Greed was in the heart of one, relief in that of another, and a nameless foreboding in that of poor Mr. Bottomley and joy unconfined in that of the infatuated Dorothy as the purchase was agreed.
We’d like to complete the transaction as soon as possible, said that long-suffering tycoon, Mr. Fred Bottomley, as his wife scurried off on her continuing tour of inspection, uttering frenzied whoops of amazed delight at all-too frequent intervals. "As you can see, the little woman’s really taken with the place!"
"Not such a little woman!" Mr. Hanspacker thought somewhat wryly, although he was far too much of a gentleman to give voice to such an uncharitable opinion, no matter how emphatically it might be justified!
Well, I wish the pair of you joy in the old place! He paused and then continued. I don’t want to find myself told at some future point that I have sold you a pig in a poke. I must issue a bit of a caveat."
A few seconds passed. Mr. Hanspacker seemed to be choosing his words carefully, as of one whom that most unwelcome of imports from the USA, the ambulance chasing Compensation Culture, had already burnt severely.
"There are people in the town who say, very sincerely and fearfully, that this place is haunted by the shade of the Eleventh Earl, whose financial ruin over one hundred years ago caused the castle to be sold not too long after his death to pay off his enormous and gambling related debts. They also say there is a curse on all who presume to lord it over his ancestral home; that he will pursue such people without mercy and with appalling fury up to and even beyond the grave. Not only that, but one day the family will return to claim their inheritance to the utter ruin of any usurper. Fat chance of that!"
"Fat chance?" asked Fred, interested at this.
Yeah. Not the ghost of a chance. "
Mr. Hanpacker laughed, his chubby rubicund face creased with smiles, "The present Earl has a cottage on the edge of the Castle grounds. It’s all that remains of his family’s once mighty landholdings, but I don’t think he’s around these parts a lot -- not since his father died and he inherited what little was left of the family fortune. I can’t say I’ve ever set eyes on him, or any one else I know. He’s some kind of intellectual, apparently. I heard he’s a writer of highly scholastic tomes, the like of which would send you and me to sleep in seconds; and spends most of his time in London hanging out with the literary and intellectual set there. I have an idea he lectures at the University from time to time on some dreary specialised subject or other. Highly respected in his field, whatever that might be! Most unlikely he’d want to come and bury himself here, even if, by some miracle, he could afford to buy the place back!"
Fred Bottomley shook his head and smiled wearily. When he finally spoke, the sad and bitter experience of many years could be seen to have infiltrated his morose tones, giving them a deadening and soul searing hopelessness.
"Ah! But what if the man had a wife, though! Maybe some social climber attracted by his title, or an incurable romantic attracted by the idea of restoring him to his own again. Now SHE, if she set her mind to it, might take it into her head that she wanted to come here and play the role of the great feudal lady. Yes! She might very easily change the poor scholarly old Earl’s mind for him and drag him back to his ancestral home. Wives are very good at getting their own way! I know, I have one of my own, bless her heart!"
Hanspacker laughed in a genial manner. As a relieved widower, he could see in the buyer’s predicament all the arguments he needed to justify keeping a firm hold on the precious freedom which he had so mercifully regained (Not that he didn’t every now again miss and perfunctorily lament the late Mrs. Hanspacker. But not so far as to wish for a replacement. No way!)
"Well, it would need to be a very rich wife that the good Earl found for himself! You know what I’m asking for the place -- it’s hardly peanuts! And even if by some miraculous intervention of one of the holy saints he did raise the necessary, your little lady’s not about to be selling no matter how handsome the offer!"
Fred agreed with a sigh. The ‘little woman’s’ infatuation with this menacing and rambling hilltop eyrie was something he would have to live with, but he wasn’t going to enjoy it, not one little bit! He looked around and shivered again, despite the warmth of a typically English summer’s day. There was definitely some kind of brooding presence about the Castle. He was a down to earth materialist to his fingertips and as un-superstitious as they come, but this place really got to him.
The dear wife came running back to them as they spoke and the ever-obedient Fred leant his well-belaboured ear to be near her moustachioed mouth as it spoke out its latest enthusiasm.
"Oh! Fred!!! There’s this adorable great hall with a parquet floor! Just think about the grand balls that must have been held there in times past! I just want to see that floor shining so that I can see my face in it! At present it’s a rather sorry sight, but a bit of elbow grease will have it sparkling like new in no time! I won’t rest until that day! You WILL agree to buy this heavenly place, won‘t you, my little treasure?"
Both men wilted under the impact of the good lady’s frenetic enthusiasm. There was no way that the poor henpecked Fred, a Captain of Industry and Commerce at work, but a cowering slave at home, could resist his wife. The deal was done, there and then.
Lawyers were instructed and conveyances signed. Money (a lot of money) changed hands. A couple of weeks later, Mrs. Bottomley was able to set about installing herself into her new home, queening it over her new domain. Fed followed meekly in her wake on the initial tour of inspection. He prayed his humble thanks to the Almighty and Omnipotent God that important work would force him to stay in London for most of the time, thus keeping him away from this sinister and menacing white elephant of a home.
