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Chapter Text

“I’ll bet you he becomes one of us,” said Lord Percival as they watched the under butler bleed out in the bathtub. “All the suicides do, and the murders.”

Sybil couldn’t believe her ears. Thomas was slowly dying and here everyone was rubbernecking and making bets on whether he would pass on to the other side or not. Percival had been a guest of the house in 1810 where, upon cheating the future third Earl of Grantham out of five hundred guineas in a card game and getting caught in a dalliance with the future Countess, had lost his life in a duel. The gunshot wound had made a hole in his chest that if they were so inclined, one could look through and see out the other side, his cream silk waistcoat was eternally marked with a blooming rose of blood.

“With what? You don’t have anything to bet.” Mr Pamuk scoffed. Sybil glared at him then quickly averted her eyes. One of the biggest indignities of being a ghost was that you were stuck wearing the clothes you had died in, which in Kemal Pamuk’s case was absolutely nothing. Sybil found herself glad she had at least died in a nightgown, even if she had bled on it quite heavily in her last moments.

“I’ll let us swap rooms if you win,” Percival said, still anxious for a bet even after a hundred years. Mr Pamuk had been relegated to the room he had stayed in on the bachelor corridor and had always complained about how cramped and dark it was. Percival haunted the Peach Bedroom where Cousin Rose had once stayed and had mooned over her for months, writing bad poetry in her honour. It was empty now but had some pleasant views from the window and caught the morning light.

“And if I lose?” Pamuk said raising a perfectly arched eyebrow.

“You have to tell me what it was like getting fucked to death by Lady Mary.”

“You can’t talk about Lady Mary like that!” William squeaked going pink at the ears. He was still in his army-issued pyjamas, looking as fresh-faced and innocent as he had done in life. Sybil knew first-hand that underneath he was almost torn to shreds.

She and William were the most recent additions to Downton’s ghosts. Among their number, in addition to Lord Percival and Mr Pamuk, was a young maid named Hettie who had hanged herself in the attic almost fifty years ago and whose neck lolled at a strange angle, as well as Lady Catherine the first Countess of Grantham who had drowned in the lake on the estate, her sodden robe a la Francaise and ruined curls in disarray. The oldest and most powerful ghost among them was the Black Monk, who had been murdered sometime in the twelfth century who took the form of a hooded figure in a black robe and never spoke. The legend was that his throat had been cut which explained his silence if it were true.

Sybil had learned that Lavinia Swire had passed on to…wherever it was that people went to after death, and she had searched the grounds for Cousin Matthew when she had learned of his untimely death. If he was still around, it wasn’t on their land. That was the strangest part of it. They had all died on the property and were thus confined to it for all eternity. Sybil had learned that she could venture out to the edge of the estate but once she attempted to go any further, she was met with some impenetrable force that blocked her path. Why the dead had to abide by land laws she would never know.

“It might be nice to have another servant among us for a change.” Hettie mused.

“Clock’s ticking Kemal.” Percival taunted.

“Very well, I’ll take the bet.” Pamuk snapped. “I for one hope he doesn’t join us. That little snake is the reason I’m dead in the first place.”

“That is the most astounding display of mental gymnastics I have ever seen.” Lady Catherine said.

“Can’t we do something?” Sybil cried. Unlike William and Mr Pamuk, she was rather fond of Thomas Barrow and she’d be damned if she was going to let him languish in this dusty old house for all eternity.

Thomas still had a few minutes left before he bled out by her approximation. Maybe one of them could make a noise to draw someone’s attention. But with the exception of the black monk, none of them could muster up the energy to do much of anything. She could barely move a dust mote and no amount of screaming could get Tom to notice her. It was worth a try at any rate and Sybil hastily stepped into the bath and dug her incorporeal hands into Thomas’s chest. Living people usually felt a chill when they walked through a ghost. It was unpleasant, like a static shock.

“Just hold on, Thomas. Just a little longer,” she cried as she felt the under butler’s heart flutter in her hands. Thomas shuddered, his eyes fluttering open for only a second or two and for a moment Sybil could have sworn she had seen a hint of recognition in them.

She didn’t have long to think about it when the sound of frantic footsteps could be heard on the stairs and the bathroom door suddenly crashed open as the footman, (Andy?) forced the lock. Sybil could only watch with relief as Thomas was hauled out of the bathtub while Baxter and Mrs Hughes did their best to staunch the bleeding.

“Yes!” Pamuk cried with delight. “I win. Enjoy your monk’s cell, Percival.” He glanced at the Black Monk, “No offence.” The Black Monk said nothing.

“That doesn’t count. He didn’t even die.” Percival complained.

“Nothing was said about dying.” Pamuk said pedantically, “Only whether he would join us or not, and he clearly hasn’t.”

“What’s the matter, my Lady?” William asked. “Aren’t you glad he’s all right?” Sybil noticed that she was still standing in the bathtub, up to her knees in bloody water. She wished he would stop calling her that. Surely there were no class distinctions among the dead. And she wished he didn’t treat her with kid gloves. After the fits she’d endured when she’d died, she had found that she wasn’t quite herself. She forgot things, sometimes she even forgot she was dead, her moods would change for no reason or she would get confused.

“This might seem ridiculous, but I think he saw me,” she replied.

Chapter Text

Downton Abby, located on the outskirts of the village of Downton in North Yorkshire some 9 miles northeast of Ripon, is the primary residence of the Earl of Grantham. The house was built in 1657 on the foundation of a monastery that was disbanded during the reign of Henry VIII and has been renovated and extended several times throughout its history. The only surviving feature of the original abbey is the stone hearth in the salon that originally heated the monk’s dining room.

This stately home has more than its fair share of ghost stories, the oldest being the legend of the Black Monk. Sightings of this spectre have been recorded as early as 1171 following the murder of Simon de Lyon, a clergyman who had allegedly been in hiding at the Abbey for his association with Thomas Becket. Historians theorise that de Lyon had witnessed the assassination and exposed the assailants who then murdered him in an act of revenge or that he had participated in Becket’s murder and was murdered by the order when his identity was discovered. Unfortunately, the circumstances surrounding de Lyon’s murder are unknown and the assailant was never identified. There are no contemporary sources that connect De Lyon with Becket, in fact, the report of his murder is the only evidence of his existence.

The house’s residents and guests have regularly caught sight of a dark figure that appears by the fireplace or wandering the grounds. He is often seen in the rose garden where the abbey’s chapel originally stood. In 1863 a photograph of the 6^th Earl and Countess at their wedding reception captured what appeared to be the dark hooded figure of a man behind the happy couple, although no one saw such a figure when the photo was taken. Even stranger was that the figure appeared to be transparent as the flames in the fireplace could clearly be seen through the figure’s body. The young bride, Lady Violet Crawley, was so incensed by the ghostly intruder that she demanded that the photographs be retaken. Sceptics have argued that the figure is merely a trick of the light or the result of a flaw in the daguerreotype. Nevertheless, the picture caused a sensation among paranormal societies at the time and Lady Grantham was bombarded by requests from spiritualists and mediums to tour the property which she promptly refused.

Anne Cross, 1971, The Roaming Wraith and Other Hauntings: A History of Yorkshire’s Ghosts, London: Borley Press, p174.

“Now, we should get him into bed and out of his wet things.” Mrs Hughes said as the three of them dragged Mr Barrow’s limp body out of the bath. Ms Baxter had temporarily staunched the bleeding with the dust ruffle from her skirt. It probably wasn’t the most hygienic solution, but they had needed to act fast. She instinctively thought of fetching Mr Barrow to handle the situation, only Mr Barrow was the one who needed help. Unfortunately, Mr Barrow was the only member of staff who had been properly trained in first aid and had on more than one occasion tended to the cuts and burns of clumsy kitchen maids. Mrs Hughes could apply a bandage if needs must or hand out aspirin and Beecham’s powders when people were ill, and she could keep a calm head in a crisis, but Mr Barrow was so much better at that sort of thing. He was completely unfazed by the sight of blood and had a surprisingly gentle bedside manner. He had once stopped Mr Carson from choking on a piece of fish by squeezing him around his middle despite the other man’s attempts to fight him off. She had no idea where Thomas had learned that, but it had worked far better than slapping someone on the back.

“I hope he won't mind if we undress him.” Ms Baxter fretted.

“He's past minding if we put him in a shy and threw coconuts,” Mrs Hughes said, and turned to Andy, “Now, you take his feet and we'll take an arm each.”

Doctor Clarkson arrived sometime later, although it felt like hours. Thomas’s lips had begun to turn blue despite their efforts to dry him and keep him warm with extra blankets. As she waited in the narrow hallway, she worried that they had been too late.

“Will he be all right, Doctor?” she asked as Dr Clarkson left Thomas’s bedroom.

“He was beginning to go into shock,” Clarkson explained. “I’ve administrated a saline fluid so he should remain stable, but I’d really recommend bringing him to the hospital so we can keep an eye on him.”

“You know as well as I do what will happen to him if he goes to the hospital.” Mrs Hughes said in a hushed tone.

“Mrs Hughes, I understand why you would want to be discreet about something like this, but had I arrived any later Mr Barrow easily could have died,” the doctor said sternly. “I cannot stress enough how dangerous this amount of blood loss can be and the fact that I’ve had to come out here means I can’t give him a transfusion which could put him at further risk. The rapid loss of blood pressure means the heart can’t pump enough blood to a person’s organs which means they can’t get enough oxygen. This can lead to organ failure, brain damage, these things are irreversible and often fatal. If anything happens, I want you to bring him directly to the hospital.”

“I will, doctor.”

“You’ll need to keep an eye on him overnight in case his condition worsens. Watch out for cold skin, pallor, a weak or rapid pulse, dizziness, confusion, anything out of the ordinary.” Clarkson instructed.

“I’ll sit up with him myself.”

*

Mrs Hughes kept her vigil despite Mr Carson’s protests over how inappropriate it was for her to spend the night on the men’s side. She had argued that she was a married woman and could go where she pleased and was the only member of staff who could be spared that evening. Eventually, they had compromised, Mrs Hughes was to spend the night in her old bedroom on the women’s side and Andy had been instructed to take over once it was time for bed and check on Thomas every hour or so and alert her if there were any problems.

Thomas’s room was tidy, and sparsely decorated, the second iron-framed bed had been stripped and pushed against the opposite wall. The bedside table had a wooden watch stand that held Mr Barrow’s silver pocket watch. It looked far nicer than her own or even Mr Carson’s and a cursory glance at the watch face showed that it was made by Barrow Brothers of Manchester. She had been aware that Thomas’s father had been a clockmaker, but she’d never have guessed that they made such fine watches. Next to the watch was a framed photograph of a woman with piercing eyes and sharp features holding a little boy on her lap. A little boy who was undoubtedly Thomas since they had the same pouting expression. A small collection of books was lined up on the dresser next to Thomas’s comb and his signature tin of Battersby’s Brilliantine. A few looked like they had been bought second-hand, a few were borrowed from Lord Grantham’s library and the rest were from the free library in Ripon. Mrs Hughes noticed Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche among the volumes. Perhaps he had been trying to decipher his own mind before he had given up. It seemed as though the decision to take his own life was made without much planning, otherwise, he would have taken the library books back.

Even when he had been at his prickliest, Mrs Hughes had always felt sorry for Thomas Barrow. He had had his guard up from the moment he set foot in the servants’ hall. He had only been nineteen then but had the bearing of someone who had needed to grow up too quickly. Mr Carson had been impressed with his work at first but was quickly put off by his aloofness, and his tendency to lie about things. The rest of the staff quickly followed suit. They didn’t understand that it was all a defence mechanism. Thomas deliberately kept people at a distance and endured their dislike because revealing his true self would leave him vulnerable to even worse prejudices. Back in Argyll, she’d had a cousin who was similarly inclined. It had been something of an open secret among the family, the laws hadn’t been as strict back then and the general opinion was that he would settle down eventually. That had been until he had been found beaten to death in the top field. Everyone in town seemed to know who had done it, but nobody came forward and said anything. They had sympathised with the murderers, instead of that poor boy in the mud and later in a closed casket.

“Mrs Hughes.” With a start, she realised that Thomas was awake and had caught her looking at his things.

“Mr Barrow. Oh, thank goodness!” she whispered. “How are you feeling.”

“Strange. I thought… I saw… Lady Sybil was with me,” Thomas said slowly, his voice heavy with morphine. Mrs Hughes looked at him worriedly. Was this the sort of confusion Dr Clarkson had told her to watch out for? “She was standing over me and was telling me to hold on. I must have dreamed it.”

“Perhaps you saw an angel, Mr Barrow,” Mrs Hughes said, feeling a little relieved. At least he sounded rational.

“Perhaps. For a moment I thought I had died, but there’s no chance I could end up in the same place as her.” Barrow said sadly.

“Well, I’m glad you’re still here and not with her, bless her poor soul,” Mrs Hughes said. “You try to get some sleep now, and we’ll talk in the morning,” she continued but Barrow was already asleep. She shivered. Perhaps it was just her imagination or the stress of the last few hours catching up to her, but the room had suddenly become unusually cold.

Chapter Text

Some of the more unique objects at Downton Abbey include the seventh earl’s collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts. As a young man, Robert Crawley accompanied Sir William Flinders Petrie, the noted archaeologist and pioneer in the field of Egyptology, on an excavation of Tell Nebesha in 1886. Crawley was an enthusiastic amateur Egyptologist in his own right, although his only publication of note is a translation of the Westcar Papyrus. Some of the spoils from the excavation were brought back to Yorkshire and include a scarab amulet, a pair of faience figurines depicting Wadjet and Horus, and a wooden statuette of a cat initially thought to be a depiction of Bastet.

“It always frightened me as a child.” George Crawley (58), the current earl of Grantham, remembers. “I used to have nightmares that it had come to life and was scratching on my bedroom door.”

However, prof. Carl Anderson, a researcher from the University of Liverpool, x-rayed the statuette to discover the mummified remains of a female domestic cat. The cat, nicknamed Miut by the UoL Egyptology department, presents a unique insight into the importance of cats in Ancient Egypt. Anderson theorises that Miut lived during the 18^th Dynasty and was buried in the tomb of her owner so that they could be together in the afterlife.

Astonishing Discovery at Downton Abbey, The Yorkshire Post, August 8^th 1980.

*

Thomas woke up early the next morning to the feeling of something warm weighing on his chest. He was immediately met with a pair of striking green eyes as he came face to face with a little cat. It was small and thin with long ears and a short sleek coat the colour of desert sand with brown tabby stripes.

“Hello,” he said, “Where did you come from?”

He reached up to pet it, but a shot of pain ran up his forearm as he moved. The creature shied away from his hand, jumping down from the bed and scampering away through the open door. Thomas tried to sit up but was met with a wave of dizziness and had to lie down again. Why was there a cat in his bedroom? The family had never owned one, they were strictly dog people. The staff might have got one without telling him, but his whole time working at the Abbey he had never seen any evidence of mice or rats, not even in the cellars. Perhaps it had been a stray, it was skinny enough, and some bleeding-heart kitchen maid or hall boy had let it in.

Now that he was fully awake and the fog of exhaustion had lifted, he remembered what he had done the day before. He had panicked just before he lost consciousness, his instinct for self-preservation taking over and the overwhelming fear that perhaps he was too late and for once there would be no second chances. They said that at the moment before death a person’s life flashes before their eyes. Thomas didn’t have that exactly, but he couldn’t help but reflect on all the time he’d wasted by being unhappy and complacent and unproductive and all the times he had pushed people away. He couldn’t do that now. He was alive. He didn’t think he’d be relieved at the fact, but he was. Now that he had come to his senses, he knew he didn’t want to die, he had just wanted something to change. Only dying wouldn’t change anything for him, he would just be gone.

He glanced at his watch. It was half-past five in the morning, half an hour before he usually got up. His forearms were neatly bandaged and someone, probably Miss Baxter and Mrs Hughes, had dressed him in his pyjamas. It was embarrassing, but Phyllis had seen him when he’d had a giant pus-filled abscess from that stupid ‘therapy’ he’d taken, and before that she’d changed him as a baby so technically it wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen before.

Taking care not to have another dizzy spell, he gingerly sat up again. Through his open bedroom door where the mysterious cat had escaped, he spied what looked like a man’s shadow. Only the dim morning light seemed to be playing tricks on him as the shadow didn’t look like a shadow at all but a dark mass of a figure. Thomas couldn’t tell exactly, since the thing didn’t have eyes, but he suddenly felt as though he was being watched very intently.  

“Hello?” Thomas called tentatively, “Is anyone there?”

“Only me, Mr Barrow,” he heard Andy call back, only he sounded as though he was at the other end of the men’s corridor, not outside his door peering in at him. He looked back at where the figure stood, but it was gone. Andy soon came in, still in his vest and pyjama bottoms and looking incredibly tired and more than a little nervous. “I was supposed to check on you every hour, and it got to three in the morning and I thought I’d just rest my eyes a little and now I’ve mucked it up.”

“Well, I won’t tell anyone,” Thomas reassured him.

“Do you want me to fetch you some tea? The kitchen staff are only just getting up, but I could ask Daisy.”

“Don’t worry about that, I’ll wait ‘til breakfast.”

“Oh, all right then,” Andy said, no less agitated as though he was holding something back. “Only, you are all right, though? You’re feeling better?”

“I’ve been worse.”

“And you won’t try to kill yourself again?”

“No, I won’t”

“Good, I don’t think I could handle something like that again. And what if you actually died? I’d never forgive myself.” Andy babbled. He looked close to tears.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, Andy. Truly, I am. I wasn’t thinking properly.” It had barely occurred to him that someone would have to find his body, and probably be traumatised in the process. He wondered how old Andy was. Twenty? Twenty-one? Too young to be in the war at any rate. Thomas was almost old enough to be the lad’s father. Christ, if that didn’t make him feel old.

“Was it… you know, because of me?” Andy said, nervously.

“What?” Thomas said, confused.

“It wasn’t because you fancied me or anything?”

“Jesus Andy, do you fancy every girl you meet?” Thomas tried to say sternly but inwardly cringed at how high his voice had gone.

“No.”

“Well, there you go then,” Thomas said dismissively.

“But it was because of what Mr Carson said about you. Because of our lessons.”

“It was part of it, but it wasn’t your fault. I hated that after all this time, people still assume the worst of me.” Not that they didn’t have good reason with his chequered past, but for once he had been doing something positive and their suspicion had stung.

“And you let them speculate, just so I could keep my secret,” Andy said, eyes wide. “I should never have asked you to do that, I should have just told the truth and not cared what anyone thought. You’re a real mate, you know that?”

“You’re probably alone in that opinion,” Thomas said sadly.

“That’s nonsense and you know it,” Andy laughed. “I’ll tell Mrs Hughes you’re awake.”

