The Haunted House 3

 Aspirations 

By Janet Baldey 

As they rounded the bend, Mr Osmond stopped gratefully and gestured towards the house, visible for the first time.  He opened his mouth.  

          “There we are. Isn’t it grand?” The words came out as a chesty wheeze but sensing,  rather than seeing, the couple exchanged glances, he carried on regardless, his voice gaining strength.  “I know what you’re thinking but visualise it as it could be. With the gardens tidied up and the ivy stripped away. Now look again, at its beautiful lines.  I assure you; you won’t get a better bargain in this part of the country.”

Emily Farquerson glanced at the brochure, refreshing her memory….six bedrooms, two large sitting rooms, a turreted library on the first floor and a south-facing façade. Looking up, she narrowed her eyes and suddenly the unkempt garden with its shaggy rhododendron bushes, faded away and a trim, emerald lawn with islands of rose bushes took its place. 

“But why is it so ….” She was about to say cheap but stopped herself, just in time…” reasonable?”

               The agent shrugged, “the owner specifically asked that it should go to a family.  I think he was remembering his own time as a husband and father and wanted the house to ring with the sound of childish laughter again.”  He sighed, dramatically.  “Sad really.  He never wanted to leave but circumstances….”  He shrugged, leaving the couple to imagine those circumstances.   “Come, I’ll show you the inside.  It needs freshening up but it has bags of potential.”

A gentle smile softened the lines of anxiety on Mrs Farquerson’s face as she tucked her hand underneath her husband’s crooked elbow.  House hunting had been exciting at first but after a while, it became a chore; how wonderful it was that now their search was over.  At last, they’d found the perfect home.  She glanced back at the red-brick Victorian villa with its pointed eaves, watching as the evening sun painted it with amber.   Her smile widened as she imagined the lunch parties and soirees, she would be able to host in its airy sitting room.  On fine days she would open the casement windows to allow the sound of teacups and silvery laughter to spill out onto the lawn. It was fit for the cream of society and what was even better was that at last, she would be the hostess and not a mere guest. She preened at the thought. 

“Isn’t it lovely my dear.  So spacious, a piano will fit well in the main sitting room and the turreted room will make a perfect library.”

Henry Farquerson grunted and his wife shot a look at him, anxious for him to agree with her.  After all, thanks to the legacy he’d been left, they could well afford it.

“Is anything wrong dear?  Just think how good it will be for the children to live in a house like this.   They’ll be able to have their friends around all the time.”  Reading Mr Farquerson’s expression, she realised she’d made a tactical error and added a softener.  “And because the house is so large, we won’t be able to hear a thing.” Her voice quivered, surely Henry wasn’t going to be difficult.

“It’s the smell.” He said at last.  “There must be  a problem with the drains.  We’ll have to get them checked.”

There was no problem.  The drains were fine and after his wife had promised to air the place thoroughly and use a judicious amount of Glade, the sale went ahead.

Mrs Farquerson, was not idle during the wait to move in.  With the help of a fat brochure from Liberty’s, she picked out fabric and colour schemes for all the rooms, paying special attention to Tom’s room.  She decided on light blue figured wallpaper and a walnut bedroom suite.  She half toyed with the idea of art deco before discarding it in favour of something plainer and more masculine.  She thought fondly of her eldest.  Such a fine boy, sturdy and athletic with rosy cheeks and a mop of dark brown hair, he was a son to be proud of. Captured In a moment  of maternal pride, she added a glass-fronted cabinet to hold all the trophies he would be bound to acquire. 

As for Sophie, pink would do.  A gentle, feminine colour as befits a daughter who would surely make a good marriage in due course. 

 

Three months later, Emily Farquerson gazed out of her bedroom window at a mournful drizzle soaking the garden.   Her spirits matched the weather as she ruminated that since they’d moved in everything had gone wrong.  Primarily the smell. No matter how hard their charlady scrubbed, it had deepened.  It now permeated the whole house forcing both herself and Sophie to go around with handkerchiefs soaked in lavender water pressed against their noses.   The expression on Henry’s face grew thunderous and the stench, nauseating at times, put paid to Emily’s dreams of rising in society. There  was no way she could invite anyone to a delicate tea or musical evening, not even, according to the charlady as she gave notice, a stray cat.

