The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

– that she hadn’t.

She had been waving kindly. Not afraid. Not asking. Not even beckoning. She had been waving in some sort of recognition.

I had never been so frightened in my life.

“I went to Mealbeck last night.”

“Y’d get a fair plateful there.”

“Yes.”

“And a fair skinful.”

“We – yes. Lovely wine.”

“Wine, eh? And mebbe a tot?”

“I had a lovely time. They’re very nice. Very kind.”

“That’s right. They’re kind. Home boozers. Did you get back safe? They say the police sits outside Mealbeck when there’s entertaining. When they can spare’t time.”

“I’m not saying anything against them.”

“That’s right then.” He – it was the farmer who had the demented dogs and whose wife came from the Danish settlement – he looked satisfied. I could see he had been wondering if I was too fancy to answer back. ‘They’re right. Old Gertie and Millicent. There’s nowt amiss wi’ them. Did you have a fair drive home?”

“Fair,” I said. “One thing wasn’t though. I passed a place—. I saw a ghost.”

“Oh aye. Y’d see half a dozen after a night out at Mealbeck.”

“No, I don’t think it was that. I saw someone at a gate. It was a woman waving.”

“Oh aye.”

“Well – it was nearly one o’clock in the morning.”

“Did yer stop?” He was clipping. The sheep was taut between his legs, its yellow eyes glaring. The clippers snapped deep into the dirty heathery wool.

“Well, no. I didn’t believe it till I was miles past. It took a minute. Then I thought I’d dreamed. Dropped asleep.”

“Woman was it? Dark-haired?”

“I didn’t see the colour. Just the shape.”

“Did yer go on back?”

“No – well. She didn’t seem to be in trouble or anything. I hope I did right. Not going back.”

He said nothing till the fleece of the sheep fell away and the animal sprang out of his clutches like a soul released and slithered dizzily light into the yard.

“Watch now or yer’ll get yerself hiked,” he said as I stood clear. “The Missus’ll have a pot of tea if you fancy it.”

“Was it a ghost?”

“Missus!”

She appeared at the door and looked pleased to see me – this really was a wonderfully friendly country – ‘Kettle’s on”, she called. “I hear yer’ve bin gallivanting at the Hall.”

“Was it a ghost?” I asked again before I went into tea.

“I’d not think so,” he said.

I went back along the road the very next day and at first I could find no sign of the house at all. Or at any rate I could not decide which one it was. The fell that had looked so bare at night, by daylight could be seen to be dotted with crumpled, squat little stone farms, their backs turned to the view, two trees to each to form a wind- break, grey with white stone slabs to the window and only a tall spire of smoke to show they were occupied. It was not the townsfolk-country-cottage belt so that there was not much white paint about, lined curtains, urns on yard walls – and any one of several little isolated farms could have been the eerie one. In the end I turned back and found the bridge where I’d stopped. I got out of the car again as I had before, and walked back a mile or two until I came to a lane going alongside a garden end. All I could see from the road was the garden end – a stone wall and a gate quite high up above me and behind that a huge slab-stoned roof so low that the farmhouse must have been built deep down in a dip.

Now nobody stood at the gate – more of a look-out post, a signalling post above the road. There were tangled flowers behind it. There was no excuse for me to go up the lane that must have led to the house and it was not inviting. I thought of pretending to have lost my way or asking for a drink of water but these things you grow out of doing. I might perhaps just ask if there were eggs for sale. This was quite usual. Yet I hung back because the lane was dark and overgrown. I sat down instead on a rickety milk platform meant for churns but all stuck through with nettles and which hardly took my weight. It must have been years since any churn was near it. I sat there in the still afternoon and nobody passed.

Then I felt I was being watched. There was no sound or snapping twig, no breathing and no branch stirred but I looked quickly up and into a big bewildered face, mouth a little open, large bright mooning eyes. The hair was waved deeply like an old Vogue photograph and the neckline of the dress was rounded, quite high with a string of pearls. The hands of the woman were on the wall and I think they were gloved – neat pretty kid gloves. The trappings of the whole figure were all the very soul of order and confidence. The figure itself, however, almost yearned with uncertainty and loss.

“Whatever time is it?” she said.

“About three o’clock.” I found I had stood up and turned to face her. For all the misery in the face there were the relics of unswervable good manners which demanded good manners back; as well as a quite curious sensation, quite without visible foundation, that this body, this dotty half-bemused memsahib had once commanded respect, inspired good sense.

“It’s just after three,” I said again.

“Oh, good gracious – good gracious.” She turned with a funny, bent movement feeling for the wall to support her as she moved away. The face had not been an old woman’s but the stance, the tottering walk were ancient. The dreadful sense of loss, the melancholy, were so thick in the air that there was almost a smell, a sick smell of them.

She was gone, and utterly silently, as if I had slept for a moment in the sunshine and had a momentary dream. She had seemed like a shade, a classical Greek shade, though why I should think of ancient Greece in bleak North Westmorland I did not know.

As I stood looking up at the gate there was a muffled urgent plunging noise and round the bend of the road came sheep – a hundred of them with a shepherd and two dogs. The sheep shouldered each other, fussing, pushing, a stream of fat fleeces pressed together, eyes sharp with pandemonium. The dogs were happily tearing about. The shepherd walked with long steps behind. The sheep new-clipped filled the road like snow. They stopped when they saw me, then when they were yelled at came on careering drunkenly round me, surrounding me and I stood knee deep in them and the flat blank rattle of bleats, the smell of sheep dip and dog and man – and petrol, for when I looked beyond I found a land-rover had been crawling behind and at the wheel the doctor with the tweed hat was sitting laughing.

He said, “Well! You look terrified.”

“They were so sudden.”

“They’ll not hurt you.”

“No. I know – just they were so – quiet. They broke in—”

“Broke in?”

“To the silence. It’s very – silent here, isn’t it?” I was inane.

He got down from the car and came round near me. “You’ve not been here long, have you? We haven’t been introduced. I’m the doctor.”

“I know. I’m—”

“Yes. I know too. And we’re to know each other better. We’re both to go dining out at the good sisters’ in a week or so. I gather we’re not supposed to know it yet. We are both supposed to be lonely.”

I said how could one be lonely here? I had made friends so fast.

“Some are,” he said. “Who aren’t born to it. Not many. It’s always all right at first.” We both looked together towards the high gate and he said, ‘Poor Rose. My next patient. Not that I expect to be let in.”

“Is she—?”