The Haunted House

by Hilaire Belloc

  “Well, it may be all talk, as you say, but I didn’t dare look in the glass since I thought I saw That looking over my shoulder.”

  And Hilda Maple was answering almost angrily:

  “Oh, that’s enough about the whole business, surely! I can’t make out why anyone should take it seriously.”

  Then, to stop that very nonsense, she bustled at making up four for bridge. Lord Hambourne was her partner (it would never do to quarrel with Lord Hellup); and as for Hellup, he was a good counter - weight for Amathea, whose bridge was not experienced, though at whist she had flattered herself all her life upon a pretty play, and boasted that at cribbage she was unequalled.

  Lord Mere de Bruvvish sat apart in a darker recess where burned a second fire. He was fatigued by certain emotions. He needed repose. He was still disappointed. The figure, £50,000, still returned to his mind, and once, as the card-players, whom he would not interrupt by any remark, brought out their short monologues, “I pass,” “Double,” “She made it spades,” and the other brilliancies of the exercise, he had a horrible brief recollection of a little Voice too near the ground, wickedly evil, in the thick of the rhododendrons.

  Bo kindly determined to bear him company in his loneliness.

  “It’s an oddly quiet night, isn’t it, Lord Bruvvish?” said Bo, seating herself beside him and talking dreamily. “It feels strange—this quietness of the country. I don’t know … “But even as she spoke there came a very faint, very distant, and not pleasant laugh—where from no one could tell—except John Maple, who was watching the players with intelligent interest.

  “What … what’s that?” said Lord de Beaurivage, gripping the arm of the sofa and sitting up suddenly.

  “What was what?” said Bo innocently.

  “I thought … I thought I ’eard something—something like someone laughing, very faint like.”

  “Did you?” said Isabeau. “Well, perhaps someone did. I don’t know …”

  And once again, a little less remote, a little less evanescent, a little more defined, came the sneering chuckle of something evil.

  Lord Mere de Beaurivage was fairly sitting up. He brought out a big silk handkerchief, wiped his forehead, and said:

  “There, Miss Hellup! There! I could a-sworn …”

  Then he pulled himself together. He was afraid he was making himself ridiculous. But he badly needed human support.

  Isabeau rose suddenly with a startled look.

  “Where’s my little dawg?” she said. And as she said it she looked round, and was able to exchange a sharp glance with her lover. “Oh! Something’s happened, Lord Mere! Lovey-Lad never leaves me!”

  She went off past John, murmuring to him as she did so, “Hooked!” And then she said aloud and awfully to the company at large:

  “I feel a presentiment! Something’s happening!”

  John Maple left the bridge players, who only looked up for a moment from their game, and sat down in the seat that Bo had vacated, next to his guest.

  “You mustn’t mind Miss Hellup, Lord Mere,” he said. “She’s not like other girls—about spiritual things, I mean. I think sometimes she almost feels the other world.”

  “Oh, ah!” answered the old man, his yellow eyes filled with uneasiness.

  “She told me once that the only time she was in a place of great evil—evil all round her—the first sign was given by her dog. Dogs see things.”

  “Do they? Well, I ’ave ’eard something like that,” gasped Lord Mere de Beaurivage.

  Even as he said it there came more distinctly than before the low wail from the darkness, and the poor old gentleman was almost startled into speaking; but still on John’s face there was no sign of recognition. Lord Mere remembered how the doctor had talked to him about blood pressure and all sorts of other things a few months before, and warned him that if he heard voices or saw pictures just as he was falling asleep he was not to be alarmed. But far off at the bridge table he caught what was being said. It was Lady Mere de Beaurivage asking Lord Hellup what had troubled Isabeau.

  “She got anxious about her dog. She thinks he’s got a terror. He does sometimes. She thinks he’s seeing something.”

  The inevitable Hambourne broke in where he was least wanted.

  “Animals often feel those influences first,” he said, and then in a suddenly louder voice, “we inv-v-v-estig-g-gated a house w-w-w-once in the m-m-m-ost d-d-disg-g-gu sting m-m-m-urder …”

  “Lord Hambourne,” said Mrs. Maple sharply, “you’ve made me forget. Was it a spade?” But Lord Hambourne went on in his stride:

  “A p - p - partic - c - cularly d - d - isg - g - usting m - m - m - urder.”

