Harriett (The Tipton Hollow 1)

“Well, I –”

Whatever Madame Humphries was going to say next was interrupted by a loud thump from the floor above.

“Oh, my stars!” Miss Smethwick screamed, and cowered back into her seat with large, terror-filled round eyes. For once, she seemed to be as caught up in the evening’s events as much as everyone else was.

“What on earth?” Mr Bentwhistle scowled at Madame Humphries as though it was all her fault.

“There is nobody here but us,” Babette announced.

“What’s up there?” Miss Haversham asked. She looked somewhat deflated that her excitement had been dashed. She stared at the ceiling as though she wanted to stomp upstairs and capture the miscreant responsible for interrupting them.

“It’s my room,” Harriett replied quietly. A ripple of unease shimmered down her spine.

They had all taken cursory glances at the ceiling over the course of the evening while communicating with the ‘spirits’, however Harriett had never once put any thought to the fact that the room directly above them was actually hers. She shared a worried glance with her aunt and, together, they pushed away from the table.

Harriett glanced down as her feet crunched the shattered glass on the floor.

“Oh, dear,” she whispered, feeling slightly overwhelmed at the speed in which events had taken an unusual turn. She wasn’t sure what to think of any of it: the messages, the glass or the noise upstairs.

“Somebody light the gas lamps,” Babette ordered and handed Constance the pot of spills that were beside the fireplace.

“I will come with you,” Mr Bentwhistle manfully offered and muttered an apology when he turned around and bumped into Mrs Bobbington in the gloom. “Please excuse me. I cannot see a blasted thing in this darkness.”

“Language!” Miss Haversham tutted at his blasphemy.

“Language yourself,” Mr Bentwhistle snapped and stomped toward the door.

“Shall I open the curtains?” Harriett offered. With the dexterity of someone who was comfortably familiar with the layout of her own home, Harriett skirted around those she could see in the gloom and moved toward the front room windows. The lamplighters had already been around and lit the street lights outside. It didn’t do much to ward off the darkness, but the eerie glow was enough to eradicate the worst of the inky night to allow the gas lamps inside the front parlour to be lit safely. Within minutes, the room was bathed in a warm, comforting glow.

Harriett stood with her back to the window and studied the room before her. The wide eyes and pale faces of the occupants who remained around the table bespoke of a night that they would talk about for weeks to come: at least until the next psychic circle.

An uncomfortable and somewhat expectant silence settled over the room and they all watched the door while they waited for Babette and Mr Bentwhistle to return with news. With each second that ticked by the tension rose until Harriett positively bristled with impatience by the time the knob turned on the door and Babette re-appeared, followed by Mr Bentwhistle. The rather worried eyes she turned on Harriett did little to ease her fears.

“Your dressing table stool had fallen over, that’s all,” she replied cheerfully in a voice that was at odds with the nervousness that had fallen over everyone.

“How did that happen though? We are all down here,” the ever practical Beatrice piped up. As soon as the words were out she seemed to realise that she was not helping matters and mumbled an apology before she lapsed into silence.

“Quite,” Mr Bentwhistle replied crisply as he resumed his seat. “The doors are locked. We have searched the house from top to bottom, even in the cupboards, but nobody else is here.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” Mrs Bobbington muttered and crossed herself. “Do you think the spirits are angry with us?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Miss Smethwick snapped. “How could they be angry with us? We haven’t done anything wrong.”

Nobody raised question with the fact that none of them had discounted the presence, or feasibility of ‘spirits’.

“How can a stool fall over though?”

“Is it three legged?”

“Where was it in your bedroom?”

“Do you have cats?”

Harriett’s head began to whirl and she glanced at Babette, who looked more than a little confused. Babette wasn’t able to offer any reasonable explanation either. Harriett raised her hands to stem the steady flow of seemingly relentless questions and moved toward the hallway. She didn’t want to leave the room and go anywhere by herself right now, even though this was her own home, but someone had to clean up the glass from the floor.

“I am sure that it is just one of those things, that’s all,” she hastened to reassure them but, from the looks on their faces, they were far from convinced.

“Where are you going?” Mr Montague demanded.