The Song of the Siren

Then I thought of the house. How I was to wish later that I had not done so. But then perhaps it was inevitable and best for me to know.

I untethered Tomtit, who whinnied with pleasure at the sight of me.

”It can’t last long like this,” I said to him. “We’ll wait a bit. There’s an outhouse close to the house.”

I took him over and it was difficult to find our way in the blinding rain. There was just room for him in the shed. I patted him and he nuzzled against me.

I decided to wait in the house porch because I could get more shelter there.

Murmuring that I would not be long and that we would go as soon as the rain abated a little, I stumbled towards the house.

I reached the porch and leaned against the door. To my amazement it opened. It had evidently not been properly shut.

I went inside. It was a relief to get out of the wind and rain. I stood in the great hall and looked towards the minstrels’ gallery.

How gloomy it was. There was an atmosphere of menace, I always thought, in this house even when the sun was shining But in the gloom it really was forbidding.

Even so it offered comfort after the conditions outside I don’t know why it is one can sense human presence but one often does, and as I stood there the firm conviction came to me that I was not alone in the house.

“Is anyone there?” I said. My voice seemed lost in the sound of the rain outside.

A sudden flash of lightning illuminated the hall. It startled me so much that I gasped.

A few seconds later came the roar of thunder.

A great desire came to me. “Get out.” It was as though a voice was warning me. I stood uncertainly. The darkness outside had deepened. It was like the dead of night.

Then suddenly the hall was lit up by another flash of lightning. I was staring at the minstrels’ gallery expecting to see something there. There was nothing. I braced myself for the tremendous clap of thunder. The storm was right overhead.

I stood leaning against the wall. My heart was beating so fiercely that it seemed as though it would choke me. I waited for the next burst of thunder. It did not come.

As I stood there, the darkness lifted. I could see the curtains at the gallery. I could have fancied they moved, but that was only fancy.

And yet I had the conviction that someone was in this house.

“Go away,” said the voice of common sense.

But I could not go. Something was impelling me to stay.

I was in a state of shock, I believe. I was obsessed by the certainty that my father had killed Belle and buried her in the forbidden wood and that there was some dark secret there which I dared not discover. I felt that it would wrench the whole structure of my life if I found out.

It was as though I could hear voices, whispering voices, voices of the Rooks fabricating tales about my father, gossip, rumour. But there was something there. Normally I should be afraid to stay in this house. Now, although I sensed more than I ever had before that atmosphere of doom which hung over it, it did not frighten me. Or perhaps I was so afraid of reality-of what might lie under the soil of the forbidden wood-that I could not feel this fear of the supernatural. There was so much that could be explained to the human mind going on around me-that was if one could piece the evidence together.

There was another flash of lightning, less brilliant than those which had gone before, and some seconds passed before I heard the thunder. The storm was moving away. It had become lighter.

I wondered why the door was not shut. We always locked the doors when we left. It was not as though it was empty of furniture. All Robert Frinton’s furniture had been left here when he died and had remained since. Carlotta had wished it that way and it had been her house and her furniture-left to her by the adoring Robert Frinton, uncle of the father whom she had never known.

I looked up the staircase and it was as though some force impelled me to mount it.

I did so slowly. I could still hear the rain pelting down outside. I looked into the gallery. There was no one there.

Someone must have forgotten to lock the door, I told myself. Why not go out? Go to comfort poor Tomtit, who would be waiting patiently for me in the outhouse.

But I went up the stairs. I was going to look through the house to see if anyone was there.

I had a fantastic idea that the house was beckoning me on; I could almost fancy it mocked me.

“Silly little Damaris, always such a child.”

That was like Carlotta’s voice.

“When I, as a child, went and explored the haunted house I hid in a cupboard. It was called Carlotta’s cupboard after that. Robert Frinton said he was reminded of me every time he used if.”

Carlotta had loved to tell me tales like that when she was younger but so very much my senior-seeming to be more so then than now.

Oddly enough my fear had left me, although never had the house seemed more sinister.

It was simply because I was not really here. I was in the wood looking down at that patch of land which I believed to be Belle’s grave.