Hauntings of Claverton Castle, Chapter 5
This week—as I forgot to mention before Chapter 4—I’m going back to publishing a chapter Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Chapter 1:
Chapter 4:
https://open.substack.com/pub/whimsicalwords/p/hauntings-of-claverton-castle-chapter-bce?r=5m2is&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Hauntings of Claverton Castle, Chapter 5
As Samantha continued trudging in the Cimmerian night, the wind seemingly whispered in her ear. She heard the word, “Beware!” The back of her neck prickled. She thought: A spirit flies in the wind.
She had experienced quite a few ghostly encounters, for she was a Sensitive, though of no particularly remarkable powers. Perhaps, she reflected, specters flew on the wind tonight. The tower was much closer now; Samantha saw small creatures flying around its uppermost story and realized they must be bats.
Samantha carried her portmanteau with her right hand. Uncle Bradford had bruised her left wrist, but her right shoulder ached. She had donned her bonnet hastily; now the strings slipped under her chin. Her bonnet slid gradually askew, until it was significantly more on the left side than the right. She wished not to fall off, but neither did she wish to stop walking. She knew she would be calling, unexpected, at an unfashionable hour; yet this was about survival, not propriety. Now she was close enough to discern windows in the tower.
After a lengthy trudge through the damp, dewy grass and soaking her boots, Samantha reached the ancient tower and paused beside it, at the summit of a hill. In the distance she observed what must be Claverton Castle. The view in the moonlight was striking from here: an archaic stone manor house with crenellations. She set down her portmanteau long enough to adjust her bonnet.
Despite the darkness of night, Samantha gazed upon Harriet’s home. The moon and stars shone upon it, and specks of light, presumably hearths, provided a glow from within. Smoke arose from chimneys. The moat appeared to be a dark pool of tar, until Samantha watched it long enough to see ripples of dark blue water.
She observed with relief that a bridge crossed the moat, but she couldn’t discern whether the portcullis was down, blocking her entrance. She beheld the ruins of crumbling outer wall, encircling the moat from a distance, well beyond the complete walls. The stone bridge led through an arched entrance centered in a gatehouse of modest size.
The moat’s bridge led to a two-story rectangular section attached to a thick wall. The house featured two long and uniform two-story wings on each side, and the center section was considerably bulkier, with taller structures, a square tower, and one particularly enormous gabled shape that Samantha suspected was the original great hall.
She closed her eyes and rubbed her temple. If only she could at least relieve this headache.
Samantha descended the slope. She began at a cautious and stiff pace, but seeing the manor house in the distance again, she felt excited at the prospect of arriving at Harriet’s home and seeing her welcoming countenance.
Despite her aches and pains, Samantha braced her teeth and began to run down the hill. It was slick with dew, and the soles of her boots had little traction. She soon found herself running out of control. She slid in the dew and started rolling down the hill. Groaning whenever a bruise contacted the earth, she grabbed at the bumpy, uneven ground and pushed her hands down on it. She felt the cold earth underneath the damp grass.
To her relief, she stopped rolling. Moaning, she rose slowly and, wiping her hands on her pelisse, stepped mindfully down the remainder of the hill. Her steps were very stiff, and she occasionally winced. She hoped she hadn’t acquired more bruises.
At the base of the hill, Samantha found herself at the edge of an ancient stone road that, from what she saw in the limited light, ran straight to left and right for an indeterminate distance. Across this road was the manor house. With her eyes on the bumpy stone surface, Samantha crossed the road and reached the closed front gates. She clutched iron bars and gazed between them at the bridge and the arched front double doors. She guessed the stone bridge, with aqueducts below, had replaced an earlier, medieval drawbridge.
She considered screaming for help. She estimated the time at approximately three in the morning; the family must have been sleeping for hours. She reminded herself that Uncle Bradford had no way of knowing her location, and it therefore mattered not whether he had awakened since her departure. He could not be in pursuit. However, she felt vulnerable on the wrong side of the gate.
She inhaled deeply and stepped to the left. She circled the battlements. Perhaps, in the manor house’s many centuries of existence, someone in recent and calmer times than the middle ages may have added a new entrance.
She sought this imaginary entrance in vain and, yawning, returned to the gate. Slowly and with a groan of pain, she set her portmanteau down on the cobblestones and stood waiting. She imagined a servant would awake early and discover her at the gate. It was a peculiar manner to come calling, even on a trustworthy friend, but Samantha reminded herself that she had few options. Some social awkwardness was better than enduring her uncle’s beatings.
She began pacing and wondering how to pass the time waiting by the gate. She looked up at the dark sky and entertained herself by gazing at the stars and making uneducated guesses about constellations. Though her left eye was swollen, she was nonetheless able to see with it. She sometimes lowered her gaze and watched the direction from whence she had arrived, but she told herself that her uncle would not find her. She had left him far behind. She looked back up at the sky and diverted herself by creating her own constellations, connecting the dots to form a mermaid and a walrus.
