The Ghost of Pendlesham Priory

By Jan Williams and Simon Peecock

“I am a spirit reaching out to you to tell you my story so that I can find rest. Help me.”
The spirit is Isabel Calthorpe who speaks out from Tudor times to Ben, nicknamed the ‘Digger’, and his cousin, Filly. Ben is the first to be touched by her story as he wanders the countryside of Suffolk and meets her ghost in the ruins of a deserted convent. She explains that she had been sent there by her widowed father to be given the education of a fine lady. Life however was far from genteel because her fellow pupils were spiteful bullies. The gentle nuns tried to endure the tensions of a visit from the malicious servants of Henry VIII who planned to destroy their lives, but Isabel’s dreams vanished in flames.
Yet the modern-day characters, whose lives have been touched by the ruins, open up to new horizons. The thrilling ending of this story links past and present, showing how Ben has lived in two worlds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398431317

Book preview

About the Author

Jan Williams has been a teacher, a writer, a storyteller, and a grand talker. She has explored many historic themes in her work. She has taken children on journeys of the imagination to prehistoric mounds and sunken forests, ancient battles and folk tales of magical characters. The deserted ruins of a convent in the enchanted Suffolk countryside haunted her and produced this very exciting story of a ghost from the reign of Henry VIII. She loves cats, flowers and the sea.

Dedication

For Kevin Crossley Holland for his inspiration.

For Margaret Hawkins for her unwavering faith in this book.

For Peter Fowler for his warmth and kindness.

Copyright Information ©

Jan Williams 2022

Illustrations by Simon Peecock

The right of Jan Williams and Simon Peecock to be identified as author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398431300 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398431317 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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Part One

Ben Trotter’s Story

The story I am going to tell you is true, Dad, I promise. I have seen a girl with sad eyes dressed in Tudor costume here in Suffolk and I think she might be a Ghost! You understand about the past. Help me understand what I am seeing. I am going to write down everything that happens. Please read it carefully.

August 6: The Arrival of the Girl with Sad Eyes

Thud! Something has landed on my chest. It’s heavy, covered with black fur and has large green shining eyes. Whatever is it! I am trying hard not to scream out loud.

I put my hand over my mouth and the stifled scream becomes a giggle! I feel such an idiot. I am sure you’ve guessed already what it is. It’s only a cat! It’s trying to make a bed of my chest with its claws going in and out, just like Dylan, our cat, does at home. I am sure Aunt Julia doesn’t have a cat. They are far too fond of their great lolloping dog. This cat must have come in through the window. The door to the bedroom is shut too tightly. The window is the only way in.

Mind you, it’s such a funny house with a window in the roof and very low ceilings. They say the house was built in 1532 and it feels like it that. All the walls are crooked and the floors are uneven.

I put on the light and find my slippers before I go over to close the window. I don’t want to get splinters from the wooden floor. Then, as I pull the latch towards me, I look out into the darkness outside and I see a glimmer of white. I’m not sure what this is.

As I stare at it, the glimmer becomes a shape. It’s an oval shape, then the oval shape becomes a face and that face is surrounded by another oval of white, rather like a halo in a medieval painting. The face grows a body as it gets closer. I can see her – just under my window. It’s a girl about 13 years old and she is waving her arms at me in an agitated fashion. She has sleeves of voluminous blue velvet and is dressed like a figure on a playing card. I wonder where she could have come from. Why she does she seem so upset. Such sad dark eyes she has!

I don’t shout too loudly in case I wake the family up. After all, the girl is probably only worried about her cat. I grab the cat tightly and hold it up so the girl can see it’s unhurt.

I lean down low and almost whispered, The cat is all right, see. Wait. I’m bringing her down to you.

The girl seems to nod her approval.

I come down the stairs, clutching the cat desperately. It is frantically trying to escape from me. It scratches me several times but I manage to hold on to it. Then I struggle to open the back door. As soon as I’ve managed it, the cat leaps away into the field and joins the girl. I open my mouth to call out to her but the girl is away across the fields. Her long, full skirt is dragging across the dew drenched grass, leaving behind a trail like a snail’s slime until she vanishes into a clump of trees.

I come back into the house quickly, slamming the door shut tightly behind me. In my drowsy state, I am frightened again. You won’t believe this. I can’t find the stairs! This house is such a muddle. Then I remember you have to open a door off the sitting room to go upstairs!

Nervously, I jump when my cheek brushes the coats hanging on the walls along the stairwell. I thought there were dead men hanging there! Startled, I send a pile of wellies leaping into the sitting room like an army of ghostly feet. What is the matter with me? I suppose it’s my imagination again playing tricks on me.

