TALES FROM MORTIFER HOUSE - Part Fifteen - The Hidden Room

Eleanor painstakingly wrenched the nails out of the wood which creaked and protested as she did so. The wood was rotten in places, splintering and giving way without much of a fight, the smell of festering damp invading her nostrils. Once she had managed to remove all of the pieces she found herself looking at an ill fitting, old wooden door with a filthy upper panel of glass. The glass was so dirty and scratched she couldn't see anything through it even when she rubbed off an obvious patch of grime. The door did not even look like it belonged there, it didn't look original.   

What was so terrible that it needed to be boarded in? She didn't feel that the story of the collapsed roof held much truth. Surely you could just have placed furniture in front of the door and not used the room? Or just locked the door and said it was out of use?  At this point Eleanor reached for the handle and attempted to open it. It was of course, locked. 

A crystal clear image sprang into her mind at that very moment.  She knew exactly where the key was. The mysterious key that she had found hidden in a book she had never set eyes on before that had suddenly appeared in her room. Without pausing to think she literally ran down the stairs and almost out of breath fumbled in the cavity of the book.  Her hand clasped the cold metal key and she clutched it tightly almost afraid it would disappear. As Eleanor went back up the stairs a chill hit her, she couldn't tell if it was real or imagined but it was enough to make her hesitate.

Gathering all her courage she continued her journey up the stairs once again, she absolutely had to get to the bottom of this for all her family's sake. There was no turning back.

In the nursery she slipped behind the bookcase once again, the chill this time sent a shiver down her spine as she put the key into the lock. 

'I need to know' she said under her breath. 'WE need to know' 

'Know WHAT?' was all her mind said in reply. 

At first the key didn't turn, disappointed she jiggled it a little and tried again, still to no avail. She removed it and tried again and this time with both hands turning the key, there was a click and the door opened a crack, protesting as it did so. It was clear the door had not been opened in a very long time. The hinges groaned in almost like a low moan as she edged it open still further, the ill fitting door scraped along the floor making progress slow and difficult. The air was musty and rotten, fetid even, as she pushed into the room.

There was a little evening light still filtering through the boarded up window, a sudden breeze pushed between the wooden batons blowing a cobweb across her face. Eleanor swept it aside impatiently and tried to make out what was in the room, it was just too dark.  She considered in that moment, leaving it until morning but she knew she would not sleep. Besides, what would she do to conceal the large pile of wood and wallpaper in the nursery side?  She just knew this couldn't wait and she was certain this was the source of the disturbances. 

Fetching a lamp from the girls bedroom she headed back into the newly discovered room. Her hand gripped the lamp so tightly her knuckles were white, she was shaking which made the shadows jump in response. At first nothing seemed amiss there were old newspapers, abandoned furniture and things that clearly had no other place in the house. She could see it had once been a guest room, remnants of wallpaper clung to the wall some of it peeling from the damp that had invaded the roof space in the past. Some dead greenery poked through here and there and Eleanor recalled that the house had at one time had a creeping vine up the side of it. This had been cut back some time ago, before they had had the children. She vaguely remembered  an army of men and boys with ladders crawling over the roof cutting and pulling the choking vine from the house roof and chimney. 

She swung round half disappointed, thinking there was no answer here but as she did so a shape caught her eye. She was just too far away for the lamp to fully expose what was there in the fading light. 

Eleanor swallowed hard and took a couple of paces forward, it took all of her courage to make those steps, her legs were like lead. She had come this far and was determined to check every inch of the room. There was a loud crack as one of the more rotten floorboards disintegrated beneath her foot, she would really have to watch her step. She briefly shone the lamp over the floor, the rest of the boards looked dusty and grimy but they looked as if they would hold her weight without giving way.

Eleanor took another step forward, there was no crack this time but as she held the lamp aloft with one hand and her skirts off the floor with the other, the flickering light revealed an awful sight. 

She briefly closed her eyes as she remained rooted to the spot, wanting to scream but it was stuck in her throat.  It felt like someone had punched her in the stomach, depriving her of her voice.

She opened her eyes again and with trembling hands holding the light, she took in the horror before her. 

