The Piper (13 page)

‘Maybe.’ Adam blew out a great cloud of smoke.

‘What is it?’ asked Peter.

There was a pause. Then Adam said, ‘I dunno, I’ve forgotten.’ He sniggered at his own poor joke, but Peter wasn’t going to be distracted so easily.

‘Why did you make me and Daisy hide?’ he asked.

Adam turned his head to look at him. ‘What you on about?’ he muttered.

‘The day we arrived, when we were in the horse and cart with you and Mrs Beesley. We met Professor Lowell on the road, remember? He mentioned us evacuees and Mrs Beesley said she hadn’t seen us.’

Adam grunted. ‘It’s like she told you at the time,’ he said. ‘That old man’s a busybody. If he knew you was at the ’ouse, he’d most likely tell everyone.’

Peter chewed on a chunk of bread. ‘Well, what’s wrong with that? Is it supposed to be a secret?’

‘No, course not. It’s just … people in these parts …’

‘Like to keep themselves to themselves,’ finished Peter. ‘Well, he knows all about us now, doesn’t he? He knows we’re there.’

‘Hmm.’ Adam scowled. ‘I don’t know what they’ll have to say about that.’

‘They?’

‘Mr Sheldon and Mrs B. They was quite particular that they didn’t want him to know about you and Daisy.’

‘But I don’t understand, why would they care about that?’

‘If you’d stop prattlin’ on for a minute,’ said Adam, ‘I might be able to grab forty winks.’ He took a last drag on his roll up and flicked the butt in the general direction of the lake.

‘Sorry,’ muttered Peter. ‘I was only chatting.’

‘Yeah, well don’t,’ Adam told him. ‘Just let me get a bit of shut-eye.’

Peter wondered what was wrong with Adam. Why was he being so grumpy about everything? And what exactly was the secret he was trying to keep? Peter sat there, eating his lunch and watching Adam as he gradually succumbed to sleep. It took a little while, but eventually his eyes closed and his breathing became slow and rhythmic. Peter waited until he was sure that Adam wasn’t going to wake up again. Then he reached carefully into his bag and took out the book the professor had given him. He studied it, keeping it behind the knapsack just in case Adam woke up. It was a slim volume backed with pale green boards. On the cover, in gold leaf, were the words,
Romney Marsh: A History
and underneath it,
Professor D. Lowell B.A., M.Sc
.,
Ph.D.
Peter opened the book and scanned the contents page thoughtfully, looking for something that might catch his attention. He noticed one chapter heading that did exactly that.

Turning to the relevant page, Peter scanned the rows of tiny black print and paused when one line caught his attention. He began to read.

Captain Jean Micheaux was a fascinating character. Contemporary accounts describe him as a strict disciplinarian, a man twice decorated for bravery in the Napoleonic Wars. At the age of sixty-five, he could easily have progressed to a higher rank, but he’d always refused such offers. He wanted nothing more than to lead his men and felt that a captain was the rank for which he had been destined. He was also, interestingly, a skilled musician.

He was adept at playing the flageolet or French pipe, one that he’d made himself and which he claimed to have carved from the leg bone of one of his enemies! He carried it with him everywhere and was known for breaking into a jaunty tune at the drop of a tricorn hat.

Peter stopped reading for a moment. A flageolet. A pipe. Could that be the sound he’d heard echoing across the Marsh at night? He continued reading.

It’s fascinating to imagine the scene. The prisoners of war, toiling away in the hot sun with their picks and shovels as they worked on the endless digging of the canal; and then, in the lunch break, when the men sat down to eat their meagre rations, the captain taking out his pipe and playing a favourite melody. Little wonder that Micheaux was so popular with the men he commanded.

One of the local landowners and the man who was chiefly responsible for employing the French prisoners in this area was one Jeremiah Sheldon …

Peter frowned. Sheldon? Did that mean the man was related to Mr Sheldon, who owned the Grange now? Reading on, Peter’s suspicion was immediately confirmed.

Jeremiah, of course, was the man who built Sheldon Grange back in 1742, and the great-great-grandfather of the present occupier, Mr Alfred Sheldon.

