The Dead of Haggard Hall Read online

  And, of course, it was. Lady Fairford doused most of the candles until she left only an atmospheric glow, after which she sat at the table where a group of seven people joined hands and my mother summoned the spirits.

  They didn’t just come; they surged. I fastened down my mental barriers, knowing I would need all my strength to keep them out. As always, along with those she named came the mischievous and the evil and the lost, all with their own agendas. We called them all spirits, but I was never sure all of them were. There are many things out there: wispy, elusive formless things made from little more than emotion; ancient, nasty, cruel things whose only purpose seems to be to hurt or, perhaps, to find a way into our world at all costs.

  Fortunately, although she has great powers to summon and attract spirits of all kinds, my mother does not receive them. She chats to them as if they’re all friends together at a tea party. I envied her that.

  I held my barriers in place, shivering as I sensed the icy unease invoked by the uninvited. It never mattered how often I encountered them, they always had this effect on me, even though I knew they couldn’t hurt anyone in this world, except through me, and I knew how to keep them out. It was the first thing I remembered my mother teaching me as a child.

  I held my hands tightly together over my stomach and dug my fingers into my wrists to hide their shaking as well as to keep my concentration.

  My mother spoke to the spirits of a departed husband, a long-dead mother, and the child of the bereaved couple. Since I was so closed to them, I could only tell from my mother’s words which ones truly spoke to her. Once or twice she shook her head violently and I guessed the uninvited were whispering in her ear. As she passed on words and sometimes just impressions to her audience, emotions within the room intensified until, even cut off as I was, I could feel them almost physically, a powerful energy that made the candles flicker and caused the watchers to shift positions and look at each other with obvious unease.

  Occasionally, I let my gaze wander to the sceptical stranger who lounged still in his doorway, hands in pockets, watching the proceedings with a slightly bored sneer curling his upper lip.

  “We have other guests among the spirits tonight,” my mother said. “One of them is most anxious to speak to…Patrick.” My mother’s hopeful gaze swept around the table and on to the watchers behind. None stepped forward or raised a hand or otherwise admitted to being Patrick. I wondered if my mother had got her names muddled, or if we had a mischievous spirit in our midst—until her searching gaze landed on the sceptical gentleman who still lounged by the hall door, and stayed.

  I knew then that she was being truthful rather than simply drumming up future business.

  The sceptic, however, looked merely amused. He didn’t even straighten or take his hands out of his pockets. “Patrick who?” he enquired.

  “You, sir,” my mother said firmly.

  Without warning, the gentleman swept his gaze from my mother to me, as if pinning me to the bedroom door. Oh yes, his hard body holding me there, comforting, arousing. He wanted that; he was almost offering me that, and something deep and instinctive in me leapt to meet the unspoken challenge in his hard eyes—a sudden flame of excitement, or simple defiance, maybe.

  I had little time to judge, for in my moment of inattention while I wondered if those harsh eyes ever softened in tenderness or laughter or passion, I had let down my guard, and something chill with evil shot into me like an arrow.

  With the last of my will, I grasped the door handle behind me, turning it and throwing myself backwards. I might have managed it unseen by everyone except the sceptical gentleman, who may or may not have been called Patrick, except that my mother leapt to her feet.

  “Stay back!” she warned. “No one go near her!”

  By that time, I was stumbling backwards across her bedroom, giving in to the spasmodic jerking of my body because it made it easier to quell the sounds trying to come out of my mouth. The thing inside me was violent, jerking, malevolent, fixing on to the centre of my lust. It would have pleasured me if it could to achieve domination, but open as I am to temptations of the flesh, I have never been that desperate. Besides, my possessor was more repellent than truly frightening. I was stronger than it.

  I think I was on the floor when my mother’s face loomed over mine.

  “Away!” I gasped in a voice that didn’t sound like mine. “Go!”

  At least she took me at my word now. And through my brief battle with the thing inside me, I was aware of the door closing behind her. I drew in my breath, gathering my strength, and spat out my uninvited guest like a fish bone that had been lodged in my throat.