*

Sybil and the others sat in the small library patiently listening to Lord Percival recite a poem he’d written. It was mind-numbingly boring, but his Lordship insisted they all gather to listen even when they had better things to do like watching your husband and daughter while they slept. Sybil didn’t need to sleep but nevertheless felt herself nodding off when two things happened. The first was that the Black Monk came to join them, which he hardly ever did. The second was that he spoke for what Sybil suspected was the first time in over eight hundred years.

“Se esne sihð me.” He said solemnly, his voice a terrible rasping whisper under his hood.

“Excuse me, can’t you see I’m giving a reading,” Percival complained.

“ þē cat ealswa he sihð.”

“What did he say? Something about the cat? What’s it done now?” Lady Catherine asked. “I swear, if I weren’t dead already, that thing will be the end of me.”

“What language is that?” Sybil wondered.

“It’s all Greek to me, and I’m fluent in Greek.” Pamuk sneered.

“Can’t you speak English, old chap, you’ve had eight hundred years to learn,” Percival said.

“Ic spæc englisc,” the Black Monk growled.

“Oh, it’s Old English!” Percival cried excitedly. “Of course! How fascinating.”

“Can you understand him?” William asked.

“Nope. No idea.” Percival shrugged. “Perhaps we could find an alternative means of communication. Tu loqueris Latine?”

“Non,” the Black Monk rattled.

“You don’t know any Latin? What kind of medieval monk are you?” Pamuk said, leaping up from his seat next to her. Sybil had to turn away, his flaccid penis was directly at eye level. Sybil couldn’t see the Black Monk’s face under all of that dark fabric but the way the darkness was encroaching on the room meant that he was furious.

“All right, all right,” Percival said, “Let’s all calm down for a moment.” He turned to the Black Monk, “Now could you…er…”

“Simon.”

“Simon? Really?” Percival said, astonished. “Could you repeat what you said but perhaps speak a little slower this time.”

“Thomas sihð me,” the Black Monk stated bluntly.

“He saw you?” Sybil said. “I knew it. He saw me and now he can see you too.”

“Hang on a minute. Loads of people see the Black Mo- I mean Simon. He’s like a local legend around here.” William said. Simon pointed toward a plush armchair where the cat from her father’s statue sat, one leg in the air, licking her unmentionables.

“He sihð þē cat.” Simon repeated ominously.

Chapter Text

There was a commotion today among the maids. The new girl, Alice, believes her room is haunted and complains of hearing wailing in the middle of the night and strange waking dreams where she has to watch paralysed while a young woman hangs herself from the middle beam. Unfortunately, it has set the others off with wild fantasies of ghosts and ghouls. Ever since that stupid Ouija board incident, there’s been nothing but talk of the paranormal around here. I blame T. I know he was only teasing but the younger and more impressionable members of our staff don’t realise that and became quite frightened indeed by the old stories of the Black Monk and the Grey Lady. The problem with T is that he’s easily bored and causes problems purely to entertain himself, ditto for Miss O. He was almost pleasant to be around when he was a sergeant and had things to do but returned to his old ways as soon as he was demobbed.

I fully intended to reprimand them all for such silliness but then I remembered something Mrs Appleton once told me when I was first promoted to housekeeper here. She said that some years ago a young chambermaid named Hettie Little had hanged herself in that room. I don’t believe any of the current staff besides myself, Mr Carson, and possibly Mrs Patmore are aware of this. At the inquest, it had been revealed that she had been with child. Mrs Appleton was completely taken aback, she knew the girl well and thought her to be too sensible to get herself into trouble. Questions about the death would haunt her for the rest of her days. How could such a thing have happened under her watch? The girl had never gone out unsupervised. What if it had been someone in the house? What if she had been forced or coerced in some way? What if it had been a guest or someone in the family or, God forbid, one of the male staff?

Mrs Appleton also wondered if she might have been able to prevent such a horrible situation if she had been more open with the girls, more willing to let them come to her with their problems. I suppose that’s why I felt so compelled to help poor Ethel. That didn’t turn out very well, but it could have been so much worse.

The Diary of Elsie Hughes, December 28th, 1919

Sometime after Andy had left, Miss Baxter came up to see him brandishing a breakfast tray.

“Mr Carson’s told everyone downstairs you have the flu, so they won’t be asking any questions.”

“That’s good to know,” Thomas said.

“You gave us all quite a scare yesterday. For a moment I thought we’d lost you.”

“I’m so sorry, I know that couldn’t have been pleasant.” Christ, he had been in the fallout of two suicides in his life. Once with Edward Courtenay, the other time was when mum died.

“If you’d only spoken to me, perhaps I could have helped in some way.” She looked as though she was about to cry, and Thomas felt wretched for being the cause of it.

“Well, it’s hardly the done thing, is it?” he said, trying to brush it off. It wasn’t what people did, especially not men.

“Still. I should have noticed something was wrong.”

“You did. I’m still here, aren’t I? No harm done,” Thomas said.

“I know. I know. It felt just like when…” she glanced at the photograph of his mother. “She seemed so lucid the last time I spoke to her, almost in good spirits. I had a bad feeling, but I couldn’t put my finger on it, and then the next morning I heard the news…”

“She was very ill,” Thomas reassured her, unsure of what else he could say.

His mother had always been troubled. Usually, she would fall into a melancholy so deep she couldn’t get out of bed for months at a time. Less frequently were the times she would be in high spirits which were wonderful at first as she would play with him and his sister and show them how to bake cakes, and take them to the park. Then she would start staying up all night, talking to people who weren’t there, or seeing conspiracies in the newspaper columns, or accusing dad of trying to poison her. Eventually, he had started to associate ‘fun mum’ with bad omens.

Phyllis had left home to go into service when she turned fourteen, shortly after the funeral. Her family had been poor and babysitting him and doing all the housework for tuppence an hour on mum’s bad days wasn’t going to cut it. Besides, at twelve, Agnes was old enough to look after him and the house by herself and he was old enough to start school.

“It wasn’t exactly something I’d planned out. It was the silliest thing really, that pushed me over the edge.”

“And what was that?”

“I was offered a job,” Thomas said flatly.

“I don’t understand, that’s wonderful news.”

“It should be, but then I thought about wasting the rest of my life on some other house and some other family and how it would only be more of the same, and then I thought about all the time I’d wasted on a job I hate with people who, at best, don’t care if I live or die.” They had offered him the position without even interviewing him, which could only mean that they were desperate. The house was probably derelict or something, or he would have to look after some poor dowager with dementia.

“I care.” Phyllis said softly, “I know you didn’t exactly have good intentions, but you saved my life when you got me this job. When I was near the end of my sentence I had no money, no friends and nowhere to go. I may well have died if you hadn’t written to me. Lord knows I thought about ending it all.”

“Well, you’ve returned the favour. More than once.”

“I know you’ll do well at whatever you put your mind to. Whether it’s in service or something else.”

“Maybe.” If Moseley could get out of service, how hard could it really be?

Thomas resigned himself to finishing his book, for want of anything else to do. He had just got to the arrest of Dr Aziz when there was a gentle knock on the door frame. He looked up and was surprised to see Lady Mary and Master George who rushed up to his bedside and handed him an orange.

“Here you are. To make you feel better,” the little boy said.

“Thank you very much, Master George.”

“We want you to get better, Barrow. Truly,” Lady Mary said sympathetically. So, the family had been appraised of the situation then. “And no one more than Master George.”

“At least I've got one friend, eh?” Thomas said, glancing at Master George who had climbed onto the spare bed and sat with his short little legs dangling over the edge. George nodded solemnly.

“Have you been lonely?” Lady Mary asked.

“If I have, I've only myself to blame. I've done and said things. I don't know why. I can't stop myself. Now I'm paying the price.”

“Strange. I could say the same.” Thomas knew that all too well, he had been waiting on her for over a decade. If they hadn’t been on opposite ends of the class divide, Thomas might have liked her very much. He wondered what was troubling her. Perhaps she had successfully managed to alienate that gentleman who was sweet on her, or maybe she had upset Lady Edith again. She looked as though she was about to say more when at that moment, Anna came in with a lunch tray.

“Mr Carson's told them you've got...” she began and stopped short when she noticed he wasn’t alone.

“Flu. I know.” Thomas said.

“Beg your pardon, milady.” Anna apologised.

“We're going, Barrow, and I hope things improve for you. I really do.” Lady Mary said.

“I'd say the same if it weren't impertinent, milady,” Thomas replied

“Goodbye, Mr Barrow,” George said jumping down from his seat. He had a slight rhoticism in his speech which turned Barrow into Bawow. It was really quite precious.

“Goodbye, Master George."

Later on, Mrs Hughes paid him a visit to take his tray downstairs and told him that Lord Grantham had said to take as much time as he needed to get on his feet again. Thomas was sceptical, ‘as much time as he needed’ was probably only a few days at most. To his surprise, Mr Carson also paid him a visit not long after and told him much the same thing and even asked how he was feeling and waxed lyrical in a roundabout way about how the butler of a house should be a father figure as much as an authority over his staff. Thomas had no idea he cared. If Carson were his father, they would probably be estranged, much like his real father. However, in the past few years, the older man had… well, softened wasn’t the right word for it, but he had become less openly hostile towards him. Perhaps it was unfair of Thomas not to credit him with any feelings. He wasn’t going to forgive the other man, mainly because he hadn’t actually apologised, but perhaps when he left Downton he would endeavour to not think about him again and put the past behind him.

Eventually, his bladder refused to let him stay in bed any longer and he made his way, rather unsteadily, to the men’s bathroom. Once he was out in the corridor, he was met with the tabby cat again gazing up at him with eyes the colour of gooseberries.

“Hey!” he called after it, “You’re not supposed to be here.”

The cat jumped as though it wasn’t expecting him to notice it and sped off towards the bathroom. Thomas quickly gave chase, still a little lightheaded from the blood loss. He turned a corner, but the cat was nowhere to be seen. Thomas decided it wasn’t his problem, plus he really needed a piss.

As he washed his hands, his eye was drawn to the empty bathtub. Someone had cleaned it since yesterday, but there was a brown stain on the floor where his blood had seeped into the bare floorboards. He shuddered and turned back to the sink and almost jumped out of his skin when he looked in the mirror to see a girl standing behind him. She couldn’t have been much older than sixteen and had her head cocked at an odd angle. She was wearing a maid’s uniform, only it was a kind he hadn’t seen used in years with a mop cap and pinafore. He didn’t recognise her, and he didn’t think they had hired anyone since he’d been out of action. Weren’t they supposed to be cutting back on staff? More to the point, how the fuck had she got into a locked bathroom on the men’s corridor.

“Bit disconcerting, isn’t it?” the girl said, gesturing to the stain on the floor. Thomas whipped around only to find an empty room.

Chapter Text

Cecelia, Cecelia!

Oh, how I’d love to feel ya.

Love letter from Lord Percival to Lady Cecelia Grantham, 1808.

“Well, he can definitely see us,” Hettie said bluntly, as she entered through the wall. “He can hear us too.”

They had all gathered in the morning room to await the former maid’s findings. Mr Pamuk was trying to teach William how to play chess but since they couldn’t move the pieces they had to remember what moves they had made. It didn’t help that the cat was currently sleeping on top of the chessboard. They had drawn straws as to who would test whether Thomas could see them or not. Of course, they couldn’t physically draw straws, so they had played a game of The Minister’s Cat where the loser had to go up. The Black Monk had refused to take part, but since he had already been seen, they declared that it would be more scientific if someone else tried it, and poor Hettie had been knocked out trying to find an adjective that began with K.

“Whatever shall we do? It’s bad enough to be stuck in this purgatory with all of you in my house.” Lady Catherine

“Well excuse me. I was supposed to inherit this place, not languish in it for all eternity. Lady Cecelia was this close to accepting my proposal. Who knows, in another time, this place could’ve belonged to the Percivals and not those upstart Crawleys.”

“You, sir, were a fortune hunter and a scoundrel, and my granddaughter was having none of it.” Lady Catherine retorted. “I should know, I watched it happen. Now I’ll admit I wasn’t thrilled at her marrying a parvenue like Nathaniel Crawley, but there was nary an unmarried gentleman in England who wasn’t a gambler, a philanderer, or an idiot, or in your case, all three.”

“You might think I was only after her for her ample fortune, but you are mistaken,” Percival protested, “She also had ample-“

“All right, that’s quite enough,” Catherine shouted. “And now we have to deal with the living of all things.”

“Only one living.”

“One too many,” Catherine said, indignantly. “He’ll tell the others. We’ll never have a moments peace for soon we shall be beset upon by the press, and spiritualists, exorcists!” everyone gasped.

“O walawa. He becumen healfcwic hæfð for he cwæl butan cwele nolde. Nu þē deada he sihð. Wiċċecræft hit is. We mot dropen him.” Simon muttered.

“What did we just talk about, Simon?” Percival snapped. “We can’t understand you.” Sybil couldn’t see the Black Monk’s face, but she knew he was probably rolling his eyes at them.

“Kill him.” Simon growled.

“Now, steady on. Even if we were able to kill him, he would probably just come back again, and we’d still be stuck with him.” Percival said.

“If it means he won’t go crying to all and sundry about us, then it’s a risk I’m willing to take.” Said Lady Catherine.

“You don’t know that. Perhaps he could help us.” Sybil protested, but her words fell on deaf ears.

“Why don’t we just scare him away, so he’ll never come back,” William said, looking a little worried at the mention of murder. “We are ghosts after all.”

“That’s not such a bad idea, you know.” Pamuk said, “If we go on the offensive, we might just be able to frighten him off for good.”

“You’d better go in first, then. Anyone would be scared off by that thing,” Lady Catherine said haughtily and looking him pointedly in the eye. “It’s unseemly.”

“It’s settled then,” said Percival. “When he comes out, I can do the thing with the lights, Simon can create his shadowy apparitions, Lady Catherine her cold spots, Hettie can give him nightmares.”

“Yeah, but I can only do that if people’re sleeping in my bedroom.” Hettie clarified but Percival carried on as though he hadn’t heard her.

“And not to mention the cat’s incredible powers.” Percival finished. At the mention of its powers, the cat promptly batted one of the chess pieces off the table with her paw. The white knight landed on the plush oriental rug with a dull thud.

“Now really, I’m sure if we just talked to him like grownups he would understand our predicament." Sybil cried. "And then who knows, it might be nice to have some help with things around the house. Catherine, aren’t you always complaining about the Queen Anne bedroom?”

“The valances are disgusting,” Catherine grumbled.

“And Lord Percival, aren’t you always complaining that there’s nothing to read?” Sybil went on.

“It would be nice to have someone turn the pages for me.” Percival mused. They all read over people’s shoulders, looking at newspapers and magazines, and whatever novels the family was reading. The downside was that you didn’t have any choice in your reading materials and if the living person was a faster reader then one would often end up missing bits. Sybil chose to do it with Tom, sitting up on what used to be her side of the bed, or in the nursery when he came to read Sybbie a bedtime story. Other time’s she would read along with Papa in his library. Thomas was a surprisingly varied reader, and Sybil was always surprised by what he picked out from her father’s bookshelves or brought back from the free library, from Shakespeare to Strachey, Fitzgerald to Freud.

“He could give messages to Tom and Sybbie, and Daisy and Mr Mason,” Sybil cried, “He could tell them how much we miss them.” William still seemed sceptical, but his face softened slightly at the mention of Daisy and his father.

“Who on earth would believe something like that?” Pamuk sneered.

 “Very well, we’ll put it to a vote." Percival declared. "All in favour of scaring him away, say ‘Aye’” Simon, Lady Catherine, Pamuk and Lord Percival said ‘aye’. “Those opposed?” Sybil, William, Hettie said ‘nay’ “Well, the ayes have it, Ladies and Gentlemen, though only by a small margin.”

*

After taking a moment to collect himself, Thomas staggered back to his room, feeling as though he’d narrowly avoided a heart attack. What was that? Was his mind playing tricks on him? Had he just imagined it? Maybe he was overtired and was having some sort of waking dream. But what about the disappearing cat and the strange shadow person. His bedroom was freezing as though he had been plunged into icy water. That didn’t make any sense. It was the middle of august when the attic rooms of the servant’s quarters, with their lack of ventilation and tiny windows, became so hot and stuffy he had often thought about sneaking downstairs and sticking his head in Mrs Patmore’s new freezer. Now it was so chilly he could see his own breath.

The room had grown dim as dusk approached and the sun had disappeared behind the trees at the edge of the wood. The shadows seemed even darker than usual, like gaping chasms across the floor. Thomas flipped the brass light switch by the door, but nothing happened. Damn. The bulb must have gone. He would have to ask Mrs Hughes for a new one. For some reason, Thomas was filled with an intense and childlike fear as he crossed the room, as though the only safe place was under the covers of his bed. He tried his bedside lamp and suddenly the shadows weren’t shadows anymore, but people, as solid as he was.

One was the maid from the bathroom, another wore a black robe, one looked like he’d been on a night on the razzle with Lord Byron, and one was wearing one of those 18th-century dresses with the massive hips. Following them was Lady Sybil of all people, with her hair bobbed short like the last time he’d seen her, and William in his army uniform. Perhaps he hadn’t got up at all and he was still dreaming. He turned to see the naked form of Kemal Pamuk and sighed with relief.

“Of course, it’s just a dream,” he said out loud. He’d dreamed of the other man a few times back in the day, which was probably a little weird because he was dead, but in a place like Downton there was very little wanking material and his subconscious was probably just making do with what it had. He was usually more well endowed in his dreams though. The obvious solution was to go back to sleep, then perhaps he could wake up properly, so promptly got into bed, turned off the lamp and pulled the blanket over his head.

Chapter Text

The old cottage hospital was first built in 1672 and originally operated as an almshouse. It was acquired in 1830 by Lord Nathaniel Crawley, the third Earl of Grantham. After making his fortune with the East India Company, Crawley was eager to improve the standard of living for his tenants and set about establishing the hospital, the schoolhouse and the village hall. The hospital was bequeathed to Downton village council upon the death of the sixth earl, Lord Patrick Crawley, in 1900. The building became an auxiliary hospital during the World Wars and remained in operation until 1948 when it was converted to an NHS health centre and moved to a new building in 1964. The original building is now the site of the Downton Public Library. This quiet library is not without its spirits including a soldier who committed suicide in the building in 1917 and a former doctor who reportedly died of a heart attack while he was operating on a patient. Staff have reported smelling carbolic soap, books being torn from their shelves during the night, and even being touched by some ghostly hand when they are alone in the building.

Most Haunted, Downton Cottage Hospital, Series 17 Episode 8, 2015.

“What the bloody hell was that?” one of them said.

“Well, I thought it was frightening,” Another one added. William by the sound of it. How was he able to remember his voice so clearly? Aside from his thick accent and slightly gormless demeanour Thomas hadn’t thought there was anything remarkable about the deceased footman’s voice. And yet here he was as if he had only spoken to him yesterday.

“He just dismissed us as though we were nothing. I’ve never been more insulted in all my life,” said another, a woman this time.

