Ghosts by Gaslight

by Jack Dann

  “Maybe he’s a ghost, and we’re being haunted,” said Mary. Her father was a member of the Society for Psychical Research.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Eleanor. “There’s no such thing as a ghost.”

  “Oh yes, there is,” said Tollie. “My aunt Harriet was haunted by my uncle, who had lost a leg at sea. She said the ghost went thump, thump, thump on its wooden leg, up and down the hallways at night.”

  “Ugh,” said Mary. “You’re making me shiver!”

  “But even if he is a ghost,” I said, “whose ghost is he? And why is he haunting the four of us?”

  “We don’t know that he is,” said Eleanor. “Maybe the other girls have had dreams as well, and they’re just not talking about it.”

  So we went around asking the other girls about what they had dreamed the night before. None of them had dreamed of a man with curling black hair, or brown skin that made him look like a foreigner, or black eyes that looked as though they were laughing at you, although one of them had dreamed of her brother who was in India.

  No, it was just us four.

  We made a pact. Each morning we would compare notes. We would tell each other what we had dreamed, all the details, no matter how embarrassing. And we would try to remember what the man had said, those poetic words that seemed to slip out of our heads on waking, like water.

  “HE TOLD ME that my eyes are like bright stars,” said Tollie.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” said Eleanor. “Your eyes are like eyes. He told me that my hair was like a fire burning down a forest, except he used different words. And they rhymed with something, but I don’t remember what.”

  “You have to try to remember,” I said. “I wish all of you had Mary’s memory.”

  In my notebook, I had written down what we dreamed each night, and the fragments of what we thought must be poetry:

  Eleanor: tower, dark but moonlight

  “the cascade of your gown”

  something about “sweet surrender” and “sweetly die”

  Mary: in front of fireplace, kissed neck “like a swan’s,” “proud and fair”

  “luxuriance of your hair”

  Tollie: passed in hallway and dropped letter

  “hide it in your bosom, sweetheart”

  “the moon’s a secret lover, as am I”

  Lucy: kissed several times, passionately

  “elements of love” (but hard to hear, could be “dalliance of love”?)

  By this time, we had all been kissed, and we blushed as we told each other.

  “It was—soft,” said Mary. “This is wrong, isn’t it? Even if it’s just a dream.”

  “Forceful,” said Eleanor. “I don’t think he would have stopped if I’d wanted him to. How can it be wrong if it’s only a dream?”

  “Is that what it’s like, when boys kiss?” asked Tollie.

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” said Eleanor, who had boy cousins. “That’s disgusting.”

  “I don’t think we’re any closer to working out who he is,” I said. “We know he’s a poet, because of what he’s saying. I mean, neck proud and fair, and all that. So, if he is a ghost, we need to find out if there were any poets who died at Collingswood.”

  “There’s no such thing as a ghost,” said Eleanor.

  “What about Miss Halloway’s book?” asked Tollie.

  I was sent to ask Miss Halloway for the book, as the one most likely to, as Eleanor said, “read boring stuff.”

  “Of course, Lucy,” she said. “I’m glad you’re interested in the history of the school. Some of the other girls, well, they’ll graduate and get married. But I think you are capable of doing something different, some sort of intellectual work. I hope you’ll think about that. There are so many opportunities for women nowadays that did not exist when I was your age.”

  “Yes, Miss Halloway,” I said, hoping to escape a lecture. Miss Halloway’s advanced educational theories, we had discovered, involved teaching girls the subjects boys were usually taught, and she had a tendency to lecture us about the advancement of women. I did not quite escape one, but it was not as long as I had feared. I closed the door of her office with “and you really should think about a university education, Lucy,” in my ears.

  “And who’s going to read that?” asked Eleanor, when I had brought The History of Collingswood House, from the Crusades to the Present Day to our room. The book had been covered with dust, and now I was covered with it as well.

  “How many pages is it?” asked Mary.

