THE HIGH LIFE [Part 6]

 THE HIGH LIFE   [Part 6] 

By Richard banks         

         Frampton is in darkness. The live-in servants are asleep after another long day. Their Master and Mistress also sleep, but less soundly. As before they are in separate rooms. Despite it being an hour past mid-night this is going to be a traditional sort of haunting, think gothic - Frankenstein, Dracula, The Premature Burial! And who could be more susceptible to all this fright than a man half asleep and befuddled with drink.

         I find him lying on top of the bed, minus a shoe but otherwise fully dressed. In his monkey suit he reminds me of a beached whale, but unlike the whale he’s red faced and wreaking of port. His mouth opens and closes and he mumbles aggressively at someone or thing that, having entered his dreams, is filling them with thoughts he would rather not think - discordant, troubling thoughts. But they will be as nothing compared to what’s coming next. When he awakes he will find himself in the company of William Perry, the third Earl, whose ill-gotten treasure, so legend has it, is hidden somewhere on the roof. I announce his presence in the deep, guttural voice I have been practising out of earshot on the estate. In addition to my new voice, which is really rather good, I appear to him as a whirl of white mist that often takes human form but never quite comes into focus.

         This would be alarming to anyone capable of logical thought, but right now that’s not Neville, and, when he wakes up, he’s too scared to do anything but obey the spectre hovering over him. He’s there for the taking, and, after identifying myself as his ancient ancestor, I spin him a story he’s unable to resist. Not only do I know where the treasure is but the purpose of my visit is to show him where to find it.

         Neville manages to look both terrified and greedy at the same time. To his surprise the spectre’s saying something he wants to hear and, on being told to follow on and do exactly what he’s told, Neville stumbles out of bed only to see me squeeze under the door. He pulls it open and totters after me, clutching at the bannister as I lead him up three flights of stairs and into the fourth floor corridor where, having nothing to hang onto, he bounces off one wall onto the other and back again, like a pinball in an arcade machine. How he’s still on his feet not even he knows, but he is, and on being told to exit through the fire door, throws himself against it and crashes out onto the roof. This time he does hit the deck but he’s up like a jack-in-a-box and peering back at the swirl of mist that he’s somehow overtaken.

         “What now?” he splutters, and I point a ghostly arm at the walkway on the inside of the battlements. There are steps that lead up to it, and he almost crawls up them before straightening up and staggering towards the spot I continue to indicate. “Here?” he bawls, staring down at the flagstone on which he’s standing. “No, back one,” I tell him, almost forgetting to use my dead Earl’s voice. For a moment he looks uncertain as though he’s beginning to smell a rat, but he steps back anyway towards a gap in the wall where a merlon was once removed to accommodate a cannon that’s now in the Armoury.

         For the first time I use my own voice. “Neville!” I snarl, letting out all the rage and loathing I have for him. “Neville!” I bellow, in a louder voice, just as angry, that causes him to back off another step. Then I turn into myself and fly at him, shrieking as I do. For a moment I have the satisfaction of seeing the look of horror on his face as he realises who I am and that he is powerless to keep me from rushing at him. He panics, takes two more steps back, pedals air and plunges down towards the delivery area outside the kitchen, narrowly missing the only vehicle parked there. He hits the tarmac with a heavy thud, flips over and lies motionless as little rivers of blood form a pool around his head and shoulders. “What now?” he had said, and now he is finding out. For a few moments I imagine his spirit rising up like mine had done, but this is no time for wool-gathering, my night’s work is only half done. I hurry back through the fire door and down the stairs to the first floor bedroom I once shared with Neville.

         Tonight only Mildred is there. She lies on the same side of the bed that I once filled. Maybe this is in her thoughts as well as mine. She is restless, turning towards the centre and then back towards the edge where, but for the sheets she is clinging to, she might drop down onto the floor. Behind closed lids her eyes twitch, she too is dreaming. Once she had happy dreams, those days are gone; those ahead may very well get worse.

         “Mildred,” I say, nestling on the pillow beside her head. She stirs, but doesn’t wake. “Mildred!” I hiss, and she recoils away from me onto the nogo area that once was Neville’s side of the bed. She’s awake now, very definitely awake and never more afraid, but worse is to come. It’s show time again and I appear to her as myself, but this is the new me, scary, demonic me, long hair swirling, my face horrid with hate.

