The House on the Moor

By Alan Jacobs

At the end of WW11, Gary Phillips left the Royal Navy a badly disfigured ex pilot. He bought an old empty house on a lonely moor to hide himself away from society. Little did he know why it was old and empty. He soon found out that it was full of the ghosts of orphan girls raped and murdered there by rich, famous and influential people for their pleasure in the 1920s.
Eventually uncovered, the three people who ran the place were arrested, tried and hanged. None of the clients who used and abused the girls were even named.
Gary, with the aid of Lucy Cameron a local woman who, as an ex-wartime nurse could see behind Gary’s disfigurement, became determined to bring these people to justice and set the ghosts free no matter how much time had elapsed.
But they finds that there are other ghosts waiting for freedom, too. Much older ghosts. Are our couple able to help them? Lucy and Gary are determined to. And will their developing love guide them?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Apr 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984594082

Alan Jacobs

Alan Jacobs is professor of English at Wheaton College in Illinois. He is the author of several books, including most recently The Narnian, a biography of C. S. Lewis. His literary and cultural criticism has appeared in a wide range of periodicals, including the Boston Globe, The American Scholar, First Things, Books & Culture, and The Oxford American.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

THE HOUSE STOOD sentinel, alone and lonely.

Low rain-sodden clouds scudded above the barren landscape of the moor as if in terror at being found in the vicinity. The rain had held off so far, but its arrival was obviously imminent, and the air was wet and heavy. It was an effort to breathe it. The heathers, brackens and mosses that covered the wet rocky ground did little to lighten the dismal atmosphere as they dripped moisture into the poor thin soil. Brief glimpses of the pale watery winter sun filtered unhappily through the grey clouds.

A block cube of a house devoid of beauty, grey granite weathered to black, seemed to glower at the horse-drawn carriage approaching along the weed-strewn gravel track that went no further than the house itself as though daring it to approach further. A lone leafless tree seemed to stand guard.

Windows like black sightless eyes stared mutely at the carriage as it stopped fifty yards or so from the house. A man, the only passenger in the carriage, got down. Tall and thin, wrapped in a voluminous grey coat against the biting wind, he stood hatless with one hand on the side of the ancient carriage as though debating with himself whether to get back in and return from whence he came.

He stood for a full minute before deciding and then took his hand from the vehicle.

‘Leave the bags outside the front door,’ he commanded the driver in a tired voice. ‘I’ll walk from here.’

The driver nodded, not looking at his passenger, and urged the horse into a trot. In truth, he did not want to look at his passenger. That ravaged face had almost made him vomit his breakfast when he first saw it. He didn’t want to see it again.

The passenger stood still as the carriage made its way to the house. He stood watching the house as the house stood watching him. They were made for each other, he thought. Alone, ugly and forsaken by society.

The first known dwelling to be built on this spot was a shepherd’s hovel built nearly two hundred years ago, according to the sparse records of the time. It was a local stone hut built by the shepherd himself with material found lying around – large flat stones packed with earth and moss to keep out the biting winds that swept almost continually across the moor. The roof had been simply branches from the few trees of the moor, tightly packed and covered with moss turf. The shack was composed of one room serving as bedroom and living room cum kitchen. No other facilities whatsoever. Not even a window. It stood for over fifty years before being demolished by the landowner. It had hardly ever been used though. Shepherds would stay there only if absolutely necessary. They hated the place with a dread that defied logic. ‘T’ain’t the sleepin’,’ they would say. ‘T’is the dreamin’.’ They would not, or could not, elaborate.

The next dwelling was a small single-story house of modest means to house the landowner’s succession of mistresses, far enough away from the manor house so as not to be an embarrassment yet near enough to be convenient. Two young women had committed suicide in its dank and dismal rooms over a period of years.

At the end of the 1800s, it was again demolished to make way for a more lavish stone building for one of the landowner’s wayward sons, who was destined never to marry but who also committed suicide in mysterious circumstances, two years after he moved in. Stories abounded about the place. It was said, with much conviction, that the house was haunted, that ‘moor devils’ used it as a doorway to the underworld and that Satan himself rode out on certain nights of the year. No locals ever went near the place. They crossed themselves at the very mentioned of it.

The house stood empty for a number of years before next being sold with a few acres of scrubland. It was extensively remodelled and extended by a religious sect who held questionable ceremonies on the premises. The local townspeople refused to supply provisions to the house, and eventually, it was burned to the ground in what was termed a satanic ritual. The local constabulary suspected ‘arson by person or persons unknown’ but made little or no investigation and no arrests.

