Authors: Neil Spring
The bells rang harder and louder.
‘Mr Price, please do something!’ Reverend Smith implored.
‘I warned you!’ Price shouted.
Both men were hurrying down the staircase when an object – I did not see what it was immediately – hurtled past them, missing Price by an inch or so. The missile flew past Wall towards me. I jumped aside, dodging it just in time. It landed with a crash near me and shattered into pieces.
Mrs Smith recognised it instantly. ‘A candlestick, one of the pair on the mantelpiece in the Blue Room!’ she squeaked as she backed into a far corner of the hall. Mr Smith followed suit, taking a protective place beside her.
I looked up fearfully, my hands over my ears to keep out the terrible noise of the bells, and saw Price standing halfway down the staircase. ‘Right!’ he cried, dashing down towards us. He landed in the hall with a graceful twirl and sped to the Rectory’s
front door. I thought he might throw it open to usher us all out of the house, but instead he stood firm and addressed the very air around us. ‘I speak to address whatever intelligence or force is producing this noise!’ he boomed.
At the instant the keys in the doors of the drawing room and library flew out of their keyholes onto the floor.
‘That’s impossible!’ Price cried, looking around him.
But the racket of bells continued – almost, I thought, with greater ferocity.
Price was undeterred. ‘Hear me now, spirits! Whatever your reasons for remaining in this Rectory, whatever the cause of your unrest, I must remind you that this is a house of
God
,’ he snarled, ‘and the lady and gentleman who are the present occupants of this home are good, loving, religious people, whose peace and patience and health are now under intolerable strain. Whoever you are –
whatever
you are – I command silence!’
A series of objects came tumbling down the staircase – first a mothball, then a hairbrush and some pebbles.
‘Reverend Smith, give me your crucifix,’ Price demanded.
‘Whatever for, sir?’
‘You know what for! Now don’t argue – just let me have it.’
I sensed from Mr Smith’s troubled face that he was unconvinced by this idea, but that didn’t prevent him from slipping the small crucifix he wore round his neck over his head and handing it to my employer. Price stepped forward, then holding the symbol aloft, cried out: ‘Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in our battle against the world of darkness, against the spirits of wickedness. The sacred sign of the cross commands silence.
I will have it!
’
All at once the house was still again. Only the sound of rain hissing at the window remained.
‘Remarkable,’ Price muttered under his breath. ‘I didn’t actually expect that to work.’
The rector and his wife stood against the wall, wrapped in each other’s arms. Only Wall moved, in the direction of the main door.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked.
‘I have to get down to the nearest town and write all this up for tomorrow’s edition.’
‘At this hour?’ I checked my wristwatch. ‘But it’s after midnight.’
‘Absolutely! Someone has to report what has happened here.’ He looked at me with concern. ‘Please, won’t you come with me, Miss Grey?’
‘I …’
‘Sarah will stay here tonight,’ said Price sharply.
Wall’s tone was challenging. ‘I am sure the lady is capable of answering for herself.’
I should have been. But I was torn. When I look back, I realise that so much of what was to come began at that moment. I looked at Price, registered those wonderful eyes of his, remembered the opportunity he had given me, the financial help he had offered to the family of a dying girl he had never met, and realised I could not leave him – not now, when so much seemed within our reach. The rector and his wife looked away, embarrassed as the two men waited for my answer. ‘My decision is to stay and help,’ I said eventually, ‘as we promised Reverend and Mrs Smith we would.’
‘Very well,’ said Wall, his face hardening. With a pang, I realised that I had offended him deeply. I’m sure now he thought I was foolish, and I probably was. ‘I must be off.’
‘Wait a moment,’ Price ordered, his heavy eyebrows pulled
tightly together. ‘I don’t know what you’re intending to write but I must insist your article does not refer in any part to the details of tonight’s proceedings.’
‘You can’t be serious!’
‘I am perfectly serious,’ said Price. ‘What we have just witnessed – although, I admit, fascinating – demands much closer examination before we can even think of making these details public.’
Wall took a deliberate step towards Price.
