The Ghost Hunters (36 page)

‘Frank can get a little excitable at times; he loses control. But it’s nothing more than that.’ She touched her wound again and flinched. ‘Things got slightly out of hand, that’s all. That happens sometimes. I’m sure you understand, being a woman of the world.’ She saw my confusion. ‘Really, you shouldn’t think badly of him. He is perfectly …
acceptable
. Or at least,’ she added with a grin, ‘I find him so.’

‘But your husband—’

‘Lionel knows all about it,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘He pretends he doesn’t, but really, he knows. Men are awfully good at covering their feelings, don’t you find? It gives them dignity and
a sense of power, pretending they can’t see when actually they can. Especially when it hurts them the most.’

There was something chillingly calculating in her tone. I sat back, amazed that she had been so candid with me.
²
Of course, I knew there were women like her. They were the talk of parlour rooms the length and breadth of London – scarlet women.

‘Oh, don’t look at me like that,’ she said defensively. ‘I told you, Lionel doesn’t mind. In fact, I think in a way he rather enjoys it. Do you know how long we’ve been married?’

‘Tell me.’

‘Ten years.’

‘A lifetime.’

Her face hardened at my sarcasm. ‘I can see you don’t approve, Miss Grey.’

‘It isn’t for me to judge.’

‘And yet that is precisely what you are doing. I can see so much, Miss Grey, even the things you cannot …’ Her unsettling gaze held me. It seemed to linger around my neckline before floating back up to meet my eyes. She reached for a cigarette and there followed the scrape and flare of a match. ‘You must understand, every so often this terrible urge comes upon me, and it’s overwhelming. I don’t suppose I should say that I am incapable of resisting men, but in these cycles I become quite desperate. Hungry for it.’ I saw her arm move suggestively beneath the bedclothes. ‘Have you never felt that?’

I shook my head. Then, in a manner that was noticeably more cordial, she asked me how well acquainted I was with Price. I said that I knew him very well but that this was hardly surprising given that he was my employer and had been for five years.

‘But you’d like to know him much better than that, wouldn’t you?’

It was like talking to a coarse teenager, and when I refused to answer the question she closed her eyes wearily. ‘I understand, Sarah. Really I do. As I said, I can see everything.’ Her eyes snapped open and once again her gaze settled on my neckline.

What was she looking at?

‘But you must appreciate,’ she continued, ‘sometimes I feel I am dying in this house. It suffocates me with its perpetual melancholy. I’m entitled to some excitement, aren’t I? I yearn for the bright lights of London, Sarah, the rush of the place, and instead I get
this
. Look at me! I’m stuck out here in the wilderness.’

‘And Frank gives you excitement?’

‘Yes, in many ways,’ she said with a smirk. ‘Imagine how it is for me every day: getting up, clearing up after Lionel, ensuring he takes his medicine, tending to his needs. He knocks everything over and blames it on “them”, “the things”. It’s utterly pathetic.’

A thought struck her. ‘I say, you don’t suppose Lionel is responsible for some of the odd going-ons, do you? I’ve noticed that when he’s in his wheelchair things happen far less frequently. And some days he makes no sense at all, barricades himself away in that little chapel over the stairs, praying like an old fool. In his mind, everything is a sin!’

‘What does he pray for?’ I asked.

‘Forgiveness, I imagine,’ she said with resentment. ‘What I’m trying to say is, this isn’t my life, and it never was my life, never should have been.’

‘Then why did you come here?’

‘There was some trouble in Canada. Mr Price was right about
that at least. I suppose you could say that we
were
running away, when I think about it now.’

‘Running from what exactly?’

‘Ourselves mostly, our darker natures. I suppose it was my fault mainly. Not
all
my fault, you understand; he played his part! And then some. But after that whole business … well, we had to move on.’

‘It concerned men?’ I asked.

‘Doesn’t it always?’ she said bitterly. ‘We had to come back. We had no money; as Lionel told you, we lost everything in the Crash. And now there’s nothing left. I’m all he has.’

‘So what you are saying is that you don’t love him.’

‘I have always loved him, Miss Grey. As I have loved all my husbands. But now … well, it’s more the sort of love that one feels for a brother or a friend. Can you understand that?’

All her husbands?

