"Spirits Of The Age" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

'Some of it's hearsay but some of it's documented, too, at Windsor, and in the library in Delhi. Personally, I think that Abdul Karim was doing nothing more than trying to console the Queen ... spinning her a bit of a mystic yarn, like, to help her recover from Albert's death. But he performed a Hindu ritual which would ensure that the Queen's spirit would reappear at the turn of the next century.

'He actually left a letter attached to his will which required his executors and their assigns to resurrect Albert's body from the Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore as soon as it was scientifically possible, and to inform him that the Queen's spirit would be waiting for him on the anniversary of his death, at Osborne House, which is where they were happiest.'

'Why didn't he leave instructions for her body to be resurrected, too?'

'She wanted Albert to supervise her revival personally. After all, she was the Queen, Empress of India, and Albert was the only man she trusted to ensure that all went well. She didn't know how she was going to die, you see ... and she might have been taken by an illness that wasn't yet curable in the year 2000. In that case, she said, it would be enough to know that he had returned to life and vigor, and that she could remain as a shade at Osborne House to watch him fulfill his destiny.'

Roger Frost handed the book over. 'Unfortunately, as we all know, we still can't bring dead people back to life, no matter what they've died of, and no matter how much we used to love them. And I'm not saying that I don't believe in ghosts, but nobody's ever seen the ghost of Queen Victoria, have they?'

'I have,' said Michael.

'I beg your pardon?'

'There is a ghost of Queen Victoria. I saw her last night. I talked to her, for God's sake. How do you think I knew about Abdul Karim?'

Roger Frost looked at Michael for a while with his lips pursed. Then he said, 'It's all right. You can have the book for a fiver if you want to.'

'I saw her. She was crying in her bedroom. Then I met her in the children's summerhouse.'

There was a very long pause, and then Roger Frost said, 'You're serious, aren't you?'


It was eight o'clock, and dark. They stood together in Albert's writing-room, listening to the grief-stricken sobbing coming from the Queen's sitting-room next door.

'Do you want to see her?' asked Michael.

'I don't know,' said Roger Frost. 'I don't really think I do.'

Michael went to the door and eased it open three or four inches. He could see the small black figure sitting at the writing-desk, her head bowed. He beckoned Roger Frost, and after some hesitation, Roger Frost came to join him.

'Jesus,' he said.


Michael said, 'There's only one thing I can think of.'

'What's that?' said Roger Frost, wiping his mouth and putting down his pint. They were sitting in the Old Anchor in West Cowes, a noisy, smoky bar full of yachtsmen.

'Well, we can't just let her wander around Osborne forever, can we? I mean, Albert's never going to come back, which means that she's going to spend the rest of eternity grieving for him. We've got to find a way to put her to rest.'

'Loads of ghosts do that, what's different about her? Just because she's royalty.'

'I can't let her do it, that's all. I can't let her suffer like that.'

'So what do you propose? Get in a priest, and have an exorcism?'

Michael shook his head. 'I read your book last night. In the appendix, you've set out the Hindu ritual that Abdul Karim used to bring her spirit back.'

'That's right. That was in some of his papers. I had it translated. Thought it was cobblers, when I first read it.'