Tales of Imagination and Mystery

THE GUIDE-4

The guide looked back and said carelessly “Nobody taught me”.

“Then how do you know it?”

Once again they saw that dreamy look in her eyes as she looked away as if debating how she should answer the question.

“I…I know it because….this house…is in my bones!”

She turned and looked at them slyly.

“You’re really enjoying this tour, aren’t you?” she asked them.

“Loving it!” said Jenny enthusiastically, beaming at her and putting her hand on the guide’s arm. Chris just looked at her blankly, trying to indicate to her without saying that he thought she was quite mad.

The guide reached into a pocket in her dress and took out an enormous old-fashioned key.

“There’s something that’s not really open for public viewing that I’d still love you to see. Follow me”

She led them out, and a little way further down the hall, put the key in the lock of a door, and turned it. The door opened and she pushed it inwards.

“Follow me up these stairs, but be very careful!”

She lifted her skirts so she wouldn’t trip, and proceeded up a very rickety spiral staircase that was in a stairwell so dark they could hardly see. Chris had to bend his head the clearance was so low. They went up one storey, and turned 360 degrees around at the same time, then the guide opened a door at the top, and a patch more light filtered in.

They were in an attic, where Chris could only stand up in the centre, as the roof sloped away to the floor at all sides.

“Don’t step anywhere I don’t, because it’s not safe” the guide warned. “This was used as servants’ quarters. The poor servants. You can imagine how hot it was in here in the middle of summer, and how cold in the winter with the chilly wind blowing through the cracks between the shingles in the roof. Can’t you imagine a pair of young servant girls swapping secrets about their lives and loves, or crying themselves to sleep with dejection at their lowly lot in life, or hugging each other to keep warm in the depths of winter?”

Jenny looked round, as if she could well imagine how it must have been.

Then the guide looked at Bobby, clinging to his mother’s skirt and staring at the guide with a fearful look “And of course, sometimes it was used as place to lock up bad children if they had been very naughty and needed to be taught a lesson!”.

At this Bobby burst into tears.

Jenny hugged him to her legs to comfort him. “Don’t worry, dear, the lady’s only joking. There, there. there, there, she‘s only having a little joke. No one’s going to lock you up here. We’ll be out soon”.

The guide only surveyed Bobby as if she found his histrionics amusing. For the first time Jenny looked at her with some annoyance.

Then the guide turned and opened another door that was cut into the roof. “Follow me out here” she said.

They bent their heads, and went through the low doorway and found themselves in bright sunlight on the roof of the house, on a small flat space like a balcony with battlements all along the edge. It was quite breezy, but they had a magnificent view. But they were shocked when the guide stepped backwards without even looking where she was placing her feet, onto the top of one of the battlements, with the agility of a gymnast, and stood with her back to the sheer drop behind her, and clasped her hands in front of her as if she was going to make a speech. The back of her heels were right at the edge of the battlement.

“Oh my gosh” exclaimed Jenny putting her hands to each side of her face. “Be careful dear! That’s a three storey drop behind you!”

She clasped Bobby too her. “Stay with me Bobby, don’t you dare go near the edge”.

The guide just smiled and looked as if it was not a worry to her. “I can’t fall. And what’s that they say? ‘You can only die once!’”

She turned half round and waved her hand at the view.

“Isn’t it magnificent? From here on a clear day they could see ships at sea, and they used to signal to them with a system of flags to tell them if they needed supplies, or if they had to come into the wharf to be picked up. And they could spot bushfires miles and miles away.”

The skirt of her dark blue dress blew around her in the wind and she held her hair back as the wind blew it across her face, as she contemplated the distance wistfully.

“Can you see the sea out there through the trees?” she asked, pointing over their heads.

Chris and Jenny turned round looked where she was pointing and could just make out the sea. They had their back to her. Then suddenly her voice seemed to come from down low. They turned and the guide was lying flat on her back with her hands behind her head. They hadn’t heard her step down off the battlements.

“Lady of the house Evelyn, used to come up here sometimes on the hot nights, or when she had had a fight with her husband George, for relief and just lie under the stars and sing herself to sleep” said the guide, dreamily.

“Did she sing Greensleeves?” suggested Chris, sarcastically. But the guide ignored him.

“Was that in the diary, about singing herself to sleep?” asked Jenny.

The guide looked up at her confused.

“No”

“Then how do you know she did it?” pursued Jenny.

Once again they that troubled look on her face, as if she was debating something within herself. Then she ran her hand round inside her collar again, and stroked each wrist with the other hand in turn again as if they were sore.

“I just …know..”.she muttered finally.

Chris and Jenny turned to look at the distant sea again. Then they heard the guide’s voice right behind them. They turned and she was standing up again. They hadn’t heard her rise.

“Is this from where the awful Evelyn threw her children?” asked Jenny.

A look of shock came over the guide’s face, and she looked Jenny up and down. “Who told you that she did?” she asked.

