The haunted house
patriotism and, above all, prosperity. How (this was carefully insisted
upon) he was not a _direct_ male Ancestor. How the name alone was
enough to show that. How it was his daughter who had brought the
property into the family of Maple—all that, all the regular stuff.
Then, as Aunt Hilda led them back towards the drawing-room, she added:
“And it is that man, you know, who was the father of the Ghost.” Bo and
her lover shot quick glances at each other. Things were going well.
Not till those few weeks ago had John heard of that Ghost: and quite
certain was John that Aunt Hilda had not heard of it either. It had
come in with the Ancestor. But I must confess that the Ghost bred in
her nephew, now that it was taking shape, some admiration for Aunt
Hilda. He did not know she had it in her! And he had to confess that so
long as it remained but a story it did put up the value....
He was astonished at her power of fiction; for she held them all really
interested in their various ways, with the story of the unfortunate boy
who had been beheaded by the first James, and but for whose premature
cutting off—in the fullest sense of that term—his sister would not
have inherited and the Maples would never have possessed the broad
mud-fields and the rather stunted oaks of Rackham.
It seems that the poor lad—he was hardly past his twentieth year—got
mixed up in one of the plots in favour of Mary Stuart, and was
therefore executed in 1613. And now, added Aunt Hilda, lowering her
voice by four and a half notes and a bittock, and glancing at the
jewellery upon her fingers, upon that day of the year people say
that they see him, all in a dark cloak, and in the great ruff of
the day—_but without a head_. “It’s in one of the bedrooms,” she
imprudently volunteered. Then to correct that error she hurriedly
added, “But really it’s great nonsense. Servants’ talk, and the gossip
of the more ignorant old people on the farms. They like that sort of
thing,” she concluded with a short laugh—well knowing that other people
liked the old country house ghost—as a legend—besides servants and old
people on farms; and among those others were affectionate American
business men and new war millionaires.
John Maple wondered whether he would be appealed to in corroboration.
Had she so appealed to him, he would have been torn between his disgust
at her so raising the value of the place to these competing purchasers,
the instinct of treating his aunt with courtesy before her guests, and
the absolute necessity of following Bo’s plan. Luckily she did not risk
it. She was contented to answer the various questions which were put
to her with real interest by Lord Hambourne, who took a professional
interest in such flamboyant lying. He knew enough history to have
spotted the Holbein already and to appreciate that boys do not have
their heads cut off under James I. for plots connected with trying to
save their mothers’ life before they were born.
Lord Hellup was more avid of details, including measurements; he wanted
to know the exact height of the ghost—up to the neck—the exact day
of the year, the exact spot where he appeared, the exact hour of the
night, and all that; but on these, alas! Aunt Hilda could be of no
service.
Amathea, delighted to find an added glory to a possession which she
already half felt to be hers, expressed her historic imagination
without restraint, “Lordy!” she said, and “Help!” and “You make me come
over all creepy like!” and further, “Well now, I don’t know what an’
all!” to the accompaniment of raised hands and of rounded eyes. Her
husband looked as pleased as the fatigue of his recent perambulations
would allow; and pleased he was, for after all, if one was to have an
old family place, one might as well have an old family ghost with it.
Only he was a little anxious about what it would add to the price.
But to John and Bo there came another and a very different thought.
They must get to work.
And get to work they did.
CHAPTER IX
On Sunday mornings Lord and Lady Mere de Beaurivage went to church.
They attended Divine Service. In town it was as often as not the
afternoon (they were hardly of the generation for fasting communion),
but in the country (and people of this exalted rank spend most Sundays
in the country) they received the consolations of religion from eleven
o’clock till close on lunch. They still felt a certain novelty about
the Church of England, for what we begin after our fortieth year always
has a certain novelty about it for the rest of our lives.
As luck would have it, her ladyship was delighted with the parson. He
had a Cockney accent; he preached no mysterious doctrine; he insisted
on the plain duties we owe to our fellow-men, especially the duty of
charity, and more particularly the wickedness of class hatred.
But, as luck would have it, his lordship was not quite so sympathetic.
For one thing, he didn’t like the allusion to antagonism between the
East End of London and the West, for he thought (quite justly) that
that was all rubbish, and he guessed that the parson, in spite of his
honest accent, must have lived somewhere in the middle. There he was
wrong. The parson came from Ealing.
Aunt Hilda was with them, you may be sure. She could go in the best
car and be driven in state, for a lazy morning parked outside God’s
Acre did not incommode the atheist Gaul. That was all to the good,
since a pious driver might have wanted to go to chapel, and Aunt Hilda,
after so many years in Sussex, had learnt how careful one must be of
religious susceptibilities in the Servants’ Hall.
As they purred back to Rackham Catchings from Rackham Church (by the
long way, avoiding Rackham village, yet narrowly missing two Rackham
children who were playing in the road), Hilda and Amathea agreed upon
the excellence of the parson, the former with enthusiasm (for was she
not the seller?) but the latter (being purchaser) with more caution.
