It was late on a dreary November afternoon when we reached our cheerless destination, there was the threat of autumn fog in the air and a film of dampness clung about us. More dismal conditions would have been hard to imagine. Upon sight of the Hall the stomach souring nausea began to rise within me, as I feared it would. How long had it been since last I had stood in this miserable gateway – thirty-five, forty years? Oldthorpe Hall was a spacious Georgian pile whose days of splendor were long gone even when as a child I played with my friends around its decaying grounds.
I needed to bite on my lip to suppress a tear of despair: that it had come to this. Those many years ago my view had been very different, for then we had been young with a bright future stretching before us, whereas Oldthorpe Hall was the shabby home for the flotsam and jetsam of an industrial city, a refuge for the forsaken young woman with her hungry child; an early stepping stone for the Irish immigrant on the road to better times: ‘ships that pass in the night’; they came and they went, one knew not where. The hard core of the Hall’s dwellers were more permanent and less fortunate: the old, the worn and the down and outs. For them this was the end of the road, the reward for a life of failure, or perhaps just bad luck. Here they ended up to become figures of fun for our pitiless youth.
It was from this very gateway we would taunt them, I could see them still: Harry Chalmers, a heavy old man with sprawling feet and rocking gate, not adverse to taking a tipple too many and rolling home in his dirty raincoat and shabby bowler hat with voice in full flow.
‘Hey up, old Harry’s drunk again,’ we would say. But nobody would get too close to him when the alcohol was upon him and he full of fight, he’d give you a whack with his stick if you got too near. In the cold light of day he was a shy man eager to seek the comforting cloak of the shadow on his walk. Then there was Herbert Talbot, the poor chap had lost half his face in some dreadful accident, evidently, and there had been no plastic surgery for him but we were never mature enough to ponder on the plight of these poor folk, or to be compassionate towards them; we saw their present state and looked no further. Herbert must have got behind with his rent or otherwise upset ‘Granny Gray’, as we called the caretaker, a tiny shriveled old woman who kept a ‘tight ship’ at the Hall. She had Herbert throw out, literally, into the street – chattels and all. He didn’t attempt to find alternative accommodation and no one seemed inclined to help him. He just set up home in the fresh air on a grass verge at the side of the road and slept there in a fully made up feather bed complete with iron bed frame and brass knobs; he had his tables and chairs by him, the lot. Folk came to gaze at him and said how comfortable he looked – until it rained that is, then it was all became a sorry sight to see.
Then there was George Telford; he was immune from our ridicule. George was an ex rugby league player and had been a boxer, but had lost his sight from the continual battering he had received in the ring. George was thoughtful enough to sing in a low tuneless rumble when he returned on an evening to the Hall so that he would not frighten females who might be abroad of an evening in the ill lit lanes. There was an old tale that a young woman had been brutally murdered in Oldthorpe Lane back in Victorian times. But then there was a tale that a phantom coach which drove down Oldthorpe Lane every Christmas Eve but no one ever believed that tale was true so it was more or less taken for granted that the murder was in the same category. It’s a fact that once an event falls beyond living memory it might as well be ancient history. Yes, George was thoughtful alright, but it did not stop his three little guide dogs from adding to the distasteful aroma of the place. One last character flashed through my mind as I picked up the dog-eared suitcase and coaxed Elizabeth through the gate: Naked Jack, he was a nasty little man who had lived on the ground floor with a big fat woman – twice his size. The reason he had inherited that distasteful tag was after he had come to the door stark naked one day when I had come to collect the paper money – yes I used to deliver papers here in another lifetime – perhaps he had been in the act of some devil may care sex orgy when I arrived. Anyway I had been daft enough to tell my mates of the encounter and they had thereafter taken every opportunity to shout, ‘naked Jack,’ after him when he was seen about and poor me still had to go collect his paper money every week!
We were half way along the crescent shaped drive now, the massive weeping willow still stood, dominating the front of the house, its great weeping festoons black and bedraggled from the industrial fall out. The stench was still there too as we pushed in through the crumbling outer door, it clung to the cracked emulsion a mixture of musty dinner smells and stale urine. I used to think it was the result of George Telford’s dogs but it still persisted even now. The Hall had always been the worst part of that paper round. Winter was the worst time, it had not been on the electric mains in those days only dreary gaslight that flickered eerie shadows everywhere. Sometimes the gas mantle had gone in the passageways and Granny Gray had not got round to its replacement or perhaps she just resented having to pay for the gas outside her own room. When the gas was out I’d have feel my way towards the doors of the individual rooms which were set off in even darker recesses than the main passageway. I always had an irrational fear that should a tenant suddenly open their door and find me thrashing around in the darkness trying to find their letter box they would think I was up to no good.
There was one particularly dark doorway, which had belonged to a Miss Bierce – she’d be dead of course by now but at the time she was considered to be weird even through the eyes of Granny Gray’s other unconventional lodgers. She didn’t take a paper, nor was there ever a comforting light showing beneath her door. I’d never even seen her come to think about it but I had heard her moving about, apparently in complete darkness. I once heard Harry Chalmers say: ‘That one’s too long out of the cemetery!’ What a strange thing to say, what a very strange statement, so strange in fact I have remembered it all these years; what on earth was he implying? At least the lack of electricity seemed to have been rectified for I could see a dim light burning in one of the downstairs rooms.
I managed but partially to suppress another shudder for Elizabeth’s benefit; I didn’t want to convey to her any more of my distaste for the place than absolutely necessary, she was ailing and the dampness of this place was going to be of no help to her health at all. The State provided hardly a tolerable lifestyle and for those of us who had once known better times the come down was all the harder to stomach but we had made the decision that whatever the circumstances we would refuse to be parted; that would really have been the end. So, without a job and no immediate prospects since the collapse of our business two years previously the choice seemed to be: together here in this moldering edifice or separated in the hostels and that was no contest.
