This House is Haunted (4 page)

An “H. Bennet,” of Gaudlin Hall in the county of Norfolk, was advertising for a governess to attend to the care and education of the children of the house; the position needed to be filled without delay by a qualified candidate and the remuneration was promised to be satisfactory. Applications should be despatched immediately. Little more was said. “H. Bennet,” whoever he was, did not specify how many children required supervision, nor did he offer any details regarding their ages. The whole thing lacked a certain elegance, as if it had been written in haste and submitted to the newspaper without proper consideration, but for some reason I found myself drawn to the urgency of the appeal, reading it from start to finish over and over, wondering what this Gaudlin Hall might look like and what kind of fellow H. Bennet might be.

I had only been outside London once in my life and that was a dozen years before, when I was nine years old, in the immediate aftermath of my mother’s death. Our small family had lived together in a state of considerable harmony during my early childhood. My parents had a marked characteristic that distinguished them from those of most of my school friends: they were affectionate towards each other. The things which seemed natural in our home—the fact that they parted every
morning with a kiss, that they sat side by side in the evening reading their books rather than in separate parlours, that they shared a bedroom and laughed together and were unsparing in how often they touched or shared a joke or simply remarked upon how happy they were—were alien in the homes of others. I knew this quite well. On the rare occasions when I visited the houses of neighbouring girls, I found a distance between their parents, as if they were not two people who had met and fallen in love, exchanged intimacies and joined each other at an altar with the purpose of spending their lives together, but a pair of strangers, cell mates perhaps, thrust into a mutual confinement with little in common except the decades that they were forced to endure each other’s company.

My parents could not have been more different in their behaviour, but if their affection towards each other was obvious, it was as nothing compared to the fondness they displayed towards me. They did not spoil me; staunch Anglicans both, they believed too much in discipline and self-restraint for that. But they delighted in my presence and treated me with great kindness and we were a happy group until, when I was eight, they sat me down and informed me that I was to have a younger brother or sister in the spring. Naturally they were delighted, for they had hoped for a long time to be blessed with a second child and, with the passing of the years, they had grown to believe that it was not to be. But to their great delight, they announced that our small family of three would soon expand to four.

I confess that when I look back on those months, I did not comport myself with as much dignity as I wish I had. I did not feel the same degree of joy that my parents felt at the notion of welcoming a baby into our home. I had been an only child
for so long that selfishness may have hidden in my heart and displayed itself in unruly passions on a number of occasions. Indeed, so ill behaved was I, so uncharacteristically naughty, that Father took me aside during the last month of Mother’s confinement and told me that I was not to worry, that nothing would change, for there was enough love in our house to be shared with a new baby, and that I would look back one day and find it hard to imagine how I had ever done without this younger brother or sister, whom I should very soon grow to love.

Sadly, this expectation, which I had begun to come around to, was not to be fulfilled. Mother struggled during her delivery, giving birth to a second daughter who, within a few days, would be lying in a coffin, safe in the arms of the lady who had carried her for nine months, under a headstone that read:
Angeline Caine, 1813–1855, beloved wife and mother, and baby Mary
. Father and I were now alone.

Naturally, given his great love for my mother, Father struggled in the immediate aftermath of her death, secluding himself in his study, unable to read, barely eating, succumbing too often to the vice of alcohol, neglecting his work and his friends and, most importantly of all, me, a situation which, had it been allowed to continue, might have led us both in time to the workhouse or the debtors’ gaol, but fortunately matters were taken in hand by the arrival of Father’s two elder sisters, Hermione and Rachel, who appeared unannounced on a visit from Cornwall and were shocked to discover the conditions in which their brother and niece were now living. They took it upon themselves to clean the house from top to bottom, despite Father’s protests. He tried to chase them out with a sweeping brush, as one might expel some unwanted
vermin, but they were having none of it and refused to leave until the obvious decline of our living standards could be reversed. They took charge of Mother’s clothes and personal effects, saving some of the more precious items—her few pieces of jewellery, for example, a pretty dress that I might grow into in a decade or so—and distributing the rest among the poor of the parish, an act which drove Father into a fury but, wise and temperate ladies, they took little notice of their brother’s anger and simply got on with things.

