Author Topic: The old house  (Read 1389 times)

Michael Rolls

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The old house
« on: Dec 07, 2019, 07:11:33 AM »
It was an old house. An old, rambling house that had been altered, knocked about, half destroyed by fire sometime in the eighteenth century, but it had always been valued enough by successive owners to be reinstated. It had even survived a near miss from a German bomb in nineteen forty-one, although why a German bomber would have chosen to drop its bombs nowhere near any imaginable worthwhile target was a mystery.
That, however, was not the only mystery about the house. The nearest village, over two miles away, still had one or two inhabitants who claimed to remember the disappearance of the wife of the then owner in nineteen thirty-nine, a disappearance that took place in late August of that year and was almost instantly overshadowed by the declaration of war on the third of September.
Mrs. Valerie Forde, the old timers declared, had been a good-looking woman, and also a wealthy one. It was, they avowed, her money that had purchased the house some five or so years earlier, and her money which had paid for its extensive modernisation. They had not a good word to say for Harold Forde, the husband, who claimed that his wife had left him for another man, although if that was the case, the villagers would have liked to know, how come nobody, including the couple’s live-in maid, had ever seen hide or hair of another man? Furthermore, without his wife’s presence, how come Harold Forde still seemed to be flush with money?
There had been a police investigation, but a perfunctory one. The official view was that Mrs. Forde was an adult and if she chose to seek pastures new, then, with no suspicion of foul play, that was that – besides, there was a war on.
Kenneth and Barbara Hilton had viewed the house when, in the early summer of two thousand and eighteen, it had come onto the market following the death of its most recent owner, one James Collison, an elderly widower with no family to inherit the bricks and mortar which had formed by far the major part of the old man’s estate, and who had purchased it on the death of Harold Forde in nineteen sixty- two. The Hiltons had viewed the house on a sunny day in June. When they finally moved in on a gloomy day in late November, the house had a totally different feel to it. Kenneth Hilton, a successful and recently retired, at the encouragingly early age of fifty-two, stockbroker, was impervious to what his wife, ten years his junior, promptly described as the ‘atmosphere’ of the house.
“What do you mean, atmosphere?” He demanded in perplexity. His wife shrugged her shoulders despairingly.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but back in the summer it seemed, oh, I don’t know, a happy place, even if old Collison had let it run to seed a bit. Now, OK, so we’ve had the decorators in and the plumbers, and the electricians, and all that lot, and inside it looks like a new pin, but that’s just gloss. It’s still an old, old house, and somehow, it seems cold and unwelcoming.”
Her husband snorted his disapproval.
“Look, love, it’s cost a bloody fortune to bring this place up to scratch – please, please, don’t tell me we’ve wasted our money and you want out of it.”
His wife gave a deep, deep, sigh.
“I’m sorry, Ken, I guess it’s just because the weather is so miserable and we haven’t even got everything unpacked yet – I’m sure it’s OK really.”
The next few weeks were busy ones as the Hiltons got the place as they liked it – it had been sold with much of the existing furniture still in situ; some they kept, more they junked, and a fair amount of new things took their place, but at last, with the school holidays closing in on them, the house was ready. Helen, aged fifteen and the two boys, thirteen-year-old twins, John and Michael, were duly impressed. Used to the luxurious, but cramped London apartment when on holiday from their respective boarding schools, the six bed-roomed place felt huge, and Barbara was able to forget her initial reaction to the house when she and Kenneth had moved in on that November day.
It was New Year’s Eve when, for Barbara, things changed. The family had stayed up to welcome in the New Year and as Big Ben’s chimes rang out on the TV, it was Helen who suddenly said ‘Who’s there?’
The others looked at her.
“What do you mean, darling, ‘Who’s there’?” Barbara realised with a start that their daughter was staring fixedly at the door into the hall.
“There’s someone out there,” the girl replied, “didn’t you hear them?”
“There’s nobody out there,” her father responded, “look, I’ll show you.”
