Mr Corbett's Ghost Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. Mr Corbett’s Ghost

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  2. Vaarlem and Tripp

  Vaarlem and Tripp

  3. The Simpleton

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  About the Author

  Also by Leon Garfield

  Copyright

  About the Book

  A brilliant collection of three short stories from a master story-teller, who will keep you turning the pages until the very end. The chilling title story tells of a young apprentice who makes a pact with a strange old man one New Year’s Eve to rid the world of Mr Corbett, his cruel employer. Sure enough, Mr Corbett meets an untimely death, but the tables turn on the terrified apprentice who finds himself cursed with the ghost of the man he hated most in the world . . .

  To Nancy and Edward

  1

  MISTER CORBETT’S GHOST

  CHAPTER ONE

  A WINDY NIGHT and the old year dying of an ague. Good riddance! A bad old year, with a mean spring, a poor summer, a bitter autumn—and now this cold, shivering ague. No one was sorry to see it go. Even the clouds, all in black, seemed hurrying to its burial somewhere past Hampstead.

  In the apothecary’s shop in Gospel Oak, the boy Partridge looked up through the window to a moon that stared fitfully back through the reflections of big bellied flasks, beakers, and retorts. Very soon now he’d be off to his friends and his home to drink and cheer the death of the old year—and pray that the new one would be better. And maybe to slip in a prayer for his master, Mister Corbett, the apothecary himself. Such a prayer!

  ‘May you be like this year that’s gone, sir, and take the same shivering ague! For your seasons weren’t no better.’

  He stared at the oak bench that shone with his sweat—and at the great stone mortar and pestle in which his spirit had been ground.

  ‘May you creak and groan like your shop sign in this wild wind, sir.’

  Now there passed by in the moon-striped street a pair of draper’s apprentices. Friends. They grinned and waved as they went, and their lips made: ‘See you later, Ben!’

  He waved back. They glanced at one another, looked up and down the street and then came leaping quaintly to the shop where they fattened their noses on the window, making pinkish flowers in the glass.

  Benjamin made a face. They made two, very diabolical.

  ‘Can we come in, Ben?’

  ‘Yes—for a moment.’

  Into the strange and gloomy shop they came, with looks of cautious wickedness.

  ‘Make a brew, Ben.’

  ‘Make a bubbling charm.’

  ‘Turn old Corbett into a rat or a mouse . . .’

  Like the forced-up sons of witches, they had begun to caper round the great stone mortar. Glumly, Benjamin looked on, wishing he could oblige them, but not knowing how.

  Huge wild shadows leaped among the retorts and crucibles, but they were the only uncanny things about . . . save in the apprentices’ minds. Now they began to screech and laugh and caper more crazily than ever, so that their faces seemed to dance in the heavy air like rosy fireflies.

  ‘Turn him into a worm!’

  ‘Turn him into a snail!’

  ‘Turn old Corbett into a beetle, Ben—and step on him!’

  ‘Be quiet!’ cried Benjamin of a sudden. ‘He’ll hear!’

  The draper’s apprentices grew still. The stairs at the back of the shop creaked. But then, so did every other mortal thing in that blustering night.

  ‘Turn him into a—’

  But Benjamin Partridge did not hear what other witchcraft was being asked of him. His mind was suddenly distracted:, partly by listening to a further creaking of the stairs, and partly by a chill and a darkness—like a cloud across the moon—that had passed over his heart. He shivered. His two friends stared at him: then to each other. They shrugged their shoulders.

  ‘Happy New Year, Ben.’

  Then they left him for the more cheerful street. With their going, the chill within him grew curiously sharper. His back itched, as if he was being watched. He went to the window and waved his friends on their way; and in the jars that sat like short fat magistrates on the shelves, no more than a tiny waving Partridge was reflected. A drab dressed little soul of a boy seemed to struggle to get out.

  Now it was half after seven o’clock. Time to be gone. He pulled his patched grey coat from under the counter and began to put it on.

  ‘Sharp to be off, Master Partridge?’

