Broken Voices (Kindle Single) Read Online Free PDF

all do.’
    ‘Please, sir,’
Faraday said, sounding like a little boy, ‘who is the blue lady?’
    ‘She is at the
Deanery,’ Mr Ratcliffe said. ‘I used to go there a good deal when I was
younger.’ He glanced at the piano that dominated the room. ‘Not in this Dean’s
time, or even the one before. There was a lady — the Dean’s daughter, as it
happens — who played the violin and wanted an accompanist.’
    ‘Was she the
blue lady?’ I asked.
    ‘She was
entirely flesh and blood.’ Mr Ratcliffe gave a little cough. He turned away
from us and blew his nose. ‘But I often went up to the Deanery drawing-room in
those days, and I sometimes met the blue lady on the stairs.’
    ‘How did you
know she was a ghost, sir? Could she have been someone staying there?’
    ‘Oh no. She
wore a dress with a hoop under the skirt. Eighteenth century, I imagine.
Besides I encountered her on one occasion when I was with Miss — with the
Dean’s daughter, and she didn’t see her.’
    Faraday leaned
forward, his head resting on his hands. ‘What happened, sir? Did she speak? Did
you?’
    ‘No,’ Mr Ratcliffe
said. ‘We hadn’t been introduced, you see. So I bowed — and she gave a little
curtsey. It was always like that — I must have seen her three or four times.
The last time I glanced back and she was looking up at me. I thought she might
be going to say something. But she didn’t.’
    ‘Did you ask
the Dean about her?’ I said.
    Mr Ratcliffe
shook his head. ‘It would not have been wise. But I did ask his daughter if the
Deanery was said to be haunted, and she said no, but that her mother had been
obliged to dismiss a housemaid who was making up silly stories to frighten the
other servants. Stories about a lady in an old-fashioned dress.’
    Faraday’s mouth
had fallen open in amazement. He looked more like a rabbit than ever.
    ‘It all seems
so pointless, sir,’ I said. ‘The cat, the blue lady.’
    ‘Why does it
have to have a point?’ Mr Ratcliffe said. ‘Which is to say, a purpose that we
in our present situation are able to understand. Of course in some cases one
can speculate about that. In other words, there may be a possible factual basis
that might underlie a ghostly phenomenon.’
    ‘He means there
is a real story to explain the ghost,’ I told Faraday, as much to display my
superior understanding as to enlighten his ignorance.
    ‘One or two of
our own ghosts come into that category. Take Mr Goldsworthy, for example. On
the other hand, the real story may not explain the ghost — it may be the other
way round: that the ghost is our way of trying to explain something puzzling or
disturbing that actually occurred. Something we somehow create ourselves.’
    Mr Ratcliffe
paused. He peered through his pipe smoke at Faraday and me. He had been a
schoolmaster all his life and he knew boys.
    ‘It is getting
late,’ he said. ‘You two should go to bed.’
    ‘But, sir,’
Faraday said. ‘What about Mr Goldsworthy?’
    Mr Ratcliffe
smiled at him. ‘I’ll tell you about him tomorrow evening.’
    ‘Oh, sir.’
Faraday sounded about nine years old. I scowled at him, though I was as keen to
hear about Mr Goldsworthy as he was.
    We said our
good nights. Mr Ratcliffe stayed by the fire, smoking and reading. I went
outside to use the lavatory while Faraday carried the cups into the kitchen and
stacked them in the sink.
    It was colder
than ever outside. The air chilled my throat and tingled in my nose. Above the
black ridge of the Cathedral was the arch of the sky, where the stars gleamed
white and silver and pale blue: they seemed to vibrate with the cold, shivering
in heaven.
    Afterwards I
went upstairs. Faraday went outside in his turn. By the time he came upstairs,
I was already in bed and reading my book, a novel called Beric the Briton by G.A. Henty. I ignored him while he undressed.
I heard his bedsprings creak as he climbed into bed and the sharp intake of
breath as the cold, slightly damp