The site was again sold after many years, and the present house built some time in 1920. It was sold to a girls’ private orphanage school, owned and managed by a doctor and run by a matron and ‘handyman’. There were many rumours about the doctor and his charges though few substantiated. None good.

Some years later, one of the girls, barely fifteen, was found wandering in a distressed state on the moor’s main road. She was taken to the town doctor, who examined her and found her to be five months pregnant. She miscarried soon after being rescued from the moor. The foetus was found to be deformed, and the child told the authorities that the orphanage doctor himself had tried to abort the baby as he had her other two pregnancies.

She told them that the good doctor allowed and encouraged the abuse of all the girls in his care with the assistance of the matron and ‘handyman’. The police were called and found, on investigation, seventeen babies or foetuses in shallow graves around the house. Some of the babies that had gone to full term were found to have been alive when buried. There were also eight teenaged children found buried. All eight seemed to have died as a result of attempted pregnancy terminations.

The doctor, matron and handyman were arrested, charged with murder, tried, found guilty and subsequently quickly hanged. From initial investigation to hanging took a mere seven weeks. There had been no appeal.

The house had lived up to its evil reputation.

The house lay empty again until it was sold in the autumn of 1946 to an ex-fleet air arm pilot who had crashed his shot-up Seafire on landing back in England in the summer of 1944. The Seafire was the Royal Navy’s version of the Spitfire. It had folding wings and an arrester hook for aircraft carrier landing.

The pilot’s aircraft carrier had been in battle in the Atlantic. After the battle, the few surviving aircraft had landed back on the carrier, all except one. Badly damaged, it was deemed unsafe to land back on deck, and the sea was too rough to attempt a ditching. The pilot was directed to return to England. He had just enough fuel, and an RAF base was closest. What the pilot did not know was that his controls were all but shot away. His first and only attempt at an emergency landing put too much strain on the damaged controls. He lost control of his plane and ploughed into the ground.

The pilot had been badly injured and had not been expected to live, but to the amazement of the doctors and staff at the local hospital, he survived. He spent the next two years having his body and face rebuilt by the doctor, Archibald McIndoe.

His body recovered well but not his face. The doctor worked long and hard to make it as near a human face as possible, but miracles were rare, and Gary Phillips’s face was not to be one of them. He could see, hear, speak and even smile, but it was considered that he would hardly be able to mix in society again. Time might smooth the scars, but he would never look the same as he had.

Yes! They were made for each other, he and the house, and as he entered by the huge oak front door, it enveloped him in its dark and chilly clasp. He took a candle from his pocket and lit it, for he had been told that there was no electricity at the house, and he had brought no torch. His driver had dumped his belongings outside the front door and left immediately, for he had demanded payment in advance and wanted no tip.

The candle barely made a dent in the darkness surrounding him. Even what light that came through the still open front door spilled but reluctantly over the threshold.

He threw the bunch of keys, with which he had opened the front door, onto a small table in the hallway and carried his luggage in, out of the weather, for it was now raining. The house was ‘furnished’ the agent had said but with the furniture that had been left by the previous owners, left as in ‘unwanted’. The agent’s paperwork had not listed the furnishings, and Gary had not asked for one. The furnishings were of no consequence. His luggage contained a sleeping bag, and he had brought with him a little food and a small primus stove to cook with. He considered that he would deal with anything else as and when it cropped up. For the first time in his life, Gary Phillips was at the mercy of the vagaries of chance.

He had requested that his local solicitor try to arrange for a telephone to be installed. This was supposed to happen soon, he had been told, though he had had to pay extra installation charges for such an out-of-the-way place. Getting electricity, water and sewage connected might prove beyond anyone’s abilities. The local county manor was just over a mile away and might be able to have an electrical supply diverted for him. Nevertheless, James Compton of Compton, Compton and Rutledge had said they would see what could be achieved. Gary held out little hope of success.

Candle in hand, he wandered around the ground floor. The hallway was about fifteen or sixteen feet wide running, it appeared, the whole length of the ground floor of the house to a door at the back leading to the garden, such as it might be. The hallway was approximately forty feet or so in length. Halfway down the hall, the wide staircase rose straight to the first floor, clinging to the right-hand wall.

