Филиппа Карр - The changeling

“They had the baby,” I said.

“Oh, poor Miss Martha. You see, he didn’t want her. I reckon he thought that but for her his little ladyship would still be there. And all he’d got was Miss Martha ... a squalling red-faced little bit of nothing, in place of his lovely wife. He didn’t want to look at the child. It turns out like that sometimes. Oh, there was all the best for her ... nurses, and later on governesses. She was a nice little thing, my gran said. She’d come to the kitchen like you are now. But there was no laughter in that house and a house without laughter is not much of a place ... not if there’s a whole houseful of servants and all you get is the food to eat and fires in every room to keep you warm ? ? ? if you know what I mean.”

I do know what you mean, Mrs. Grant. Where does the haunting come in?”

Well... Miss Martha was about ten years old ... your age, ? reckon, when they started to notice. She’d go out there and sit under that tree on that seat you like so much. She’d be talking ... we thought to herself. She changed at that time. She has a bit difficult to manage before. Into mischief rather. My §ran said she was trying to remind people she was there because she thought her father had forgotten all about her.”

“It was very wrong of Sir Ronald to blame the child for her mother’s death.”

“Oh, he didn’t do that, exactly. He just couldn’t bear to be with her. I suppose he was reminded of what he had lost.”

“So she changed, you were saying.”

“She was more satisfied ... peaceful like, so my gran said. And every day she’d be out there, talking away. They thought she was getting a little bit ... peculiar.”

“What happened then to change her?”

“One of the maids thought she saw a figure in white there. It was dusk. It might have been the shadows. But she came running into the house, scared out of her wits. Miss Martha was there. She said, ‘It’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s my mother. She comes here to talk to me.’ That explained a lot ... the change in her ... why she was always at that spot in the garden. Why she seemed to be talking to herself. She wasn’t talking to herself. She was talking to her mother.”

“So her mother came back ...”

“Like as not she couldn’t rest ... because she knew her daughter was unhappy. Miss Martha ... she was apart from the rest of us like. A strange young lady. She never married. In time she inherited the house. They used to say she was a bit of a recluse. She wouldn’t have the garden changed. The gardeners used to get wild saying that this ought to come down and this and that be cut back. But she wouldn’t have it. She was quite old when she died. My mother was in the kitchen then.”

“Do you believe Lady Flamstead really came back?”

“My gran said she did and anyone who’d been there would have said it.”

“It does seem the sort of garden where anything could happen.”

Mrs. Grant nodded and went on sipping her tea.

After that I visited the seat often. I would sit there and think about Miss Martha. I felt a sympathy with her, though our situation was by no means similar. I had my mother, even though she had partially been withdrawn from our close relationship.

But I did understand Martha’s feelings. She was unwanted because her coming had resulted in the departure of ho had been greatly loved; she was a poor consolation for “hat her father had lost.

One day my mother came out and found me sitting there. “You’re often here,” she said.

“You like it, don’t you? I think you are beginning to love this house.”

“it’s a very interesting house ... particularly the garden . It’s haunted.”

She laughed. “Who told you that?”

“Mrs. Grant.”

“Of course ... a descendant of the old retainers. My dear Rebecca, every self-respecting house over the age of a hundred years must have its ghost.”

“I know. But this is a rather unusual ghost. It’s in the garden.”

“Good Heavens! Where?” My mother looked round with an air of mock expectancy. “In this very place. Please don’t mock. I have a feeling that ghosts don’t like to be laughed at. They are very seriously dedicated to their purpose in returning.”

“How knowledgeable you’ve become! You haven’t learned that from Miss Brown, I’m sure.

Is it Mrs. Grant whom you have to thank?”

“Let me tell you about the ghost. Lady Flamstead was the young wife of Sir Ronald. He doted on her and she died when her baby was born. Sir Ronald couldn’t like the child because through her his wife had died. Poor little thing, she was very unhappy. Then one day she came out to the garden ... she was about my age ... and she sat in this seat and Lady Flamstead came back.”

“I thought you said she had died.” ‘I mean she came back to Earth.” Oh ... so she is the ghost.”

She’s not a mischievous one or anything like that. She was kind and gentle and much loved in her life and she came back because her child was unhappy. Mrs. Grant said her grandmother believed it and so did those who had been there at the time. You don’t believe it, do you?”

Well, these stories grow, you know. Someone imagines see something ... and someone else adds a bit ... and here you have your ghost.”

“This was different. Miss Martha changed when her mother came back. She wouldn’t have the garden altered.”

“Is that why you’re here so often ... hoping to see this ghost?”

“I don’t think she would come to me. She doesn’t know me. But I do feel there is something special about this spot, and when I heard the story it made it even more interesting. Mama, do you think it possible?”

She was silent for a few seconds. Then she said: “There are those who say all things are possible. There is a special tie between a mother and her child. It is thought the child is part of oneself ...”

“Is that how you feel about me?”

She turned to me and nodded.

I felt very happy.

“I always shall, my darling,” she said. “Nothing will alter that.” She was telling me that it was just the same as it ever was, and I felt happier than I had for a long time. I began to believe that eventually I might even accept Benedict Lansdon’s intrusion into our lives. I was not like poor Martha. My mother was with me. It was really the same as it had ever been. Nothing could alter that. The next few months flew past. We had now fully settled into Manor Grange and the days had taken on a routine. My mother was deeply immersed in my stepfather’s life; she clearly enjoyed it. Now and then they went to London. I was always asked if I would like to accompany them but sometimes I preferred to stay in the country. Miss Brown said it was better to. She did not like lessons to be interrupted and travelling to and forth must necessarily do that.

I often thought of Cornwall ... so different from Manorleigh country, where the fields were like carefully fitted patches into a quilt; and even the trees looked as though they had been pruned. I rarely saw the strange, twisted and often grotesque shapes I encountered frequently in Cornwall ... those trees which had been victim to the southwest gales. Here in the Manorleigh constituency the little country towns clustered in trees, fae greens, with the church spires rising among the 1 rou|j seemed comfortable, orderly, completely lacking that fey 1’tv which one took for granted in Cornwall. qu, Often thought of Cador - and not without nostalgia. There letters from the grandparents. They were constantly asking when we were going down.

That seemed a remote possibility now. Constituencies had to be nursed and Benedict Lansdon, his eyes on far-off goals, was assiduous in his treatment. And my mother was committed to help him. So it was a question of leaving my mother for my grandparents, or vice versa. At this time I wanted to be with my mother, for since our conversation in the garden I was reaching out for an understanding, and trying hard to cast off my prejudices against my stepfather - which in my heart I was not sure that I wanted to do.