Authors: Neil Spring
For a moment no one said anything. Miss Bull became still, and stared into the blazing fire.
‘You’re awfully quiet, Miss Bull,’ commented Price.
Her eyes flicked up. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly, then her gaze settled once again on the dancing flames.
Price continued: ‘The story you have willingly put about is slanderous, some would say cruel. That is why I prevented Wall from writing it in the
Daily Mirror
. He would have caused a scandal for your sister-in-law. However objectionable you may find Miss Ivy Brackenbury, she does not deserve that.’
Price sat down again behind his desk and eyed the papers still held tightly in Miss Bull’s grasp.
‘Now then, to return to the rest of your cousin’s account, I think—’
‘Just a moment, Mr Price.’ Miss Bull was glaring at him. ‘You said earlier that you received a communication concerning my brother’s death during a seance.’
‘That is correct. An article chronicling the event was written up in the
Mirror
by Mr Wall.’
‘But that article was inaccurate,’ our visitor said slowly, understanding gradually dawning on her face.
‘Yes, out of necessity, as I have explained.’
‘Then what else was communicated?’
‘That information is private.’
‘But I insist that you tell me. I grew up in that house. I was one of the first to see the figure of the nun. I have a right to know!’
He considered for a moment and then said, ‘Snippets of information were relayed by an intelligence purporting to be the spirit of your dead brother. When we attempted to confirm his identity he told us, rightly, that nineteen people occupied the Rectory during his lifetime, and—’
‘Nineteen?’ Miss Bull was shaking her head and already counting on her fingers. ‘No, that’s not right for a start.’
Price caught my eye. It was a detail I should have checked.
‘There were seventeen people in our household. Nineteen would have certainly been too many. What else was communicated during this seance?’
‘Your brother’s pet name when he was alive. Carlos.’
‘Absolutely not.’ She shook her head. ‘I have never heard that name before.’
Price hesitated. ‘There was as I recall some mention of a curse, and some letters were spelled out to us: D-E-C-E. Does any of that mean anything to you?’
Again she shook her head adamantly. ‘I have to say, Mr Price, this all sounds rather vague and meaningless. My brother was many things – an eccentric who shot at rabbits from bedrooms upstairs and lounged for whole afternoons in the summerhouse, watching for spirits. But he was not the sort of man you are describing. Pet names indeed!’ she grunted. ‘You have been tricked, sir – misled.’
A thought struck Price and me simultaneously and our eyes met. What if the Reverend Smith had been right after all? What if we had not communicated, as we believed we had, with the spirit of the late rector but with someone – or something –altogether different, which had tricked us into believing we were
communicating with old Bull? I felt very much alarmed by the idea, but it seemed to be stirring renewed curiosity within Price.
‘This diary,’ he said, ‘you say there is more of it?’
‘Oh yes, a great deal more. If you write to my cousin and ask to see the entire diary then I am sure he would share it with you. Only …’
‘What is it?’
Her reply was carefully worded. ‘Only you will need to convince him that your intentions are honourable.’
‘Whatever is that supposed to mean?’
‘I advised Lionel it would be sensible to call upon your expertise, but I have to say he was reluctant.’
‘And why should that be?’
‘You are, I assume, familiar with a Mr W. H. Salter?’
Price nodded. ‘Why, certainly. He is the new honorary secretary of the Society for Psychical Research. What of him?’
She hesitated. ‘Mr Salter visited the Rectory recently, and advised Lionel against your involvement in the affair.’
4
The news made Price scowl and slam his fist on the desk. ‘How dare he say such a thing!’
‘My own views are rather different. I believe you could be useful. The occurrences at the house are worsening.’ Giving another hacking cough, she placed the rector’s handwritten notes back on Price’s desk and pushed them towards him. ‘There is still a story waiting for you in Borley, Mr Price, if you are willing to come.’
Whether Price was willing or not, our visitor’s increased passion made me adamant that this matter would be resolved, and soon. I gave her my assurance that we would stay at the house for as long as was necessary to resolve its mysteries, and I felt entirely confident in making the promise. After all I had been
through with Price, after all I had lost and had not yet divulged to him, I
needed
to know.