  It hurled itself at me again, but it was a feeble, disconsolate effort, easily repelled. If a spirit could have hung its head, that one did as it left me.

  For a while, I simply regained my breath, calming by will the pulse beating between my thighs, and soaked in the peace and solitude of my mother’s bedroom.

  I would not go back out there. By now, my mother would have been glad that some of her guests had witnessed my brief possession. It all added to the drama of the show. But I never liked anyone to see. And what bothered me particularly about this occasion was that he had seen. He’d witnessed my weakness and at least some of the ugliness that had possessed me. He wouldn’t believe it, of course. He would call it fakery and showmanship and go on his arrogant, contemptuous way, despising us. Despising me. And yet desiring me; I suspected he didn’t like that part.

  Which didn’t, I reminded myself, staring out of the window into the darkness, matter one jot. I was leaving London tomorrow for Haggard Hall and Emily. What did the ignorant contempt of a lustful stranger matter to me? I’d never see him again. Thank God.

  With unexpected weariness, I was about to turn away from the window to see if any of the clothes I’d left with my mother might be suitable for my new position with Emily, when I saw a man run down the steps from the house and stride off along the street without a backward glance. My hand stole up over my lurching heart. The party wasn’t over. I could hear it going on still in the drawing room, but I knew he was one of our guests.

  He carried a tall hat, which he remembered to clap onto his head after a few yards. Although I couldn’t see his face, I knew from the careless hang of his clothes and the loose-limbed, wolfish stride that it was my sceptical gentleman. I wondered why he’d come.

  As if he heard the silent question, he paused suddenly and glanced back over his shoulder, looking directly at the first-floor windows of my mother’s drawing room. Then his gaze moved on and found me.

  I chose not to move, but it was possible I couldn’t have if I’d tried. Even through the glass and over several yards of space, something seemed to sizzle in the air between us, joining us like an imaginary fork of lightning. Curiosity. Desire. I had the oddest sensation that I couldn’t breathe, although of course I did, and too quickly for indifference.

  The stranger’s lip curled. He tipped his hat to me with a civility that only emphasised his withering contempt. And then he strode off down the street.

  I resorted to childishness and stuck out my tongue at his retreating back.

  Chapter Two

  Inevitably, I first came upon Haggard Hall in the dark. For some reason, I had been expecting some turreted monstrosity perched on a cliff overlooking a stormy sea. Instead, a large, rambling building rose up through the rain from the Yorkshire moors, black and forbidding against the night sky.

  I didn’t care. I wanted nothing more than for the evil jolting to stop so that I could stretch out somewhere and sleep. However unwelcoming the place my mother had fondly imagined as luxury, I was sure it had beds.

  The coach which had met me several hours ago at Market Gainborough, apparently the nearest railway station, finally pulled up outside the imposing entrance to the house, and I was released from my torment. As I clambered down into the ra
in, the front door opened and a figure flew down the steps, heedless of the wet, and threw herself into my arms.

  “At last!” Emily cried with flattering fervency. “I am so glad to see you!”

  “Well, likewise,” I said, giving her a brief hug in return. My body hurt too much for more. “But I believe I would rather see you somewhere dry. You’ll be soaked through in an instant.”

  Emily laughed and tugged me onward by the hand when I would have reached back inside the coach for my bag. “They’ll bring your things,” she assured me.

  Obediently, I waddled into the house by her side. Emily seemed to leap like a gazelle, while every bone in my body ached.

  “Are you well?” Emily asked, suddenly noticing my peculiar gait.

  “Of course. I’m just tired, and your roads are too bumpy for my old bones.”

  Emily laughed. “Old bones,” she repeated disparagingly, but a sudden frown pulled down her brow in the glow of light spilling from the doorway. In the porch, she turned and looked at the coach, where the coachman was handing over my tatty bag to another servant who had appeared, presumably, from the back of the house somewhere.

  “Whatever possessed them to send that old thing?” she said blankly. “I didn’t know it had any springs left! No wonder your bones ache.”

