After ‘Exchange of Love’ has been published I intend to post a series of notes on places and buildings that feature in the story.

Meanwhile - something to get you started.

CHAPTER 1 - sample

John Townsend stood in the disused and empty living room of Peverell House. Despite the smell of dry, dusty wood and stone, it felt a strangely warm and welcoming place; eerily so. John half closed his eyes, trying to imagine how it had been when newly built back in 1620.

He felt his senses drifting, and his vision shimmered. Even as he looked, the derelict room distorted and changed. Almost lazily it was reforming back to its splendid past: two huge glazed windows, ornate tapestry hangings, carpeted floor, panelled wall and plastered ceiling. The fine carved and wide mullioned windows, which admitted the soft spring light, appeared as new. In the fireplace opposite the windows, a small fire was laid.

This could not be real. The Ransoms, who had owned the mansion for over four hundred years, had never had enough money to maintain it and John knew no restoration work had been done in that section of the house. It had been empty since Oliver Ransom took possession in 1646, after the first English Civil War. Confused, John stared around. Tall, freestanding wrought iron candlesticks materialised, complete with partly burned candles, waiting for evening use. The room was still reconstructing itself even as he gasped in surprise; imagination, working too hard, whatever. Must get out!

Beside the nearest window, a young woman sat sewing. Adrenaline surged through him: cold fear. Despite that, he noticed small details: some unkempt red hair escaped from under her mop cap; a simple green day dress, simple but evidently made of quality fabric. She looked up suddenly.

“Cousin John!” Slate-grey eyes, thin lips, but generous smile. Her expression changed to shock and fear, colour draining from her face. “Oh, God, it can’t be you, John.” Her voice a mixture of sadness and fear. “You’re dead, these twelve months.” Her speech was highly accented, difficult to make out.

They stared at each other in total disbelief.
“I’m John Townsend, the stonemason,” his voice faded away at the banality of the words.
“Cousin John Townsend, master mason, head of the company. I know.” Defiance entered her tone. “You did me no harm when you were alive, John, I’ll not fear you dead!”

“I’m not dead, it’s you who are —.”

“You don’t know you have died, do you? Oh, John, I’ll show you.” Resolutely she threw down her embroidery frame, marched across the room and, without hesitation, kissed him on the cheek. Unbelievably there was full physical contact. Her face lit up in surprise and instinctively he put his arms around her in a familiar hug.

“No, John, I’m married now.” She turned slightly, avoiding his attempt to kiss her lips, but then relented and returned his kiss.

Lust and passion flowed through him. There was no fear, and as they drew apart, he could see his own pleasure reflected in her. She was statuesque, almost as tall as John himself and spine- tinglingly beautiful.

“I am so pleased to see you. But these strange clothes — have you been working with your tools again, or hunting?” He shook his head and smiled back, pulling her to him. They kissed again. She responded, then eased away from him.

“No, John, this is all very nice, but no.” Her voice faltered but she shone with the excitement of their meeting. “If it were not that I am well, married to Edward, I would be sorely tempted.”

“Mr Townsend!” shouted a different woman, calling from downstairs.

John shuddered and the vision faded. The girl within his arms vanished. The room shimmered and changed again. His senses spun and reeled.

Only the basic outline of the bare deserted room remained. The same windows and fireplace, it was the same shape and size but now it was empty and dust dry. The sandwich he had been holding when he strolled in from the west wing lay discarded on the floor beside a fallen coffee cup.

“Mr Townsend?” The impatient enquiring call was from the hall below, the sound echoing in the large open space and arriving by several routes.

“Bugger!” he muttered, trying to fix in his memory the events of moments ago; the spectral woman, her face and form, and what she had said. Who was she? Who was her Cousin John ?

“Mr Townsend?”

Closer this time. He turned to see a small, thin figure coming up the service staircase, only head and shoulders visible. As the figure came into full view, ascending the last few steps, he was met with a girlish woman of about thirty, pale skin and dark hair, wearing a light-yellow sleeveless dress. She was almost as different as possible from the beautiful phantom of moments ago. He struggled to find his breath.

Shit, John thought. This was Judith Ransom, daughter of the owner who had commissioned his work. “Just on my lunch break.” He gestured to the cup and the remains of the sandwich he had dropped when he had hugged the ghost woman. Awkwardly, he scooped it up. Mind racing with confusion, he added, “I just wandered in. An interesting place. Good solid workmanship.”