To his left was a doorway into the first reception room. Inside and opposite the door was a large ornate fireplace, grimy with soot. To his left as he stood looking at the fireplace were floor-to-ceiling shuttered windows. To his right was another door leading to the second reception room, which also had a door leading back to the hallway. Another ornate fireplace but here, there were no windows. Both rooms were sparsely furnished with bulky armchairs, a few small tables and rugs upon the floor. The soft furnishings looked and smelt of mildew.

Back in the hallway, he continued to the last room on the left. It was a study or library. A large wooden desk stood facing the door. Empty bookcases lined the walls.

Gary shivered. This room felt colder than the other two, but was it just the temperature? It is said by some that walls soak up atmosphere. Whatever happens in it is impinged on the fabric of a room. If that was true, then this room was overflowing. It was exuding a feeling of fear and pain. Gary shivered again and backed out of the room.

He was tired. The long journey from London in his weakened state had taken more out of him than he had thought. His solicitor had suggested that he take a hotel for the night, but Gary had not wanted to inflict his face on the populace for any longer than was absolutely necessary. Tired or not, he intended to sleep that night in his house, even if it was to be on the hall floor in his sleeping bag.

It was after five o’clock now and starting to get dark outside, the clouds dumping their water onto the poor land. Not that there would be much difference inside if it were bright sunlight outside. Little would percolate beyond the thick walls of the house.

He decided that he would light a fire in the front reception room and sleep there. He would explore the rest of the house on the following day.

If there was any wood for the fire, it was likely to be at the back of the house, so collecting the keys from the hall table where he had thrown them, he found a key that fitted the rear door and let himself out.

He was right. There was an old woodpile, covered for protection from the elements, with plenty of wood for a few weeks. He carried an armful of the logs into the front reception room and placed them beside the fireplace.

‘I’ll need some paper and kindling,’ he muttered to himself, his voice loud in the all but empty room. His candle was running low. He would need to hurry. The only obvious paper was the peeling wallpaper in the room, so he helped it off the walls, ripping it into shreds and stuffing them in the fireplace. But what about kindling?

Outside again, he searched for some small twigs or broken boxes. It was nearly dark now, but with enough kindling, he hoped to get the fire going.

Back in the room, he put what kindling he had found onto the wallpaper and piled a few of the thinner logs on top. With his candle, he lit the wallpaper.

It lit poorly, sending a billow of smoke into the room. Damn! He had forgotten the ‘damper’. Old houses, he remembered, had dampers in the chimney to assist the ‘drawing’ of the fire. He searched for the lever and, finding it, pulled and pushed it until it operated. The difference was immediate. The smoke was drawn up the chimney, and the paper burned faster. He adjusted the damper to allow the paper to light the kindling and thus the logs. Within a few minutes, he had a warm fire, and he could blow out his candle. The fire gave a good light to the room.

Gary brought in more logs to see him through the night and set up his camping primus stove to heat up a tin of soup and make a cup of tea. Luckily, he had thought to bring a container of water, for he realised he had no idea where the kitchen was or even if water was available. The water for his tea was heated in a small saucepan that he had remembered to pack. He had forgotten to bring a kettle, though, but at least he had remembered to buy a tin opener.

After his meagre supper, he unrolled his sleeping bag and crawled in. He would sleep in his clothes for now. Who was there to care?

CHAPTER TWO

GARY HAD NO idea what woke him, but suddenly, his eyes were wide open. The fire had died down, and glowing embers now shed a poor light into the room. Had it been a noise? Old houses were full of noises, he knew. Was it just settling timbers? The wind down the opened fireplace? Or something else? He waited, hardly breathing, to see if any such noise was to be repeated.

And it was.

A sob came from somewhere. At least that was what it sounded like. It was not from this room, he thought. It sounded as if it came from another.

It came again. It was definitely a sob. Just one – choked off – as though from one afraid to cry.

Gary rolled out of his sleeping bag and put on his shoes. He had to investigate. Was there someone else in the house? Who? Why? He was determined to find out. He flung a few more logs onto the fire to light up the room and wished he had brought more candles or had had the foresight to buy a torch. The stub of candle that he had would last but fifteen minutes at the most. It must suffice.

Lighting it, he went out into the hall, waiting to hear the sound again.

A sob sounded again. From farther down the hall? In one of the rooms? He moved quietly, stepping lightly to minimise the sound of his approach.

