Shadows in the Moonlight

Chapter Two

The following morning, Olivia drove into town with Tabitha, leaving Zach still searching for the family tree in the library and Bruce being given a tour around the farm by Tom. Olivia had slept no better than the first night. She’d left the light on in the bathroom and snuggled up against Bruce not simply to keep warm, but for reassurance. However, the groaning and creaking of the house was accompanied by a faint but distinctive sound of crying. To Olivia, it resembled the plaintive sobbing of a woman. Knowing that it couldn’t possibly be that, she dismissed it as the wind whistling around the corners of the building – those sea gales were robust. But it was, nonetheless, unsettling. She hoped she’d get used to it – the wind was not going to go away.

Bruce, she discovered on waking, had heard nothing and had slept like a hibernating bear, which made her feel all the more foolish for having been afraid. It was clearly nothing. She was just being paranoid.

Tabitha, too, was sure she had heard whimpering, but when she’d told Zach about it at breakfast, he had laughed at her and declared that it was just the wind, moaning round the chimney stacks. ‘Really, Tab, anyone would know that,’ he’d said, not wanting to admit that he had heard it too – not wanting to disclose his own fear. But Tabitha was sure it had been a ghost, and resolved to do some investigating if she heard it again the following night.

St Sidwell was a picturesque seaside town built in a sheltered cove on the southwest coast of Cornwall. The hillside was clustered with white houses that cleaved to it like mussels to rock, their grey slate roofs and shiny windows giving the place a pleasing sense of uniformity. A small harbour saw the coming and going of blue-bottomed fishing boats and the seafront boasted quaint cafés, restaurants and gift shops that entertained tourists during the summer months, but which fell quiet off-season, and a little forlorn, when winter gales swept through the deserted streets, giving the place the desolate feeling of the morning after a party. Olivia parked the car against the kerb and set off for the local convenience shop where she’d advertised for a couple to replace Elsa Tregoning.

Fat clouds trundled across the sky like sheep and a brisk wind whipped off the water. Seagulls mewed as they wheeled against the blue, and one or two greedy ones squabbled over the odd chip discarded on the pavement outside Captain Killigrew’s fish restaurant. The white houses dazzled in the bright light, but there was little warmth in the sun. Olivia, in a faux-fur hat and red scarf tucked into the lapels of her dove-grey cashmere coat, long blonde hair falling in loose curls down her back, cut an elegant albeit urban figure as she clattered down the high street in her expensive black ankle boots. Tabitha trotted enthusiastically along beside her. Small and slight for her age, she still wore clothes chosen by her mother and looked much too polished for this country setting in a crimson, waisted coat and matching bobble hat and scarf. Olivia noticed the inquisitive glances of locals as they passed, but she put their interest down to small-town curiosity; newcomers like them must have stuck out like parakeets among pigeons.

A bell tinkled as Olivia pushed open the door and strode in. It was pleasantly warm inside and smelt of damp. While Tabitha wandered the aisles, Olivia went straight to the counter where two young women were bent over their smartphones looking at social media and gossiping about the evening before. When they saw Olivia, they stopped talking and reluctantly put down their phones. Recognising her immediately, a shifty exchange passed surreptitiously between them.

‘Hi,’ said Olivia, tapping her fingers on the counter. ‘I don’t suppose anyone has shown any interest in my advertisement, have they?’

The girl with auburn hair, freckles and a nose ring shook her head. ‘Afraid not,’ she replied, cool blue eyes taking in this impossibly stylish woman who was as alien to her as the Queen. ‘You’d have more luck trying further afield.’

Olivia sighed, struggling to distinguish the words beneath the girl’s thick Cornish drawl. ‘I know. But I really want a local person, ideally a couple. People who know the area. If I hire people from far away it will just be a case of the blind leading the blind.’ She laughed mirthlessly.

The other girl, who had black spiky hair, unfeasibly long pink nails and was chewing gum, gave Olivia a sympathetic smile. ‘Have you tried online?’ She said it slowly, as if unsure whether someone as posh as Olivia knew what online was.

‘I’ve been reluctant to do that,’ Olivia replied. ‘I don’t want a live-in couple.’

The girls looked surprised. ‘In a house that size you could have ten live-in couples and not even notice them,’ said the redhead with a chuckle. She caught her friend’s eye, and the gum-chewer chuckled too.

‘I know it sounds silly,’ said Olivia, laughing with them because she could see how very silly it sounded. ‘We come from a small London house and value our privacy.’

Neither girl had ever been to London, but they did not imagine that Olivia’s definition of small was the same as theirs. They looked at her blankly. Olivia sighed. ‘What to do?’ she murmured, tapping her fingers on the counter again. She was at a loss.

