Haunted by Love

"I didn't," I confess, a little embarrassed by my ignorance. "Have you ever needed much of the stuff you carry?"

"Well, the first aid kit's been useful once or twice and I've used the compass sometimes when walking somewhere new. The sheet gets used but it's a bit of a hassle putting it away when it's wet." She smiles, "I used to carry chocolate bars but they'd either melt on warm days or I'd eat them in the evening when I was at home and I got the craving. Energy bars keep better and are much less tempting!"

"So what have you got for dealing with terrifying night shadows on the Moor?" I ask, only half in jest. "Crucifix? Holy water?"

"I'm afraid not; I shall just have to depend upon my dauntless, indomitable spirit." She holds her clenched fist over her heart, chin raised like some female worker in a Soviet poster and then laughs. "Honestly, Beth: if I'd been in your place the other night I'd have done what you did and run away."

We draw up outside the hotel and as we get out I see Ruth bite her lip, uncharacteristically nervous. "Are you okay?" I ask.

"Yes, I just want to ask you something, but it's a bit, um, cheeky I suppose. I wonder could I use your bath? There's no running hot water at the Farm so having a proper bath is such hard work..."

"Of course you can! We should have gone via the Farm and picked up some clean clothes or clean underwear at least."

"Actually, in my rucksack..."

"You really are prepared for everything, aren't you?" I laugh.

"No, not quite everything," she replies cryptically, "but most things."

I sit on the bed as Ruth soaks in the bath. The bathroom door in front of me is open so we can chat; I can see she is happy, relaxing with her eyes closed at the moment. Suddenly there's a knock on the door. "Shit!" I exclaim as we look at each other in alarm. Ruth taking a bath isn't exactly illegal but it's certainly not quite right either. "Who is it?" I call.

"It's Alison," comes the rather muffled reply.

"One moment," I say rising from the bed. I put my fingers to my lips and Ruth nods as I move past the bathroom, pulling the door closed as I go. Opening the room door I give Alison a bright, and hopefully innocent-sounding, "Hello."

"Ah, Bethany, I just wanted to give you this," she hands me several sheets of paper. "It's a photocopy of the old floor plans; Ken thought you'd like a copy more than just looking at the originals."

"Oh, thank you very much," I reply gratefully. "That's perfect, thank you."

"He couldn't copy it all in one, I'm afraid because the original is too big for our copier so he had to copy a bit at a time..."

"No, that's not a problem," I reassure her. "This will fit in my folder better anyway." I notice her looking over my shoulder into the room where Ruth's coat is hung over the back of the chair and her trousers, rather embarrassingly, lie on the end of the bed where she left them. "Sorry, Alison, I need to get on. I ought to email my boss and update him how I'm getting on. I'll mention the plans... Um," a thought suddenly occurs. "Alison, you mentioned seeing the ghost, Lady Blyth. Where was it you saw her?"

"I thought I said: it was here, on the landing," she gestures to the area outside my door. "I was coming up the stairs and she was sort of gliding along. I thought it was a real person at first because she seemed to cast a shadow on the wall but it wasn't a proper shadow but a sort of darkness beside her." My mind immediately thinks of the thing on the Moor.

"Thank you, that's useful to know." She bobs her head and turns to go, letting me close the door. When I open the bathroom the first thing I see is Ruth's naked form as she stands in the bath. "Oh god, I'm so sorry!" I say, looking down and hastily retreating, pulling the door closed. "I should have knocked." Blushing furiously, I sit on the bed.

Moments later I look up as the bathroom door opens once more to see Ruth calmly towelling herself dry. "Don't worry, Beth; please don't be embarrassed on my behalf." I nod, trying to keep my eyes on her face in an attempt to respect her privacy and not seem to be eying her body. Earlier she'd stripped down to bra and knickers in the bedroom before going into the bathroom and I remember that first morning in her bed and how she was quite happy for me to see her topless. Once again, she seems to be able to read my thoughts. "Mum always said that my brother and I should never be embarrassed or ashamed of the human body, ours or anyone else's. She'd been brought up Catholic and hated the way she'd been made to feel that almost everything to do with the body was shameful; especially nudity... and sex, of course."

"So, you have quite liberal-minded parents then?"

"Yes, I suppose so. 'Bodies are natural, sex is part of life, love comes in different forms and it's all cool!' as my Dad once put it. What about your parents?"