“I knew we shouldn’t have brought the Turk. Who’s going to take him seriously looking like that?” the first one cursed.

“Oh, shut it, Percival. Why did he say we were a dream when he looked at me? What the hell has he been dreaming about and how do I make him stop?” He instantly recognised Mr Pamuk, as clear and arrogant as he had been nearly fifteen years ago. His English was perfect with barely any trace of an accent.

The voices bickered for what seemed like forever but eventually to room became silent. Thomas waited a little longer just to be on the safe side then peeked out from under the blankets to see if they’d gone. The room seemed empty, but it was still unusually cold. He peered around the room and was met with the glowing eyes of the cat.

“Let me guess. You’re the reason the dog’s always growling at nothing in particular,” he said. The cat mewled in reply and padded off through the closed door.

“Apparently she didn’t appear until Papa brought that cat statue back from Egypt,” said a familiar voice. Thomas jumped out of his skin when he turned to see Lady Sybil. It was as though she had been frozen in time from the moment she had passed, her hair in disarray and her blue nightgown covered in blood.

“Have you been here this whole time?” he asked.

“I never left,” she said.

“I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“No Thomas, you’re not.”

“I’m…I’m going mad aren’t I?”

“What? No!”

“I’ve finally cracked.” He had always been afraid that whatever condition his mother had was hereditary.

Something must have happened to his brain when he'd tried to kill himself, a lack of oxygen or something, and now he was hallucinating all the people who had died at Downton Abbey. Lady Sybil and William and Mr Pamuk, that was just his guilty mind playing tricks on him. The others were just from stories he had heard during his time at the Abbey. The Black Monk and Grey Lady. That must be it, and with any luck, it might only be temporary.

Lady Sybil looked disappointed and began to fade away through his bedroom wall. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. But please don’t be frightened.” And then she was gone, leaving him alone in the gloom.

The next day Thomas decided it probably had been a dream after all, but the incident had shaken him enough to speak to Dr Clarkson about it. If he really was brain damaged then he needed to know what he was dealing with, and if there was a cure. He slipped out of the servant’s entrance after breakfast. Luckily only the kitchen staff were downstairs, and they were too busy to notice him.

The walk into Downton village was more unusual than he remembered. People went about their business as usual but there were a lot more people than usual and some of them were dressed in strange costumed. One of them wore an Elizabethan ruff, another was wearing giant hoop skirts and a bonnet. Perhaps there was a fair that day that he hadn’t been aware of. He then passed a man with a pitchfork through his eye like some sort of agrarian parody of King Harold. He then realised that not all of the people out that morning were alive.

When he arrived at the Cottage Hospital, Thomas was told to wait in one of the consulting rooms but found that the doctor was already there sitting at his desk. He was an older gentleman with thinning white hair and spectacles. Thomas didn’t recognise him but assumed that he had been newly hired as part of the hospital’s expansion Lady Grantham was always talking about. He greeted him with a surprised ‘good morning’.

“Ah good morning Mr er…” the doctor said, seemingly equally surprised to see him. Perhaps he had been looking forward to a free morning and Thomas’s last-minute appointment had put a damper on his plans.

“Barrow.”

“Barrow, jolly good. That name sounds familiar. Don’t you just hate it when you know you need to remember something important but it’s just out of reach? I’m Doctor Willard by the way. What seems to be the problem?” Thomas worried about entrusting such a personal matter to a stranger and would have much preferred to speak with Dr Clarkson but the doctor had such a calming manner about him that he supposed it would be all right if he omitted certain damning details.

“Well, it’s a little embarrassing, sir. But I was recently in an accident that resulted in me losing a lot of blood,” he explained.

“Goodness, how terrible. You’re not experiencing any complications, are you?”

“Well, you see, I’m not sure.” Thomas continued. “I’ve been having these hallucinations, I suppose you’d call them, of people who have passed away. Do you think I’ve had some sort of brain injury?”

“It’s possible I suppose. But in my opinion, when you suffered your injury, you came so close to the veil between this life and the next that you were able to see the dead.”

“I don’t understand.” Was this man some sort of charlatan?

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Precisely. I’m dead.” The doctor said as he rose from his seat, passing through his desk in the process.”

Thomas stifled a scream as the door opened and Dr Clarkson entered the room.

“Oh, not this cretin!” the ghost doctor groaned. “People assume that because he’s Scottish he must have studied at Edinburgh, but he didn’t, he was at Leeds. He keeps misdiagnosing people. It’s embarrassing.”

“Is everything all right, Mr Barrow? You look very pale.” Dr Clarkson said with a hint of concern.

“Oh, yes I’m all right.”

“You don’t seem well. Have you been experiencing anything out of the ordinary?” Thomas fought the urge to laugh hysterically. Anything out of the ordinary indeed.

“Some dizziness and…” I can see the bloody dead, He wanted to say but couldn’t bring himself. “…and I’ve been feeling a little faint.” Clarkson took his pulse and his blood pressure.

“Your heart rate is a little elevated, but your blood pressure seems fine. I don’t think it’s anything you should worry about. I suggest you get some rest.”

“I wanted to thank you for helping me the other day.”

“Yes, well, I can’t say I was thrilled to be dragged out to the Abbey. It would have been a lot safer to bring you to the hospital, but under the circumstances…”

“I know, doctor. It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t. I understand that you might have your difficulties, but you still have your life. I suggest you make the most of it.”

Thomas left the consulting room feeling rather deflated. They had had a similar conversation when he had narrowly avoided getting sepsis from the injections the conversion therapists had given him. In true Clarkson style, he had told him bluntly that there was no cure for homosexuality and that he just had to make the best of things. A gloomy proclamation but at least he hadn’t suggested he marry a woman in the hopes of growing out it like his father had done or denied that such a thing existed like his sister.

“I just remembered. You’re not Corporal Barrow, are you?” the ghost of Dr Willard asked, suddenly materialising beside him.

“Yeah, that’s me. Well, I was actually an Acting Sergeant.” Thomas said, deeply grateful that there was no one around to hear him talking to someone who wasn’t there.

“Oh, congratulations.” Willard chuckled. “Anyway, the boy’s been looking for you.”

“The boy?” Thomas asked, not understanding what he was talking about. Willard pointed to something behind him. Thomas turned around to see the tall thin figure of Lieutenant Courtenay.

Chapter Text

There are multitudes of ghosts. Those who travel or who are trapped between this world and the next.

The vast majority fall into the former category and only visit this plane of existence either through their own volition or with the help of a spirit medium.

Far rarer are those who are permanently trapped between worlds. These, for the most part, remain attached to the place where they passed away. Rarer examples include spirits that are attached to certain objects where people only report paranormal activity after the acquisition of a haunted possession. Rarer still are spirits that attach themselves to living people, be it through the passing of a loved one or occasionally through a paranormal encounter where someone (or something) might follow one home.

Joseph Joyce, 1951, The Weissman Field Guide to the Paranormal, London: Weissman Publishing, p 142.

*

Courtenay’s ghost was grotesque. Pale and drawn, wearing only his undershirt and the hospital issued pyjama bottoms he had died in. His wrists dripped with fresh blood that pooled on the parquet floor. Thomas couldn’t believe how young he looked, frozen in time since that terrible night. He couldn’t have been more than twenty when they had first met. The boyish face that had warmed his heart a decade ago seemed so tragic in its youth. The passing of time had revealed itself in such small increments that Thomas had barely noticed them, a frown line by his mouth, the greying at his temples, but it was never more apparent than it was now.

“Edward! I’m over here!” Dr Willard called out. “Directly in front of you, roughly twenty paces.” Thomas’s breath hitched. After everything, Courtenay was still blind. Edward approached them down the hallway with a slow deliberateness that seemed practised. For a moment Thomas felt proud that he could find his way around so well, then he realised that he’d had nearly a decade to practise.

“He’s doing quite well, don’t you think?” Willard said. “He’s memorised the whole layout of the building.”

“What is this?” Thomas said shakily. Up until now, he had still been half certain that this was all his mind playing tricks on him, but not even his own mind was this cruel.

“Corporal?” the Lieutenant’s ghost said. “You have no idea how long I’ve been searching for you.” He reached out and touched his arm. It didn’t feel like any sort of human touch, but more like a cold tingle that sent a shiver through him right down to the marrow.

“Is everything all right, Mr Barrow?” Thomas jumped as Dr Clarkson tapped him on the shoulder. He must have looked like a right loony, just standing there in the middle of the corridor. He looked around, but Edward and the doctor were gone, seemingly evaporated into thin air.

“Oh, yes I’m quite all right,” he replied. He was about to move along and get as far away from the hospital as possible when he had an idea. The ghost of Dr Willard had told him something about Clarkson that he hadn’t known. If it was incorrect then it stood to reason that the ghosts were just some sort of hallucination. “Dr Clarkson,” he said quickly before he lost his nerve. “Where did you study medicine?”

“Leeds, why?” Clarkson replied, looking a little bewildered. The answer caught him by surprise. Willard was right? There was no way Thomas could have guessed that on his own. Like most people, Thomas had just assumed that Clarkson had studied at Edinburgh. Not only that but the people he was seeing outside of Downton were different from the people he saw inside, and Thomas doubted that he was imaginative enough to create such an elaborate delusion.

“Just wondering,” Thomas said, feeling incredibly awkward for asking such a personal question apropos of nothing.

“If you’re thinking of retraining, I’m afraid they don’t offer scholarships to older students.” Clarkson said, “And an MD can take up to eight years. But if you’re interested in going back into healthcare I know of some orderly jobs going at Bootham Park.” Bootham Park was an asylum in York.

“That might not be appropriate given the circumstances,” Thomas said. Clarkson realised his mistake and looked genuinely mortified, to his credit.

“Of course. What was I thinking!” he said.

“Thanks all the same, Doctor,” Thomas said and turned to leave. It wasn’t until he was out of the building that he truly let himself panic, covering his own mouth with his hands, afraid that he would completely lose the plot and just start screaming. The good news was that he wasn’t going barmy, which was something at least. The bad news was that he could see ghosts and the dead were roaming the earth. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy to see Edward and Lady Sybil again, and even William whose death had hurt more than he had ever expected. The trouble was that they had been here all this time without physical form and with no way to communicate with the living. Christ, he may well have been in the same situation if Phyllis hadn’t found him in time.

He had just made it out into the courtyard when he saw Edward and Dr Willard and a third ghost who seemed to have had his gut sliced open from sternum to navel. Thomas wiped his tears away and approached.

“Good luck, son,” Willard said, “You will come back and visit, won’t you?”

“I’ll certainly try,” Edward replied.

“Good on ya, lad,” the third ghost said, clapping Courtenay on the back. “If any of us deserve to get out of this place, it’s you.”

“Ah, Mr Barrow,” Willard cried, waving Thomas over to their little group. “Did you find out what you needed to know?” He said this with a knowing smirk, and Thomas wondered if he hadn’t deliberately let that information slip so that he would have the proof he needed.

“It seems I have,” Thomas said hoping desperately that no one would pass by and catch him talking to himself.

“This is Steven, by the way,” the doctor said. Steven gave him a nod and a curt ‘how do’. “It’s quite an embarrassing story, really. I was supposed to remove his gallbladder but in the middle of the operation, I had what we in the medical profession call ‘a massive bloody heart attack’ and somehow ended up slicing open his stomach, and his pancreas, and a bit of his liver. We can laugh about now, but at the time I was mortified.”

“You’re leaving? Right now?” Thomas said to Courtenay.

“Oh yes, this was only meant to be a temporary home,” Edward replied.

“I don’t understand. Where will you go?” Thomas said, frightened that the other man had decided to go on to heaven or wherever it was that people went to.

“With you, of course.”

*

Thomas tried not to think too much about the war. When he did he fell into black moods that sometimes lasted for weeks but seeing Edward again had brought everything back. It wasn’t severe enough to be shell shock, he was able to remain functional at least, but some nights he would dream he was back at the front and wake up in a cold sweat, sometimes his mind would wander and he would find that hours had passed. He was surprised there weren’t more ghosts of soldiers at the hospital. He thought of Ypres and Verdun and all those other places that must have been crowded with them, wandering aimlessly among the poppy fields and dragging around their mangled limbs. Could you become a ghost if you had been blown to pieces?

They had said their goodbyes, and Thomas had promised that he would bring the young lieutenant back for visits occasionally before setting off. Thomas had to restrain himself from talking to the other man as they walked through the village. He had been worried about not being able to lead him around like he had done when the lad had still been alive but to his surprise, Edward had no trouble following him. It didn’t matter if he ran into obstacles since he could simply walk through them, and whatever it was about Thomas that prompted him to follow, he didn’t need his eyes to do it. He felt a little like Orpheus as Edward walked a few paces behind him and he couldn’t help worrying that if he turned around Edward would disappear.

Eventually, they made their way out of the village, past the Church and the Grantham Arms and onto the road back to Downton. There was nobody around now and Thomas finally felt comfortable enough to talk.

“Not that I’m not happy to see you again, but why would you want to come with me?” he said, taking a cigarette out of its case and lighting it.

“I don’t know exactly,” Edward said. “I just knew that I had to find you. It was all right at the hospital, but it didn’t feel right, you know. I kept feeling as though I should be somewhere else. But when one’s lost it’s usually best to stay where you are and hope someone comes to find you.”

“Oh,” Thomas halted and turned to look back at him, he didn’t know how to respond to that. “I’m- I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

Edward, who was a few steps behind him, closed the distance between them, stopping only a few inches away from Thomas’s face.

“You weren’t to know,” he said, then touched Thomas’s bandaged wrist. “I’m sorry you felt you needed to do this.” How did he know? Edward's eyes were as pale and cloudy as they had been in life, but now they shone with an ethereal glow, like the moonstones in Lady Edith’s earrings. It was a beautiful August morning, but Thomas felt unnaturally cold in the ghost’s proximity.

“Aren’t we a matching pair,” Thomas mused bitterly. There was a strange contrast to them though, one alive, one dead, one dark, one fair.

“Not quite,” Edward said, as though he knew what Thomas had been thinking. “I’m glad you’re still here.”

“That makes one of us,” Thomas said, rolling his eyes.

“I’m serious,” Edward said and looked so young and earnest that Thomas felt a stab of pain in his heart. “You told me once to stand up for myself, to not let people make me into a victim. I didn't take your advice and and I've been regretting it ever since. Perhaps, I’m supposed to help you. Maybe that’s the reason I can follow you like this.”

“Well, regardless,” Thomas said, “It’s good to see you again. Even if the circumstances are less than ideal. I should warn you. You won’t be alone at Downton. There’s quite a few…people such as yourself.”

“Like that man over there?” Courtenay said, pointing at something behind Thomas’s head.

“What man?” Thomas said turning in the direction he had pointed, and nearly screamed when he saw the ghost of Matthew Crawley standing on the other side of the road.

Chapter Text

Yew Tree Farm has been breeding heritage pigs for nearly a hundred years and is in possession of the last heard of Yorkshire Blues in the world. The heard was first established in 1922 in a bid to make the farms on the Downton Estate more lucrative. Now facing extinction, the Parker family, who have managed the farm for generations, have taken new measures to reintroduce this ancient breed to the Yorkshire countryside.

The Yorkshire Gazette, 18^th May 2018

Like the majority of ghosts Thomas had encountered so far, Matthew Crawley looked ghastly. Blood dripped down the side of his face from where he’d hit his head, staining the collar of his shirt and the lapel of his light summer suit. He looked… the first thought Thomas had was ‘mangled’. His head was at a strange angle, as though it had been twisted around too far, and there was something about his legs that just wasn’t right. Ironically, the car hadn’t had a scratch on it. His mind still half at the front, Thomas’s first instinct was to run to his aid, his second was to run away.

“Wait a minute, how are you able to see him?” he said, suddenly realising that Edward had been the one to notice him first. Edward had been almost completely blind when he had been at the hospital due to the corneal scarring, although he could still see changes in the light in his peripheral vision. Edward had told him once that bright light appeared scattered, as though it were reflected off a lake, and gave him headaches.

“I can’t see him exactly. But I can tell when there are others nearby, other dead people that is. It’s hard to explain. It’s more like a feeling, like when you feel like you’re being watched.”

“I say, Barrow, is that you?” Mr Crawley called out.

“Well, we’d better see what he wants,” Thomas said. He didn’t think Lady Sybil would be very happy with him if she found out he’d left her cousin by the side of the road. He crossed over to the other side of the road where the apparition stood on the grassy bank. “Yes, it’s me, sir.”

“Good God, you’re not dead too, are you?” Matthew asked, concerned.

“No, sir. It’s a long story.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“Are you all right, sir. You look…” Thomas trailed off.

“Oh, this?” Matthew said, pointing to the gash in his head,  “Don’t worry, I can’t feel a thing, although the leg injury does make getting around rather difficult.”

“Have you been out here all this time?” Thomas asked. Had been stuck here for nearly four years? Had he been here when he had walked down, and Thomas hadn’t noticed? No, that wasn’t possible, there was no way he couldn’t have seen him.

“In a way. The place where I had my accident is on the boundary of Yew Tree Farm. The farmhouse is haunted by three of the Drewe’s ancestors, so it feels a bit like I’m intruding, so I mostly live in the barn when I’m not here. Cousin Robert still owns the land but technically it counts as a separate property. I’ve tried the whole perimeter, but I can’t seem to get out.” He demonstrated by attempting to cross the road where he immediately disappeared then reappeared walking in the opposite direction. “Who knew land law would be so intrinsic to the afterlife? You can imagine how frustrating it is, given that the entrance to Downton’s grounds is right there.” He pointed up to where the road turned off onto the Downton estate. It was the side entrance that the tradesmen used, but because it was a shortcut the family used it as well. Only guests were treated to the grand entrance which added a good ten minutes to the journey when one was driving from the village. There they could marvel at the ornate gates and its sweeping panoramic views of the grounds with its ancient oak trees and grazing sheep who liked to delay visitors even further by dozing on the warm tarmac.

“I like to walk up and down this road most days,” Matthew continued, “In case they drive past. Mary or mother or any of the rest of them.”

“You poor man.” Edward said, “It happened at the hospital as well, the others couldn’t get past the courtyard. It’s as though one remains attached to the place where they died.”

Matthew looked at Thomas’s companion curiously. “You seem to have managed it.”

“I have, only now I seem to be attached to Corporal Barrow here,” Edward said. Thomas blushed at such a bold statement even though he knew that wasn’t what he meant. He felt a paralysing fear that Mr Crawley would get the wrong impression, which in Thomas’s case was the right impression,  but relaxed when he remembered that one: Matthew probably already knew about him, and two: couldn’t do anything about it anyway on account of him being dead.

“Corporal Barrow?” Matthew repeated, “Surely, you’re not that soldier who died at the hospital? The one Cousin Sybil was so upset about?”

“He means Nurse Crawley, sir,” Thomas added when Edward looked equally confused.

“Oh! Yes, I suppose I am.”