  Slippered Mister Corbett was slunk down his stairs, quiet as a waistcoated rat. Or had he been on the stairs all the time? Uneasily, Benjamin wondered what his master had heard. Mister Corbett’s lips were pressed tight together. A muscle in his cheek twitched and jumped; his hands were clenched so fiercely that the blood was fled from his knuckles as if in dismay. Could he have heard?

  ‘It—it’s half after seven, Mister Corbett, sir.’

  ‘What’s half after seven when there’s work to be done?’

  His unpleasant eyes, swollen by spectacles, stared round the shop. ‘There’s dust on the bottle-tops, Master Partridge. Would you leave it so? Polish the bottles before you go.’

  The apprentice sighed, but did as he was told. And Mister Corbett, pale of face and round of shoulder, watched him.

  ‘Not willingly done, Master Partridge. Too anxious to be out and wild as a fox.’

  ‘It’s twenty to eight, Mister Corbett, sir. It’s New Year’s Eve—’

  ‘What’s New Year’s Eve when there’s work to be done? There’s a smear of grease on the bench.’

  Once more the apprentice sighed, but polished away at the mark that had been left by his own sweat.

  ‘Not willingly done, Master Partridge. Your heart wasn’t in it. Still less was your soul. I want your heart and soul, Master Partridge. I expect them. I demand them.’

  His eyes grew hard as he spoke and blotches came into his grey cheeks. He saw his apprentice was defiant, and would keep his heart and soul for himself.

  ‘It’s five to eight, Mister Corbett, sir. I would be home—’

  ‘What’s your home to me, Master Partridge? What’s your family and friends to me when I’ve not got your heart and soul? For you’re no use to me if I don’t have all of you. There’s a dribble of wet on that flask by your hand, Master Partridge. Wipe it off.’

  The wetness was a fresh-fallen tear, but the apprentice scorned to say so—even though others were beginning to leak out of his bitter eyes. Eight o’clock and his friends would be waiting and his mother would be laying up a fine table . . .

  The apothecary peered once more round his shop. Was there nothing else to be done? Momentarily, his eyes flickered towards his private doorway behind which dwelt his wife and children in his private world.

  The boy watched him hopefully, fancied he’d glimpsed a softening . . .

  ‘Then—’ he began; but there came an urgent tapping at the window. The apothecary smiled harshly.

  ‘A customer, Master Partridge. How lucky you’re still here. Open the door for the gentleman. And wait.’

  A retired lawyer’s clerk, maybe—or a neglected scrivener. Very small and old and dusty, and all in black. Very wrinkled about the cheeks—as if he’d put on a skin the cat had slept on. He brought a queer smell into the shop with hi
m, damp and heavy: an undertaker, perhaps?

  Mister Corbett rubbed his hands together and showed all his teeth in a dreadful smile.

  ‘Not shut? Still at work, eh?’ muttered the old man sniffily, as if he had the beginnings of a chill.

  Benjamin Partridge eyed him miserably. An old fellow like him would need a deal of medicine. And then to what purpose?

  ‘Never too late to be of service, sir,’ said the apothecary. ‘Me and the apprentice. Heart and soul in our trade. No matter what the time—or the day. Heart and soul, eh, Master Partridge?’

  The old man nodded briefly and seemed not to notice the furious dismay in the apprentice’s face.

  ‘This mixture, then. Very important. Want it tonight. Can you oblige?’

  He gave the apothecary a paper. Mister Corbett read it. He frowned. He glanced round his shelves. Then he smiled again. (What ugly teeth he had! Like railings.)

  ‘Pleased to oblige, sir. Will you wait?’

  The old man sniffed very hard. By chance, it seemed, his curiously bright eyes caught those of the apprentice. But once more he appeared not to notice the wretchedness in them.

  ‘Wait? On New Year’s Eve? And in my state of age and health? No. Deliver it. I’ll be in Jack Straw’s Castle. Not too far, eh? He-he! Deliver it, man. And soon.’

  With that he was gone—remarkably quick and spry for a man in his state of health—and leaving behind in the shop an unmistakable smell of graveyards.

  The boy Partridge shut the door after him but was too angry and distressed to notice that he’d vanished from the street, though no sound of horse or carriage had been heard.

