The Bells by Jennie Hart

credit: Jennie Hart

To begin with, I felt a little uneasy at Number Fifteen, our new home, an eighteenth-century Georgian house. There are even older beams from the reign of Charles 1 in the loft supporting the roof. It is a rambling sort of house on four floors, with uneven walls and undulating ceilings, a perfect setting for a ghostly occurrence..   

    My childhood home in East Yorkshire, was of a similar age, and my father’s conviction it was haunted, has given me a life-long fear of the supernatural. My great Aunt Susie, who lived there before us, believed a ghostly figure of an old woman once passed her on the stairs. That house was a cottage, with our grocery shop facing the street and a living area behind. We had a sitting room upstairs where my father spent time relaxing and it was here that he claimed a ghost resided. I believed it must be the same one that Aunt Susie had seen on the stairs. As a child, I would always run past the doorway.

    After I left home and a few days after mum died, dad said mum returned to comfort him. He was listening to music in the upstairs sitting room when he heard soft footsteps on the wooden stairs. My mother came through the door and dad said she walked slowly and came very close. With a gentle smile and her eyes bright and glowing, she said,

     ’Peter, it was nothing, it was nothing’.

Then she was gone.

Years later, dad had an out-of-body experience. After unwisely downing his daily medication with a tumbler of whisky, (also his daily medication!), he recalled his body losing strength as he swirled down a vortex towards a tiny pin-hole of light. He returned to consciousness after a voice spoke to him saying, ‘Peter, we are not ready for you yet’. He truly believed in these experiences and convinced me they were true.

  Our Bridgnorth house became more homely once our familiar furniture was in place and the existing elaborate wallpaper concealed by shades of white. I never knew white existed in so many forms; Linnet White, Ochre White, Orchid White, Almond White. And there were more!

   Our new neighbour loaned us a student’s dissertation, a study of our street, and we learned of some past occupants of Number Fifteen. In seventeen sixty-five, two spinsters, Hannah and Catherine Poyner lived here and there was a fascinating inventory of their possessions. It was thought to have been drawn-up in aid of their brother John Poyner who was a bankrupt. Objects of pewter, iron and brass are listed, along with twenty-three pairs of sheets, fifty napkins and ninety-three ‘coarse towells’. It also indicates the presence of a brew-house in the basement, which disappointingly, is no longer here!

  Despite our home comforts, our house has an unaccountable atmosphere. The wooden floors on the first and second floor disconcertingly creak and groan, and on windy nights a climbing rose at the front, sometimes lashes against the bathroom window, imploring to be invited in.

  We came to live at Number Fifteen in March 2015 and it was in the autumn that we had three disturbing experiences. One early morning at precisely five thirty am, I was awoken by a bell. I rushed out of bed and discovered it was the door-bell. It is an electric bell and it’s ringing mechanism is housed in a junction box over our bedroom door on the first floor. By the time I reached the front door, the ringing had stopped and there was no sign of anyone. John slept through the row, and when I told him later, he suggested the wind may have set it off. It had been a windy night.

  A few days later, at exactly five thirty am, the bell rang again and this time we both shot out of bed, crashing into each other as it was not yet light. I went to the bathroom window and John to the front door. Again, by the time we got there, the ringing had stopped and there was no one there.

  It made us both feel a little jittery, living in this beautiful but very aged house where many must have died. For the next few days, if I woke in the night, I was scared to get out of bed in case I saw something unearthly. John took it more calmly but decided to disconnect the electric source from the doorbell to prevent any re-occurrence.   

  Imagine then our fright when a few days later, the bell rang again. We both tore over to the landing to find this time, the doorbell was silent but a bell was still ringing. We hurtled downstairs to the dining room and found our Victorian clock sounding its alarm at a tone and pitch indistinguishable from the doorbell. The clock was ticking away as it rang. It was five thirty am!  Neither John nor I had ever wound up the clock alarm and had never heard it before. The alarm was also switched off. It had belonged to my father who, as I have described, had a passionate belief in the supernatural.

  I didn’t want to believe there had been visitations but I was quite frightened and searched on the internet for rational reasons.

   I read that random vibrations can cause wires to touch and simulate pushing the button.

   Moisture build-up or corrosion can cause short circuits which may activate the bell.

  These are possible reasons for the doorbell sounding but I can find no explanation for our Victorian clock!

  It was very terrifying that it chose to ring at all, but even more disturbing that it chose to ring at 5.30am.

  So was it a haunting?  In some cultures I read; hearing a ringing bell without anyone causing it, may be a benign phantom trying to communicate.

  I found no explanation for two ringing bells.

  Was it simply a curious ghost? And is it still here?