I fall into that funny, lumpy bed exhausted but I still don’t get off to sleep. I am finding it so hard to sleep when there are no street lights and everything is in such darkness. I toss and turn because if I’m honest with you, I wish I wasn’t here in Suffolk. I wish I could come with you on your ‘dig’ but I suppose the Orkneys are too far away. You must be working very hard. I can tell that from the photos you send me of those men scraping at the soil of those prehistoric buildings. Surely, you won’t need distractions.

The reason why I am here is, Mum has decided that the best thing for me is to visit to her sister and her family in Suffolk. Such fun for you and I am sure you and cousin Filly will have great times. Of course, Mum herself is not coming. She won’t leave the shop and she has been behaving very secretively. I suspect she’s got one of her fashion shows planned, so she’s no time to spare.

To my disgust she only found time to come as far as the station with me and even then she says something awkward. I’m sorry everything is being done in such a rush. Then she leant over and kissed me in the middle of the crowded station!

That annoyed me but even worse I was left to cope with three changes of train with heavy luggage! Nobody gives me proper directions and when we get past Ipswich, this very odd lady in a padded coat came and sat opposite me. She mutters to herself and kept on tapping the table with a pencil. And then I noticed what she was reading. It seemed to be one of those glossy magazines, full of pictures of old houses.

Then I saw the page open in front of her. It is a close up of a medieval church door with odd black marks gouged into the wood. The rather gothic printing at the bottom says, A strange and terrible wonder – a door rent and torn by the talons of Black Shuck, the devil dog.

You can guess what effect that had on me. I lost interest in the lady and started making up stories about this devil dog. In my imagination I can see eyes of fire and the fierce talons that could rip through wood or even a man’s hand!

Suddenly the train lurches to a halt at a very small station. I could see Uncle David and cousin Filly waiting on the platform. They look their usual untidy selves. I don’t have to put on airs with them. Perhaps, staying with them might be a good thing. It won’t be as stressful as living with Mum at the moment and as for my supposed ‘mates’, they just spend time in the holidays hanging around the shopping centre at the Bull Ring. I get so bored with that.

I thought I was the only one to get off the train. Then there is a sudden panic. The lady, who had that strange magazine, stumbled down the step behind me. She almost falls but I managed to help her out, carrying her heavy leather bag out onto the platform.

She pushes the magazine in it into my hands. Take it, please. I can see you are fascinated by the story about the devil dog. I was just the same at your age.

Then she stomps off along the platform in her heavy old-fashioned lace up shoes. There is a definite look of Miss Marples about her – the shabby padded jacket and the woolly hat. I am amazed to see her move so fast. She must be very hot. It had suddenly got very warm.

Ben! Ben! Over here. It’s Uncle David calling me. He seems pleased to see me.

Filly, however, is in a mood as usual. She keeps kicking at a stone and staring at me through that mop of curly ginger hair. At least it looks as though she has made an effort to have it fashionably cut recently and she has had her ears pierced. She always said she’d never do anything so foolish. Perhaps, she is changing. After all she is 14 now. I hope not too many changes! I prefer her tom boyish ways to the girls at my school who never stop fiddling with their make-up and talking about boys.

I feel myself getting redder and redder. I realise how I must look standing there, sweating in the August heat with bags slung around my neck. I am sure Filly disapproves of everything I am wearing but then I realise she isn’t looking at me but staring at the lady.

See, you’re keeping fine company. That’s Miss Elizabeth Beriffe Jones!

I had no chance to find out who Miss Beriffe Jones is. Uncle David had not bought the Land Rover but my aunt’s run-down purple Mini. I am pushed in the back with all my luggage. Oh, you should have seen that vehicle! It’s covered in mud and everything seemed to be falling to bits, even the door handle came away in my hand! I don’t know how it could ever have passed its M.O.T.

Sitting in the back of the Mini is a large chocolate-coloured Labrador. I hesitate. Oh! Go on, get in! Filly pushes even harder.

Don’t worry about Phoebe. She’s as soft as mud.

I am none too sure. Phoebe gives a low growl and spreads herself over my knee, so I can’t see out of the window. I try to push her away but this gets her overexcited and she starts licking my face.

Sit, Phoebe!

Suddenly, Phoebe calmed down and she sat meekly by my side – her tail was going thump, thump, banging me hard on the bottom!

Then suddenly uncle revs up and the car judders into action. We hurtled down narrow lanes overgrown with enormous weeds, frothy with white flowers. I feel like I am being driven into some vast tunnel. Any moment we could disappear down a rabbit hole like Alice did in Alice in Wonderland!

Uncle’s driving is dreadful! He kept suddenly stopping and backing up to let me catch glimpses of thatched cottages and large old houses.

See, he said, waving at a thatched cottage.

"Suffolk Pink. You see it all