We were at the main door now, the brown paint had cracked into a million tiny fragments and the surrounded brickwork oozed white salt encrustations, I could well believe the place hadn’t seen a lick of paint since I had been here all those years before. Although the Hall was in a terribly dilapidated condition, that it survived at all was surprising, somehow it seemed to possess an amazing capacity for survival; as I recalled it there had been several neighbouring buildings that had been in far better condition than the Hall but were now completely obliterated or lay in ruins allowing the Hall itself to endure massively alone in sinister solitude; almost an uncanny enchantment seemed to be keeping bricks and mortar together.
Granny Gray used to have a room half way along the main passageway on the right; I remembered how her windows overlooked the great weeping willow. It had been no use knocking on her door she always had been deaf. The procedure had been to open her private door and shout through, ‘Hello Mrs. Gray, are you there?’ …… Of course, I corrected my thoughts the Mrs Gray who had replied to my application for a room must be the daughter, daughter-in-law or even granddaughter of the original Mrs Gay, who would have been well over a hundred years old if she were alive today.
The stench of the place was really depressing me by now, I staggered and my wife took my arm, ‘Are you alright, love,’ she enquired, although she must have been repulsed by the place herself. ‘I’m sorry it should come to this love; let’s hope it won’t be for too long.’ I finally managed to croak, but she could hardly have failed to note the tone of utter despair in my voice.
Taking stock of the conditions of the accommodation my despair began to give way to anger, ‘The whole building should be condemned, I’ve seen places that were palaces compared with this dump shut down by the Health and Safety people!’ I had groused, but my anger was irrational, nobody had asked us to come here and beggars can’t be choosers as the old saying goes.
By now we had arrived at the room previously occupied by old Granny Gray; there was a tatty piece of paper pinned to it on which was written: Mrs. Gray, caretaker. I knocked. No answer. I knocked again and yet a third time much harder. Finally I caught the sound of shuffling carpet slippers from within and after an age the sound of bolts shifting on the inside of the door, which eventually opened a fraction and allowed the light from a low powered bulb into the hallway.
‘Hello, who is it?’ the voice carried the shrill tone of a deaf person who has difficulty hearing herself.
We had to look down to see the speaker. My God, if this was Granny Gray’s daughter she was a carbon copy of her mother – she was a tiny woman and even more shriveled than her mother – if that were possible, with great folds of warty skin hung beneath her watery eyes.
‘What do you want?’ she shrilled again.
I pushed the letter of acceptance towards her, and she snatched at it with her bony old claw. It was quite apparent her eyes were too dim to make sense of it though I could see she was having a good try.
‘Can’t find my glasses,’ she said at length. ‘Have you got business with me?’
‘We’re Mr And Mrs Johnston, Mrs. Gray. We wrote to you and you replied offering us tenancy of one of your vacant rooms.’
She wrinkled her eyes, looking us up and down before backing off into the light.. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said leading us off into a spacious room full of Victorian clutter.
I remembered the room well, it seemed to have changed little in thirty-odd years, since I’d been here before. The marble topped dresser still carried the pink washing bowl and jug – although by the look of her she hadn’t made use of them for some time, there was still her unkempt bed beneath the window that she attempted to hide with an old Chinese screen. Could it be the same old ‘black out’ curtains from World War Two that still hung from the windows? If the answer to that was in the affirmative then her dress was as ancient too for it was fashioned from the same material. Finally my eye lit upon the picture above the mantle piece, among all the shambling mass here was a treasure of true beauty, a Grimshaw painting of a young lady with a Grecian hair style residing in front of the classical frieze that had been a feature of the Hall in its hey day. I had been shown that painting before and told how valuable it was then – so if was in fact an original it would certainly be worth a pretty penny today. It struck me as strange as to how such a beautiful and valuable piece had resisted theft by one of the ‘dodgy’ tenants or being sold off to raise cash for maintenance,
In the light, dim as it was, our landlady to be looked even worse – little more than four feet tall in her wrinkled stockings and floppy carpet slipper and in general shape that of a pear. Surely it was a human instinct to ensure one’s appearance was less than hideous at the very least. I looked around the room for sight of a mirror that she might have used to ameliorate her appearance but there was none. Perhaps she couldn’t bear the sight of herself?
The woman continued to mumble to herself the saliva oozing from between her three remaining yellow teeth at regular intervals. At first it seemed as though we must have passed her rigorous inspection for she took down a huge ring of keys from a hook on the wall and began to fiddle with them.
‘I have a nice room for you on the first floor,’ she said finally finding the key she sought. ‘The young woman who had it…’ she paused for a moment as if thinking on that person and then went on, ‘had to leave, yes, she had to leave. You’re lucky to have such a nice big room today for that money. ’
then I wasn’t so sure she was satisfied with our suitability for she decided to have another close look at me, uncomfortably too close, bearing in mind her fetid breath. She then side-stepped a pace and scrutinized Elizabeth again You would have thought she was putting us up at the Ritz,
‘Don’t want any riff raff you understand.’
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened on my arm and it dawned upon me that we were standing in her presence like a couple of frightened children in the headmaster’s study.
‘Pay you rent every Friday or your out,’ she continued still peering at us. To say that we found the situation uncomfortable was an understatement.
At last she lowered her gaze and extracted a large mortise key from the ring, and turning her back on us she made slow progress in lighting a candle with her shaking hand.
‘I’m afraid the electrics are all out in the hall and on the stairs at the moment, I’ll get it fixed as soon as I can,’ she added leading the way out of her room and shuffling her way to the back stairs. It was all so familiar, so sickeningly familiar from my days delivering the papers. But there was a surprise was in store for me, for as we passed the recessed door of the room previously occupied by the sinister Miss Bierce and where the shadows danced grotesquely from the candlelight Mrs Gray stopped and putting her finger to her lips whispered for us to be quiet and on our tip toes every time we passed this particular room.
‘The lady who has this room is very sick,’ she mumbled on, I just caught her finish her mumble with ‘I don’t want you disturbing Miss Bierce.’
Her revelation surprised me to such extent that I was unable to stop myself letting out a little whistle and exclaiming: ‘What? Miss Bierce is still alive!’
The dwarf figure in front of us halted immediately and turned to face us with an urgency of movement previously concealed.