Again, a sob. He could not tell if it came from a male or a female.

He passed the second reception room. It had not come from there. Was it from the study? He stopped suddenly. There was a light from under the study door.

Another sob. It had come from the study. Someone was in there. They had a light, whoever they were. What were they doing there in his house?

He was outside the door now, his hand reaching for the handle. Had he closed it after he had looked in earlier? He could not remember doing so. The light flickered under the door as if from a fire.

He grasped the door handle, turned it and flung it open.

The room was empty and in darkness. He held his tiny candle up high, but he saw only the desk and empty bookshelves. There was nobody in the room except himself.

And the sob? One last time but faintly he heard it and then silence.

Gary slept no more that night. He huddled in his sleeping bag, staring into the fire until the dawn showed around the shutters of the windows.

As the light grew stronger, he got up and opened the shutters, letting in what light could get through the grimy panes.

It was time he took a closer look at his new home. A full inspection was in order after breakfast. The sob would have to take its turn.

Breakfast was bread toasted by his fire and more tea. He would need to find the kitchen to see if he had any water on tap but, first, the study. He wanted to inspect it thoroughly. It had shuttered windows too, and he was going to open them up.

The door was open as he had left it. It was dark inside, the only light coming from the hallway and not much at that. He moved over towards the shuttered windows, moving as if not wanting to disturb what might be in there, whatever had caused that pitiful sob.

The shutters creaked open under his urging, spilling light through the dirty windows. When they were all fully opened, he turned to scan the room. It was still empty apart from the desk and a high-backed chair behind it. The shelves were still bereft of books. Everything was covered in a layer of dust. Had he expected anything else? He did not know. What he did know was that he was holding his breath. He let it out with a ‘puff’. He really had been expecting something. He laughed out loud at his own naivety. It had to have been the house or the wind that had caused what he had thought of as a sob.

But what about the light? Had he imagined that? Could it have been reflection from his tiny candle? It did not seem possible, but …

Striding out of the study, he resumed his inspection of the house.

He had done one side of the ground floor, now to the other. He moved back to the front door and looked at the door immediately to his right. He tried the door handle but found that it was locked. Another puzzle.

He returned to the first reception room, where he had slept, and retrieved the bunch of keys.

One of the keys fitted, but still, the door would not open. It had to be bolted on the inside. If that was the case, it meant that there was another way in. His curiosity was piqued now. He had to see what was behind this door.

‘If it’s anything like the other side of the hall, then there’s another room alongside this one.’ Gary was talking to himself. He had started doing it a lot recently. ‘There must be an interconnecting door too.’

He backed off from the door and looked for another room, but all he could see was the start of the stairs to the upper floor. He moved beyond the stairway towards the back of the house. There was another door. He tried the handle, and it opened. It was the kitchen. He looked around with interest. To his left were the sink and a wooden draining board underneath the windows, which were not shuttered. Various worktops went around the room, some with cupboards fixed to the walls. In front of him was a large black kitchen range. In the centre of the room was a large wooden table, grimy with age and dust, but what interested Gary most was that in the middle of the wall on his right was a door.

The whole room had been painted a cream colour, which had now turned a dirty yellow. The door that interested him was also painted. Was it a pantry? No, that seemed to be beside the cooker.

He tried the door handle. It too was locked. None of his keys fitted the lock.

‘Damnation!’ he muttered. ‘Am I going to have to break down this door?’ He looked around the kitchen. There were many old utensils left by the previous owner. Some were rusty or corroded, all covered in dust. Maybe there was a key to this door hiding in the room.

He started to search. There were plenty of kitchen knives and heaps of ordinary cutlery, all of poor quality. He opened every drawer and looked in every cupboard. No key! He checked the pantry with no result. He sat on the table looking about him. Where else could it be, if there was one? He walked over to the kitchen range and searched inside. Again, nothing! His gaze went to the brick alcove, where the range stood. There was something in the gloom up in one corner. He reached up and grabbed at it. It was a key. ‘Eureka!’ he shouted.

CHAPTER THREE

WITH KEY IN his hand, Gary moved to the door. Strangely, it was a few steps up to the door itself, yet the room should be on the same level as the kitchen. There had to be an explanation, and Gary was curious as to what it was.

The key turned unexpectedly smoothly in the lock, and Gary pushed the door open. At first, darkness met his eyes as he stepped tentatively into the room. Stopping, he let his eyes get accustomed to the gloom.