  I had already looked. “Seven hundred and ninety-two. And there’s no index.”

  By the way they all looked at me, it was obvious who was going to read The History of Collingswood House. After all, I was the one who won the prizes in composition, who was at the top of the English class.

  I was only on page one 157 the morning Mary woke up gasping. Although we asked and prodded, she would not tell us about her dream.

  “I can’t,” she said. “We were in the bedroom again. He— I just can’t.”

  We were sitting in our nightgowns on Eleanor’s bed, as we did every morning for our conferences.

  “What was it like?” I asked. I think we all knew, even then, what had happened. Tollie and I had grown up in villages, near farms and animals. And Eleanor had heard the servants gossip.

  “I’m sorry. I really don’t think I can talk about it.”

  “Was it so frightening?” asked Tollie, leaning forward.

  “Not frightening. Just— I can’t, all right?” And we could get nothing else out of her.

  Later that day, I looked with dismay at The History of Collingswood House. I could not face another list of who had come to visit Collingswood in the Year of Our Lord blankety blank.

  “Look, stupid book,” I said. “Just tell me what I want to know, all right?” I closed my eyes and opened the book at random. I looked down at the pages I had opened. There it was:

  In the autumn of 1817, Lord Collingswood invited the poet Christopher Raven, whom he had met in London, to Collingswood House. Lady Collingswood was taken with the handsome youth, who was supposed to look like an English Adonis, although some critics asserted that he wrote like a second-rate Shelley. The Collingswood library, which was extensive, had fallen into a state of disarray, and Lord Collingswood hoped that Raven would catalogue it. However, the two men quarreled before the work got under way, and the poet left in the middle of the night to join Shelley and Byron in Switzerland. He was overtaken by the snows, and is supposed to have perished in the Alpine passes. Lady Collingswood, who had a tender heart, particularly for poets, artists, and small dogs, was said to have been inconsolable for weeks.

  I had found a poet. And he sounded like the right poet. Adonis had been Greek. He would have had curling black hair, the kind they call hyacinthine.

  “I think I’ve found him,” I told Eleanor, Mary, and Tollie that afternoon. “His name is Christopher Raven. He was a poet, and I think he was in love with Lady Collingswood. And maybe she was in love with him.”

  “Why do you think we’re dreaming about him?” asked Tollie. “If someone had dreamed about him before, we would have known about it, wouldn’t we? I mean, he would be the Collingswood ghost or something. It would have been like calling the picture Old Nosey. Everyone would have known.”

  “Maybe it’s because we’re in her room,” I said. “The book only says that she was taken with him, but I bet all the things he says to us are the things he said to her. I mean, seriously, none of us has a neck like a swan’s, do we? And hair like a forest fire—she had red hair. I bet no one else has slept in her room for a hundred years. That’s why we’re dreaming about him, when no other girls have.”

  “The question is, what do we do now?” asked Eleanor. “He doesn’t scare me, but that dream Mary had—yes, I know you can’t talk about it, but we all know what it was about. If we’re dreaming about him and Lady Collingswood, where is this going?”

  WHERE INDEED.
I’LL give you this, Christopher Raven. I have known love since those days as a schoolgirl at Collingswood, and you loved her as passionately as any poet loves a woman. There is always some selfishness in such a love, always some inclination to turn your love into poetry. But when you walked with her down the garden paths, when you stood beside her on the tower and looked out over the countryside, when you called her the moon and said you were the tide, following her motions, you loved her as passionately as poets love, who are always thinking of the next line. We experienced it, the four of us—experienced that love when we were only schoolgirls and should have been attending to our lessons. We felt the kisses in the darkness, your hand on her shoulder, your fingers running along her collarbone. We felt you slip off her dress of grayish-blue silk and felt what we should not have, a passion we were not ready for.