"Ha! No, they were, still are, both rather prudish, Mum especially. They're not particularly religious or anything just depressingly middle class and 'proper'; they'd fit embarrassingly well into Victorian Britain." I can't help thinking that Ruth has good reason to feel comfortable in her, it has to be said, very attractive skin. If she's happy to be naked perhaps I shouldn't be so hung up about looking at her... or about getting undressed in front of her in future.

"You're not much like your Mum and Dad then," she says reassuringly. "I'll be ready in a couple of minutes. Do you have to email your boss like you told Alison?"

"No, I just said that to get rid of her. Did you hear what she said about seeing a shadow with the ghost of Lady B?" I try not to stare as she steps into her clean blue knickers, drawing them up to cover the dark triangle between her legs. Watching someone dress is almost as intimate as seeing them undress.

"Hmm, and you were thinking of your shadowy shape on the Moor, I assume?" I nod. "Could be, but she didn't seem to have felt the threat that you did."

"Well, not exactly my shadowy shape but, yes, the thought did occur. Assuming it wasn't all my overactive imagination." The bob and sway of her breasts as she moves catches my eye.

"Do you believe it was?" she asks, she slips her bra on, covering the distracting boobs and their large, dark areolae, then fastening it.

"Had nothing else happened, then maybe, but hearing that crying and seeing that ghost... well, perhaps I'm less 'humdrum and prosaic' now."

"Sorry for calling you that. Can I use the excuse that we weren't friends then and I didn't know you?" She walks over to the bed to retrieve her shirt and pulls it on. Without thinking, I reach up and start buttoning it for her.

"No, it was a fair comment... my friend." I look up into her face; yes, she is after just a couple of days, a close friend. It seems strange that it could be so, but no stranger than the rest of the weird shit that's happened to me. "Come on, Ruth, hurry up and finish dressing because I want a drink."

Chapter 7: Restless Night

We go down for drinks in the bar and I try to persuade Ruth to book into the hotel for the night rather than risk the walk back. "Beth, I'll be fine, I promise. Besides, I need to milk the goats tonight and in the morning and, please don't think me a coward, but I don't think I could actually sleep here... sorry."

I'm surprised that such an amazingly together and capable woman has just said that. I also feel disappointed that she's going to leave me, though I'm not sure why. Perhaps because I want to know if she sees the ghost too, maybe I feel I need her strength or it could be simply that I'll miss her company. All of them, probably.

After just a single drink each I walk with her out through the front door of the hotel and cannot help shivering; the night is cold and, when I look up, there are a few clouds drifting briskly on the steady breeze, lit by the moon that is waxing towards full. "See, with the moon this near to full I'll hardly need the torch," she says, trying to allay my fears.

"Ruth, please... please stay here tonight. I need you here, with me because..." there are several reasons I could give, "...because I need to know that I'm not imagining this."

"Imagining what, Beth?"

"All this spooky, creepy, scary stuff. Please. I can drive you to the farm and we can milk the goats together, you can grab some stuff and come back with me. I've only had one drink." There is an odd look on her face, almost disappointment as If she thought or hoped I might say something different; perhaps it was just the play of moonlight and the electric light above on her face because after a moment she nods.

"Okay," she acquiesces.

"Oh, thank you! It'll be like we're having a sleepover," I say happily as I reach out and hug her in gratitude. "Come on, let's sort out a room for you."

"Will I be sleeping in it?" she asks wryly, "Or is it just for decorum?"

"Well, I hoped we'd be in the same room, in case the ghost appears," I reply, "but paying for a room it does mean that you'll get breakfast."

"And the decorum?"

"Um, I think Alison Curnow might be wondering what's going on between us," I confess awkwardly. "I'm pretty sure she knew we were both in the room and I think she saw your trousers on the bed when you were in the bath earlier."

"Is that a problem for you, what she thinks?"

"Mum always said that there was nothing more important than your reputation," I reply, remembering her hand-wringing anxiety over what Mrs Jones would think about something or other, or whether she should have told Eileen Jackson something else and what if Eileen repeated it to Linda May... "I really don't want to be like my Mum," I say quietly.

"So, shall we book a separate room for me or... whatever you're happier with because I really don't mind."

"I so want to say 'Fuck Alison and her opinion' but... I do need her and her husband's cooperation in researching and writing this ghost story so I can't risk upsetting them. I'm not saying that they'd be upset by us sharing a room, I rather suspect they might be more upset by the loss of revenue, but whatever, I don't want to risk it."

