Property of a Lady

To the south are grey-roofed factories, with iron and steel foundries silhouetted against the skies. It’s like stepping into a painting by Lowry, with the poor ant-workers scurrying in at eight a.m. and out again at five. But on the east and north, the rolling meadows and farmhouses are like something from a Van Gogh landscape.

That man from the Council, J. Lloyd, is a fool, but at least he has arranged for me to stay in reasonable comfort at the Black Boar. It’s pretty ancient. The floors all slope, and the ceilings are so low that you have to walk about like Groucho Marx. But I shan’t be there very much; I’ll be camped out in Charect House. It’s an odd feeling to think I’m finally going to see it.

Unpacked and had a wash and brush-up (a very brisk process these days; I lost any vanity I had years ago). Then I drove out to inspect Charect House. I’ll admit to feeling nervous. I must have seen more sinister houses than most people do in a lifetime, but this one is special.

It’s a remarkable old place. Romantically-inclined folk would sigh poetically, and think it beautiful and sad, but I didn’t think it was either of those things. I thought it was in a shocking state of dereliction and that it was a crying shame nobody had found money from somewhere to mend the gutters or shore up the sagging roof. I’ll bet that cheapskate, Joseph Lloyd, and his committee tried to duck responsibility for it for years.

There are Victorian cobwebs in the corners of all the rooms, and under one window ledge is an anonymous insect that looks as if it reached the chrysalis stage, died, and became petrified. I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s as cold as a fridge in here, and if I have to spend any length of time here I’m likely to end up petrified myself by breakfast-time. (Note to self: don’t forget to take along the whisky tonight).

There’s mould growth around the windows and great swathes of damp on some of the walls – in fact when I went upstairs I had quite a bad moment because I thought someone was standing at the head, watching me. But it turned out to be the formation of the damp patches, and my heart returned to its normal rate. It wouldn’t surprise me if that particular damp patch isn’t one of the things that’s given this house its reputation, because just for a moment the illusion was alarmingly vivid – a thickset man, his head turned towards me in a listening attitude . . .

Where there’s no damp, there’s graffiti. It’s remarkable how most of today’s wall-writers seem unable to spell even the most basic Anglo-Saxon epithets. There are piles of distasteful rubbish in corners, as well: greasy papers that once enclosed hamburgers, and foil trays of curry, and smashed beer bottles and used contraceptives. You could make a good case for the things the human race regard as necessary to survive by study-ing the detritus in a derelict building. Shelter, food, drink, and sex.

Still, Charect House hasn’t fared too badly. I’m pleased about that, although its condition isn’t my concern. What is my concern is whether there’s a genuine presence here. That’s why the council contacted the society and why I’m here. (It was a considerable feather in my cap to be given this assignment, because investigations for local authorities usually go to one of the directors. The fact that I intrigued a bit – well, more than a bit – to get it, is neither here nor there.)

Still, it’s very unlikely there’s anything in the least paranormal or supernatural here. It’s my belief that all but a tiny percentage of so-called ghosts are due to one of three causes, and I’ll set those three causes down here, just for the record.

The first and most common cause of ‘hauntings’ is man-made: spoofs done for money or malice or to gain a rather shallow fame. If I sat down to make a list of all the fraudsters the society has uncovered— Well, life’s too short.

The second biggest cause of ghost-sightings is self-delusion or self-mesmerism – not necessarily conscious, but often infectious. ‘I see a white figure,’ cries someone, with such conviction that everyone else in the room instantly sees a white figure as well.

My third belief is contentious, but, put simply, I think strong emotions can leave an imprint on a place. Like entering a room and knowing that, despite the polite manner of the occupants, minutes earlier a vicious, cat-spitting row was in progress.

I’ve posited that last theory many times when I’ve lectured, and every time I do so, I remember how it’s said that in Hiroshima the white-hot radiation of the atom bomb pasted the shapes of men’s shadows on to walls, so that you could still see those shapes in the ruins years afterwards. When I think about that, I remember the young army captain with the slow smile who was stationed in Hiroshima, and how, if he had come back, we would have been married. Is his shadow imprinted on some shattered wall, I wonder? It’s absurdly sentimental to think that, but there are times when I do, even now, nearly twenty years on. (And if anyone reads this and thinks the smudge on the page is due to a tear, let me state categorically that it isn’t. It’s whisky from the flask in my suitcase. There’s nothing wrong with a little tot of whisky on these expeditions, although it’s not advisable to get roaring drunk, of course.)

Anyhow, to conclude, what I do not believe is all that stuff about the fabric of time wearing thin, and it being possible to sometimes look through to other ages. (Except that if it were possible, Charect House would be the one place where I’d be able to do it.)

I had a glass of beer in the bar afterwards. The local stuff is so fierce that it would peel varnish from wood, but I wanted to get into conversation with one or two of the locals. That’s always useful for picking up fragments of gossip. If ghosts are likely to walk anywhere, they’ll generally walk in a public house where the drink’s flowing. They’ll often take up permanent residence at the bar if you aren’t careful.

I was ready to insert a carefully-prepared mention of Charect House into the casual bar-room conversation. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance. It seems a local child is missing, and the men were assembling in the bar to help with the search.

‘That’s the concern. Don’t seem very likely, though. We don’t get much crime in Marston Lacy. Bit of drunk driving, the occasional housebreaking. Not many kidnappings. Still, there’re peculiar folk around these days.’