‘If I were you, I’d persuade Elsa Tregoning to stay,’ suggested the gum-chewer. ‘She knows the house.’

‘She said she’d stay on until I find someone to replace her,’ said Olivia.

The redhead pulled a face. ‘Then she’ll be staying for some time,’ she said. ‘I’d not look a gift horse too hard in the mouth if I were you. Perhaps you’d better keep things as they are.’

Olivia thanked them, although they had been most unhelpful, and went to the newspaper stand near the door to buy The Times for Bruce. Tabitha was now browsing the sweets close to the counter. Neither salesgirl noticed her there. ‘Someone should tell the poor love the house is haunted,’ said the redhead in a low voice.

‘She’ll find out soon enough,’ returned the other. ‘I give them a week.’

Tabitha’s hand froze over the Maltesers. She stared at the two girls in astonishment. The power of her stare alerted them to her presence, and they looked down at her in surprise. ‘Oh, hello there, sweetheart,’ said the redhead, smiling guiltily. ‘Do you want those?’

Tabitha shook her head, mumbled that she’d changed her mind, and went off to find her mother. On the way home in the car she was pensive. She gazed out of the window at the passing countryside and wondered whether the house was, indeed, haunted. And if it was, by whom? Perhaps she hadn’t imagined the sound of whimpering, after all.

‘What are you thinking about, darling?’ Olivia asked, noticing that her daughter was unusually quiet.

‘Do you think the house is haunted?’ Tabitha asked.

Olivia laughed nervously and answered a little too quickly. ‘Of course not, why?’

‘Maybe that’s why no one wants to work there.’

‘Well, Elsa and Tom haven’t got a problem with it, have they? Elsa’s worked there for over fifty years and Tom’s grown up there. In fact, Elsa specifically told me there are no ghosts.’

‘You asked her?’

‘I did.’

‘Maybe she’s lying to stop you being frightened.’

Olivia glanced at her daughter and frowned. ‘What’s brought this on?’

Tabitha silently debated whether to tell her mother what she’d overheard. She didn’t want to worry her, but, on the other hand, it might explain why no one had responded to her advertisement. ‘I heard the girls in the shop saying that someone should tell you it’s haunted,’ she admitted, finally.

‘Typical!’ Olivia exclaimed in annoyance. ‘Elsa said people like to gossip. As soon as you get an old house you get stories of ghosts! It’s such a cliché. I don’t believe in ghosts and neither should you,’ she added tersely. ‘Ridiculous.’

Tabitha bit her lip and turned her eyes back to the passing countryside. Her excitement quietly mounted. A haunted house. She couldn’t think of anything more wonderful!

They drove on in silence. As they turned into the drive and made their way beneath the plane trees, Olivia hoped it wouldn’t be as hard to find people to tend to the gardens as it was to find people to tend to the house.

Inspired now by the very real possibility of her new home being full of ghosts, Tabitha decided to ask Elsa about it herself. She found her in the kitchen preparing lunch. She perched on a stool and watched the old woman taste with a spoon the lamb stew that simmered on the gas stove. It smelled delicious and Tabitha’s stomach growled. ‘What was Mrs Delaware like?’ she asked.

Elsa put down the wooden spoon and looked at Tabitha thoughtfully. The child’s eyes were the colour of topaz and full of enthusiasm and inquisitiveness, but there was something wise about them, as if there was an adult behind them, looking out. ‘She was a cold woman, secretive and antisocial,’ Elsa began, wanting to satisfy the child’s curiosity and, at the same time, get to know her. Tom hadn’t married so Elsa had no grandchildren to dote on. She suspected, by the alert and curious look on her face, that Tabitha was a rather exceptional person. ‘But once you won her trust, she softened,’ Elsa continued. ‘She was an only child and looked after her father until he died. She was a widow by then and had no children, though not for want of trying. She miscarried three, you see. That was a tragedy and she never got over it, God bless her. She never married again, either, but lived here all by herself, rattling around like a marble in a tin.’

‘But she had you,’ Tabitha reminded her.

‘She did, indeed.’ Elsa sighed and moved away from the stove. ‘She had me and Tom. I was very fond of her. She was like a mother to me, in a way. When I came to work here, I was but a girl.’

‘Did you have a husband, Elsa?’

‘I did, but not for long. He was taken.’

‘Who by?’

Elsa chuckled. ‘The Lord. My Gerren died after a short illness and the Lord saw fit to take him.’ She pulled a regretful face. ‘We don’t have much luck in this house. But that’s all going to change now that you’re here. It’s going to become a happy house.’