  “No, no, they’re straightening out as we speak,” I assured her, following her inside. “And at least it was faster than walking.” Just. “Let me look at you.”

  In school, Emily had been a bright, pretty girl with a lively sense of humour and a quick mind. A golden girl from her blonde hair to her sunny nature. In the eighteen months since I’d seen her, she’d become a beautiful young woman, a grown-up with all an adult’s complicated contradictions. That fact stood out in her eyes: a hint of strain around her happiness, a slightly nervous edge to her smile. The rest rolled off her in emotional waves. Emily was floundering in her new life.

  “Lady Haggard,” I said, smiling my approval as I bestowed a curtsey upon her.

  Emily laughed, taking this as the approval I’d intended. “Mrs. Darke!” she returned. “Come. You must be so tired and hungry. Shall I have them bring you something up to your room?”

  “That would be perfect,” I said gratefully, becoming aware of a figure standing still at the foot of a wide, sweeping staircase. A middle-aged woman in a plain, dark gown with keys at her belt. Clearly the housekeeper.

  “Mrs. Grant,” Emily said, turning to her. “Will you have some dinner sent up to Mrs. Darke’s room?”

  “Certainly, my lady,” came the immediate response.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Just a little would be wonderful. Cold is fine.”

  “As you wish, miss.”

  Emily tugged me towards the stairs, and the housekeeper retreated in the direction, presumably, of the kitchen.

  “Oh, Mrs. Grant?” Emily called after her. “Which room is Mrs. Darke in?”

  “The blue room in the west wing, my lady. Opposite Miss Salton.”

  A frown flickered over Emily’s face as we climbed the stairs. “I’d hoped you’d be closer to mine,” she confessed.

  “It will be perfect,” I soothed, although I wondered why she hadn’t arranged it so if that was what she wanted.

  The house was a bit of a maze, with corridors and little staircases leading in all directions, a result, no doubt, of extensions being added over the years without any overall plan. Like this new Emily herself, the house was a mass of contradictions, as old places often are, bearing the echoes of happiness and tragedy from countless inhabitants. I felt a rush of present, seething emotions from many sources adding to the mix. There were lingering spirits here too…

  “That is Miss Salton’s room,” Emily said, eventually, nodding towards a closed door as we passed it. “So this must be where they’ve put you.”

  “Who is Miss Salton?” I enquired as Emily lifted the old-fashioned latch and opened the door.

  “Irene’s governess,” Emily said. “Irene is Arthur’s niece. It was her father’s death that led to Arthur inheriting the baronetcy.”

  “So, she lives here too?” I asked, walking into the room behind Emily.

  “Yes, with her mother, Susan. You’ll meet them both tomorrow, along with old Lady Haggard and the rest. Oh dear,” she added involuntarily, looking around her. “This wasn’t really what I intended for you.”

  Certainly, the room was a little cramped, but that didn’t bother me. It had a bed and a washing bowl, and a fire burning in the grate. My bag already sat on a chair like an old friend.

  “It looks most comfortable,” I said firmly, easing my bruised hips down onto the bed. “And the bed is bliss compared to the hard board of a thing I had at the school.”

  “How did I manage to entice you from the school in the end?” Emily asked, flitting over to the fireplace and poking the embers. The room was comfortably warm.

  I sighed. “Well, I had to resign. There was an incident.”

  Emily turned to me, eyes shining and wide. “With a ghost?” she said avidly.

  “Something like that. At any rate, it was something neither the pupils with me nor the head mistress could overlook, so if I hadn’t resigned, they’d have turned me off anyway. Much as I love you, Emily, I don’t want to spend my days carrying your fan and fetching your smelling salts, but I need the employment.”

  “I have a maid,” Emily said disparagingly. “Why would I want you for such mundane things? To be honest, Barbara—do you know, even after writing to you for more than a year without the formality, I still want to call you Mrs. Darke?—to be honest, I asked you to come for much the same reasons the school dismissed you. I think there are ghosts here.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” I said. “And if there are, what do you expect me to do about it?”

