GHOST IN FRANCON DOMAIN : # SUPERNATURAL WRITING CONTEST

In the early 2000s, I started a new job as a restaurant waitress.
The place is beautiful, located in Biarritz seaside resort of southwestern France,
the estate of Françon is a large English manor house.

It dates from the late nineteenth century, built by a wealthy Englishman John Pennington and anne his wife
who made a fortune in spinning mills.
The rooms are extaordinaire! The staircase of the entrance is monumental.
Everything is built of precious wood.
I had never worked in such a place.
Around the entrance, the huge dining room, it served as a reception room
and a ball for the Lord and his wife, Empress Sissi stayed there!
We feel as soon as we enter his walls that they are full of stories ...
The billiard room where I served the aperitifs every night has a fireplace that served as a counter game,
there are only 3 or 4 in the world of this time!
There is the unique Peacock Room. Frescoes on all walls and ceiling
from this huge bird, with ebony black wooden wall stockings with exotic flowers.
Peacock feathers have a bad reputation in a house (it is said that this blue eyes is that of the devil)!
That summer it was very hot .
No air conditioning, the building is classified as a historical monument.
I love this smell of wax that we spent on antique furniture and floor inlaid.
Jocelyne our head of the room made me visit the estate.

(I leave you the pleasure to look at the photos to put you in the mood on google: castle of Françon)

The first floor was the Penningtons apartments and their children,
now they are rooms for vacationers in summer and spring for groups of retirees from all over France.
The last floor was that of the servants.
Some rooms are still available to seasonal workers.
The atmosphere here is dismal, oppressive, nothing to do with the luxury of the main rooms.
She tells me that some people have felt an uncomfortable presence here and never stay long.
I do not know her enough, so I'll wait until later to explain to her that I too
in my apartment in old Biarritz it happened to me ...

It was an evening, we were with friends talking,
I felt a presence among us but this one benevolent.
As part of the guests was leaving, Axel a friend said to me:
"He does not miss someone?"
And we were two to answer at the same time as no "our invisible guest" had already left in the evening!
Yet I was not drunk because I do not drink and we were many to have felt this presence.
What was it? Mystery !!

Back to work, the days pass quietly.
When after a lunch service, we reinstall the tables for the evening with the cutlery
and we close the double-turn key gates.
Returning in the evening, we realize that all the cutlery has disappeared!
Strange...
I ask Jocelyne if anyone else has the key and she says "no!"
She tells me that this is not the first time it has happened.
Once a waitress was setting the tables, when a drink went off alone to get stuck at his feet!
She never came back. The poor frightened!
One evening during the service I take care of storing in the office,
when a black shadow passed close to the corridor without looking at me.

Ghosts do not scare me, it was not the first time I saw them.
When I lived in Paris in an old apartment, the experience had already happened to me.
I shared with a friend.
I slept in the main room and I heard scratching and kicking behind the old fireplace.
The next day my friend asks me if I came waking her in the night by putting her hand on her shoulder.
"No it was not me !!"
I tried to explain to him, but there are people who are hermetic to this kind of thing.
What I know is that you should not disturb them, good or bad,
if left alone, the ghosts will not hurt us.

Let's go back to Biarritz, a friend explained to me that on this subject in high school one day, some young people had a session of spiritualism
who went wrong, someone was disfigured!
The room was walled after this tragedy.
My God ! as I say every thing is in its place better leave them alone.
Back to the castle, it is always a pleasure to work in this place.
The park is huge, with this sweltering heat we bathe every day at our break in the pool.
In the evening, when night fell, hundreds of big toads with red eyes invaded the lawns!
Vision suréaliste !!
Many waiters were frantic, I felt like I was in a fantastic movie!

Arrived this famous evening !!
The service was over, the whole team gathered at the bar in the billiard room to relax.
I reiterate that I do not drink that juice !!
I was placed so that I saw the access on the grand staircase of the entrance which rose to the rooms.
And there! I saw a vision at the beginning blurry of a white dress climbing the steps,
in the basement she turned around and I saw her sweet face and her elegant headdress!
I stayed speechless, staring at the stairs,
when Jocelyne asked me what I saw.
I told her now that we knew each other well and she had seen him at the same time as me !!
She has seen it many times in all the years that elel worked here,
and that it would be Anne-Catherine Pennington who was the mistress of the place at the construction of the castle,
and who made royal receptions there.
I explained to him also for the dark shadow I had seen days before:
"surely employees who were fired or where a drama in coulice that we do not know"
she told me.
I was therefore certain that I was not crazy and that all that was beautiful and good,
because often when we tell this kind of story can people believe us.
The domain was also requisitioned by the Germans during the Second World War,
perhaps it has happened this time that we do not know.

I had to leave this place that I loved to go back to Paris for personal reasons,
but I always thought about it, so I did research on the internet and I found this portarit of Anne !!!
It was the woman I saw mounted in this staircase!
May she rest in peace ....

You can see his portrait on this site: http://expressionsdici.com/crbst_41.html

(P.S .: I still have my work contract to prove my passage in this fabulous place)

Thanks to @jerrybanfield for this #Supernatural writing contest and @gmichelbkk!

Follow me to discover all the secrets of my garden: @archeothot