The Mystery of Wickworth Manor (14 page)

The hall was full of people when they went through for tea. Paige dropped down into a seat opposite Sal and Jo with her tray. She felt pleased that Curtis came and sat next to her.

‘The Wickworth Boy is called Christopher and he was in love with someone called Patience,’ she told the others.

Sal’s forkful of potato stopped midway to her mouth. ‘Is that true?’ She looked to Curtis for an answer.

‘A tiny bit of it is true,’ he said. ‘Some people called Christopher and Patience lived here once. We don’t know they were in love.’

‘Oh,’ Sal ate her potato.

Paige prodded Curtis with her elbow. ‘You’re so . . . so . . .’

‘Scrupulous?’ Curtis suggested. ‘Exacting?’

‘Annoying,’ Paige said.

‘I like the idea that a ghost haunts this place looking for his lost love,’ Jo said. ‘It’s romantic.’

‘But there’s no proof,’ Curtis said. ‘Just because you like an idea doesn’t make it true.’

‘I have intuition,’ Paige said finally.

Curtis made a snorting noise and shovelled some peas on to his fork. Paige ignored him and took a drink of water.

Through the bottom of her glass, she saw Mrs Burton-Jones walk in. The water made it look as though Mrs Burton-Jones was in a hall of mirrors, with a massive head and a shrivelled body. Then Paige saw the look on Mrs Burton-Jones’s face. Paige lowered her glass slowly. The air around Mrs Burton-Jones seemed to crackle and fizz. Paige had a sudden sense of black and orange.

Fury.

Mrs Burton-Jones was angry. Again.

Paige took one more careful sip. What would make Mrs Burton-Jones angry? And why did Paige have such a sinking feeling?

Paige wriggled down in her chair, dropping her eyes to the table. The peas were suddenly very interesting and she concentrated on them hard. A hush spread across the room. Mrs Burton-Jones must have glared everyone into silence.

Paige looked up slowly. It was like trying not to look at a cut on someone’s knee; you knew it would be horrible but you had to look anyway.

Mrs Burton-Jones stood near the canteen hatch. All eyes in the room swivelled to look at her. Her lips were pressed together in a thin, white line as she looked around. Her hands were folded across the front of a pink cardie. The knuckles were as white as the pearl buttons that held the cardie closed.

‘Boys and girls,’ Mrs Burton-Jones said in a voice that was like treacle laced with battery acid. ‘Once again I have reason to be disappointed by one among you.

‘This afternoon, when I returned to my rooms, I found that an object had been disturbed. This object, of not inconsiderable weight, had been moved. Now, I was forced to consider two alternatives. First, that some ghostly presence had been in my room and shifted my belongings around on a whim.’ Nervous laughter broke out near the back of the hall. Mrs Burton-Jones silenced it with a razor glare. ‘The second possibility,’ she continued, ‘is that someone has been into my private rooms and has ransacked them, looking for who on earth knows what.’ Her eyes scanned the room, searching out guilty faces. Paige felt her own face flush red and shrank even lower.

‘I have considered calling the police,’ Mrs Burton-Jones said. ‘I considered it, but your teachers assure me that there is no need. They tell me that if I appeal to your better natures, then the culprit will confess and accept their punishment. The alternative,’ Mrs Burton-Jones paused, pinching her mouth closed like a dog’s bum, ‘the alternative is that this week will be cut short and all of you will be sent home immediately while the police investigate the trespass.’

A ripple of horror ran around the room.

‘You have tonight to decide. Tomorrow at nine a.m. precisely I will be in my drawing room. I expect the culprit to come and make themselves known to me. Otherwise at nine thirty a.m. you can all begin packing and wait for the coaches to take you home. Your time here will be over.’

Mrs Burton-Jones swept out of the room, like a missile set to kill.

The stunned silence erupted into babble.

‘Who was it?’

‘What did they do?’

‘I bet it was that Liam and his mates.’

‘You can’t say that. We had nothing to do with it.’

‘Bet it was though. Sounds like Liam.’

‘What did they steal?’

‘Liam, what did you take?’

Silent, in the centre of all the noise, Paige sat with her cheeks burning.

She pressed her fingers to her face, trying to squish away the blush. But it was no good. She was sure she was lit up like a Chinese lantern – glowing with guilt. She sighed. Did she own up and get sent home in disgrace, or, did she keep quiet and get sent home with everyone in disgrace? This was one of the worst decisions she had ever had to make.

She pushed her tray away. Her appetite had vanished.

No one spoke much in Bluebell as they got ready for bed. Paige pulled on her pyjamas and lay down on top of the duvet – it was too hot to lie under it. She could feel Sal and Jo thinking about her; it made the air clammy. They wanted her to confess. Of course they did, they didn’t want to get sent home early because of something Paige had done. But they wouldn’t tell her to confess, they were her mates, after all. Instead they just lay there,
thinking
.

‘Stop thinking,’ Paige said. ‘I can hear you and you’re keeping me awake.’

Sal giggled. ‘I knew there had to be a downside to being psychic. Anyway, I wasn’t thinking anything bad. I was just wondering what you were going to do, that’s all.’

Paige pulled her pillow closer so that it was stuffed right up against her ear. ‘Yes, I was wondering that too. Sleep on it, I suppose.’

