Changeling

“Yes,” I replied. “There is something about it. I think it is because of those overgrown trees. I hope no one touches them.”

“So do I. They wouldn’t like that.”

“Who?”

She grimaced and pointed upwards. I looked astonished and she drew her chair closer to mine.

“You’ve heard of houses being haunted, have you?”

I nodded.

“This is a bit different. This is a garden that’s haunted.”

“Is it really? I’ve never heard of a haunted garden.”

“Any place can be haunted. Doesn’t have to be within walls. I just had the feeling you’d found out something out there. You’re always sitting under that old oak. Why?”

“Well, it’s shut away. It’s peaceful there. When I’m sitting there I feel … apart.”

She nodded. “Well, that’s it. That’s the spirit. That’s where the ghost used to come.”

“Used to?”

“Well, there’d be no call for it now … not after Miss Martha went.”

“Tell me the story.”

“It was in my grandma’s day. She was the cook here. Lady Flamstead came … a lovely lady, my grandma said. She came here as a bride. He was a lot older than she was, Sir … what was his name? Ronald, I think.”

“What happened?”

“It was a happy marriage. Like two lovebirds, they were, my gran said. They all loved her. She was so young … so excited by it all. She hadn’t been used to a grand way of living … till he married her. She just enjoyed everything. Then came the day when she was going to have a baby. My gran said you should have seen the fuss. Sir Ronald … well, he wasn’t all that old, I suppose, but he was beside himself with joy … and as for Lady Flamstead, she was in heaven.”

“And …?” I prompted.

“Well, everyone was so pleased. They were making such plans. My gran said you’d have thought nobody had ever had a baby before. Nursery done up … little toys everywhere … and then … Lady Flamstead … she didn’t come through it. There was the baby they’d longed for … a little girl … but she was the end of her mother.”

“How terribly sad!”

“Yes, wasn’t it? The change in that house! They were all going to be so happy … You see, she was the one who had made it all like that. Without her … it was all changed. My gran said Sir Ronald … well, he was a good enough master, but he didn’t have much to do with any of them. She’d changed all that. They’d all loved her … and now she was gone.”

“They had the baby,” I said.

“Oh, poor Miss Martha. You see, he didn’t want her. I reckon he thought that but for her his little ladyship would still be there. And all he’d got was Miss Martha … a squalling red-faced little bit of nothing, in place of his lovely wife. He didn’t want to look at the child. It turns out like that sometimes. Oh, there was all the best for her … nurses, and later on governesses. She was a nice little thing, my gran said. She’d come to the kitchen like you are now. But there was no laughter in that house and a house without laughter is not much of a place … not if there’s a whole houseful of servants and all you get is the food to eat and fires in every room to keep you warm … if you know what I mean.”

“I do know what you mean, Mrs. Grant. Where does the haunting come in?”

“Well … Miss Martha was about ten years old … your age, I reckon, when they started to notice. She’d go out there and sit under that tree on that seat you like so much. She’d be talking … we thought to herself. She changed at that time. She was a bit difficult to manage before. Into mischief rather. My gran said she was trying to remind people she was there because she thought her father had forgotten all about her.”

“It was very wrong of Sir Ronald to blame the child for her mother’s death.”

“Oh, he didn’t do that, exactly. He just couldn’t bear to be with her. I suppose he was reminded of what he had lost.”

“So she changed, you were saying.”

“She was more satisfied … peaceful like, so my gran said. And every day she’d be out there, talking away. They thought she was getting a little bit … peculiar.”

“What happened then to change her?”

“One of the maids thought she saw a figure in white there. It was dusk. It might have been the shadows. But she came running into the house, scared out of her wits. Miss Martha was there. She said, ‘It’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s my mother. She comes here to talk to me.’ That explained a lot …the change in her … why she was always at that spot in the garden. Why she seemed to be talking to herself. She wasn’t talking to herself. She was talking to her mother.”

“So her mother came back …”

“Like as not she couldn’t rest … because she knew her daughter was unhappy. Miss Martha … she was apart from the rest of us like. A strange young lady. She never married. In time she inherited the house. They used to say she was a bit of a recluse. She wouldn’t have the garden changed. The gardeners used to get wild saying that this ought to come down and this and that be cut back. But she wouldn’t have it. She was quite old when she died. My mother was in the kitchen then.”

“Do you believe Lady Flamstead really came back?”

“My gran said she did and anyone who’d been there would have said it.”