We toured at leisure through the kitchens, the brew-house, the dairy, the buttery, the larder, and finally the scullery, built round an unusual indoor well. From the scullery a small, heavy door gave onto a square courtyard, open to the sky and surrounded on three sides by the house itself. The fourth side of the square was closed by a high stone wall, overgrown with trailing ivy and surmounted by imposing iron spikes.
Rather like having a private park in the middle of one's house, I thought. Except that it was dreadfully overgrown. You couldn't see the ground at all, in some places, and a tangled mass of weeds and wildflowers had choked off the stone walkway that angled across the courtyard. I was surprised that Iain hadn't done anything with the place, and said as much.
"Make it into a sort of secret garden, you mean? Yes, well, I suggested it to him once, but he wasn't keen on the idea. He doesn't like the courtyard,' Geoff said. 'Says it feels like a tomb.'
It did, rather, come to that. The air within the walls was still and lifeless, the silence palpable, and though the sun beamed brightly down upon us, beneath my feet the grasses sighed from sadness and neglect.
'But if it's gardens you're after, come take a look at this,' Geoff offered. He led me back along the pathway to the main body of the house, and drew me once again into the west passage. Opposite the kitchen wing a short flight of steps led down into the conservatory, a wonderfully formal Victorian room filled with glass and light and painted wicker, and the smell of lilies hanging over everything.
For the second time, the sound of approaching footsteps sent us scuttling for cover. Geoff shepherded me across another passage and into a darkened stairwell that was saturated with the cool, dank scent of stone. Halfway up the stairs he held me back with a hand on my arm, and pointed to a spot near our feet.
'See that? That bit of carved stonework below the paneling? That's twelfth century. It dates from the time of the Benedictine priory. Apart from a few ghosts and some Gothic arches in the west wall, that's all the monks left us.'
I stooped low for a closer look, tracing the carving with my fingers. 'Left you a lot of ghosts, did they?'
'Oh, one or two. I think they're the only respectable ones I have. The ghosts of Crofton Hall are a rowdy lot.'
'So you believe in them.'
'I admit the possibility,' he clarified. 'After all, when a dozen or more people, who don't know each other or the house, claim to have seen the same thing, you have to concede that there's something there. They can't all be crazy.'
'And are there any ghosts upstairs?' I asked, gazing up the staircase with blatant curiosity.
Geoff laughed. 'A baker's dozen,' he informed me. "That's where the bedrooms are, you see, and ghosts seem to like bedrooms. My ghosts do, at any rate. There's one in particular—not so much a ghost, really, as a feeling—that seems to get a lot of people ... but I'll let you find it for yourself.'
'Oh, thank you very much,' I said dryly. 'This isn't an ax-murdering sort of ghost, is it?'
'No, nothing like that.' He shook his head, smiling. 'It's rather difficult to explain, especially since I've never felt it myself. Here we are.' He paused on the top step to push open the solid oak door. 'After you.'
The upstairs chambers were lovely, and richly furnished with an eye to detail. Heavy embroidered curtains and spreads made the massive four-poster beds look even more stately and luxurious, like miniature rooms unto themselves, and the fifteen-foot ceilings made me feel very small and plebeian.
I particularly liked the huge King Charles bedroom, where the ill-fated king himself reputedly passed a few nights while mustering his troops against Cromwell. The bedroom was directly over the Great Hall, and had the same massive proportions, with a beautiful ceiling plastered in curvilinear ribs that gave the room an almost continental gracefulness.
'And this is the Cavalier bedroom,' Geoff went on, leading me through the final doorway. 'It used to be called the crimson bedroom, but "Cavalier" sounded much more romantic for the guidebooks, and seemed to tie in with the King Charles room next door.'
The original name was the more logical, I decided, letting my gaze roam the faded red fabric-covered walls and the deeper crimson colour of the heavy draperies hanging from the imposing Jacobean bed. And then I felt the-cold.
Geoff continued with his narrative, but I was no longer listening. Some force, some irresistible, unexplainable force, was drawing me toward the room's only window, a large mullioned and transomed window that looked out over the wide front lawn and the walled churchyard.
He stopped talking, watching me, and then I think he said, 'So you feel it, too,' or something like that, and my body was suddenly invaded by a tidal surge of powerful emotions that I was powerless to control. First a longing, so deep and wistful that it tore at my soul, and then a kind of frantic praying, a desperate litany that raced round and round in my fevered brain, and finally a stab of sorrow as deep as a twisted knife. I sagged against the window ledge, my eyes brimming with sudden tears.
'Are you all right?' Geoff clasped my shoulder with a warm, strong hand, his voice concerned.
I blinked back the tears and showed him a reassuring smile that only wobbled a little. 'I'm fine,' I said. 'So that's the ghost, is it?'
'Yes. Look, I really am sorry.' He gazed earnestly down at me. 'I should have given you some warning—told you what to expect—instead of being so damned secretive about it.'