It wasn't until you were actually inside the place that you felt something was there with you. A sinister feeling, as if it didn't want you there, as though it knew you could feel it and that made it pleased. Glad of the acknowledgement it existed, pleased you were unsettled, waiting patiently. Invisible to the eye for now, but not to the senses; and that gave it power. That emboldened it and gave it fresh lease of life. If the place was to come alive you think, then just maybe, by twist of fate, you bring this thing to life too. Would that be wise I ask you? Are you sure it does not matter to you? It's not too late to back out and rent a place more befitting to your nervous disposition. After all, who wants to invoke a ghostly presence no matter what malevolent form it may take? Do you?
"Did you move that Miss Hathershum?" she asked as she pointed to a broom in the corner of the room. "I swear it was in the pantry not five minutes ago and the servants were asked to bring it up."
You look round bewildered. She rarely speaks to you, and if she does it's invariably to get you to do something for her.
"No Miss Templeton, I did not," curt and brusk, just how you like to portray yourself to one such as her. Full of her own elevated station, puffed up with importance, in short, a stuck up mare. Now it can be said there is many a person who would acquiesce, play along and bite their tongue. To your deepest regret, you are not one of them.
She frowns at you and the lines are not flattering to her all too plain face. If it were not for her father's new found money, she would never have been asked to host the Society Ball this year. She turns that burning gaze on you, piercing in its intensity when she wants it to be.
"Well don't stand idle, your mother said you were a born organiser Miss Hathershum, so have at it. I'm sure I've enough to do planning the entertainment and the flowers and the catering. Really," she huffs loudly and goes for the exaggerated put upon pause you just knew was coming, "it's all just a little too much."
"Don't you have a cook to plan the catering?" You really shouldn't bait her, you know it will only increase the list of chores she'll have drawn up for you. You notice again how she's eyeing you up, like a cat with a mouse; or perhaps with another cat trying to assess her battle options. Certainly the flight scenario is not in her repertoire. She is definitely more a fighter, as you can tell by the informality of her petticoats and the freedom which she allows herself with her hairstyle.
"I do Miss Hathershum," a tone of firm rebuke is your just rewards. You knew it was coming, sometimes you're just to free with your speech. "But even the most diligent of cooks is not conversant with the 'cuisine a la mode'. I can assure you, had you attended more of these functions as I myself have done; you'd know they aren't thrown together by the hired help!" She grabs the broom and hands it you stiffly. "Perhaps you can demonstrate your own supposed prowess in organisation, and rustle someone up to use that on this mess."
With that no-nonsense demand, she stalks off and leaves you alone in the dimly lit room.
"Really, that woman!" you exclaim. She rubs you up the wrong way, as undoubtedly you do to her. But did you really expect anything else. She may act as if she's older, and she may not be from an old well established family of aristocracy and breeding like you. However, she has the one thing you lack; you are right of course she's no title, breeding or looks - but she has money! So for now, you swallow your pride, remember she is still a headstong youth like yourself at merely eighteen, and get on with it.
Of course, there are no servants when you need them and the house is practically a wreck. You know of it, but have never visited before. It belonged to your Aunt's friend Lord Brisby before he took off in mysterious circumstances. A scandal some said, involving a dead maid, a sacked housekeeper and two footmen never to turn up and face the charges they were accused of. Of course, it bolstered the price of the property from the mere notoriety of the name alone. But you were never a fan of gossip, so at the time you paid it no mind. They had assumed he sent instructions for the place to be rented. Mr Templeton was trade, but a wealthy wool merchant's money is as good as the next man's. He needed a base for his wife and daughter to be amongst polite Society whilst he wanders, or does whatever trade folk do, you can't imagine what. Of course, he hadn't asked his wife first and she would not hear of setting foot in the squalid place before refurbishment. So the task fell on his daughter, ergo by default, it fell onto every person she could possibly draw into the enterprise, whether she liked them or not!
You give up waiting for the help and give the room a once over with a critical eye. This first floor reception room wasn't the best in the house, but it had a wonderful front aspect. The roof paneling and floors were acceptable, if given a good polishing, and there was plenty of room for dancing. There were two recesses by the large windows with their rather dated stencilling, but they were light and airy. They would do at a pinch, and begrudgingly, you admit she was right. This room could be a good function room if all was prepared on time. A chill runs down your back and through your overly tight corset. Not from anything more than the realization you would have to, after all, work with the wretched woman. Out of sight, and hopefully out of mind, you roll up your sleeves, don a pinny the maid left on the side, and do the unthinkable. You start to sweep the floors yourself!
It is only after a couple of hours that you notice the chill. The daylight is streaming through all the windows, and dust motes are visible everywhere. By rights it should be warm and pleasant, but instead you notice the cold clammy sweat on your skin. Perhaps this is what physical exertion does to a person so unused to it. In truth it would explain why the maid is always so flustered every time she leaves your Uncle's study. She too bears a perspiration most unbecoming on any woman, whether she has rank or not. And her hair is always in such disarray..... you check your own unconsciously, pinning it back into place with tiny prim actions. Like a bird preening before it joins the flock.
You watch in facination as something odd happens as you tidy your appearance. Across the hall, in a great swathe of invisible nothing, flows a presence. You can't call it anything else, for indeed, there's nothing there to describe. It just cuts through the dust and the particles separate in its advance. A direction towards you! But so odd is the movement, so peculiar is the motion that you are transfixed. The air just seems to part and the nothing approaches. You watch the slithers of light as the rays hit them and are gone. You see the flow of the clouds you churned up brushed aside or float in opposite and conflicting directions. It just seems to happen. You check for open windows, curious for some explanation. Ever the practical one, the level headed and analytical one. You'd been taught to run a household as every girl of breeding has, but rarely are you prepared for the unnatural. And to your credit, your scientific reaction is perhaps your best course of action. Save for the most natural one of all when faced with this kind of thing; to flee! But your self preservation, a bit like your wits before you speak, was always prone to a slow start.
Then the chill passes through you as cold as the larder in the depths of Winter. It enters from front to back and can be felt enough to stir the errant strands of your fringe. You are too shocked to give it the due care it warrants. The hairs on your arms are standing on end still from static and you feel, how best to say it, odd. As if charged, like one of those new machines they had at last year's Science Fair, a what was it again? Ah yes, a Van De Graaf Generator. Most peculiar, it brought on a tingling feeling in your extremeties. A not all too unpleasant experience, but a most perculiar one just the same. You look behind you and see nothing but solid dark oak panels. You start knocking on the walls to test your theory that it was going somewhere.
Tap Tap. Tap Tap.
Your ear close to the wood and your senses heightened to an unimaginable sensitivity. Straining to hear what you fear you will find.
Tap Tap. Tap Tap
You move further and further down the wall slowly, in utter absorbtion.
"Good heavens Miss Hathershum, if you wish to listen to the servants idle chatter use a glass like everyone else!"
Caught by surprise you jump flustered like a girl stealing cherries off the cook's proud centrepiece of a cake.
"Really Miss Templeton, it doesn't do to be so light on one's feet. A person of any import always makes enough noise to announce their presence in any room! " There, let her mull on that whilst you regain your composure. You are more breathless now than when said creature walked towards you. Really, this merchant's daughter is the last straw, anyone would think she owns the place! Oh, yes indeed. Well, actually she does not, her father does!