“How incredible. You’re the reason we turned Downton into a convalescent home, you know.”

“I-I didn’t know that.” Edward stammered.

“Oh yes, Barrow here ran the place after they made him up to sergeant.”

“You never told me that,” Edward said, turning back to Thomas. “Well, at least something good came out of it I suppose.” Thomas disagreed. The fact that his Lordship hadn’t even considered giving up his precious house until a patient literally topped himself was diabolical, and even then he had only agreed with extreme reluctance.

“I’m Matthew Crawley by the way,” Matthew said, introducing himself when Thomas didn’t reply.

“Lieutenant Edward Courtenay, sir. Although I suppose, things like rank don’t really matter in the afterlife, so please call me Ted.”

“Ted?” Thomas said suddenly. He had always thought of him as Edward even though he had never addressed him as such, remembered from his patient charts and that awful letter from his family.

“Oh yes, all my friends call me that.” Edward (or Ted) said, as though it were obvious. “I’ve just realised I don’t even know your first name.”

“It’s Thomas, sir.” It hit him that perhaps he didn’t know Courtenay as well as he thought he had and perhaps imagined a lot of their camaraderie as the true memory of their friendship grew more distant. They had really only known one another for a few weeks, but Thomas had obsessed over it for so long afterwards, trying to think of what he had done wrong or how he could have helped more, that if felt drawn out in his mind into something deeply significant. Edward smiled in silent approval, as though to say ‘yes, you always struck me as a Thomas’ or perhaps he simply liked the name.

“And how is Nurse Crawley? Did she marry that Irishman in the end?” Edward asked cheerfully.

“Sybil….passed away some years ago,” Matthew said hesitantly.

“Yes, about that,” Thomas said nervously. “You could say, Lady Sybil is gone but not forgotten, and by not forgotten I mean still here.”

“You don’t mean…?” Matthew said, shocked and hopeful in equal measure.

“Same as you, yes,” Thomas replied darkly.

“Well, it’ll be lovely to see her again, but I can’t say this is good news. There must be something we can do for you.” Edward said to Matthew. “Is there any way we can help?”

If Courtenay was going to be a bleeding heart to every ghost they encountered, then things were going to get incredibly annoying. Nevertheless, Thomas had grown to like Matthew Crawley during their chance meeting at the front and classified him as one of the least awful members of the family. He was struck with an idea.

“Wait, you can see the entrance to Downton from here,” he said. It was about a hundred yards away from the edge of Yew Tree Farm on the opposite side of the road. “If you’re right about the boundaries then perhaps Sybil could meet you there. It’s not ideal and you might have to shout but it’s possible.”

“Yes,” Matthew said thoughtfully “Yes, that could work.”

“We should agree on a time, do you have your watch?” Thomas asked.

“Yes, but it got smashed in the accident,” Matthew replied taking a silver fob watch from his breast pocket. It had stopped and the glass was broken. Thomas noticed that it had a pulsometer and guessed that it had once belonged to Matthew’s father.

“Oh, that’s a right mess.” Thomas said, “I could fix it for you, or at least tell you how to fix it. You don’t happen to have a tiny ghost screwdriver on you, do you?”

“Just tell her I’ll be here at sunset,” Matthew said, “That’s easy enough, don’t you think?”

“Of course, I’ll let her know,” Thomas said, almost kicking himself. Of course that was a more simple solution. Ghost watches. What was he thinking? “Is there anything else you’d like me to do?”

“I’d like to see my son,” Matthew said, without hesitating.

“That might be more difficult, but I’ll see what I can do,” Thomas said. Perhaps he could convince the nanny that he had found some interesting wildflowers by the road and that it might be an interesting outing for the children.

“I know Mary’s probably moved on by now. I’m not so conceited to think that she would mourn me forever, nor would I want her to.” Ah, so he’d probably seen her driving around with Mr Talbot, then and was fishing for information. “But I think seeing my son again would make things better somehow.”

“Well, to her credit, she was pretty heartbroken over the whole thing. She barely left her room for the better part of a year.” Thomas said, omitting the fact that Lady Mary had had several suitors since then and, knowing her, had slept with at least one of them.

“Oh,” the ghost said, seeming somewhat mollified. “You won’t forget to tell Sybil, will you?”

“I won’t, don’t you worry,” Thomas said and trudged back across the road towards the house. Edward hung back for a moment, saying something to Matthew that Thomas couldn’t hear before turning to follow him.

Chapter Text

During my second investigation of the Rectory, I was referred to an alleged spirit medium of some renown by the name of Thomas Barrow. He was rather difficult to get hold of and once contacted was reluctant to speak to me. He told me that his ghost hunting days were behind him and that he didn’t fancy travelling all the way to Essex for some wild goose chase. Mr Barrow is a genial man of indeterminate age and is the proprietor of a shabby little antique shop in Manchester where he also lives with his ‘business partner’, a pair of confirmed bachelors if ever I saw one.

After some cajoling, he agreed to visit the house and after touring all its rooms declared that there were ‘about the usual amount of ghosts’. He then correctly named the spirit of the Reverend Henry Bull down to describing his appearance and the circumstances of his death. He then described a medieval woman in a bliaud and wimple but could not give any more details as he claimed she only spoke French. I attempted to ask her some questions in her mother tongue, but between her dialect and Barrow’s mangled attempts at relaying her message, we didn’t get very far.

He failed to identify, however, the ghostly carriage and the mysterious Sunex Amures entity that identified itself during the planchette séance. He is certainly no showman as he did not employ any sort of meditation or automatic writing during his visit. He explained that séances almost never work as most spirits are too weak to influence the planchette and that any results are either faked or brought forth by the unconscious mind.

I have concluded that Mr Barrow’s readings are as unreliable as any spirit medium, as he told me very little. He did seem to know an awful lot about the events of the investigation, the volunteer investigators and the tests we have performed. I find this incredibly suspicious. Perhaps my enemies have contacted him first and I am being played for a fool.

Harry Price, Notes from the Borley Rectory Investigation, The Society for Psychical Research Archives, 1937.

Sybil had gone to check on Thomas first thing in the morning but was surprised to find that he had gone out. At first, she thought he had fled in the night, but all of his things were still in his room, so the more likely explanation was that he had gone out for cigarettes. Disappointed, she went back to the morning room where the others had gathered for their daily game of ‘What would I wear today if I wasn’t trapped in the clothes I’d died in.’ The room was rarely used by the family since the sun shone straight in one’s eyes in the morning then quickly turned gloomy in the afternoon. There was also a crack in one of the windowpanes that had yet to be replaced which sucked out all the warmth emitted from the tiny fireplace. The ghosts, who couldn’t feel the cold, had since adopted it as their sitting room as it was the only unoccupied room in the house with enough seating for all seven of them.

“I think I would wear my Italian gown, the one with the blue and white striped silk and the ruffles, with a cotton fichu to keep the sun off, and my blue slippers.” Lady Catherine began.

“Um… Denim trousers, a buckskin jacket, and a cowboy hat.” William said as they went around the circle. Then they came to Mr Pamuk.

“Literally anything! Why do I even play this game?” he grumbled.

“Oh, come on. You have to say something.” Hettie said encouragingly.

“Fine, I choose a… floor-length kaftan.” Pamuk conceded.

“That’s the spirit.” Hettie nodded in approval. “I would choose trousers and a light cardigan, ooh and a sun hat.”

“I would wear my green silk banyan and my red velvet smoking cap.” Lord Percival said, next in the group. “This outfit isn’t exactly conducive to lounging around. What about you, Sybil?”

“A lace tea dress. The one with the pink flowers” Sybil said absentmindedly as she peered out the window.

“Simon?”

“Scyrte and bliaut.” The dark figure said, probably referring to some forgotten garment that hadn’t been worn in a thousand years.

At that moment Sybil spied Thomas Barrow through the trees, ambling up the drive in his brown suit.

“I have to go, excuse me,” she apologised and got up to leave.

“But I was going to give a talk about the Albanian peace negotiations.” Mr Pamuk complained.

“Sorry. I'll try to get back soon,” Sybil placated and rushed out. Really, she would endeavour to miss as much of it as possible. Pamuk's recounting of the London Conference has been interesting the first time around but this would be the fifth time they’d heard it.

She rushed downstairs into the servant’s hall just in time to watch Thomas get berated by Miss Baxter.

“I really wish you would have told me where you were going. I went up to bring you the papers. What was I supposed to think when I found your room empty?” the older woman said worriedly.

“You’re right. I’m sorry to have worried you. I just popped out to get some cigarettes.” Thomas replied, surprisingly cowed. Sybil was vaguely aware that the pair had known one another before going into service. Distant relatives or neighbours, something like that.

“You could have asked Andy to do it,” Baxter said with some exasperation. “You’re not well.”

“Yes, of course.” The under-butler nodded. Behind him, the figure of another ghost passed through the closed door of the servant’s entrance. It looked like William had decided to leave Pamuk’s talk as well, but why would he have come all the way around the building when the morning room was just upstairs? Then she got a better look at his face.

“Lieutenant Courtenay!” she cried in surprise. She had often wondered whether the poor lieutenant had remained at the hospital just as she had stayed at the house but had supposed that she would never be able to find out. What was he doing here? How had he been able to cross the boundary?

“Nurse Crawley! Thomas said you’d be here.” Courtenay said leaning into her embrace as she threw her arms around his neck. His hand brushed her swollen belly and froze with shock, “Oh! Oh, dear. Is that how-?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “There were some complications.”

“Did the child survive a least?” Courtenay asked.

“Oh yes, she lives here with her father and my family.”

“Well, that’s something at least.”

“I’ll have to show her to you, later,” Sybil said. “Has Thomas told you about the others?”

“He mentioned there were others but didn’t elaborate.”

“Of course, he didn’t.” she sighed. Courtenay paused as though he was in deep concentration.  

“There are eight including you, one is very old and isn’t human,” he said.

“How on earth did you know that?”

“It’s just something I can do. I’m drawn to other ghosts and now I’m drawn to Corporal Barrow, that is to say, Thomas. I feel as though I could follow him halfway around the world if I needed to. It’s difficult to explain, but it’s like when you know where everything is in your house even if you can’t see it.” He replied. Sybil had never heard of anyone being able to do that. Granted, she only knew the other ghosts in the house which was probably only a tiny minority. It had always puzzled her how some of them could do things and others couldn’t.

Thomas had managed calm Baxter down and gestured at them to follow him upstairs. Sybil let the lieutenant take her arm as they made their way up the tiny cramped staircases towards the servant’s bedrooms.  

“I owe you an apology,” Thomas said once they were in his room, “for not believing you were real.”

“Well, I’m sure it was quite a shock,” Sybil said.

“You can say that again,” Thomas sighed, “I went to the hospital to see if they had any explanation for all of this, but instead I ended up running into Ted here.”

“Ted?” she asked. She couldn’t remember the lieutenant’s Christian name, but he certainly didn’t strike her as a Ted.

“Only my family called me Edward. I always thought it was rather stuffy.” Ted admitted.

“He’s not the only one I ran into. Mr Matthew’s out there.” Thomas continued.

“What? Where?” Sybil gasped.

“On the road to Yew Tree Farm. You can just about see him if you go to the side gate. He told me to tell you he’ll be there at sunset.”

“How awful. Yes, of course, I’ll go and meet him.”

“That’s not all. He wants to see Master George.”

“Well, that’s going to be difficult. Nanny doesn’t take the children off the estate.” And why would she when they had over a thousand acres of perfectly manicured grounds to play on complete with follies, woods and an ornamental lake.

“We'll have to find a way to convince her,” Thomas said. “Do you think it might bring him some peace? Help him pass on, I mean.”

“It’s possible.” Sybil said, “Apparently Miss Swire was here for a little while, but she moved on when Mary and Cousin Matthew got engaged. I was still alive when it happened, you’ll have to ask the others about the particulars.”

“Perhaps he’s like me, and he’ll attach himself to the boy,” Ted suggested.

“Is that safe?” Thomas said suspiciously.

“I don’t see why not, he won’t be able to see or hear him, and Mr Crawley would be able to watch over him.”

“Like a really ineffective guardian angel, you mean?” Thomas said sarcastically.

“I wouldn’t exactly put it that way, but yes,” Ted answered, looking a little upset.

“I’m sorry. I’m out of my depth here.” Thomas groaned. “Maybe there’s something in the Library about spiritualism.”

“There’s nothing in papa’s library like that,” Sybil informed him. “Unless you count the stuff about Ancient Egyptian death rituals. Beyond that, you might have to visit a Library in York, or even London for something like that.”

“It might be worth a look,” Thomas sighed “We have to find something that can make sense of all this.”

“Something… or someone.” Sybil interrupted as she spotted the last page of the Yorkshire Gazette Miss Baxter had brought up. There, printed in tiny letters and decorated with elaborate curlicues was an advertisement.

“The Magnificent Mrs Mazzini, Spiritualist Medium. Planchette seances and private readings. Enquiries by telephone or in person,” Thomas read aloud, then noted the address as somewhere in York. “Sounds like a racket to me, speaking as someone who’s encountered a lot of rackets.”

“It might not do any harm to call her,” Ted suggested, “See if she has any advice on the subject.”

“Well, it isn’t as though we have many options.” Thomas sighed.

Chapter Text

My Dearest Georgie,

I am quite beside myself. Papa still refuses to allow an inquest. He says that Mama’s death was a tragic accident and any speculation to the contrary would only bring malicious gossip to our family. Well, I tell you, one does not simply drown in our fishing lake. It is less than four feet deep in most places. Perhaps if she were taken to drink or otherwise indisposed but she seemed in fine form when last I saw her if a little agitated. And why would she chuse to be out on the lake on the evening of her own birthday party? Unfortunately, Papa is also the magistrate, so any investigation would be under his instruction.

To make things worse, he has already installed his mistress in our house, and she is already with child. I have no doubt that she will soon become the next Countess before the babe arrives. If it’s a boy, my sister and I will be cast out to some cottage somewhere with only a pittance to live on should we be unable to marry. It hasn’t been lost on me that Mama was nearly forty and had only daughters. I cannot bear to make such an accusation against my own father, and truly I do not dare. But if my suspicions are correct then he has shewn himself as a monster worse than any fairy story. If something should happen to me, do not believe that it was an accident!

All my love

Your Jo

Letter from Lady Josephine Grantham to Lady Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire 15^th March 1778

Corporal Barrow, he had thought of him as Corporal Barrow for so long that it was hard to think of him as a Thomas or as a civilian. It was a nice name, solid, sceptical, and vaguely intellectual, bringing to mind Aquinas, Hobbes, Jefferson, or Edison. Ted decided it suited him very well. It was frustrating that he would never know what Thomas looked like. He remembered when he had been alive that they were a similar height when Thomas had given him his arm, and that he had seemed to have broader shoulders than him. He had asked him what he looked like once and Thomas hadn’t been particularly descriptive: ‘black hair, blue eyes, a bit on the pale side.’ It really wasn’t much to go on. Now, thanks to this strange ability of his, he had a clearer impression of the man, a mixture of pain and internalised anger but also dignity and a deep desire for love. His presence commanded his attention as though Barrow were magnetic north and he was a compass.

Thomas had described the layout of his bedroom perfectly adequately, although he had neglected to tell him what his belongings looked like, and Ted sat beside Sybil on the unused bed that had been pushed up against the wall. The ghostly animal he had felt earlier, which turned out to be a kitten, jumped on his lap and dug her needle-like claws into his thigh.

“Hello there. Who might you be?” he said. The cat just purred in reply.

“We haven’t really given her a name. We just call her ‘the cat’,” Sybil explained.

“You poor thing,” Ted said scratching the nameless kitten behind her ears and tried to not pay attention to the horrifying images that flashed through his mind, a dark temple, the smell of incense disguising the smell of blood, the priest who had torn her away from her mother.

“Perhaps you could tell us about the others,” Thomas suggested. “I only recognised a couple of you.”

“Oh, well, there’s Lady Catherine the first Countess, Lord Percival’s a romantic dandy poet of some sort, Hettie the maid, she’s been here about fifty years, Simon the Black Monk, we thought he was from the twelfth century but now we think he might be an Anglo-Saxon, and you know William and Mr Pamuk of course,” she told him, then to Ted said, “William was a footman here but he was injured in the war and died here when the convalescent home was still running. Mr Pamuk was a Turkish diplomat who died while visiting the house.”

“Yeah, about him…” Thomas started.

“I should warn you. He was… in the nude when he passed away,” Sybil interrupted, “In case you bump into him or something.”

“Really? Oh dear,” Ted said, concerned.

“It’s the least he deserves, after what he did,” Sybil said darkly. Thomas cleared his throat uncomfortably, and Ted wondered what had happened to make her so angry.

“What happens now?” Ted asked, changing the subject to more urgent matters.

“I don’t know about you two, but I have a job offer to accept,” Thomas said.

“Surely, they won’t make you leave right away,” Sybil protested.

“They might give me a grace period, but I still have to go, and there’s no reason I shouldn’t accept this job.”

“But you’re still not well. And you only just… you can’t just leave!” Sybil cried, her voice trembling.

“What else can I do? I don’t exactly have many options. Who knows when I’ll get another offer?”

“Perhaps if you talked to Papa.”

“And tell him what, exactly? That I’ve been communicating with his daughter from beyond the grave and she wants me to stay? If trying to top myself didn’t get me institutionalised, that certainly will.”

 “All right, I’m sure there’s a solution to this,” Ted told them calmly. “Is there a particular time they want you to start?”

“They didn’t say, it just says ‘at my convenience’”

“Well, perhaps you could tell them that you need to work out your notice. Give yourself a few weeks and see what happens.”

“Very well,” Thomas sighed. There was a rap on his bedroom door. “Who is it?”

“I thought you might like some lunch, Mr Barrow,” A voice said, muffled as though it was on the other side of a door. “I’ve got sandwiches and Daisy made some lovely soup.”

“Oh, yes, thank you Andy.” The door opened, and Ted heard the rattle of plates and cutlery.

“Who were you talking to you just now?” the other man, Andy asked.

“Why? How much did you hear?” Thomas replied, his voice wobbling with anxiety. “I mean… myself. I was composing a letter and trying to figure out what to say.”

“Right you are, Mr Barrow,” Andy replied, a little incredulously.

He was content to continue listening to the exchange when Sybil tapped him on the arm and suggested they leave.

“I was so pleased to speak to someone new that I forgot how beastly he can get,” Sybil sighed once they made it down from the servants’ rooms.

“He has a point, though. And you can’t force him to stay if he doesn’t want to.”

Hearing them fight had shocked him. Back at the hospital they had always presented a united front and seemed as though they were quite close. He had almost imagined that they were secretly in love, taking long romantic walks back to the big house after a late shift, both pale and beautiful, holding hands, kissing in the moonlight. Ted hadn’t been sure who he was jealous of. Then it quickly became apparent Corporal Barrow was different from other men and Nurse Crawley’s affections were directed elsewhere and he had been caught between disappointment and relief.