After watching the stars, pacing, and casting her eyes up at the stars again, Samantha cautiously leaned against the wall beside the gate. In pain and exhaustion, she managed to find a position that put no pressure on her sore shoulder or back.
She admired the creeping early dawn. The sun first appeared low in the horizon. Soon pink and purple fingers spread from the sun and across the sky, longer and longer, reaching out.
Her back was to the manor house as the sun rose. It was high in the blue sky when she heard footsteps plodding behind her. She swung around and beheld an older woman in a sober, plain black frock, ruffled white cap, and white apron. The woman scowled, moving toward Samantha, who stood on the soaked tips of her toes and waved.
The woman nearly reached the other side of the gates. “What’s this, then? We don’t give handouts.” She scanned Samantha up and down and narrowed her eyes at Samantha’s bruised eye. She scowled as though Samantha’s injury was an affront.
Flustered, Samantha stared at the stranger and felt her heart beating rapidly. The woman appeared to be about sixty years of age and quite stout and solid. Her jowls gave her tanned features an almost rectangular shape under abundant graying hair pulled straight up into a knot at the top of her head. With almond-shaped black eyes, she stared back at Samantha over a pair of round gold spectacles.
The latter thought this woman—presumably the housekeeper—had a stern demeanor, but when she noticed the flower-shaped beauty mark to the left of her nose, Samantha’s shoulders dropped, and she exhaled. The beauty mark appeared to soften the housekeeper; she seemed slightly less intimidating.
Samantha clasped her hands together and wondered if this was a foolhardy plan. She glanced down and perceived, in the early morning light, that her pelisse was not only still damp but also stained with grass and smeared with mud from her tumble down the hill. Yet her pelisse and bonnet were fashionable garments, not the rags of a beggar. Her blackened eye, however, must have appeared worse than her soiled clothing.
Samantha opened her mouth and found words. “Do excuse me—I am not waiting for a handout. I am Miss Samantha Ponsonby, a friend of Harriet’s. Miss Prendregast’s, that is. Please let me see her.”
“Very well, Miss, but this is highly irregular, begging your pardon. It is hardly the time of day for calling. Miss Harriet won’t be up and about for hours, I expect.” Though her words were hardly encouraging, the housekeeper unlocked the gate.
Samantha impatiently wished to be indoors. “I am happy to wait for her. I do not have the luxury of arriving at a proper time.” Hoping she conveyed a sense of urgency, she glanced backward, as though Uncle Bradford was in hot pursuit.
The housekeeper observed the glance back, frowned at the bruised eye, and raised her eyebrows whilst she stepped back and swung the gate open.
Samantha sighed, lifted her portmanteau, and stepped onto the bridge. Following the housekeeper on the cobblestone surface, Samantha admired the blue water of the moat glistening in the morning sun. She glimpsed tiny Fae folk—pixies, she supposed—fluttering on butterfly wings among the thistles and cattails at the water’s edge. Samantha reached up and lightly touched the small iron pentacle hanging from her throat, though she doubted pixies could harm her.
She followed the housekeeper across the bridge and through an archway centered in the two-story gatehouse. They continued across a courtyard to the comparatively grand, arched double doors, the main entrance. How fortuitous that her uncle paid too little attention to her life to know she was friends with Harriet. If he knew, it would be easy for him to figure out her location.
Inside the dark-paneled front hallway, the housekeeper said, “Here, miss, let me take your coat.”
“Oh, certainly, thank you!” Samantha put down her bag and slipped quickly out of the damp and muddy pelisse. She passed it onto the housekeeper, whose nostrils flared. She grimaced as she took the lightweight coat and draped it over her arm.
Holding the pelisse away from her body, the housekeeper held her chin high and led Samantha to a nearby door. “You can come into this parlor and wait for Miss Harriet. I shall bring you tea.”
“Thank you ever so much!” Tears smarted in the corners of Samantha’s eyes, and she told herself to calm down and retain some dignity. The salt water made her swollen eye ache. Because of Uncle Bradford, a mite of kindness overwhelmed her. Mortified by the housekeeper’s disapproving scowl, Samantha gulped back her tears and forced a smile. She stepped into the parlor.
The servant followed her. “I’m the housekeeper, by the bye. My name’s Charis Dunn. No need to thank me.” Samantha gave a stiff and faltering bob of her head, but Dunn was no longer looking at her. “I’ll send the serving girl Jane to you.” She turned and left.
Samantha scanned the room. It was quite spacious, already with a roaring fire on the hearth. The fireplace was large, the mantel adorned with a clock and vases. Tapestries decorated the dark walls and rugs the wood floor, but the sofas and chairs looked modern, delicate with fine, curved lines, lion feet, and striped red satin upholstery.
