Chapter Three
It was just a second or two, but I was so surprised that I shut the door again before I’d even begun to register what on earth was happening. I was in such a state of shock my first thought was that I must have opened the wrong door, so I traced my steps back to the bathroom in the dark, managing to stub my toe in the process before daring to put on the landing light. I was feeling spooked by the whole experience, though to be perfectly honest, it was very disappointingly lacking in scariness. When I got back to my room I opened the door, hesitatingly, but as in all the best frightening tales the vision was gone.
I’ve decided
I saw a snapshot in time, as anyone living in an old house might see, though I
really feel it was more than that. The girl, the room and all the objects were
real and solid - not a wisp of ethereal ghostliness or ectoplasm, yet a part of
me still can’t quite believe it. Had I been dreaming?
One thing I
did investigate immediately was the room next to mine. It’s a very small
bedroom with just space for a narrow bed and a small wardrobe, and I wondered
if it might perhaps have been a dressing room at one time. Whoever I’d intruded
upon was just as untidy as me, I thought, and it made me like her instantly.
And, unlike a dream that usually fades on waking, I couldn’t stop thinking
about her or wondering how my seeing her had been possible. Her face was
extraordinarily vivid in my mind, with her flushed cheeks, and lips curving
like a mischievous cherub into a pink smile. I distinctly saw the dark tendrils
of hair curling on her forehead, and her forthright gaze, arresting eyes like
topaz jewels. It was exciting to think that the possibility of ghosts were
real, even if they were very ordinary, quite unlike Cathy wandering alone
through the dead of night in Wuthering
Heights.
***
Since
writing the above, I’ve spent another day shopping with Ellen and had another
quiet evening in with very little news or happenings to report. Though I’ve not
seen or experienced any further strange visions I still can’t get it out of my
head that what I saw was not a dream.
Before I
went to bed last night Ellen said we’d be busy again today, and that we’ll be
out for most of it. I suspect there’ll be more shopping involved, and I must
admit I don’t relish the idea of traipsing round the shops buying more
Christmas presents. What I’d really like to do is stay in, to see if I can
enter that magical world once more. If it was my imagination playing tricks on
me I shall be very sorry, but I shall never know if I have to go out all day.
I can smell
breakfast, and my watch tells me it’s time to go down. I’m wearing the green
needlecord dress today, which makes me feel very “Jane Austen” with its empire
line and flower motifs. Perhaps Henry Tilney will be waiting for me in the
breakfast parlour!
***
 |
| Marianne's bonnet |
Breakfast
was delicious, though if Mrs Partridge is going to feed us bacon and egg every
morning, I think it will be no time at all until my new clothes will be feeling
tight.
‘You need to
keep up your strength, Caroline,’ said Ellen. ‘Your mother will never forgive
me if you go home looking scrawny and under-fed.’
That’s not
very likely, I thought, on a diet of cream teas and fried bread, but I know
Ellen means well.
I was just enjoying
the last delicious mouthful of fried egg when there was a knock at the front door.
I always think the sound of a door knocker holds so much promise of excitement,
and immediately thought of Marianne in Sense
and Sensibility waiting for Mr Willoughby. But, there was no dashing suitor
at the door or Colonel Brandon, only the postman with a delivery for me - a
most mysterious parcel. It was huge, and I couldn’t begin to think what was
inside. When I opened it up I found the most beautiful writing box. It had a
mahogany writing slope, was lined with green baize, and complete with glass
bottles for ink, a penknife, two stubby looking quills, a pair of old
spectacles, and several stumps of sealing wax.
There was
also a letter.
Dear Caroline,
How are you, my darling? I hope you’re settling
in and that the Bath air is working wonders - I trust all is going well!
I meant to give you the enclosed before you left,
but in my usual muddle-headed way forgot all about it. Anyway, I found it while
I was tidying up in one of the attic rooms a couple of weeks ago, and I thought
you might like somewhere special to write and keep your journal while you’re in
Bath. I’m not quite sure who owned it - there were several ancestors who might
have had a writing slope, but I thought you might find it fun to try your hand
at using a quill pen.
