'Oh come now, silly,.' said Victoria. 'Emily was just trying to frighten everyone.'
Victoria found that if she craned forward a little she could just see through the keyhole of the chest, but there was nothing to see but the side of the bed. She could feel Margaret's wet dress against her leg and shivered.
Victoria listened to the muffled comings and goings of children on the other side of the bedroom door, as Emily and her sister hunted through the house. The rumble of footsteps would every now and then be interrupted by shouts and shrieks and girlish laughter as another pair of cousins was discovered. And each time Victoria and Margaret giggled, certain that they would be the last to be found. But as time went by, Victoria began to wish that someone would come in and open the chest. It was very dull in there with this girl she barely knew, though she was thoroughly determined not to give herself up.
It was uncomfortable. It was stuffy and musty and surprisingly cold. Margaret's clothes had not dried out at all, and everywhere that Victoria touched seemed to be wet. She was sure she could feel water seeping through her dress.
Victoria put her eye to the keyhole again and gasped as something suddenly passed by, blocking her view. She instinctively pulled back. Her heart skipped a beat as she remembered Emily's ghost story, but the view quickly cleared to reveal white dresses and petticoats. It was Emily and the other girls, climbing on to the bed.
'Shut the door, Susanna,.' hissed Emily. 'We'll get shot if we're found in here.'
'So come on, Emily,.' said one of the girls. 'You promised to tell us the rest of the story.'
Victoria was filled with rage, clenching her fists until her fingernails sank into her palms. They had never been looking for her at all. Emily and the others had assumed Victoria would not get a partner and would simply go back to her mother. How she hated them. How she hated them.
She was about to jump out of the chest there and then and give them a piece of her mind, when another option presented itself. She would let Emily tell her ghost story, and when her audience was good and scared she would leap out and give them the shock of their lives. It did mean she would have to listen to Emily's tedious tale, but it would be worth it. She would have to hope that Margaret could keep quiet.
'So tell us about the murderer, Em,.' said one of the girls.
'Well,.' said Emily, settling back against the headboard. 'He was called Bartholomew Garnet, as I said. He wasn't a relative or anything.' There was a collective sigh of relief. 'He married into the family for money.' The girls tutted and murmured.
Victoria sneered inside the chest. How she hated these stuck-up little princesses. She could not wait to see their faces when she jumped out.
Emily, meanwhile, went on to tell the cousins how Garnet was a doctor, but not a very successful or wealthy one, who hadn't got a penny of his own. The woman who married him - a distant relative of Emily's father, called Charlotte - was his patient.
'She was a widow, very plain, Papa says, and was much older than he was. She was flattered by all the attention she was getting from the young Dr Garnet.
'She was already ill when they met - he was treating her. He was devoted to her and used to come at all hours of the day and night if she called. Everyone thought him a saint and any suspicions they had that his interest was solely in her money were extinguished over time. They married at Charlotte's insistence and she died not long after.'
'Murdered!' said one of the girls excitedly.
'Actually,.' said Emily, 'she really was ill.'
'But I don't understand,.' said Annabel, who was sat at the end of the bed. 'You said he was a murderer. You said he was hanged. Not much of a scary story, Emily.'
Victoria stifled a chortle inside the chest. Emily was such a terrible storyteller. This must be the least frightening ghost story she had ever heard. She was tempted to jump up there and then but she would give Emily one more chance to explain how this pathetic-sounding doctor came to be hanged and haunting the house.
'I haven't finished yet,.' said Emily crossly. 'He was hanged all right. And I've seen a photograph of him I'll have you know, and if you'd seen his face, you wouldn't be so smug. He had awful, cold, piercing eyes. Even in a newspaper picture you could see how horrid he was.'
'Maybe he was wrongly hanged, horrid eyes notwithstanding,.' said another girl.
'He was not wrongly hanged,.' said Emily in an exasperated voice.
Garnet had confessed to murder, Emily told them. He was tried and convicted and, apparently, when he was hanged outside Newgate prison he appeared to look into the crowd and turn his face away, screwing up his eyes and begging the hangman to get on with the job. Witnesses said it was as if he saw his victim standing in front of him.
'Shhhh!' said Annabel. 'What was that?'
The girls became instantly silent and their eyes were wide open like startled deer. Victoria held her breath inside the blanket chest; she felt sure they could all hear her beating heart. But it was not Victoria whom Annabel had heard.
The sound of slow and heavy footprints could be heard in the corridor outside the bedroom door. They were some way off, but were coming closer. The girls stared at the door handle. The footsteps came to a halt. A floorboard creaked plaintively.
'I don't like it,.' wailed one of the younger girls. 'Make it stop.'
Instantly the footsteps sounded again - faster this time and louder as they approached the door. Again there was a horrible silence. Then the handle rattled and the girls shrieked as the door creaked open.
'What on earth?' said the slightly flustered middle-aged man who appeared in the doorway. 'I'm not sure you should be in here, you know.'
'Sorry, Uncle Giles,.' said Emily, recovering her wits and smiling coyly. 'We just talking, sir. We will leave if you want.' Uncle Giles smiled, embarrassed by the attention of so many females.