Samantha stood admiring the room, when she heard the door creak open behind her, and she turned. A maidservant much younger than Dunn entered the room carrying a basin of water. A white towel was draped over her arm. “To wash your hands and face, Miss.”
Samantha glanced down at her muddy hands. “Splendid.”
The servant placed the basin on a table, pulled a cake of soap and a small dish out of her apron pocket, and placed them, along with the towel, on the table beside the basin. She curtseyed, and Samantha smiled politely. She did not wait for the servant to vacate the parlor before she moved toward the basin and immersed her hands in warm water. She felt slightly giddy with relief and closed her eyes.
After washing her face and hands, Samantha returned to her portmanteau. She carried it across the room and, placing it on the floor, sank into a chair close to the hearth. Feeling the heat emanating from the fire, she realized how chilled and damp she felt. Careful not to put pressure on her bruised hip, she leaned toward the fire and held out her hands.
Samantha wondered, with sinking dread, whether Harriet would keep her word rather than discourage her from staying. She felt a twinge of guilt for feeling distrustful toward her friend. But everyone left Samantha. Her parents died her when she was but a child. Her aunt and uncle swept in and took her away from Kent, so Margot and Roland were no longer her regular companions. Her aunt left her.
The door creaked behind her. Surprised that Dunn or the maidservant returned so soon, Samantha twisted behind and observed the wide-open door. She saw no one. This struck her as odd, since she had discerned a human presence. She gazed at the door and the dark entrance hall beyond and turned to face the fire. The house was old enough for many otherworldly visitants, she reflected. Convinced a specter had opened the door, she kept the latter within her peripheral vision, but the presence had vanished.
Samantha felt gratified to discover that, although this was not the library, the fireplace was flanked on both sides by glass-doored bookcases. After warming herself by the fire for several minutes and admiring the dancing and crackling orange flames, she stiffly rose from her chair and imagined pulling her boots off her sore feet.
She resisted the temptation to behave with such scant decorum and instead approached the bookcase on the right. She ran her hand along the spines, searching for something enticing, until she pulled out a dog-eared book by Ann Radcliffe. The title was The Mysteries of Udolpho. She took all four volumes of the book under the assumption that she would wish to promptly read the entire adventure and carried them. Sinking carefully onto the armchair, she beheld a small footstool and rested her feet on it.
Despite her headache and swollen eye, Samantha sat reading, deep into the melodramatic gothic novel, by the time the young servant, Jane, arrived with a tray covered in silver tea things, jam, a plate of scones, and a small plate of figs. Jane placed the tray on a small side table beside Samantha. The servant smiled at the guest before she stepped back to the door, withdrew, and closed it behind her. Samantha finished reading a paragraph before looking up and seeing the scones. She had worked up an appetite during her nocturnal journey, so she ate heartily whilst sipping tea and reading.
Samantha had nearly completed the first volume by the time Harriet crossed the parlor’s threshold. “Samantha Ponsonby! Odd’s bodkin!”
Samantha sprang out of the chair, suppressed a groan in reaction to her injuries, and rushed to her friend. She had never been more delighted to see Harriet, whose dark brown curls tumbled over her shoulders, for she had yet to dress her fashionably thick hair. She wore a simple pink muslin frock with small, puffy sleeves. The two friends embraced briefly. Samantha gulped down a sob.
Harriet held her at arm’s length and peered at her caller. “I declare, you look a fright! What has happened to you! Whatever brings you here at such an hour? I declare I was astonished when Dunn told me you have been waiting for me since dawn. It is ever so delightful to have you here, no matter the peculiar circumstances! You are such a wonderful sight to behold, never mind your ghastly swollen eye. What a pity—you have such lovely green eyes, but you will heal quickly. I shall summon a healer, and you will look like yourself soon enough.”
“Ah, thank you ever so much. These wounds are humiliating reminders. But hopefully I shall also feel like myself in no time.”
“Oh, you poor dear! I must assist you with those wounds.” Samantha glanced toward the water basin and towel, but Harriet glided swiftly to a bell pull beside the fireplace and tugged at it. She swirled around, returned to Samantha, and grasped both her hands. She peered at her black eye. “Tsk, tsk. Whatever did happen?”
“It was my uncle.”
“I feared as much. He is positively a brute!”
“Yes, indeed. I needed not his fists to learn that.” Samantha gasped out a sob. Harriet wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Samantha winced.
Harriet pulled back. “Have you more wounds than your eye?”
Samantha whispered, “Yes.” Her lip trembled.
Jane returned. Harriet fluttered her hands about. “Jane, summon our healer. My friend Miss Ponsonby is in grave need.”