The Ghost Belonged to Me

by Richard Peck

  “Very likely,” sniffed Lucille, who was on the back seat with me.

  “Be that as it may,” Uncle Miles went on, “there is sense to what Alexander says. Inez Dumaine’s folks was New Orleans people. And down in New Orleans the dead are buried in marble vaults above ground on account of the swampy condition of the soil. You only have to stick your shovel in New Orleans ground to strike water. Which anybody would know who travels or takes an interest in the world.”

  “Did you know that?” Mother asked me.

  I told her no.

  “I do not see how this is any of our responsibility,” she murmured to herself.

  “Well, I have already made it plain to you, Luella,” said Uncle Miles. “You won’t rest until Inez does. People will be trampin’ your property and doggin’ you by day and night. If you don’t take pity on Inez, I reckon you’ll take pity on yourself.”

  “We will have to think this out,” Mother said lamely.

  “Thinkin’ ain’t doin’,” said Uncle Miles and stalked off among the gravestones.

  When we turned in the lane at home, there was a woman sitting up on our piazza in the bentwood settee. And the nearer we got, the more familiar she was. “Oh who can that be?” Mother complained. “It seems we are holding an unending open house.”

  It was my teacher, Miss Winkler. As the Mercer drew up to the house, she rose, clutching her satchel, and gave us one of her small, wintery smiles. It was only a few days till the end of school, and I was one among several who would not mind being set free.

  “Have you been acting up at school?” Mother hissed at me. I reminded her I hadn’t been to school all week. “Then that must be it,” she said, stepping down out of the Mercer. I had to go along up to the porch to say how do you do to Miss Winkler. Mother said, “I hope you do not mind that we kept Alexander out these past days.”

  Miss Winkler replied that on the whole, she did not consider it had been a bad plan. Then I escaped, thinking it prudent to keep clear of them. They were on the porch for some time.

  At supper, Mother said that the entire ghost situation had all but undone Miss Winkler’s attempts to teach scientific methods and a modern outlook on things. According to her, the children were all restless and would talk of nothing but dreadful prophecies, destruction, and the living dead.

  That had caused Mother to mention to her Uncle Miles’s plan to open the grave. Miss Winkler replied that if it would put an end to the matter it was worth doing. She thought that the whole story was pure folklore anyway and that there’d be nothing found under the hitching post. She was inclined to bring along the whole class to show them their foolishness.

  Mother took to the idea at once as it would discredit both Uncle Miles and Inez Dumaine in one stroke. So that was what finally sold her on allowing the grave to be opened.

  A good while later, Blossom told me she’d come upon Miss Winkler nosing around outside the barn while we were still at Amory’s funeral. Blossom tried to charge her fifty cents to be taken through the loft. But Miss Winkler got her down to a quarter.

  It was on the last day of school that the grave of Inez Dumaine was opened. Long enough, according to Mother, to let things get completely out of hand again. It was shaping up to be the largest gathering ever held at our place, and Mother was torn between presiding over it and locking herself in her room. But like most things meant to settle a matter once and for all, it led instead to a whole new enterprise—for me and for Blossom Culp too.

  Father Ludlow from the church made known his wish to be present in case the proceedings called for religion. Uncle Miles thought that was nonsensical. But Mother said a church representative would add some much-needed tone if the thing was to be done at all.

  Every train that made a Bluff City stop brought another reporter from some out-of-town newspaper. They put up at the Abraham Lincoln Hotel and were seen rubbernecking around the square in yellow spats.

  The betting was said to be heavy among them on the question of whether or not anything would be found under the hitching post. The St. Louis Democrat reporter wired back a story with this headline:DUMAINE’S REMAINS OR BLUFF CITY BLUFF?

  TOMORROW WILL TELL THE TALE

  Jake McCulloch planned to attend too. He’s the undertaker and offered to provide two gravediggers without charge. “That Jake is the sharpest advertiser in town,” Dad mentioned. “See if he doesn’t turn up in his new motorized hearse to show it off.”

  Cousin Elvera called on the telephone the evening before and asked Mother if they hadn’t ought to wear black. She had mourning togs left over from Mr. Schumate’s passing. Mother said that was the most grotesque thing she’d ever heard.

  Cousin Elvera’s voice crackled right out of the receiver, “Luella, you will be talking out of the other side of your mouth if Mrs. Van Deeter shows up in black. And are you thinking of serving punch? If you are, I am available for pouring as I want to support you in every way I can.”

  “No punch,” Mother said and hung the receiver back on the wall.

  I stood at my window that night, gazing out to the barn. But there was not a flicker of light, nor any sign there ever had been. It seemed likely that Inez knew what was coming, and already her restless soul was easier.

  I reckoned that mine was too, though there was an empty place in me where Inez had lodged herself. If the whole matter was to be settled, people would forget in time. And I was not sure I wanted to be one of them. Maybe some unbeliever in the future could convince me none of it ever happened. The twentieth century did not look to be an age with any patience for the past. Ghosts were surely falling out of fashion just as fast as Captain Thibodaux’s gingerbread porches or girls the size of Lucille.

  These were my thoughts that night, alone up in my room, and finally I went to bed. But in a way I did see Inez one more time, looking the way I had known her. It was a dream, though more memorable than most.

