“You are like lots of people. Having put your head in the noose, you want to see everyone else doing the same.”
“Don’t be cynical. It does not become you. There is no question of nooses. You don’t know what it means, obviously. It’s the best thing that can happen to you.”
“I hope you continue to believe that.”
“Now let’s talk sense. Aunt Bee is mad about my seeing this house in Brier Road. She’s made an appointment for next Tuesday. Want to come?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I thought of visiting.”
“You mean, someone you knew in the past?”
“Y … yes.”
“You mean next Tuesday?”
“Yes, I did really.”
“Make it another day and I’ll come with you.”
“I think I ought to go alone. Just at first … you understand?”
“Of course.”
I was glad.
Gertie had never been greatly interested in other people’s affairs and, of course, she was now completely immersed in her own.
So I arranged on the following Tuesday to put my plan into action.
I arrived at Easentree. I was lucky. The fly was in service and it was not long before I reached the Bald-Faced Stag. I began to walk down to the common. I noticed the shops in the street which comprised the town. Miss Patten, who kept the haberdasher’s, was still there, as were the post office, the butcher’s, and the baker. I went swiftly down the hill and, when I had been walking for about fifteen minutes, I saw the wood and the common.
My heart was beating fast. I was rehearsing what I would say. It sounded false.
“I was just passing and I thought you wouldn’t mind. Natural curiosity. You see, I lived here until I was ten years old. Then I went to Australia. I have only just returned.”
No one was on the common. There was the pond and the seat. And there was the house . hidden by the shrubs that looked overgrown. In my day they had been neater than that.
As I approached, I was amazed that it appeared to be so unkempt.
There was the gate. I opened it and walked towards the house. I stopped and gasped. It was Commonwood, of course, but how different!
Some of the windows were cracked . one or two actually broken. The brickwork was chipped in places. It looked as though part of the roof had fallen in.
Commonwood was a ruin. I stared at it in dismay. It looked grim and forbidding.
My first impulse was to turn and run away. But I could not do so. I had to find out what had happened to it. Why, when the doctor had died, had they not sold the house? Why had practical Aunt Florence and her husband for I imagined she had one allowed a valuable property to become a worthless ruin?
I felt a sudden sense of revulsion. It was so different from what I had expected. But something was urging me on. I stepped forward towards the house.
I was standing now close to the front door. The windows on the ground floor were all cracked. The lock on the door was broken. I pushed it.
It gave a protesting squeak and swung open.
I stepped into the hall with the doors leading from it to Mrs. Marline’s sitting-room and bedroom with the glass doors which opened on to the lawn.
My heart was beating wildly now. I fancied I was being warned not to venture further. There was something eerie about the place. It was not the Commonwood House I had known. Why had it become like this? I must get away. Forget it. It belonged to a past which was best forgotten.
What good could I do by trying to resurrect the past? It was obvious what had happened. The children had gone away; all those who had once been part of this house were dead or dispersed and for some reason the house had been allowed to fall into decay.
Go back to the town, I told myself. Have a meal in the Bald-Faced Stag and ask them to arrange for some conveyance to get you back to the station. Then, forget about the past and Commonwood House. It is over for ever.
But the impulse to go on was irresistible. Just a step into the hall.
Just a few more moments to recapture the ambiance of the old days . the feeling of being not as the others, the outsider who was there on sufferance because the doctor had a soft heart, to savour once more the feelings of that unwanted girl, soon to be loved and cherished by the most wonderful of men.
I made my way across the tattered carpet. It had once been brown with a blue pattern on it; now it was damp and torn and the blue was barely visible. An insect scuttling across it startled me.
I opened the door of a room and looked in. My mind flashed back to one of the last occasions when I had seen it. Adeline . frantic with fear, and Mrs. Marline shouting at her. Miss Carson coming in.
I had not realized how vividly those scenes had impressed themselves on my memory.
The door to the garden was shut. Through the glass panels I could see how neglected it was. I remembered how I had listened to conversations and tried to piece together what was happening in the grim household.
I turned away and looked up at the staircase and, before I could warn myself that a house in such condition might be unsafe, I started to ascend them. I was on the landing, close to that room which had been shared by Dr. and Mrs. Marline before her accident. Empty now. I glanced up the stairs. How quiet it was. How different. I kept thinking I heard whispering voices. Nanny Gilroy, Mrs. Barton and the district nurse . shutting the kitchen door, drinking tea and talking secrets.
Then suddenly I heard a sound. I could hear my heart beating. A sibilant whisper. It was coming from the room below. Voices down there. Ghostly voices in an empty house.
I do not think I was particularly fanciful, but from the moment I had come into the house I had thought there was something eerie about it.
Perhaps there is about most derelict houses. They seem to preserve something, some character of the people who have lived in them over the years; and when one has known them, and been aware of some mysterious happenings, it is not surprising that one’s imagination is stirred.
When I heard a light footfall I was no longer in doubt. I was not alone in the house.
There it was again . that sibilant whisper.
I was in the room which had been the Marlines’ bed room. I stood very still, waiting. I was not sure what I expected. Did I think the ghost of Mrs. Marline was going to appear and ask me what I was doing there?
What right had I to be here . of ever having been here? Yes, I was her brother’s child, and that was the reason why I had been allowed to stay. But Mrs. Marline would say that people had no right to beget children out of wedlock and the children had to suffer for that.
It was a light step on the stairs. There was no doubt now. I was not alone in this house.
I stood cowering in the room as the steps came nearer. I had pushed the door to so that it was half closed. Whoever was there was very close now. There was a pause. I could hear the sound of light breathing and then the door was slowly pushed open.
I caught my breath. I was not sure what I had been expecting, but the sight of a small boy was reassuring. He was not alone. There was another, slightly smaller boy behind him.
We stared at each other. I gathered he was as astonished to see me as I was to see him.
He said in a frightened voice: “Are you a ghost?”
“No,” I said.
“Are you?”
He lifted his shoulders in silent mirth and the other boy came to stand beside him and stare at me.
Then he went on: “What are you doing here?”
“What are you?” I retaliated.
“Looking.”
“So am I.”
“It’s haunted, you know.”
“This house … ?”
“All of it. The garden as well. It’s a real haunted house, en’t it.
Will? “
Will nodded.