So that's what we do: we go and book Ruth a room for tonight. It's not next door unfortunately but along the landing to the left, through the arch and then down the corridor to the right; I don't think old Ken deliberately gave her a room miles from mine; I hope not, anyway. It's then the drive over to the farm and some hasty milking. At least Ruth's is hasty; she has finished and has time to go, sort out her changes of clothing and return to the shed before I'm done. "Well done," she says and I finally finish.

"Thank you, and thanks for letting me finish: it's quite a satisfying feeling isn't it?"

"Mmm very, and especially so when you use the milk to drink or cook. I want to start growing some vegetables next year too and maybe get some chickens. Make this more like a farm again, you know?"

"That sounds lovely. I envy you living here; well, maybe not right now but when the builders have finished definitely. "

"Even with the spooky, scary Moor outside?" she asks as she locks up and we head to the car. I still don't know how to explain it but here on the farm and with her, it feels very safe.

"Yeah, even with the Moor," I smile.

Back at the hotel, we're lying side by side in my bed looking through the floor plans that Alison gave me earlier as we try to work out which room is which. The re-working of the building into a hotel and the fact that neither of us is particularly good at reading the plans makes it a challenge.

"We can assume that the stairs are the same..." I say, holding one of the sheets above us so we can both see it "so... this is still the main landing here..." My finger points to the paper as it flops around above our heads.

"I know. Hang on a moment." Ruth jumps up and goes to the bedroom door. She goes to her rucksack and fetches a Swiss Army knife from it and then proceeds to work the fire escape instruction sheet out of its frame. A minute later she is back in bed. "Ta daa!" she says as she holds up the instructions, alongside the sheet I hold, and there on the bottom half is a small floor plan with the current layout. It's a long way from ideal but it does help.

"So Room 1 was the old master bedroom, more or less, Room 2, this room was... no, the room on the other side, Room... 10, used to be the Master's Dressing Room which means this room was, oh yes, the Mistress's Dressing room.." I look at Ruth. "Had you considered that for your house: his and hers dressing rooms?"

"No," she smiles. "Anyway, there'd be no one to use the 'his' room and I don't have enough clothes to need a separate room for them." She returns to studying the plans. "You know, if this was her room, Lady, er, Blyth's room then seeing her ghost here makes sense; the ghost was replaying something terrible that happened."

"Is that all a ghost is, I wonder: just a replay of something intense and emotional?" I muse. "Is that why I felt more sadness than terror by the end?"

"Perhaps," she replies, a little distractedly, "though I guess it might also be the spirit of the dead person stuck reliving particularly emotional or traumatic events, unable to move on. Ooh, look, the room I was given used to be the Governess's room."

"How very kinky!" I answer, saying the first thought that comes to mind. The idea that a ghost is actually a dead person's spirit is quite upsetting, especially thinking of the boy William crying. On the other hand, maybe I was experiencing Lady's Blyth's memory of the event.

"Not that sort of Governess," she replies, slapping my hand playfully and distracting me. "A governess helped to look after a child but, unlike a nanny, she was mainly a teacher. For girls in wealthy families, the Governess would usually be their only teacher, while boys would sometimes have a governess until they went to boarding school."

"How old would that be?" I ask. I don't think William's age was mentioned in the story Alison told Mum.

"Ten or eleven I think but it might have been younger, I'm not sure."

"You seem very knowledgeable about this stuff."

"You'll have to blame my love of historical fiction books, I'm afraid."

I tidy up the papers from the bed, placing them on the bedside table and we turn out the lights before settling down under the covers. Our shoulders and arms touch, inevitably in the rather narrow double bed and her lower leg brushes mine. It feels so very comfortable and safe that I cannot help wriggling a little bit closer to her as we talk quietly about favourite books and films.

We quieten as tiredness builds. However, though I am very comfortable and happy, I struggle to find sleep, my mind restless. I should have called Rick or texted him at least, but somehow everything -- him, work, the BBC and the programme, even home and London itself -- all seem like a different planet. I feel captured by events here, both the supernatural and the earthly, and it feels scary and exciting and... mysterious, all mixed up together.