  We changed, in those weeks. We grew languorous, as though we were always walking in a dream. We could not attend to our lessons. Eleanor gave up tennis, and she and Tollie used to sit in our room, talking in whispers about their dreams of the night before. Mary took to praying throughout the day. She told us she was convinced that the dreams were wrong, but like the rest of us, she did not want them to end. She developed dark shadows under her eyes, and sometimes she would jump for no reason, as though she had been frightened by a sound that the rest of us could not hear. And what about me? I was as dreamy as the rest, but my lethargy frightened me, and Mary’s condition was a constant source of worry. I felt as though we were all slipping away into some dreamland, losing touch with the prosaic world of school.

  Finally, Miss Halloway spoke to me. “Lucy,” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder as I leaned over a composition book, tracing the letters CR over and over with my pencil, “what is going on with you girls? Yesterday, Millicent almost fell asleep in Latin, and I’m told that Mary is starting to look, and behave, quite oddly. Is something happening that I should know about?”

  I should have told her then, but how could I bear to lose those kisses, the black eyes looking into mine and whispering words sweeter than I had ever heard before, calling me “goddess” and “love”?

  “I think we’re staying up too late talking,” I told her, and looking at me doubtfully, she left it at that.

  And so it might have continued, if Eleanor had not woken up one morning screaming.

  “Lord Collingswood killed him!” she cried. “He found them together and hit him with his cane! There was blood everywhere!” And then she began to sob into her hands. I had never imagined that Eleanor Prescott could weep, and the sight sent a shiver down my spine.

  The next night it was Tollie, and then me. We all dreamed the discovery, the terrifying blow to the back of the head. We all saw blood pooling on the floorboards. And then nothing—that was where the dreams ended. Only Mary was spared. Perhaps the ghost decided that she had seen enough. Certainly she could not take any more.

  This time we were all summoned to Miss Halloway’s office. “What in the world is going on with you girls?” she asked. “I’ve heard reports of moans in the night and screams early in the morning. And you all look as though you haven’t slept for the past week.”

  “Miss Halloway,” I told her, “we’re being haunted. By a ghost.” And then I told her everything.

  “Good Lord,” she said. “That such things should be going on right under my nose! The idea that you’re being haunted is ridiculous. There’s no such thing as a ghost, Lucy. However, the atmosphere of the room, together with what you read about Collingswood House, may have prompted these dreams. I will move you out of that room immediately.”

  We were moved into Miss Halloway’s own room, for observation. But the dreams did not stop.

  “Blood, and then nothing,” said Tollie. “I can’t see anything after he falls down. Blood on the floor, and then it’s as though everything just goes dark.”

  “But I can still hear something,” said Eleanor. “Like Tollie’s uncle: thump, thump, thump.”

  “Miss Halloway,” I said, “Lord Collingswood hit him in the front hall, and then there was this sound, as Eleanor said. I think he dragged the body down the stairs. To the cellar.”

  “I think it’s time to summon a brain specialist,” said Miss Halloway.

  We all stood looking at her silently—Mary looked especially reproachful. “Oh, all right, girls,” she said. “The cellar it is.”

  “THERE’S NOTHING DOWN here,” said Tollie.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” said Eleanor. “We haven’t even checked for a priest’s hole yet. Hillingdon has one, and a secret staircase. Of course some people don’t have such things in their houses, but I’m quite familiar with them, I assure you.”

  For the first time in several weeks, I would have liked to hit Eleanor Prescott, but it was obvious from the shrillness of her voice that she was both excited and afraid. And she was actually doing something useful, walking along each wall and knocking carefully, up and down, listening for anything unusual. These were the foundations of the house, which went back to Norman times. I knew that from having read The History of Collingswood House, at least to page 157. They seemed so solid.

  But Eleanor said, “Can’t you see that the cellar isn’t as large as the house?” And she was right.

  Of course Tollie had exaggerated in saying that there was nothing in the cellar. In addition to the usual things one finds in cellars, such as the coalbox and stacks of wood, old brooms, a tin bucket, it was filled with the detritus of a girls’ school: broken chairs, a pair of crutches, boxes of sports equipment. There were skis stacked against the wall, and an astonishing number of broken tennis rackets.