  Back in the shop, the apothecary had begun on measuring and weighing and grinding and mixing, and his apprentice looked on with ever-mounting misery and dismay. New Year’s Eve was ticking slowly and surely away.

  At last it was done. The mixture was bottled and ready. Hurriedly, Benjamin cleaned and cleared away till the shop shone like a new knife.

  ‘Was it willingly done, Master Partridge?’

  ‘Willingly . . . willingly!’ cried Benjamin desperately.

  His coat was on again. He was at the door. It was half after nine, and he had a long walk home. In his wild need to be out and away he turned pleadingly to his master.

  ‘They’ll be waiting now, sir! I must be gone! Everything is clean and shining. Nothing’s left undone. A . . . a happy New Year to you, sir!’

  ‘Yes, indeed, Master Partridge,’ smiled Mister Corbett. ‘You’re willing enough. So a happy New Year to you—’

  Benjamin was in the street. His face was shining, his hopes were suddenly high again. In an hour he’d be home—

  ‘But of course you’ll deliver this mixture first, Master Partridge?’

  Mister Corbett’s hand held out the bottle, and Mister Corbett’s eyes stared cruelly into his. Benjamin’s heart turned to lead. Had it been in the apothecary’s hand at that moment, even he, with all his chemical knowledge, would have pronounced it to be lead.

  ‘B-but it’s all of three mile, sir! Three dark and windy miles! It’ll be the New Year afore I’m back! They’re waiting on me—’

  ‘If they love you heart and soul, Master Partridge, they’ll keep on waiting—’

  ‘But there’s thieves and footpads and murderers—’

  ‘Pooh!’ declared the apothecary generously. ‘What will such fellows want with a lad in a patched coat? Safe as a coach and four, Master Partridge! Believe me, poor clothes give better protection than chain mail.’

  ‘But there’s gibbets and corpses and, most likely, ghosts—’

  ‘Then take you this extra jar, Master Partridge,’ beamed the apothecary, handing him just such an item, ‘and if you should be lucky enough to meet with a spectre, phantom or ghost, then snip off a piece of it and bottle it quick. Then you and I will examine it shrewdly—and send it off to Apothecaries’ Hall! Ha-ha!’

  ‘But . . . but—’ stammered Benjamin, despairing of anything else to move his master. For some strange reason, he could not come out with what troubled and disturbed him almost as much as his loss of New Year’s Eve.

  ‘But . . . but—’ he struggled, and still could not say what was creeping coldly round his heart. The old man: the uncanny customer in black, who repelled him in the queerest way.

  Thieves and gibbets and murderers were one thing. The dusty old man who had smelled of the grave was quite another. For when he’d come, there had passed once more, like a cloud across the moon, a darkness and a chill over Benjamin’s heart. He shivered in his cracked boots.

  ‘But . . . but what if I lose my way, sir?’ he came out with at length.

  ‘What’s this?’ cried the apothecary angrily, for he’d lost patience, standing out in the cold. ‘Did you think I’d go, then? Or did you think I’d send Mrs Corbett or one of my own children? Is that what’s been fermenting in your unwilling mind, Master Partridge?’

  Wretchedly, Benjamin shook his head.

  ‘Won’t you . . . take pity on me, sir? On this night of all nights?’

  Harshly, the apothecary stared down at his white-faced apprentice. Maybe too much chemistry had turned him to iron.

  ‘Pity, Master Partridge? What’s pity when there’s work to be done? Be off with you! And if you should weary on the way, remember—it may be a matter of life and death. Run fast, Master Partridge. Run as if—as if my life depended on it!’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘SO I’M TO run as if your life depended on it, am I, Mister Corbett? Well . . . well, watch me, then!

  You just watch me as I nip up this hill.

  ‘Lord, Mister Corbett! Was that a snail that passed me by? For shame! Who’d have thought a snail would have beaten an apprentice running as if his master’s life depended on it?’

  Benjamin Partridge shook his head as if surprised to discover how leadenly he was mounting up dark Highgate Hill.

  ‘Dreadful thing! Imagine old Mister Corbett perishing in Gospel Oak. Breathing his last.