The moon outside gives just enough light to see the vague outline of her sleeping face: she looks beautiful and so peaceful. I drift into a doze eventually; perhaps I even sleep a little. It doesn't feel as if it lasts long when I am woken again by the cries. "Ma-aaaa!" The sound chills me once again but this time there is no wondering if I imagined as I see the gleam of Ruth's eyes, wide open in the dark.

"Was that..?" she asks, her voice a tight whisper.

"Yes," I breathe as under the covers our hands meet and clasp in mutual reassurance. I wait for the next cry.

"Maaa-maa!" Tonight I am ready, looking over Ruth towards the door, and see the pale shape coalesce into existence: the same white robe and wavy hair rippling down her back. The sharp intake of breath tells me Ruth sees it too and there is a tiny flutter of relief within me that this is not all just my imagination. "Bear-aaaa... Maamaa..." However much I anticipate them the cries retain the power to shock me each time. "Maaaamaaaaa! Bea-aaaaa! Heeelll meeeee!"

The fear, the abject terror in the voice still distresses me, much as it does the shade of Lady Blyth as I watch her fists beat the same silent, ghostly tattoo on the door as she again futilely seeks to escape and return to her suffering child. Resting against Ruth I can feel her flinch too, telegraphing her upset at the sounds and sight. "MAAA-MAAaaa! Maaa... Bea-aaa... M-Maaa..." The cries reach their crescendo and begin fading, growing weaker as, the same as last night, the woman becomes frantic, "Maaaa... Mama!"

I sit up to see the slumped form of Lady Blyth crumpled on the floor raise its, her, head and tip it back in the same thin cry as yesterday. "Lady, I'm so sorry for you," I say quietly. I am startled as the figure appears to react to my words, her head turning towards me and her hand lifting, she seems to see me even as she fades. Had the ghost really reacted to my voice?

I find I have been holding my breath and let it out with a sigh and a shiver; my skin is chilling rapidly as the nervous sweat evaporates. Ruth makes a sharp sound, half gasp, half sob. "Shit, that was horrible!" and I can see her cheeks glisten with tears in the dim light. Without a moment's thought, I lie back down and wrap my arms around her to hug her tightly. She responds in kind, hugging me back with her head pressing into the curve of my neck. I kiss her cheek as I make soothing sounds. It makes me happy to be able to comfort her after she looked after me. "Thank you," she says.

"It makes a change for me to be looking after you," I reply, "but you're right, it is horrible and it had me in tears too last night. I find it easier to be brave with you here."

"Is that what you feel being here, just brave?" she asks. It is a strange question.

"Well, no... not just brave; I feel very happy and comfortable. Why?"

Ruth reaches up and brushes my cheek with her fingertips, a startlingly pleasurable feeling. Her breath is warm and soft on my skin. I look into her eyes; in the darkness, the whites are faintly glistening around the dark depths. I'm not aware that either of us moves but our noses brush gently. Her fingers are in my hair. "Because I really want to give you a kiss," she whispers, our mouths so close that I can feel her words on my lips.

"Er, okay," is all I manage before our mouths come together. I tense, briefly, but then start to enjoy the feel of her lips on mine, so warm and soft and everything you could want with a kiss; almost as if, though I hadn't known it, this was what I had desired all along. I have such an upsurge of affection for this woman, for the warmth and tenderness in her that I haven't felt from anyone for such a long time. Our lips part and I press my cheek against hers as we hold tight.

It is like being a teenager again as the emotions of finding something new and special fill me. The idea that I, as an adult, could feel such intense friendship and affection for another woman is amazing: it is like having a best friend once again. It could just be all that's happened, the fear and strangeness countered by her kindness and openness have made our time together more emotionally intense than anything I've experienced in years. Perhaps when I go back to London it'll all settle down and I'll simply have a new friend living in Cornwall...

I open my eyes, waking into darkness as cold air infiltrates the bedclothes. Ruth is no longer cuddled against me and I feel the mattress move as she evidently climbs out. I look up at her, dimly visible in the almost pitch dark room, the moon no longer shining on the curtains. "What's the matter, Ruth?" My voice is husky with sleep.

"Much as I love sharing the bed with you, Beth dear, I ought to head to my room if there aren't to be any awkward questions in the morning." I want to tell her not to go, to come back into the warmth with me, but she has a point. We could be filming down here in a few weeks and comments from Alison Curnow about Ruth and I sleeping together could be embarrassing, to say the least, especially with my, well boyfriend I suppose, Rick.