The Haunted House

by Hilaire Belloc

  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 in his literary productions “a buzz of conversation,” wherein appeared regularly, like the cry of a tame duck, his own “Quate! quate!” as he sat next to Amathea. And now and then “Lor!” from her ladyship. He was explaining to her the three main theories of apparitions: “Illusions” and the two “Phantasms,” i.e, “Phantasms of the dead.” as distinguished from “Phantasms of the living,” or P.D., and P.L. as (he assured her) they were called among the experts of psychology. He told her about Meyer’s theory, Lombroso’s experiments and Julia; also Lodge. He had the cunning of his kind, and knew that an academic reputation is built by repeating the very little one has read to the completely ignorant.

  Lord Hellup had been masterfully captured to sit by the side of the handsome Hilda, and he was telling her how sure he did love an old English house, and how it just got him where he wanted it. The handsome Hilda was putting into her voice such inflections as she felt suitable to the occasion.

  But John Maple—John Maple was occupied by greater things—one of which was Bo.

  The further conference of those young people needed secrecy, but that was not so difficult to attain at a babbling table as one might think, for Bo and John were covered by the direct syncopated speech of Lord Hellup and the loud, often stammering, always quacking spate of the don, as also by the comments, not restrained in tone, big, hearty, of Amathea, First Baroness Mere de Beaurivage (you may blame me for calling her First Baroness Mere de Beaurivage if you like, but I pass the buck to her—it is her own expression).

  However, they had to wait, for hardly had J
ohn got as far as the first few questions when Amathea gave over Lord Hellup to her hostess and captured John.

  It was not till she had ceased her description of the opening of Parliament, which had ended by her nudging John Maple jocosely in the ribs to reward him for a mild jest, and swung round again as on a large swivel to talk to Lord Hellup, that John was free to turn again to Isabeau and renew the interrupted crime.

  “Am I talking too loud?” he said, though he might have concocted with her a plot to murder his sovereign for all that the eager conversationalists on either flank would have known of it.

  “No, Jacko,” she answered. “They’re bawling and deaf to the world.”

  “I’ll wrap it up, all the same,” he said. “Follow close.”

  And then continued pleasantly, not too emphatically, in this singular fashion:

  “It’s astonishing how much later we are in Sussex than in town. Did you notice that? I mean, have you noticed the state of the woods compared with any square in London? Or the parks? Do you think you could get hold of a large piece of black cloth after dinner and pleat it so as to make a sort of cloak? And it’s all nonsense about hearing the nightingale before the cuckoo. Like that ass said the other day in ‘Nature Notes.’”

  His partner answered with simplicity:

  “I never can get these English birds. I used to think the nightingale said ‘nightingale,’ just like the cuckoo says ‘cuckoo.’ Yes, I did. I’ve got exactly what you want. It’s a cloak of my own. You’ve got black trousers, and you can keep black socks. Only no clocks, you know.”

  At this moment Lord Hellup interrupted to ask across the table:

  “Jacko, what do you say about it?”

  This was the third time the peer had called her nephew Jacko in her hearing and Aunt Hilda was impressed.

  “About what?” said John cheerfully.

  “Your aunt says that the only difference between making farming pay and losing on it is the amount of trouble you take.”

  He shook his head.

  “We have neither of us farmed,” he said. Then he resumed, to Bo:

  “It’s true, though. You can make it pay, I believe. We’ve got a neighbour here who makes it pay by asking whether, if I got hold of some white paper, you could make it into a ruff for me? That’s all that’s wanted. Making farming pay. We’d stick it on the top of the cloak. That, and looking carefully after things and not going too much up to London, and I’m sure anyone could make it pay. I could wear the whole damn contraption on top of my head, and you would sew the ruff on top of the neck. Then, as I am sure, thank God …”

  “Thank God!” answered Bo gently.

  “Bo,” interrupted her father again, “here’s Hilda Maple saying we make farming pay in America.”

  “Don’t you believe it, Hilda,” said the young woman, using the Christian name for elders, after the modern fashion. “From the tallest tower of my father’s castle beyond the seas as far as the eye can reach over our broad lands there is not a hovel but what is derelict.”

  She resumed rapidly to John:

  “What about him?” and nodded towards Corton, who was solemnly pouring out the better wine for Lord Hambourne, whom he pitied for a gentleman, and poor.

  “I can believe that,” said John to her emphatically. “Any amount of derelict farms in New England too. I’m going to see him after lunch. And when I’ve seen him we three will arrange to meet, because you can’t really make farming pay on old land. That’s the reason.”

  For ten minutes the plot was interrupted by the next artificial turn between Amathea and John, which was played upon this occasion to the tune of the beauty of the English climate and ended with a second nudge to reward a second jest before the swivel turned to the left again after the stern law of the tables of the rich.

  Then the two young people clinched the thing.