There was an old wooden rocking chair, seated on the chair were the skeletal remains of a person. Not just any person, it was Stitchy. Eleanor recognised the remains of his fur suit that clung to his bones and beside the chair was the grinning head of his costume. A single tear escaped her eyes and trickled down her cheek, her mind was full of questions. She could see he'd been chained to the chair, bound and gagged. The floor was full of dust but she could clearly see the fresh track marks that the chair had made whilst rocking. 

'You were trying to tell me, tell US. I'm so sorry!' she whispered finally finding a voice that she barely recognised.

Trying to comprehend how they could have lived with a corpse hidden in the house, right next to where her children played, studied and slept, Eleanor staggered from the room and collapsed in the doorway unable to stop her sobbing. 

She drew up her knees and sobbed until her dress was soaked. She hadn't completed the translation of the journal but she was certain she would find a full confession of Stitchy's demise at the hands of her father in law. There could be no other explanation.

Eleanor heard the front door slam and her name being called. Angus was home, she managed a weak 'Up here' 

She heard him curse as he tripped on the stairs, no lamps downstairs had been lit and the house was pitch black as the sun had long since sunk below the horizon. Angus's face was a picture as he entered the nursery, firstly taking in his wife's tear filled face, then the wood and wallpaper scattered on the floor and finally the open door beyond the bookcase. 

'What in Gods name...' thundered Angus his face was twisted in rage.

Eleanor merely pointed at the hidden door with a leaden hand and cowered as Angus stomped past her in a fury.

Eleanor had her back to the room but she knew the moment Angus saw Stitchy as he let out a shocked yelp. 

Moments later he was on his knees cradling Eleanor's bowed head in his hands. Not one for emotion Angus wept too.

If you had asked her to recall everything that happened subsequently Eleanor would not have been able to. She was shocked to the core. 

Somehow, Angus dispatched her to the safe care of friends along with Grace and Alice. She never knew what he told the friends or the girls but no one said a word to her about the shocking events that had unfolded. 

She knew the police had been called and the remains of Stitchy had been recovered to the town mortuary.  She also knew the attic had been boarded up properly, made good and the bookcase firmly back in place as if it had never happened. The children would never know as long as they could keep a lid on the dreadful rumour mongers of the town.

The children and Eleanor had an extended stay with Flora while Angus took care of 'business' at home. She knew she would have to talk to Angus at some point about everything when the opportunity presented itself. However this was not for a few weeks. 

One evening when the children were tucked up in bed and Eleanor had tired of sewing she bravely went to Angus in his study. He offered her a chair and she sat awkwardly with her hands twisting in her lap. 

She took a deep breath and told him everything. About the ghostly goings on that led her to the attic, the truth about her visit to Florence and finally about the journal. 

Without saying a word Angus reached down into the hidden compartment of his drawer and pulled out the journal. He had often wondered about the code, but unlike his dear wife, he had never been able to crack it. She told him everything that she'd managed to translate so far. He sat in silence shaking his head from time to time.  Finally he drew his hands together and lent forward towards Eleanor. 

'We have to show the police this journal and your translation of it. Its a confession, and we have to assume my father took his own life after this as we never heard anything from him again once he disappeared' 

He sat back and looked at her thoughtfully as Eleanor nodded in agreement. 

'Lets decode the rest of it, then we should have the confession and the police can close the case' She said quietly. 

As they sat and talked Angus confessed he too had been plagued by voices by had chosen to drown them out by drinking and staying up all night with the lamp lit. He had never seen anything, well perhaps when he was younger he admitted with a frown. Just a fleeting figure on the landing but he had dismissed it. 

Eleanor relaxed a little, it was a load off her mind being able to share what she had uncovered then she sat bolt upright with a start. 

'What about Florence?' She asked, her brow was knitted with concern. Angus raised an eyebrow.

'What about her? I mean its very sad she has been held in an institution for all these years but ..'  he trailed off on seeing her face.