They spent the afternoon in the nursery and Ted stood by awkwardly as his companion told him every minuscule detail of her daughter’s life.

“They could see me, you know. When they were very small.” Sybil told him. “Then as soon as they started talking, they just stopped noticing me.”

“That must have been terrible.”

“She doesn’t even remember me.” Sybil sobbed, “That’s why I need him to stay, so he can tell her about me.”

“Well maybe if you told him that, he’d be more sympathetic.” Ted said weakly.

When dusk fell, Sybil left him by the front door and went to fetch the others and once they were all introduced, they made the short walk from the house towards the stretch of road where they had found Mr Crawley. Somehow, he had ended up in a conversation with the notorious Mr Pamuk, and after spending five minutes with him, decided he probably did deserve to be naked for all eternity.

“I must say it’s nice to meet someone who doesn’t stare,” Pamuk commented.

“Why, what’s wrong with you?” Ted asked, trying to keep his face as expressionless as possibly, although the temptation to laugh was overwhelming.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m just an ordinary, fully clothed man,” Pamuk replied, the pitch of his voice rising nervously.

“Right.”

“So, Lady Sybil told us about you. You died in the war, didn’t you?” the Turkish gentleman continued.

“That’s right.”

“Ah, same as young William here. I tell you, if I had still been alive during that time, things would have gone rather differently. I was a diplomat, you know?” Pamuk bragged.

“Are you seriously suggesting you could have prevented the Great War?” Ted asked, shocked by the audacity of the man.

“No, please no. Don’t get him started,” One of the others, he guessed Lady Catherine, cried with exasperation.

“No, I would have encouraged them to start much earlier. Always strike first when they least expect it and strike hard,” Pamuk said happily.

Ted was about to give him a piece of his mind when he heard Sybil cry “There he is! You can just about see him when you stand here.”

“Hello!” Matthew Crawley cried from somewhere off in the distance.

“Matthew!” Sybil called.

“Hello!” was her only reply.

“How are you? How have you been?” she continued.

“You’ll have to shout a little louder. I can’t hear you,” Matthew yelled.

“I said how have you been?” Sybil shouted.

“Oh, you know, visiting the old haunts,” Matthew chuckled.

“Good evening, Captain Crawley!” one of the others, called out.

“Oh William! You’re here too?”

“Yes sir. I heard you’re stuck on Yew Tree Farm.”

“It would seem so, yes.”

“How’s dad doing?”

“He seems in good spirits,” Matthew said, “He and Mrs Patmore seem to be getting along, and that boy Andy’s been a big help to him.”

“Right…Andy,” William sighed dejectedly.

“Is that…. Is that Mr Pamuk with you?” Matthew continued barely containing his laughter. “Gosh.”

“What?” Pamuk snapped angrily.

“Oh nothing. I just can’t believe I was ever intimidated by you,” Crawley giggled.

“I like this one,” Lady Catherine said as Pamuk spluttered angrily. “We should visit him more often.”

Chapter Text

…Jean, Joe, Phillip (17) and Diane (14) Pritchard moved into Number 30 East Drive, Pontefract in August 1966. Almost immediately, during a hot summer Bank Holiday, Phillip and his Grandmother first witnessed a baffling phenomenon, a fine layer of chalk like dust falling not from the ceiling, but from a level below head height. This was the beginning of several years of incredible, inexplicable events; green foam appearing from the taps and toilet even after the water was turned off, tea leaves being strewn across the kitchen, lights being turned off and on, plants leaping out of their pots and landing on the stairs, cupboards shaking violently, photographs being slashed with a sharp knife and an endless list of levitating and thrown objects including a solid oak sideboard and a grandfather clock.

Following these disturbing incidents, the Evening Post has called upon a noted spirit medium to better understand these strange occurrences. Thomas Barrow is an elderly gentleman from Manchester whose paranormal investigations have included the ghostly nun of Borley Rectory, the Dalby Spook and the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, among many others. Unlike others who claim to have psychical gifts, Barrow has remained surprisingly sceptical about the paranormal, claiming 'ghosts are pretty harmless, really. It’s living people you’ve got to watch out for.’

Barrow enters the house and immediately pauses. ‘Well, there’s certainly someone here.’ He says, pointing towards the staircase. ‘Yeah, you’re not so frightening when someone can see you, eh?’ he addresses the invisible intruder. Something is thrown at us and hits me on the arm. It turns out to be a marble from the children’s room.

‘Oi! None of that! Didn’t no one teach you any manners.’ Mr Barrow shouts, ‘Now what’s this I’ve been hearing about you frightening little girls?’ Silence ‘Oh, I see. That must be very frustrating but that’s no excuse…’ More silence ‘Is there any way you can cohabit peacefully?’ The mirror on the wall, family photographs and light fittings all tremble as though an earthquake were occurring. ‘I see, well I’m sure she didn’t mean to.’

‘He doesn’t like sharing the house with people. Actually, he doesn't like the house either. It was built on top of his resting place.’ Barrow explains after this strange one-sided conversation concludes. ‘And he doesn’t like the children. He were a priest, you see, and he thinks they’re immoral because they wear shorts and listen to rock and roll music. I expect that sort of thing is pretty shocking for a four-hundred-year-old priest but it’s no excuse to drag a young lady up the stairs by her hair, is it?’ he adds pointedly as though he’s addressing the ghost instead of me. I realise I never told him about Diane getting dragged up the stairs.

I ask him whether he’s seen anything like this before.

‘I’ve not seen many poltergeists, they’re quite rare and most of the reported cases are hoaxes. This one’s particularly strong because he can feed off the energy of living people. The more afraid you are, the more powerful he gets.’

I ask if there’s any way of getting rid of the ghost and another marble is thrown at me. I still can’t tell where it came from.

‘You mean an exorcism? No, that’s all a load of rubbish. He’ll move on when he’s ready to move on. I say, just ignore him and he’ll get bored eventually and settle down.’

It is then that I notice the family photographs on the walls getting knocked to the floor one by one as though some unseen hand is ripping them from their picture hooks. I feel like Mr Barrow’s advice is easier said than done.

Curious Case of Mr Nobody, Geoffrey Hogarth, Yorkshire Evening Post, June 27th, 1968.

*

Despite his eagerness to put everything behind him and get on with things, Thomas’s trip to the hospital had worn him out once the excitement of discovering he could communicate with the dead had worn off. Now he had been bedbound for the better part of a week and the dead would not leave him alone. He wouldn’t have minded if it had just been Edward and Lady Sybil, but with the exception of Mr Pamuk, the others insisted on visiting him as well.

The cat would wake him up in the mornings by jumping on his chest, somehow feeling heavy even though she had no corporeal form. The Black Monk would stand in the corridor staring at him silently which made him nervous about going to the toilet. Or sometimes Thomas would look up from his book and he was just… there, lurking in a corner as though he had materialised out of the shadows. It would be just his luck if he survived a suicide attempt only to die of a heart attack from a sudden fright. The dandy one, Lord Percival, kept asking him to write down his awful poetry, then send it off to his publishing house on his behalf. Thomas wasn’t even sure if the publisher even existed anymore. Hettie kept trying to get him and Edward into some sort of talk therapy group. Lady Catherine kept bemoaning the terrible taste in clothing and interiors of the subsequent Lady Granthams, how dreary the servants’ liveries were now (in her day they had been forest green with gold oak leaves embroidered on them), and how ugly the new additions to the building were. Despite himself, he found her lectures about the history of the building quite interesting.

“So you see, we spent all that money modernising the place. It used to be this dark, grey little Jacobean hovel, tiny windows, no natural light at all. We tore everything down except the parts of the old Abbey downstairs and the dining hall which is now the library, and we rebuilt the whole place in the neo-classical style. Oh, you should have seen it, Mr Barrow, for it was the most beautiful house in all of England. White sandstone, Ionic columns, a glass domed ceiling in the great hall. Why then, I ask you, when I was barely cold in my grave, did my husband’s new family start drawing up plans to rebuild it in the Jacobean style again? To spite me, that’s why! And now we have this monstrosity! All spires and fiddly little carvings, and those awful towers, it makes it look like a prison!” she sighed. “At least they kept the park as it is. Capability Brown designed it, don’t you know, the follies and the lake. Of course, if I’d known my husband was going to drown me in that lake, I would have told him not to bother.”

William kept grilling him about Andy and his intentions towards Daisy. He hadn’t seen any reason to be worried, Daisy was notoriously reluctant when it came to love which was probably why she had set her cap Thomas and Alfred anyone else who was decidedly unavailable. However, it looked as though young Andy was making some progress and getting in with William’s dad to boot. Was it any wonder that William was upset?

“And then Mr Matthew said that they spent the whole morning playing with the farm cat’s kittens last Sunday,” William said miserably. “Well, that’s it, isn’t it? She loves him.”

“William, the vows say ‘til death do us part,’” Thomas sighed. Not that he wasn’t happy to see the lad again after the horrible way he had died, but he really was a massive berk. “The way I see it, she can go off with whoever she wants.”

“I know that. But what if he hurts her?” William huffed.

“I think the fact that he’s trying to impress your father means he’s serious,” Edward pointed out, from Thomas’s armchair.

“Yeah, if anything, she’ll probably hurt him. He’s only a boy really,” Thomas said, grateful that the other ghost was backing him up.

“Thomas, do you think you could… ask my dad what he thinks about it?” William asked, nervously.

“I’m not sure if your dad likes me very much,” Thomas told him, hoping he would drop the idea.

“Dad likes everyone. He’s a literal ray of sunshine,” William said, brushing off Thomas’s protests.

“But after the way I treated you…”

“I never told him any of that. All he knows is that you pulled strings to bring me home,” William said.

“How did you know about that?” Thomas said, shocked. He hadn’t told anyone about that. Only Dr Clarkson and Mrs Crawley knew he had played a part in that and even Clarkson would have had a hard time proving any insubordination on his part.

“I overheard you arguing with Dr Clarkson,” William explained. “I figured it was your way of apologising without having to actually say you were sorry.”

“Fine, I’ll talk to him,” Thomas sighed. Since when had William been so perceptive?

“And tell him I love him,” William insisted. That would be harder to bring up in conversation, but Thomas agreed to do his best.

In a way it was quite nice to always have company, even if it was uninvited. Thomas couldn’t remember the last time he had so many people eager to speak to him. At least they had the curtesy to leave him alone at night. Then Edward would sit on the edge of his bed and they would talk about everything and nothing in whispered conversations. Thomas told him about his childhood, about how much he loved his grandfather and how devastated he had been when he had died, about his mother’s struggles, and his father’s cruelty. Edward in turn opened up about his own family, how he had always felt like a disappointment, he had always been too sensitive, too emotional, too much of a dreamer compared to his pragmatic parents and brother.

Sybil went down to visit Matthew every evening at sunset, sometimes some of the others went with her. She seemed worried about him when she returned, believing he wasn’t coping well with his situation. ‘Are any of us?’ Ted asked. Thomas had to agree. There had to be some way to get the children out there, even if it was only for a few minutes. It was what Mr Matthew wanted and Thomas had committed to helping him, and lord only knew why but he didn’t like the thought of letting him down.

While he was at a loss on how to get Master George to visit his father, the children had visited his room on several occasions, unperturbed by the story that he had the flu and could infect the whole house if they weren’t careful. Nanny always scolded them for wandering off and pestering him, but Thomas didn’t mind. Today Master George had wanted him to read him a story and Sybbie had wanted to show him a daisy chain she had made. Sybil had followed them upstairs, as she spent most of the day watching the children.

“The Prince was so much astonished that he thought he must be dreaming, but the little figure came up to him and threw back its veil, and he saw that it was the loveliest little white cat it is possible to imagine. She looked very young and very sad, and in a sweet little voice that went straight to his heart she said to the Prince: ‘King’s son, you are welcome; the Queen of the Cats is glad to see you.’” Thomas read from George’s copy of the Blue Fairy Book.

“No, do the voices!” Sybbie commanded.

“Yes Thomas, do the voices,” Sybil laughed.

“King’s son, you are welcome; the Queen of the Cats is glad to see you,” Thomas repeated in a high-pitched voice in an approximation of a princess that had been turned into a cat.

“Do you think the cat in our bedroom is the Queen of Cats?” George asked.

“Which cat in your bedroom?” Thomas asked absentmindedly. Perhaps Lady Mary had bought him a new toy.

“The cat comes in our room sometimes at night,” Sybbie explained. “It scratches on the bedposts and knocks things off the mantlepiece.”

“That wretched creature,” Sybil said, scandalised. “I’ll have to stay in the nursery at night and chase her out.”

“And you’ve seen it? This cat?” Thomas asked curiously. Surely, they couldn’t see it too.

“No, because it’s dark, but we can hear it and then it jumps on my bed and frightens me,” George told him darkly. He pronounced frightens as ‘frykkens’ and Thomas marvelled at how the boy could look so serious while being so sweet.

“Oh, well pay her no mind. You know she only wants to play,” Thomas told him. “You know, she jumps on my bed too.”

“It’s a girl?” George asked, forgetting to be frightened for a moment.

“That’s right.”

“What does she look like?” Sybbie asked.

“Well, she’s very small, still a kitten really, and she’s a sandy colour with brown tabby stripes and she has green eyes,” Thomas said, omitting the fact that said cat was currently sleeping on top of his chest of drawers.

“Lord Grantham brought her remains back from Egypt and disturbed her spirit,” Edward added.

“And she came here all the way from Egypt,” Thomas concluded, saying anything else would just frighten the children again.

“What’s all this about Egypt?” Andy asked from the doorway, holding a tray with Thomas’s tea with Nanny Spencer not far behind him.

“There you are!” she cried, “I’ve told you both, if you don’t stop pestering Mr Barrow, you’ll tire him out.”

Nanny Spencer was a sensible sort of girl who had previously worked as a schoolteacher and was leagues ahead of the dreaded Nanny West in all aspects. Lady Grantham had thought it would be a good idea to keep her on as Sybbie’s governess when the children got older, but Mr Branson had objected, saying Sybbie should have a normal childhood at a normal school. Thomas remembered the argument at dinner very well because Branson had spilled claret all over his shirt front and Thomas had been tasked with getting the stains out.

“Mr Barrow was telling us a story about the ghost cat,” Sybbie babbled excitedly.

“Not this again,” Nanny Spencer sighed. “I told you, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“A ghost cat? Do you mean that horrible figurine in the library?” Andy asked.

“Donk brought her back from Edjit,” George parroted.

“Edjit is Daddy’s word for idiot, you edjit,” Sybbie laughed.

“Well, if you want to see some real cats, our Pepper had kittens a few weeks ago at Yew Tree Farm,” Andy suggested. “Perhaps we could go for a visit. You could ask Mr Mason to teach you about the animals.”

“Oh, may we go and see, Nanny?” Sybbie pleaded.

“Yes, may we?” George repeated.

“If Mr Mason doesn’t mind, I’m sure we could spare an afternoon.” Nanny sighed.

“Perhaps you could come too, Mr Barrow. Some fresh air might make you feel better,” Andy said.

“Yes, please come,” George cried.

“I’ll have to check my calendar, master George.” Thomas said, getting his diary from his bedside table and opening it to a blank page. “Goodness, it looks I’ll be available after all.”

“You’re silly,” The boy giggled.

“Come on, now,” Nanny said, “It’s time we went down for out tea, before Mrs Patmore decides to give it to some other children who are better behaved.”

“Would you look at that. I’ve been wracking my brain on how to get the children to come to Yew Tree all week and figuring out an excuse to talk to Mr Mason, and now Andy’s solved both problems without even realising it.” Thomas marvelled when they had all left.

“Look at the animals. Why didn’t I think of that?” Edward mused.

“Wait until I tell Cousin Matthew. He’ll be so happy.” Sybil cried.

“Cildra lufiaþ lȳtelne Gesceafta.” The Black Monk rumbled in solemn agreement making Thomas jump out of his skin. How long had he been lurking in that corner?

“Jesus! Could you not do that please. You’re making me afraid of my own shadow.” Thomas snapped. “Why do you wear that cowl anyway? What are you hiding?”

“Hors.” The Black Monk replied and pulled up his hood to reveal that his face had been smashed in, presumable by being kicked by a horse.

“All right, fair enough.” Thomas conceded.

“Now you just have to find that clairvoyant woman.” Edward said.

“I’m still not convinced by that ad, Ted.” Thomas protested.

“Just telephone her. What harm could it do?” the lieutenant’s ghost persisted.

“Hwā ist Claire Voyant?” the Black Monk asked, confused.

“It’s not a name, Simon. It’s a person who has psychic abilities.” Ted explained.

“Ah, wiċċecræft.” Simon nodded sagely.

Thomas sighed, it looked as though he was going to call the psychic. It wasn't as though he had much else to do.

Chapter Text

As our readers have been following these extraordinary events with some interest, we at the Highgate and Hampstead Express decided to recruit a number of self-professed spiritualist mediums, psychics and other experts in the supernatural to take a look at the cemetery and give their professional opinion. Many of our participants recounted increasingly outlandish stories about a menacing grey figure gliding about the place thirsting for human blood. One notable exception was a Mr T. Barrow (78), a antique dealer from Manchester who despite having a long and varied career in the spiritual arts was reluctant to speak with us. “How do you know about all that?” he asked when we telephoned him, citing his work at Borley Rectory, Reynham Hall, Pontefract, and perhaps most importantly, his acquaintance with the famed occultist, Aleister Crowley.

“I’m pretty sure there’s no such things as vampires. Sounds like a load of old rubbish to me. In my whole life, I’ve never encountered one.” says Mr Barrow, “Unless you count my old boss’s mother, we thought she was going to outlive all of us.”

Barrow is a dignified old chap, sharply dressed, with a shock of white hair parted to one side. He was highly unimpressed when he was introduced to Sean Manchester president of the British Occult Society (of which he is the only member), and David Farrant a High Priest in Wicca. In fact when Farrant confessed to his day job as a tobacconist, Barrow handed him five shillings and said “Get us some ciggies then, there’s a good lad.”

As we walked through Highgate Cemetery, Barrow explained: “You don’t get many ghosts in cemeteries to be honest, they usual just stay where they died… and how they died,” he shudders. “But there have been some exceptions, like if you die in a cemetery for instance or on the land before it became a cemetery. There can be a fair few ancient people in places like these, Romans and Celts and such, trouble is I don’t know any Latin. The other way to get ghosts is if someone disturbs somebody’s remains and they get all bent out of shape about it. Most of them don’t care, but you get the occasional religious type who’ll come back from the great beyond and start causing a stink.”

After we have toured the grounds, the old man stopping once or twice to talk to someone who isn’t there, Barrow concludes: “There’s two of them here. No vampires that I can see. One of them cycled this path and fell off his bike and hit his head on that monument there. He’s all right but graves give him the willies. The other one is from one of those tombs over there. He says Mr Manchester dug him up and used his bones in some sort of ritual and now he’s stuck here.”