There’s no real proof, but the gossip at the time suggests that in order to get the French prisoners of war to work on the canal, Jeremiah may have made Captain Micheaux an offer, promising him that if he and his men would work on the canal without argument and without trying to escape, then he would see to it that when the task was completed, the prisoners would be granted their freedom. With the gift of hindsight, it’s all too easy to see that Jeremiah probably never had such powers at his command. But Micheaux must have believed that he did, and as a consequence he committed his men to four and a half years of backbreaking toil.

Work on the canal was completed in September 1808. One can only imagine how the prisoners must have dreamed of finishing work and getting home to their families. Micheaux had even gone to the lengths of purchasing several identical dolls from a local trader, which he intended to take back for his daughters, of whom he was very proud. He had six of them, and the youngest, Josette, just eight years old, he had not seen since she was a baby. Micheaux must have fully believed that he would soon be free to return to France. But it was not to be.

We must now move into the area of supposition, but it’s easy enough to imagine how events might have unfolded after this. Micheaux would doubtless have gone to Jeremiah, to demand that he fulfil his promise and release the prisoners. Clearly he was not happy with the answer he received. One local writer, Michael Williams, who kept a diary at the time, records having heard somebody he refers to only as ‘The Frenchman’, shouting and cursing and swearing revenge on those who had deceived him. The date was 5th September 1808, only a few days after work had finished on the canal. Micheaux (assuming it was him) was also heard threatening to write a letter to the authorities, telling how he and his men had been duped by their captors. I do not doubt that the captain’s words would have carried considerable weight.

But, puzzlingly, those concerns were never aired. Williams’ account is the last mention ever made of Captain Micheaux. After that, he and his troops simply disappeared from the records. From that date on, there’s no mention of them in any documents … and believe me, I have looked.

It would be delightful, would it not, to imagine that Micheaux and his men were sent safely back to their mother country to be greeted by the outstretched arms of their loved ones? But I fear this was not the case. After much soul-searching, I have arrived at the inevitable conclusion that something happened to Micheaux and his men. Something unspeakable.

This suspicion was confirmed for me when I visited the crypt at St Leonard’s Church in Hythe, a place where I know for a fact the prisoners of war were housed at one point. Any casual visitor to the crypt can hardly fail to notice a dated inscription chiselled into the wall in French, some kind of quotation, people have suggested, though I tend to think of it more as a curse …

The sudden loud bleating of a sheep made Peter look up. He glanced at Adam, anxious that the sound might have wakened him, but he was still fast asleep, his chest rising and falling with a steady rhythm. Peter returned his attention to the book, realising that he had lost his place. He scanned the page again until another sentence caught his eye.

What happened next has all the qualities of a Gothic horror story. For that, the author can only apologise, but the facts are as undeniable as they are inexplicable. I speak of course, of the series of disasters that have occurred at Sheldon Grange and the surrounding area over the passing centuries. I refer, more specifically, to the drownings.

The first incident occurred almost exactly one year after the completion of the canal. The initial death was that of Jeremiah Sheldon’s eight-year-old daughter, Mary. The official police investigation claims that the girl went out alone, late at night on 7
^th
September 1809. Nobody seems to have the slightest idea why she might have done such a thing. Her body was discovered floating in the canal the following day. She was barefoot and dressed in her nightgown.

Peter felt a sense of cold dread settling in his stomach. He was thinking of the children he and Daisy had seen dancing in the garden last night – the way Daisy had wanted to go out to join them. And he was thinking about the dream, the awful dream of a girl’s face rising up out of the waters of the canal. He continued to read.

Had it been just the one death, the matter might have been dismissed as no more than an unhappy accident. But six years later, Jeremiah’s brother, Michael, living barely half a mile from the Grange, lost his daughter, Hannah, in exactly the same manner. Chillingly, the date was 9th September – and Hannah, too, was eight years old.

It was to be by no means the last death. Twelve years later, Jeremiah’s son, Thomas, lost his daughter, Sybil. How did she die? She drowned in Thursby Lake, out in the wilds of Romney Marsh. It happened on the 7th September 1827. Sybil was eight years old.