So saying, he strode to the door and threw it open. The hall was empty.
“You see? Helen, it’s an old house – you’ll hear floorboard’s creak from time to time, that sort of thing. That must be what you heard.”
Helen shook her head slowly.
“It didn’t sound like that, dad, more like someone walking.”
“Well, there’s nobody there, darling, so don’t worry.”
Helen shrugged her shoulders, clearly not convinced, but unwilling to press the matter with her parents.
New Year’s Day dawned clear, bright and frosty. Given the late hour at which they had gone to bed, it was nearly nine o’clock before Barbara, normally an early riser, got up, leaving her husband still blissfully asleep. Clearly, the children were also still asleep. Effectively, she had the house to herself and she made her way to the kitchen where she brewed a cup of tea. As the electric kettle did its thing, she walked away from the worktop, intending to look out of the window as dawn began to reassert itself, but suddenly she shivered. Somehow the room had suddenly become cold, and despite the heavy dressing gown over her nightie, she felt chilled to the bone.
She shook herself impatiently – it must be a draught, she told herself and took her tea into the living room. The feeling of coldness persisted, however, although to a lesser extent and finally she decided that it was time to turn up the central heating prior to having a shower and getting dressed. The main thermostat for the system was in the hall; to reach it, she passed the cellar door and as she did so the feeling of being cold intensified. She adjusted the thermostat and then, puzzled, she went to the cellar door. The cellar, once a coal store, had been a definite plus in Kenneth’s eyes. It now housed the gas fired boiler and wine racks. To prevent the wine being affected by heat being generated by the boiler, it was contained in a small, heavily insulated, room carved out of one corner of the cellar, so Barbara wasn’t surprised that the cellar was chilly. She wondered if perhaps the boiler had gone out, so she opened the door into its space; all was as normal. The boiler was roaring away without any trace of a problem, so she closed the door again.
As she stepped back through the door, the flagstone shifted under her weight; for a moment she had an awful expectation that the ground was about to open and swallow her up, but the stone merely sank a couple of inches and then came to rest.
Barbara hurried from the cellar, to find that her husband was now up and, in his turn, making himself a cup of tea. She explained what had happened, and after having a look for himself and deciding that didn’t seem to be any immediate risk, decided to leave off calling in a builder for a few days – it was, after all, New Year’s Day.
When a builder did call it was the start of a nightmare. It seemed that the considerable difference in temperature of the floor of the boiler room and that of the cellar immediately adjacent had caused some form of subsidence and digging down to check how far it had spread came to an immediate stop when bones, apparently human, were discovered.
From then on it was in hands of the police. The immediate assumption was that the remains must be those of Mrs. Valerie Forde, the lady who had disappeared back in 1939, that there had been no other man, and that her husband, now some fifty-seven years in his own grave, had murdered her.
And so it seemed that the matter was concluded, but there was more to come.
Detective Chief Inspector Harold Ingham looked at his sergeant with incredulity.
“Say that again, Mitchell” he commanded.
Detective Sergeant Sarah Mitchell cleared her throat.
“Examination of the skeletal remains shows them to that of a male, aged between forty and sixty, approximately five feet five inches in height. Carbon dating places the remains as having been buried between seventeen ninety and eighteen oh five.”
The senior detective shook his head.
“So, we haven’t discovered a murder from the nineteen thirties – we’ve found a corpse from something like two hundred and twenty years ago. Well, we’ll never find out any more – case closed!”
The initial local excitement quickly died away, and it was some months later that Barbara spoke to the family – the children were home for the Easter holidays.
“You know how feeling so cold that day led me to go down to the cellar? Well, I’ve never had that feeling again. I think that we were fated to find the remains of that poor man so he could a proper burial.”
“What, you think his ghost reached out to you?” Was her husband’s sceptical reply.
Well, nobody believes in ghosts, now do they? And yet…………………
Thank you for the days, the days you gave me.
The older I get, the better I was!