“We refuse to pander to self-indulgence,” they informed me as they took charge of our pantry, disposing of the food that had gone stale and replacing it with fresh produce. “We have never been ones to wallow in misfortune. And you must not wallow either, Eliza,” they insisted, sitting on either side of me and attempting to balance kindness and understanding with disapproval of our new, slovenly ways. “Your mother has passed, she is with the Lord now, it is a sad and terrible thing but there it is. Life for you and our brother must go on.”

“Life, as I know it, is at an end,” replied Father bitterly, standing in the doorway and making us jump in surprise for we had not realized that he was eavesdropping on the conversation. “My only wish now is to join my dear Angeline in that dark place from which no man may return.”

“Stuff and nonsense, Wilfred,” said Aunt Rachel, standing up and marching across to him, hands on her hips, her expression one of fury mixed with compassion, both emotions struggling to attain the upper hand. “I’ve never heard such rot in all my days. And don’t you think it cruel to say such a thing in front of the child when she has already suffered such a terrible loss?”

Father’s face descended into the very picture of misery—he did not wish to cause me further pain but was suffering so badly
that he could not resist his self-indulgent language—and when I looked at him and he turned away, unable to meet my eyes, I burst into tears, feeling for all the world that I wanted nothing more than to run out on to the street and leave this place as far behind me as I could, to disappear into the nameless crowds of London and become an indigent, a traveller, a nobody. Before I knew it my aunts were fussing around the both of us, chastising us and comforting us in equal parts, trying to control their natural frustration. It soon became clear that Father was too deeply lost in grief to take care of me and so it was decided that I should return to Cornwall with Aunt Hermione for the summer, while Aunt Rachel stayed in London to minister to her younger brother, a decision which turned out to be a very sensible one, for I spent a happy summer in the country, coming to terms with my loss and learning to cope with it, while somehow Aunt Rachel brought Father back from the depths of his despair to a place where he could take charge of his life, his responsibilities and his daughter once again. By the time I returned to London in the autumn and we were reconciled to each other, it was clear that the worst was over. We would miss Mother, of course, and we would speak of her often, but we had both grown to understand that death was a natural phenomenon, albeit a sorrowful one for those left behind, but one that every man and woman must accept as the price we pay for life.

“I let you down, I fear,” Father told me when the two of us were alone in the house again. “It will not happen another time, I promise you that. I will always look after you, Eliza. I will keep you safe.”

We made a happy, if somewhat resigned, pair in our home from that day on. Naturally, I attended to the domestic duties. I took charge of the cooking while Father’s salary allowed us to
employ a maid-of-all-work, a Scottish girl called Jessie, on two afternoons a week, when she would clean the house from top to bottom and complain about the pains in her back and the arthritis in her hands, although she was only a year or two older than I. Despite her cantankerous nature, I was grateful that we could afford her, for I hated cleaning with a passion and she took that duty away from me.

At St. Elizabeth’s School, which I had attended since girlhood, I had always been an excellent student, and soon after completing my education, I was offered the position of teacher to the small girls, a position that suited me so well that it became permanent within six months. I took great pleasure in my young charges, who were between five and six years of age, teaching them the rudiments of sums and spelling, the history of the Kings and Queens of England, while preparing them for the more difficult subjects which would be theirs to endure at the hands of Miss Lewisham, into whose calloused hands I would deliver them, trembling and crying, within twelve months. It was difficult not to form an attachment to my small girls. They had such pleasant dispositions and were so entirely trusting when it came to their dealings with me, but I learned early on that if I was to thrive as a teacher—and I took it for granted that I would always be a teacher, for marriage seemed unlikely given the fact that I had no fortune, no particular place in society and, worst of all, a face that my aunt Hermione once said could curdle milk (“I don’t mean it unkindly, child,” she added, noticing my disquiet, leaving me to wonder how else she could possibly have meant it)—then I must balance affection with resilience. This notion, however, sat fine with me. I would live as a spinster, I would have my small girls to teach and the summer holidays perhaps to take
a little trip—I dreamed of visiting the French Alps or the Italian city of Venice and would occasionally wonder whether I might even find paid employment as a lady’s companion during the summer months—I would take care of Father and our house. I would sympathize with Jessie about her numerous inflammations and ask her whether or not she had seen to the skirting boards yet. I would not worry about suitors, who in turn would certainly not worry about me, and I would face life with a seriousness of intent and a positive outlook. And for all this, I was content and happy.