  “Really, Lord Hambourne,” said his hostess, too brusquely. “I can’t play if you talk like this. I can’t do two things at once.”

  Lady de Beaurivage was dummy. She heard her husband calling in a whisper to her: “Mattie!”

  “What’s the matter,” she said, going up to him.

  “Mattie, you didn’t hear nothing—not voices like?”

  “Lor, Bruvvish, don’t be so sudden! You guv me a cold shock all down my back, you did!”

  “Don’t say you seen nothing, Mattie? You’ve not seen nothing?”

  “No. But I ’ad a sort of creeping-like looking in the glass just now.”

  “Don’t, Mattie, don’t! I can’t a-bear it. Not now. I’ll slip away to bed soon. I can’t a-bear it.”

  Then came Hilda Maple’s voice calling to her: “Amathea, dear, another deal,” and Amathea returned reluctantly to the cards.

  John and the old gentleman sat together in silence looking into the fire. The elder man heard, or thought he had heard … well … what?

  He was fighting against the influence. He tried silence, and then an attempt to speak of other things; when again he heard, or thought he heard, a Voice, so slight as to be disembodied—a nothingness upon the air—yet deep and full and of an intolerable sadness. Even as he thought he heard that voice he saw John start and look into the darker corner, where the firelight could not play, and where a bookshelf came up towards the drawn curtains of the window. Lord Mere gave a paralysed glance, put his hand graspingly on John Maple’s arm, squinted to the left into that same dark place, and whispered rather than said:

  “Did yer ’ear anything, Mr. Miple?” John did not answer at once; when he did he said:

  “Perhaps, Lord Mere …” Then he looked down. “I really don’t know. It’s better not to let oneself think too much of such things …”

  They talked just so long as gave the old man time to think himself recovered; when once again, but more certainly, though still distant and of a phantom sort, the sound came.

  “Oh, Mr. Miple, I ’eard it pline! It said, ‘The Night,’ Mr. Miple! S’elp me, it did!”

  There was terror in the eyes now, and he was gripping John Maple’s arm convulsively. John Maple tossed his head slightly as though trying to be rid of some bad influence.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “Yes. Shall we move?”

  Then suddenly Isabeau’s voice was heard from the landing as she ran downstairs, tragically loud:

  “Oh, poor Lovey-Lad! Poor little pup!” she cried.

  The unfortunate bridge players, interrupted again, looked up.

  “You f-found him?” stammered Lord Hambourne.

  “Oh, yes. He was whining and shaking so, 1 couldn’t bear it. And all huddled up on the landing, and bristling. He’s there yet. I couldn’t fix him so’s to get him to come. I tried to carry him, but he was just crazy. Snapped at me—for the first time in his life—poor li’l fellow!” Then she lowered her voice, and leaning against the banister at the end of her descent, she said hysterically: “It’s something in this room!”

  Lord Mere de Bruvvish fell back in his chair again like a man stunned. He gasped; he clutched the padded arms on which his hands lay, leaned back, his breath coming and going as though he had just taken violent exercise. His head was thrown back, and his eyes
were shut. Then he called quite loudly:

  “Mattie!”

  The bridge party looked round: that excellent wife broke off in the middle of a hand; she rushed—if such a form can be said to rush—across the room, and knelt by the chair.

  “What’s the matter, George?” she said. What’s the matter?”

  “I’m orl right. I shall be or] right. I come over queer,” he said. “I ought not to have called yer. Go back, dear; go back.”

  “’Ow was ’e took?” said the worthy woman to John Maple.

  “It’s nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing, Lady Mere,” said John, on his feet. “It was something … The night … and this talk of ghosts has made him nervous.”

  “Mattie,” said the poor man in a low voice, “Mattie, I must go to bed. You’ll excuse me, ma’am,” he added, turning to his hostess, “but I’m that tired. I’m not as young as I was.”

  Mattie accompanied him affectionately to the hall, gave him his candle, and looked at him anxiously.

  “Ye’re tired, dear,” she said, “you’re right when you sye you’re tired.”

  “I’ll be orl right, Mattie,” he said. “Never mind me. You’ll find me asleep. I’m orl right.”