Peter paused. Thursby Lake? Hadn’t Adam said that was the name of
this
lake? He glanced up from the book and stared at the muddy banks sloping down to the still olive-green water, but everything looked normal enough. He returned his attention to the book.

Three deaths by drowning. All of them in September. All eight-year-old girls from the Sheldon family. Surely too much to pass off as coincidence? People around Romney Marsh started talking of a curse.

There were no girls born into the Sheldon clan for a very long time. But tragedy still haunted the family. It would be a time-consuming task indeed to piece together the seemingly endless list of disasters that have befallen them over the years. Suffice to say that it comprises accidents, illnesses and untimely deaths. But death by drowning seems to have been exclusively reserved for the young girls of the family.

On 7th September 1874, a descendant of Jeremiah’s, Oliver Sheldon, the latest owner of the Grange, lost his only child, an eight-year-old daughter, Alison. Again, she drowned in the canal in an almost identical scenario to her ancestors. Accounts of the time claim that she went out, barefoot, in the middle of the night. Some people suggested she might have been sleepwalking. It’s interesting to note that she had two older brothers, but they were both unharmed. In every case, it was the daughter who died. If no female victims were available, it seemed, the curse moved on, leaving the male children unharmed. Once again, the more superstitious inhabitants of the Marsh began to talk in hushed whispers about the existence of something that came to be known as ‘The Sheldon Curse’. And those who knew their history recalled that Captain Micheaux’s youngest child, Josette, had been eight years old when the captain and his men finished work on the canal and … disappeared.

These beliefs were given more credence when it transpired that Alison was not to be the last fatality. Oliver’s brother, William, lost his eight-year-old daughter, Anne, only four years later on 7th September. His other brother, Thomas lost his daughter, Sarah, six years after that on 9th September. She too, was in her eighth year. And how did the girls die? They drowned. Anne met her end, once again in the Military Canal. Thomas Sheldon was no longer living in the area. He’d moved to London, where perhaps he believed his children would be safe from the curse. But his daughter Sarah was found drowned in the boating lake at a local park. Nobody knew how she had come to be there.

Always an eight-year-old daughter. Always the Sheldon family. And, so it would seem, it didn’t matter where the victims lived. All in all, it was a blessing that for a very long time, no more female children were born into the family.

Those who have investigated the curse have always asked the same question. Why that date? Why 7th September or shortly thereafter? I would direct them to visit the church of St Leonard and to look at the inscription. Then it all makes perfect sense.

And one must arrive at the inevitable conclusion. If you are a member of the Sheldon family and you are a girl, then you are doomed to die in your eighth year… on or shortly after the 7th September. I can find no evidence of any Sheldon girl who has managed to outlive that fateful month.

Peter lifted his eyes from the book in sudden realisation. September. But … that was now! And … he felt the heat rising within him as he worked out the date. He and Daisy had left home on the first of September. They’d been here exactly a week. Which made today… the seventh of September. And Miss Sally was eight years old.

He felt suddenly chilled to the bone, as though the dull glare of the sun had lost all its power. He was sure now that the professor was no madman – and he understood exactly why Mrs Beesley and Adam had wanted to keep his and Daisy’s presence at the Grange quiet. Daisy wasn’t a Sheldon, but she was almost the same age and size as Sally. Did Sheldon and Mrs Beesley think that they might be able to pass her off in place of Miss Sally?

A thin, bleating sound cut across his thoughts and he glanced up to the edge of the lake, where a sheep had wandered too close to the water and had bogged itself down in the soft mud. It was looking towards him, baaing helplessly.

Peter returned the book to his knapsack and prodded one of Adam’s feet with his own. Adam grunted and stirred.

‘Wassup?’ he muttered.

‘What’s today’s date?’

Adam glared up at him. ‘How should I know?’

‘It’s the seventh, isn’t it?’

‘If you say so. Why did you wake me?’

‘There’s a sheep stuck in the mud.’

‘Well, go and get ’im out then,’ came the surly reply.