The Silence of Ghosts (17 page)

Just then I noticed someone moving on the western side, where the island faces Glenridding. The late afternoon light was dipping towards the west, but it still had some time to go, and it shed a grey beam across the lake and on to the island, near where the dinghy bobbed at the landing dock. Someone was walking towards the little jetty. Four children. Three girls and one boy. But even as I watched, three of the children turned and looked at me. I knew them, for I had seen them before, and they turned their heads and continued to walk with young Jimmy Ashton just behind, as though transfixed. I called out, bringing Rose and Adrian to the alert, and I pointed.

‘What is it, love?’ Rose asked.

‘Can’t you see them? The children from the house.’

Adrian strolled over from his place near the tree.

‘Is something wrong?’

I pointed towards the jetty, where the four children stood while Jimmy climbed on to the narrow deck. Jimmy must have taken off his life jacket earlier, and it was suddenly clear what was about to happen. I shouted at Jimmy and started clumsily off in his direction. He did not behave as though he had seen me. Next thing I saw, the four ghost children had vanished and Jimmy was in the water.

Adrian saw it. I could not have got there in time, and I couldn’t have swum in any case, but he hared off to help. Rose turned to me.

‘I saw them just before Jimmy fell in. You should stay here. I don’t want you to have an accident. Adrian will get Jimmy, but I have to see to the children. I want them all together, in case the other children return.’

It made sense. I told her to get them together, but to bring
them to me, so we could deal with them in a united fashion. In our concern for them, I almost forgot Adrian’s more urgent mission at the water’s edge. But it was not long before we got the youngsters in one place, all shivering, some weeping, and it was a little after that when Adrian turned up, dripping wet – for he had gone into the freezing water. He had dived and dived repeatedly, but the water was murky and the boy had gone in deep and could only be found now by a professional diver.

‘What happened to Jimmy, miss?’ asked one of the girls.

‘He fell into the water,’ Rose replied. ‘I think he tripped or something. Did you see what happened?’

‘Yes, miss. We all saw it, didn’t we?’

Heads bobbed up and down.

‘There was four children a bit older than us. They must have come across on a boat, ’cause they wasn’t here when we got here. They appeared out of nowhere and spoke to Jimmy, then somebody said they was ghosts and we all scarpered.’

‘It was me thought they was ghosts. They was wearing real old clothes and their faces was like dead ’uns. I saw my old man when he was dead, and they looked just like that. That’s why I said they looked like ghosts.’

It has been a very hard day. The evacuees are terrified still, and there will have to be an investigation into Jimmy’s death. Rose has been in tears since it happened and won’t leave my side or Octavia’s. Her mother only knows that one of the ragamuffins from Liverpool has suffered a terrible, unnecessary accident. She says little, but there is an unspoken accusation that a yacht trip to Cherry Holm – at the far end of the lake – had been an indulgence too many. We didn’t argue, but we passed the whole thing off as an accident owing to the boy’s over-enthusiasm in a world he knew too little of.

Adrian had seen the four children as well, and had taken them for evacuees, dressed perhaps in old rags they had brought with them. But as Jimmy fell from the planking, the children seemed to vanish, and he could not work out where they had gone to. We told him. We told him their names, Clare, Adam, Helen and Margaret. Ordinary names, names for ordinary children. Names for the living and the dead.

After supper, there was a knock on the door. Rose answered and brought in two visitors, the Reverend Braithwaite and Dr Raverat, both men looking the worse for wear. By this time, Jeanie had smelled several rats. Rose tells me that her mother got her alone in the kitchen and confronted her with it all.

‘Don’t tell me this has aught to do with you and your supposed wedding to Mr Fancy Man Lancaster. I don’t believe you’re getting married, though I could well believe you’re with child and that’s what the good doctor is doing here. Shame on you for making such a fool of me. Shame on both of you.’

An argument followed, audible in part to the rest of us. I tried to get Octavia to go upstairs to bed, but she shook her head violently. She had something quite different in mind.

‘We’ll have to tell her,’ I said. ‘This isn’t fair on her or Rose.’

The others nodded in agreement, so the Reverend Braithwaite went to the kitchen and asked them to come out. They did so reluctantly, but the presence of the minister and the doctor did much to calm Jeanie down. We all found seats. Rose came over and sat on my knee, putting her weight more on my sound leg than the other.

Oliver Braithwaite spoke first.