  But she watched him anxiously, gazing up after him as his unwieldy, lumbering form went painfully up the stairs, candle in hand. He looked back at her and smiled. She was a good wife, and as she went back to the group in the drawing-room she wondered whether she ought not to go and see to him: she was beginning to share his fears.

  Mrs. Maple was rattled, and she could not hide it.

  “Well,” she said, “so far as it’s possible to count in the middle of all this, I make it 364.”

  Lord Hambourne thought he would make conversation—but he made it unfortunately.

  “As I w-w-as s-s-aying j-j-j-ust now, I m-mean ab-b-about the m-m-murder …” he began.

  His hostess interrupted him.

  “Yes, it was very nasty,” she said quickly. “But do help me with this. Do you make it 364?”

  “Quate, quate!” said Lord Hambourne, a little puzzled at such a check. He added the figures. It was a pleasure to him, for he certainly could not have paid if he had lost; but he had not lost.

  It was during the following silence, when Hilda Maple was in an agony lest some further thing should be said to disturb the purchaser of Rackham Catchings, that Corton came in with the glasses and decanters on a tray.

  But it was not the Corton of earlier hours. For the first time in thirty years that great man was showing some lack of self-possession. He came in too quickly; he was trembling slightly, and as he advanced he so far forgot himself as to look over his shoulder; and in so doing he dropped a glass.

  “Good heavens, Corton!” shouted his mistress angrily. “What are you up to? What’s the matter?”

  “I’m sorry, madam.” His teeth were actually chattering. “I’m not quite myself to - night, madam.”

  “So it seems,” answered the lady coldly, as he put down the tray.

  Then she wondered whether she was awake or dreaming. For she saw that honourable servitor make, not for the door, but for the window towards the lawn, as though he would leave by that strange exit. With a hasty glance which satisfied her that her guests were occupied, she followed him and whispered quickly:

  “What are you doing, Corton?”

  “If you please, madam,” said the unfortunate man, glancing with horror at the door through which he had just come, “I’d rather not go back by the passage.”

  “Not go back by the passage!” whispered Mrs. Maple angrily and looking him up and down. “Are you mad?”

  “No, madam. No, not mad. Not mad.” He passed his hand over his forehead—what great powers are revealed in man sometimes, quite late in life! Corton was now in the very spirit of the romances upon which he was modelling himself. “No, madam,” he said again, most tragically, and with a tremor in his voice, “I am not mad.”

  “Corton,” said Mrs. Maple, “you’re a disgrace. You’re drunk.”

  His only reply was to shake his head sadly.

  “It’s worse in the passage, madam. I couldn’t bear it. I can’t go back by the passage.”

  “Don’t go on repeating that like a parrot!” said Hilda Maple passionately in the same low tones. Her guests might notice at any moment what was going on. She took the bull by the horns and opened the window herself, for she saw that if she did not act quickly there would be a scene. “Then go back across the lawn, you fool!” she barked at him aside; and then loudly and gaily, turning round, she added, to the company, “You don’t mind my opening the window, do you? It’s an astonishingly hot and still night for the time of year. Do you mind the fresh air?”

  Her guests assured Hilda Maple that they did not mind the air. But Lord Hellup, who had watched the end of the little business, said the wrong thing. He said it directly to his hostess, and what he said was:

  “That guy’s rattled!”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” said Mrs. Maple. “You mustn’t mind him. He’s nearly always like that about eleven o’clock.”

  Lord Hellup was highly interested.

  “Do say? Mebbe that’s because he doesn’t drink enough. When that kind go dry between whiles their nerves just fray to old collars.”

  It was getting worse and worse. The others were beginning to take notice, and Lord Hambourne did not fail to come up true to type. He butted in.

  “In-inhib-b-b-ition,” he began, “with its ac-c-c-ompanying c-c-c-comp-compl——” But Mrs. Maple cut him short savagely.

  “Don’t, Lord Hambourne! Don’t say any more about it! It’s not that. It’s religion. He says long prayers after dinner.”

  “That’s not natural—not in a butler,” was Lord Hellup’s comment.

  But Lord Hellup had seen few.

