Aunt Hetty had offered to bring Reverend Fallowfield to Aysgarth House, but Clara had said that since he had already exorcised their house, it would be better if they were to meet elsewhere. Mrs Tiltman emphatically refused to allow her daughter to attend one of the dinner parties at which Reverend Fallowfield was proving so popular all over London but happily Hetty told her that the Reverend had an engagement in a school in the east end of London on Sunday.
‘Mr Fallowfield is an extraordinary man,’ said Aunt Hetty as the taxi rattled along Commercial Road.
‘Where did you find him?’ asked Clara.
‘He was recommended by a friend whose house he exorcised and, knowing what I’m like for collecting interesting people, she put me on to him.’
‘Father thinks it’s a trick.’
Aunt Hetty laughed. ‘Your father was scared out of his wits when the reverend revealed the ghost that had been living in your house.’
‘What do you think happens to the ghosts once he’s exorcised them?’
Aunt Hetty shrugged indifferently. ‘I suppose they go to hell. Or some such place.’
St Winifred’s School was an imposing red-brick building. It being Sunday, there were no children or teachers. Reverend Fallowfield was standing outside the front door. Seen in daylight and without the encumbrance of a keyhole, he was even more striking in appearance. The three-pointed birthmark on his head, his bulging eyes and hook nose made him look like a heavily made-up actor Clara had once seen playing Shakespeare’s Richard III. But there was no make-up and his shifting eyes were not part of an act.
‘Ah, Hetty, my child,’ he said, taking her hand and kissing her on the cheek.
His eyes fell upon Clara.
‘And you must be the niece.’
‘I’m Clara.’
‘What are you, then?’ he asked.
Clara was unsure how to respond. ‘I’d like to be a journalist one day.’
‘I mean, are you cynic or believer?’
‘I believe in ghosts, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Ghosts,’ hissed Reverend Fallowfield. ‘Such a tame word for these lingering demons. You should understand that I perform God’s work. I send these evil spirits down into the underworld where they belong.’
‘Why do you call them evil?’
‘They are lost souls, rejected by heaven, fearful of hell. They wander God’s earth like beggars.’
‘Are beggars not unfortunate creatures who deserve our charity and sympathy?’ asked Clara.
‘Who would say such a thing?’
‘I believe it is the teaching of the Bible.’
He smiled, revealing his coffee-stained teeth. ‘Then they’re like thieves,’ he stated.
‘What do they steal?’
‘Their time here is stolen.’
‘Well, listen to us with our intellectual musings,’ said Aunt Hetty, trying to lighten the mood.
Clara scribbled down as much as she could in her notebook, grateful to her aunt for diverting Reverend Fallowfield’s intense stare.
A caretaker met them outside. An elderly man with a limp and a lazy eye, he led them into the school hall.
‘What kind of school is this?’ asked Clara.
‘A ragged school, miss,’ he replied. ‘Set up to teach them without the means to pay.’
Ragged was the right word, thought Clara. There was a marked difference to the school she had attended. The hall bore a closer resemblance to a factory than to a place of education.
‘Here we are, then,’ said the caretaker.
‘May I ask why you have no service on a Sunday, Reverend Fallowfield?’ asked Clara.
‘The world is my parish,’ he replied.
‘So these exorcisms are your only source of income?’ she asked.
‘Now, Clara, I don’t think Reverend Fallowfield wishes to discuss his finances with you,’ scolded Aunt Hetty.
Reverend Fallowfield smiled. ‘I can see you have a journalist’s instinct. But no, I do not charge for my services. As I said before, this is God’s work.’
‘But you accept donations,’ said Clara.
‘As I have no other income at present, yes, I do accept donations. Eating is not a sin, Miss Tiltman. Now, I must ask for your silence.’
Reverend Fallowfield walked around the hall with his eyes shut and his fingers outstretched.
‘How did you hear about him?’ Clara whispered to the caretaker.
‘He came once before,’ the caretaker replied. ‘There was a ghost of a little girl then.’
‘You saw her?’
‘Not me, but some of the teachers used to say she would hide the chalk or write words on the board at night.’
‘That’s why you wanted her exorcised?’
‘I never did, miss . . . want her exorcised, that is. He turned up one day and got rid of her. No one asked him to. Just did it.’
‘And now you have a new ghost?’
‘So he says.’
‘I must have silence,’ cried Reverend Fallowfield.
‘Sorry,’ said the caretaker.
‘Oh, cursed spirit,’ the reverend began.
‘Oh, I love this bit,’ whispered Hetty.
Reverend Fallowfield reached out his hands like claws and made a great show of pulling towards him as though there was a great strain on his arms. ‘Draw close, come out, reveal yourself. Resist not my command.’ He muttered strange incantations in a tongue Clara did not recognise, but knew to be neither Greek nor Latin.
A moment, then another voice spoke. ‘No, leave me alone,’ said a Scottish female voice.
Clara gripped her aunt’s hand. She looked to see where the voice had come from, but there was no one else in the hall.
‘Oh, cursed spirit,’ wailed Reverend Fallowfield. ‘Do my bidding and recognise the higher authority of the living over the dead.’
More incantations followed in the mysterious tongue. Then slowly, grey smoke drifted down from the cracks in the ceiling and formed a human shape. The shape gained definition and colour. Still transparent but now clearly that of a woman. She had untidy hair, a green dress and a blood-stained apron.
‘You have no right to do this,’ she said, addressing Reverend Fallowfield.
‘I have every right,’ he replied. ‘This is our realm. You are the trespasser here.’
‘I did’nae want to get stuck in this wretched school,’ she replied.
‘Silence!’ cried Reverend Fallowfield. ‘You shall be silent forever more. For now your kingdom will come, let His will be done. You shall be vanquished, no more to roam. Forces of the afterworld, open now and draw unto you this spirit.’
‘You’re a barrel of laughs, you are,’ the woman began to say but suddenly something unseen gripped her throat and she began to struggle, writhe and scream. She staggered backwards. Clara moved closer to watch. The woman turned to her in horror. She dropped to her knees. The grey smoke that formed her was ebbing away, removing her form, her shape.
‘Help me,’ she uttered in a strangulated whisper.
‘Stop it,’ yelled Clara. ‘You’re hurting her.’
‘Demons feel no pain,’ replied Reverend Fallowfield.
Clara stepped forward to help the poor woman and was surprised to feel a pair of ice-cold hands grab her own and thrust something into them. The woman’s scream grew and grew until it was indistinguishable from the sound of wind rushing through the old school, rattling the window frames, shaking the very foundations.
Then she was gone.
Silence followed.
‘Clara, are you all right?’ asked Aunt Hetty, dropping to her side.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she stammered, unable to put into words her true feelings at having witnessed such horror up close.
‘Like I said, demons,’ said Reverend Fallowfield triumphantly.
Clara lifted her book and pen to write and found a piece of paper in her hands that had not been there before. She glanced at the list of names and addresses, but did not want to draw Reverend Fallowfield’s attention to it, so she folded it up and slipped it between the pages of her book.