‘That’s a funny name, Gerren,’ said Tabitha.

‘It’s Cornish.’

‘It’s nice,’ Tabitha added, not wanting to appear rude. ‘Is Mrs Delaware buried at the chapel?’

‘No, she’s scattered,’ said Elsa. ‘I think I’d like to be scattered too, somewhere peaceful by the sea.’

‘Why didn’t Mrs Delaware look after the gardens?’

‘She didn’t have the money to do that. This big old house gobbles up money, as your parents are going to find out, God help them.’ She started stirring the pot again. ‘Mrs Delaware didn’t do anything to it when she inherited it from her father because she liked it just the way it was. I like it just the way it is too. We oldies don’t like change.’

‘If Daddy is related to Mrs Delaware,’ Tabitha continued, ‘he must be a Pengower, right?’

‘Oh, he will be,’ Elsa replied with a certainty that took Tabitha by surprise. ‘It was important for Mrs Delaware that the house stayed in the family, her not having children of her own. The Pengowers built it, you see, in the time of Queen Elizabeth the First. Fancy it being that old, eh? Bet you’ve never set foot in such an old house before.’

Tabitha was not thinking about the house, but about the Pengowers. ‘Daddy says he doesn’t have a family tree,’ she said ponderously. ‘He says there’s nothing interesting about his family.’

‘There’s likely to be a Pengower family history here somewhere. Mrs Delaware was very interested in genealogy.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Family trees.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the Pengowers used to be a big and powerful family once. She was proud of that. In fact, this house was the only thing she was proud of. It was everything to her. Poor duck, it was all she had. But she got old and let it go to ruin. She went to ruin herself, in a way, becoming more and more isolated.’ Elsa’s eyes looked faraway suddenly. ‘It was beautiful once, but sad. It’s always been sad. When I was a girl …’

‘Are there ghosts?’ Tabitha interrupted.

Elsa blinked and tossed the spoon into the sink. ‘Never you mind about ghosts,’ she said dismissively.

‘But I heard the ladies in the shop saying the house is haunted.’

‘Tales, that’s all they are. Tales. People love to think the worst.’

‘I think it is haunted. I heard someone crying last night,’ Tabitha stated suddenly.

‘Just the wind,’ said Elsa, bending down with a groan to open the stove door and check on the baking potatoes.

‘That’s what Zach said.’

‘Sensible boy. You London folk aren’t used to sea gales.’

‘Do you believe in ghosts, Elsa?’

Elsa stood up stiffly, putting a hand in the small of her back and grimacing. ‘No,’ she replied quickly. ‘When you go, you go, and you don’t come back.’

‘Are you afraid of dying?’

Elsa frowned. This child was certainly unusual. ‘That’s a strange question,’ she said.

‘ I’m not.’

‘Nor should you be. You’re young. You have a long life ahead of you. I’ll be seventy next year.’

‘That’s old,’ said Tabitha.

‘You’re right about that, my lovely. Sometimes I feel every one of those years in my bones.’ Elsa chuckled and went back to the stew. ‘Lunch will be in ten minutes,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go and tell your brother.’

That night, Tabitha lay in bed waiting for the sound of crying. It was windy once again and her windows clattered, but the moaning the wind made as it whistled about the chimney stacks was very different to the crying she was sure she had heard the night before. She stared at the ceiling of her four-poster bed. The shimmering moonlight that seeped in through the gaps in the curtains made it possible for her to see it clearly. There was a rose painted onto the wood and a pair of birds. The paint had faded, but she could still make out the picture. She wondered who had slept here before her and looked up at the same sight. Maybe Queen Elizabeth I herself. The mattress was soft, and she sank into it with pleasure. Her London bed hadn’t been anything like as comfortable or as big. She was alert to every creak and scrape, and to the scratching noise of mice beneath the floorboards, but there came no murmur of crying. Eventually, she must have drifted off, lulled by the wind and overtaken by tiredness, for she was awoken sometime later by the sound she’d been waiting for.

She lay very still and listened. It was definitely someone sobbing, a woman or a child, judging by the pitch of it. Soft and mournful. Tabitha wanted to give comfort. She couldn’t bear to remain in her bed while this poor creature cried with such despair. Finally, after arguing with herself, wavering between nervousness and curiosity, she slid out from beneath the covers and climbed down. Her room was cold. She reached for her dressing gown that hung on a hook on the back of the door, and slipped her feet, already snug in cashmere socks, into sheepskin slippers. She turned the brass knob and opened the door a crack.

The crying did not stop but grew a little louder.

