Of course every new recruit got told the ghost story. Stories, actually. A house like the Manor was bound to have the full set, a legionary in the rose walk, a knight in the chapel. Treachery in the Wars of the Roses and a Reformation priest hole under the stairs, heartbreak in the Civil War and a Georgian duel under the elms.
They shared out the telling like a treat. Which story, when you told it, where you set it. Some, knowing the new guide would repeat it all summer to gawking guests, made sure it was somewhere where there was little else to see, little nuisance in a huddle. Some, like Saunders, treated it as a performance. Waited until the last of the visitors had left, the teashop was closed down and the ticket booth shut up, until the live-in guides were making the final round of the public part of the house, and “why don’t you come with us, help check the doors and windows“.
And the doors of the Manor were heavy and closed, and the windows were dark and sightless, and under the eaves of the wood that pressed around the old house at the narrow end of the valley, underneath stern hills, the shadows gathered and thickened. The day was done and night was beginning.
“Has anyone told you about the bride?“, said Saunders.
They were on the back stairs, unlit and creaking, going single file up between the walls, to the servants corridor in the attic.
“The bride?“, said the cheerful young man.
Atkins, bringing up the rear, smiled to herself and mentally awarded Saunders points for style.
“Our ghost,“ said Saunders, “the bride.“
“There’s a ghost?” said the young man, excited.
“Oh there’s plenty of ghosts,“ said Sanders, “your learn all the stories, visitors love them. Only we don’t tell them about the bride. I wouldn’t tell you, if you weren’t living in. The bride’s our ghost.“
During the season the guides could stay in the old private part of the house. It was popular with students as cheap accommodation during the holidays.
“Why don’t you tell them?“ asked the young man.
“I don’t know,“ said Sanders, “I think perhaps some of us suspect she’s real.“
“Do you?“
“The story goes,“ said Sanders, not answering, “that the son of the house had got married and the wedding was celebrated with the party and they had games and one of the games, by tradition, was hide and seek. The bride had to hide and the guests had to seek.“
“How old is hide and seek, as a game, I mean?“ asked the young man, who was a student.
“Oh, one of the oldest,“ said Saunders, not missing a beat, “so off she runs, the young bride all excited and merry, not knowing the higgledy-piggledy old house she’s married into, so just turning and climbing at random. But she hears the searches begin to spread out below, stamping and shouting and so she’s off. Here they come. She has to hide. You can just imagine her, can’t you, giggling, breathless, excited, happily frantic.
“She finds herself up in some distant and and visited attic, and sees a linen press. A big wardrobe, you know. Now remember she doesn’t know this house, doesn’t know no one comes up here, doesn’t know how heavy the door of the press is, or how the lock can’t be opened from the inside. All she sees is a splendid place to hide. So in she climbs, in swings that heavy lid, click goes the lock and all of a sudden she realises she’s trapped, she can’t get out.
“Of course the guests are all searching but the attic is so remote, the wood so thick, the noise of the jolly searchers so raucous that no one hears her banging on the door. And her cries get weaker, and her strength gives out at the hammering and the air gets thick and hard to breathe.
“And there she is, all tightly locked up, packed away, trapped, waiting to be found. Still waiting, still, because they never found her. So still she waits to be found. Still she wants to be found. And there are plenty of guides will tell you they’ve seen her, or heard her, or felt her, in these corridors at night, looking for the searchers - all long dead themselves now of course - looking for her husband, looking to be found.“
The silence in the dim corridor the top of the house was deep and still and Atkins almost applauded.
“Perhaps that’s all she needs,“ said the young man, at last, “To be found. I’ve heard stories like that. Where there’s a ghost and they find the remains and the haunting stops.“
“There used to be the sound of crying at the library,“ said Atkins, “As the older guides used to tell it.”
“Then, when they renovated in the 19th century they found a child’s skeleton under the floorboards,“ said Saunders.
“And the crying stop,“ finished Atkins. The skeleton in the library had been the story Saunders it told her when she joined.
“The crying stopped,“ said the young man, “Yes, like that.“
Who can ever be sure what wakes one up in the small hours of the morning, in a strange bed, in a cold house, in the silent and waiting darkness?
Silent? The house creaked to itself in the stillness. The sound of a foot perhaps, the suggestion of a low voice. He had the distinct impression that just before he had woken someone had loudly and clearly spoken his name.
The young man was all at once fully awake. He had the sudden sense of someone close by not making any noise. The sound of someone not breathing, of clothes not rustling, or something not moving.
He opened his eyes. The room was, of course, quite empty. But there was movement outside, in the corridor, he was sure of it.
Saunders and Atkins. The others, making fun of him, again, the new guy.
And the young man swung his legs out from bed and stood up. He waited for a moment for the silence to settle once more. Stealthy footsteps just outside the door. He threw it open as quickly as he could.
The starlight was cold in the empty corridor.
But did something move, there, at the far end?
And the young man stepped down the corridor as quietly as he could.
Rushing feet, as on tiptoe, but the corridor beyond was deserted. The creak of a tread, but no one on the stairs, the flash of white gauze in the moonshine but round the corner nothing but shadow. The sound of a stifled giggle behind the door but when he stepped inside, the room was bare.
Entirely stripped bare, no furniture, no wallpaper or pictures, just a thin layer of dust on dark floorboards, under an unshuttered window. Which was how he could see, in the grey moonlight, the marks in the dust. The faint scrapes of running feet, leading to a low door in the wall, tucked in beneath the eaves.
And the young man crept across the room, and leaning down with a snap of the lock, wrenched open the little door.
And the young man saw, in the pale light, the yellow, cracked wedding dress, and the yellow cracked skin, all the yellow, eyeless, withered faces turn towards him in the narrow space under the rafters.
And all the yellow, withered hands reached out and took hold of his, with dry, unrelenting grip, pulling him in, pulling close the door, pulling close round the dry, crackling, suffocating, eyeless darkness.
“The version I heard,“ said Atkins at breakfast the next morning, “Was that the bride hid in the attic, not a linen press.“
“Attic, chest, wardrobe,“ said Saunders, “there’s thousands of versions. Where is he? He will miss his chance for breakfast.“
“What if,“ said Atkins, “They were playing sardines instead of hide and seek. How many ghosts do you think you could fit in an attic?“
“Infinite, I would’ve thought,“ said Saunders, “They’re immaterial, are they?“
“They could go on playing forever,“ said Atkins.
“Well we can’t,“ said Saunders, “We’ll have to open up without him.“
And upstairs, under the roof, in the close and stifling attic, the players of the game waited, breathless, patient, waited for whoever might find them next.