‘What was that?’ she squeaked, ‘What did you say about Miss Bierce?’
Her verbal attack had a fierceness that I had not expected and her sharp eye was a little frightening in the flickering candle light forcing me immediately onto the defensive. My reply was weak and it entered my head that it was not seemingly for me to cower in the face of this little old woman in front of Elizabeth. Nevertheless I apologized for my outburst, pointing out that I had known of Miss Bierce when I had delivered the papers so long ago and had understood that Miss Bierce was said to be an elderly lady even then.
The hag moved even closer to me permeating my nostrils with her fusty aroma. It was a riveting experience. Elizabeth told me later, happily with a hint of humour in her voice that I had visibly wilted in the face of the old woman’s onslaught. However, I gleaned from that minor altercation that Mrs. Gray possessed an iron which was not apparent in her appearance.
Finally she spoke without any fuss, ‘Miss Bierce was a very young woman thirty years ago – did you ever see her?’
I was forced into a timorous, ‘No’. At which she nodded as if to say, ‘Well then!’
She paused for a moment as if daring me to force the issue further, which I was happy to decline. But my mind went back to the strange exposition that I had heard Harry Chalmers make all those years ago, ’That one is too long out of the cemetery.’ Surely indicating she was old even then! Abruptly the old woman turned and continued to lead her crotchety way up the back staircase
The room she was to let to us was not one I recognized from the old days but it was not out of context with the rest of the Hall. The fusty smell of dampness prevailed across the sparse furnishings. As our own possessions had been taken by the bailiffs these would have to suffice – I ardently prayed that the duration of need for these few sticks would be short lived.
Our landlady made a cursory circumnavigation of the room, probably taking a mental inventory of its meager contents, she had almost reached the doorway in preparation for her exit when a rumbling sounded from deep below; I felt the floor shake and Elizabeth clung to the iron bed-foot in alarm while I steadied myself with arms outstretched in the middle of the room. Our host seemed unperturbed merely regarding our alarm with a shrug of her hunched shoulders.
‘Its an old building,’ she said, ‘Its been doing that for as long a I can remember – no doubt it’ll do it for a few more years yet!’
I wasn’t so sure the foundations seemed to be crumbling beneath us. God knows what condition they must be in. The old woman lit another candle for us as our room light was missing a bulb too which she promised would be rectified in the morning. We found the candle a poor substitute for a proper light as it flickering light hardly reached the confines of the room. The gas fire was happily functional though upon the insertion of a coin. Finally she shuffled out of the room and into the corridor muttering to herself again and I just thought I caught her mumble something about, ‘That being a bad one and that Eleanor, I believe she said, needing sustenance to keep the bricks and mortar of the building together. I had no idea to what she referred. I wouldn’t have heard her at all had she not been talking louder than a normal person due to her deafness. What a strange woman she was! What a very strange woman!
Her departure left us alone with the flickering candle, the hissing of the gas fire and the perpetual creaking of the decrepit building. As quickly as possible we retired to the unwholesome dampness of the feather bed, at least it offered the comfort that only a feather mattress, can. Once in the bed I tried to force from my mind the harm the dampness must be causing to Elizabeth’s delicate condition and just as hard I tried not to contemplate on how many flea ridden bodies had been its occupants before us.
Our fitful sleep on that fist night was interrupted by several minor tremors and rumblings from the deep accompanied by scuffling and bumps which appeared to come from the room directly below ours and worst of all a scratching sound which appeared to issue from the wardrobe in the far corner of the room which I took to be mice or at worst, rats. My investigations found the wardrobe door to be locked and the keyhole empty. I resolved to ask for the key from the caretaker the following morning.
In the bright light of day our room was far less sinister, one could have imagined it to have been, opulent, in Georgian days. It was of ample proportions, the ceiling high with a delicate frieze all way round its perimeter. The three large windows traversed from floor to ceiling and faced east, allowing bright sunlight to flood the room and afford pleasant views across the walled garden to a grassy meadow complete with pond and on to woodland in the distance. Across from the windows stood a period dressing table with a fine backboard sporting cascading bunches of carved grapes; curiously for a dressing table the mirror which should have been the center point was missing. There was no doubt that at its conception the Hall must have been a splendid residence. Within the memory of my own late grandparents, which would have taken them back to a time shortly after the painter, Grimshaw had been the occupant, the Hall had been the residence of a fashionable doctor, Eddington, who could be recalled galloping through the gates in liveried trap to service his practice. If Grimshaw and Eddington could only see the place today they would surely turn in their graves.
In the days that followed I scoured the immediate area in vain for work, I would have contemplated anything as long as it did not keep me away from Elizabeth for too long, she hated the place especially when she was left alone. The toll on her appearance was terrible to behold, she complained of the loneliness by day – for it seemed for the moment we were the only residents of the Hall apart from the caretaker, who was no company at all, and the sinister unseen, Miss Bierce. Worst of all was her trepidation of the nights, as soon as the shadow from the windows reached the edge of the tattered carpet she would become nervous, and begin pacing the room, brushing down her forearms and repeating her few trivial tasks over and over again. It seemed she was hiding something from me. On her frequent visits to the doctor it was confirmed that her bronchial condition was accelerating and in addition she had developed anemia, which puzzled the doctor. He prescribed drier conditions and a warmer climate but of course the prescription and the attainment of these goals were two entirely different things.
We had endured about three weeks of the Hall’s somber fair when my luck changed somewhat in that I landed a bar tendering job at the Green Gate Hotel which was located at the top of Oldthorpe Lane, barely a mile from the Hall. It wasn’t much but it was a start – the first step back onto the road of respectability and the hope that this opportunity might lead to something better enabling us to shake the smell of Oldthorpe Hall from our nostrils, for it is much easier to secure more lucrative employment if one is already working than if one is unemployed. In some respects though the position was far from satisfactory; the hours did not suit Elizabeth’s delicate mental state at all. My duties at The Green commenced at eleven a.m. and finished at three p.m. which was fine but the evening shift was less opportune, I was on duty from eight until eleven, then the cellar work took up another thirty or forty minutes so it was past midnight by the time I returned to the Hall. I could tell Elizabeth hated it; sometimes she would spend an hour in the bar so that we could return home together. Occasionally she would visit friends on the other side of the city but at the cost of returning and entering the Hall alone which she found repugnant Much as she hated the loneliness of sitting alone in our room she found this eminently preferable to walking the dark passages of the Hall on her own. It was only her pride and level headedness that prevented her from asking me to give up the job altogether.