‘Sarah?’ Price looked shocked.
I could argue with you, I thought. I could challenge you, embarrass you, exactly as you did with me in front of Vernon Wall at Borley Rectory.
‘Please excuse us for a moment, Miss Ethel.’ I stood up and crossed to the door, nodding at Price to follow me. When we were alone in the corridor and the door was closed, I told him I thought we should deal with the matter. ‘If you abandon something like this, trust me, it’s never going to disappear. It’s like a debt, Harry. It’s going to come back.’
‘A debt?’ His eyebrows arched.
‘We have to return to Borley,’ I insisted. ‘We’re obliged to. The place haunts me still. And anyway, we’re a good deal quieter now that Mr Schneider has gone home.’
He looked away from me for a long moment and I wasn’t sure if he still trusted me – or if I still trusted him. ‘You didn’t have to send him away when you did – the experiments were showing promise. And yet once he’d given you your headlines, you sent him away as though you had something more important to do.’
He faltered, couldn’t look at me. And suddenly I was filled with questions about who this man really was – where he disappeared to, sometimes for days on end; and why he wasn’t consistent in his search for truth. When he looked at me again he seemed to see the doubt that was spreading through me, for he blinked and dropped his eyes.
‘Would you like to know what I think, Harry?’
‘From your tone? Not really.’
‘I think Conan Doyle was right. Perhaps you
don’t
want to find any ghosts.’
His flicked his head back to me and his eyes widened.
‘And why would you think that? After all the progress we’ve made.’
‘Because if you did prove that spirits are real you’d need to explain them, categorise them, break them down into little quantifiable pieces. Even you couldn’t do that. You’d be lost, floundering for explanations. So you keep yourself at a safe distance.’ I felt the heat of my frustration. ‘We both know how much you cherish being in control.’
‘That’s enough, Sarah.’
‘I’m not finished yet.’
‘I don’t like your tone.’
‘I don’t like yours!’
He stood back, assessing me shrewdly, and by the way the corners of his mouth twitched I could tell I had rattled him.
‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘What would you have me do?’
‘I know how badly, how bitterly, disappointed you were all those years ago, when you exposed William Hope as a fraud.’ I took one of his hands and said quietly but firmly, ‘But you must finish this case. Challenge yourself. Challenge us both.’
His gaze pierced me. To my relief, he nodded and smiled suddenly. ‘There she is,’ he breathed. ‘My delicate, daring Sarah.’
I pushed down the warm sensation that was threatening to rise in my chest and stepped away.
‘It’s settled,’ I said, leading Price back into the study. Miss Ethel turned in her chair to look at me. ‘We will write to your cousin at once, telling him to expect us in a week or so.’
Our visitor nodded her relief and stood to leave. But as she did so, I caught the quick, secretive movement of her hand as she
tucked her handkerchief into her handbag. Her face tightened with embarrassment. ‘Just one thing, Miss Grey …’
‘Yes?’
‘Take good care in that house, particularly around Marianne. She is a … spirited woman. And the misery in that Rectory … it stays with you.’
We watched her go, and the dreadful sound of her hacking cough carried up the stairs.
‘Did you see it?’ asked Price.
I nodded, hearing the alarm in his voice and feeling it too. But neither of us mentioned what we had seen: the finely embroidered cotton in Miss Ethel’s hand spotted with blood.
3 October 1931
Dear Mr Price,
Thank you for your letter of the 2nd. I am enclosing my account of occurrences. I would explain that these were written chiefly to send to members of my family and therefore no explanation is given to matters that might be unclear to strangers …
My last account takes the story up to 24 June. Since then we have been quieter on the whole, but we have had some outbreaks similar to those recorded. One evening in August I was in the church when my wife came rushing over and said that there was a tremendous noise emanating from my study. We hurried back and when we went into the room we found that the furniture had been thrown about. Then, one night last week, I was woken up at around 3.30 a.m. when
I was hit on the head by something which proved to be a large water jug from another bedroom. We put it on the floor (it was not broken), and presently it was thrown at my wife.
