An English Ghost Story Read Free

horrified.
    ‘This isn’t exactly a high-crime area,’ the agent said, ‘but times have changed since the old girl was a young thing. It won’t be a big job to make the house secure.’
    Brian Bowker stood aside so they could step into a foyer. A combination of veranda and conservatory, it had a pleasant, damp straw smell. The ceiling was so low Dad banged his head on a dangling light-fixture – which would be the first thing to go. It took moments for Jordan’s eyes to adjust to the green gloom. Plants were all around, some overgrowing their pots, extending tendrils across the stiff, brushy doormat. Something like ivy grew
inside
the foyer, twining around a wrought-iron boot-scraper, creeping up a trellis. A row of brass hooks was ready for a burden of coats. Several pairs of boots were tumbled together by the door. A bright yellow pair of wellies looked scarcely worn.
    ‘Miss Teazle’s things are still here,’ said Brian Bowker. ‘Her relatives in Australia want to throw in furniture and bric-a-brac. A lot of charity-shop stuff, but there might be treasures. She was rich, after all. Now, come on through and see this…’
    He touched a section of the wall. A pair of doors slid open like secret panels, with a woody scraping sound. Beyond was cool darkness and a windowless hallway. The agent shepherded them inside and along a cramped corridor to another set of doors, which he pushed open.
    As one, the family gasped. Brian Bowker chuckled.
    Jordan would not have guessed a room in a private home could be so large. It was fully twenty feet high and twice that long. After the murk of the hall, it was filled with warm, wavering sunlight. Opposite the doors, French windows were inset into a panoramic expanse of picture windows. The view was impressive – not just the orchard, but the expanse of moorland. Facing away from the village, the house might have been at the edge of civilisation.
    ‘Thanks to Dutch elm disease, you can see a long way from here,’ said the estate agent. ‘From the towers, you can see Glastonbury Tor. That’s all safety-glass, by the way. The original panes didn’t come through the hurricane in 1987.’
    That night – a few years before her brother was born – was among Jordan’s first memories. Waking up with the windows of the flat rattling, angry elements threatening to blow them in, roaring winds and car alarms. Snuggling with Mum and Dad on their sofa, away from breakable glass. Then the mess on the streets next morning.
    The room had a fireplace taller than Dad, several sets of upholstered furniture, a twelve-foot polished oak dining table, many nook-like retreats and hiding places. A Victorian chaise longue, with dark floral pattern cushions. Just the thing for her to be discovered draped across by Rick, transformed into her gentleman caller.
    A brass chandelier hung from stout, bare beams; out of use, sconces dusty and clogged with old candle wax. Streetlight-like freestanding lamps were arranged around the space. Faded carpets, Turkish or Arabian, lay like quilt squares on the flagstone floor.
    ‘This is the oldest room,’ said Brian Bowker. ‘The hearth and floor are fifteenth century. So is one of the walls. The house has been knocked down and rebuilt over and over. The towers are a nineteenth-century addition. An unusual feature. The big windows were first put in by Miss Teazle, after the war. She was born in this house, never lived anywhere else.’
    The last owner of the Hollow had been a writer.
    ‘I remember her from when I was a girl,’ said Mum.
    ‘The Weezie books when I was little, then the Drearcliff Grange School series. Old-fashioned even then, but we all read them. I see things in this room that were in the stories: that’s the fireplace Weezie hides in when she plays sardines. Louise Teazle must have done that when she was a girl, hidden in there. And written about it later. I expect all writers do that, fill their books with bits of their lives.’
    Jordan