'She needs to know what happened to Stitchy, that he was killed by Charles. I don't feel she should be in Moreton Grange either' 

Angus couldn't entirely agree, Florence had been institutionalised for so many years he didn't feel letting her loose into a very different world would be in her best interest. Finally they compromised and agreed that her medication that had kept her subdued and confused should be stopped and she should be moved to a convalescent home with gardens she could be wheeled into on a daily basis and that they would visit more often, perhaps even arrange that she should visit Mortifer if it wasn't too much for her.  Angus had never known why she was in Moreton Grange and had just done the 'family duty' of visits as instructed by Emma. 

They decided that Stitchy should be laid to rest in the family tomb, which may have seemed a little odd, but Charles was not buried there and it seemed the right thing to do. 

It seemed a newly lucid Florence had other ideas however, and a new plot was readied with instruction that when the time came she was to be buried alongside her darling man. Angus could hardly deny her that, so arrangements were quickly made and once Stitchy was released they held a small private burial. 

It was a crisp autumn day with a slight edge of cold and Florence managed to attend alongside Angus, Eleanor and Jane. She was determined to be there,  red eyed with tears at what could have been.

She never once complained about the unfairness of it all and she and Eleanor grew close as the effects of the medication subsided and her sharp wit and no nonsense attitude surfaced.  Florence positively flourished in her new environment and all the staff found her an absolute delight. She even got to meet Angus and Eleanor's new grandchild, a much doted on baby boy called Ash in honour of Stitchy.

She died peacefully in her sleep a couple of years later and Eleanor was forever thankful they had made her last years a lot happier and more comfortable. She was of course laid to rest as per her instructions and Eleanor visited regularly to care for the grave with a heavy heart at what she had been subjected to.

Backtracking a little, the journal was decoded completely. It contained as expected, a full confession that Charles had hit Stitchy in the head with a heavy candlestick when he had tried to leave his study.He had dragged him to the attic bound him to the rocking chair unsure if he were alive or dead, he assumed dead. He then meticulously boarded up the door and papered over it pushing a heavy old bookcase in front of where the door had been. He lied about everything to everyone, including Emma telling her the guest room was unsafe and he'd boarded it up. He even took part in searches although he secretly removed missing posters and hid them in rugs and under the floorboards. Eleanor realised that the few she had found were probably only some of the ones he had hidden in various places throughout the house.  Driven mad by his devious crimes his last entry reflected that he knew he must disappear, live out his life as a vagrant or end his own life.  He could not live under the roof of the house where he had committed such crimes. 

There was a fleeting reference to the long suffering Emma, but Eleanor had the feeling that Elizabeth had been like a spell he could not break, so perhaps she had been his true love after all. 

There was also the thought that he had damned his entire family to be cursed by his actions. This made Eleanor shiver, they had been through so much, surely it was over now?  It seemed so, the girls flourished and the house was quiet and felt so different. They even spent some time getting the house into order and baby Ash was a constant visitor running riot throughout the rooms once he found his feet. 

Then, one day when Ash was playing Eleanor could hear him talking to someone upstairs. She went up expecting him to be playing make believe with his teddy but he was staring directly at the corner of the room. As she entered the room he pointed and giggled. 'Lady' he said clearly. Eleanor scooped him up and ran down the stairs, Ash protesting and struggling to get free. 

Not long after that she caught him wobbling dangerously on the windowsill in front of the open window. He was laughing and clapping his hands together in pure delight.  'Funny Lady' he declared.

'Go away!' hissed Eleanor as she snatched Ash from danger making him cry. 

After that Ash didn't stay at Mortifer again it was clear something remained within the house and Eleanor was convinced it was Elizabeth. 

Eleanor engaged the services of a discreet local priest to say prayers in every room much to Angus's eye rolling disdain. 

It didn't help. Just under a month later in the dead of the night Mortifer House burnt to the ground. The family escaped with their lives and the nightclothes they were wearing, everything else was gone. 

 As they stood in disbelief, the clanging horse drawn fire wagons racing to the scene in the distance, Eleanor saw the figure of a woman for a final time,watching them from the upstairs window.  

It seemed Elizabeth had got her final revenge on the Mortifer family. 

Sarah Russell 2024