Tabitha stepped out into the corridor. It was colder there than in her bedroom, and she shuddered. Suddenly, she was surprised by a figure looming out of the darkness. She gasped, but it was only Zach. ‘What the hell …’ she whispered crossly. Zach put a finger over his lips to silence her. His eyes glinted in the moonlight that entered through a small window and Tabitha saw the fear in them. Tabitha, however, was not afraid – in fact, she felt vindicated, for Zach would not have come out to investigate had he still thought the crying sound was only the wind.

Encouraged by his sister’s presence, Zach tiptoed ahead, in the direction of the crying. He hoped he’d discover that it was Elsa and then he could go back to bed and not worry about hauntings any more. Tabitha was in no doubt that it was a ghost. It hadn’t occurred to her that it might be Elsa. She’d be intensely disappointed if she found out that it came from someone living.

The two children carried on as the crying grew louder. At the end of the corridor was an L-shaped bend. A tall window cast a grid of silver squares onto the floor over which they silently stepped. No sooner had they turned the corner than they were faced with a big, wood-panelled door. The crying sound was coming from behind it. Zach shied away, for the tone of the crying told him immediately that it was not Elsa, and, besides, the Tregonings’ quarters were not in this part of the house, but in the kitchen wing.

Tabitha pushed past him and put her hand on the doorknob. Taking a breath and gathering her courage, she turned it.

Both children could barely hear above the pounding of their hearts. Yet, when Tabitha switched on the light, they saw only an empty bedroom. The crying had stopped. They stood and listened, running their eyes over the high metal-framed bed, the mahogany chest of drawers and wardrobe, the window seat and the small panes of glass through which the moon shone keenly. An icy chill pervaded the place. It had the stagnant smell of a room whose window was never opened – the stagnant smell of abandonment.

‘There’s no one in here,’ said Zach, stating the obvious with relief.

‘Someone was ,’ said Tabitha, sensing an unhappy energy that lingered in spite of the glow of the naked lightbulb. Whoever had haunted this room might have disappeared, but they had left a trace of their emotion behind. Tabitha felt it strongly.

‘Well, unless they jumped out of the window or walked through the wall, there never was anyone in here. The crying must have come from another room.’ Zach chuckled. The sound of his voice dispelled his fear and he felt foolish, once again, for having been afraid. ‘Perhaps it’s a cat,’ he added. ‘There might be cat in the house, or outside the window. We’re just being stupid.’

Tabitha lifted her chin defiantly. ‘It was a ghost, Zach,’ she declared firmly. Zach was about to disagree but chose not to. ‘I overheard the ladies in the shop saying this place is haunted and that’s why no one wants to work here,’ Tabitha continued in a loud whisper. ‘I told Mum and she said it’s rubbish. But I think this house is haunted. I can feel it.’

‘You just want it to be haunted,’ he said.

Tabitha shrugged. ‘I don’t mind if it is.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘She was in here, I know it. I feel it. She’s left her unhappiness behind.’

Zach shivered. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said, making for the door.

‘You needn’t be afraid,’ she said, following him into the corridor. ‘I don’t think it’s a nasty ghost, just a sad one.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ he replied tersely. ‘I came to investigate, didn’t I?’

Tabitha chuckled. ‘You’re as white as a sheet.’

‘So are you.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Yes, you are.’

He walked back up the corridor, not caring now if his footsteps caused the floorboards to creak. If there was a ghost, perhaps the noise would scare it away. He wanted to ask Tabitha to sleep in his bedroom, but he didn’t want her to think him pathetic. ‘Are you okay, sleeping on your own?’ he asked, hoping she’d grab the chance to share with him.

‘I’m not frightened,’ she told him coolly. ‘But you can come and sleep in my bed if you want. It’s big enough for ten people!’

He looked appalled. ‘As if,’ he scoffed. ‘We’ll find out the Tregonings have a cat and then we’ll feel really stupid.’

‘Suit yourself,’ she said, opening the door to her bedroom and stepping inside. ‘Check the bed before you climb in – there are big fat rats under the floorboards, and they love warm feet!’ She laughed and closed the door behind her.

As she snuggled beneath the duvet she heard once again the distant sound of crying. She listened hard. It was not the wind, or a cat, or, indeed, a rat. It was a woman. The sorrowful, grief-stricken crying of a woman.

Further down the corridor, Olivia curled up against Bruce, who snored loudly; he’d drunk too much red wine at dinner. She could hear the same noise again. Wind or not, it sounded like crying. She wasn’t sure she would ever get used to it. It tugged at the primordial part of her, the maternal part of her, and gave her pain. She wanted it to stop. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to focus on Bruce’s snoring. But the sobbing was pitiful, and constant.

