Tunbridge Wells Ghost Stories

Tunbridge Wells Ghost Stories

––––––––

James Ward

Contents

Aunt Eunice’s Hoard

The Hermetic Woman

The Standing Stones

The Mesmerist

The Antique Jewellery Box

To Cedric ... who seems to love Tunbridge Wells.

Aunt Eunice’s Hoard

I.

From the age of sixteen until the day I left university at twenty-two, I always spent the same three weeks of each year – the last half of July plus the first seven days of August - staying with my best friend, Charles Forsythe, and his family, in their big Edwardian house in Tunbridge Wells. In many ways, it was a homecoming: I’d been born locally, I’d gone to the biggest of the area’s primary schools – which is where I’d met Charles, as a matter of fact – and then to the C of E comprehensive on Culverden Down. After my own parents died in a car accident in 2017, and I went to live with my aunt in Cornwall, Mr and Mrs Forsythe felt demonstrably sorry for me; but they also feared that their only son was set to lose his best, and sole, friend (it undoubtedly helped that the attachment was mirrored on my side). Anyway, their invitations to stay always had a subpoena flavour about them – we expect to see you back here in a year’s time, Steven Parsons: consider yourself booked – and when, every July, in total and utter obedience, I arrived on their doorstep lugging my ten-ton suitcase, they invariably seemed just a little too pleased to see me (even elderly Aunt Eunice, who lived upstairs ninety-nine percent of the time, and who, given that she actually owned the house, had no reason whatsoever to play along).

In short, Charles and I were like brothers. We were also what used to be called ‘young fogies’: we didn’t care for flippancy, we weren’t remotely fond of parties, and we could sit together for hours on end without much in the way of conversation or face-to-screen time (obviously, we both had mobile phones, but we tended to consult them once in the morning, once in the evening, and otherwise, only if someone called). Most of our time together, we read: textbooks, not magazines, or novels; revising obsessively for exams, really, and trying to maximise our subject-knowledge. We both wanted postgraduate degrees, you see, then to take up university posts, and, ultimately, to write ground-breaking academic monographs for prestigious journals. I was reading history at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Charles, archaeology at Edinburgh.

At the time my story begins, we were both twenty-one. He was tall and stocky, with short, straight dark hair which combed left to right on top, and downwards at the sides, and stayed amenably in place without the use of gel. He also had what novelists sometimes call a ‘firm jaw’, ie, he looked the sort of man you could rely on in an emergency. I was equally tall, but much thinner. My own hair was uselessly curly and I wore heavy plastic-framed glasses of the kind that had been fashionable fifteen years ago, but which were now commonplace. I’d been told that my hands and feet looked too big for my arms and legs, so I suppose that’s worth adding. We habitually dressed in ironed trousers, oxford shirts and jumpers.

As for the other members of the Forsythe clan, Charles’s father, Dudley, was in his late fifties, and worked in the City doing something financial. He was nine-tenths bald, but dignified enough not to think shaving off the last little bit would improve his appearance (doubly dignified, perhaps, since everything that remained was grey). At home, he wore T-shirts with the names of long-forgotten rock bands on (‘the more obscure, the better’, he once told me), faded jeans, and oversized slippers done up to look like dog’s faces. He always enjoyed two or three whiskies after dinner. His wife, Corrine, was tall and slim, with long brown hair, and typically wore billowy ankle-length dresses and glittery espadrilles. She had lots of friends, and ran three book groups. Some evenings, she lit a bowl of ecclesiastical incense and chanted the Jesus Prayer in the summer house at the bottom of the garden. She liked wine.

However, the main interest of the house, personality-wise, was the ‘aunt’ (really a great-aunt, from Corrine’s side of the family): Eunice. She had the building’s entire third floor to herself - four rooms in total, including a bathroom plus a small kitchen - and, apart from her once-weekly dinner with the rest of the family, she was, for all practical purposes, invisible. Sunday was her family-visit night, and usually involved a traditional roast, cooked on alternate weeks by Corrine (lamb/beef) and Dudley (chicken/pork). She always dressed for the occasion: not showily, or eccentrically, but as if making an impression mattered and the most effective signifiers were small, subtle or both: pearl earrings, an immaculately ironed blouse, a silver bracelet, coiffured hair. She spoke intelligently about current affairs, but mostly, she asked Charles and I about our own interests and listened attentively. She liked to hear about history. Dudley seemed to think she was an amateur local historian, although, as far he knew, she’d never actually published anything, nor did she belong to any of the relevant research organisations, nor did she attend any of the occasional lectures at the local library. Nevertheless, he claimed to know ‘for an absolute fact’ that her hobby, which bordered on an obsession in his humble opinion, involved the sedulous acquisition, ‘by foul means or fair’, of documents and artefacts relating to the history of Tunbridge Wells Common. Not the town itself, he emphasised: just the Common. Occasionally, much to his sorrow (though he never said anything to Eunice), he came to hear about some extortionate sum she’d paid for an obviously worthless piece of tat, on the basis of which he inferred that she must have a large collection of such junk upstairs, though he’d never seen it, and doubted anyone else had. Antique dealers, auction houses, and possibly – ‘probably’, he corrected himself - the black market comprised her happy hunting ground, and, once she’d set her heart on an item, she never let it get away.

None of the family could ever get Eunice herself to confirm any of this, but equally, she never denied it. To add to the mystery, twice or sometimes three times a year, so Corrine said, someone unknown would turn up at the door – a ‘fellow collector’, was how they usually introduced themselves - completely out of the blue, hoping for an interview with the old lady. Eunice never turned them away, but for some reason they always left fifteen minutes later in a manifestly bad temper. They never returned, although others, apparently on the same obscure mission, always followed.

At this point in the story, Dear Reader, you probably imagine you know what’s coming. People always do. ‘Ah, yes,’ you’re thinking, ‘the two young men, Steven and Charles: they’ll shortly be overcome with curiosity about what Aunt Eunice is up to with all that mysterious hoarding of hers. They’ll find some way of breaking into her room and purloining her collection; at which point, they’ll find they’ve bitten off considerably more than they can chew. Because she won’t have been gathering documents and artefacts at all! Oh no, she’ll have been patiently summoning some hideously unspeakable creature from the underworld, almost certainly with the aid of black magic! Steven and Charles will spend the last two-thirds of the story wetting their pants and running away across the Common, and, if they’re lucky, they’ll survive, albeit with white hair and a nasty tic each. In that case, they’ll be suitably chastened, and it’ll serve them right; the end.’

So... yes (and at the risk of undermining my own, rather different tale) I admit that would make a wonderful story. But the fact is, it wouldn’t be very plausible. To begin with, Charles and I had well-developed consciences, and we had unmitigated respect for Aunt Eunice. It would never have occurred to either of us to do anything so obviously contemptible as go through her personal possessions behind her back, no matter how insanely ‘curious’ we were. Secondly, we had no reason to disbelieve Mr Forsythe’s assertion that the sole focus of her collection was Tunbridge Wells Common, and why would either of us be especially interested in that? No disrespect to it, of course – I’d often walk there on an evening, sometimes in company with Charles and/or his parents: it’s lovely, of course it is – but neither of us would have contemplated writing a doctoral thesis on it.

On the other hand, Aunt Eunice’s collection does form an important part of this story, albeit obliquely.

But enough of the preamble. Time to get started.

II.

Fancy a walk on the Common tonight, boys? Mr Forsythe asked.

Eight in the evening, Saturday. Outside, the shadows hadn’t quite dissolved into the gloaming, and there was sufficient light in the day to suggest the sun had just touched the horizon. I sat in the Forsythes’ kitchen with Charles and his parents. We’d eaten dinner two hours ago, Dudley had loaded the dishwasher, and we’d spent most of the time since talking amiably about the sorts of things no one is expected to remember the next day.

I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs a little, I said.

I suppose it can’t hurt, Charles said dolefully. Might as well make the most of the weather.

I’m going to watch catch-up, if that’s all right, Corrine said. Before Twitter lets on who got through to the next round.

"I thought we always watched Strictly together," Dudley said, feigning hurt.

You can watch it tomorrow, she said. You’ve got the night off, remember? She turned to me. It’s Dudley’s turn to cook, or would be, only Auntie’s away till tomorrow afternoon, and she’s already made it clear she won’t be joining us for dinner. So, we can have whatever we like. Any requests?

Takeaway, Charles said. I know that sounds like an insult, he added after a pause: "like, takeaway’s better than anything Dad can rustle up, but I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant, let’s all have a lazy afternoon and evening. I’ll pay."

Corrine hooted. Mr Moneybags!

We could go halves, Dudley said.

Thirds, I put in.

Corrine sighed jadedly, and took a gulp of Shiraz. Okay, quarters. We’ll all pay for our own takeaways. Fragmentation: the hallmark of the modern world.

Free choice, I call it, Dudley said.

Where’s Aunt Eunice gone? Charles asked.

London, Dudley replied. To collect another marvellous item to add to her already humongous magpie’s stash. This time, she’s afraid someone will intercept it.

Charles frowned. Dad, why do you have to be so dismissive? Aren’t you ever curious about what she’s collecting?

Dudley emitted a groan. "We’ve been through this before, Son. I love Eunice, and I love you, but she won’t talk about her collection, and I have to keep a lookout for all our interests. True, we’re not poor, so, if she lost this house, I dare say we could easily afford another, even here in one of the most expensive property markets in the land - "

Not counting London, of course, Corrine said.

London’s a dump, Dudley replied. "But getting back to the point, I don’t like seeing my beloved wife’s beloved Auntie taken for a mug by some of the biggest con men – con persons, sorry, dear – in Kingdom Come. Because that’s what it is. They’ve spotted an easy mark, and they’re intent on siphoning off as big a share of her life savings as they can... Okay, everyone, paint me as the villain for being so ‘cynical’, but you’re the real villains. I’m the only one who cares. About her and about us."

That’s unfair, Corrine said.

I could see what was coming. Charles held up both palms, his characteristic way of forestalling a row. Corrine took her wine into the sitting room and switched on the TV. Charles and I went upstairs and changed, ready to go for that walk on the Common. When we came downstairs, Dudley met us in the hallway, still in his dog’s face slippers and clutching a double whisky.

Sorry, lads, I’m going to cry off, he said. "Better watch Strictly like a good boy, and hope for some sort of rapprochement on the sofa, if you know what I mean. He chuckled. Sorry, that came out wrong. I just meant, holding hands, something like that."

Charles nodded. Understood.

It’s nothing to worry about, he said. We argue about Eunice all the time, you know we do. Each of us accepts the other has her best interests at heart, so there’s never any lasting damage. Quite the contrary. He grinned, apologetically. Still, bloody Twitter, eh?

III.

The Forsythes lived in Warwick Park, which is more or less across the road from the Common. Usually, we climbed to the ‘summit’ (apologies if you don’t know the town: ‘Mount’ Ephraim’s actually little more than a geologically interesting hillock), then zig-zagged our way slowly downwards, talking desultorily about anything and everything. Tonight, however, I sensed Charles had something on his mind. He’d seemed unhappy when Dudley had asked him if he wanted to go for a walk, then he’d snapped at him about Aunt Eunice. Now, we were walking in silence.

I knew not to ask what was wrong. Assuming it was any of my business, he’d tell me of his own accord.

Sorry if I seem out of sorts, he said, after five minutes. He gestured to one of the park benches by the Wellington Rocks. We sat down.

So what’s on your mind? I asked.

Believe it or not, an email. He took his phone from his pocket, swiped it, tapped it, and handed it to me.

At the top, in embedded type:

From: Professor Lavinia Trevor

Head of the Department of Archaeology, Edinburgh University.

Then, underneath:

Dear Charles,

I hope you won’t mind me contacting you out of the blue like this. Tony Mathers, your tutor, speaks very highly of your work, and I know your grades so far have been outstanding. You would be doing me a huge favour if we could put our heads together sometime regarding a relative of yours who happens to collect historical artefacts, and whose interests overlap significantly with my latest research project. Let me know how this sounds.

Kind regards, L.

Wow, I said neutrally. I still didn’t know whether I was meant to be pleased, curious, sceptical, or something else.

