Andrew Taylor - Fireside Gothic

‘Was she the blue lady?’ I asked.

‘She was entirely flesh and blood.’ Mr Ratcliffe gave a cough. He turned away from us and blew his nose. ‘But I often went up to the Deanery drawing room in those days, and I sometimes met the blue lady on the stairs.’

‘How did you know she was a ghost, sir? Could she have been someone staying there?’

‘Oh no. She wore a dress with panniers under the skirt. Eighteenth century, I imagine. Besides, I encountered her on one occasion when I was with Miss … with the Dean’s daughter, and she didn’t see her.’

Faraday leaned forward, his head resting on his hands. ‘What happened, sir? Did she speak? Did you?’

‘No,’ Mr Ratcliffe said. ‘We hadn’t been introduced, you see. So I bowed – and she bobbed a small curtsy. It was always like that – I must have seen her three or four times. The last time I glanced back and she was looking up at me. I thought she might be going to say something. But she didn’t.’

‘Did you ask the Dean about her?’ I said.

Mr Ratcliffe shook his head. ‘It would not have been wise. But I did ask his daughter if the Deanery was said to be haunted, and she said no, but that her mother had been obliged to dismiss a housemaid who was making up silly stories to frighten the other servants. Stories about a lady in an old-fashioned dress.’

Faraday’s mouth had fallen open in amazement. He looked more like a rabbit than ever.

‘It all seems so pointless, sir,’ I said. ‘The cat – the blue lady.’

‘Why does it have to have a point?’ Mr Ratcliffe said. ‘Which is to say, a purpose that we in our present situation are able to understand. It’s true that in some cases one can speculate about that. In other words, there may be a possible factual basis that might underlie a ghostly phenomenon.’

‘He means there is a real story to explain the ghost,’ I told Faraday, as much to display my superior understanding as to enlighten his ignorance.

‘One or two of our own ghosts come into that category. Take Mr Goldsworthy, for example. On the other hand, the real story may not explain the ghost – it may be the other way round: that the ghost is our way of trying to explain something puzzling or disturbing that actually occurred. Something we somehow create ourselves.’

Mr Ratcliffe paused. He peered through his pipe smoke at Faraday and me. He had been a schoolmaster all his life and he knew boys.

‘It is getting late,’ he said. ‘You two should go to bed.’

‘But, sir,’ Faraday said. ‘What about Mr Goldsworthy?’

Mr Ratcliffe smiled at him. ‘I’ll tell you about him tomorrow evening.’

‘Oh, sir.’ Faraday sounded about nine years old. I scowled at him, though I was as keen to hear about Mr Goldsworthy as he was.

We said our good nights. Mr Ratcliffe stayed by the fire, smoking and reading. I went outside to use the lavatory while Faraday carried the cups into the kitchen and stacked them in the sink.

It was colder than ever outside. The air chilled my throat and tingled in my nose. Above the black ridge of the Cathedral was the arch of the sky, where the stars gleamed white and silver and pale blue: they seemed to vibrate with the cold, shivering in heaven.

Afterwards, I went upstairs. Faraday went outside in his turn. By the time he came upstairs, I was already in bed and reading my book, a novel called Beric the Briton by G. A. Henty. I ignored him while he undressed. I heard his bedsprings creak as he climbed into bed and the sharp intake of breath as the cold, slightly damp sheets touched his skin.

‘I say,’ Faraday said. ‘Can I ask you something?’

I lowered the book. ‘What?’

He was lying on his side, curled up with his knees nearly at his chin. All I could see of him was his face. He looked more rabbit-like than ever.

‘Did you hear it outside? The – the singing, or whatever it was?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘It was when I came out of the bog,’ he said.

‘Perhaps the Rat was having a sing-song,’ I said. ‘He got drunk on the Dean’s wine. It was obvious, the way he was going on this evening.’

‘It wasn’t him, honestly – it came from outside, from over there.’

Faraday’s hand emerged from under the covers and pointed to the right of our beds: towards the College, towards the Cathedral.

‘Someone coming home from a party,’ I said.

‘It wasn’t like that.’ He was frowning. ‘It was just four notes, very high-pitched and far away.’

Very quietly, Faraday sang them to me: La-la-la-la. The third la was longer than the others. His voice behaved itself for once, and the notes sounded pure and true. As far as I could tell.

‘You sure you didn’t hear it?’

‘Of course I’m sure. Go to sleep.’

He sang the notes again, even more quietly. ‘It’s in a major key, I think. Starts on an F sharp, perhaps?’

‘Shut up, will you?’

I reached up and turned off the gas at the bracket on the wall.

‘Whatever it is,’ he said to the darkness, ‘it’s meant to be happy but it’s going to be a sad tune.’

I lay awake listening to the sounds of the night, wondering whether Faraday would start crying again. He hadn’t mentioned the business with the postal order during the day but it must always have been there, squatting in the forefront of his mind like a toad and waiting for its moment to spring. His plight made mine seem trivial by comparison, which I suppose was another reason I didn’t like him very much.

Faraday’s breathing slowed and fell into a regular rhythm. I heard Mr Ratcliffe locking up and coming up the stairs. The Cathedral clock tolled the hours and the quarters. The clock was in the west tower, not the shorter central tower. It had a modest chime for such a large church, like a big man with a small, high voice. We boys called it ‘Little Willy’.

The silence deepened. Once, as I was dropping off to sleep, I thought I heard again, at the very edge of my range of hearing, the four high notes that Faraday had sung to me. La-la-la-la.

For most of Boxing Day, we were left to our own devices. Mr Ratcliffe went out after breakfast to call on a former servant at the King’s School who now lived in one of the almshouses attached to the parish church. He would go directly on from there to have lunch with an old friend in a village a mile away from the town. He did not expect to be back until evening.

Time passed slowly for us. We were in a sort of limbo, neither at home nor at school. Faraday and I kept together because we had no one else to be with and nothing else to do.

In the morning we stayed at the Sacrist’s Lodging, reading under the disdainful gaze of Mordred. I finished Beric the Briton and looked along Mr Ratcliffe’s shelves for something else to read. Most of his books were about boring things like music or architecture. There was some poetry, equally boring, and the sort of books we had at school, like Shakespeare. In the end I had to settle for Oliver Twist .

Faraday irritated me more than usual. He couldn’t stay still for a moment. He moved around the room, fiddling with the ornaments and looking at the pictures, most of which were engravings of old buildings.

He sat down on the stool and raised the lid of the grand piano.

‘Do you play?’ I said.

‘Yes.’ He pulled back his cuffs and spread his fingers over the keyboard. A ripple of notes burst into the room.

Naturally he played the piano, I thought: bloody Faraday could do everything and do it well.

‘God!’ he said in quite a different voice. ‘It’s awful.’

‘What is?’

‘The piano. Can’t you hear? It’s awfully out of tune. I bet it’s warped.’