Chapter SIXTEEN
‘What on earth . . . ?’
gasped Maddy, as we all looked at each other in horror.
For a second or two, we were frozen to our seats with shock. Then I scraped back my chair and hurried for the door, aware that everyone else was getting up and following in my wake.
The screams, three of them in quick succession, had been truly blood-curdling. Someone out there was in real trouble.
Mick, who was nearest the door, got there first and pulled it open, and we all poured out into the hall as he shouted urgently, his voice echoing a little.
‘Hello? Is someone there?’
Joyce and Evelyn had joined us from the kitchen. We were still, the tension mounting, as we listened for a reply.
But it was silent, apart from a low rumble, like traffic in the distance.
‘Are we all here?’
Sylvia’s face seemed paler than ever in the dim light. She glanced around, doing a mental calculation.
‘Where’s Fen?’
she asked, in a sudden panic. Then, spotting her a second later, her hand went to her chest with relief.
‘Oh, there you are! I couldn’t see you for a moment.’
‘I think we’re all here.’
Fen’s voice sounded thin and scared.
‘Who the hell was it, then, if it wasn’t any of us?’
asked Katja, who was linking arms with Olga, her gran.
‘Those screams were terrifying.’
‘And heart-rending.’
I shuddered.
‘Look, I’ll check the back door in case someone’s managed to break in and somehow hurt themselves.’
‘I’ll come with you,’
said Mark instantly, and I smiled at him gratefully. I wanted company if I was about to stumble across something gruesome.
‘And I’ll go and search upstairs,’
offered Primrose, glancing nervously into the dark void above us.
‘Anyone coming with me?’
There were lots of affirmative replies, and we began to disperse, some of us gravitating towards the stairs with Primrose and others walking in groups in the direction of the other ground floor rooms.
I looked at Mark and he nodded, and we walked together across the hall. My heart was beating so fast, I could hardly breathe. The screams had sounded so chilling . . . not human at all.
‘Could it have been a wild animal crying out in the woods?’
I said, looking at Mark, and he nodded.
But then suddenly, with no warning at all, his face vanished as the house was plunged into complete darkness.
Several people screamed and came running back into the hall and Mark grabbed my hand. We stood there, not moving, as our eyes gradually adjusted to the single feeble light coming from a candle glowing on a small table.
The table was positioned beneath the grand portrait of Lady Annabel Fortescue.
Silently, we all stared at it.
‘Was that table there before?’
Mark murmured, looking puzzled.
‘I can’t remember seeing it.’
‘Me, neither. Who lit the candle?’
I asked, moving towards it and gazing up at the light flickering on Lady Annabel’s face. She was so beautiful.
Suddenly, there was a strange scraping noise and the portrait seemed to shift a little.
A slight movement to the left caused me to look up, and my heart lurched with shock.
The shadowy figure of a woman in a Victorian-style gown was standing on the staircase gazing down at us.
I blinked rapidly, thinking she must be a trick of the light . . .
Then someone was grabbing me and pulling, and I fell backwards, landing with a hard thump on my bottom – just as the huge painting of Lady Annabel plunged from its moorings and crashed to the floor right in front of me . . .
*****
In the chaos that followed, everyone clustered anxiously around me wanting to help, and Mark – who I realised was the one who’d yanked me out of danger – was taking my hand and pulling me gently to my feet.
‘Are you all right, Celia?’
called Sarah Frobisher.
I laughed from sheer nerves.
‘I think so.’
‘Thank goodness. A switch must have tripped to knock the lights out, but I don’t understand how a painting could just fall off the wall like that.’
‘Where’s the fuse box?’
asked James.
‘Through here.’
Sarah and James went off in the direction of the kitchen.
Sylvia put her arm around me.
‘You’re trembling, Celia. Come and sit down.’
Together, she and Mark led me to the morning room, and as I sank down on one of the sofas, the lights in the hall and the dining room flicked back on.
‘What on earth’s going on?’
I gazed up at Mark.
‘I think you might have just saved my life there. Another half a second and that painting would have landed on my head.’
He grimaced.
‘It doesn’t bear thinking about. Are you okay there while I go and check the back door?’
‘Yes, you go. As long as you don’t expect me to come with you. My legs are so shaky, I don’t think they’d support me,’
I joked feebly.
He gave me a rueful look, seeming quite shaken himself.
‘Back in a mo.’
He passed Fiona coming in.
‘Celia!’
Her face was wreathed in concern.
‘Are you okay? I heard what happened.’
‘I’m fine, honestly.’
I smiled up at her.
‘Just a little wobbly.’
She sat down beside me.
‘I was with Maddy in the kitchen when the painting fell off the wall. But the washing machine was spinning and we didn’t hear a thing over the noise.’
‘Ah, the washing machine,’
I murmured, remembering how the machine had reverberated so loudly when it was spinning. Who on earth was washing clothes at this time of night?
‘We’re checking all the rooms to try and find out where the screams came from,’
she said, getting up.
‘Although I’m starting to think maybe it was a wild animal, because what else could it have been?’
I nodded.
‘I wondered that as well. I’ll come and help.’
I started getting up.
But Fiona shook her head.
‘You’ve had a nasty shock. I think you should just stay where you are for a while.’
Smiling ruefully, I plopped back down.
‘Maybe you’re right. My legs are still trembling.’
‘Do you think Sylvia’s all right? She was looking really pale just there.’
‘I know. She has diabetes and I was wondering if maybe she needs her medication?’
Fiona nodded.
‘I’ll go and check with Mick. She needs to be in top form for her wedding day.’
As she was leaving, I suddenly had an urge to go with her so I wouldn’t be left alone – with my memory of the figure in Victorian dress on the stairs, gazing down at me. It had been a trick of the light, surely? It had to have been. But trying to rationalise it didn’t seem to be helping. I had goosebumps all over just thinking about it.
When Mark came in carrying a glass, I was so relieved to see him I’d have jumped up and hugged him if it hadn’t been for the fact that my legs still felt like jelly.
He held out the glass.
‘Brandy. For the shock.’
I laughed but I took it.
‘I’m fine. Really. But thank you.’
‘I’m glad.’
He sat down beside me.
‘But a shot of brandy might make you feel better?’
‘Okay.’
I peered into the glass, wrinkling my nose.
‘Don’t like brandy.’
He grinned.
‘I know. Too many Brandy Alexander cocktails that time in Greece.’
I glanced at him in surprise.
‘Oh, yes. I’d forgotten about that. It was one humdinger of a hangover I had the next day.’
‘You were out of it for ages, then when you surfaced, you insisted we find a place selling full English breakfasts.’
‘In the middle of the afternoon.’
Chuckling, I glanced into my glass again.
‘Just down it in one,’
he advised.
So I did, gasping loudly afterwards.
‘Very well done.’
I chuckled.
‘You make it sound like I won a medal at the Olympics.’
I was feeling better already but maybe it was psychological rather than the physical effect of the brandy working already.
Or . . . maybe it was the realisation that Mark still seemed to really care about me that was making me feel ridiculously cheerful all of a sudden.
‘Thank you again for saving my life,’
I murmured.
He smiled.
‘Hey, no problem. What are old friends for?’
His words brought me crashing right back down to earth.
Old friends.
So that’s what Mark had decided we were . . .
I felt my joy deflate like a three-day-old balloon.
But my thoughts were interrupted by a disturbance out in the hall. I could hear Maddy talking and it was clear from the urgency of her tone that whatever had happened wasn’t good.
I followed Mark to the door, just in time to hear Maddy say.
‘I couldn’t believe it when Sylvia showed me. She’s absolutely devastated.’