  ‘But here comes Benjamin, a-pounding through the winter’s night! See that bush ahead? If I reach it before I can count to ten, Mister Corbett’ll be saved! Hurry . . . hurry!

  ‘Eleven! Just too late. And after I tried! Heart and soul, Mister Corbett. Just as you’d have liked . . .’

  Benjamin Partridge, now near the top of Highgate Hill, fixed his young face into a crooked smile. He’d a strong imagination and saw—in his mind’s eye—the apothecary corpsed and coffined in his neat back parlour (the holy place!) with a wreath at his feet inscribed:

  FROM BENJAMIN PARTRIDGE. IN RESPECTFUL MEMORY.

  Then, from a distance, a clock struck ten and the apprentice listened in dismay. Such chance as he’d had of reaching his home before New Year was now almost gone.

  He wavered. Looked behind him—then ahead. A curious frown flickered across his face, and he began to hurry—even to run; yet not without mumbling into his wretchedly thin coat that he was making no haste on Mister Corbett’s account and that he’d sooner yield up his heart and soul to the Devil than leave them in pawn in Gospel Oak.

  A coachman turning into the Gatehouse Tavern out of the creaking night, was much struck by the hurrying boy’s face—which passed him patchily and then was gone on, into the cheerless dark.

  ‘Such a mixture of anger and dismay as had no business hanging about chops so tender and young. But God send him a happy New Year, and spare him from some of this bitter wind!’

  The night was now grown wilder and the wind banged and roared about the air like an invisible tiger, madly fancying his stripes to be bars. (Pray to God he don’t get out!)

  ‘Rot you, Mister Corbett! May this wind blow you to Kingdom Come! May it whistle through your skin and play its tunes on your mean old bones!’

  On and on he ran (but not for Mister Corbett’s sake!), now stumbling, now turning this way and that to avoid the wild passion of the night. It seemed to be striving to pluck him off the world by his coat tails, did that q
ueer and even extraordinary wind that blew mainly from Islington, Wapping, and Tower Hill.

  Seven churches with open belfries stood direct in the wind’s path from Wapping: St Bride’s, St Jude’s, St Mary’s, St Peter’s, St Michael’s and St Michael-on-the-Hill’s. Through each of them it flew, making the black bells shift and shudder and sound unnatural hours. The very ghosts of chimes and the phantoms of departed hours. Twenty-eight o’clock gone and never to return. What a knell for the dying year!

  Benjamin Partridge put his head down into his skimpy collar and hastened on faster yet. (But not as Mister Corbett would have had him hasten. There was a darkness on his spirit quite out of the apothecary’s chemistry.)

  His right-hand pocket was bulky with the bottle for the queer old customer, and his left hand banged against his knee, reminding him of Mister Corbett’s little joke—the empty jar for ‘the piece of a ghost’.

  ‘A piece of you, Mister Corbett—that’s what I’d like in your jar! And I’d set it on me mantelshelf at home, as neatly labelled as you’d like. Apothecary’s heart. Very small. Very hard. Very difficult to find.’

  Now the wind came wilder yet, and it seemed—to the buffeted boy—to have a strange smell upon its breath. It smelled fishy and riverish (as became its Wapping origins) and sweetish in a penetrating kind of way.

  The Lord knew where it had been or what unsavoury heads it had blown through! Heads of chained pirates drowned under three tides at Shadwell Stair, full of water fury; heads of smiling traitors, spiked on the Tower, full of double hate; heads of lurking murderers in Lamb’s Conduit Fields, heads of lying attorneys, false witnesses, straw friends, iron enemies, foxes, spies, and adders . . .

  A sudden screaming from Caen Wood caused Benjamin Partridge to clap his hands to his ears and fairly fly. What had it been? A committee of owls over a dead starling? Most likely . . . most likely . . .

  Ahead lay a little nest of lights winkling out the dark. The Spaniards’ Inn. Sounds of singing and laughter came faintly from within. A cheerful company, drinking out the dying year.

  The turnpike keeper in his tiny house hard by saw the boy pause and stare towards the inn with miserable longing on his face.