Our chief trouble lately has been things disappearing, often from right under our noses; they are sometimes returned later. Doors have also been locked. Once there was no one in the house and my wife was locked in from outside; another time we were locked out of our room one night and had to sleep elsewhere; and one day our little girl was locked in her room, for which we had no key. These doors opened the next day after a ‘relic’ had been applied to them.
5
I should be very much obliged if you would kindly not mention at Long Melford what your business down here is, since we do not want reports to get around the parish. We have one indoor servant at present, but I think, with care, we can keep her from hearing anything. She is quite young – not fifteen yet – and has only been here ten days and as yet has not come up against any ‘demonstration’. She has of course heard the gossip of the neighbourhood, but does not, I think, believe it. We should like to keep her as long as possible as she is a help to my wife, who is not well.
Yours faithfully,
L. A. Foyster
6
9th October 1931
Dear Mr Price,
Thank you for your letter of the 6th in which you say we are to expect you next Tuesday evening. I trust you will not mind my asking that
all those who are taking part in any investigation sign an undertaking that they will neither themselves publish nor give cause to be published in any newspaper or periodical, in this or any other country, nor in any other way make public the facts connected with the case. The condition I have made is in self-defence or we might find our position here impossible.
I intended to say in a previous letter that I should like to have my diary of the occurrences back when you have finished with it.
Yours faithfully,
L. A. Foyster
7
Notes
1
Ethel Bull gave many interviews about the experience and many paranormal investigators since Price have expressed their satisfaction with her testimony. In June 1947 she offered the following statement to the BBC: ‘I was walking round the garden with two of my sisters, and they’d been to a garden party and were telling me an amusing story that had happened. And then they wondered I didn’t take any notice and they looked down at me, and I said, “Look there’s a nun walking there.” And I was terrified and so were they when they saw her – and it sent cold shivers down our backs and we simply flew up to the house. And then we saw my eldest sister who was staying with us and she said, “Oh I’m not going to be frightened,” so she came down, and when she saw the nun she made to go across the potato bed to meet the nun, and the nun turned and came as it were to meet her, and she was seized with panic and simply flew up to the house’ (recorded 17 June 1947).
2
There is documented evidence that Lionel compiled the diary partly at the insistence of the Bull sisters themselves. He mentions it in
Fifteen Months in a Haunted House
: ‘[Marianne], I am going to write a memorandum of our experiences before I forget them. Don’t you think it would be a good idea? Then I can send it round to members of my family; they seem to be anxious to know what is happening’ (p. 66).
3
Summary of experiences at Borley Rectory
.
4
‘Salter told Lionel that he shouldn’t have anything to do with Price … and Lionel said, “Well, I am committed to it,” and Mr Salter said, “You’ll regret it,” which we certainly did’ (Marianne Foyster, quoted in
The Most Haunted Woman in England
by Vince O’Neil).
5
Lionel Foyster is referring here to an unidentified relic of St John Vianney, otherwise known as the Curé d’Ars. Vianney (8 May 1786–4 August 1859) was a French parish priest who is venerated in the Catholic Church as the patron saint of all priests. Interestingly, Vianney himself was the victim of poltergeist phenomena for a period of some thirty-five years.
6
Letter from Revd Lionel Algernon Foyster.
7
As above.
Price was late.
I had been waiting at least two hours for him on the platform at Liverpool Street station, inventing excuse after excuse that might account for his delay, such as the rain or some problem back at the Laboratory, but now I was worried. Was it his health? I wondered with dread. What else could account for such lateness?
I looked around me, scanning the movement of people along the platform for any sign of my employer. As I stood among the clamour of dragging cases, slamming doors, marching feet and whistles blowing, anxiety gnawed at me. It was intolerable, really it was; Price knew how important it was to me that we return to Borley and clear up its mysteries. What was I to do? Catch the train anyway and go without him, or return to the Laboratory?