The Secret At Allingham Castle

Allingham castle stood like a cylindrical spear piercing the clouds in the distance. Alder buck-thorn, English elm, and Lilac surrounded the base of the castle, providing a fortress against outsiders. The wet and chilly October day seeped it’s tendrils through the cracked windows of Charlotte’s SUV causing a chill to run down her spine, and her grip to tighten on the steering wheel. She had momentarily put her car into park to go over the last few weeks in her memory. Two weeks ago, a certain Mr. Hans Sykes, attorney at law, had knocked on the door of Apartment B at the Meadow Hills apartment complex in the rural town of Tennessee where Charlotte lived. She had answered the door in an early morning stupor, and invited him in for coffee. After some awkward introductions were exchanged, and the coffee pot was set to brewing, Mr. Sykes cleared his throat and proceeded to pull several documents out of his black leather briefcase. What ensued would change Charlotte’s life forever. She went over the words of the document in her memory to be sure that it was all real…

This last will expresses my wishes without undue influence or duress. I, Walter Bartholomew Allingham VII, appoint my daughter, Ms. Charlotte Alma White (previously Emma Isabella Allingham), as sole bearer of my estate in North Yorkshire, England. 

Charlotte closed her eyes and placed one jittery hand over her mouth. She still couldn’t believe it. This was all so surreal. It opened doors to questions that she had long put to rest about her biological father, and all of the surmounting emotions that these questions were charged with. She knew deep in her soul that the random early morning visit from Mr. Sykes two weeks ago, was no accident. It was like a giant arrow magnetically pulling her forward towards the answers she had been seeking her whole life; answers that her adoptive family were either unwilling or unable to give her. And so here she was, a dumbfounded American speck on the vast North York Moors, about to walk through the doors of her rightful home. 

Charlotte pulled the gears of her SUV into drive, and listened to the crunch of gravel beneath her tires as she slowly drove the long and winding road up to the castle’s entrance. She arrived abruptly at a grotesque black iron gate covered in vines, which had been left open just enough for her car to squeeze through. Her heart pounded as she pulled through the gates and craned her neck to gaze up at the looming stone gray structure before her. By the time she parked her car and proceeded to make her way up to the entrance of the castle, a light drizzle had commenced out of the fog surrounding the property. Two monstrous looking statues lined the stairway to the entrance on the left and the right. There was something ominous about them Charlotte thought. She made her way up to the giant splintered doors with their rusty knobs and as she reached to open the door with one hand, while struggling to hold her suitcase in the other, the door suddenly opened, causing her to jump.

“Good day Miss Allingham. I trust you found your way here with no real difficulties.” 

A sober looking figure in a calf-length navy blue muslin dress stood before her. Her mousy brown hair was lined with streaks of gray and was pulled back and clasped in a bun at the nape of her neck. Her shoes were matronly. She bore no apron over her dress, but was clearly a caretaker or maid of some sort. The woman forced a smile that never seemed to reach her gray-blue eyes and nodded her head in a quick show of deference. 

“Oh-um-Charlotte will do just fine ma’am. And you are-?” Charlotte asked.

“Miss Treacle. However, to suit any varying cultural preferences here, you may call me Madeline madame.”

“Well, thank you Madeline. It’s a pleasure to meet you. You are the caretaker here, I assume?”

“Yes, indeed.” Miss Treacle replied plainly with a raise of her eyebrows. “Your late father employed me for some thirty years madame, and had left provisions in his will for me to remain on after his passing, bless the lamb.”

“Yes. Um..bless his soul,” Charlotte replied awkwardly. Her arm was growing tired with the weight of her suitcase. She was grateful when Miss Treacle stepped forward and took the suitcase from her in a dutiful manner. 

“Come.” The caretaker said. “You must be ever so tired.”

Miss Treacle led her through an archway formed by two ornately carved Corinthian columns holding up the extravagant ceiling above her. She was led up a giant winding staircase to the second floor. 

“Your late father expressly requested that you stay in his room on the east wing. This way-”

Charlotte followed Madeline down the hallway for what seemed like a mile, before Miss Treacle stopped suddenly and turned to her right leading Charlotte through a door into a deliciously elegantly decorated room with gold silk painted walls. Each wall in the room was adorned with ornately carved mirrors, and expensive paintings aligned each mirror on the right and left. A crystal chandelier hung in the center of the ceiling before a king-sized bed with a headboard bearing a hand stitched crest and a cover made of custom-dyed and woven silk thread. Clearly, only the most savvy of artisans could have constructed such a beautiful and unique piece of furniture. There was a giant stone fireplace crowning the wall on the right and above it a magnificently large antique painting of a young man with a solemn expression wearing a uniform and donning a gilded sword. A mahogany colored wardrobe that almost escaped Charlotte’s attention and  looked to be about a hundred years old,lay almost perpendicular to the fireplace on the first wall to the right when you walked in. 

“I trust you’ll be comfortable here Miss Allingham?”, Madeline asked.

“YES! I mean yes. Thank you Miss Treacle. I think I should like a bath before I explore the rest of the estate, and get to know you a little better,” Charlotte replied nervously, feeling out of place.

“Of course,” Miss Treacle replied. “The lieu is just through that door,” she said gesturing towards the far left of the back wall towards an entrance that had escaped Charlotte’s attention in her awe.

“Thank you. I’ll be down shortly,” Charlotte replied.

Miss Treacle nodded in a cold deferential manner and left Charlotte abruptly.