'I'm sure you are doing no harm, ladies,.' he said knowingly, and tapped the side of his nose. 'You carry on. Adieu, my lovelies.'
Uncle Giles fingered his moustache rakishly and left with a bow. Emily made a vomiting face and everyone did their best to stifle their giggles. They all began to settle themselves down once more.
'Where was I?' said Emily.
'You were saying that old what's-his-name was really guilty and really hanged -' began Annabel.
One of the girls interrupted to suggest that perhaps if Garnet had been wrongly hanged, that was probably why he haunted the house, because she had heard that ghosts are always annoyed about something. Another girl agreed, saying that her mother went to spiritualist meetings in London and had told her that ghosts were unhappy spirits.
'What are you talking about?' said Emily finally. 'I never said Garnet was the ghost.'
All the listeners, including Victoria, gave Emily a puzzled look.
'If not him, then who?' Annabel asked.
'His victim, silly,.' answered Emily with a sigh.
'But you said Charlotte really was ill - so did he kill her or didn't he?'
'Well,.' said Emily with another sigh, 'if you would just let me finish, for goodness' sake. The ghost wasn't Garnet, or his wife.'
Emily went on to explain to her puzzled listeners that the victim was an orphan girl the kindly Charlotte had taken in from a local orphanage. Charlotte could not have children herself and doted on the girl. She was even going to be a bridesmaid at the wedding.
Charlotte already had a bad heart, but it was the mysterious disappearance of this girl that sent her into the illness that killed her. She and Garnet married as planned, but after Charlotte's death, when he had finally inherited all her money, Garnet turned himself in to the Justice of the Peace, admitting everything.
'But why did he kill the girl?' asked Annabel.
'It turns out that the girl saw the good doctor with the governess, canoodling in the shrubbery,. ' said Emily.
'Canoodling?' said one of the smaller girls.
'Kissing and cuddling,.' said Emily, hugging herself and puckering her lips obscenely. The girls rolled around, giggling.
Emily went on to explain that the doctor had been pretending his love for Charlotte just to get her money all along. He sent the governess away, promising they would be together after Charlotte died. But Charlotte's adopted daughter threatened to tell her mother what she had seen. Garnet panicked and killed her.
He got away with the murder completely. The girl was wayward and unruly and everyone but Charlotte thought she had simply run away. Garnet helped to encourage the impression by stealing some jewellery and trinkets to make it appear as though the girl were a thief as well as an ingrate.
'What a beast!' said Emily's sister. Victoria shifted uneasily inside the chest. Her skirts and petticoats were uncomfortably wet now and she had become less sure about jumping out in that state, for fear that the effect would be more amusing than frightening. Perhaps she would wait until they had gone.
'Why did he own up?' said one of the girls.
'He said the girl started to haunt him,.' said Emily quietly. 'She would appear suddenly, staring at him accusingly. In the end his mind snapped and he handed himself in.'
'How did he kill her?'
'He smothered her and hid her in a blanket chest until he could carry her out and dump her in the lake. They found her body tied to a big boulder by a rope. They say she wanders the house to this day, water still dripping from her clothes . . .'
Victoria burst from the chest like a crazed jack-in-the-box. As she had hoped, the girls in the room were suitably terrified. Two of them needed smelling salts to bring them out of a faint and one of them required laudanum to calm her when she came round.
It took two servants to restrain Victoria while another was sent to fetch her parents. She was screaming continually, only stopping when her voice would no longer function, huddled in a ball by the bed, staring at the empty chest.
I looked down at the photograph once more and saw this time that the smudge was no fault or fingerprint, but the blurred image of a young girl in a white dress; and the expression on the man I now knew was Garnet, which I had taken for arrogance, was actually more like the expression of someone holding their hand over a candle flame.
It really did look as if Garnet could see Margaret while no one else could, although something about his expression suggested that he was desperately trying to pretend that she was not there.
'The fog seems finally to be lifting,.' said Uncle Montague, who was now standing by the window. 'You really ought to think about leaving, Edgar, while it is still light.'
I had been growing a little concerned about the approaching dark myself. It had only been my resistance to walking home in the fog - and my concern for my uncle's well-being - that had kept me so long. Besides, I was starting to feel as though I myself might become unhealthily influenced by my uncle's mental state were I to stay.
'Yes, Uncle,.' I said, getting to my feet. 'Perhaps I should be getting along. I do not wish to worry Mother.' I winced a little at this transparent lie. My mother would barely have noticed my absence.
'Of course, Edgar. I am flattered that you would listen to the ramblings of an old man for quite so long.'
'Not at all, sir; I have been fascinated to hear your stories,.' I said. 'And I shall look forward to coming back and hearing more.'
I stood a little self-consciously. I was of an age when I was still unsure of myself in such formal matters as greetings and partings. I had decided that I would shake my uncle's hand, but it didn't feel correct to do so while he was still seated and he showed no signs of getting up. Instead Uncle Montague smiled and picked up an old brass telescope that had been standing on the table next to his chair. Holding it to his eye he looked out of the window towards the woods. The smile seemed to disappear from his face as if he had seen some scene of great sadness to him.
'Uncle?' I enquired.