“I did no such thing.” Manchester splutters angrily. “I’ll have you know, these are very serious allegations. I’ve heard enough, this man is a fraud and you and your precious paper has wasted your money.”

“Says the man wearing a Bishop’s hat.” Barrow mutters. “Well, that’s all I have to say on the matter. I’ll be off now.”

As I watched the old man saunter off with Sean Manchester ranting and raving and Farrant laughing his head off, I wonder if any of them are telling the truth. But judging from Manchester’s reaction, Barrow certainly hit a nerve. As always, the truth remains to be seen.

Highgate Vampire ‘a load of old rubbish’ Claims spiritualist, The Hampstead and Highgate Express, October 31^st, 1968.

*

“Cwēn to hēr” the Black Monk said, pointing to a spot on the old chessboard. Thomas dutifully moved the queen, effectively cornering Pamuk’s king. Thomas had found the game in the back of the cupboard in the servants hall. It was a lot less fine than the one in the library, with the board made of cardstock instead of a wood veneer cabinet, its pieces made of stained pine instead of ivory and African blackwood, but it served its purpose.

“Queen to B2.” Pamuk said, frustrated. All he could do was block his king with his queen, which was ultimately a futile move because upon capturing the white queen in his next move, Simon had moved to checkmate.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, how are you so good at this?” he snapped, turning to Thomas, before storming out through the fireplace, “And you, eyes up here! This isn’t a peep show.”

Thomas sighed. He had been trying to avert his eyes, but it was a bit difficult when he was sitting at the servant’s hall table with Pamuk looming over him with his cock and balls dangling in Thomas’s line of sight.

“I thought chess was supposed to be played with two people.” Thomas looked up to see Mr Bates watching him from the end of the table. How long had he been watching him, looking as though he was playing by himself like some sort of despondent child after everyone had gone to bed.

“I was practising, Mr Bates,” he replied, unconvincingly. “It’s supposed to keep your mind sharp.”

“I didn’t know you played.”

“It’s a recent interest.” Thomas said uselessly. “What are you doing here so late, anyway?”

“I decided to sleep here tonight since we have an early train tomorrow.” Mr Bates explained. “I was just finishing his Lordship’s .”

“Of course, the London trip. I almost forgot.” Lord and Lady Grantham were visiting Lady Rosamund and Lady Edith in London for a few days while Lady Mary and Mr Talbot were on their honeymoon. Tom Branson, as usual, would be left behind with the children like some sort of maiden aunt.

Mr Bates sat down opposite him and tidied the pieces without asking then moved the white king’s pawn challengingly. “Would you like a game? I always find you learn more when you play against an opponent.”

Thomas rolled his eyes. Of course, he would pick white. He had trapped him, since refusing to play would make him look like a coward, leaving Bates an opening to give him ‘the talk’.

“If you like.” Thomas conceded.

Accepting him was a mistake. Aside from facilitating ghost games, Thomas hadn’t played since he was a child, and Bates was a lot more aggressive than he expected. Thomas on the other hand played impulsively and made several stupid mistakes.

“Are you looking forward to your outing tomorrow?” Bates asked, taking Thomas’s bishop with his knight.

“It’ll be interesting to see what Andy’s been doing at the farm.” Thomas replied nonchalantly, as he captured the offending knight with one of his own. “And the children will certainly enjoy it.”

“It’s a shame Anna and I are leaving with the family today or we would have joined you.” Thomas bit back a comment that the family’s trip to London was the reason why so many of them had been able to take the afternoon off. “And you’re sure you’re feeling better?” And there it was, and to make things worse Bates’s queen was in check.

“Bit late to be asking that now, isn’t it?” Thomas snapped, blocking Bates’s queen with his rook. Bates flinched. “I’m sorry, that was unfair of me. I mean I appreciate your concern, but it isn’t necessary.”

“Only you’ve been… unfocused lately, like you’re miles away.” The Black Monk, who had been loitering at the end of the table began studying the game with marked interest. At least, Thomas assumed it was interest. He couldn’t really tell with the hood. “See, you’re doing it right now.” Bates continued. Thomas quickly shifted his attention back to the game. He had thought he had been covering his new ability (gift was probably the wrong word) even when all the ghosts were in the same room with him and talking over one another, but apparently people had noticed something strange.

The Black Monk’s pale hand pointed to Thomas’s knight, showing him an opening to capture Bate’s bishop. “Hors Bisċop þigedð”

“Miss Baxter mentioned you had been offered a job. Don’t you think it’s a little soon to be thinking about that.” Mr Bates pressed.

“I’ve told them I’ll need a few weeks.” Thomas said. Simon had somehow managed to get them onto an even footing, their remaining pieces almost mirroring one another.

“But still, I could talk to his Lordship. Perhaps you needn’t leave at all.” Bates said. That was all Thomas needed, being kept on out of pity and have everyone think he had resorted to histrionics to keep his job. “I can understand how this place can be a safe haven. I feel the same way.”

“Mr Bates, you don’t understand anything.” Thomas muttered. The other man might have found happiness out of his lordship’s nepotism, but Thomas had never once felt secure in his job. Granted a lot that precariousness had been his own making, but what about all the other things. The way Mr Carson had clocked him from the moment he first had set foot in the servant’s hall and treated him like something that had to be scraped from the bottom of his shoe. The way men always acted as though Thomas might accost them at any moment, and he couldn’t even tell them, scathingly, that they had nothing to worry about because he had standards.

He looked down at the board. With Simon’s help he had checkmated Bate’s king with his remaining rook while his bishop prevented its escape.

“Oh, would you look at that!” Thomas cried.

“That was very good.” Bates said, looking equally surprised, “That’s called a Pillsbury’s mate.”

“Hmm Pillsbury…” Simon repeated meditatively.

“Is it? How interesting.” Thomas said, and hurriedly tidied the chess set away, desperate to end their conversation. “Well, its past my bedtime. Have a safe journey tomorrow.”

Mr Bates looked as though he would press the issue but decided against it and bid him goodnight.

*

The next day, Lord and Lady Grantham left with Mr Bates and Miss Baxter in tow. Once it had been established that Mr Mason was happy to have the children visit whenever they wanted, they had planned an outing for that afternoon as Andy had been granted the afternoon off and Daisy had been spared until it was time to start on the servant’s dinner. The final group consisted of George, Sybbie and little Marigold who still needed a perambulator for such a long walk, accompanied by Tom Branson, Nanny Spencer, Andy, Daisy and Thomas. Edward had also followed them, unseen by the rest of the group and they had left Sybil behind at the edge of the grounds after she had made them promise to tell her everything, gazing longingly at her husband and daughter. Thomas often wondered how the spirit of his friend seemed to always know where he was. Courtenay’s answers about the technicalities of his existence were vague at beat. To be blind or incorporeal seemed incredibly challenging on their own, but to be both sounded like a living (or rather a dead) nightmare.

Eventually they arrived at the farmhouse where Mr Mason was waiting for them in the yard. Thomas noticed Mr Crawley fidgeting nervously behind him accompanied by a few other ghosts Thomas hadn’t seen before. He presumed they were the Drewe ancestors Mr Crawley had mentioned. Two of them were old ladies, and the third was a young man with four distinct puncture wounds in his neck.

“Bloody hell, what happened there?” Thomas said without thinking.

“Oh, that?” Mr Mason said, looking at the remains of a demolished outbuilding behind him. “The timber were all rotten, so I decided to tear it down.”

“This is Alice Drewe, Harriet Drewe, and Jacob Drewe.” The ghost of Mr Matthew said, gesturing to his companions, “although, he goes by Jake the Rake.”

“Because I fell on a rake.” Jake added helpfully, his voice a raspy whisper.

“Right,” Thomas said, barely masking his horror. He had seen plenty of terrible injuries during the war and liked to think he was less squeamish than the average man, but there was something about these ghosts, stuck forever in their last moments, that felt undignified.

“We’re going to build some more pig sheds.” Branson explained. “To increase our capacity.”

“I’m helping.” Andy added happily.

“This must be the young master.” Mr Mason said. Both children suddenly went quiet, unsure about meeting a new person.

“What do we say, Master George?” Thomas encouraged.

“How do you do.” George said politely.

“And who is this lovely young lady?” Mr Mason asked.

“Oh, so you’re shy all of a sudden. That’s a first.” Branson chuckled as Sybbie hid behind his leg. “This is my daughter, Mr Mason. Sybbie, Mr Mason runs the farm here.”

“Good afternoon Miss Sybbie,” the farmer said, bowing slightly

“Good afternoon.”

“I think there was some talk of meeting the kittens, wasn’t there?” the old man said, “I you look in that barn over there, you might just find where they live.”

“Oh, yes please. Can we?” Sybbie pleaded, pulling on her father’s hand, with George joining in with the chorus.

“All right, but you must be very quiet or you might frighten them.” Mr Branson said.

Thomas and Nanny Spencer followed the children as they raced to the barn while the other stayed to talk with Mr Mason. The kittens had been given a little shelter made from old boxes and blankets. Their mother was a young tortoiseshell and her babies consisted to three tabbies, one ginger, and a little black and white one that was clearly the runt of the litter. Thomas didn’t know much about kittens, but they were old enough to get around on their own and took great interest in the sardines Daisy had packed for them as they began to climb up his trousers when he opened to tin.

“All right, hold your horses.” Thomas said, worrying that their tiny claws would snag the fabric. He noticed that Edward and Matthew had followed them inside, and the latter was watching his son with amazement.

“Look at him. He’s already so big. The world really does carry on without you, doesn’t it? I was hoping he would notice me, but no luck.” Matthew said, and looked as though he was about to cry.

“Sybil said they tend to lose the sight once they start learning to talk.” Edward said.

“Yes, Marigold could see me when she was living here, but I think I frightened her, so I stayed away.” Matthew elaborated. “Poor Edith, it’s torture to have your child so close but not be allowed to see them.”

“Wait, what?” Thomas blurted out.

“Oh, blast I shouldn’t have said that.” Matthew cursed.

“This one looks like you, Mr Barrow.” George insisted, presenting him with the black and white kitten.

“Does he now?”

“He’s black and white, just like you,” the boy giggled.

“Now that you mention it, it does look like he’s wearing a tiny livery. You’re a little overdressed for a picnic, aren’t you?” the poor creature began licking the fish oil off his fingers, it’s tongue felt like sandpaper.

“You do have a way with animals, Mr Barrow.” Nanny Spencer noted.

“Do I?”

“Oh yes, and of course the children all adore you,” the girl continued. “I like to think that’s a good sign in a person.”

“We had a dog growing up.” Thomas confessed. “We named her Flossie because her fur was all stringy like the floss from the cotton mills.” He hadn’t thought about Flossie in years, but for most of his childhood it felt like she was his only friend. He hated to admit it, but he had been affected deeply by Isis’s death. She had always been happy to see him, even though he had locked her in a keepers shed once. He had felt bad about doing it and always gave her extra dog biscuits to make up for it.

“We had an old greyhound, named the Artful Dodger.” the nanny told him “I have never seen a dog steal so much food in all my life. He learned to open the pantry door and everything. Once I saw him sprinting away from a neighbour’s house with a string of sausages in his mouth, all trailing along the ground behind him. It was like something out of a children’s book.”

“I’m just going to go out for a cigarette.” Thomas told her, “Will you be all right on your own?”

“Go ahead.” she replied.

Thomas went out to the edge of the pig pen and fumbled for his lighter. The pigs frolicked in the enclosure before him, happy as… well, as pigs in muck. They were Yorkshire Blues, but their skin was more of a dark grey colour, and some of them had white patches.

“Thomas?” Edward had left the barn and followed him outside.

“What did he mean back there, about Lady Edith?” Thomas asked. “I suppose it was rather obvious if I had been paying attention. She does bear a striking resemblance to Mr Gregson.”

“He meant what he said, but you mustn’t say anything.” Ted answered.

“Of course, I’m not going to say anything. I’ll admit I’ve done some bad things to that family in the past, but I draw the line at ruining the reputations of little girls.” Thomas said angrily.

“All right then.” Ted said gently. “I’m not saying you would do anything with that information. The family all know now anyway, except Lord Grantham. I suspect he’s being wilfully blind to it. I mean I guessed it, and I’m actually blind.”

Thomas had to stop himself from laughing out loud and looking like a madman. But he already looked as though he was talking to himself so what did it matter.

“Do you have a light?” Thomas turned to see Mr Mason approaching him. He lit the old man’s cigarette for him, and the pair watched the pigs in an awkward silence.

“I never did thank you, for what you did for our William.” Mr Mason said.

“It was mostly the Dowager Countess and Mrs Crawley’s doing.” Thomas said dismissively, “And Lady Sybil of course.”

“Yes, but you played a part in it as well. It takes courage to disobey your commanding officer like that.”

“Well, it wasn’t fair having him so far away.” Thomas conceded. “But I don’t deserve your thanks. I wasn’t exactly nice to him.”

“I know. His mother and I supposed it was because you’d been hurt and, you know, I’ve always believed in second chances.”

Thomas looked across the farmyard to where Andy was enthusiastically showing Daisy the pig feeding equipment. “What do you think about that, then?”

“He’s a nice lad, but I’m worried he might be a little immature for her.” Mr Mason said. “But if he’s the once she wants, I’ll not object to it. It’s strange, he’s about the same age our William was when he passed on.”

The afternoon drew on and Mr Mason showed the children all the animals and entertained them immensely by know all the pigs’ names and temperaments. He let them all pet Samson his shire horse and feed him apples and carrots and showed them how to collect the eggs from the henhouse. All the while Matthew’s ghost watched them wistfully. He walked alongside them as they made their way back to Downton Abbey, stopping at the edge of the road where the boundary line between the two properties lay.

“I can’t thank you enough for this, Thomas.” Matthew said, as Thomas and Edward hung back from the group. “This truly means the world to me. I just wanted to see him one last time.”

“One last time?” Thomas said, frightened. “What do you mean?”

“I heard about Mary.” Matthew said, “He seems nice, that new husband of hers. She’s moved on and it’s time to let go.”

“Do you really mean that?” Edward asked worriedly. “What if…”

“It’s time.” Matthew reassured them. “You’ve done me a great kindness. I shan’t forget this” Thomas was still unsure of what was going on.

“Well, good luck out there.” Ted said, holding out his hand. Matthew took it, but instead of shaking it he pulled the other man into a hug.

“Take care of yourself, Thomas Barrow.” Matthew said, and Thomas could have sworn that he was glowing, as though he had swallowed a lightbulb. “I hope you find some happiness.” And before Thomas could answer he disappeared in a flash of white light.

Chapter Text

Magician and spiritualist Federico Mazzini, touted as the Houdini of Hulme, was found dead in his York residence yesterday morning. His cause of death is as yet uncertain but a stagehand at the Theatre Royal reported that the popular stage personality suffered a head injury during rehearsals when a trick, ironically a trick coffin, went wrong. Mazzini emigrated to England as a child and settled in Manchester where his father owned an ice cream cart and his mother worked in the Co-operative Wholeshare society shirt factory. The precocious young Freddy showed an unusual talent for card tricks and sleight of hand and soon caught the attention of music hall mogul, Sydney Shapiro. Mazzini enjoyed a long and successful career, touring the country numerous times as well as appearing on stages in Paris, Vienna, and Rome. He served in the Royal Welch Fusiliers during the war before settling in York. He is survived by his wife, Audrey.

Magnificent Mazzini found dead in home, Yorkshire Gazette, 19^th June 1921.

“What in the actual hell was that?” Thomas hissed.

“He moved on.” Edward answered. “It happened all the time at the hospital. Most people would hang back for a little while, you know, to say goodbye, then whoosh, they’d be sucked off to who knows where.”

“What!” Thomas cried, furiously blushing.

“Mr Barrow, are you all right back there?” Daisy called from the other side of the road. Thomas realised he had been left behind from the group and had been staring dumbly at the spot where Matthew had disappeared.

“Yes, quite all right. I… dropped a sixpence somewhere.” Thomas called back scrabbling for an excuse and feigned looking about on the ground. “Don’t worry, I’ll catch up.” Daisy looked a little perplexed but continued to walk back to the Abbey with the rest of the group.

“What do you mean, moved on? Moved on where?” Thomas whispered to his ghostly companion once the others were out of earshot.

“Well, I don’t know where they go exactly. Heaven, presumably, if you believe in that sort of thing. I just know that when they’re ready to go, they get sucked off, like Mr Crawley just now.”

“Could you perhaps not phrase it that way?” Thomas cringed.

“What way?”

“Never mind.”

They made their way back to the Abbey where Lady Sybil and the other ghosts were waiting for them anxiously in Thomas’s room. Thomas quickly recounted their day, telling them about the kittens and the building plans for the farm, and the talk he had with Mr Mason. Finally, he told them about what had happened to Matthew.

“Then after he saw Master George, he er… went into the light,” he finished, weakly.

“Oh! Goodness! Good for him.” Sybil said, clearly shocked.

“I thought you lot were supposed to be trapped here forever. I didn’t realise you could leave whenever you wanted.” Thomas commented.

“It’s not that simple, sometimes one just isn’t ready to leave. I always thought I’d stay here while my family are still around.” Sybil explained.

“I’m staying because I just want to make sure Daisy’s all right.” William added, “And on the off chance that she dies here so we can be together forever.”

“This was supposed to be my house, I don’t want to leave.” Lord Percival said definitively.

“Ic lifiġe hēr,” the Black Monk mumbled.

“Well, Lady Catherine, Hettie and I have been done a great injustice. We won’t be able to rest until those wrongs are righted.” Pamuk said pompously.

“Don’t put yourself in with us.” Lady Catherine objected. “I was murdered by my husband. Hettie was abandoned by the father of her unborn child. You took advantage of a young lady and had a heart attack during the act. You deserve to be trapped here.”

“How dare you, my life was cut tragically short.” Pamuk said, which sparked a cacophonous argument over Thomas’s bed.

Thomas sighed and slipped away to the men’s bathroom and locked himself in, not that that was any guarantee of privacy these days.

“I can’t handle this,” he said to his own reflection. He needed help. Not that he wanted to cure himself exactly, in many ways his new ability had been a positive one, but there must be a way of switching it off temporarily or sending them away when he needed space. The old Thomas might have put all the spirits to work spying for him, but there wasn’t any point. He was due to leave no matter what, and he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to stay anymore. His eye fell on his old copy of the Yorkshire Gazette that someone had left by the toilet. ‘The Magnificent Mrs Mazzini, Spiritualist Medium. Planchette seances and private readings. Enquiries by telephone or in person.’ Perhaps he should talk to the medium from the newspaper. If she was genuine, she might be able to help him, and if she was a fraud, well, he would be able to tell for once.

*

“Mr Carson, may I use the telephone.” Thomas asked, then hastily added, “It’s about a job.”