“It’s OK, you can look around,” said Judith. “The old main staircase is a bit dodgy though, best not to use it.”

He had noted that the central wooden staircase which led to the rooms above looked delicate and, after four hundred years, far too flimsy to use now. “Shame the room’s not been restored.” He turned to sweep his eyes around again: the wide fireplace and hearth now cold and yellowed; the painted panelling removed or plastered over; the tapestry hangings long gone. “Interesting room,” he repeated lamely.

Judith attempted to smile, and quoted, “‘Built between 1580 and 1620. Large, late Tudor-style manor house in much need of repair and renovation.’ That’s from English Heritage description. They’re not very impressed with our custodianship.”

“It’s dry, the walls are in good repair,” John mused, as Judith walked towards him. His eyes kept returning to the window seat, imagining a goddess-like form, but only the seat’s stone supports remained.

“My family have always had a thing about walls and roofs, at least,” explained Judith. “And temporary panels were put over that window to keep the rain out fifty years ago.” She pointed to where some of the disused glazed windows had been broken and boarded over. “We Ransoms have never quite had enough money to furnish and decorate the grand parts of the house. I just wanted to discuss the electrical work with you, Mr Townsend.”

God, he had just snogged a ghost without a thought; now he had to face the customer’s daughter.

“One day,” she was saying, “we are going to make something of Peverell. It’s like we have been in temporary occupation for over three hundred years, more like camping out in the guest wing. This section has hardly been used since Lady Penelope Peverell fled from Cromwell’s soldiers.”

“I’ve read some of the history,” replied John, moving to the window, no hint or scent of the vanished girl. “Needs a few pieces of stone replaced here and there.” He indicated towards the masonry that had once supported the wooden planks of the cushioned window seat. “Sorry, professional interest.” Still dazed, he shook his head slightly to try to clear his mind.

Judith’s smile was quick, almost fleeting, before the tight pinched expression returned. “No good trying to drum up business with me. My brother, Simon, controls the estate bank account. And he is more interested in financial investments than preserving this crumbling millstone of a place.”

"For a house built in local limestone, it's weathered well, little pollution this far out in the country.  No acid rain this far west.”  He was babbling, anything to stop him thinking. Judith Ransom had spoken about the work in the West Wing, did she want to check up on something? She had mentioned electrics.  John was feeling better but to keep the conversation going he prompted with,

"Must get back to work, I suppose.  Check on my electrician."  She did not respond. 

After a pause he couldn’t resist asking, "Is the house supposed to be haunted?  Seems sort of inevitable."

            "Oh, of course!  ‘Lady Penelope Peverell, nee Jackson, walks the old private apartments looking for her husband Edward and cursing the hated Ransoms who usurped her home’.  From the "Weird Wiltshire Tales."  Rubbish of course. Lady Peverell knew her husband had been killed fighting for King Charles at the end of the Civil War.  Oliver Ransom, our ancestor, paid her and her twin children a pension until she died."

"Have you seen her, the ghost?"

            "No, I'm afraid not!  The Penny Peverell of those stories seems to have deserted the Peverell mansion this last 100 years or so.  Simon and I sneaked in here several Midsummer’s Eve's and All Souls Days.  Right little ghost hunters we were but not a sign, let alone any wailing and a-cursing!"  Judith paused for a moment.

“There is something though, a happy presence.  The feeling you get in some family homes.”

John had started moving towards the service staircase as she spoke. 

"Talking of the electrician, young chap, Colin?"

            "Yes."

            "Is he, well, is he trained?  There are wires and cables everywhere and he doesn't seem to have a connection diagram or a test plan."

            "He's got his IET Wiring Regs certificate Part 4, C & G qualification and wot-not," said John.  “It's quite a simple job." 

NOTES

Thank you for reading this far. I hope you have enjoyed this snippet and will consider buying the whole book. Still not decided? Amazon have now posted a 4 chapter sample.

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I have always been interested in delving into ghost stories; do the ghosts know they are dead, are they trying to achieve something, where do they go when they ‘vanish into thin air’?  With this in mind the story gives a view both from the present-day characters and those in the past.  This setting for the book was sparked off by looking at a 17th century painting in an old manor house and musing on the nature of the couple depicted.” 

In this interview I explain how the initial inspiration developed into a full, novel length story.

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