Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Terror

I nodded happily and refilled my glass.

“Absolutely. Another Emily Bronte.”

He smiled benignly. “I am glad to learn you are a well read gentleman, sir. But whereas Miss Bronte – a rather coarse writer in my opinion – portrayed Gondal in one novel, her ladyship spread her kingdom over twelve. That’s what made them so successful. Readers without thinking much about it, recognized a familiar country. That place, sir, that we all dream about, where we can control our destinies, correct awful mistakes by a mere effort of will.” He leaned across the table and stared at me with a strange intensity. “You must understand, sir. No matter what you see or hear – you must understand. Understanding smothers fear.”

I tried to reassure him, although the effect of three glasses of that fine old wine was beginning to bemuse my senses.

“I understand. Shut up here for a lifetime, it stands to reason that the seed of genius would blossom into a flourishing flower.” I felt quite proud of this piece of imagery and repeated the last two words. “Flourishing flower.”

“You have a mastery ofwords, sir,” Jenkins stated. “As befits a writing gentleman. But do you appreciate the situation? The gentlemen callers never made the grade, if I make myself clear. The heroes in those books, sir, they always measured up to expectations. Any little faults could always be ironed out. Erased by a well-turned sentence, glossed over by a flow of polished adjectives. The same could be said for the rest of us. Servants are only perfect in fiction and truly loving parents can only be found in well written books. Reality is studded with nasty little rocks, fantasy is as smooth as a well mown lawn.”

“True.” I nodded. “You are a veritable well of profundity, Jenkins. But books are merely the depository of crystalised thoughts, while reality is a seething cauldron of disgusting facts. He who faces facts goes mad; he who takes refuge in the twilight of fantasy is insane. You can’t win. What about another glass of claret?”

Jenkins rose rather unsteadily to his feet and suppressed a hiccup. “Thank you, sir, but it’s time for her ladyship’s dinner. Will you do me the honour of your company?”

Her ladyship’s dinner consisted of warm milk and glucose and was served from a vessel with a long spout. This Jenkins carried, with suitable gravity, on a silver tray up the staircase and into Lady Bramfield’s room. By now I was at a loss as to how to designate the bundle of skin wrapped bones that lay on the chaise longue: Lady Bramfield, Caroline Fortescue or that horrible thing I would rather not look at. Jenkins appeared not to be bothered by any such doubts, for he bowed and announced:

“Dinner is served, my lady,” and placed spout to feeding hole. The immediate result was electrifying. Without actually waking up all that remained of Caroline Fortescue, writer of genius, peer of Dickens, Thackeray, Hardy and Emily Bronte, took on a kind of grotesque life. Greedy, sucking, gasping life. What served for lips clamped round the spout, and I witnessed a sucking, bubbling, body writhing absorption of nourishment. Although a lot seemed to me wasted as the white liquid dribbled down her ladyship’s chin and formed a little pool in the hollow below her throat.

Jenkins kept dabbing her with a red handkerchief.

I watched Caroline Fortescue dine for perhaps a full minute before running out on to the landing, where I was violently sick on the doubtlessly priceless, but faded carpet.

Jenkins prepared a room – made up the bed and opened the windows – that was two doors from Lady Bramfield’s own.

I fell into an uneasy sleep in complete darkness and awoke in full moonlight. There were no curtains to the windows, for this was a room – according to Jenkins – that had not been used for half a century. Every item of furniture stood out in stark relief; the massive mahogany wardrobes, their long mirrors slabs of blazing light; the dressing table that crouched like some ill-shaped beast in the far corner; a tallboy that reared up against a side wall, creating an oblique shadow that tapered to a sharp point on the dust-infested carpet.

There was a complete absence of sound. It was as though the universe had yet to be born and my tiny atom of awareness was floating on an unlimited sea of nothing. The room, the furniture, even the moon, were only reflections of what would be in some far off time. Then I was rocketed into the present. Sound was reborn.

Running footsteps in the corridor that lay beyond the closed door, accompanied by a trill of laughter. I did not move for a long while, trying to analyse the sounds. Swift, light foot treads, girlish laughter. A running girl that laughed.

I climbed out of bed and put on a thick satin dressing gown that had been supplied by Jenkins, then – not without some trepidation – went out into the corridor. Here the moonlight was only permitted entry through a solitary window situated at the far end; three quarters of the passage mocked a low wattage bulb that created a tiny oasis of yellow light in a desert of writhing shadows. A long way off a door groaned the protest of oil starved hinges, suggesting that someone had pushed it stealthily open – and I, fired by that damnable curiosity that has reputedly killed many cats, stepped fearfully forward – on naked feet – to investigate.

I came to the landing and looked down into the darkened hall. Not there. The lower part of the house slept the sleep of centuries. I turned left and roamed through the shadow congested bowels of Bramfield Manor, seeking a rational explanation. Presently I was rewarded by seeing a wedge of light that sliced through an eternity of darkness and revealed a partly open door.

As I crept nearer I again heard that trill of girlish laughter, a sound that brought some measure of reassurance and a promise of an exciting adventure. Why should I be frightened of a girl, even if she was mad enough to go running through an old, darkened house? When I reached the door I pushed it fully open and attempted to record the entire contents of the room in one swift glance.

Sheet shrouded furniture basking in brilliant moonlight. Dust-carpeted floor, cobweb-festooned windows – and a young girl standing by a white marble fireplace.

She alone merited my entire attention. Tall for a girl, perhaps five foot nine, slender, attired in a flowing white dress, long black hair framing a pale oval face. A face that had a beauty that one sometimes dreams about, but rarely sees. Large, dark blue eyes fringed by long lashes, a straight nose and a full-lipped mouth that was now parted in a mischievous smile. When she moved the gown slid off one creamy shoulder – and the vision of virginal beauty was complete. Her voice was captivating, enhanced by a slight lilting tone.

“Hello, who are you?”

It took some little while for my voice to rediscover its normal function. “I might ask the same question. I’m a guest- well sort of. But unless old Jenkins has been singularly remiss, you must be an intruder.”

She stopped in front of one window looking so young, appealing and unattainable in the moonlight. “I am – in a way. It’s fun to roam through old houses at night, don’t you think? Chase your shadow by moonlight. Listen to the voices of those who were once and are no more. One has to be slightly mad to enjoy night running.”

“But where do you come from?” I asked.

She jerked her head back in a most enchanting fashion.

“Back there – in the woods. I live with my parents in a sweet little cottage. You must come and see us. In the daytime when the sun sends golden spears down through the whispering leaves.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Nothing dies there, you know. How can if? Nature is eternal. Is and ever will be.”