I was far from immune to the eeriness of the Hall myself, often I would wake in the night myself covered in a cold sweat the result of some bizarre nightmare filled with the screams of the old inhabitants of the Hall crying out in agony. Then I would lay awake wondering what happened to them all: Harry Chalmers, George Telford, Herbert Talbot and all those young women with their babies. The old timers would obviously be dead by now but no one could actually remember them dying, they just stopped being seen around. Yet no cortege was ever observed to exit gates of Oldthorpe Hall; nor could folk remember them leaving, except for poor Herbert of course who finished up on the grass verge. Anyway where could they go from here, tired and those worn out by life as they were? No, this was the end of the road for them; apart from the possibility of a shop doorway and a cold lingering death there was nowhere lower for them to sink and nobody, my young self included ever cared a jolt! So called ‘nice people’ did not concern themselves with the unsavory lives of Granny Gray’s down at heel lodgers. The comprehension that we too were now counted among their number alarmed me to the core.
I had to shake myself out of these meanderings or my mind would race to dastardly deeds being done and rotting bones in the Hall cellar. It was ridiculous of course, who would prosper by doing away with such penniless wretches and yet at that juncture wild horses would not have dragged me below the ground floor of that dreadful place.
It would have been about our fourth of fifth week at the Hall that Elizabeth saw the woman. I remember the night well I had arrived home later than usual; I found Elizabeth in a real state of agitation. She said she had been laid in bed reading and becoming drowsy she had fallen asleep, when she awoke the light that had been burning was out and she could not place where she was for the moment but felt a terrible chill in the air, gradually as her eyes came into focus she saw a woman was bending over her, her face very close to her own, she said she thought she was still dreaming and made to rub her eyes – when she opened them again the woman had gone but a rustling noise in the corner near the wardrobe confirmed in her mind that the visitation had been a reality. Elizabeth was really distressed and I saw a little trickle of blood issuing from her neck where I imagined she had scratched herself while threshing around in some horrible nightmare but nevertheless I attempted to humour her.
‘The woman you saw, what did she look like?’ I asked. Elizabeth thought for a while before she described a woman with assertion.
She was dressed in black, young and slender with a white face, black hair and huge eyes. I suppose her face could be described as beautiful, but evil, so very evil for one so young.
‘There you are then dear, it must have been a dream there’s certainly no young woman here to fit that description, its far from fitting for Granny Gray (I’d taken to calling the caretaker, ‘Granny Gray’ just as I had christened her mother) and the only other woman living in the Hall is Miss Bierce, God she must be a hundred and twenty by now!’
She laughed a little nervously and asked me to try the wardrobe door again. It was still locked and I chided myself for failing to acquire that damned key but each time I broached the subject the caretaker found some excuse to fob me off; first she said she’d lost it but when I offered to force it she nearly jumped down my throat, telling me it was a valuable antique, which it never was, then she said for me to forget about it and she would let me move in another wardrobe from one of the empty rooms, which was hard to argue against. That did not stop me from finding the whole episode curious and while I brought another wardrobe in from another room myself the existing one had to stay because it was a fixture. In my mind there were sinister overtones to it all.
All in all I remained far from happy with the situation, the scratching, which I conceived to be rats continued from the old wardrobe and I wanted an end to it. It so happened that a couple of days later the rent was due so as we were on our way out I resolved to pay the rent and tackle the caretaker in her lair. There was no answer to our knock, which wasn’t unusual she never could hear us so I pushed open the door and shouted into the room for her, still no answer but I could see out through her window into the garden. Mrs. Gray had a vegetable patch out there where she grew lettuce and radishes, some for her own consumption and some she sold to the locals for a few coppers, I could recall being sent to purchase some myself by my mother when I was a boy. I could she was out there now servicing her vegetables, so feeling like a naughty schoolboy I said to Elizabeth, ‘Quick the coast is clear come and look at this paining.’ We moved across to see the painting over the mantle piece; it was an exquisite production of oil on canvas signed on the front ‘Atkinson Grimshaw’. The subject was that of a very beautiful young girl. It looked like an original to me but then I was no expert.
Is she still out there,’ I said, daring to lift the picture from the wall and look on the back. There was a handwritten note on the brown paper backing: Eleanor Bierce in the Hall age 18 (1872)
I turned to show Elizabeth the inscription but she was riveted as though in a trance.
‘Whatever is the mater now,’ I said as I replaced the painting.
‘That woman, it’s the same woman I saw in our room!’ was her incredulous reply.
My concern for Elizabeth was of course in no way eased by her pronouncement for now I feared she was losing her marbles as well, but my main worry obviously centered on her deteriorating physical condition that was plain for all to see. Particularly in the mornings she seemed drained of energy and very pale, the scratch she had inflicted upon herself the night of her nightmare had not healed and continued to look inflamed and angry. I tried to persuade her to visit the doctor again but she declined, excusing herself on account of not feeling up to climbing the steep hill on the approach to the doctor’s surgery. I even considered spending some of our hard earned cash on a taxi but she wouldn’t hear of it. So I threatened to bring the doctor to her but she became even more agitated – insisting the doctor was far too busy attending to really sick patients to waste his time on her. I think in actuality she was ashamed for him to see the squalor in which we lived. I tried to reason with her that contrary to her fears in this respect the doctor could prove a valuable ally in our quest for more hygienic accommodation. But she was adamant and concerned only that we press on quickly to acquire the means to shake the dust of this places from our shoes forever.
