Turn Left at the Daffodils. Elizabeth Elgin

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СКАЧАТЬ the poor soul was found – if she was found, which I very much doubt. You should have seen your face, Nan. The old boy was having the time of his life, inventing a ghost and getting free beer into the bargain!’

      ‘Well, I think he meant it. He was real serious about it – couldn’t have made all that lot up on the spur of the moment. But there’s one way to find out. We’ve got to ask around and see if anybody has come across a grave with a stone marker. I reckon that guard what came up on me from behind the other night would know.’

      ‘So what do you say to him, Nan? Excuse me, but have you seen a nun’s grave on your travels? You’d have to tell him, then, about the man in the pub, and he’d laugh his head off at you! So, repeat after me! There – are – no – such – things -as ghosts!’

      ‘All right, then – there are no such things as ghosts. But I’m goin’ to find out all I can about that grave. A hundred yards away from the house, didn’t he say?’

      ‘Yes. And Southgate is much farther away than that, so it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll ever see the nun – if she exists, that is.’

      ‘Ghosts don’t exist, Evie. If they existed, they wouldn’t be ghosts. And I think we should warn Carrie to be careful of that stable block. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind goin’ to the NAAFI when we get back – have a big cup of hot cocoa.’ Cocoa, Nan reasoned, was safe and sane and helped you to sleep.

      ‘What! Had you forgotten – the NAAFI hut is right beside the stables,’ Evie giggled.

      ‘I know it is, but it’s April and November that’s the hauntin’ season so we’ll be all right tonight, Miss Clever Clogs. Now, are you goin’ to hurry up, or what!’

      Nan Morrissey wanted the thick walls of Southgate Lodge around her – and before it got dark, an’ all!

      Carrie locked the door of Southgate Lodge, placed the key on the door lintel, then made for the NAAFI, Jeffrey’s letter in her pocket.

      ‘Hi, there! Have we got news for you!’ A breathless Nan at the gate. ‘You aren’t goin’ to believe this in a million years!’

      ‘So tell me,’ Carrie smiled, glad to see them. ‘You found the village pub and they were giving free drinks!’

      ‘Garn! Better’n that, Carrie. Heronflete’s got a ghost! An old feller in the pub told us.’

      ‘Don’t take any notice. He was pulling her leg. There are no such things as ghosts. You tell her, Carrie!’

      ‘What? That I don’t believe in spirits and ghosts and things that go bump in the night? But I did, once – when I was a kid. But walk with me to the NAAFI. Tell me about it?’

      So, breathless and flush-cheeked, Nan told all, and when she had finished and when Carrie had posted her letter she said, ‘OK? So do you believe the old feller, Carrie?’

      ‘Well – once I might have, but since you ask, Nan, no, I don’t. When I was little, there was a big old house near the village. Empty, and falling down and dangerous. Chunks falling off it all the time. We weren’t supposed to go there, but the lads in the village couldn’t keep away.

      ‘They didn’t want girls with them, so they told us awful tales about headless ghosts and bloodstains on the floor. Said that was why the place was so neglected – because no one would live there because they’d been frightened away by the hauntings. None of it was true, of course. Jeffrey and Todd had invented it all. Stupid of me to have believed them. So – shall we have a mug of tea whilst we’re here? My treat.’

      And Evie said thanks, she would, and Nan said could she have cocoa to help her to sleep?

      ‘So here’s to ghosts,’ Evie laughed, raising her mug of tea.

      ‘Don’t mock.’ Nan sipped her cocoa gratefully. They made smashing cocoa, here; put Carnation milk in it so it was worth the extra penny. ‘And you believed once, Carrie, even though it was only a leg-pull. So tell me – I know Jeffrey’s the feller you’re engaged to, but who is Todd – your brother?’

      ‘No, though we were brought up together. My father owed his father, you see.’

      And, with remembering in her eyes, she told them about how, before he died, her father had made provision for his batman’s widow and her young son; out of gratitude, that was.

      ‘Todd was nearly fourteen when he left us. Marie, his mum, died very suddenly of diphtheria so he went to his Auntie Hilda, in Lancashire.’

      ‘Did you miss him,’ Evie asked softly.

      ‘I did. He’d always been around, then suddenly there’s this lady come to take him away. I wanted him to stay with us, but my mother said she couldn’t be held responsible for bringing him up; that it was best he should go to family. I cried a lot.’

      ‘So where is he, now?’

      ‘Haven’t a clue, Nan. He never wrote, nor came back to the village – not even to see his mother’s grave. I’ve never been able to understand why, because before he went he said he was going to marry me one day and I told him I’d like that very much. My first proposal – aged twelve…’

      ‘Rotten of him not to write, for all that.’

      ‘Mm. I was really upset. And what was worse, I hadn’t got his aunt’s address and my mother had lost it, so I couldn’t write and ask him how he was. Perfidious creatures, men are. I still think about him – sometimes.’

      ‘But of course you do. You always remember your first love. Only natural. But you’re happy with Jeffrey, now.’

      ‘Of course I am, Evie.’

      ‘So why don’t you wear your ring,’ Nan demanded bluntly.

      ‘You know why not. But I promise you that if ever we go out to a dance, or anything, I’ll wear it.’

      The sun was setting as they walked back to Southgate Lodge. Low and red in the sky promising a crisp September morning, then sun to break through and melt away the early autumn mists.

      ‘Soon be time to draw the blackout curtains.’ Evie unlocked the door. ‘And this is the first time in my entire Army career that I’ve ever had the key to my billet! It’s so – different – here. Too good to last, if you ask me.’

      ‘And why shouldn’t it last,’ Nan demanded, taking off her cap, unbuttoning her jacket. ‘I always dreamed of country cottages but I never once thought the Army would billet me in one. If I have any say in the matter, I’m stoppin’ here for the duration.’

      ‘Ghost and all?’ Evie teased.

      ‘All right, then. Mock if you want, but it’ll be a different kettle of fish, won’t it, when I find that grave marker.’

      And find it she would or her name wasn’t Nancy Morrissey who was a member of the Auxiliary Territorial Service and would be eighteen in November. On the day – or night, most probably – that the ghost walked!

      ‘Er – anybody goin’ down the garden to the lavvy before it gets dark? СКАЧАТЬ