em

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Re: The old house
« Reply #1 on: Dec 07, 2019, 12:29:29 PM »
Michael,just read your ghost story.Enjoyed it.Thank you.

Raven

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Re: The old house
« Reply #2 on: Dec 07, 2019, 12:37:59 PM »
I will read them later over the Weekend, promise.  8)  just can't get the time I'll need the now. A moment here and there in between jobs.  ::)

Michael Rolls

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Re: The old house
« Reply #3 on: Dec 07, 2019, 12:52:17 PM »
Thanks, friends
Mike
Thank you for the days, the days you gave me.
The older I get, the better I was!

Cassandra

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Re: The old house
« Reply #4 on: Dec 07, 2019, 01:39:31 PM »

Mike,
Really enjoyable story - thank you,

My Little Dog - A heartbeat at my feet ...

Michael Rolls

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Re: The old house
« Reply #5 on: Dec 07, 2019, 05:52:19 PM »
Glad you liked it
Mike
Thank you for the days, the days you gave me.
The older I get, the better I was!

Alex22

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Re: The old house
« Reply #6 on: Dec 07, 2019, 06:42:53 PM »
That was really good Mike   "^,"
.

Michael Rolls

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Re: The old house
« Reply #7 on: Dec 07, 2019, 08:25:38 PM »
Thank you
Mike
Thank you for the days, the days you gave me.
The older I get, the better I was!

Jacqueline

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Re: The old house
« Reply #8 on: Dec 08, 2019, 12:17:44 AM »
Great story Mike, I love a ghosty one, that would make a really good TV play.
 Thanks

Michael Rolls

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Re: The old house
« Reply #9 on: Dec 08, 2019, 02:42:05 AM »
You are very welcome
Mike
Thank you for the days, the days you gave me.
The older I get, the better I was!

GrannyMac

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Re: The old house
« Reply #10 on: Dec 08, 2019, 05:01:26 AM »
And a thumbs up from me. 👍🏽
Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right.

R. Gervais

Michael Rolls

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Re: The old house
« Reply #11 on: Dec 08, 2019, 05:08:07 AM »
Thank you. Actually, I would love to develop that into a full blown book, but without Veronica to read it, the enthusiasm isn’t there
Mike
Thank you for the days, the days you gave me.
The older I get, the better I was!

Raven

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Re: The old house
« Reply #12 on: Dec 08, 2019, 01:07:18 PM »
Enjoyed that Mike. :D

Michael Rolls

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Re: The old house
« Reply #13 on: Dec 08, 2019, 04:34:05 PM »
Glad you liked it, ma’am
Mike
Thank you for the days, the days you gave me.
The older I get, the better I was!

biglouis

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Re: The old house
« Reply #14 on: Feb 08, 2020, 03:36:38 PM »
 This happened to some friends of mine quite a few years ago.
 
They had bought their house in a run down condition because it didn’t even have electricity! An old maiden lady had been the last occupant. She had cared for her ailing father for many years and then lived on alone into her nineties. The house was sold by the solicitors who handled her estate as only distant relatives were alive.
 
For years Avril and Dave (not their real names) were renovating the house and garden. They did most of the work themselves, not having the means for much professional help. Eventually they had the house much as they wanted. In particular they were proud of their garden, which had been like a jungle when they took it over. As a finishing touch they decided to add a gazebo for somewhere to sit on summer evenings with a glass of wine.
 
Ever the bargain seeker, Dave bought a DIY pack and paid a young local lad to help him erect it. However even a do it yourself summer house required a proper foundation. Dave and the lad had dug the necessary hole and the wagon was due next day to pour the concrete. Dave had just dismissed the lad for the day and was gathering up the tools, when he noticed a flash of something white at the bottom of the hole they had dug. Scrabbling about in the freshly raised dirt he found a bone, then another.
 
When Avril came home from her job as a nurse at the local hospital she found Dave sitting at the kitchen table staring at the part complete skeleton of a very young child laid out on the kitchen table. From her knowledge of anatomy Avril knew it was a newborn. Recounting the history of the former owner, they concluded that the child had belonged to the maiden lady. It was likely that at sometime in the past, when such things were still considered shocking, she had concealed the birth of an illegitimate child. There was no way of knowing whether the child had died of natural causes or been helped on its way out of the world by a then frightened young woman.
 
Late into the night the couple discussed what they should do. Because of the timeline the bones had probably been in the earth for at least 20 or 30 years, probably longer. Their intention, now that the house had been renovated, was to put it on the market and move up the housing ladder into a smarter area,


Did they really want police tramping about their beautiful garden and digging it up after so many years of hard work? Did they want rapacious press and ghoulish onlookers turning up to gloat?

More importantly, did they want to risk their investment by becoming the owners of a property with a dark and gruesome past, thus destroying much of its present value?
No way!
 
Both were in agreement. There was nothing to be gained by reporting the discovery to the so called authorities. Why rake up the past? They re-buried the bones where they had found them and said a prayer over the place.
 
Next day the lorry came to pour the concrete and the bones were buried under it. And there, to the best of my knowledge, they remain to this day.
 
Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools.