The turn-about room

It's Mothers' Day or Mothering Sunday, as we sometimes call it here in the UK. We wish we could thank our own mothers, all long gone now; if you can thank yours today, please, on our behalf, make a massive fuss of her! 

We have an extract from Charlie Raven's The Compact to intrigue us this week. Harriet lost her only child years before, and has kept the boy's bedroom unchanged since he died. Unfortunately, she's begun to be inconvenienced by inexplicable noises and activity in the long-empty room. As a rational woman, she blames the cat. She doesn't believe in ghosts. George Arden does, though.

The next day, Harriet found herself with a sore throat and a headache but otherwise more than equal to undertaking her teaching duties. She was glad though that she had only two pupils that day. Young Isabelle Daniels came and went, followed in the early afternoon by the other; and Harriet completely forgot about Mr Arden’s curious foreknowledge. She had in any event dismissed his talk of people waving at the window almost as soon as she heard it; and now it seemed dream-like, just a still image of herself looking up at the moon reflected in the glass.

About four-thirty, as the early evening was creeping closer to the house, there was a ring at her door and Mr Arden was shown into the room holding his hat in one hand and Harriet’s umbrella in the other. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Day. I thought I recognised the way the last house has a kind of turret on the top, and I thought I might see if this was your street. And when I saw the steps and the upstairs window, I was sure.’

‘Well, you are welcome, Mr Arden,’ said Harriet. It was a strange way to explain his visit.

‘And I’ve forgotten to mention why I’m here,’ he continued with a little laugh. ‘I apologise. Your umbrella! And also I want to make sure that you are well. Are you well?’

‘Yes, thank you. Very well. And thank you for bringing the umbrella. It’s very kind of you to call and I am glad you recognised the street. It’s Cairncross Street.’

‘I remember it began with a C from when you told the cab driver last night. But there are several C.s between Mrs Roberts’s house and here.’

‘Have you been walking about in the cold, looking for my house, Mr Arden?’

Arden looked a little embarrassed.

Harriet, thinking it was endearing but also rather pathetic, said, ‘Perhaps you could have checked with Mrs Roberts about the address before you left the house. Or Mrs Jenkins, she knows.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t disturb them,’ said Arden as if that might be a little dangerous.

‘Well, now that you’ve been so kind as to return my umbrella, please do come and sit down by the fire. Though it’s not quite as cold as yesterday, I think. The frost on the windows had gone by mid-morning.’

‘Yes, it’s warmer but very damp,’ agreed Arden. 

Harriet cast about for something to say. ‘So. How is Mr Cabot’s venture coming along, Mr Arden?’  She picked up some crochet work, expecting a cosy flood of confidential information.

‘I didn’t come to talk about that, Mrs Day,’ said Arden politely. ‘It was the ghost business, that was why I came. He is malignant and I can discern a real intention.’

Harriet left the crochet in her lap. ‘Could you explain a little more, Mr Arden?’

‘It’s very straightforward. Oh, listen!’

There was a clang from the room above.

‘That’s the bootjack,’ said Harriet, frowning at George as if he were responsible.

‘He chooses that room because it already works like a door. It changes, it’s a turn-about room, sometimes good and sunny, sometimes sad and dark. You need to stabilise it. Because when he’s here, he’ll keep annoying you by throwing things about.’

Harriet waited for further explanation. When none came, she said again, ‘Could you explain a little more, Mr Arden?’

‘Oh,’ said Arden, as if surprised. ‘I’ll try if you like. You have a person, a personality really, who obviously isn’t in a body but thinks perhaps that he is, and he comes into the room above this one. He’s glaring down at me. I can tell you that he has thick whiskers.’

‘Good lord,’ said Harriet.

‘I can tell him to go, if you want,’ said Arden. ‘Or you can let him stay. But he moves things and wants your attention and enjoys scaring you. His name is … Ostrich? He’s showing me a big bird. Oh, it’s Ozzie.’

‘Good lord,’ said Harriet again.

‘If you let me go into the room, I can sort it all out for you,’ said Arden, as if he were talking about the plumbing.

‘Well, then, I suppose you’d better,’ said Harriet. She really did not know what to think. ‘Mrs Skipton has the key. I’ll ring for Daisy.’

While they waited for the key to be brought, Harriet sat mutely and George chatted merrily about the Revue Parnassus where he was due to appear this evening. He told Harriet that Valentine was very particular about punctuality so he would unfortunately have to leave shortly or he risked making him angry. 

The key arrived and Harriet showed him up to the room. The stairs and landing were dim and she carried an oil lamp, apologising about the shadows and for some reason gabbling about the electricity which was being laid on in the next street. They stopped outside the door of the empty room. Behind them at the top of the stairs, the carved Swiss clock on the landing wall ticked heavily.

‘Would you like me to light the gas in the room? Or would you prefer to take the lamp with you, Mr Arden?’ she asked, wondering if she was expected to watch or assist. Her skin prickled uncomfortably at the thought of entering the room and seeing the little soldiers inexplicably moving about on the mantelpiece. 

‘I don’t mind really,’ said Arden cheerfully. ‘It’s not a physical eye-thing, if you see what I mean. I don’t know how to describe it, quite honestly, and it’s not worth trying. People often get quite cross about it if I do. It’s just that I remembered how you helped me at the pond yesterday and I wanted to do something to help you. That’s fair, isn’t it?’

There was a creaking noise from just beyond the door, as if someone were standing there. She imagined a person with an ear pressed to the wood, listening to their conversation.

‘Can I just ask you, Mr Arden, are we talking about a ghost? Because I don’t believe in ghosts or any such nonsense,’ Harriet said, her voice coming out rather shriller than usual. ‘I can’t imagine what it is, and I know it can move things so it has a physical force at its disposal, and I also understand it isn’t the cat; but it isn’t a ghost either. Because there is no such thing.’

Arden nodded admiringly. ‘I am not in the least offended if you don’t call it a ghost. You can call it anything you like. It can be something to do with magnets or the underground railways they’ve been digging, or interference from all that electricity pouring into your neighbours in the next street. Would that do?’

Harriet looked at him doubtfully, not sure if he were mocking her. She decided that he was not. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I think it’s best if you do what you want to do, with the proviso that I don’t have to believe what you believe about what you want to do.’

‘There, perfect! Anyway, it’ll probably be quicker if I do it alone. Don’t worry. You just make yourself comfortable and I’ll come down when it’s finished.’ Before she could say another word, he opened the door and slipped through into the dark room beyond.

Harriet sat motionless by the parlour fire, wondering if Mr Arden were bonkers. There were undoubted sounds from above. A scraping across the floor. The sound of something immensely heavy shuffling forward, one creak at a time. She decided it was the wardrobe. Then there was a scatter of little heavy objects dropping – the soldiers, she supposed. George Arden was upstairs wrecking her spare bedroom and she was sitting downstairs allowing it to happen. 

A thought struck her and she went to the desk drawer. She pulled it open – it stuck a little on the right-hand side because she rarely looked within – and brought out a red cloth folder with a cord binding it shut. It was crammed with papers: handwritten letters, legal documents and in an envelope on top, a fat gold locket and chain. She poured the chain out and the locket plopped after it into her palm like a tiny egg. She opened its front. On one side it was inscribed with her Christian name and a date, 1868. On the other was a miniature portrait on ivory, in rather garish colours, of a gentleman with generous mutton-chop whiskers. She looked at it briefly and put it away in the folder, along with all the other papers, and pushed the drawer shut. At that moment, George reappeared, tapping on the door. She motioned to him to enter and he immediately came to pick up his hat from where he had left it on the piano stool. She faced him with a question on her lips.

‘Yes. All finished,’ he said in a rush, before she could speak. ‘But you need to keep the room open and moving. I suggest putting a goldfish in there or a little bird. I know it’s a sad room for you but you could put some growing things on the windowsill, not dead things. Some plants.’

‘What’s happened?’ asked Harriet. ‘Is the room a terrible mess?’

‘No, no, just the wardrobe needs pushing back a little bit and some toys need to be rearranged. I would do it for you but I have to dash. I’m sure I can remember the way back, if I just go to the end of the street and cross, take a left and then a right, or no, a left. But I’ll remember when I see it. Please excuse me, Mrs Day. Valentine will absolutely murder me if I’m late. We’re still only half-done on the The Grenadier’s Farewell and its first performance is tonight. But it was fun and I’m so glad you’re better.’

And with that, Mr Arden departed. Harriet saw him to the door and then stood wondering in the hall. She had to admit to herself that her expectations about him had been wrong. And his manner was far more relaxed, less ‘frozen’, than on their previous meeting. Perhaps the absence of Valentine was the explanation.

She decided she really ought to go up and look at the room, although she had a strong inclination to leave it till daylight. But then she pictured herself, lying in bed wondering about the dark objects standing in its emptiness and waiting to hear odd noises across the landing. No, the best thing to do was go in with a stout heart and have a thorough look and poke about in all the corners. She went warily upstairs, once again carrying the lamp. Opening the door, she walked straight across and lit the gas lights. There were the soldiers, scattered as she predicted all over the mat. She picked them up and placed them on the mantel in a little heap. As for the rest of the room, all looked as before, except for the wardrobe, which was pushed away from the wall by four or five inches. A good opportunity to dust behind it, she thought. 

She was about to re-order the soldiers in their usual ranks when a thought struck her. She went to the bookcase and took down a painted wooden box jammed above the volumes on the shelf. It contained a few dried, age-darkened conkers, dropped from a tree and gathered up one autumn day twenty years before. She put the toys away. The little soldiers fitted snugly among them, like troops hiding between boulders. Before she closed the lid, she thought, ‘These are seeds. There have been trees inside this box all these years.’ Then she replaced it on the shelf. Remembering to leave the door open as she left, she thought that the room felt warmer. But then, the weather was warmer and all the frost had thawed. 

She walked downstairs thinking that she could not account for what Mr Arden had done – it was irrational. But neither could she account for his familiarity with her husband’s appearance; and his inexplicable knowledge of the pet-name she had called him on their honeymoon, thirty years before.