‘Mrs Sansom, I owe you an apology, in fact we all owe you one. We’ve not been straight with you, and that has roused your suspicions when there need not have been one. First of all, you
need to know that Rose is carrying nobody’s child. The doctor here will confirm that.’

‘Actually,’ Dr Raverat said, ‘I think that’s a matter between Rose and her fiancé, but I’m certainly unaware of any pregnancy.’

‘The thing is, Jeanie,’ the priest went on, ‘something bad happened today, something related to earlier events. To things that happened down at Hallinhag House.’

And so he told her. Not in too much detail, but as fully as made sense. She was a credulous woman and had no difficulty taking the supernatural stories on board. The one thing that caused her real distress was his full account of today’s tragedy. As he was telling it, I remembered the story of her husband’s death, lost in the lake when trying to save a boy who had fallen overboard. She seemed to see an echo as well, and when I looked there were tears on her cheek.

‘Have they found him?’ she asked. ‘The little boy.’

The doctor nodded.

‘We got a couple of divers in from Barrow,’ he said. ‘There’s a navy vessel due to go out the day after tomorrow, so all the crew were ashore to put things shipshape before they set sail. The divers went in with underwater torches and found the lad at around eighty feet. They attached a line and brought him up with a winch. He’s at my surgery for the night, and I fear I’ll have another journey to Barrow tomorrow morning.’

We talked a little longer and managed to get Jeanie back to her old self, as much as was possible under the circumstances. The Reverend Braithwaite spent some time alone with her.

We told Octavia it was time for her to go to bed, but she shook her head and reminded Rose that she planned to ask Dr Raverat about her rash.

‘Surely you can see the doctor during his regular surgery,’ I said. ‘He’s not very far away.’

There was a flailing of arms indicating a measure of agitation on Octavia’s part.

‘It’s okay,’ said the doctor, ‘I’m here now. Why don’t I just take a quick look?’

He took her to a back room, where Jeanie kept oddments for her sundry activities. Five minutes later, he came back, smiling and patting Octavia on the back.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ he said. ‘Now, run up to bed while the rest of us have a chat about your brother’s wedding.’

She waved goodnight to us all and headed for the stairs, exhausted by the day she had just spent.

When she had gone, Dr Raverat did not sit down, despite the temptation of a glass of ginger ale and brandy that had been left on the mantelpiece for him. He took me to one side while Rose and the minister chatted.

‘Dominic,’ he said, ‘I’m not in a position to comment on Octavia’s rash at this stage, but I must warn you that I don’t like the look of it. It’s not eczema, it’s not acne, it’s not dermatitis, it’s not psoriasis – in fact, it’s nothing I’ve ever seen in my surgery. I’d like her to be looked at in hospital on Monday, just for a short visit. The North Lonsdale in Barrow has a good skin unit, and there’s a first-class man there, Robert Thackery.’

‘She’ll be alarmed if we say she has to be seen, after you’ve given her the all clear.’

‘I’ll think of something. But I don’t like the look of the lesions, and I’d rather get her there sooner than later. I’d like to enlist Rose’s help in this. Skin conditions can get out of hand if you don’t nip them in the bud. Now, if you don’t mind, we have another matter to look into.’

He took his brandy and ginger ale and gulped it down in a single mouthful. The others had grown quiet. He sat down.

‘This has been a stressful day,’ he said, ‘more for you folks
than for me, although I’ve not been free from worry. I went to Barrow late this morning and was in time to catch Philip Woodroofe when he came out of the post-mortem. He’s released Father Carbery’s body for burial and written “not known” for the cause of death. It was the best he could do. He brought me in to the post-mortem room and showed me what he’d found. I have never seen anything like it, and I’ve attended quite a few post-mortems in my time. I still don’t believe what I saw. Somehow or other, the priest’s body had been drained of blood. There were traces of powder in the veins, and when this was tested it turned out to be dried blood. But it wasn’t all the blood from the corpse, there were only a few teaspoons of it. Philip and I agreed that making this more widely known would serve no purpose. I’m only telling you now because you were involved in his death.’

‘What about the little boy?’ I asked. ‘The one they took to the North Lonsdale today. Does there have to be a post-mortem in his case? I’m afraid they may find something similar in his body, and that would open up questions I’d rather not see asked.’

‘I can understand your reservations,’ Raverat said, ‘but I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do to prevent it. The police are already involved, and you must know how the wheels start to turn once official forms are filled and everything takes its course.’