  “P-p-p-raying,” broke in the Professor in his best donnish manner, “is a w-w-well-known s-s-s-ymptom or re-e-e-ligious mania.”

  “Maybe,” suggested Lord Hellup, “he struck that guy without a head.”

  “There’s no such thing,” Aunt Hilda interrupted abruptly.

  This was too much for Lady de Beaurivage.

  “Why, Ilda,” she said, with real astonishment, “you told Bruvvage and all of us yourself, and it’s part of the interest of the plice an’ all!”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said her hostess. “I told you the story—the legend. Many old houses have them—surely you know that. There’s nothing really.”

  “In this particular c-c-c-ase,” broke in the unfortunate Hambourne again, “what with the d-d-dog, it may be suggestion. It’s a kind of h-h-hyp …” He swallowed after that syllable, tried it again and added, “nosis.”

  Lord Hellup remarked that if it was anything about the hip, he knew a bone setter in Park Lane … Mrs. Maple in despair tried to put an end to it all by saying, “No, no, no. Lord Hambourne means hypnotic, or something of that sort. Don’t you, Lord Hambourne?”

  And Lord Hambourne comforted her by quacking out: “Quate, quate.”

  It looked as though the trouble was over; but she had had a bad time. The telephone bell rang; John Maple took up the receiver and answered it. He turned to his aunt.

  “It’s from the stables, Aunt Hilda. They want you.”

  “Want me?” said Mrs. Maple incredulously. “What can they want from the stables at this hour of the night?” She took up the machine.

  “Yes? … Oh, what nonsense! … Yes? Well, they often do get restless these hot nights … What! Corton? Corton’s got nothing to do with it. Don’t listen to a word Corton says … What’s that? The new mare’s frantic? Well, go and pat her. What? … Don’t be a coward. Go and pat her on the neck. Pat her on the crupper. Pat her anywhere … Are you there? Are you there? (She tapped her foot in her agony.) ARE YOU THERE? Hullo, why did you go away? … Good, she’s quieter, is she? Well, don’t bother me any more. Get hold of Alphonse. There’s no nonsense about him,” she added, looking up at her guests. “He’
s a Communist, you know, and knows all about machinery, so he won’t believe in any of that rubbish. He’ll be a good tonic to those idiots.”

  Again she hoped that she had stopped the rot. But Lord Hambourne failed not.

  “It’s all d-d-d-eeply interesting,” the academic ass began. “It’s f - f - f - ascinating. Animals receive sub-sub-sub-liminal m-m-m-essages. And m-m-y c-c-olleague Pro-pro-fessor J-J-onah has sh-sh-own that while m-m-motors are im-p-pervious the equidæ …” But just at that moment the air was pierced by a very genuine shriek, and it came from Isabeau. She was pointing at the darkness.

  “Oh! Oh, dear! Something went by the window!”

  “Mercy!” cried the sympathetic Lady Mere de Beaurivage. “I saw it too!”

  Mrs. Maple’s patience was nearly exhausted.

  “My dear Amathea—Isabeau dear, go back. Anyone in the household might be passing.”

  But, alas! her words were even truer than she knew; for a troop was upon them. Coming into the shaft of light which streamed from the window on to the lawn was Corton, and behind that Captain the whole force of the Offices, and as Corton appeared respectfully at the head of his regiment, full in the window behind him could be seen the ample form of the cook, Mrs. Fry, and Betsy Broom, and the housemaids and the groom, the boy, the footman and all. Only Alphonse was missing.

  Corton, after a sepulchral but respectful cough, and begging leave to enter, brought them in.

  “My colleague, madam, Mrs. Fry … and my other colleagues, and the under-servants, and the maid Broom, madam, insisted upon seeing you … and I thought it better to accompany them. They would not go by that”—and he waved his hand towards the passage.

  “Go back at once …” Mrs. Maple had begun, “and I’ll come out to you …” when Mrs. Fry gave tongue in her turn.

  “I can’t a-bear it no more, ma’am, no, that I can’t! No, not if it was the Queen herself, so there!”

  “Really, Mrs. Fry!” commanded Mrs. Maple. But her command had no effect.

  “No,” continued Mrs. Fry, in rising tones, “not if it was’er sacred Majesty Queen Victoria herself come back to life. I can’t a-bear it.”