Undaunted, Price continued: ‘The accusation relayed to us during the seance upstairs is a very serious charge, very serious indeed, and one that cannot be verified, least of all by us. You cannot make that information public, not under any circumstances.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because at best the evidence is unreliable, and at worst it is slanderous. Is that what you want, Mr Wall? A legal case against your’ – he smiled, wryly – ‘good name?’
I dropped my gaze but still felt Wall’s incredulous eyes on me. ‘Sarah, you don’t agree with this ludicrous censorship, do you?’
‘I …’
‘My God! I brought you this case. You wouldn’t be in this house if it wasn’t for me.’
Price let out a sarcastic laugh. ‘You and your lazy hyperbole. Yes, lazy! Like so many other young men these days.’
Wall’s face flushed with anger. He moved towards Price slowly and with purpose, until they were only inches apart. ‘Yes, there are plenty of men out of work. Plenty of healthy, competent men, who want to work and can’t. They’re neither dishonest nor idle, just unlucky. Because they were brave. If the General Strike taught us anything, it’s that men want to
do a hard day’s work. I’m lucky, but I need to work. And I need this story.’
‘Yes,’ Price said softly. ‘I’m quite sure that you do.’
‘This is how it works then, is it? You can’t generate any fantastic stories of your own, so you have to steal from other people. Mr Price, without this story I’ll be back on a local rag somewhere, covering funerals.’
Price’s gaze was frosty. ‘That is not my concern, Mr Wall. But your concern, your
only
concern, is to report the basics of this case and nothing else. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Perfectly. It’s all very convenient for you, Mr Price. You get what you need, and I get nothing.’
‘Need? What does he mean, Mr Price?’ the rector asked. ‘What is it that you need?’
‘Ah now … Didn’t you know, Mr Smith?’ said Wall acidly. ‘Our intrepid ghost hunter here is in something of a pickle; unless he returns to London with some exciting news to feed their hopes, every one of the Spiritualists who help fund his work will be shutting their doors against him. It’s all rather convenient, don’t you agree, Mr Price? That you should suddenly find what you’ve been looking for?’
Wall stood silently a moment longer, challenging Price with the fiercest of stares. I got the distinct impression that he knew something he hadn’t yet mentioned and was struggling now to contain. Then he said, slowly and deliberately, ‘This rascal thrives on bringing order to chaos and where there isn’t enough chaos, he feels compelled to create it.’
Eventually my employer said, ‘I take my work extremely seriously and I resent any insinuation against its veracity. I am asking – no,
insisting
– that you report what has happened here tonight with sensitivity and discretion. By all means report the
basic facts of the matter, but for the sake of the Bull family – if no one else – leave it at that, or the damage you inflict could be irreparable. Do you understand?’
Ignoring Price, Wall turned to me and said, ‘Do you think you’ll ever stop, Sarah?’
‘Stop what?’
‘Following him.’
The words wounded me and I reached for him as he marched towards the front door and through it into the howling night. ‘You can’t possibly go out there!’ I called after him. But the front door was now wide open, drawing in upon us the blast of wind and rain. ‘Vernon!’ I cried.
He looked back at me across the hall, his expression a mixture of anger, confusion and hurt, the same conflicting emotions that at that moment were washing through me.
‘How could you do this?’ he shouted. ‘Side with him, when he is so clearly wrong! For God’s sake, woman, I brought you here… I needed this!’
I moved towards him. ‘Vernon, I—’
He raised his hand to stop me. Behind him, visible through the open door, lightning flashed. ‘This house has its secrets, like everyone in it! You, me, even him. Can’t you see what he’s doing? I saw—’
‘You saw what?’ I cried. ‘The nun? Something else?’
Wall hesitated, glanced at Price and said, ‘You’re a monster.’ Then, fixing me with one last stare of disappointment, the young reporter turned on his heel and strode out into the night.
I stood perfectly still, helpless, as the front door slammed shut on any friendship I might have enjoyed with him.