Stoops fairly low, don’t you think? Charles replied. I’ve never met Lavinia Trevor, and she’s never hitherto shown any interest in me. She obviously knows Aunt Eunice won’t want much to do with her, so she’s trying to use me as an entry ticket. What do you think will happen to my academic future if I say no?

I laughed, or pretended to. You may be reading too much into it. Whoever ‘Lavinia Trevor’ is, she’s probably not a gangster. I assume you haven’t told your parents?

Correct. I don’t want to rope them in. And I certainly won’t be showing Aunt Eunice. Professor Lavinia Trevor can take a running jump for all I care.

I laughed. Aren’t you curious?

About what?

Well, whatever Lavinia Trevor wants, it must be pretty important for her to ‘stoop so low’, as you put it. I don’t imagine she got to be a professor by putting the heat on every young undergraduate with a local historian in the family.

So, what are you saying? That I should write back?

"She only wants you to ‘put your heads together’; what’s wrong with that? You don’t have to respond post-haste with a, Yes, Ma’am, I’ll do everything in my power to get you unlimited access to my beloved Aunt Eunice... whom the email doesn’t explicitly mention, by the way, although I agree, no one else fits the bill."

Once I reply, I’ll be conceding the possibility of assisting her.

Are you so sure Aunt Eunice would want you to turn her down?

He sighed wearily. "You’re missing the point, Steven. If Lavinia Trevor wants to approach Aunt Eunice on her own, that’s fine by me. But if I allow myself to be used as an intermediary, Aunt Eunice is likely to think, ‘Well, I’d rather not help Professor Trevor, but I do want to give my great nephew a leg up in terms of his future, so I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for me to bury my reservations, just this once.’ Can’t you see, I don’t want her to think like that? And what if Lavinia Trevor turns out to be a crook? What if she takes exclusive credit for one of Aunt Eunice’s discoveries, whatever they are? Read Private Eye: ‘top academic’ and ‘low-life liar’ aren’t necessarily exclusive categories."

Okay, then write back to Lavinia Trevor; tell her it’s lovely to hear from her, but if it’s about Aunt Eunice, you’ve a policy of not getting involved; you’ve no objection to her contacting Aunt Eunice in a professional capacity, but you’d be very grateful if she could keep your name entirely out of it, for all the reasons you’ve just told me. Make it very polite, a tiny bit deferential, and I’m sure you’ll all live happily ever after.

He nodded and took a ruminative breath. Yes, actually, you’re right. You’re quite correct. I’ll write it tonight when we get in, then sleep on it, and if it still looks kosher tomorrow, in the cold light of day... Would you mind reading it before I press ‘send’, just to make sure I’ve got the right tenor?

Happy to.

Well done, by the way. I knew I could rely on you. Two heads are always better than one. Fancy calling in Frampton’s on the way back, for a pint? I’m paying.

Always up for a beer.

I think we were both getting colder, so when we resumed our walk, it was at the kind of pace that might revivify us. We fell into silence again. This time, I assumed Charles was planning what he was going to write.

We’d been going for about three minutes, and we were making our way fairly directly to the main road at the bottom of the hill, when Charles noticed something in the undergrowth, seven or eight feet away.

What’s that? he said, coming to a gentle halt by way of redirecting his attention.

The most I could discern was a glowing point in the midst of thickets. I don’t know, I said. Something... luminous?

I can see that.

A child’s, or a pet dog’s toy? ‘Persistent phosphorescence’, I think the chemists would call it.

It’s not that kind of glow.

I didn’t get time to ask what made him such an expert, because he was already on his way into the bushes. He picked whatever it was up and brought it back.

Not a toy, nor anything similarly mundane. Rather, a four-inch high figurine: a young woman, seated on a rustic throne, with the legend, Hagne, underneath in Greek letters.

Do you know anything about Hagne? he asked.

"The name sounds familiar. It is a name, I assume?"

Ancient Greece. One of the goddesses of the ancient Messenian waters. Or another name for Persephone, the Greek goddess of the Underworld. That’s a pomegranate she’s holding in her left hand.

I laughed. I hope you didn’t plant it with the intention of impressing me with your astounding subject-knowledge? University Challenge: starter for ten.