They made these boxes to withstand all sorts of
conditions - for travelling, of course, and many of them accompanied soldiers
to war and back again. It has drop-down handles for ease of carrying, and a
side drawer, which opens when a brass pin inside is released - there’s also a
reading stand and a
working lock and key.
Do you think Jane Austen must have written a
journal too, like her heroine Catherine Morland when she went to Bath? You
will, I know, remember the passage in Northanger where that charming rascal
Henry Tilney quizzes her about it, saying she was bound to mention him in it. I
wonder if Jane met such a young man herself and wrote about him in her diary.
Well, my darling, I must stop writing so I can
get this off in the post - have a marvellous time and enjoy yourself!
Much love always,
Mum.
Ellen and
Roger seemed as excited as I was to see the box, and when we’d discovered how
to pull out the brass pin inside, the drawer was released, and it sprang open.
Disappointingly, there were no secret letters or journals inside, but we
examined all the bottles and quills before Ellen suggested I try using one for
a bit of fun. On a piece of cream card I tried my best to write as I’d seen
Jane Austen’s letters addressed: Caroline
Heath, Flat 5, 44, Fitzroy Street, London, W1. I stopped to admire my
handiwork; the flat I lived in during term time seemed a lifetime away. My
friends who lodged with me had been so kind when I fell ill, trying not to tell
me too many exciting details about all the fun they were having while I was
stuck in bed. When would I be able to return?
‘You must
miss art school,’ said Ellen looking concerned. I think she guessed what I was
thinking.
‘I do, but
I’d much rather be here with you.’ I really meant it, I couldn’t imagine being
anywhere else now, and thought how kind she was to have brought me to Bath.
Ellen smiled.
‘Why don’t you go and find a place for your new writing box in your bedroom,’
she said. ‘We’ll go out after lunch if you still feel like it, but the morning
is yours to do just as you wish.’
I couldn’t
wait, and ran upstairs as quickly as the heavy box would allow, tucking it
under my arm before turning the stiff door knob. It wouldn’t give, so I put the
box down, twisted the knob once more, pushing against the door with my shoulder
and practically falling into the room when it opened unexpectedly easily. It
felt almost as if someone on the other side were playing a trick, holding the
door fast before pulling it open suddenly. It made me think about the girl I’d
seen in the middle of the night until I told myself I was being silly.
Underneath
the middle window there was an ancient desk with a lamp set on it, which I
decided would make a suitable place for my writing box, and if I moved the
chair placed beneath the adjacent window I could sit there, write my journal,
and stare out of the window for inspiration. Feeling very pleased with the new
arrangement, I opened up the box, and laid my journal on the slope.
There was a
wonderful view down Pulteney Street, and if it hadn’t been for the cars roaring
past down below I could quite have fancied myself in another time as I looked
out on the golden stone houses, standing to attention like soldiers in their
best uniforms. I decided to make a few lists in the back of my journal first.
Being away from home was helping me think about the work I had to do without as
much panic as when I was there, and I wrote down a list of everything I hoped
to achieve over the Christmas holidays when I got back home. I even did a few
preliminary sketches, though I didn’t want to use up all the pages of my
journal for sketching. Thinking of Christmas meant I ought to think about
buying presents of my own, and so the next list consisted of ideas of what to
buy for Mum and my friends. Then, because I was feeling so positive I made a
list of future goals though one or two were bordering on being over ambitious,
and I decided optimism is all very well, but short term goals were probably the
best, and wouldn’t lead to biting disappointment. I was enjoying myself so
much, lost in my own world, and so glad to be feeling some creative energy
again that time seemed to be slipping away very quickly. I’d just got time to
do a few sketches, and pulled out the sketchpad from my case that I’d thought
wouldn’t see the light of day. The writing slope was just the right angle for
drawing, and I sharpened my pencil in readiness.
The sun, a
glowing ball of winter pearl had come out from a bank of cloud and was shining
so strongly into my eyes and on to the paper that it was blinding, making it
impossible to see. The old shutters on the windows were folded back, but it
looked as if they were stuck fast, encrusted with at least a hundred years or
more of white paint. I tried them anyway, and one half unfolded with a bit of
persuasion, but it still wasn’t enough to stop the light from piercing my eyes.