“Why, Carol. She said Evelyn took her children up on the roof and threw them off, and then ran downstairs drowned them in a pond when she saw they weren’t quite dead”

“It’s a lie!” the guide said in a strident tone with a look of extreme displeasure on her face, and an air of authority. She looked into the distance. “She was wrongly accused, and hanged for crimes she didn’t commit. Her husband, George Hardy, was a bad, bad man. He came in a fit of rage once …intoxicated out of his mind ….and..” she put her hands to her face, as if in horror “….he took the three beautiful little children… and he dragged them up to the attic. here ….and he took them out on these battlements …and he…… threw them off! But when he ran down the stairs to see if they were dead, they weren’t dead! They were just rolling on the ground screaming with all their bones broken screaming, so he dragged them to the creek, and he held both their heads under the water, until they were dead!…… And then his wife, the adoring, faithful, pious, devoted, gentle Evelyn, who heard the screams.. came running out…and saw what he had done…she went to attack him..tried to beat him with her tiny fists .. but he threw her on the ground…then he tried to choke her..but she fought herself free…because he was so drunk, even though he was so strong …. he was not able to hold her..and she picked up an axe to defend herself” suddenly the guide made motions as if she herself had an axe in her hand and was swinging it “…and she struck him..and she struck him..and struck him…..until he was dead. …But they wouldn’t believe her…the servants lied and said they had seen it all and she had killed the children, and then killed her husband.. because he had tried to stop her….! So she was tried..and convicted.. of killing her own children..and her husband ..and she was taken…” here she suddenly made the motion again of running her hand round inside her collar as if it was choking her.”..to a place not far from here….and hanged!…And the rope was too short and she took many, many minutes to die… hanging there choking and struggling..and twisting and turning..with her hands tied behind her..” She suddenly started the other motion of stroking each of her wrists with the opposite hand in turn, as if they were hurting.”…..until finally she expired..Oh what a miscarriage of justice! She loved her three little children…like no mother had even loved her children ….and she was killed for their killing…but she was not guilty! Oh what a miscarriage of justice…!”

All the time she alternately made the motion of running her hand around inside her collar, pulling it away from her neck, and stroking her wrists.

When she had finished her diatribe, she stared at the stone floor of the balcony for many seconds with a look of terror on her face, while Chris and Jenny stood stock still in horror. Then, as suddenly, the guide’s demeanour changed, and she smiled.

“We’ll go back downstairs now” she said.

As she led then back into the attic and down the rickety stairs she called back “Be careful again, these stairs are very dangerous, I can tell you.” Then as if on an afterthought, she added, looking down at Bobby, who was coming down the stairs behind her holding his mother’s hand “That’s another way we used to punish naughty children, we used to throw them down the attic stairs and break all their bones!”

Bobby looked up at her in fear, and as she went to tousle his hair he pulled away

When they were back down the stairs, and she had locked the door that led to the attic, Jenny said “You seem to know this place like the back of your hand!”

The guide stood still and stared dreamily past the Jenny’s face. “Every inch of it. Every corner, Every stair of every staircase. Every door. Every nook and cranny. Every creaking floorboard. Every window-shutter that rattles in the wind. Every cobweb. Every knot in the planks of wood. I can find my way even in the dark, when the candle blows out, and I haven’t a match to re-light it..”

“Why on earth would you be using a candle when there are lights?”

Once again they saw the peculiar ambiguous look on her face. She frowned, looked down, then left and right, then looked half up, and past them, as if debating something within herself.

“Oh yes….. there are lights now, aren’t there..…”

Then she came out of her reverie and said “I ought to know it well, as I live here”

Jenny looked confused. “Wait a minute, what do you mean you ‘live here?’ You told us you come and go through your private entrance. Surely you don’t actually live here”

The guide narrowed her eyes slightly, and looked suddenly very evasive, as if she was debating within herself what to say by way of explanation.

“I live here…..sometimes…” she explained. “So I can get…the feel of the place….and be a better guide……But I can also come and go as I please, as I said”.

Jenny studied the guide’s face closely as if trying to fathom this strange creature.

“Well, I guess you would never have any trouble being late for work if you slept here overnight!” she finally opined. “Where do you sleep? In the grand bedroom?”

The guide just looked at her with the same inscrutable expression, then looked past her into the distance. “I can sleep anywhere I like…sometimes I don’t sleep…I just walk all through the house… making sure everything is safe…..” She ran her fingers round inside her collar again, and winced slightly, “talking to the house….”

Then she snapped out of it, and said “Now we’ll go to the East Wing. To get there we have to go through the entrance hall where we started from.”

She opened a door, and they found themselves back in the hallway where they had come in.

“And here we are back in the grand entrance hall” said the guide.

Chris took his cue.

“Good, That means we’re finished and we can go!”

At this a look of horror came over the guide’s face. “Oh, please don’t go, I haven’t shown you one tenth of the house! That door there goes to the East Wing, where George Hardy’s study is, and the servants quarters, and I want to take you out and show you the barns, and the quarters above them where the stable hands lived, and the garden, and the pond, and the kitchen…..the kitchen is separate from the house, across the courtyard, to protect the rest of the house from fire……… You haven’t seen one half of this place. You haven’t heard a fraction of the tales. There’s so many stories, so any treasures, so many memories, so many secrets, so many characters,,,,” Her voice became more and more strident and pleading with each word.