," I heard myself replying.
The police would hardly be likely to launch a major investigation on the evidence of some oddball. I had no idea where to take it from here. The past was the past. Maybe I should just leave it there. Nothing could change it.
Emily's Evil Ghost Page 3