As soon as he had gone my head dropped to my chest. It was bizarre that suddenly, without him, I should want him all the
more. I contemplated following him, but what could I say to excuse my actions? And what about Price? This man was my employer, and the closest thing to a father figure I had known. I couldn’t just walk out on him, especially as I had promised him that he could trust me. The last thing I wanted was to see him slip back into one of his depressions. If the bizarre events we had just witnessed – I cringed at even entertaining the notion of genuine ghosts – had impressed me, I knew they would have impressed Price too and that he would want to convey the fact to the widest possible audience. And the moment he did that, an army of critics would rush to attack him, driven by envy. He would need me to help him stave off such attacks, to protect his work and that of the Laboratory. Everyone would have to know what had happened here and the importance of Price’s role in the matter. I needed to believe that his involvement had made a difference and would continue to do so because I was all too aware that this was Wall’s story.
Looking back, it was inevitable that I would compare Wall with Price. Clearly, I didn’t know much about how to handle difficult, ambitious men.
I thought of Wall’s cautious warnings, his touching affection for me, his desire to ensure my well-being and the peculiar way he had made me feel.
Price’s voice, stern and commanding, jolted me back into the hallway. ‘Listen.’
‘I don’t hear anything,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Precisely. The house is calmer now. I suggest we all get some sleep.’
I was relieved to hear that. The rector shot me a troubled look and offered to bless our rooms one more time. Politely, I agreed.
We went back to the Blue Room, where Price was to sleep, but
he noticed immediately that there was something amiss. We all followed his gaze to the pillow on the bed, the same pillow on which his head was shortly to rest. Something like a large coin lay there, glinting in the fitful light thrown off by the storm lantern. I was sure it hadn’t been there before.
Price picked it up, holding it up to the dancing light of his lamp. ‘It appears to be some sort of medallion,’ he said slowly, studying it. ‘French, I should say and very, very old. Minted in brass, I think.’
‘But where did it come from?’ asked Reverend Smith, frowning.
Price’s eyes met mine. ‘It’s an apport, Sarah,’ he said. ‘It must be.’ And a smile spread across his face.
Reverend Smith looked lost. ‘Apport?’
An apport, I explained to the rector, is an object produced by apparently supernatural means.
2
Such things were usually the focus of the controlled seances we conducted back at the Laboratory, when flowers, jewellery and sometimes even live animals would ‘materialise’ in the presence of a medium. Never had we encountered a genuine manifestation of the phenomenon; every alleged manifestation we had witnessed had been debunked as the product of fraud.
‘May I see?’ I asked. Upon inspection, I observed that the medallion was octagonal, bearing on one side the head of a monkish-looking figure and the inscription ‘
Vade retro me, satana
’ On the other side of the medallion was the word
ROMA
, meaning Rome, which appeared beneath a design incorporating two impressive-looking human figures joined by a child. With the rector’s help we quickly deduced that the medal was probably Roman Catholic in origin. It was chilling to the touch. And I hated it immediately.
The rector was bewildered. ‘Whatever do you suppose it means, Mr Price?’
‘Perhaps it’s a clue, Mr Smith, to this whole peculiar business.’
With unmistakable relish, Price closed his hand around the medallion, a faint smile playing on his lips.
*
Although the summer storm soon passed, I slept fitfully that night, my bedroom serving both as a sanctuary from the rest of the house and as a prison.
The medallion we had found was lying next to my bed. Price had given it to me for safe keeping, but just knowing it was there in the room with me had destroyed any hopes of rest. We had heard the legends that connected the ghostly nun with a vague, monk-like figure and claims that the Rectory stood on the site of a thirteenth-century monastery, so this much made sense, but I failed to see how this English historical background connected with the French Catholic theme suggested by the medallion’s other engravings. I decided I would have it examined the instant we returned to London.
The sun had not yet risen when a sound from outside my door stirred me from my slumber. As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I became increasingly aware of padding feet approaching my bedroom. Alert, I pulled the musty bedclothes up to my face and sheltered behind them. There came a gentle rap on my door.
Sitting up, I waited, hoping to God the sound wouldn’t come again. But it did, louder this time. What was it Professor David Chipp had said about his stay in the house? That something in his room had pinned his shirt to the back of the door.
This room … ?
I speculated.
Was it this room?
My heart was pounding. Alone, with the knowledge of what
had happened earlier that night weighing upon me, the image of Harry Bull from the painting in the Blue Room loomed up in my mind.