It looked as if a little bit of paint was acting like glue, and suddenly
remembering the little penknife in the writing box, I fetched it out. I only wanted
to scrape away what shouldn’t have been there anyway, and told myself I wasn’t
doing any harm, but as I chipped away at the hardened paint I could see it
wasn’t going to give way easily. At last I was making some progress, and
fitting my fingers down between the spaces I’d created, I got some purchase on
the shutter door and pulled hard. It made such a noise as the paint finally
gave way, splintering in shards when it moved, I thought for a horrible moment
that I’d damaged it. Suddenly the shutter swung forward with a resigned creak.
There was a lot of dust and dirt, which fell all over the windowsill and
drifted to the floor making an awful mess, but it was free at last. And so was
something else that had fallen from the deep recess behind. It looked like a
cross between a giant butterfly’s cocoon and a spider’s nest, darkest grey and
furry with what looked like two hundred years’ worth of cobwebs wrapped round
it, and all I could do was stare at it to begin with. I didn’t want to touch it
at first, but it didn’t look as if it were alive with tiny creatures, and when
I poked it gently the dust balls enrobing it simply rolled away until the
object underneath was revealed.
A knock at
the door made me jump out of my skin, and Ellen’s voice rang out, piercing my
dream-like state.
‘Lunch will
be ready in five minutes,’ she called, ‘Mrs Partridge has made some soup which
should warm us up before we head out into the cold.’
I said I’d
be down straight away, though I was finding it hard to concentrate on anything
but the little parcel I was now unravelling in my hands, and wished I could
stay longer to examine it. Wrapped in silk that was rotting away in places I
discovered a leather-bound notebook inside. Turning the fragile paper pages
very carefully it became immediately clear I’d found a journal, and a very old
one at that, with a year date on every page for 1788, written in a very neat
hand. The writing was so small and so hard to decipher I could only just read
the first sentence of the first entry.
We are arrived at my uncle’s house, and it is
quite as grand as I imagined! Though I couldn’t wait to read more I closed the
diary reluctantly, wrapping it up again and putting it away carefully inside
the drawer of my writing box. It would need considerably more time to study it,
and all my powers of concentration to read the tiny script, and right now I needed
to tidy up before Mrs Partridge or Ellen discovered the mess I’d made. I rinsed
my flannel under the hot water in the basin, and did my best to tidy up, wiping
down the recesses where the shutters had been stuck with paint, never seeing
light for what must have been a very long time. Folding them back, I decided
they looked pretty much as they had done before I’d forced them open, and
resolved not to mention what I’d done or tell them about my exciting find until
I had a chance to examine it further. I raked a comb through my hair, pulled on
a cardigan to help keep me warm, and ran downstairs.
***
‘We shall be
out for the rest of the afternoon,’ said Ellen, as Mrs Partridge ladled out
warming tomato soup into our bowls, ‘And then Roger has booked an early supper
at a dear French restaurant we both love. Do tell Caroline our thrilling plans
for the evening, Roger. He is wonderful, you know.’
Roger put
down the newspaper he was reading for a moment. ‘We’re off to the theatre.’
‘Oh, that is
exciting,’ I said, ‘I love a play.’
‘It’s
Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol,’ he
went on, ‘I know you like a ghost story, and Ellen said you’d like the Victorian
fashions too.’
‘Yes, I’m
very interested in costume design; I shall look forward to it, thank you,
Roger,’ I said, thinking I might cope better with the idea of an afternoon’s
shopping now such an evening lay ahead.
So, I really
am glad about being in Bath with the Applebys, and I’m feeling very spoiled. I
will write to Mum this evening after we’ve been to the theatre, and thank her
for the writing slope. I can’t wait to tell her everything … except about the
ghost, of course. In fact, I think it best if I keep that little episode all to
myself - even now I can’t help thinking it was some strange kind of dream
induced by being half asleep. I wondered when I came back upstairs to fetch my
scarf whether I’d see her again, though I had a feeling I’d just find my room,
which I did, and the thought occurred that it was likely a one-off occasion and
I might never see her again.
I hope you enjoyed it!