  “There!” said Eleanor. “Can you hear it?”

  And we could. Against one wall stood a tall bookshelf that had no doubt once been in the library, but was now water-stained and covered with dust. On the shelves stood boxes containing what looked like onions, but labeled “tulips—early,” “tulips—late,” “tulips—Rembrandt,” pairs of ice skates leaning against one another, and a few books that were too damaged for use even by schoolgirls.

  “That’s where old Amias keeps his bulbs,” said Miss Halloway. “He says this is the perfect place to store them.”

  “Well, there’s a space behind it,” said Eleanor. And indeed, we had all heard the echo when she knocked.

  “All right, girls,” said Miss Halloway. “Let’s see what’s behind that shelf.”

  Mary held the lamp while the rest of us helped Miss Halloway stack the books and skates and boxes of tulip bulbs on the floor. “It’s going to be heavy,” she said. “Should I summon Amias and some of his boys?” We all shook our heads. I think we wanted to see what was behind as quickly—and as privately—as possible. “All right then,” she said. “Put your backs into it.”

  Once, while moving the shelf, as we were taking a momentary rest, we looked at one another—Tollie, Eleanor, and me. When I saw their white faces, I knew mine must be white as well. The lamplight jumped up and down on the walls, no doubt because Mary’s hand was trembling. But Miss Halloway looked grim and determined, and I decided then that I rather admired her, despite her boring lectures. All things considered, it would not be a terrible thing to be like Miss Halloway.

  When the shelf had been moved, slowly and awkwardly, back from the wall, we could see that it had covered an arched opening—through which we saw only blackness.

  I will give us the credit to say that we all, including Mary Davenport, stepped through the archway together. It opened into a smaller room, the other part of the cellar, which must once have held wine. There were still wine racks on the walls.

  There, in the circle of light cast by the lamp, was the skeleton of a man. We could still see the shreds of his white shirt, the remains of black boots that had long ago been nibbled away by rats. Around his ankle was an iron cuff, linked by a chain to an iron ring in the wall. Just out of his reach was a bowl that might once have held water.

  We stood silent. Then Mary, with a
sigh, crumpled to the floor. Miss Halloway caught the lamp just before she fell. The rest of us stood there for what seemed like an interminable moment. Then we followed Miss Halloway, who carried Mary, up the stairs and into the autumn sunshine of the first floor, which seemed so strange to us, after the lamplight and the cellar. She put Mary on the sofa and brought her around with smelling salts, then gave us each a glass of sherry, which made Tollie cough.

  Finally, Miss Halloway said, “What a terrible story.”

  “Do you think she knew?” asked Tollie. “He must have been down there—”

  “Dying,” I said. “For days.”

  “She didn’t know,” said Eleanor. “I think we dreamed exactly what she saw. She didn’t know anything after Lord Collingswood hit him with the cane. I think she fainted, like Mary.”

  “She must have thought he was dead,” said Tollie.

  “And Lord Collingswood must have told everyone that they’d had a fight, and Raven had left for Switzerland,” I said.

  “But she must have been here doing all sorts of things—getting dressed and walking in the garden, and eating her dinner—while he was dying below!” said Mary. She started to gasp and sob, and Miss Halloway waved the sal volatile under her nose again.

  “Last summer, after I was hired as headmistress here,” she said, “I read that book Lucy thought was so dull, The History of Collingswood House. If you’d read a little farther, girls, you would have known that Lord Collingswood died in 1818, just a year later. He was said to have died of heart problems, but there was a rumor that he might have been poisoned—digitalis, which comes from foxgloves, is toxic in a high enough dose. Lady Collingswood created this school and specified that Lord Collingswood’s portrait was to be hung over the main staircase in perpetuity. I wonder, now, if that was her idea of a joke?”