She dabbed at a teardrop and watched the rain flood the lawn. At last, it lessened and Emily stirred.  She decided to take herself off for a walk.  Perhaps it would cheer her up. She would stroll to the pier and back, maybe she would see one of her friends and take tea in a café.

Hours later, refreshed in both body and mind Emily returned.  Her friends had convinced her that her problems were mere teething troubles and would soon be forgotten. Her spirits rose even further as she looked at the house outlined against the backdrop of a charcoal-coloured sky. What a fine place it was. 

She noticed that Tom’s room was in darkness, and smiled.  He was obviously in the games room downstairs playing Ludo with his sister, or maybe in the main sitting room, practising scales on the piano.  How lucky he was to have a choice.  But as she grew nearer, her smile faltered.  There seemed to be a strange orange shape bobbing in the window.  From a distance, it looked a bit like a face, except that it had no features.  She stared harder and her smile disappeared completely.  Why, it didn’t seem to be Tom’s room at all!  Glossy, dull brown paint had taken the place of the blue wallpaper, and the shape of the furniture was different, blockier, and more old-fashioned.   Suddenly, her heart started to beat faster and she began to run.  Bursting through the door, she raced up the stairs and threw open the door to her son’s room. 

“Eh, what’s up Mum?”

Confused, Emily froze.  She blinked at her son, who  lay in bed blinking back at her.  She looked around.  Everything was as it should be. The new furniture gleamed in the glow of a rosy fire flickering in the grate,  the dark blue curtains were drawn against the night and pictures of Tom playing sport adorned the walls.

At last, she found her voice. 

“Nothing dear, I just wondered how you were?”

“I’m OK.  Just a bit under the weather and I felt like an early night.”

She crossed over to him and caressed his forehead.  It was quite cool but she thought he was a trifle pale.

She smoothed his covers and tucked him in securely. She would like to have kissed him but didn’t want to turn him into a cissy.

“You have a nice rest dear.  I’ll bring you up some hot milk when I go to bed.” 

Months later, Emily sat at her desk playing with her pen and staring into space.  She was wondering if she really wanted to arrange the first of her soirees.  She was sure the smell had disappeared, she hadn’t noticed it for weeks and both Sophie and Henry had stopped, complaining. She ruminated on the  fact that she hadn’t seen either of them for days. Maybe Henry had disappeared into his study and Sophie was probably in her bedroom. 

Emily thought back to when she’d last spoken to her. It was just after breakfast last Tuesday.  “Mummy,” her daughter had said, “have you noticed how thin Tommy has got.  Is there anything wrong with him?”

To her shame, Emily hadn’t but just at that moment, Tom’s bedroom door opened and he appeared.  Sophie was right, she decided.  He was much thinner, and seemed to float down the stairs rather than bound as he usually did. 

Emily wasn’t worried.   She decided she liked the shape of the new Tom. Before he’d been carrying too much weight and she hated fat boys.  Now he looked more interesting, a bit like a young Lord Byron.  So, she’d reassured Sophie and had gone back to her dream of rising in society.

Since then, she hadn’t seen any of them but didn’t mind at all.   She found that she liked being alone and decided it was because of the house. She had been kept so busy, tending to its needs, and making everything just so. What’s more, she felt and appreciated it.   She didn’t know why she felt this but it was a nice feeling and one that made her want to melt into its walls and become part of it.

 

Once more, Mr Osmond laboured up the drive to the front of the house.  He stood staring at the front bedroom carefully counting the orange-coloured globes bobbing against its panes.

“Good,” he grunted.  “Four of them.  It’s time to produce another brochure.”

He looked again at the house, especially appreciating its new layer of windows.  To think, that once it had consisted of just one storey. Now, he could truthfully describe it as a mansion in the brochure.   He smiled and tipped his hat at the house giving credit where it was due. It was, as they say, a good little earner.

 

Copyright Janet Baldey