It was an absolute categorical imperative that he not come down to this place permanently if he were to continue to run his business properly and pay for his dear wife‘s ever more expensive tastes. To his relief, the lady readily agreed with him on this. She was privately longing to take possession and order the place to her own satisfaction. The weekends would be quite enough for her as far as her husband’s company was concerned!
It was soon apparent that the place was too vast for Mrs. B to be able to maintain by herself; fine, strong and well-built lady though she was. The couple immediately set about hiring a staff of servants to assist in the running of the Castle. It rapidly became clear that no local person was in any way interested in serving under the quasi-obese nouveau rich lady and her inoffensive, browbeaten and somewhat common husband.
Fitch, the former gardener was persuaded to resume his duties after a few years quietly sinking into semi-alcoholic idleness. This worthy gentleman’s reluctance to serve the interloping and portly upstart was finally overcome by the size of the salary he was offered.
"Aaarggh! ‘E don’t turn down pay loike that, me love! And Oi‘ll be working outside away from the old bitch; won‘t see too much of the f*cking cow," were his words to his wife later on in the day after his hiring had been agreed.
All this did not satisfy the good lady’s desire to have menials to order around. As she more and more came to terms with the lordliness of her new home it did not seem right to her that a grand lady should not be surrounded by a large retinue of obsequious lackeys. A cook and a butler were recruited from the nearest city, but it began to become painfully obvious to the good chatelaine that neither of these professionals would be amenable to being pushed around and dominated in the way she increasingly wished for. What she wanted was a poor young servant girl, àla Cinderella, on whom to practice and develop her skills as a harsh taskmistress and tyrannical lady of the manor. It was no longer sufficient for her to dominate Fred.
She wondered how Mr. Jenkins the butler, and Mrs. Huskisson the cook, would react to the presence of a terrorized and eternally overworked young girl in the house. Something about both these worthies told her that she had no need to worry about them. She sensed a cruel streak in both of them.
Weeks passed and no sign of a solution to her problem turned up. She began to take out her frustrations on her husband, who, truth to tell, was well used to this kind of thing by now!
And then it happened. ‘It’ being the meeting that was to transform her life and the lives of several others in all sorts of ways. The good lady was walking back to her car from a tour of the local shops when her ears were assailed by a plaintive "Spare some change please?"
Usually Mrs. Bottomley would ignore such wheedling and unwelcome pleas from the indigent poor, sweeping past with her nose in the air. This time was different. She gazed haughtily at the slight and ill-clad figure squatting on the pavement. "Get yourself a job, you dirty parasite," were her amiable words to the unfortunate destitute on the pavement below her.
"A chance would be a fine thing," replied the young woman beggar in a voice which could have issued forth from the lips of a duchess. "You don’t think I enjoy this life, do you?"
Mrs. Bottomley moved a little closer and immediately regretted it! To say that this young woman was in need of a good wash would be one of the most masterly understatements of all time. She stank in a way the good lady had never known anyone to stink before. Dorothy Bottomley staggered back and applied a scented handkerchief to her nose. As soon as she had managed, with some difficulty, to fight down the nausea, she walked quickly away. When she was far enough along the main street to be mercifully beyond the ambit of the girl’s ultra strong stench, she turned around and shouted, "You should be ashamed, utterly ashamed! A person who sounds well bred and educated as well; how can you live like that? Disgusting!"
She returned home, still feeling somewhat queasy. The foul stink still lingered loathsomely in her nostrils, causing her to feel like gagging each time the memory of it returned.
The filthy young beggar girl watched until Mrs. B was out of sight. Then she rose to her dirty and smelly bare feet. It had most likely been their appalling odor that had upset Mrs. Bottomley, she reflected maliciously. Of all the loathsome smells that she was transmitting to a horrified world, her feet gave out the worst by a very long way!
"She didn’t like it too much when she got a whiff of me that’s for sure! Can‘t say I much blame her!" she chuckled to herself as she proceeded to make off out of the town and over a couple of fields to the disused and tumbledown shed that she had been using as a shelter. She clutched to her firm and shapely young bosom the few items of food and drink that a kindly passer-by had pushed into her hands (hurriedly) before hastening speedily and precipitately onwards, out of range of that horrible pong.
She huddled into a corner, ate the food and drank the bottle of water gratefully. It had been a hard few days for the young woman and she guessed there would be even harder times to come. Before she went to sleep she stuck her disheveled head with its unlovely covering of lice infested hair out of the door and looked out at the old town with its antiquated half timbered houses huddled under the brooding presence of the ancient Castle. She thought of the multitudinous attempts (all unsuccessful) made to storm that fastness in the old days, until the last of its long line of lords died a bankrupt. Only then had the place been lost to the proud and noble family who had occupied it for so long. The girl shivered as she looked up at those towers and battlements, even though it was the middle of July and the evening was as warm as any that of long hot summer. She shivered again and went back inside the hut and slept. As she slept, a fox stole softly into the shed, sniffed the rancid air and left hurriedly, its nose wrinkling in horror.