Room 411

It was a warm night so we had decided to leave the balcony doors open.

   From the river came the sound of wings of a swan or a Canadian goose slapping the water. They may have been trying to take off. There might have been a territorial dispute or, whatever it was, was fighting the fight of its life to evade being predated by some under water monster.

   I got up and looked across the water which was wrinkled by a breeze and splintered by reflections of light from the streetlights on the bridge and from lights left on in buildings on the opposite bank. All was silent again and a couple of ghostly shapes of swans glided by effortlessly. Above the trees the crescent of the new moon hung in suspension in the darkness. Above the moon Jupiter shone clearly against the inky blue black of the sky far above the glow from nearby Slough.

   My eyes had become well adjusted to urban darkness. They were distracted by a sudden movement along the riverside terrace of the Thames Riviera Hotel. I blinked and the movement had gone further along the terrace. It looked like a full length coat was bustling towards the original part of the hotel.

   The hotel was built in the late 19th century at a time when the riverside of Maidenhead had developed a reputation as a centre for what could best be described as rather loose and louche behaviour.

   To build the hotel an old manor house dating back to the 16th century had been demolished. The stories surrounding the old house are that it was used as a family home for the same family from when it was built until just before it was demolished. Every generation of the Taplow family had been blighted, some would say cursed, by at least one trauma or disaster. The saddest and most heartbreaking of tragedies happened on 31st October 1771.

   Since the 13th century there had been a wooden bridge across the river that was part of the Bath Road between London and Bath. Over time the bridge had become increasingly fragile but with constant repairs had remained serviceable. The early winter of 1771 had been especially wet causing the river to burst its banks along the length of the valley.  What chance did a fragile wooden bridge have against the destructive power coming from the full force of a rampant Old Father Thames? The bridge was swept away as if the planks of wood were just matchsticks.

   Lord Taplow had finished his business in London and was returning to Maidenhead by coach. His wife was heavily pregnant and the baby was due any day so he did not want to be away from home under any circumstances to miss the baby’s arrival. He was so desperate for a son and heir. If he hadn’t felt that pain he would probably have stayed in London and not have travelled back to Maidenhead until the storm had subsided. His journey home was delayed by damage to the countryside the storm was wreaking. Fallen trees, floods on the road where normally there would have been a shallow ford that the horses and the coach could have cantered through all conspired to hold him up.

   When he reached the river at Maidenhead it was dark, he could hear its raging torrent, the likes of which he had never heard before. He was told that the bridge had been washed away an hour ago. That about the time, if his coach had been on time, that he would have been on it and nearly home. Any thoughts of his good fortune were overridden by his desire to get home. From where he was standing he could see lit candles in the windows of his home on the ground floor. He even saw the silhouette of his wife as she walked across one of the windows.

   He could see her but couldn’t speak to her. He tried calling her but his voice was silenced by the storm and the river’s torrent. So near and yet so far. He had to find a way to cross the river and get home.

   Near the bridge was a boatyard. He banged on the door. The boatbuilder came to the door. He, like everyone else in the area, knew Lord Taplow and knew he was a good man and would do anything for him and his family. Lord Taplow asked imploringly if somehow the boat builder could ferry him across to the other bank immediately. He held five sovereigns in his open hand that glinted in the light from inside the cottage.

   The boatbuilder told Lord Taplow that there was no way, even with the incentive of five guineas, that he would consider crossing the river in its angry state in the dark but that he would be willing to try tomorrow.

   Lord Taplow went to the nearby inn where he spent the night.

   The next morning was clear and bright. The Thames still looked menacing. Lord Taplow went to see the boatbuilder and they worked out a way to cross the river in a boat. They were going to get a rope across from their side to the other, secure it, attach a boat to it and pull themselves across the river. It was a method Lord Taplow had seen used to great effect to cross a river during the Montreal Campaign when he served as captain under the command of James Murray.

    A short way upstream from the boat yard was a small island which someone had got stuck on when the river levels rose. Locals had already made sure that they had food which was ferried across in baskets on a rope from the further shore. All Lord Taplow and the boatbuilder had to do was get a rope across to the island which could then be stretched from there across to the far shore. That additional rope could then be secured on both shores and they could get across.

   Someone had already let Lady Taplow know her husband was on the other side of the river and that he was going to get across as soon as he could. She joined everyone on the shore ready to watch. She saw her husband and waved. He waved back. Everyone could see the love that radiated between them.

   The rope was in place and the boat with the boatbuilder and Lord Taplow started to work its way across the river. Just feet from the shore everyone was getting excited including Lady Taplow, as it looked his lordship would be with his wife in just a few minutes. They were all so excited that no one saw it.

   A large oak tree that had been wrenched from the riverbank further upstream was barrelling downstream. The boat with the two men who were frantically pulling it across those last agonisingly few feet were in its destructive and merciless path. The trees bare branches snagged the small boat and the men. The branches were like the voracious tentacles of an octopus. The boat, still attached to the rope, was tumbled over. The two men were tipped into the river. They flailed with their arms calling for help from within what the upper branches of the tree’s canopy were once as it rushed off downstream. Their boat was reduced to splinters and chards of wood.

   Lady Taplow ran beside them from the shore as best she could in her condition. Waving her arms and screaming at the top of her voice. It was as if both actions could through some magical power overcome the physicality of the disaster she could see being washed down stream. While she was running near the water’s edge she slipped partly into the water. She tried to save herself but couldn’t get a grip on anything firm enough to hold her. The water started soaking her heavy dark cloak making it so heavy there was only one way for her to go. Her screams of panic, distress and for help died before she had disappeared.

   There was nothing the onlookers could do for the boatbuilder, Lord Taplow, Lady Taplow and her baby. It was another dark day in the Taplow family’s history.

   There is a legend around the town that Lady Taplow can often be seen back and forth along the riverbank near the hotel in the darkness of the night. She is said to wearing a full length dark coat moving silently and swiftly while looking for Lord Taplow.

   No. A thousand times no.

   All I saw at three that morning from the balcony of Room 411 was the wind catching the canvas of the furled umbrellas on the terrace and the decking of the hotel.  

   Do you believe in ghosts?