‘He wants me near him all the time, like some sort of doll. He can’t stand it if I’m away from the house, even if only for a few hours.’

She paused and looked at me with determination in her eyes. ‘But I will
not
be poor, Sarah.’

‘What will you do?’

‘Frank has a plan,’ she said. ‘He wants me to go with him to London. To start a business. Imagine that! Me, a businesswoman! A chance to start again.’

‘Mrs Foyster, a moment ago you used the expression “all my husbands”. What did you mean by that?’

‘I suppose you might say I have a chequered past,’ she said carefully, ‘but that applies to most of us, doesn’t it, Miss Grey?’

I looked away. ‘You had more than one husband?’

Silence.

‘Did Lionel know you were once married to someone else?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Were you divorced?’

She shook her head. This I could not believe. ‘How old were you when you met Lionel?’

Her mouth fixed in a horrible grin. ‘I was seven.’

If she had intended to shock me then she had succeeded. She looked at me the way a child might study an insect, analysing my reaction, assessing her skills in manipulation. It sickened me.

‘Oh please, there’s no need to look so alarmed,’ she said. ‘Lionel baptised me when I was seven – that was when we first met. As I grew up, he stayed in touch, until eventually—’

‘He proposed marriage.’

‘Exactly.’

And now I understood why earlier that night Mrs Foyster had prevented her husband from going upstairs to check on little Adelaide unaccompanied. He had been drawn to Marianne as a child. I felt sick. But I wasn’t leaving until I had learned more about the mystery that had brought me back here. ‘Tell me about the nun,’ I said. ‘The Dark Woman.’

Marianne gave me a long look and said rather nonchalantly, ‘What of her?’

‘Is she real?’

‘I have seen her outside, near the summerhouse, a dark figure with head bowed. Yes, she is real; she is spoken of often enough, isn’t she?’

‘Harry seems to think that you might share some sort of connection with her,’ I suggested. ‘Some psychic bond.’

‘How observant of him. Heavens, my name is written all over the walls!’

‘And you think those words are messages from the nun?’

‘Either that or they are the deranged inventions of my husband.’

‘Then if it
is
the nun, what do you suppose she wants?’ I asked.

‘Everything suggests that she is Catholic: the word “Mass” on the walls, and the fact that when Miss Ethel saw her she was telling her beads.’

All of this made sense. ‘What else?’

‘I feel such an impression of violence in this house. I can sense it. Violence from long ago.’ She hesitated. ‘The word
trompée
is important … I think it means that the nun who walks these grounds was deceived by someone during her lifetime, here perhaps, at a house that once stood on this site. I sense that she didn’t come here of her own free will – she was brought here from France.’

‘Sense?’ I repeated the word back to her. ‘You speak with such conviction.’

‘Lionel and I have found a number of ancient French artefacts about the house that would confirm the idea, together with other items.’

‘Such as?’

‘A French dictionary, for one. We found it on the first floor landing, just outside the Blue Room. Also a small gold ring – a wedding ring, I imagine – and some brass medallions inscribed with French and Latin.’

Medallions. Like the one found on Price’s pillow in the Blue Room? Even the reference to a French dictionary stirred a memory.

‘
Trompée
,’ she whispered.

‘What?’

But when she spoke next it was not with words, but single
letters. ‘D-E-C-E … Deceived!’ she cried. ‘She was deceived. Yes, I feel certain that she was brought to England by a man who wanted her – someone important who betrayed her, deceived her, abandoned her, tortured and murdered her. She was escaping France and her life. She was promised the chance to start again, to start a new nunnery on her own. But he wanted her for his mistress and forced himself upon her. Such … such shame! She tore her medal off in shame.’ My hostess put her hands to her throat. ‘She’s here somewhere; her remains are buried here, in or around the Rectory. She’s leaving clues for us, guiding us,
warning
us.’

‘Mrs Foyster?’ I took hold of her arm. ‘Tell me where you are getting this information.’

As she looked up at me, I felt as though she were capable of reaching into the innermost recesses of my mind, leafing through my thoughts as easily as one might browse through the pages of a book. She smiled at me knowingly. My skin crawled.

‘What are you
really
doing in this house, Miss Grey?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Oh, I think you do. I think you understand very well indeed. You came back. You didn’t have to and yet you did. Why?’