An extremely elderly gentleman seated in a corner, mumbling beer and crisps through an overgrown beard, was understood to say there was evil everywhere in the world and always had been, you had only to read your Bible to know that. Sin and lipstick and modern music, that was where all the blame lay. He showed signs of becoming loquacious until somebody took another pint of beer over to him.

A couple of policemen came in and spread out maps of the area. They divided the terrain and assigned two men to search each section. Torches were distributed, and the Black Boar’s manager came in with flasks of coffee for the searchers to take with them. I would have offered my help if it had been likely to do any good – appalling to think of a small child lost and helpless somewhere in the dark, or, God forbid, at the mercy of some pervert. But I had no knowledge of the area, and they weren’t likely to trust a complete stranger.

But when the sergeant started telling the men to be sure to investigate all empty houses, I thought it advisable to enter the conversation and explain my presence. The customary reaction is usually derision or contempt. Men mostly laugh patronizingly, and women either shriek with pretended fear or want to involve you in intense conversations so they can relate their own encounters with the paranormal.

Marston Lacy behaved slightly differently. At mention of the house’s name, an unmistakable stir of unease went through the listeners – exactly like one of those hammy horror films where the traveller enters the wayside tavern and innocently asks for directions to Castle Dracula. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Black Boar’s inhabitants had pelted me with garlic or started drawing pentacles on the floor.

I supplied my name and address and added, perhaps slightly maliciously, that Mr Joseph Lloyd at the council offices would vouch for me. (He’ll hate it if the police do contact him and he has to admit the local authority called in a ghost-hunter! That’s a thought that gives me immense pleasure.)

‘Rot,’ said the police sergeant with determination. ‘William Lee’s dead and under the ground and been there more than seventy years, so let’s have no more nonsense about dead folks walking around. It’ll be clanking chains and creaking gibbets next,’ he said with an air of good-humoured exasperation.

‘Well, it was done to proper police procedure, and there was nothing to be found,’ said the sergeant, raising his voice as if to make sure no one missed the statement. ‘Nothing at all. Not William Lee, nor anyone else. It’s a bleak old place, though, I’ll say that for it.’ He looked back at me. ‘Best be on your guard.’

As is often the way, Charect House’s personality is entirely different by night. From being a rather forlorn old place, with sagging timbers and rotting floors, it’s become deeply forbidding. Even from the track leading up to it, it looked as if it was leaning forward to take a look at whoever was brave or foolhardy enough to approach it. But I’ve seen more glaring-visaged houses than you can shake a stick at, and I know it’s simply an illusion: the effect of shadows and clouds behind an erratic roofline. Prop up a sagging roof joist and nail a few tiles into their proper place, and everything’s rose-tinted.

I bounced the estate car up to the front door and set about unloading the cameras and tape recorders. And now I’m inside the haunted house and night has fallen. That looks dramatic, written down, but when you get down to it, haunted houses are seldom very dramatic. They’re generally chilly, and the worst part of the vigil is boredom. That’s why I keep a journal to help pass the time.

I’ve positioned the cameras and tape recorders all over the house – in the long drawing-room, in the dining room, and in the hall, where there’s a view of the stairs. There’s a smaller room, probably once used as a morning room, but I haven’t bothered with that. I haven’t bothered with the kitchens, either. But I’ve put cameras in the two main bedrooms. They all have light-sensitive settings, so that any movement within their range will trigger the shutter. I’ve got a Polaroid camera in here with me.

There’s no power on, of course, but I’ve got a good supply of batteries for the recorders, which I’ll have to replace at regular intervals. For my own light I’ve got two electric torches and a couple of oil lamps – what used to be called bullseyes. I will do a good deal for the furtherance of the Society’s work, but I’m blowed if I’m going to sit all night in the pitch dark.

There’s quite a lot of furniture in the house. I hadn’t expected that, and it means I can make myself reasonably snug – although I do draw the line at actually lying down in one of the sarcophagus-sized beds upstairs. I may be a cynic and a sceptic, but I’ve read all those gothic ghost tales about ravished marriage beds and spectral bridegrooms. Not that I ever got as far as a marriage bed or a bridegroom, spectral or otherwise, and I shouldn’t think I ever will, not now. Still, they say what you’ve never had you never miss, and I’m having a very full and interesting life without all that bouncing around in beds and having to put up with a man’s moods and wash his socks. (Although in the privacy of these pages, I’ll admit I wish my army captain and I had done some bed-bouncing before he went off to be frizzled to death by that wretched bomb. That’s what you get for trying to stay virtuous when all around you are flinging virginity to the winds. Ah well. Can’t be helped now.)

More to the point, I’ve rigged up a makeshift desk in the drawing room – I suspect it was once a library, with all the shelves that are still in place, so I think I’ll refer to it as that for the rest of this report. I’ve beaten about three pounds of dust out of an old wing chair, and I’ll be perfectly cosy.

I’ve put a large truncheon on the side of the chair – and never mind how I acquired it! If there’s a child-stealer prowling around and he lights on Charect as a likely lair, he’ll get very short shrift from me. On the other hand, if William Lee, dead for over seventy years, turns up, he’ll have to be given quite different treatment.

Note to self: interesting to hear those references to William Lee in the Black Boar. I do know the house was built in the late 1700s by a John Lee of Shrewsbury, so William must have been a descendant. If the house passed down through the Lee family that would explain why I didn’t find any land transfers or transfers of title when I searched – at least, until after WWII, when the place seems to have been passed from one government department to another until it ended up with J. Lloyd’s council committee.