The next day, while Bruce drove Zach into St Sidwell to buy a Christmas tree, Olivia searched through the bookshelves in the library for a history of the house. So far, neither Zach nor Bruce had managed to find one. Ever since Bruce had inherited St Sidwell Manor, her family had been on at her about her husband’s connection to Mrs Delaware. They couldn’t understand why someone Bruce had never heard of had bequeathed him a mansion. Olivia needed to find out as much as she could about the house and its history, or they would think her negligent. Who inherits an old house and doesn’t bother to learn something about its history?

The trouble was, neither Bruce nor Olivia had had the time nor the inclination to do any research until now. Olivia had been busy illustrating a children’s novel, the author of which was a pedant, sending the drawings back countless times in her pursuit of perfection. On top of that, Olivia had managed the building work of the manor and looked after the children, which had given her little time for anything else. Bruce had given it his vague attention, but, besides finding out who had built it and when, he had learnt nothing.

Now Olivia stood in the library, surrounded by shelves and shelves of beautifully bound old books that would no doubt be worth a fortune were she to approach one of those antiquarian booksellers in London. The room itself was magnificent. The walls were completely taken up by wooden bookshelves, the ceiling ribbed with sturdy beams. Rugs covered oak floorboards aged to a rich brown. In the centre was a round table laden with heavy tomes. There was a tall, mullioned window at one end with a charming window seat and, in the middle of one wall, a marble fireplace beneath a portrait of a man in a white wig, fetching white stockings and a scarlet and ermine cloak. There had been a very valuable antique French clock on the mantelpiece when she’d first viewed the property, but that had been one of the many treasures they had had to sell at auction in order to pay the inheritance tax. Olivia decided to start at one end of the room and work her way round.

While her mother searched for a family history, sneezing every now and again at the dust, Tabitha set off to explore the house. There was a large part of it she had yet to see, most notably the attic. She knew her mother had cut it off from the rest of the house by a door, because she’d overheard her on the telephone discussing it with the builder, and also justifying her decision to Bruce who had initially wanted to use that floor for Tabitha and Zach and the many friends they were going to invite to stay during the school holidays. It was not out of bounds, only ignored, and this made Tabitha all the more curious to explore it; there was nothing as exciting as a secret floor separated from the rest of the house by a locked door.

The door, as it turned out, was not locked, but that did not make her expedition any less thrilling. As soon as she set off up the narrow wooden staircase, worn in the middle of each step by centuries of treading feet, she began to feel a strange chill. It was a different sort of cold from the rest of the house, it had a heaviness to it as if it was thick with damp. It smelt different too, but that might have been caused by a dead mouse decomposing beneath the floorboards. Tabitha wasn’t sure. Once again, she got the feeling that she was being watched. It seemed that eyes followed her everywhere – as if the very walls had eyes.

At the top of the staircase was a narrow corridor with doors to bedrooms and little natural light. When she looked about for a switch, there seemed not to be one. In fact, on closer inspection she discovered that there were no electric lights at all. Old cobwebs had been spun and later abandoned in the corners where the walls met the ceiling, and brown patches of damp darkened the white paint. Tabitha knew servants had slept here once, for the rooms were modest with uncomfortable-looking iron beds. Of course, there were no sheets or blankets, just striped mattresses too thin and knobbly to give anyone a good night’s sleep. The ceilings were low for this floor was built under the eaves; a grown person would have to stoop to walk safely down the corridor. Tabitha, being small, could walk with her head held high, but Zach would not be able to do so and neither would her parents.

She wandered from room to room, imagining what it must have been like for the servants who once occupied them. The air was stale and distasteful, and it was dreadfully quiet. Suddenly she heard a shuffling noise. She stopped in her tracks and cocked an ear. She heard it again. It was coming from the room at the end of the corridor. A banging noise and a strange, muffled sound. Her heart began to thump in her chest, but she didn’t turn around and flee. She was more than ready to see a ghost – after all, they were vaporous things and unable to hurt her. She thought of Elsa then and realised that the housekeeper had not told her the truth. The house was haunted. But why was Elsa lying?

Slowly, Tabitha made her way towards the door. Behind it, the noise got louder. Tabitha took a deep breath and paused a moment with her hand on the brass knob. She hoped that this time, when she opened the door, the ghost would still be there.

Quietly, she turned the knob. There came another banging sound from within. Tabitha pushed open the door and winced, catching her breath and taking a step back, as if expecting whatever was inside to suddenly pounce on her.

To her disappointment it wasn’t a ghost at all, but a huge crow flapping about the room, trying to get out. One look at the broken windowpane told her how it had managed to fly in. Tabitha hurried to open the window and then left just as quickly, closing the door behind her.