History Literature / TheSecretOfCrickleyHall

* AgentScully: [[DownPlayedTrope Downplayed]]; while Gabe clings to increasingly implausible mundane explanations for the unaccountable noises, he admits Crickley Hall's undeniably oppressive ambien. He eventually, [[spoiler: with everyone else, sees the ghosts]].

Almost a year following the disappearance of five-year-old son Cam, Gabe and Eve Caleigh, both for Gabe's new engineering commission and a much-needed change of scene, take twelve-year-old Loren, five-year-old Cally and dog Chester to semi-stately Crickley Hall, just outside the Devonshire village of Hollow Bay.

Save for unaccountable floor puddles, [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight perplexing noises]], occasionally glimpsed "[[SupernaturalLight white shadows]]" and the house's brooding ambience, the Caleighs comfortably adjust to village life. On discovery of old-fashioned children’s toys locked away in the attic, kindly old caretaker Percy Judd recalls [[BlitzEvacuees wartime evacuees]] billeted to the house, before apparently drowning in the great flood of 1943, to have suffered under the brutal discipline of brother and sister Augustus and Magda Cribben. A semi-conscious encounter with a familiar-seeming indistinct child-like figure persuades Eve that Cam may still be alive and trying to psychically contact her. Desperate for confirmation thereof, she approaches traumatised local psychic Lili Peel, who fears a malign presence to lurk within the house...

* {{Legend}}: Landlord Sam Pennelly, with playfully affected solemnity, says Devil's Cleave to have been named for [[{{Satan}} the Devil]]'s having bitten into the land. With teeth worn to the gums, he's said to have vowed revenge...

Save for unaccountable floor puddles, [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight perplexing noises]], occasionally glimpsed "[[SupernaturalLight white shadows]]" and the house's brooding ambience, the Caleighs comfortably adjust to village life. On discovery of old-fashioned children’s toys locked away in the attic, kindly old caretaker Percy Judd recounts [[BlitzEvacuees wartime evacuees]] billeted to the house, before apparently drowning in the great flood of 1943, suffered under the brutal discipline of brother and sister Augustus and Magda Cribben. A semi-conscious encounter with a familiar-seeming indistinct child-like figure persuades Eve that Cam may still be alive and trying to psychically contact her. Desperate for confirmation thereof, she approaches traumatised local psychic Lili Peel, who fears a malign presence to lurk within the house...

Almost a year following the disappearance of five-year-old son Cam, Gabe and Eve Caleigh, for Gabe's new engineering commission and a much-needed change of scene, take twelve-year-old Loren, five-year-old Cally and dog Chester to semi-stately Crickley Hall, just outside the Devonshire village of Hollow Bay.

Almost a year following the disappearance of five-year-old son Cam, Gabe and Eve Caleigh take twelve-year-old Loren, five-year-old Cally and dog Chester, to semi-stately Crickley Hall, just outside the Devonshire village of Hollow Bay; both for Gabe's new engineering commission and a much-needed change of scene.

* AgentScully: [[DownPlayedTrope Downplayed]]; while Gabe clings to increasingly implausible mundane explanations for the unaccountable noises, he admits the undeniably oppressive ambience of Crickley Hall, and eventually, [[spoiler: with everyone else, sees the ghosts]].

** Stated by Lili Peel to happen to departed spirits. Aged seven, she befriended Agnes, an unaccountably arrived girl in Victorian attire. The confused child, on being told of Heaven, grew increasingly transparent, and announced her summons, as though from another room, to somewhere inscrutable. On bidding her friend a fond farewell, Agnes [[spoiler: faded to an orb of light, merged with another arrived seamlessly through the door, and vanished]].

* HowlOfSorrow: On Cam's disappearance, Chester howls for three nights.

* {{Legend}}: Barnaby landlord Sam Pennelly, with playfully affected solemnity, says Devil's Cleave to have been named for [[{{Satan}} the Devil]]'s having bitten into the land. With teeth worn to the gums, he's said to have vowed revenge...

* AdultFear: The Caleighs are grief-stricken over the unexplained disappearance of Cam, their five-year-old son. [[spoiler: His body is eventually found.]]

* BrokenBird: Entreated by a distraught Eve to help psychically contact her missing son, Lili Peel, traumatised by an episode with a malign ethereal entity, forces a brusque aloofness.

Almost a year following the disappearance of five-year-old son Cam, Gabe and Eve Caleigh take twelve-year-old Loren, five-year-old Cally and dog Chester, to semi-stately Crickley Hall, just outside the Devonshire village of Hollow Bay; both for Gabe's new engineering commission and a much-needed change of scene. Save for unaccountable floor puddles, [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight perplexing noises]], occasionally glimpsed "[[SupernaturalLight white shadows]]" and the house's brooding ambience, the Caleighs comfortably adjust to village life. On discovery of old-fashioned children’s toys locked away in the attic, kindly old caretaker Percy Judd recounts [[BlitzEvacuees wartime evacuees]] billeted to the house, before apparently drowning in the great flood of 1943, suffered under the brutal discipline of brother and sister Augustus and Magda Cribben. A semi-conscious encounter with a familiar-seeming indistinct child-like figure persuades Eve that Cam may still be alive and trying to psychically contact her. Desperate for confirmation thereof, she approaches traumatised local psychic Lili Peel, who fears a malign presence to lurk within the house...

* TheSociopath: Possibly Maurice. At thirteen, for favour of the Cribbens, he turns in for brutal punishment the other orphans, and helps Magda [[spoiler: murder Nancy]]. Throughout adulthood, he blithely exploits others for the sadistic sexual pleasures honed in him by Augustus, whose [[VengefulGhost posthumous pursuit]] he aims to evade by [[spoiler: trying to kill one last child of Crickley Hall]].

* BigFancyHouse: Before tree lined gorge Devil's Cleave stands Crickley Hall. Not quite big enough to be a manor, its outward aesthetic is grimly functional. While the storey-spanning hallway is impressively large, the house has a sternly dour feel.

* KnightTemplar: In 1943, Augustus and Magda Cribben piously take responsibility to mould the evacuees in their care into "proper young persons" - the slightest misdemeanour, if that, incurs severe physical brutality. On the night of 1943's great storm, [[spoiler: a migraine-crazed Cribben, to purge them of their supposed wickedness, murders ten of the evacuees]].

** The ghosts of Crickley Hall appear as pale, misty silhouettes; tiny points of light, corporeal outlines in sunlit dust, a dark silhouette, a corporeal apparition which intermittently fades to transparency, corporeal apparitions, and [[spoiler: finally, brilliant orbs of light]].

** [[spoiler: Sociopathic Gordon Pike]], having dragged [[spoiler Loren]] down to the cellar with intent to [[spoiler: drown her in the well]], is, by sudden appearance by [[spoiler: the spectral corpse of Nancy Linnet, whom he helped Magda murder]], frightened to a point where [[spoiler: he falls to a watery grave]].

* FunHatingConfiscatingAdult: In 1943, a charity supplies the evacuees with a stock of toys. The Cribbens have them locked away in a storeroom - although, when the Reverend Rossbridger callsround for tea, allow the kids to play with the spinning top.

* BeliefMakesYouStupid: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Faced with irrefutable indication of ethereal presences in the house, Eve's receptivity to the actuality ghosts is reasonable. The good authority of reputable psychic Lili Peel [[spoiler: attests the deceased Cam to be in a place of peace. The bereaved Eve's trust in this is depicted as very reasonable]].