CLARA TILTMAN HAD FOUND THE DIARY SOME months back in an oak bureau in the attic of Aysgarth House. Her mother and father never ventured up there, and Hopkins, the butler, had stopped using the space for storage since his back started giving him trouble. Mrs. Preston, the cook, never so much as ventured upstairs, let alone as far as the attic. Clara, however, liked the chaos of the place. Aysgarth House was so orderly and every item of furniture so well chosen that the attic, with its jumble of old broken tables and chairs, felt like its guilty secret.
She also liked the way she could see all the way down to Fleet Street from the small window in the eaves. She liked to watch the journalists going in and out of the Times building, imagining one day she might be one of them, even though she never once saw a woman among their number.
Clara wanted to be a writer, but not of novels, plays, or poems. It was the real world that fascinated her. It was this persistent curiosity that had led to her discovery of a black book with a golden clasp tucked away in one of the drawers of the bureau.
Clara had taken the book back to her bedroom to read. The handwriting inside was exquisite and precise. It was the private diary of the house's previous owner, Lady Aysgarth, a woman whose formidable looks had been captured in a dusty old portrait that was now under a sheet in the attic. Clara had an idea about using the diary to write about the history of the house, but at first it was difficult to make sense of it at all. Every name was abbreviated, and the entries were frustratingly short, often seeming more concerned with the weather than anything of importance. A typical entry read:
H away again. J in high spirits. Morning bright, afternoon gray.
Clara did a little more research, looking through other old documents in the bureau, and learned that H was Lady Aysgarth's husband, Henry. J referred to her son, James.
Took J to watch H play cricket. Overcast.
On and on the diary went in this vein. Clara found it extremely frustrating and was on the verge of giving up with it when things took a turn for the worse in the lives of the Aysgarths.
Dr. came to see J. Inconclusive. H frustrated. Demanded a different Dr. Rain all day.
More doctors came, but none of them, it seemed, could provide any comfort. Lady Aysgarth's son grew worse until the day she wrote her final entry.
J died today. H wept, then planted a willow tree in his memory.
It was the only day Lady Aysgarth had omitted mention of the weather. Clara supposed it no longer mattered to a woman who had just witnessed the death of her only son.
From the other documents she found in the bureau, Clara pieced together what had followed. She found the death certificate of Lady Aysgarth's husband the following year. She found letters of regret from the house staff as they were all dismissed, leaving Lady Aysgarth alone in the big old house.
As sad as it was, there was no story in it, and Clara forgot about the diary until the day her father suggested they have a man come and chop down the willow tree in the garden, fearing that its roots might be interfering with the outer wall.
Suddenly the strangest thing happened. The drawing-room curtain flapped wildly, and the rod holding it fell away from the wall and crashed to the floor.
Once everyone had recovered from the shock, and a man had been called to come and make the necessary repairs, there was much discussion of what had happened. Mrs. Tiltman blamed poor workmanship in the installation of the curtain rod. Mr. Tiltman wondered whether a freak gust of wind could have blown in and unseated it. But Clara had seen perfectly clearly the two creases at the bottom of the curtains as a pair of invisible hands yanked at them.
Clara said nothing, but it was clear to her that her father's suggestion to remove the tree planted in memory of Lady Aysgarth's lost child had angered Her Ladyship so much that she had made her presence known. Clara had long held a suspicion, but now she knew it was true. Aysgarth House had a ghost.