What’s it doing here? he asked.

The Messenian waters, I replied. So, some sort of connection with Tunbridge Wells and its famed ‘chalybeate springs’?

He clicked his tongue. No, sorry, that’s far too arcane. And why make it luminescent?

"Well, then, it’s a product of the modern-day Greek tourist industry - Get your glow in the dark Persephones here, just two euros each! - somehow washed up here, two thousand miles from home. "

He took a deep breath and let it out in a flute of disappointment. Okay, yes, I suppose that must be it. Something to show off when we get in, I suppose. You never know what’s going to turn up on the Common, eh?

Do you think it could fetch anything on EBay?

I’m not desperate enough to investigate. And I hope the same goes for you.

I can’t promise anything, I quipped lamely.

He slipped it into his coat pocket, and we set off at what, I calculated, was our former brisk pace plus one. I could just see the main road, through the trees. Fifty or sixty yards downhill, then we’d be back in the comforting fold of civilisation.

For some reason, though, I was a little spooked.

By a glow-in-the-dark piece of kitsch? Really? Why would something like that spook me?

I’m not certain precisely what happened next. As far as I recall, we were travelling consistently downhill at a steady pace, when, after two minutes, we found ourselves back at our starting point: the same patch of undergrowth to our left, the same pattern of tree trunks, tree tops and mini-clearings above and around us, and, most tellingly, the same view of main road, no closer than it had been a moment ago.

We both stopped walking simultaneously, as the realisation hit us.

Charles turned to me. Isn’t this...?

Where we’ve just came from? It definitely looks like it.

He laughed incredulously. "It is! I remember that tree! Look there - those are my footsteps!"

I frowned, as the implications hit me. Sorry, that can’t be right. We’d have to have gone round in a circle.

Charles’s expression changed. Of course. Yes. So what’s going on?

I don’t know.

If this was where we’d started from, we’d have to have spent at least some of our time going uphill. In that case, the laws of nature would have to have changed. Or, at the very least, we’d have to have blacked out.

I laughed uncertainly. This had to be a dream.

Only it wasn’t.

Charles took my arm, once again attempting to redirect my attention.

Four or five yards to our left, a shadowy figure poked about in the undergrowth. It was darker now than when we’d last been in the same spot, so I could only dimly make out whoever-it-was. A man; sixty-ish, short and rather bulky, dressed in a tweed jacket, wearing a respectable shirt collar with a tie. Clearly looking for something.

Are you okay? Charles called.

He looked up. A middle-class kind of face, with a double chin and a large nose. Nothing to be afraid of, but somehow not entirely companionable either.

I’ve lost an item of considerable sentimental value, he said gruffly. A statuette. It glows... in the, er, right kind of darkness.

It didn’t occur to either of us, till later, to ask what he meant by this. Charles removed it from his pocket. Neither of us particularly wanted to keep it anymore. I happened to pick it up right here, he said, not five minutes ago. No one was about. Obviously, we didn’t know it was yours.

He strode over accepted it with something approaching exultation. I suddenly saw he’d been crying. It was apparently all he could do to stop himself kissing Charles’s hands.

I – I must give you a reward! he said.

That’s absolutely fine, Charles replied. Just happy to help.

"No, no, you must have a reward. Stay here. Please. Just give me five minutes, that’s all. I’ll be back in five minutes. Stay here. Please."

He ran off, or rather hobbled away, in an uphill direction, and quickly disappeared into the general gloom.

Charles and I exchanged terse remarks. Obviously, we didn’t want a reward; we hadn’t expected one, and we definitely didn’t deserve one. On the other hand, it seemed impolite just to up sticks and leave. For all we knew, he might well be going to considerable trouble to find us a ‘reward’, and if he came back with whatever he’d decided was appropriate, and found us gone, he’d think us churlish. And he’d be right.

We waited five minutes, then another ten minutes. Such was our ludicrous concern for appearances that only after half an hour had passed did we agree to depart. We went directly downhill, crossed the main road, and went home. It was getting late now, and neither of us felt like a beer anymore.

I went straight upstairs to my room and sat down on my bed. Once I was back in among electric lights, soft furnishings and 21st century home appliances, it didn’t