Chapter One

The sore, remorselessly chastised and weary servant girl raised herself wearily up to peer longingly, and for the thousandth time, out of the window of her tiny room. She needed to stand right up on the very most extreme tips of those cold, bare, roughened, work-hardened toes, to be able see out of that narrow, high up aperture. The much belaboured Girl gazed longingly and wistfully down once again at the quintessentially English countryside, spread entrancingly out in the darkness below the grim old castle in which she had worked so hard and where she had endured beatings and insults every long miserable day for such an unbearably long time now. ‘How long had it been,’ she asked herself.  As if this splendid girl needed to ask herself such a silly question, on this day, of all days!

‘Somewhat too long,’ thought the Girl.  That was for certain, for certain bloody sure! As the suffering Girl gazed out of her window, she knew, with a burning and feverish excitement, that she had by this time endured exactly a year’s slavery in this grim old fortress!  She was a Slave and addressed as such by the Mistress and the other servants.  And to think that this was well into  the second half  of the Twentieth Century! Things like this, the wanton abuse of the innocent, were surely a thing of the past!

It was surely impossible that a modern world could allow slavery! But even in the modern world, dark forces were at work.

She knew, of course, that there was a noble purpose in all her suffering and this purpose was all that had kept her going during all this horror. The Girl had spent almost a year as a drudge: an ever-naked slave. For all this time she’d been forced to endure the lusting, contemptuous and cruelly mocking stares of so many unkind people as she worked every day until she was ready to drop from exhaustion, never getting a word of thanks, only curses and beatings. Her last and most terrible beating had had marked her young body in the most ghastly fashion, possibly for the rest of her life.

After surveying the scene below, with the twinkling lights of many a humble, happy dwelling shining up at her to remind her of a normal world where sweet young girls did not endure cruel and constant abuse, she left the window and lay face down on her hard bed and tried to get some sleep. She would have to be up and about all too soon. Ahead of her was her last day of drudgery in this place.

And finally there was tomorrow at the stroke of midnight -- the vital moment of the vital day. The great hour that all her misery had been leading up to.  She must be ready for that. She WOULD be ready. When had she ever failed in anything she set her heart on? Never, and certainly not in this. She smiled and felt the inner peace of one who has run a hard race and fought a worthy fight. Tomorrow could not come a second too soon and she was good and ready for it!

It was Mrs. Bottomley who’d started the whole thing. She, on one of her tiresome impulses, had set the ball rolling, so to speak. Without Mrs. Bottomley it is entirely possible this story would never have been written; certainly it would not have been written in its present form.  How an ordinary middle-aged woman, albeit a rather nagging and tiresome middle-aged woman with a very much fuller figure and a lot more wrinkles than she had possessed twenty years previously, could have set in train the remarkable series of events I am about to outline is something you will be able to see for yourselves.

One Spring day, several years ago, Mrs. Bottomley was being driven by her husband through the pleasant county of Hereford. The chauffeur had been given a few days off and Mr. Fred Bottomley, a plain and homely man, was happily reliving the simple joys of motoring that had been taken away from him by his status-conscious wife. Mrs. B had insisted that her husband employ a uniformed driver, a Chauffeur, now that her husband’s business was doing so marvelously well. As the worthy Frederick J Bottomley guided the Rolls along the winding lanes, the afternoon peace was shattered by a sudden shriek from his stout and over indulged lady.

"Fred! Just look at that divine castle up there. How utterly romantic! Have you ever seen such a magnificent place in all your life? And what a fantastic view they must have from such a dizzy height! That’s why it was built there, I suppose, to control the countryside below. The defenders would be able to see an attacking army from miles and miles away. Let’s try to get up there and have a look! Oh how I would LOVE to live in a fabulous location like that! I wonder if it’s for sale? You could easily afford a place like that, Fred my love, now that you have done so well!"

Mr. Bottomley drove into the side of the road and stopped the car. He was used to his wife’s sudden effusions by now. Together, the pair gazed up at the afore-mentioned fastness, perched dizzily on top of an escarpment and overlooking the wooded valleys and gently rolling plains below. It most certainly did occupy a most dramatic position. In whatever far-gone time that this fortress had first been constructed, it must have been an impregnable bastion, dominating the surrounding area for miles around, as his dear wife had said.

A more imaginative man than the wealthy, hard-headed nouveau riche, self made multi-millionaire Fred Bottomley might have speculated a little concerning the all encompassing aura of fear that must once have emanated from that place, dominating the humble peasantry of an earlier age and reminding them constantly of their irrevocably inferior status, owing eternal fealty to their dread liege lord.  All Fred Bottomley could say, though, was, "Make a good site for one of those Vampire pictures!  You know, the kind Hammer used to make a few years back. I can just imagine Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff, Peter Cushing and Co. up there!"

Knowing that Dorothy would not rest until she had seen the place at close quarters, he drove up the steep series of roads and lanes until they were finally at the castle gates. They looked through the massive wrought iron gates, old and uncared for, with peeling paint and rusted ironwork. The drive leading up to the building was unweeded and overgrown. Trees shielded the main building from view and Mrs. B’s face sank with disappointment. Fred shivered, despite the fact that it was a warm day.

Something about the place did not appeal to him, coarse and insensitive fellow though he usually was.  He knew little and cared less about "atmosphere" but this time he felt a "presence". The place was full of something that he knew to be menacing and hostile to him and even more so to his darling wife.

Dorothy, though, was more enraptured by the whole concept of living in such a home than ever. Having satisfied themselves that it was impossible to get inside the grounds to inspect the building, they made for the nearest town and called in at the local estate agents.

The sole member of staff on duty that day was very helpful.  It had not been a busy day and the chance of a sale and its attendant commission perked him up as soon as the couple entered. He was a slim and vibrant young man with a toothbrush moustache, receding chin and a very sharp suit.

"Fortescue Castle? Yes, it’s been empty for a couple of years, now. The last tenants went back to America. They were only over here for a short while. Used it for a weekend retreat. I know for a fact that the owner has no wish to live there himself. I don’t doubt he’d be happy to sell if the price were right. I’ll contact him and get back to you if you would like."

 Dorothy would very much like and it was agreed that the owner would be contacted. The couple went back to London and to their large house in Bishop’s Avenue.  Fred was a little disturbed that his wife’s impulsiveness had got them this far, but was still very hopeful that the sale would fall through. The idea of spending any time at all in that forbidding pile was becoming more displeasing to him by the minute. He forgot all about it as he returned to work. Managing that still growing chain of supermarkets that had originated only thirty years ago as a dingy shop in Shoreditch was a full time job. Alas, a fateful series of events was already well in train, unknown to him and his wife.

It was two weeks after their little trip in the country that the phone rang. It was a Mr. Walter B Hanspacker, who, it seemed, was the present owner of Fortescue Castle. An appointment was arranged for later in the week at the Savoy Grill.

Over an unaccustomedly generous lunch (Mrs. Bottomley did by far the better part of the eating in this marriage), Mr. Hanspacker, who, judging from his accent hailed from somewhere in the American Southwest, explained his feelings about the castle.

"I won’t fool around, Fred. I can’t stand the place. Never could. Gives me the screaming willies. I rented it to some business associates for a couple of years and they loved it, simply loved it, and you can check with them if you like. But as for me I won’t go within miles of it! Worst investment I ever made!"

Fred indicated that he personally had no more inclination to live there than the present owner.  He hastened to explain why he was nevertheless still interested.