His teenage
granddaughter Susan had picked up the idea of a visit to the seaside
from other pupils at Coal Hill School, of course, and he had finally
given in to her endless importuning on the subject. Perhaps he would
engage a private tutor for her soon, he told himself, not for the
first time. That might prove more satisfactory an arrangement. He
sighed. The girl was a responsibility. There were those other two
grandchildren as well, he recollected suddenly. The boy and the girl.
He wouldn’t be surprised if they crossed his path one day, full of
questions he wouldn’t know how to answer.
Still,
he reminded himself, he was rather pleased to be here in Seathorpe
now. That business at The Three Mariners was most intriguing. It
wasn’t just that, though. He had, he now admitted to himself,
become somewhat exhausted by his daily wanderings around London,
looking for some sort of a replacement for that faulty filament, and
Mrs Hildred’s boarding house had turned out to be a pleasantly
restful little establishment. She kept an excellent table, too, and
her raspberry cheesecake was an utterly delightful experience. A no
nonsense type of woman, he thought approvingly. She would keep an eye
on Susan for him just for tonight, he was sure.
He
felt the need to rest for a few minutes and subsided onto a bench
with a small metal plaque affixed to it. In
memory of Ephraim Cuttle 1869 – 1960 who spent many happy times in
Seathorpe. Lucky
fellow, mused the Doctor. A regular holidaymaker, perhaps, or a
resident seafarer?
Three middle-aged
women approached, arms linked. He nodded agreeably, they paused and
conversation ensued. The rather plump woman in the middle, forceful
and matriarchal if he was any judge, was soon in full flow.
‘My recipe for a
happy life is hard work,’ she announced emphatically. ‘I’ve had
five children, worked at the biscuit factory and run my own fish and
chip shop. I had customers queuing out of the door and down the road.
There was a nice area for eating in as well. A lovely warm fire.
Sturdy little chairs with patterned turquoise seats at the tables…’
‘We’ve been here
overnight,’ interposed the woman on the right. ‘Have you been to
see the Dancing Waters? Lovely, they were. Ever so pretty…’
The
third woman chimed in. ‘A fellow called Alf Partridge at one of the
stalls has just been telling us how he takes a shilling deposit on
each of the brown jugs that people take to the sands filled with tea.
Trouble was, every day lately he’d ended up with more jugs than he
had to start with. He found out why two days back. A young lad and a
couple of his mates were buying the same sort of jugs for a tanner
apiece at a place called Grewcock’s Bargains and handing them in at
the tea stall as returns. A hundred per cent profit. Little buggers.’
She cackled, having obviously much enjoyed the story.
Dr Who smiled in
appreciation of the enterprise of little tykes but rose decisively to
his feet at this point. He bowed to the trio with olde-worlde charm,
thanked them for their delightful company and hurried away, his pace
somewhat increased now, for he wanted to precede his evening meal
with a visit to the churchyard, dictated by the same imp of curiosity
responsible for his long and far wanderings through time and space,
currently curtailed by that tiresome filament. Mrs Hildred the
landlady, he recalled, had displayed her worth once again as a source
of quite fascinating historical information. Seathorpe’s original
church, she had revealed as they each enjoyed a mug of Ty-Phoo tea at
her well-scrubbed kitchen table, had been submerged beneath the waves
during an exceptionally fierce storm way back in 1546 and for years
afterwards its spire had reappeared at low tide as an eerie reminder
of the past.
The
replacement church Dr Who found to be a rather modest, tree-shaded
edifice, undoubtedly possessing a certain rustic charm despite the
barest minimum of ornamentation. Some of the surrounding
gravestones were weathered by time, winds and spray from angry tides;
some leaned towards each other as though in conversation. After a
relatively brief search he stood before an old grey slate one, the
inscription still gratifyingly legible. It stood beside the church’s
west door. He pushed aside with his right foot the nettles obscuring
part of the wording:
LADY ELIZABETH GURNEY
Died at
The Three Mariners Inn
Seathorpe
1699
R.I.P.
+
__________________
~~~
Leaving the
churchyard, he began to retrace his steps along the seafront, though
shortly he would diverge from the straight route he had taken from
The Three Mariners and turn off in the direction of Mrs Hildred’s
establishment. There were far less people at this end of the town, he
noted, for there were no amusement arcades here, with their slot
machines and raucous bingo callers, like that dreadful fellow he had
seen wearing the jaunty hat with the stuffed bird on it. To his
surprise, the sea was becoming quite rough on what had hitherto been
a hot day with hardly a breath of air, and soon he was witnessing
towering waves which lashed at the promenade railings and splashed
onto the road. He stood entranced, quite unable to move, repeatedly
gripped by the compulsion to see ‘just one more’. Glancing along
the seafront to his left finally, he gave a sudden gasp. In the
distance were the tiny holidaymakers on the beach, basking in the
sun, throwing beach balls, or paddling tentatively in…a
perfectly calm sea.
Yet
another wave crashed, and once more salt water was sprayed upwards,
though this time it was caught in the sunlight more than momentarily.
Incredibly, the droplets were suspended in the air. As Dr Who stared,
they blurred, and merged, and …yes, a face was forming…the face
of a hauntingly beautiful woman. Her hair was long and quite dark,
yet appeared strangely light and golden where it streamed out behind
her.