“Very well but be quick about it.” Carson grumbled and left the office to give Thomas some privacy. He told the number to the operator and waited for them to set up a connection.

“Hello?” a woman answered at the other end of the line. Whoever she was, she didn’t sound Italian.

“Good morning, is this Mrs Mazzini?” Thomas said cautiously.

“Mazzini, that sounds familiar.” Edward said as he wandered through the wall. Thomas had also heard that name before, but he couldn’t quite place it. He didn’t know any Italians other than his dad’s barber, but his name was Mr Caggiano.

“Who’s asking?” the woman asked.

“My name’s Thomas Barrow. I’m calling about the ad. I was wondering if I could make an appointment.”

“Oh! Right. Certainly, my love. What can I do for you? It’s ten shillings for a reading, a pound for a séance. I’ll travel if you cover the expenses.”

“Ten shillings! That’s daylight robbery.” Thomas whispered angrily to his ghost companion, hastily covering the receiver.

“It’s not every day you meet someone who can talk to the dead.” Ted shrugged.

“No, no, I’ll come to you. A reading is fine. Are you available this week?” Thomas said, returning to the phone call.

“You can come tomorrow if you like. Are you able to make it for one o’clock?” Mrs Mazzini said and gave him her address and directions from the station. Her place of business turned out to be on the same road as the Theatre Royal. Thomas knew the area from when Jimmy had dragged him to see some play or other. It was posh round there, not Crawley family posh, but certainly upper middle class. The type of place Mr Matthew would have lived if he hadn’t become his Lordship’s heir.

“That’s Great. Thank you.” Thomas said.

“No problem, pet. I’ll see you then.” The woman replied and hung up the phone.

*

The next day, Thomas and Edward made their way to the station and took the morning train to York. On the way, Thomas almost gave his ticket to a phantom train conductor who turned out to have had an aneurism on the job. Edward and the conductor had chatted away the whole journey while Thomas hid behind his newspaper. York was also full of people who upon a second glance were definitely deceased. He had to pretend he hadn’t noticed them in case they came up to him and started asking questions like the ghost conductor. The last thing he needed was to be seen talking to himself.

He still had a few hours to spare before his appointment, so he decided to have lunch at a nearby pub called Ye Olde Starre Inne. This turned out to be a huge mistake as the place was so old it had as many dead regulars as living ones. A whole gaggle of men with pointy beards and horrific injuries began to interrogate him on whether he was a Royalist or a Parliamentarian. Edward made a valiant effort to shoo them away, but they wouldn’t be deterred. Thomas did his best to ignore them and ate his pie in silence while of the officers got right in his face yelling, “Yes, you, I’m talking to you! I know you can hear me!” Was this what his life was going to be like now?

Finally, they reached the house, white, Georgian with chequered tiles on the front steps. Thomas was about to ring the doorbell when Edward stopped him.

“Wait,” he called out.

“What is it?”

“There’s another ghost in there.” Ted said. Thomas still didn’t know how he could tell, but he wished his spirit companion could be a bit more specific, otherwise he wouldn’t have embarrassed himself talking to the ghostly conductor.

“You don’t say.” Thomas replied, rolling his eyes, “This is York, Edward. There’s probably one in every house. It’s probably the most haunted place outside of London.”

“This one’s new. I just thought you should know in case you mistake him for a person like you did earlier.”

“Well, thank you for the warning.” Thomas said sarcastically. He rang the bell, and the door was answered by a woman who did not look like the carnival fortune teller he had imagined, but instead looked only a little older than himself with an immaculately curled bob of greying hair. Her dress was plain but fashionable and if Thomas had seen her in the street, he never would have guessed that she worked as a spirit medium.

“Mr Barrow, is it? Come in, come in.” she said enthusiastically.

“Good afternoon.” Thomas said and took off his hat. He had opted for the bowler hat that day, it made him look more professional.

“I see already that you’re searching for answers,” the woman, Mrs Mazzini he assumed, noted as she shook his hand.

“Yes, that’s exactly right. How did you know that?” Thomas said, astonished at her insight. Perhaps she was the real thing after all.

“You seem like the sort of person who is sensitive to the beyond,” she continued.

“Yes! That’s exactly why I’m here,” he cried as she ushered him into the house. He was immediately met with a giant portrait in the entrance hall of a tall gentleman with an elaborate moustache. He had seen that face before, and he was suddenly struck by the memory of being in a music hall as a boy, clutching his sister’s hand with excitement as the man in the painting turned his cape into a pair of crows.

“Oh that old thing.” Mrs Mazzini said when she noticed him staring. “It’s the painting we used for my late husband’s posters.”

“Oh, you’re that Mrs Mazzini. I went to see you and your husband once when I was a boy. It was amazing.” Thomas said, finally realising why her name had seemed so familiar.

“The Magnificent Mazzini!” Edward cried, suddenly looking as excited as a schoolboy at a football game. “Do you think he’s here?”

“How sweet of you to say.” Mrs Mazzini said, who hadn’t seemed to have noticed Edward loitering in her hallway. “Of course, I don’t exactly have the figure to be a magician’s beautiful assistant anymore. Hence the spiritualism. The parlour’s just through here.”

She led them through to a neat little room which had a great deal more of her husband’s memorabilia in it. There was a mannequin sitting in one of the armchairs and an old painted cabinet that looked like it had been used in some sort of vanishing act. The man from the portrait stood by the fireplace and seemed astonished to see Edward in his front room, and even more astonished that Thomas had seen him.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t realise there would be someone else in here.” Thomas said, startled by the other man. For a moment, Thomas had the strange hope that Mr Mazzini was still alive and that he was one who would do the reading and be able to help him. But sadly, it wasn’t so. Mrs Mazzini had explicitly said her ‘late’ husband, and he must have been the other ghost Edward had sensed.

“Oh him? No, that’s just a mannequin.” Mrs Mazzini chuckled, thinking he was referring to the dummy in the armchair. “We used to use him in the show for the disappearing act. Now I just keep him in the window when I’m here one my own to make it look like there’s a man in the house. You know, in case there’s a burglar.”

“Oh, right.” Thomas said, embarrassed at his mistake.

“You can see me? Who are you?” the ghost of the magician said. He spoke with a distinct Mancunian accent much like Thomas’s own.

“Edward Courtenay, sir,” Ted replied, since Thomas couldn’t “And this gentleman is Thomas Barrow. It’s such an honour.”

“I’m Federico Mazzini. How did you get in here? I’ve spent the last four years trying to get out of this place.”

“Can I bring you some tea before we begin?” Mrs Mazzini asked, “I’m afraid it’s my housekeeper’s day off today, but don’t let that put you off, I’m quite capable of making it myself.”

“Tea would be lovely, thank you.” Thomas said. He didn’t want to trouble her, but he needed a moment alone to speak to her husband’s ghost.

“I don’t understand, how can you see me?” Federico said once she had left.

“I don’t know. I had a… near death experience and when I woke up, I could see dead people.” Thomas answered.

“Of course! Once you get close to the veil you can see past it. Why didn’t I think of that?” the magician cried. Thomas looked at him sceptically, he had met plenty of people who had come close to death during the war, and none of them had ever claimed to see ghosts. But it was hardly something people would advertise if they did. “You have to tell Audrey. When I was still alive, we agreed that whoever died first would try and contact the other from beyond the grave. She’ll be so excited.”

“So, she isn’t a…”

“Of course not. It’s all a trick. She’ll make a load of vague statements about your life that could be true for anyone like ‘you’re searching for something’ or ‘you’re sensitive to the spirit world.’ It’s all part of the act we used to do. Make people think you know all about them and they’ll usually tell you themselves. Then there’s the fake ectoplasm, the machine that knocks under the table, the radium paint under the crystal ball. All that stuff. Don’t get me wrong, we really were trying to contact the beyond, but people want a show, you know?”

“Why does everything I invest in turn out to be a con.” Thomas sighed, “I knew it was dodgy but I still went with it and now I’m down ten shillings.”

“I’m sorry. I really thought it would help.” Edward said weakly.

“Oh, it’s not your fault, you weren’t to know,” he sighed.

“Oh, but she’ll be so delighted with you, my good fellow. If only I were still alive, I’d put you in my act.” Federico said eagerly, at that moment Mrs Mazzini, or Audrey as her husband had called her, returned with a tray of tea and biscuits.

“I hope you like ginger snaps,” she announced cheerfully.

“Thank you, you’re very kind.” Thomas replied.

“So, what can I help you with today?”

“I thought you might be able to help me but now I’m not so sure. You see I can see ghosts and talk to them.” Thomas said.

“It’s common to talk to the loved ones we have lost.”

“No, you don’t understand. I tried to kill myself. And afterwards, they were just there. And it’s not just people I knew, there’s a medieval monk and an eighteenth century one and an Egyptian Cat. They’re everywhere, Audrey. I was just in a pub that was filled with Cavaliers from the Civil War.”

“How did you know my name?” Audrey said nervously, her accent suddenly broader that is had been before, “I this a joke, did Chris put you up to this?”

“I know your name because your dead husband is in this room.” Thomas said gravely.

Chapter Text

Mr Barrow kindly agreed to visit the Enfield house despite being in poor health. He had a kind, grandfatherly disposition about him that quickly set the children at ease. He immediately singled out Janet as the focus of the activity.

“It’s a ghost all right, but I’ve never seen one that could do that,” he noted as the disembodied voice began swearing at him. “He’s attached himself to that young lady’s back and he’s waggling her around like a hand puppet.”

Barrow and the ghost claiming to be Bill Wilkins then went on to converse for some time. Their conversation is as follows (transcribed from a tape recording by Maurice Grosse):

The Voice (via Janet Hodgson): Who’s that then?

Maurice Grosse: This is Mr Barrow, he’s a spirit medium.

V: No, the other one, the soldier. (Note: the voice was apparently referring to Mr Barrow’s spirit companion)

Thomas Barrow: He’s my friend.

V: Gives me the heebie jeebies that one, reminds me of the war.

TB: Oh, when were you born?

V: 1892.

TB: What do you know, I’m older than you. What are you doing with that little girl?

V: She's my eyes. I went blind when I was dying and when we're connected I can see again. I can do all sorts of things.

TB: Yes, I heard. You've been very busy.

At this point, Mr Barrow lit a cigarette which seemed to peak the ghost’s interest.

V: Oh, Give us one, will ya.

TB: Not in that body, you’re not. Hop over here and I’ll share it with you.

Here, something completely unexpected happened. Janet suddenly passed out and flopped back into the armchair fast asleep. The voice then appeared to come from Mr Barrow, but in much the same way as Janet’s possession, his lips did not move while the voice was talking.

V: Oh, that’s lovely that is. (Note: The ghost’s voice said this while Mr Barrow was inhaling a cigarette)

TB: So, can you possess anybody?

V: Only the two of you so far, Tommy boy.

TB: That’s interesting, I never told you my first name. Can you see inside my mind?

V: Oh yes, I can tell I’m not the first man you’ve had inside ya and all, you dirty old bugger.

TB: Can Janet see you?

V: Oh yeah, she can see me all right. Wouldn’t stop screaming.

TB: So, only people with the gift, then? Are you trapped here?

V: Too right, I am. I wanted to stay with my family, but they all moved away, and they don’t come by no more.

TB: Would it help if you saw your family again? Sometimes that sort of thing helps people in your situation, to move on I mean.

V: Fuck off. I’m not moving on.

TB: Why not?

V: I'm not a heaven man.

TB: Well your family isn’t going to move back, are they? And these people aren’t going anywhere. Do you know how hard it is to get another council house these days?  It's bloody impossible. So, you can either learn to tolerate the Hodgsons and anyone else who comes to live here, and yes there will be more of them, or you can leave.

The voice then stopped abruptly, and no amount of cajoling would bring it back. Mr Grosse asked whether the spirit had indeed left the house but Mr Barrow told him it was just sulking.

Guy Playfair, Notes on the Enfield haunting, August 28^th, 1978, from the personal archive of Guy Playfair.

*

Audrey stared at him for a few moments then let out a little huff of laughter. 

“You’re putting me on,” she said.

“I promise you. I’m telling the truth.” Thomas insisted. “How else would I have known your name?”

“You could have looked me up, I’m not hard to find. I had a famous husband for Christ’s sake.”

“True, but your husband said you had a pact that whoever passed away first would try to contact the other.” Thomas said.

“Everyone with an interest in spiritualism has a pact like that.” Audrey pointed out. “Unless you can tell me the message Freddy and I agreed upon, that’s just a lucky guess.”

“What was the message?” Edward asked urgently.

“Oh bugger, what was it?” Freddy’s ghost swore loudly, “I memorised it, but I haven’t thought about it in years.”

“Whenever you’re ready.” Thomas sighed.

“What?” Audrey asked, slightly perturbed that he seemed to be talking to thin air.

“He’s having trouble remembering, apparently.” Thomas explained.

“How convenient,” she sneered. “Although that does sound like Freddy.”

“Ah! Yes! I remember now! It was Capricorn, silence, cherry tree, dolphin, financier, tapestry,” the magician’s ghost cried.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Thomas snapped.

“We didn’t want it to be anything that someone could guess, so we picked some words at random from the dictionary,” the ghost said.

“Well?” Audrey said impatiently.

“Capricorn, silence, cherry tree, dolphin, financier, tapestry.” Thomas said. Although her expression didn’t change, the woman turned pale.

“Very well, you know the message,” she said after a long pause, “but I can’t account for who my husband talked to while he was alive. Who’s to say you didn’t know him? Perhaps he told you.”

“Perhaps you’d like to ask something else?” Thomas said.

“All right. If he’s really here, perhaps he can help you describe what’s in my coat pocket,” she said after a moment of deliberation.

“Back in a moment.” Freddy said a passed through to door out into the hallway. After what felt like an eternity but was probably only a minute or so he returned triumphantly “A bus ticket, three pennies, one half penny, and a handkerchief with your monogram embroidered on it. The A and the M are on top of each other so the middle of it looks like a diamond.”

“That’s very impressive.” Audrey said once Thomas had repeated those details to her “But, even though it’s unlikely, I’m sure you’re a perfect gentleman, you did have the opportunity to look through my things while I was making tea. Perhaps you could tell me what’s in the attic? It’s been locked since Freddy passed away, and only I have the key.”

“Oh, that’s an easy one,” Freddy said, “The attic used to be my workshop. It currently has the half-finished apparatus for the Egyptian Tomb. I was trying to cash in on the Howard Carter excavations, while it was still capturing the public’s imagination. It was going to be my greatest illusion. I would get wrapped completely in bandages and locked in a glass sarcophagus. There’s some exotic dancing, a few pyrotechnics. My assistant then opens the sarcophagus only to reveal that I have apparently transformed into the desiccated corpse of a mummy. I would then re-appear sitting among the audience as though I had been there the whole time. Or I would have done if the bloody coffin lid hadn’t slammed shut and bashed me on the head while I was testing it out.”

Thomas did his best to relay the information although the ghost spoke very fast when he was excited.

“That’s interesting.” Audrey said, “There were only three people who knew about the Egyptian Tomb and one of us is dead. My brother is the third person, they built that thing together. It’s possible that you know him, and he told you about the trick but only Freddie knew how it was done and he wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Oh no, she is not going to sell that stupid thing,” her husband’s ghost said, “It’s dangerous and I couldn’t get it to work. Also, I don’t want anyone taking credit for my work.”

“He says he’s not going to tell me because he doesn’t want anyone taking credit for his trick.” Thomas said, “And he wasn’t able to get it to work.”

“Well, that certainly sounds like him.” Audrey said, “I can’t decide whether this is real or not. But if it’s a trick it’s a damn impressive one. Have you thought about doing this professionally?”

“Why would I do that?” Thomas asked. Who on earth would pay him to speak to ghosts?

“There’s good money in spiritualism,” she explained, “It’s not as popular as it used to be, but there’s still some dedicated believers around.”

“That’s dreadful. She’s just defrauding old ladies.” Edward said indignantly. Thomas couldn’t help but agree. In his youth he might have thought it a brilliant idea, but he had been taken advantage of too many times to condone such a thing.

“And you just defraud vulnerable people, is that it?” he said, repeating Edward’s sentiment.

“I prefer to think of it as offering a comfort to the bereaved.” Audrey said, “Besides, if what you claim is true, then it wouldn’t be fraudulent anymore. Look, I’m doing a séance tonight, why don’t you come along? You could be useful.”

“I might not. Not everyone sticks around, and most of them are tied to the place where they died, and frankly the vast majority of them don’t have anything interesting to say. What if I have to contact some poor woman’s son and he died at the Somme?”

“Just give it a try,” she said, “I’ll say you’re my manservant so there won’t be any expectations. If nothing happens, no damage done. If you’re able to talk to any spirits and do a good job of it, then I’ll split the money with you.”

“You will?”

“Of course, sixty forty.”

Thomas was torn. He didn’t like the idea but knowing that she charged a pound for séance made the prospect more tempting than he was willing to admit. Eight shillings was decent money and would more than make up for what had paid for this wasted journey. He sighed, his decision made, “I’ll need to catch the last train home.”

*

Later that evening Thomas hurried home from the station with an extra thirteen shillings in his pocket. The streets were almost empty and he wasn't looking forward to walking back to the house in total darkness. Luckily it was a clear night with a bright full moon and the road was even and the the lights of Downton Abbey made it shine like a beacon across the fields. To his surprise there was a girl standing at the crossroads wearing only a long chemise with a stocking tied so tightly around her neck it looked like her head might fall off. 

"Oh no, not another one." Thomas sighed, and hoped she hadn't noticed him. He was destined to be disappointed as her eyes met his and her mouth opened in surprise.

"Hello!" she cried in surprise, "Were you murdered here as well?" 

"Um...yes!" Thomas called back, and hastily went on his way.

"You can't just ignore her like that." Edward protested, following at his heels.

"I don't have time to speak to every ghost I run into." Thomas said.

"No, only when you're being paid to to do it."

Thomas looked away guiltily. He had made almost a week’s wages in an hour from the share Audrey had promised him plus a very generous tip from the old lady whose dead husband he had communicated with. It probably helped that the ghost of said husband had told her where his secret money stash was (in the air vent in the kitchen). Meanwhile Audrey had produced strange knocks that sounded as though they were coming from all around the room Thomas still couldn’t work out how she had done it.

“I can’t believe you agreed to do that.” Edward said.

“What are you? The angel on my shoulder?” Thomas said, “At least I helped.”

“Still, accepting money for something like that. It just doesn’t sit right with me.”

“Spoken like a true gentleman. Some of us weren’t born into money you know. And she was so delighted. No one’s ever thanked me like that. Not even when I saved Lady Edith from that fire. Come to think of it, she didn’t thank me at all.”

“Well, I supposed it’s better you were there than if she’d done it on her own.” Ted sighed, “I don’t like that woman, Thomas.”

“I know. She’s a grifter, and no mistake.” Thomas said, “And to make things worse I didn’t even get any answers.”