‘For the sake of our research,’ I said. ‘This case has such … possibilities.’

Her face hardened. ‘No, this house possesses some personal significance for you. I can sense it: you’ve lost something.’

And then the most peculiar thing happened. The light in the room seemed to undergo a transformation. Shades of purple and black seeped into my vision, giving our surroundings an ethereal air.

‘I told you, I can see things, Sarah. I see things in my head,
events long since passed and events yet to come. I’ve had the ability since I was a child.’

‘And what can you see now?’ I whispered, though I was afraid to hear her answer.

‘
You
, Sarah. I see you. A long time ago. Walking. It’s cold and black, and you’re walking somewhere with your mother. But you should have turned back. You should have turned back when you had the chance.’ Her hand flew to cover her mouth. ‘Dear God, you poor thing.’

I stood up, backing away from her with mounting fear. This was beyond my comprehension.

‘You think you’ve lost so much,’ she continued, ‘but the worst is yet to come.’

I shook my head and, between fitful breaths, cried out at her to stop.

‘The woman with two paths and one regret. There is a mark upon you.’

I froze. The words. I had heard them before.

‘This house sees all. The nun that haunts this place wants revenge upon the deceivers who walk these halls. Whoever they are, wherever they are. Mark my words, whoever explores this house, delves into its mysteries, pursues the Dark Woman, will turn mad and never again know what it means to live a restful life. They will be followed from this place, haunted. Cursed. They will suffer the worst death. A bad death.’

Suddenly Marianne was still. Perfectly still and staring at the black glass of the windowpane. Then she said, ‘They make so much more sense to me now, my visions.’

‘Visions? What visions?’

‘Whenever I lie down and close my eyes, I see things …
things other people don’t seem to see. It’s been that way since we arrived in this house.’

‘Tell me,’ I demanded, gripping her forearm tightly. ‘What is it that you see in your visions?’

Before she could answer an urgent rapping on the bedroom door startled us both.

‘Marianne, who is that you’re talking to?’

‘I am speaking to Miss Grey.’

‘Will you come out here, please? Mr Price wants to speak to us downstairs.’ It was obvious from Reverend Foyster’s voice that something was wrong. He sounded agitated.

‘Not now, Lionel – we’re talking.’

‘Now, please, Marianne. I’ll be waiting for you downstairs in the library.’

His shuffling footsteps died away down the passage.

Marianne took a skirt and cardigan from her wardrobe and proceeded to dress slowly as if relishing the idea that I might be watching. I averted my eyes and waited politely. But as she made for the door I was impelled to call out, ‘Mrs Foyster, please, what do you see when you close your eyes?’

‘You’re living in a prison of your own construction.’ She looked back at me darkly. ‘If you weren’t aware, Sarah Grey, then you really should know.’

‘Know what?’

‘There is something you can’t see. And it’s around your neck.’

Notes

1
‘[Marianne], ever on the lookout, discovered an advert in
The Times
for a small boy who wanted a home, etc. Correspondence and an interview ensued and eventually a little chap a few months junior to our wee girl came to share our home
for a while. Her father, a widower, brought him down’ (Lionel Foyster, from his unpublished manuscript
Fifteen Months in a Haunted House
).

2
‘Guy L’Estrange said he thought Marianne was very highly strung. He was alone with her for some time and she opened her heart to him and told him things he would never repeat to anyone. Once, during his visit, Marianne seemed to have a fit of hysterics – laughing and crying together. She recovered after a while. Her husband took no notice so L’Estrange did nothing either’ (Guy L’Estrange in an interview with Peter Underwood,
Borley Postscript
, p. 117).

‘Wait!’ I cried. ‘Please, come back. I need to know what you mean!’

But she had slipped out of the room. I stood, adrift in my own confusion, the bedrooms walls seeming to spin around me until panic forced me over to the mirror on the bedside table. I looked and confirmed it: there was nothing at all around my neck, thank God.

I see more than you know.

I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to appeal to the rational part of me to tell me that this was all nonsense. But I had heard and seen enough to reason that Marianne knew far more than she was telling; that there was a connection between the deceptive practices of those attached to this house and the dark forces within it. And I was only too aware that I had lied to myself, to Mother and to Price for the past two years, though neither of them yet knew it. This was my private sin. And Borley Rectory could see it.