As Elizabeth grew weaker the Hall for some inexplicable reason seemed to grow inversely stronger. We seldom heard the ominous rumble of the foundation now and even the walls were drying out. Granny Gray seemed almost pleasant towards us, displaying a kind of sinister gayety. She even enquired if we had any other young friends seeking accommodation. Occasionally she brought warm food for Elizabeth and showed an uncharacteristic concern for her frailty: although I could not get over an uncomfortable feeling that reminded me of the old witch fattening up Hansel and Gretel with view to feasting upon them. When I tried to enlist her support in Elizabeth’s presence to call in the doctor it was Elizabeth who gained an ally instead for the woman took every conceivable excuse to debunk the idea, which wasn’t surprising when one considered the unsanitary conditions of her domain.
My own dreams and night sweats continued, when the heavy dreams were upon me I would get out of bed and pace the room to dispel them from my head. On one such occasion there was a silvery moon shining and I stood for a while taking in the walled garden bathed in moonlight it was an uplifting scene in comparison to the somber interior of the Hall. My eye suddenly picked up a movement in the far corner of the garden at a point where the wall turned ninety degrees. It was a good fifty yards away but I could discern at least it was the movement of a lithe young female. Who could possibly be coveting in so remote a place in the middle of the night? I resolved to have a look in that corner of the garden next morning and went back to bed. Awaiting my opportunity when Granny Gray was engaged elsewhere I made my exploration of the corner of the garden where I had seen the strange visitor. To my surprise I found a gravestone and before it fresh flowers. Three names were inscribed upon the stone:
- Eleanor Bierce our darling daughter wickedly slain and taken from us in the midst of life aged nineteen years 12th December 1873
- Edward Bierce father of the above
- Died 15th Jan 1874 aged 45 years
- A broken heart never mended
- Lillian Bierce
- Mother and wife of the above
- Died 14th March 1874
It was not all that unusual to find a grave in a garden dating from the mid 19th century, it was quite a regular occurrence for Quakers to bury their dead close to the living and I knew similar graves existed in other grand houses of the district. It was of course reference to the Bierce family that had me riveted. Everything pointed to the Eleanor Bierce on the stone being the same girl as portrayed in the Grimshaw painting. It seemed the poor girl had met her demise but a year later than she had been painted. I made a scribbled note of the details and it did not escape my notice that the previous evening had been the 15th of January; the anniversary of the father’s death. The father who it seemed had never recovered from the death of his dear daughter. ‘Slain’, I wondered what lay behind that strange inscription.
Armed with the data from the grave stone I resolved to pay a visit to the public library and research their newspaper archives. After a few false starts, I located the Daily News for the 12th Dec 1873. There was no mention of any dark deeds being committed on that date but the following day, the 13th, there was a heading:
Murder Most Foul in Oldthorpe Lane
There followed an account of how the beat policeman had come across the body of 19 year old Eleanor Brice brutally murdered in Oldthorpe Lane. I searched the papers for the following days; it was a nine day wonder with all manner of theories and supplication. One heading read.
- Bloodless Corpse: Police Ridicule Vampire Theory
There followed eye witness accounts of a tall dark stranger being seen in the vicinity of the murder spot previous to the event. I continued my search through several weeks of the paper but gradually the sensation ran its course and petered out as all sensations invariable do. I never came across anyone being arrested for the crime but it confirmed the handed down tale we had all heard but were reticent to believe of a young woman being murdered in Oldthorpe Lane in Victorian Times. It had actually happened and the victim was the beautiful Eleanor Bierce aged 19. It was on my way home from the library that the ‘vampire theory’ began to nag at me. I had read a bit on vampire lore myself and understood that in the myth, one killed by a vampire becomes a vampire in death too. I chided myself for even contemplating such a ridiculous idea. But little niggles kept sneaking into my head: the lack of mirrors, people living inordinately long lives and Elizabeth’s anemia – by the time I had reached the Hall I had myself really spooked.
I should have packed our bags and left the place for heaven knows where but that was the rub ‘where’? Things seemed to become more normal for a while, Elizabeth had no more apparitions and although she was little better she seemed no worse and our little nest egg was growing as I took every opportunity for extra work quieter down. Then one dreadful night I saw the woman for myself. Well into the night my I was awakened by a great chill which had invaded the room. The moon was out again and shining brightly through the three great windows giving the whole room a silvery bloom. I was laid on my side facing away from Elizabeth but I could feel a powerful malign presence nearby it made the hairs on the back of my neck bristle. Momentarily I felt petrified and quite unable to turn my head, finally when I succeeded it was in one quick movement. A dark shadowy form hung across my wife, at first I could not fathom the nature of that I was seeing but as if sensing my gaze whatever manner of creature it was detached itself from my wife’s neck and momentarily faced me full on. It was a beautiful woman, white faced with profuse hair and dressed in black just as Elizabeth had described in her account; she was right it was the woman in the picture! For a moment our eyes locked, such eyes, such a look, I will remember it to my dying day. Abruptly she turned and flitted with amazing speed to the far side of the room where she was three times silhouetted as she passed the moonlit windows. I wish I could say that I got up straight away and followed her to the far side of the room but alas my nerve was completely shot, instead of positive action I snuggled up closer to Elizabeth who had not even awakened. I stayed rooted in that position until sleep finally arrived with the first rays of the sun.
In the morning I put my experience down to having another wretched dream; the door to the room was still bolted from the inside so how could anyone have entered and not be still in here? After careful consideration I decided against relating my dream to Elizabeth and upsetting her again but I could not help noticing with a shudder that there was fresh blood on her neck and night attire again.
There was no way I could bring Granny Gray into my confidence regarding my ‘visitations’, findings in the garden or at the library for I was convinced that if there were dark deeds a foot she must be party to them. So coward that I was I let life meander along without taking it by the throat, curse me for not being a man of action; that was probable the reason our business had floundered in the first place and we found ourselves in our present predicament. Meanwhile I was no nearing securing more lucrative employment and depression was beginning to dominate my conscious hours. I found it a relief to escape to the robust atmosphere of the pub. I tried to comfort myself by reasoning that I was only working here in order that we should escape the Hall but each time I left Elizabeth alone with strict instructions to bolt her door and let no one in but me, I still felt that I was deserting her. When I emerged through those decrepit gates it was like being freed from prison, unfortunately there was always the thought that I had to return there at the back of my mind and I had taken to having a tipple too many in order to fortify myself for the return. Even while I was in the process of drinking I knew I had to kick the habit, this was not the answer, for a start it was draining the our funds that were to be our precious lifeline to our final exit from the Hall. And it had not escaped me either that it was through the solace of drink that those pathetic creatures that I had mocked so badly in the past had cut off their own lifelines to escape.