It was a huge room, stretching from the kitchen to the front of the house and its shuttered windows. Where he was standing was a small raised section of floor, not unlike a stage, except there were no lights or curtains. He walked to the edge of the ‘stage’ and realised that this was a classroom. Row upon row of small desks and chairs filled the space. There had to be over thirty places for children in the class.

On the ‘stage’ were a table and two chairs to one side, but above his head, he could just discern two chains ending in what appeared to be handcuffs dangling from the ceiling.

Gary dropped down to the floor level from the raised section and went quickly to the shuttered windows, intent on opening them. As light flooded in through the dirty windows, he turned to find out what the room contained.

The desks he could see were for use by young people, probably teenagers or younger. He went back to the stage and looked at the chains, following their length up to the ceiling. From there, he could see ropes were attached so that the chains could be raised or lowered.

Below the chains, the floor was covered with a brown stain. He knelt on the floor to inspect it and, to his horror, realised that it was dried blood, together with the distinct but faint odour of urine and faeces.

‘What in God’s name has gone on here?’ he cried aloud, his voice echoing about the room. The estate agents that Gary had used to buy the property had neglected to tell him anything about the house’s history, and he had not thought to ask, so involved with his own misery he had been.

He went to the door leading to the hallway that had also been locked and found that it was bolted from the inside as he had thought. With a heave, he pulled the bolt. He had already unlocked the door when he was in the hall, so he could now open it. Rushing to the front door, he wrenched that open too, staggering out into the open air. Bending over, he vomited onto the ground.

After a few minutes of breathing fresh air, he felt well enough to go back in. He returned to the classroom and, with difficulty, started opening the windows and the rest of the shutters. The majority of the windows would not budge, but he managed to get some slightly open, allowing fresh air into the room for the first time, no doubt, in many years.

With the door to the kitchen wedged open, he opened some of the kitchen windows, allowing a through-flow of clean air.

He sat on the dusty kitchen table, collecting his thoughts. He had to find out about the house. He was now the legal owner, and he had a right to know its history, but first, he had to find out what other horrors awaited him.

He shuddered, but whether it was with the cold wind blowing through the house or his thoughts, he did not know. He went back to his temporary bedroom in the first reception room and rummaged in one of his bags. An almost-full bottle of whisky was what he was after. He needed the harsh spirit to settle him. It burned its way down to his now empty stomach and coursed through his body.

This was the first drink he had had since he had been released from hospital. While he had been in there, he had relied almost entirely on alcohol to keep him from committing suicide. He had used it to make himself incapable of the act. It had worked to great effect. Although he had not become addicted, it had been touch-and-go at times. What had saved him was the knowledge that there were others in a far worse condition than him. He could not imagine what kept them alive. What spark of their humanity still remained to glow?

It had humbled him then and ever since.

That did not stop him getting depressed, however. He accepted that he would be alone now for the rest of his life. He would never allow himself the luxury of dreaming that one day he might marry and have a family. He was alive and glad to be so, but every now and then, he would need the ingestion of the Scottish fluid. Now was one of those times.

Gary went through the other rooms, opening windows and doors so that the cold clean moor air could blow through the ground floor rooms. With trepidation, he decided to inspect the first floor of his house of horrors.

CHAPTER FOUR

HE MOVED UP the creaking stairs onto the landing. It was dark up here too, though there were windows to the front and rear of the landing. These, however, were fitted with curtains. Closed – of course. He drew them open to let in the light and was rewarded by being showered with years of dust. Pulling them open had started to shred them too, dirt and age having rotted the fabric.

At least he could now see. This floor was very like the downstairs. There were rooms to each side of the landing, though all the doors were closed.

He moved to the front of the house and set about opening the doors on his right. The first was a large bedroom, which was situated over the room he had slept in. It also had a large ornate fireplace. A huge four-poster bed was situated opposite the windows. These had no shutters or curtains but were as dirty as the ones below. The four-poster bed was devoid of mattress and covers. There were no rugs on the wooden floor, but the fireplace looked as if it had been regularly used. Here too, years of neglect had started the walls peeling their wallpaper. Beside the bed was a chest of drawers or tallboy. Alongside the door was an ugly huge wooden wardrobe.

Gary moved to the centre room on that side of the landing. It was completely empty of furniture but had a large pile of newspapers against one wall. Strangely, this room had windows, whereas the