The only slight change in these circumstances came about with the arrival of Arthur Covan as instructor to our oldest girls and with whom, as I mentioned, I formed a particular friendship. Mr. Covan arrived to us from Harrow and was taking a year’s experience in teaching before heading up to the Varsity to read classics. Arthur made me laugh—he was a fine mimic—and flattered me with his attentions. He was a handsome boy, a year younger than me, with a mop of dark hair and a ready smile. To my shame I allowed myself the most indulgent fantasies of what it might be like if we were to “step out” together, although he never did anything to encourage this delusion. And even when it all came out a few months later, when his name was in the papers and the public was baying for his blood, I still could not find it in myself to condemn him fully, although naturally I never spoke to him again. And then, of course, he took his own life. But no more of that now. I was speaking of my position at St. Elizabeth’s, not indulging in sentimental daydreams.

It was only now, with Father gone, that it occurred to me how alone I truly was and whether this simple plan for my future would be enough to satisfy all my needs. My aunts had
passed away in the intervening years. I had no siblings to take care of, and none who might take care of me, no cousins in whose lives I might take an interest, and none who might take an interest in mine. I was entirely alone. Should I disappear in the middle of the night, should I be murdered as I walked home from school one day, there was no one who would miss me or question my withdrawal from society. I had been left a solitary figure.

Which, perhaps, is why the advertisement for the governess position in Norfolk seemed like such an inviting opportunity.

Should I have waited longer before making my rash decision to leave? Perhaps, but I was not in my right senses, so struck was I by the grief which had fallen upon my mind. And a knock on the front door a little later in the evening sealed the matter when I was confronted by a thug of a man who called himself Mr. Lowe—a fitting name—who informed me that the house I had grown up in did not in fact belong to Father, but that we were mere tenants, an assertion he backed up with incontrovertible paperwork.

“But I thought it would be mine now,” I said in astonishment and he smiled at me, revealing a row of yellow teeth and one black one.

“It can be if you want it,” he declared. “But here’s the rental figure and I expect my money every Tuesday without fail. Your father never let me down on that score, may God have mercy on his soul.”

“I can’t afford that,” I said. “I’m just a schoolteacher.”

“And I’m a businessman,” he snarled. “So if you can’t, then you best pack your things. Or take in a lodger. A quiet girl, that is. No men. I won’t run a bawdy house.”

I flushed, humiliated, and felt an urge to kick him. I knew not why Father had never told me that the house did not belong to him, nor why he never asked me to contribute to the rent when I found employment. At any other time I would have been deeply upset by this but it seemed at that moment like just one more trauma and, recalling the notice in the newspaper, I sat down later that night and wrote my letter of application, dropping it into the post-box first thing the following morning before I could change my mind. Tuesday and Wednesday were busy days—I sorted through some of Father’s effects and, with Jessie’s help, organized his bedroom in such a way that it betrayed few signs of its previous occupant. I wrote to Mr. Heston at the museum and he replied immediately to accept my offer of Father’s insect books and correspondence. I placed all of Mr. Dickens’ novels in a box and hid them away at the back of a wardrobe for I could not bear to look at them now. And then, on Thursday morning, a letter made its way back to me from Norfolk, expressing satisfaction with my qualifications and offering me the position without interview. I was surprised, of course. The advertisement had stressed urgency but for all that H. Bennet knew, I could have been completely wrong for the job, and yet he seemed content to place the well-being of his children in my hands.