         Her body shakes with fear and she passes out, as I thought she would. When she comes to I am kneeling on the bed next to her. “How could you?” I say. She reaches out towards me but withdraws her hand before making contact with my aura.

         “This is not a dream,” I tell her, and she nods her head to signify that she understands this only too well.

         “Maddie,” she gasps. “How?”

         “You mean. How is it that I’m dead?” my voice angry and accusing.

         This, needless to say, is not what she means.

         “I’m sorry, Maddy, I’m so, so sorry. I should have said no. I wanted to say no, but I’m not as strong as you. He was going to abandon me and the baby, to turn me out of Frampton with nothing but my clothes and a train ticket back to London. And, if it was ever discovered you had been poisoned, he said he would put the blame on me, that I had done it because I wanted to be the next Lady Frampton.”

         “But that’s true, isn’t it? You had got used to the high life, couldn’t bear to be parted from it especially when the alternative was a council flat or hostel for unmarried mothers; definitely something to steer clear of, even if it did mean being an accessory to murder, and not just any old murder, the murder of your sister who always did good by you.”

         “But, Maddie, I had the baby to think about. Once it was born how could I have coped? No money, no home, no job, and worse still no baby. They would have taken it from me, Maddy, I know they would, and nothing I could have done would have stopped them. Please try and see that.  What I did was wrong, very, very wrong, I know that, but please understand how desperate I was. Oh lore, will I go to hell, Maddie? Tell me there’s no such place. You forgive me, don’t you, please say you do. It wasn’t me who wanted you dead; it was Neville, he gave you the poison, not me.”

         She is contemptible and my aura flares up as though someone has doused it with petrol. She deserves to die but that is not my plan. She is my sister and our mother, who awaits us, should not be denied another grandchild. So, I tell her what she must do and that if she doesn’t I will haunt her every night for the rest of her life, and that it won’t just be me. There will, I assure her, be demons and devils who will enter her head and never go away in this life or the next. Of course, all this is totally beyond my capacity to deliver but she doesn’t know that and judging by the way she’s shaking, and the wetting of the bed, she believes every word.

         “Up,” I command, and out of bed she gets up. “Follow!” and we go along the corridor to Neville’s study where I point her at the picture and tell her to open the safe. She looks bemused as well as terrified. “What safe?” she asks, unaware that there is one, so I tell her what she needs to know, including the numbers I saw Neville dial.

         With the safe open it’s time to tell her more. “The money inside belongs to Neville,” I say,  “at least it did until I tipped him off the battlements.” Her mouth droops open as she struggles to take in what I’ve said. “Now it’s yours, every penny of it and in that box there’s diamonds, take those too. You’re rich now, very rich, set-up for life rich, and the only thing you need to do is disappear and never be found, because, if you’re found, your life, and that of your child, will be a living hell. You’ll need some clothes, so get packed.”

         She nods her head and returns to the bedroom where I watch her dress and pack a holdall with everything she needs to see her through the next few days. “Money!” I screech and she dashes back to the study for the money and diamonds. She’s ready to go but doesn’t know where, so I tell her where and what she must do to get there, my six point plan which I have her repeat six times before allowing her to creep out of the house and into her car. She unlocks the entrance gates and on opening them is away to Folkestone where she abandons the car near the ferry terminal.

         And that’s where the trail ends for those pursuing her, which includes the police and all the Fleet Street dailies. Of course they think she has fled the country on a no passport trip to Boulogne, but she is elsewhere and remains in that elsewhere place until she isn’t. Of this I will say no more, except that this is only step two of my rather longer plan.

         Ten years on and her life continues in a part of the world far from Frampton. When she speaks of the past it is a construct of her own making. She has wealth enough to live in comfort for the rest of her life and, being out of reach of the police who wish to question her about Neville’s unexplained death, her only concern is not to antagonise the fearsome spirit that was once her sister. Her prematurely white hair is a constant reminder of our reunion of which she still has nightmares. Her son knows nothing of his aristocratic descent, or his five cousins who are happy and prospering under the guardianship of Neville’s brother. And me? What about me? Well, let’s just say that when the Guardian Angel returned I had quite a lot of explaining to do. But, pending the conclusion of several inquiries, two appeals and a judicial review, I’m still up high rubbing shoulders with the righteous. Long may it continue. They won’t be getting rid of me in a hurry, so, when you’re ready - "come up and see me sometime."

The End.

 Copyright Richard Banks