There was an old regular who frequented ‘The Green’ Sam Leslie, was his name he usually sat with his old mates in the taproom. I liked Sam he was a salt of the earth character, he had been the local milkman and a character of the community, he must have been about 85 years old by now but he always up for a bit of banter with me as I went about my duties. One particular night as I was clearing his table he took a look at my downcast appearance and said, ‘You look a bit down tonight mate, what’s up?’ I had to tell him that Oldthorpe was getting to me a bit.
‘Course your living there now aren’t you, no wonder your looking down, I used to deliver the milk there a long time ago, that’s one weird place alright.’
‘Your right there Sam,’ I had to agreed. ‘You’ll Remember old Mrs Gray, well her daughter runs the place now,’ I added, ‘she’s all as bad as her mother used to be.’
Sam looked at me with a quizzical smile, ‘I remember her alright but your putting me on mate, Mrs Gray never had a daughter – in fact she was never married, just chose to call herself missus – well can you imagine anybody wanting to marry that miserable old sod and she was no oil painting either was she.’
I took a big gulp of my own drink and then replied, ‘Then my present caretaker must be the original Granny Gray! No wonder I’m turning to drink, how old must she be by now?’
‘Dunno,’ said Sam, ‘but she was old when I was a lad! he thought for a moment and then continued, ‘But there was one who lived there even older than her when I delivered the milk, she was called her Miss Bierce, if I recall, supposed to be a sick old lady but for some reason or other old Granny Gray never let me near her to see if I could get her to take a bottle of milk.’
I looked the old guy full in the eye and said,.’ You’ll not believe this Sam, she’s still alive!’
‘You’re codding me,’ said Sam. ‘Have you seen her yourself?
I thought for a long moment contemplating the strange apparitions at the Hall and then replied in confusion, ‘Do you know Sam I don’t know if I have or not.’
He turned back to his mates with a worrying nod of his head, ‘You want to get yourself out of that place mate there’s something very weird going on there. Remember old Harry Chalmers and old George Telford, they used to come in here when you’d be nowt but a lad. They ‘ad some queer tales to tell about that place – I wonder what happened to them in the end, they just stopped coming in? You get yourself out o’ there double quick mate if you don’t wasn’t to finish up like them!’
I didn’t have anything more to drink that night and with Sam’s words still going around in my head I set off for home resolved to kick the drink habit and get a firm grip on myself; there was a few questions to be answered and a few things to be sorted out. So it was in a stone cold sober state that I reached the Hall gates. I decided to have one circumnavigation of the grounds to assemble my thought as to the course of action I should take. It was a cold winter’s night and I had to turn up my caller to keep out the drafty wind. As I walked around the building inside that great wall, kicking at the fallen leaves my mind, wandering far from my surroundings. When I brought myself back to the present and took stock of my position I saw that I had circled the building and was now facing the rear aspect of the Hall. A light burning in a first floor window caught my attention; it was the only light to be seen on this side of the building. It took a moment of pondering to realize that the lighted window was ours. There was nothing strange in that of course for I had not bothered to familiarize myself with the architectural delights of the Hall. As I continued my gaze, however, I did perceive a phenomenon, which was decidedly strange by any standards: the room immediately below ours, on the ground floor, was in complete darkness but the night being quite bright I could see across the interior of the room to the far wall where my eye caught movement; a dark object was levitating from the floor to the ceiling, truly a most remarkable and unnatural manifestation. What is more the object appeared to disappear through the ceiling of the room, which was our floor. Immediately the light in our room went out, Even as I made a headlong dash to be by my wife’s side it dawned upon me that the room below ours belonged to the unseen Miss Bierce. I knew our door would be bolted on the inside but I burst it asunder without ceremony. Immediately I recognized the now familiar chill had invaded the room. I could not see well in the darkness but I could hear Elizabeth moaning on the bed and a flurry of movement as a dark shape detached itself from her side and passed desperately close to me as it made for the corner of the room. There followed a sound which seemed like the wardrobe door closing and then a definite ‘click’ from the inside of the cabinet as if a bolt had been activated. Straight away the light came back on The room was now quite empty apart from Elizabeth threshing about in the disarrayed bed clothes, I saw with dismay her neck was bleeding yet again and on her bedside table her vanity mirror lay in shatters. This time at least I summoned enough courage to rush straight away to the wardrobe and try the door, as expected it was locked but even now an audible sound reached my ears from within and below – far below. For the remainder of the night I remained dressed and sat at the side of the bed mopping Elizabeth’s brow to try to sooth her delirium.
Dawn found me still alert through trembling a little, partly through the cold but predominantly with apprehension for the fearful task that I was now resolved to perform. Luckily I had armed myself for such a task with a miniature brandy; having dispatched this with a single swig my nerves were somewhat calmed for my journey into the unknown. With the firm conviction that Elizabeth would be safe with the coming of the daylight, I armed myself with a stout poker from the fireside, matches and a candlestick loaded with the stub of a candle – the only one that would come to hand at the time and as yet unlit I made a stealthy descent of the stairs. A dirty skylight allowed the miserable dawn light to filter into the main hallway, leaving the recessed doorways in there usual murky darkness. Tip toeing up to Granny Gray’s door I listened for any signs of movement but discerned only the guttural runts that served as her snores. Satisfied I crossed the hallway and confronted myself with the door to Miss Bierce’s room. My stomach began to churn in spite of the brandy as I reached for the door knob and twisted it. Thankfully it was locked – had it been otherwise I would have had to revise my plans for it was through neither of these doors that I sought entry – my passage was to be through a third door – The door that I feared so much, that to the cellar and it was imperative that for the present that my real intentions should remain unknown.