A wild spirit, he
thought suddenly. Wild and eternally untamed.
‘I shall come
again...’
The incisive voice,
bold and forceful, resonated through his mind, conveying an
unmistakeable anger and frustration, a simmering rage that stirred
the elements around her into a maelstrom of violence and fury. Her
flashing eyes, unnervingly penetrating, bored into his with such
intensity that he experienced actual pain.
Abruptly, startlingly,
the vision was gone, and he was freed from the riveting gaze. He
swayed dizzily as the water, now released, cascaded down, drenching
him…
~~~
A pottery seagull on
the wall at The Three Mariners, its wings aspread, watched over the
two old men as they sat beneath it at a round George III table
covered by an old white cloth edged with lace. On the table reposed
two large flasks of coffee, the sherry decanter, two glasses, and a
plate of liver paste sandwiches.
‘It’s very good of
you to join me here, especially overnight,’ Edwin Chitty told Dr
Who, gratefully. ‘I shall be extremely glad of your company.’ He
paused, then added, ‘Especially if…’
‘Quite,
quite.’ Dr Who helped himself to a sandwich and the old dealer
poured out two steaming cups of coffee. The Doctor sniffed the aroma
appreciatively before carefully taking a sip or two. Then he leaned
back in his chair and interlaced his fingers. ‘When she appeared
here, did she speak?’ he enquired of Chitty.
Edwin sighed. ‘When
I saw Lady Elizabeth standing there, I was absolutely transfixed to
the spot, as you can imagine. She spoke, yes, but in a resounding
sort of way, so unfortunately, with that and the shock of seeing her,
I’m afraid I didn’t make out as much as I might have done. She
was definitely agitated about something, that was quite obvious, and
there was some mention, I thought, of a sceptre.’
Dr
Who stared at him for a moment, then rose briskly from his chair,
moved towards a large table loaded with merchandise and began to sift
through it like an eager housewife at a jumble sale. He glanced
briefly at an elongated pottery dish in a lurid green edged with
brown. The
pen is mightier than the sword,
ran the legend on it. Quite right, he thought approvingly, laying the
item aside. He came across several mourning brooches and a huge black
crape mantilla of the 1860’s. It was upon moving the latter that he
disclosed a very curious object that had reposed beneath it, which he
held up triumphantly. ‘Yes! I do believe this is it.’
Fashioned
of crystal, the artefact was a rod, a cross and a loop combined. From
each side of the loop ran thin gold wires, and on these were strung
gems of vivid colours, including a striking blood-red and an
extraordinarily beautiful sea-blue. On a single wire across the top
of this strange object hung four tiny golden bells.
‘But
what can that possibly have to do with Lady Elizabeth’s spectre?’
asked old Chitty, baffled. ‘I bought it at a
sale up in Cumberland about…let me see…it must be sixteen or
seventeen years ago.’ He sighed reminiscently. ‘I feel far less
able to travel these days, of course. I suffer from hardened
arteries, you know, and you wouldn’t believe…’
Dr
Who interrupted. ‘Spectre? What you saw was no spectre, my friend.
If I’m right, it was none other than…’
He
broke off. A cold breeze was swirling through the room. It chilled
both their minds and their bodies. An accompanying voice spoke
clearly and incisively, and echoed and re-echoed around the ancient
walls.
‘I
shall come again. I swear it. It is true…’
A
corner of the room, beyond the big table piled with memorabilia.
Flames…ordinary yellow flames that, yet, curiously turned, just
briefly and intermittently, to a deep, transparent, utterly
breathtaking blue. There, in the midst of them, she stood, with her
shapely arms outstretched, her beautiful hands held palms upwards. A
loose robe, of the very palest lemon colour, draped her statuesque
form.
The
crystal artefact that Dr Who still held caught her attention almost
immediately and her expressive eyes widened, fixed eagerly upon it.
‘At
last…’
Edwin
Chitty, though lost in horrified fascination, nonetheless managed to
croak to the Doctor: ‘But if that was what she wanted, and she knew
it was here, why didn’t she just take it?’
‘She
is, at present, on the other side of a barrier and must be unable to
pass through it.’ Dr Who stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘I
wonder, though…yes, she may, despite that, and with a little
assistance, conceivably possess the ability to at least…’
With
sudden decision, Dr Who tossed the object lightly up into the air and
towards the flame-shrouded figure. Chitty gaped almost comically as,
instead of clattering to the floor as he expected, the crystalline
item hovered for a few unbelievable moments above the table, then
began to move, a trifle unsteadily, in the direction of the slightly
shaking hands waiting to receive it.
The
flames turned an incandescent, ice-cold blue at the moment she
grasped it and flared blindingly outwards across the oak-beamed
ceiling. Dr Who and Chitty instinctively backed away, shielding their
eyes.
When
they looked again, there was no sign of either woman or artefact,
though a single blue-tinged flame still burned.
It
flickered, and abruptly snuffed out.
There
was nothing.
After
a long moment, the old shopkeeper peered around the room in wonder.
‘It’s just as before. The fire has caused no damage. None at
all.'
‘Ayesha?’
Old
Chitty personified incredulity.
Dr
Who beamed complacently at him.
‘Yes,’
he confirmed. ‘Ayesha…’