Chapter Text

“…Rumours have always surrounded the band about their connections to the occult, including an alleged deal with the devil. Mr Page purchased Boleskine House near Loch Ness nearly two years ago. The house was once in the possession of famed occultist, Aleister Crowley who was said to have performed dark rituals on the property. Thomas Barrow a renowned spiritualist medium was invited to the property to investigate the reported paranormal activity.

“I knew Mr Crowley actually.” Mr Barrow (83) told our reporter, “I think it must have been 1936 maybe 37. He was wild about Yoga, he was ahead of his time in that respect, and he would throw these dinner parties where he would serve us all lamb curry and tarka dhal. Of course, it was all nonsense, all the occult stuff he was doing. Mr Page wanted to know if the entity Mr Crowley had conjured was still present in the house. I didn’t see anything like that but there was a deceased gentleman present by the name of Major Grant, and a lot of plague-ridden villagers from 1348. All of them are quite harmless, of course, but at times one gets the sensation of being watched.”

Get the Dead Out! : Ghost sightings at Led Zeppelin guitarist’s house, The Daily Mail, March 24^th 1972

*

“I wish you would have telephoned if you knew you were going to be late home.” Phyllis said frantically. He had forgotten that Lord and Lady Grantham had returned from London last night, in fact he had arrived home some hours after them

“I’m sorry, there was a problem with the train and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere.”

You have no idea how worried I was?” Her voice never increased in volume, but the pitch grew higher and higher as she spoke until it reached a furious squeak, “You’re barely out of bed and you’ve been acting so strangely these past few days, and then I come back from London only for everyone to tell me you’ve disappeared…”

“You’re right Phyllis, I’m sorry I worried you.” Thomas said, realising how it must have looked after his little accident. And as hard as he tried to act normally when the ghosts were about, it was hard to concentrate when there were as many as eight dead people screaming at him at any given time. “I’m quite well, truly. I really was at a job interview.”

Phyllis looked as though she didn’t believe him, but didn’t press the issue.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed, “I’ve just been on edge lately.”

“Why? What’s happened?” Thomas asked.

“It’s Mr Coyle. He wrote to me asking me to visit him in prison. Mr Molesley thinks I should ignore him but I just don’t know what to do.”

Thomas was about to say that Mr Molesley might be an idiot but even a stopped clock was right twice a day, but at that moment Mr Carson came into the servants hall.

“There’s a telephone call for you, Mr Barrow,” he said, “Since you were gone for so long on that ‘job interview’, I can only hope it’s good news.”

“Yes, Mr Carson.”

He gave Phyllis an apologetic look and made his way to Mr Carson’s office where the telephone receiver lay on the desk. Thomas picked it up and held it to his ear.

“Hello, this is Mr Barrow speaking,” he said into the mouthpiece.

“Mr Barrow, it’s Audrey Mazzini,” a familiar voice said. Thomas paused, wondering what she was doing calling him.

“How did you know where to contact me?” he asked cautiously

“Because I’m a master of the mystical arts,” Audrey said mysteriously then snapped back into her normal voice, “You told me where you work, you idiot. Turns out there’s only one Downton Abbey and the operator found it for me.”

“What do you want?”

“You would not believe how many enquiries I’ve had since our little séance the other day. They’re all asking for the handsome young man who can talk to the dead.”

“What…?” Thomas began to say but she cut him off.

“So, I have a proposition for you. You mentioned you were between jobs, right? Why don’t you come and work for me?”

“Work for you?”

“Yes.  We can say you’re my butler if you don’t want to be public about it.” Audrey said, “You can stay in the guest bedroom for the time being and we’ll split any money we make like we did the other night.”

“I don’t know about that. It sounds risky. And I’ve already got a job lined up, I’m supposed to start in a few weeks.” Thomas protested.

“Mr Barrow, we are sitting on a paranormal goldmine. What’s the use of having a gift like yours if you don’t use it? I’ll take care of the appointments. All you have to do is show up and do your thing.”

Thomas thought about it for a moment. There had been a time when he would have jumped at the opportunity to go into business for himself, but after his disastrous foray into the black market, he was more than a little cautious. He didn’t necessarily like the idea, but Audrey’s house only had one ghost in it, compared to the crowd that Downton had, and he had grown tired of the pitying looks he was getting off everyone. Plus, he had made almost as much in an hour as he made in a week at his current job. Even if they only did two seances a week he would be considerably wealthier than he was now. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad.

“Very well. I’ll come on a trial basis, and if it doesn’t work out by the end of the month, I’ll go on to my next position as planned.”

“That’s the spirit!” Audrey chuckled, “Spirit. I made a ghost pun.”

“But I want half the money this time.” Thomas said adamantly.

“I’ll give you 45%.”

“50% and I’ll help out around the house.” Thomas countered.

“…Deal.” she said after a long pause, “When can you come?”

“Anytime really.”

“I have a séance booked for Monday night. Come on Sunday for four o’clock. We’re having roast beef.” So she was already booking seances. Thomas wondered what she would have done if he hadn’t agreed to show up.

“We?”

“Yes, my brother and me. You’ll like him, I think. He’s also a raging homosexual.”

“Wait, what!”

“I told you. Master of the mystical arts. Are you coming on Sunday or not?”

“Yes, yes, I’ll be there.”

“You will not regret this, Mr Barrow.” Audrey said and hung up.

Putting the telephone down, Thomas walked back to the servant’s hall, not quite believing what he’d agreed to. Anna had joined Phyllis at the table and they both looked up at him expectantly.

“Good news, I hope,” Phyllis said.

“Er…yes. Good enough. I’ve been offered a job. I start on Monday,” Thomas replied.

“A job? As in better than the other job you had lined up?” she asked, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Starting work so soon.

“Well, I don’t know if it’ll be better, but it’s not in service and that’s a start.” Thomas sighed, “I’m afraid all this time off doesn’t suit me well. It’s funny, when I was younger, I would have done anything to sit around all day but now I can hardly take it.”

“Is that why you’ve been acting so strangely?” said Anna. Dear God, had everyone noticed.

“It’s just been difficult. Not knowing what’s going to happen,” he explained weakly.

“Oh, well, I'm happy for you, if it's really what you want.” Phyllis said, although she didn’t seem happy.

“You know I wouldn't leave by choice, but it's time to draw a curtain over the past few weeks.” Thomas said.

“Will you be working nearby?” Anna asked.

“Not far. It’s in York.”

“So, we'll still see you?” Phyllis said. It wasn’t a question.

“What's this?” Mr Carson had returned from whatever he had been doing and was looming in the doorway.

“Mr Barrow's found a job.” Anna explained.

“Has he? Has he, indeed? Well, I'm glad your efforts have paid off, Mr Barrow.

You deserve it,” the butler said, visibly relieved.

“Thank you, Mr Carson.”

*

“You can’t be serious. You’re actually going back to work for that woman?” Edward said with disbelief.

“She made a very convincing argument.”

“It’s not right. She’s using you as a tawdry party trick. A side show for people to gawk at,” the ghost cried.

“At least this way, people will get what they’re paying for. She’ll just be scamming them otherwise.”

“Is that the best you can come up with?” Edward said.

“You don’t have to come if you’re going to object to it so much.” Thomas said. “I’m sure Lady Sibyl will be happy for the company.”

“Well… maybe I won’t.” Edward challenged, “I like it here. Everyone’s been very welcoming.”

“Fine.” Thomas sneered, “I mean you’ll be spared having to look at Pamuk’s cock every day, but you’ll still have to listen to him and that’s just as bad.” Edward’s confidence deflated a little bit.

“It’s not right. What you have is a gift, you could do so much good with it,” he sighed.

“I will be doing good. I’ll be helping people talk to their loved ones.” Thomas said. “If I don’t do this, I’ll just be trapped doing the same thing for the rest of my life, stuck in another crumbling house full of ghosts, waiting on some peer who might as well be a ghost. I could make something of myself with this.”

“Well, when you put it that way.” Edward hesitated, “But does it have to be Audrey Mazzini? Why can’t we go it alone?”

“Because I don’t know anyone in those circles, I don’t have a reputation, and most importantly, I don't have any bloody money.”

“Oh,”

“Would you mind telling the others I’m leaving?” Thomas asked. “Perhaps on the day so they don’t give me grief about it."

“Tell them yourself.” Edward huffed and disappeared through the wall.

Chapter Text

In order to investigate the continuing phenomena at Wycliffe Road, I have hired the services of a spirit medium, a Mr Thomas Barrow, who I’ve heard has an excellent reputation among SPR circles. He arrived from Manchester on the nine o’clock train this morning. I had asked the family to not be present during our session in case they unknowingly influenced him. Mr Barrow was a stylish gentleman in his mid-sixties, tall with grey hair and a perpetual cigarette in his hand upon which he wore a flesh-coloured leather glove. “An old war wound” he told me.

“It’s been throwing the family out of bed, you say?” Barrow asked. I didn’t recall telling him that, but it had been in the papers, so his knowledge of this detail hardly proved anything. I told him yes, and that the daughter was a particular target of the ghost.

“Seems about right. These things seem to really like children, particularly ‘teenaged’ girls.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“I don’t know. They need energy to make these things happen, and young people have a lot of energy. Or perhaps it’s because they have strong imaginations. The children, not the ghosts,” he explained. “Perhaps it’s that spark of creativity that transforms them from a lonely spirit into something resembling life,” he explained, “There was this poltergeist I met on the Isle of Man, a young girl befriended him as well and he changed form into something resembling her imaginary friend. He literally manifested as a talking mongoose. There have been times where I was desperate for company, but never that desperate.”

“You almost sound sorry for them.” I said.

“I am, actually,” Barrow said, “Sometimes you get a happy one, just wants to watch their loved ones live their lives, only sticks around for a few years or a few decades. Most of them are just… trapped. Powerless and forgotten about. Really, it doesn’t bear thinking about.” I didn’t know what to say to that, but I noticed the room had become noticeably colder, the way it did when the knocking began.

Mr Barrow wandered about the house, stopping to pet the Hitchins’ cat, Jeremy, murmuring ‘You can see him too, can’t you?’ Jeremy had apparently been out of sorts since the phenomena started and spent his time either hiding under the sofa or running away every time someone opened the front door.

“They’re calling him Donald, yes?” he said suddenly. There’s no possible way he could have known that. I told him that was the name young Shirley had given it.

“He doesn’t remember his real name.” Mr Barrow said, which seemed awfully convenient. “He likes Donald, he’s happy to have a name again. He’s been here a long time, long before this house was built. He’s speaking in some old French dialect, it’s hard to understand. He likes Shirley. He’s young, maybe fifteen or so. Maybe that’s why he’s targeting her, they’re of a similar age.” He went on to speak to some unseen figure at the top of the stairs in broken French, something about the spirit being welcome if he didn’t cause any more trouble. The familiar tapping began, sounding as though it was coming from different places, first behind the walls then the floorboards. Then there was an almighty creak from somewhere upstairs, like something heavy being dragged along bare floorboards. We climbed the stairs to find that Mr and Mrs Hitchins’ wardrobe had turned some forty five degrees from where it stood in the corner.

“Yes, yes, you’re very clever.” Mr Barrow said sarcastically. “But can you put it back?” We waited some minutes, but nothing happened.

“But what is to be done about it, Mr Barrow. Is there something he wants? Is there some way to appease him?”

“Appeasement didn’t work for Clement Attlee and it won’t work here. What he wants is to be alive again. The more attention you give him, the more energy he has at his disposal, then you’ll start getting the really bizarre stuff. Full body manifestations, possessions, mongoose shit everywhere.” Barrow said, “Honestly, the best you can do is ignore him until he gets bored and runs out of steam. It’s difficult, it could take years, but it’s the only way I know.”

His theory made sense in a strange way, although if I had not witnessed the paranormal activity with my own eyes he would have sounded like a raving lunatic. It certainly won’t offer any comfort to the Hitchins family.

Case notes of Harold Chibbett for the Battersea Poltergeist investigation,  May 14th 1956, Society for Psychical Research Archives

*

“And were just going to slip away, without saying goodbye?” Sybil said, completely incensed. Sunday had come around and, coward that he was, Thomas hadn’t been able to tell her he was leaving.

“You just took it so hard the last time we talked about this…” he trailed off. It was an awful excuse. “You know I was going to have to go eventually.”

“It’s so unfair, ten years ago Papa would never have let a servant go for no reason.”

“Well, that’s probably why he doesn’t have any money now.” Thomas said as he continued packing.

“Carson hasn’t been well for weeks now. I heard him arguing about it with Mrs Hughes. Surely, he’d want to keep you around…”

“First of all,” Thomas interrupted, “Mr Carson would rather drop dead on the job than even admit there’s something wrong, let alone think about retirement, so look forward to him joining your ranks one day. Second of all, I would be the last person in the entire world he would consider replacing him including women, children, and trained animals.”

“I’m just trying to help.” Sybil said reproachfully.

“I’ll try and visit, all right?” Thomas said, “Miss Baxter’s already inviting me back and I haven’t even left yet.”

“Before you go, could you please tell Sybbie that I love her and that I liked her drawing.” She had been instructing him to tell Miss Sybbie that she loved her practically every day. It had started to seem strange to the point that Sybbie had accused him of being maudlin.

“Of course.” Thomas said, “please give the others my regards.”

He paused at the strange sensation of the cat winding itself around his ankles. Of all of the ghosts, she had the most…perhaps mass was the wrong word. Physical presence? She was certainly the only one who could move things.

“Not you too.” Thomas sighed, “Sorry, you’ll just have to find somebody else to pounce on. And stop frightening Master George, it’s very unkind.”

The tell-tale drip of blood on the floorboards told him that Edward had reappeared. He had been avoiding him ever since he had accepted the job in York.

“Have you made a decision?” he said without turning around.

“I don’t want us to quarrel.” Edward said.

“Neither do I.”

 “I still don’t agree with what you’re doing,” the ghost continued, “But I would worry too much if I let you go alone.”

“Couldn’t hack it listening to Mr Pamuk’s opinions on the war?”

“I didn’t last five minutes.” Edward chuckled, “It’s bad enough talking to men who weren’t there, let alone men who died before it even started.”

“You’re not wrong.” Thomas laughed.

“And if I’m going to have any chance of getting sucked off, I’d better stick with you.” Edward said.

“You have to stop calling it that.” Thomas said. “It doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

“Actually, I was talking about seeing Mr Mazzini again.” Edward said with a lopsided grin. Thomas was shocked, it seemed even the afterlife was full of surprises.

*

Once he had packed his meagre belongings, Thomas wandered out into the yard for possibly his final cigarette at Downton. Phyllis was already there, taking in the midday sun as she mended the lace collar on one of her ladyship’s nightgowns. “All packed?” she said. “Wasn’t much to pack.” He replied, his whole adult life had fit into two suitcases. 

“What was it you said you were going to do?” Phyllis asked. Thomas sighed. He had been dodging that question for days now. 

“I didn’t.” he said, “I suppose it is staying in service really. But I’ll be doing secretarial work in a way…You know, correspondence… relaying… messages.”

“Oh, well, that sounds like a nice change.” Phyllis said, looking even more confused.

“I wanted to speak to you about something.” Thomas said quickly, “You should listen to Mr Molesley. Forget about Coyle and your time in prison. You think the strong decision would be to see him but you're wrong. The strong decision is to take away his power over you. Leave him behind, Miss Baxter. Get on with your life. Let that be my parting gift to you.”

“I wonder if you're right.” she said,

“I am right.” 

“Well, I wish you well, I do, truly.” She took his arm and they wandered back into the servants hall where, to Thomas’s surprise, the rest of the staff had assembled. Daisy pressed a brown paper bag full of sandwiches and a tin of biscuits on him.

“Are you leaving already Mr Barrow?” Andy said.

“Yes, I’m expected this afternoon. I expect you'll all be glad to see the back of me.” Thomas joked.

“Well, I won't. Give me a kiss.” Mrs Hughes said, and Thomas obliged her with a peck on the cheek.

As if the day couldn’t get any stranger, Mr Carson almost seemed emotional as he shook his hand.

“You're quick and efficient and no-one's ever called you stupid. There's no reason why you shouldn't get on,” the butler said.

“Thank you, Mr Carson. I've learnt a great deal from you and I'm grateful.” Thomas was almost at a loss for words, that was the nicest thing the old man had ever said to him.

“Good luck, Mr Barrow.” Mr Moseley was next, still tense around him as though he might suddenly start threatening Miss Baxter again.

“Mr Molesley.” Thomas nodded.

“Take care of yourself, Mr Barrow.” Anna said.

“I could say the same for you.” Thomas replied, “I’m just sorry I won’t be there to meet the little one.”

“Well if you come to visit like you promised, perhaps you will.” Anna laughed, stroking her pregnant belly.

Next came he husband who shook Thomas’s hand awkwardly, Thomas hadn’t spoken to him since their unfortunate chess game. “If you need anything, Mr Barrow, please write to us. I’d rather we parted as friends.”

“I will. Thank you, Mr Bates.”

“Thank you for all your help, Mr Barrow. I'm only sorry I…” Andy said, finally.

“Oh You're a hard worker, Andy, and a clever fellow. I wish you well.” Thomas assured him.

He was about to pick up his luggage and leave when he heard a hurried clattering down the servants stairs. The little shout of ‘Mr Barrow!’ was his only warning as a blond blur raced towards him and jumped into his arms.

“They wanted to say goodbye, and Anna told me when you were leaving.” Lady Mary said as she approached with Miss Sybbie and Miss Marigold in tow.

“You've just caught me, m'lady.” Thomas said. He had been torn about what he would say to the children. They would probably forget all about him in a few days but right now Master George looked as though he was about to cry.

“Oh, well, Master George, I hope you'll be good when I'm gone,” he said to the little boy.

“No, we won't.” Miss Sybbie said defiantly.

“Please don't go.” George said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Oh, I must go, Master George, but remember I will always be your friend wherever I am.

All right? Good lad.”

Perhaps feeling left out, Sybbie hugged him around his legs, and handed him a piece of paper. “I drew a picture for you,” she said, “It’s of you and mummy in the hospital.”

“Oh! Thank you.” Thomas said, for an eight year old she was quite a good artist. Then remembering his promise he added, “You know, your mother would have loved this. She loved you very much, you know.”

“You always say that, Mr Barrow.” Sybbie said.

“Because it’s true.”

“Right, that's it. Come along. Goodbye, Barrow, and good luck.” Lady Mary said taking her son from him, slightly taken aback by the mention of Lady Sybil.

“Goodbye, Mr Barrow.” George sobbed as she carried him up the stairs.

Thomas folded up the drawing and put it in his breast pocket and with a final goodbye, that was more for the collection of ghosts who had assembled to watch the farewells, he left the place he had called home for nearly fifteen years.

“Strange to think I were soft on him once.” He heard Daisy say as he walked out the door.

“Well, you were never much of a judge in that department.” Mrs Patmore chastised.