“Back to bed and back to sleep, girls. It appears you must set an example for your older schoolmates.” For indeed, the upper school boarders all appeared to be out of bed, congregating in the centre of their dorm in a storm of over-loud whispers and gasps. As I strode forward and raised my lamp, white faces turned to stare. “What is going on here?” I demanded.
No one rushed to answer. Behind me, I heard a step on the boards, and caught a whiff of lilac eau de toilette – our French mistress, if I was not mistaken. I glanced behind to check and, supposition confirmed, called back, “Miss Fournier, please ensure that the younger girls settle without further fuss.” I turned back to the seniors. “Well?”
“Please Miss Hunter,” Jenny Miller put her hand up, presumably in response to the unexpected invasion of the girls’ intimate space by the highest authority in the school; I tried not to be amused to see such a gesture from a girl in a nightshirt, “there’s a ghost.”
I raised my lamp higher. “An invisible ghost, presumably? How novel.”
“Not in here,” said Jenny, “out there.”
She pointed to the arched window at the far end. Through it I saw a faint glow, as of the cloud-covered moon. Girls were slinking back towards their beds, and silence had returned to the dormitory. If left to their own devices, after a stern warning, everyone would no doubt calm from this latest fancy. However, the shriek had been imbued with genuine terror. “Well, I had best see it off then.”
I admit that my steps as I approached the window might not have been as firm as those when I entered, but I believe the girls did not apprehend any hesitation on my part. I have no love of attic spaces, and kept my eyes upon the window, seeing only that faint, silvery glow. The girl in one of the two alcoves nearest the window had not been amongst the gossipy huddle that had greeted me. Rather, she sat on her bed, hunched over something in her lap. Mary Fraser. No doubt the scream had been hers. For a moment I considered asking her to put down her rosary and hold the lamp – to face the fear that, by her rocking motions and murmured prayers, patently gripped her – but I relented, and handed the lamp to Jenny, part of the cluster of girls one step behind me.
I eased open the catch on the window, drawing a gasp from the girls and a whimper from Mary. It loosened all at once, and I had to grab for the handle to stop the wind slamming the window back into the wall. I stuck my head out as the moon broke free of the clouds, flooding the world outside with silver. My heart, I admit, did beat a little fast, but I saw nothing more unsettling than the shadows of the trees upon the lawn. Certainly no ghost. I pulled the window to and fastened it shut then turned to my escort and held out my hand for the lamp. “Thank you Jenny. There is, you will be glad to hear, nothing untoward outside the window. Now, if you will all make your way back to your beds, no more will be said.”
I did not have to tell them twice.
Turning back to Mary I found her looking up at me. “There was no ghost,” I said gently.
“There was no ghost,” she parroted back. Since moving up to the seniors she had taken to agreeing with the words of her elders, regardless of her own opinion. Whilst it made her pliant in class, it was not a healthy trait. I sighed, tempted to leave it at that. But she was a troubled young lady, and trouble untended only increases. I sat down on the end of her bed. “Mary, what did you see?”
Mary stared at the beads in her hands. “Nothing.”
“All right. What do you think you saw?”
“A ghost.” She flicked her chin up in brief defiance before dropping her gaze again.
“Not… some other kind of apparition?” When she first came to my school two years ago Mary had claimed to see the face of the Madonna in a stain that appeared on the refectory wall after some particularly damp weather. She had been teased for it, and at assembly the next week I had delivered a lecture on respecting the religious views of others, whatever variation of the Christian faith they favoured.
Mary shook her head, then in a low voice said, “It was a ghost, one of the unquiet dead, and it was white like bone and it flapped and beckoned to me and I was sure it was going to come through the wall and take my soul.” She dropped her head, hugging her knees tighter.
I had an urge to touch the poor girl’s hand, to comfort her. But that would not have been appropriate.
I would have liked more details, if not from poor Mary then from the other girls, on what they thought had happened here, but asking questions would give credence to what was most likely no more than the moon emerging from the clouds, or some piece of pale debris blown past the window. Instead, I asked Mary, “Would you like to move?”
“Move, miss?”
“Yes, to another alcove.” When Mary became a senior at the start of term I had decided to put her in the end alcove because she was an asthmatic; being near the window would help her breathing when the weather allowed it to be open, and not being surrounded on all sides by other girls would make her unfortunate tendency to snore less disruptive.
“No, miss. I don’t want to be any trouble, miss.” Amongst her other challenging traits, young Mary Fraser can be very stubborn.
“I think Miss Hunter has a point.”
“Thank you Mr Connor.” I managed to hide my surprise at this unexpected support. The Walsall Historical Association can be somewhat resilient to change, and Chairman Stevens had devoted much of tonight’s presentation to lamenting the loss of “traditional craftsmanship” in the area. I felt that these new industrial techniques might themselves be of interest to historians in a few hundred years time, but had waited until after the meeting to put this radical idea to our chairman. His uncharacteristic silence indicated that he was not impressed.
My new ally continued, “I believe Miss Hunter’s own establishment was once a brewery?”
“A malt-house,” I corrected, then regretted speaking out. Mr Connor had done nothing to deserve my ire. Chairman Stevens, however, was beginning to annoy me. But I bit my tongue. Even so, the esteemed leader of the Association gave his characteristic harrumph, and excused himself with a curt, “Good evening, then”.
I turned to Mr Connor. “You came back.” He had arrived unannounced at last month’s meeting for the first time; late, greeted with frowns and stares and forced to claim the one empty seat next to mine. At the time I had ignored him save basic pleasantries, but I had noted his fine bearing, strong features and thick head of auburn hair, a shade not dissimilar to my own. This month he had arrived early and chosen to sit next to me, having asked permission and introduced himself first.
“I did.” His voice had a faint burr, perhaps Irish. “And you would probably consider it forward of me to say this, but I came back partly in the hope that you might be here.”
“I could consider that forward, yes. In fact I probably should.” I glanced at his hand and saw no ring, but whilst the estimable Mr Holmes would no doubt deduce the potential existence of a wife, any offspring and the family income at a glance, all I could say with certainty was that this charming gentlemen was well turned out.
“So to state that it would be a shame to wait a whole month to see you again would be downright scandalous?”
He was keeping his voice low, but over his shoulder I saw the looks we got from the knots of townsfolk making their leisurely way out of the hall. As a person of status in the community, I would be expected to disengage from such shamelessly open attention at the first socially acceptable opportunity. “It would,” I said curtly, but somehow failed to step away.