Paige didn’t think she would get to sleep, but she must have done, because the next thing she knew there was the sound of water splashing against the side of a boat. Then she felt the rain, it was lashing down in streams. The oars in her hands were slippery. There was a girl sitting across from her. She wore a long dress that came down to her feet; the silk was soaked. The girl began to shout out, but her words made no sense; they were more like yelps of fear. Paige looked around for the shore, but the sky was too dark to see it. The girl stood up. Paige tried to reach out, to pull her down, but her hands moved too slowly, like pushing through feathers. The boat rocked. Then Paige heard a splash and felt cold water surge up her nose, in her ears, in her mouth.

She woke, panting. Her body was covered in a damp layer of sweat. The duvet underneath her was crumpled. She lay looking up at the darkness, letting the images from her dream fade.

Slowly, her breathing settled and she became aware of another noise. A pattering sound against her window. Rain. The sweltering heat had finally broken and it was raining outside. Was that why she had dreamed of water?

She sat up.

That wasn’t it.

It meant something. Her dream meant something. She was sure of it. And if she didn’t find out what it was then, come morning, she never would. She would be going home in disgrace and she’d never find out. Paige got out of bed and pulled on her clothes.

‘Curtis? Curtis, are you awake?’ Paige tapped gently at his door. ‘Curtis?’

The door opened slowly and Curtis’s head leaned out. His eyes looked swollen shut with sleep. ‘What do you want?’

‘To see the letter again. Come on, quickly, we haven’t got all night.’

Paige pushed past him and flicked on the light switch. Curtis shielded his eyes. ‘What’s going on?’

‘We’ve got until tomorrow morning to find out whether Patience and Christopher were in love.’

‘And what promise Verity broke,’ Curtis said.

‘So I’m not going to sleep through the last few hours we have here.’

Curtis nodded and rubbed his face with both hands. ‘You’re right. We’ll have to own up in the morning. We have to. We should use the time we have left. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.’

Paige peered at him. ‘What? What sheep?’

He grinned. ‘Nothing. Let’s look at the letter again. There might be something we missed.’ He took it from the corner of the picture frame, then smoothed it out and began re-reading. Paige looked over his shoulder.

‘Ooh,’ Paige said. ‘I’ve just realised that she hid the painting in “the place where Patience laid her last”; that’s your bed. Yuck.’

Apart from the fact that Curtis had been sleeping on someone’s deathbed, there was nothing else in the letter that Paige hadn’t noticed before. ‘It’s really annoying,’ she said. ‘It’s like Verity wants someone to know about what happened, but she doesn’t want to have to spell it out.’

Curtis folded the letter up and put it back in the frame. ‘I suppose that’s what it’s like when you’re ashamed. You want people to know what you’ve done, but you can’t find the words to say it.’

Paige felt a spurt of anger in her chest. ‘Well, Verity has had it her own way for too long. She knew something that could have changed people’s lives for the better and she did nothing about it. It’s time for her to tell the truth and we’re going to make her.’

Chapter 29

‘Verity Burton has been dead for well over a hundred years,’ Curtis said. ‘How do you plan on making her do anything?’

‘Being dead isn’t the end, you know. There are ways of getting in touch with anyone. You just have to know what you’re doing.’

Of course, that was always her answer: ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump. He should have known. In the morning this would all be over, one way or another, and she wanted to raise the dead. Well, so did he, but he wanted to do it for real. He wanted to find out the truth. A boy had been brought to Wickworth Manor from the West Indies as a slave. He had worked here until his death. The nature of that death was deliberately hidden by his owner. Why? Because somehow it would have helped other slaves.

Only the truth mattered now.

Curtis shivered.

‘It’s getting cold,’ Paige said. ‘You should put on a jumper.’

It was true; he could hear the wind outside. It blew hard now, whipping rain in gravel pellets against the windowpane. ‘I don’t want to do a seance or anything like that,’ he said. ‘I want the truth.’

Paige threw a jumper at him. ‘So do I. And dowsing got us the letter, remember? That was my idea. So, unless you can come up with something else, stop moaning and help me.’

There had to be something better than Paige’s mumbo-jumbo. Back to the library? Or the internet? No. There was nothing on the web about this. Curtis rested his hand on the edge of the painting; the frame was slightly warm to the touch, as though the wood was alive. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll help, but only until something more effective occurs to me.’

‘That’ll do. We’re going to need supplies. Talc or flour, to draw the sacred shape. You can see footprints of spirits if they walk through the talc. We’ll need a thermometer. Has your fancy phone got one?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Where can we get one? Have you got any talc in your washbag?’ Paige stepped towards his suitcase.

‘No! Of course I don’t have talc,’ he said stepping between her and the case. ‘Do I look like someone’s grandma? Look, there’s probably flour in the kitchen. And Carol might have a thermometer too. We should check there. And give me a second to change out of my pyjamas.’

Paige nodded. ‘Good idea. Only fools raise the dead in their pyjamas.’

Curtis followed Paige downstairs. They both stayed close to the side wall, careful to tread on the edge of each step so that each footfall was absolutely silent. In the main hall the sound of the wind was louder, battering at the front door. It was a night for raising the dead all right.

The refectory was deserted, with tables laid out ready for breakfast. Paige paused. Curtis realised that she’d never been in the kitchen before. ‘It’s this way,’ he said and opened the door at the side of the serving hatch.

Apart from the clinical glow of the fly-zapper, the kitchen was dark; no moon shone in through the windows as the storm clouds were too low.

‘I’ll find the thermometer,’ Paige said. ‘You get the flour.’

Curtis shook his head. How was he getting sucked into another of Paige’s crazy ideas?