For when you are buying and selling parsons, or anything else, it is
indecent for the purchaser to praise too much: at any rate, in the
higher ranks of society. With our peasantry, let me assure you, it is
quite the other way (for I know all about it, having attended many
markets). They have the nobler, immemorial human habit of the market,
still customary (I am told) with the Chinese. The seller is most humble
and deferential about his cow. The purchaser praises it to the skies.
But, when it comes to cash, reality pierces through the mask and they
are even more grasping than the rich.
“He’s a wonderful man, Amathea,” sighed Hilda dreamily. “He might have
had a very great career if he had stopped in London.” (Well, reader,
what are you grumbling about?—Ealing is a part of London, isn’t it?)
“But he said he’d had a sort of a call to come down here. And when I
heard that,” she added simply, “of course I thought it my duty to give
him the living.” (Oh, wicked woman! He had been put in long before she
had had anything to do with it!)
To whom Amathea:
“_Dearest_ Hilda! You always was that good about the church! Yer right,
too! I haven’t often ’eard better preaching. True it was, and straight
from the heart, in a manner of speaking.”
“I often think,” said Aunt Hilda, gazing wistfully at the top left
corner of the roof of the motor, as though a vision might appear there,
“that holiness is the most unmistakable thing on earth. Really that
kind of man is the kind of man of whom I feel” (she sought for the
word), “well, that is the kind of man who might in other days than ours
have worked a miracle.”
“Mayhap he can lay the spook,” said his lordship with a gurgling laugh.
But the suggestion was received in silence by both ladies; so he
pursued it no further, and covered his laugh by choking a little.
* * * * *
While their elders were hearing and discussing the sermon, Bo and
John began the conjuration. Lord Hambourne in his official quality of
University Atheist had stayed at home, and so had Lord Hellup in his
more natural quality of Commercial Sceptic. But the young people were
safe enough, without disappearing. Lord Hellup was deep in Motley, far
off, under the garden window of the hall. Lord Hambourne was prowling
about peering at woodwork and glass and sizing up the Catchings without
shame: standing on a chair to examine the date “1487” on the beam, and
remarking that in Rackham alone out of all Europe dates were stamped on
beams by the carpenters of the fifteenth century, and stamped in modern
figures.
There wasn’t too much time. It was already noon of Sunday, and by the
Monday morning at latest the battle must be won.
“Bo, we’re haunting this house,” said John.
“We are,” said Bo. “We haunt in couples.”
And the delight of her eyes in his presence rejoiced him and lit a
corresponding, less brilliant light in his.
“How are we to begin?” said her lover.
“Listen, Jacko,” she answered. “The ghost has got to clinch his fell
work before to-morrow morning; this evening, no less.”
(I ought to tell you how she was dressed; but I have only the time to
tell you that her skirt was of course a kilt, very short for a kilt,
but a good deal longer than that of Amathea, First Baroness Mere de
Beaurivage.)
“Well, we’ve got to introduce the ghost early,” said John, “but it’s
broad daylight for hours. What’s your plan?”
“Boy,” answered the maiden, “you want your thinking done for you.”
He nodded.
“You are approved,” Bo answered to that nod. “That’s how the Secretary
writes from the Cabinet to our Ambassador—my Ambassador, but not Pop’s
any longer, ’cause he’s naturalised—you are approved. First now, can’t
you rattle folk by daylight?”
“More than they want,” he said, “much more than they can bear, Bo.”
“’Tisn’t ‘they,’” said Bo, “it’s him. The aged Bruvvish. Pop wouldn’t
stand for it. He’s unknown to fear, is my Lord Hellup. He’s as brave as
the lion-tamer’s wife. There are few ghosts on Manhattan Island, Jacko.
It’s the other one you’re for, and that’ll spoil Aunt Hilda’s market.
Badly. D’ye get me? I’ll fix Pop. He shan’t bid. He shall chorus the
apparition.”
“You’re not going to tell him our plan?” said John in alarm.
“Nope; ’cause you’ve got to come a surprise on him as the Demon Buyer.
You’ve got to make good. He’ll be just interested and that’ll help roll
the ghost along.”
“You don’t want me to rattle a chain in the passages?”
“Better’n that,” said Bo. “You begin right away. First chance you have.
Voices, John. Get him to hear voices.”
“Yes,” said John thoughtfully, “that was the basis, wasn’t it? I’m a
ventriloquist—and a good one.”
“Oh! Jacko! It’ll hum! He’s going to hear voices. They’ll be subdued,
you know, ’cause they’re from the Other World. He’s going to hear ’em
this very day to get a move on him. Take him off and try him. Then he’s
going to hear them before he goes to bed this very night. And then....”
At the prospect thus opening illimitably before her this happy child,
glorying in youth, to which all such jests are but too welcome, clasped
her hands in ecstacy.
“Then, we’ll dress you up for the part and——”
But as she spoke the noise of the motor at the door interrupted her,
the Church party came in, Lord Hellup arose from Motley, Lord Hambourne
abandoned his examination of antiques, and the conspirators were halted.
“More at lunch,” Bo whispered hurriedly. “Now you help Lord Mere off
with that coat,” she said loudly, and then added, for John’s advantage,
“and act the Judas.”
When they had all swarmed into the dining-room for luncheon, though
they were only seven they managed to make what Lord Hambourne called