We parted in a melancholy fashion, and the moon took its light away behind a grey and windblown cloud. It grew colder than it had been. Rose came to the room where I slept with Octavia.

‘I wish I could stay in bed with you,’ she said. ‘You need cuddles and goodness knows what.’

I held her close.

‘It’s not cuddles I need. It’s what I want but can’t have.’

‘I’ll get into bed with you, if you really need me to.’

I shook my head, though she couldn’t see me in the darkness.

‘I think it would give Octavia a fright, and if your mother got to know of it, we’d never live it down.’

‘You wouldn’t have time,’ she said, ‘for she’d kill you first.’

‘And what about you, Miss Sansom?’

She tweaked my ears.

‘She’d lock me up in the pigsty and never let me out again. You wouldn’t want your desperate passions to lead me to that. I wouldn’t even be able to visit your grave. Think of that: you’d be a lonely corpse.’

At the mention of corpses, she stopped talking.

Our mood quickly grew solemn.

‘What about the children?’ I asked.

‘The evacuees?’

‘No, the others,’ I said. ‘The dead children.’

‘What about them?’

‘Are they lonely, do you think? They have that look about them. They seem abandoned. It’s in their eyes. Some of the evacuees have a similar look.’

‘Yes, I thought that.’

‘But why are they lonely?’ I asked. ‘The ones at Hallinhag, I mean.’

‘Dominic, perhaps it’s a similar loneliness. The evacuees have been torn away from home. Perhaps these children don’t really belong in Hallinhag. Perhaps they come from far away.’

‘From Portugal?’

‘Maybe.’

She drew away. Octavia was stirring, as though our speech disturbed her. I still had to write this diary sitting on the side of the bed, using a small lamp. Rose and I kissed, and the kiss made the longing we had just joked about something very real
and very troubling. She got to her feet and left. As she got to the door, she turned.

‘We have to look into that possibility,’ she said. I nodded and she left.

Sunday, 29 December

There was nothing much we could do today. Rose, her mother and I went to St Paul’s Church in Pooley Bridge, where the vicar said special prayers for little Jimmy Ashton. His friends had been brought to the church by their hosts, and they sat in the front pews, and were addressed each by name by the vicar, in his sermon. They were white-faced. I smiled at them as they came in, but they turned their faces away, as though holding me responsible for the tragedy. I knew I could not tell them who the four children were who had taken Jimmy away from his friends and enticed him on to the landing stage. Oliver Braithwaite had said nothing to his colleague about the ghastly event at Hallinhag House. The vicar of St Paul’s was an elderly man, very set in his ways, who regarded tales of ghosts and demons with withering scorn.

After morning service, the Reverend Braithwaite laid on lunch at the rectory over at Martindale for Rose, myself and Dr Raverat. The doctor was a pious man in his way, though not a regular churchgoer, but he drove us over so we could talk it all over again. We came up with no better answers. I had a particular worry, that if the four dead children were free to walk so far beyond Hallinhag House, then there was no knowing where they might turn up next, or what child they might not seize on and hurry to his or her death. We knew of no way to
stop this happening, other than to keep the evacuees in sight at every moment. But it was unlikely that even Dr Raverat’s say-so would carry the necessary weight. The children still did not have a school to attend.

It was Oliver Braithwaite who came up with a solution to that problem. Plans had already been laid for a couple of teachers to come to Pooley Bridge from Keswick. The little town was host to over one thousand schoolchildren who had been evacuated there some time ago. Pupils from the working-class schools of the North East rubbed shoulders with girls from Roedean and Newcastle High. Our little group should have gone there too.

‘There’s nothing to be done about moving them to Keswick, not at the moment anyhow,’ said the Reverend Braithwaite. ‘The schools administration has become very muddled up. The Board of Education hasn’t handled the evacuations particularly well. But there may be a ray of light. St Katherine’s College is a Liverpool institution for student teachers. It has decamped in its entirety, and is now snug and happy in the Queen’s Hotel. I’m thinking that one or, at the most, two teachers from Liverpool would serve our young men and women very well. What do you think? While you are all in Barrow tomorrow, I can ring and put in a request for this and ask for someone to be sent by Tuesday at the latest. I know Hilda Brayfield. She’s a local councillor who lives over on Chestnut Hill. She’s one of these people who serves on every committee that’s going. We’re both on the local education committee, where I’m the Grand Panjandrum for the church schools. If I get her ear, it should be stamped and signed by tomorrow afternoon. Pooley Bridge church hall should prove a very satisfactory place for a school.’