I cursed quietly to myself when I discovered that the knob to the cellar door was missing and again when the finger nail that I was using as a substitute twisting mechanism came away broken from the square hole. Such trivialities were not to put me off at this stage, with the helpful leverage of the trust poker and a beefy push from my shoulder the door burst inward. The resultant noise seemed colossal in the quiet of the hallway I held my breath for anyone stirring but I could still hear Granny Gray’s guttural snoring continuing unimpeded and was glad for once she was deaf. With the aid of a cigarette packet I partially closed the cellar door behind me, taking great care to make sure I would be able to open it again from the inside. With the cellar door closed I found myself in complete blackness and there was a moment of panic when match after match failed to ignite the candle. Persistent endeavor however, eventually brought success the resultant light revealed the cellar steps to be every bit as eerie as I had expected. Inside the door powdering whitewash littered the worn steps or hung in flakes suspended by spidery strings from the ceiling while ahead the candle found only sinister darkness ahead. Here was a world emphatically more remote than the everyday isolation of the Hall and I felt far from the safety of civilization. Yet it was far from silent, apart from the echoing sound of my own footfall there was a continuing drip, drip, drip of falling water and most disturbing of all the continuous grating and groaning of masonry. Along the passageways great fissures rent the fabric of the foundations allowing the roof and walls to belly inward alarmingly; the whole building seemed to be teetering on the point of collapse. It was purely on my reasoning logic: that if the building had remained standing these hundreds of years it would hardly be likely to disintegrate in the next five minutes that gave me the courage to proceed.
I was not sure where to look, nor for the matter exactly what I was looking for yet I had the overwhelming feeling that it was down here that I would find the terrible secret of the Hall, it was a dead certainty, whatever I did find it would not be pleasant. The whole cellar was a labyrinth of passageways and small rooms. Eventually I started to come across sodden and rotting items of clothing: shoes, night attire and the like. I wandered so far from the cellar steps and there were so many twists and turns it became a growing concern to me that I would ever be able to find my way back to my original point of entry. Other sets of steps seemed to lead upward too to add to the confusion. Eventually my journey brought me to another set of steep steps that led menacingly deeper, a stench of evil corruption wafted up them from below. Instinctively I knew that what I sought would be found in these depths. Proceeding with great caution due to the steps being so steep and narrow I descended into the depths. It was then that I noted with great alarm that the candle, only an end to start with, was now more than half burned out, I cursed my luck that a full one had not been available, what on earth would I do if the candle went out while I was down here? I would never find my way out – the thought chilled me to the bone.
My new descent brought me to even more discarded clothing and personal effects: a shawl, a child’s doll, one dirty pink slipper. The stench nauseated me so much now that I needed to hold a pocket handkerchief across my nose before I could continue. By the time I reached the bottom step my feet were squelching up to the ankles in unmentionable filth. My progress became blocked at this point by a timber door which was neither open nor shut but rather wedged ajar by sodden rags and miscellaneous debris. Set high in this door, however, there was a grill from where I could view the interior of this final dreadful room. Holding the candle up to light through the grill a sight was revealed to me of such horror that my stomach that had threatened upheaval on many occasions that day finally had sway and I added my vomit to the morass already at my feet.
Several moments elapsed before I could compose myself enough to take another look and ensure my eyes were not deceiving me, unfortunately this delay meant several more precious millimeters burnt off the alarmingly diminishing candle. When I plucked up courage to look again through the grill I could see that I had not been mistaken, the candlelight exposed the arched brick roof the salt encrusted walls and on the floor – that which I had feared was true, a debased pile of decaying humanity; generations of the Hall’s lost souls, were littered ‘Belson’ like in an untidy stack of putrification. Those at the bottom had obviously been there longer than the ones at the top, their remaining rags told their own story: the old down and outs the young women and their babies, this is where they all ended up. The topmost body had pathetically retained a shoe of modern design proving this degradation was still on going. The top most body was probably the young woman who had lodged in our room before us. The precious lifeblood of these unfortunate creatures had provided the sustenance for the ‘thing’ upstairs, no doubt it was her evil enchantment that was maintaining the very fabric of the building and it was obvious that Elizabeth and I had been lined up as her next victims. Naturally I was shocked and horrified but out of the whole sad mess my eye found something to put an edge on my anger: from the depths of the pile protruded a white stick! Poor George was here too, the gentle giant who wouldn’t have hurt a fly.
I retraced my journey back through the labyrinth of passages, trying to assimilate the enormity of what I had just seen; the candle was flickering alarmingly now, should I not reach the correct set of steps to take me out of this dreadful place before the candle died on me: I just daren’t think of the dire consequences. I discounted several sets of steps as being the wrong ones and had just reached another set when the candle flickered and finally died: I was in total darkness. ‘God let this be the correct set,’ I said to myself as I creped blindly upwards. My prayers were thankfully answered I reached a door and felt my trusty cigarette packet still wedging it open. Once clear of the cellar I virtually galloped through the hallway and up the stairs to our room, caring no more to be discrete or quiet. My rapid entrance to our room startled Elizabeth out of her delirium. No doubt I must have cut an alarming figure standing there dirty, out of breath and disheveled with a poker held rampant in one hand and the still smoking candle in the other.
‘Quick out of bed get dressed and packed,’ I gave here no chance to argue I was on the rampage and eager to complete the remainder of my dreadful task before I ran out of steam. My tone must have carried sufficient authority to galvanize her into action for she didn’t need me telling her a second time.
My next port of call was the wardrobe in the corner, this time it was to be opened, key or no key. My trusty poker came to my aid again. It helped me lever open the door, making an awful mess of the carpentry and beading around the lock in the process. Then the door was open revealing its secrets. It was no surprise to me at all to find that the door was not secured by the mortise lock at all but rather bolted from the inside. Under normal circumstance a wardrobe door bolted from within would have seemed strange indeed but I had half expected something of the sort. There was a point of entry to that she devil’s room here somewhere and I intended to find it. When the poker detected a hollow note in the baseboard I knew I had succeeded. A determined lever with my poker and away it came revealing the darkness of the room below: this was the port of entry for the accursed creature!