Several hours later, after a long steaming hot bath in a gilded claw foot tub, Charlotte found herself descending the winding staircase of Allingham castle with an eagerness to explore. She made her way to a small kitchen on the bottom floor and marveled at the plethora of pots and pans and dried herbs hanging from a rafter on the ceiling, and noted a small fire that must have been kindled earlier at the back of the room, with a small wooden stool placed directly in front of it. Despite all of it’s grandeur and the delightful shock Charlotte had experienced upon stepping inside of this mysterious estate that had been bequeathed to her, the castle had a coldness about it that she just could not shake. A far cry from the mild Octobers of Tennessee, the climate here left a sting in her limbs, and a chill in her bones that went deep. She made her way to the stool in front of the small fireplace in the kitchen, and stretched her hands out towards the welcoming flames of the small fire in the hearth before her. What a mysterious figure that Miss Treacle was, Charlotte thought to herself. She decided she was determined to get past that matronly facade and get to know her better. Perhaps she could tell her more about her biological father, and why it was that he gave her up for adoption to begin with. What a different life she could have lived, had it not been for the fateful choice her father made 25 years ago. Who would have thought, her, Charlotte White, the outcast of the town she grew up in her whole life, was the beneficiary of this grand estate in a completely different world then the one she had always known. Charlotte felt her eyelids growing heavy with exhaustion, and decided that exploring would have to wait until tomorrow. Miss Treacle was nowhere in sight, so she must have retired for the evening.

That night, Charlotte had several dreams. In the first, she stumbled upon some trap door on the grounds behind the castle. She found herself descending an old rickety ladder and falling into a deep dark abyss. In the second dream Charlotte found herself standing in a small enclosed space that smelled of earth and must. Before here, a shriveled looking man with piercing gray eyes was chained to a wall, and straining to say something to her that she couldn’t quite decipher. Suddenly a flash of lightning illuminated the small space, and there stood Miss Treacle smiling wickedly down at the man and pointing towards Charlotte. The man before her suddenly exploded into a pile of dust, and Miss Treacle turned to her and whispered, I love you Emma.  

She woke up with a scream and beads of sweat forming on her brow. Charlotte wiped her forehead with the sleeve of her nightgown and took a deep breath. She shivered. It was storming outside, and a tree branch was scraping against one of the window panes. “It was just a dream,” she whispered to herself, and rolled over into a fetus position to try to coax herself back to sleep. The storm would let up soon, and tomorrow she would go exploring. 

Sunlight brushed her eyelids arousing her from sleep. She woke up cold, and somewhat troubled by her dreams. Charlotte rubbed her eyes and sat up on her elbows going over the events of yesterday in her mind. An uneasy feeling settled over her, despite the beauty of the golden autumn day nestled outside the windows of her extravagant room. Today would not be a day for exploring, but a day to find answers; answers she had been looking for her whole life.

“Good morning madame,” Miss Treacle greeted Charlotte at the bottom of the staircase. For a moment, Charlotte thought she saw a glimpse of the Miss Treacle that appeared in her dreams last night, but quickly shook the memory away and returned the greeting.

“I thought you might like a cup of tea, “ Miss Treacle offered, motioning for Charlotte to follow her into the small kitchen Charlotte had happened upon last night. 

Miss Treacle put a kettle of water over the fire. Her back was to Charlotte as she spoke suddenly, “There’s something I need to show you.”

Charlotte hesitated. The cold wrapped itself around her heart, and it seemed to stop beating for a moment. Something is about to happen, a small voice whispered in her mind.

Miss Treacle led Charlotte out a small humble looking door onto the grounds behind the castle. She stopped about 50 feet away from the kitchen entrance and looked down. There, half hidden in the autumn sunlight and in the mischievous shadows, was a large trap door covered in dirt and rust. Miss Treacle stooped down to open the trap door slowly, and with a creak it succumbed. She led Charlotte down a rickety ladder into a small dark, dank space in the earth. Charlotte’s heart stopped. She could feel her whole body begin to tremble. A match was struck and a candle was lit, lighting up Miss Treacle’s face in an eerie glow that gave her a wicked quality. As the shadows lifted, Charlotte sensed a presence to her left in the corner, and then gasped. An shriveled looking old man with piercing and pleading gray eyes, just like she saw in her dreams last night, was gazing back at her helplessly. He was chained to a contraption in the corner. 

“Emma…”, Miss Treacle began, “Meet the brute whose seed gave you life, and who forced me to give you up for adoption 25 years ago. This is your father.”

“Do you mean to say-Miss..Miss Treacle...Madeline...That you...you are my mother?!”

“Yes my darling. And it was I who locked your father up and forced him to fake his death and write the will to get you to return to Allingham Castle. Today, your father’s sins have been atoned for. See the sadness, the regret and the desperate plea in his eyes Emma? I was his maid, that was the truth. One day, he cornered me in the library and took something precious from me. I gave birth to you 9 months later, and this wicked wicked brute before you valued his reputation over his duty to you as your biological father. I have lived with him all of these years, taking care of his needs and doing my duty, but never have I forgotten what he has done, and what he took away from me when he forced me to put you up for adoption. He threatened to have my family killed if I didn’t, but I vowed to get you back. And now, dear Emma, I have.”

Pearls of water began to form at the corners of Charlotte’s eyes. She was freezing cold, and something was trying to escape her lips, but it seemed stuck in her throat.

“My name is Charlotte,” she said weakly as she crumpled to the ground and began sobbing for the life that was stolen from her so many years ago. 

The old man in the corner groaned. Miss Treacle turned to him and in a sharp tone commanded him to shut up. 

“Come Charlotte. Let us have a cup of tea, and we will talk it over. The kettle is probably whistling by now.” One small solitary tear escaped the corner of her eye as she stooped down to scoop Charlotte up in her arms in a surprising show of compassion.

“I’m going to need something stronger than tea,” Charlotte replied.