  “Aunt Hilda has made a wonderful success of the place,” he said. And he caught his aunt’s eye as he said it. “And I must show you the new rock garden to-morrow. She put Alpine flowers in it, and a special sort that they thought could not grow in England, and it’s doing wonderfully. I’ll take him out there after lunch and haunt him. Then, when he’s back, we could have a game of billiards, fifty up. Anything up. Then I’ll bring Corton round, to you there. But you can make almost anything grow in England, in the south at least, here in Sussex, if you take trouble. Then we will conspire, my dear, it won’t take long.”

  “Take him out—soon—and haunt him,” whispered Bo, as they got up. She was burning to begin.

  So was John. But he had to restrain himself for an hour. His aged guest was in the habit of sleeping after the midday meal of a Sunday—he had done so in the days when Sunday was his one day of rest and he did so still. He chose a deep chair apart in the Library and there grunted and snored at peace till half-past three. His host watched and waited. As he came out, still heavy with sleep, and cramming into his pocket the large coloured handkerchief with which he had covered his head in slumber, John met him and took him prisoner, told him they might walk out gently for a while, as the day was still and pleasant. He led the way to the hall, put on his victim’s coat with tender care and opened the door into the garden.

  With the kindest touch in the world he slid his hand and forearm into the elbow of Lord Mere de Beaurivage, leading him out into the garden with all the affection of a relative. It is a vulgar, familiar gesture which he would have sickened to make had not stern duty prescribed it. He must obey Bo.

  As for his captive, that elderly peer was actually flattered. True, John Maple was a commoner; but then he was a sort of squire, and as Amathea wanted the place so badly, and as John Maple was a kind of heir (the Baron did not know the exact position—perhaps there was an entail, or something: he didn’t understand these things) it was as well to be friends.

  John Maple led out through the damnable rhododendrons and across the accursed rock garden to where Aunt Hilda had arranged a little fountain with a leaden Cupid in the middle holding a duck which squirted a fountain of water from its bill.

  “I’d as lief’ave a rest, Mr. Miple,” said the elder man, “quite a short walk puffs me.”

  There was a bench, and they sat down.

  The plashing of the water was the only sound. It was still all about. John Maple remembered how all this bit had looked in his childhood, not garden but wild undergrowth; how he had cut a fork for a catapult from a hazel here; and how once on the edge of that scrub, being all alone, he had looked wide-eyed at a fox lurching by with a sly smile showing its sharp teeth on its face.

  He saw the old rough again clearly in his mind. It hardened him to his duty. He must sweep away all that horror of Alpine garden and rhododendrons and fountain, and replant the wild. But to do that he must achieve. And to achieve he must move Acheron and the Nether World.

  “It’s very quiet, Lord Mere,” he began, “especially after London.” He thought with justice that this gambit would suit the mind of his guest. And his guest replied that he couldn’t a-bear London, except o’ course for meeting one’s friends; but there, country friends and country ways were the best.

  “It’s in the quiet of Rackham,” said John, after a little calculated pause, “that I remember my childhood.” He was violating sacred things, but he had his duty to do. “I was a nervous child,” he went on. “They always had to leave a light in my room. And my dear old nurse would sit awake for hours with the door open of her room down the passage. She nevet allowed them to frighten me with the story, you know.”

  “What story?” said Lord Mere, in whose solid mind there were two very clear categories—nonsense in books and things as reelly did ’appen.

  “Oh,” went on John hurriedly, and as though to get over something unpleasant as quickly as possible, “the story of the ghost, you know.… She believed it—dear old thing. She would have thought it impious not to believe in spirits. And on the top of that there was the feeling she had for the family. But she loved me more, a
nd she would never let me hear of it. But I couldn’t help hearing of it. There was a foolish maid who spoke once … and terrified me. And I heard the groom complaining to my father about the terror of the horses on a certain night.”

  “What’s that about the ’orses?” asked Lord Mere nervously, and with the beginning of an ill-ease in his heart.

  “Well, you know,” said John, “animals are supposed to see these things from the other world sometimes, when we can’t. It’s no wonder I was terrified by the story as a child. I used to dream of it. And once, you know—well, of course, it’s all nonsense. But children are the prey of such things.… Once I did think I saw it—just at that season of the year … this season … standing quite clearly in the firelight. I hadn’t been well, and I think that’s the reason they had put me in the old room with the big bed, over the drawing-room. So that nurse could be next door. I had been asleep, and in the middle of a terrible nightmare. I can’t remember the nightmare, except some confused impression of violence and,” he sank his head, “a child couldn’t know the name for it … but it was the shadow of Death.… I remember that panic acutely still. I was only ten—I woke up, suddenly—broad awake. I sat up in the bed trembling—and, oh, Lord Mere” (and here John looked at the old man’s face and saw it beginning to stare, the head drawn back a little), “it was an agony I shall never quite forget.… It was an illusion, I know. But …”

  “Course it was, boy. Course it was, Mr. Miple, I mean.” He wheezed into an uncomfortable laugh. “Yer know that as well as I does!”

  “Yes, Lord Mere,” said John thoughtfully, “I suppose I know it now. One grows out of these things. But it was abominably real then.… I don’t know why, but this time of year it still comes back to me.… Association, I suppose.”