  Before she could answer, a knock at the door heralded a maid with a tray, which Emily bade the girl set on the little desk.

  “Do you want some?” I asked when the door had closed behind the maid.

  Emily grinned and brought the tray from the desk to the bed, where she sprawled beside me and picked up a piece of toast. It felt quite comfortable, like schoolgirls enjoying a forbidden midnight feast in the dormitory. As well as the toast, there was a little scrambled egg and some cold meat, a slice of cake and a small bowl of assorted fruit.

  “So, you’re a married lady,” I observed. “Lady of the manor, indeed! Tell me about your husband?”

  Her face lit up without a shadow. “Oh Arthur is wonderful. You’ll like him, Barbara. Everyone does.”

  That certainly cleared up one worry for me. Whatever was straining Emily’s happiness, it wasn’t her husband. As she chattered away, telling me how they’d met and how he’d proposed so romantically, I ate without really tasting and watched her face, letting her seeping emotions wash over me.

  “Then you like being married,” I noted with a smile.

  “Oh yes!”

  “And you like being lady of the manor too?”

  “Of course!” She waved one comically regal hand at me, but there at last was the source of perhaps some of her unhappiness. She didn’t like this place, and she wasn’t comfortable here. “Apart from the ghosts.”

  “I’ll dismiss them for you. What do they do?”

  “Creak floorboards and follow me around, whispering.”

  I blinked. “Really?”

  She coloured. “Do you think I’m mad? The others do.”

  “What others?”

  “Oh, Susan and Patrick, and Miss Salton…”

  “Who are Susan and Patrick?” I asked. Patrick… It was only a name, and yet it brought back vividly to me the stranger at my mother’s séance.

  “Susan is Arthur’s sister-in-law,” Emily said. “George’s widow.”

  “George being the previous baronet? Sir Arthur’s
brother?”

  Emily nodded and broke off a piece of the cake. “Yes. And Patrick is their cousin, and Arthur’s guardian in reality if not in law—Mr. Faversham is his actual guardian until he comes of age next month. You’ll meet him tomorrow.”

  “So your husband is very young.” I was pleased by that too, since it proved, surely, he was not the one suspected of murdering a previous wife.

  “He’s nearly two years older than me,” Emily said defensively. “Do you want that cake?”

  “Lord, no. Were his family happy to see him married so young?”

  Emily shrugged, helping herself to the rest of my cake. “Mostly. Though it’s probably as well George didn’t die before he’d given his permission, because I doubt Patrick would have. And though Patrick’s got no legal say, Arthur does attend to him. And old Lady Haggard doesn’t seem to like daughters-in-law on principle.”

  “Yes, I can see that was considerate of Sir George. How did he die?”

  “He had heart problems. Temper probably.”

  “You didn’t like him,” I observed.

  Emily flushed slightly. “Well, no, but I wouldn’t say so to anyone but you. The man was a bully, but at least he didn’t stand in the way of our marriage. And actually, we’d all have been more comfortable if he hadn’t died.”

  I had a few suspicions as to some of the discomforts his death had brought to her. She would have rather been plain Mrs. Haggard than the baronet’s lady, but I was too tired to probe such delicate matters just then.

  “Is Sir George one of your ghosts?” I asked instead.

  She choked on my cake. I passed her a glass of water. “God, I hope not,” she gasped. “I think it more likely to be Patrick’s wife, who died here about four years ago. She fell out of the attic window, but there were all sorts of rumours at the time.”

  Remembering my mother’s careless comments, I raised one quizzical eyebrow. “What sort of rumours?”

  Emily brought her head nearer mine and lowered her voice. “Suicide,” she murmured. “Or even murder. People are unkind. Arthur says it was accidental death, as was the verdict at the time. But by all accounts, she was a troubled woman—beautiful and highly strung, given to bouts of unhappiness. I expect Patrick was unkind to her. Doesn’t she sound like the makings of a ghost to you?”