Rushing back into the centre of the room I seized Elizabeth by the arm caring little that the case was only half packed – what did it matter our possessions were paltry anyway. Elizabeth was still in the process of recovering from my eccentric behavior but allowed herself to be led down the stairs along the hallway.
Granny Gray came to her door squawking at all the noise; I pushed Elizabeth passed her and straight out onto the lawn, warning her on pain of death not to move. She was still standing there – sort of petrified as I reentered the Hall. Granny Gray hadn’t moved either, she was still standing in the middle of the hallway squawking and wearing a bemused expression; as yet she had not guessed my true intentions. When she saw the poker in my hand and the fire in my ace she began to back off. I believe she thought the attack was meant for her, but not so, I was after bigger fish, and I merely brushed her defensive arm aside intent on achieving my real objective. My next obstacle came in the form of another door, this time it was to be the door to Miss Bierce’s room. Granny Gray squawked all the more when she realized my true intentions, grasping at my legs and blasting me with obscenities. The door was strong but I was adamant. Once again with the aid of my trusty poker and a beefy shoulder I was into the mysterious room for the very first time. Surprisingly the room was unlike any other in the Hall. The furnishings were sparse yet opulent and everywhere the woodwork was well polished. I hadn’t come here to admire the décor but I did notice the same Grimshaw painting adorning the wall and would have wagered that this was the real original and the one in Granny Gray’s room just a copy used to foil would be thief who had heard of the Grimshaw. Alternatively, could it be that through the picture Eleanor could keep an eye on her feeble retainer. I could well imagine that in her vanity Eleanor would not want to be parted from the original, after all if she could not see herself in mirrors it was probably her only reminder of how beautiful she had been. These were all my later deductions, now I had a job to finish. Purple curtains shut off one of the alcoves; I was certain that behind these drapes lay the dark creature I sought. Ripping them aside without ceremony gave me confirmation I was right, I took but a brief moment to savour my triumph. The coffin was of black polished oak and stood proudly on purple decked trestles a small night light burned at the head and the foot of the casket.
The old hag of a caretaker was beside herself now; she was in the room with me, ripping at me with her feeble claws and squawking; ‘No! No! You’ll kill us all!’
‘This is where you keep your mistress is it? This is where you keep your foul protector.’ I spat out at her. ‘Your poor old lodgers always said she should be in the cemetery. Well I’m going to make sure she doesn’t get the privilege of even the cemetery now!’
I was still looking in triumph at Granny Gray as I lifted the coffin lid but the smile froze on my lips when I at last set eyes on the perpetual Eleanor Bierce; she was indeed a creation of beauty. I was convinced the whole Building survived due to her enchantment but she had saved the best for her immediate surroundings and in particular for herself. She was lovely beyond compare, youthful slim with pale skin and finely sculpture aquiline features, her hair was bountiful and luxurious – surely such evil could not be housed in such an exquisite body. I reasoned later that she had carried her teenage body as it was in death and filled it with a hundred and forty years of evil wisdom. As I gazed upon her, her enchantment threatened to engulf me, I felt myself begin to sway entranced by her beauty. Had Granny Gray been aware of this and stood back I believe she would have been the one left to tell the tale and not I for I was almost lost to her enchantment but her ill timed attack on my head with a shovel served only to jolt me back into my senses and remind me of the job to be completed.
The poker, excellent friend that it had been was a little blunt ended for the job in hand yet still a fearful weapon when brought down point first double handed from above my head. It was messy when the blood spurted. It was noisy when she screamed, such a scream! And it was especially nasty when she open her huge violet eyes. She knew she gazed upon earth for the last time. Oh those eyes! Such beautiful orbs and again I was in danger of falling under her enchantment and the thought that I should not be destroying something so incomparably exquisite threatened to engulf me. Luckily my weight still hung on the trusty poker and though my own power was failing the poker continued to sink slowly into that lovely body until with a quick slide it cleared the rib cage and pierced her black heart. With that her beautiful eyes glazed and she sighed – a great sigh of defeat and within moments had corrupted into the decay she had defied for so long.
With her passing my enchanted state was lifted and replaced with a great wave of exultation. Momentarily it was as if I were being lifted to a higher plane along with the mortal souls of those who had suffered and been held captive by her wicked spell, now freed and finally released to go wherever souls go. Thankfully the feeling quickly passed and I regained my senses to find the room shaking as in the grip of an earthquake: no longer sustained by enchantment the Hall began its own disintegration that had been artificially contained for so long.
Thankfully I still had the presence of mind to snatch the Grimshaw original off Eleanor’s wall be before dashing out. After all it had no legal owner now and it would do no good to leave it under a pile of rubble. I passed Granny Gray on the way out; evidently she too had been artificially sustained to serve as her mistress’s protector. Now she was ‘yellowing’ and settling into the floor like a cone of smoldering newspapers – she collapsed completely into herself even as I watched. So it was confirmed: this was the original Granny Gray. It was touch and go if I would escape before the whole rotting edifice disintegrated completely. That I am here to tell the tale is confirmation that I just managed it
Immediately after the event we related out tale to officialdom but no-one chose to believe us – it was a bit of a tall story and the powdered remains of Oldthorpe Hall revealed no sinister secrets, all had returned to dust and true to form nobody wanted to dirty their hands with the unsavory folk and goings on of Oldthorpe Hall. .
As for Elizabeth and I, we claimed ownership for the Grimshaw original, there were no other contestants and with the revenue received from its sale we were able to enjoy life to the full once more and still had plenty left to sponsor a shelter for the homeless and dedicate it to the memory those old Hall residents who had no friends in life. Thankfully with the help of God and my trusty poker at least in death they are revenged.
My one concern is that wherever that valuable painting finds a home, Eleanor’s exquisitely evil face still gazes out into an unsuspecting world.
East Leeds Memories 