'It's nothing,.' he said rather unconvincingly.
'I could not help noticing the telescope, sir,.' I said. 'It looks like something a ship's captain might use.' Uncle Montague looked at the telescope in his hand but made no response. He merely looked back towards the woods.
'Uncle?' I said again.
'Forgive me, Edgar,.' he said. 'I should not detain you. I have taken up enough of your time.' Still he did not stand, and once again looked down at the telescope.
'Does the telescope have a story?' I asked.
'Everything has a story.' Uncle Montague sighed. 'Everything and everyone. But, yes,.' he said, cradling the telescope in his hands. 'This does have a particular tale to tell. But it can wait for another time.'
I looked down at my uncle, who seemed suddenly older, and I had not the heart to leave him.
'Please tell me, sir,.' I said, sitting back down.
Uncle Montague smiled again.
'You may not thank me for telling you, Edgar.'
'Even so,.' I said. 'Please tell me. One last story, Uncle, and then I shall away home.'
'If you insist, Edgar,.' he said solemnly, returning to his seat by the fire. 'If you insist.'
Matthew Harter came to a halt beside the huge lichen-encrusted stone that stood beside the entrance to the sheepfold and turned to take one last look at his home.
He almost changed his mind there and then as he looked at the huddle of stone buildings that had been the only world he had known for his short life, save for the fells and lakes that surrounded them. Matthew had lived all his years in that wild and mountainous area of the north country they call Cumbria, his family's house sitting at the base of the hills that girded it around like fortress walls.
But it was this closed view of things that lay behind his creeping out of the family house that dawn, a pack on his back and a note left for his mother to cry over when she woke.
When he had spoken to his father of the curiosity he felt for what lay over the crag tops, his father had said, 'Son, we are like those sheep we tend. They lamb on a certain part of the fell, and to that part of the fell they will return when they grow old enough. They are bonded to the hills and so are we. That's the course that the Almighty has set for us. We're sheep farmers. We're hill folk and that's an end to it.'
And so it was for Matthew's father, but not for Matthew. He had looked to his grandfather on his mother's side for another point of view; for though his grandfather, like his mother, had been born in the very next valley, he had escaped. He had run away to sea.
Matthew's grandfather had returned to the Lakes stuffed full of stories and needed no encouragement to tell them. He was a fine storyteller and even finer when his tongue was oiled with whisky. He was an institution at the Old White Lion until his death in the lambing season that year.
The only death Matthew had experienced prior to that was of his favourite sheepdog, and it hit him hard. It was as if a safety rope attaching him to the outside world had been severed. With his grandfather's death, a whole world of possibilities seemed to die.
This was not to say that Matthew was particularly fond of the old man, or the old man of him. Matthew was only interested in the vistas his grandfather opened up to him.
When Matthew sobbed through the funeral service at the little granite and slate church high among the fells, the tears were for the loss of the stories, not the loss of the man. If anything, Matthew felt anger and resentment rather than sadness.
The tears were enough to convince his mother that though the boy had not seemed especially attached to her father, Matthew had obviously been terribly hurt by his death. A few days after the funeral she approached Matthew with a small parcel, which when unwrapped revealed a brass telescope.
'Father wanted you to have it,.' said his mother.
'He did?' said Matthew, intrigued to hear a lie on his mother's lips.
'Yes . . .' she said hesitantly. 'He thought you might like it. It went all over the world with him you know.'
Matthew held the telescope to his eye and was amazed to see the bracken beneath Brock Crag waving gently in the breeze as if it were only feet away, rather than the hundreds of yards away it actually was. His mother smiled at him and left him alone. It was at that instant Matthew decided to leave.
The telescope was a sign: a sign that he needed to get out of the valley and see the world for himself. He would walk to Penrith and take a stagecoach to Liverpool, and there he would sign himself aboard the first vessel that would take him; slave ship or whaler, he did not care, so long as it took him away from the place he was born.
He would need a little money, but that was all right - he knew where his father kept his cash and though, strictly speaking, it was theft, his parents would have one less mouth to feed. It was a fair exchange.
He might have picked up a ride in a cart had he walked the valley road, but Matthew had decided that that was not the way to leave somehow. He needed to walk the fell-top route to Penrith. He wanted his last view of home to be from above - to see it way below as he so often had in the past when he was up among the sheep on the high crags.
It was a fine morning but it was bitterly cold. There was a little snow on the high fells but not enough to put him off. He loved the fells best of all when they were white at their peaks like sugared buns, and it would be a fond memory for him to enjoy when he was basking in the heat of the Caribbean or the coast of Africa.
The sun was just coming up over the pass and the lake was beginning to glow like polished pewter. Birds were singing in the copse beside his house and among the twisted willows along the brook. Matthew took one last look at his home and walked away.
He crossed the road at the bridge and walked past the weavers' cottages. An old man who had known Matthew since he was a baby came to the door as he was passing, and Matthew felt suddenly guilt-stricken. He had an urge to go straight home, tear up the note and return the money he had taken. But his choice had been made. He must go on.
'Morning, Matthew,.' said the old man.
'Morning, Mr Beckett.'
'Where you bound for at such an hour?'