  Like all dreams, it began with a jumble. But then I saw a scene clear. There was a long marble box which was both a table and a tomb. And around it sat three people, having coffee in the out of doors.

  Inez was at the head of the table in her swampy-green dress, pouring out a cup and offering it to Mrs. Van Deeter who was covered head to foot in black veils. Blossom Culp sat at the end with her black spider legs thrust up on the tomb top and crossed at the ankles. Behind them was a shadowy person, who I took to be Blossom’s Mama, passing around a tray of cakes from Lucille’s coming out. Numbers of these table-tombs stretched away to a level horizon.

  I drew nearer, saying I guessed the place where they were was New Orleans. They all laughed at that, but no sound came. The breeze fluttered Mrs. Van Deeter’s veils, and Inez pointed to her brooch. Blossom threw her head back and laughed hardest of all, which was peculiar since in real life she is somewhat sober.

  But it was Inez who spoke in her soundless way, saying, no, no, mercy, no, they were not in New Orleans. They were in China because a person would have to dig that far before he would come across Dumaine’s remains. Then the three of them were overcome with more mirth until the breeze blew up into a wind that caused the tomb lids to scrape and the coffee cups to funnel off like autumn leaves. Then the sun was streaming in my bedroom window.

  People were streaming into the yard too, and the buzz of their voices was rising with the sun. When I got down to the dining room, Dad was trying to finish his breakfast in peace. Mother and Lucille were staring out through the Boston fern. Drawn up in the lane beside the bay window was Jake McCulloch’s new motorized hearse.

  It had frosted glass panels presided over by a couple of flat brass angels holding up a swag of metal drapery. On the front door Jake’s message was lettered in gold:J. MC CULLOCH

  RESPECTFUL INTERMENTS

  LADY ASSISTANTS

  TELEPHONE 640 DAY OR NIGHT

  WE NEVER REST

  Mother was looking past the hearse and shaking her head. “All those reporters in those terrible neckties. They are true racetrac
k types. I blame Lowell Seaforth for drawing them here from every direction like flies.” But Lucille lit into her and would not hear a word against Lowell, who was himself in the yard, milling with the rest.

  There were autos and buggies the whole length of the lane. And when Mother saw Nelly Melba dragging up Uncle Miles’s rig, she said, “We had better go outdoors, or he will be in here. Besides, there comes Elvera. Thank heaven she is wearing her gray cotton. You stay where you are, Alexander, until you have had your breakfast. The less of you in these proceedings, the better.”

  But even after I had a good hot breakfast under my belt, I hadn’t missed much. People wandered about, uncertain as to how much ceremony the occasion called for. Miss Winkler had brought the rest of my class, which added to the numbers and noise.

  When I stepped off the back porch, I was greeted by a few jeers from my schoolmates who don’t take kindly to one of their number being singled out for special attention, even by fate. I didn’t spot Blossom with them, but I didn’t look too hard. She was likely not far off, as she usually is.

  Jake’s gravediggers were resting on their spades. Father Ludlow advanced and retreated. Whether or not to call everybody to prayer over a hitching post was taxing his judgment.

  Uncle Miles looked purposeful in his overalls and Sunday shirt. He’d been supervising the lifting of the hitching post and had it laid to one side. The stone pony’s head with the iron ring in its mouth was flat against the grass. People came up to examine it, as there was nothing else to see. We might all be milling over the backyard yet if Mrs. Van Deeter’s Cadillac had not rolled through the parting mob.

  Her chauffeur handed her down, and she was wearing a large purple hat and a fresh bunch of violets. “My goodness,” she remarked in the sudden silence. “Whatever is the delay?” With that, each gravedigger planted a foot on his spade and turned earth.

  They dug until the sun was squarely overhead and had to climb out of the hole every so often to drink cool water in the shade of the barn. Such observers as had brought their lunch sat under the trees and ate. Miss Winkler tried to conduct class there. “And so you will see, boys and girls, that in the clear light of day, the old myths and mysteries concocted by—imaginative—persons are revealed as the fiction they invariably are.” The class ate their sandwiches and took very little interest in either the rising mound of earth or Miss Winkler.

  “All right, boys,” Uncle Miles’s voice rumbled out at the gravediggers, “start takin’ it a little easy.” A crowd, mostly reporters, pushed up nearer the mounds, leaving room only for Mrs. Van Deeter.

  One of the diggers threw up half a spadeful of dirt almost at Mrs. Van Deeter’s feet. Sharper-eyed than all the rest, she cried out, “Stop!” Then she pointed a gloved finger and said, “Examine that clod!”

  Uncle Miles bent down and scooped up the damp clay. Something was stuck in it and glittered. He crumbled the dirt away, and his spectacles slipped down his sweaty nose as he studied the object, cupped out of general view.

  Every eye was on him when he held the thing up. I’d never seen his hand tremble, but it was unsteady then. He raised it higher and higher, like Father Ludlow giving a benediction. The sun caught the little oval in his hand.

  It was a brooch, the one that belonged to Inez, and the glass on it was smooth and unclouded. Beneath it were the little flowers fashioned out of human hair.

  I squinted up at it there, held against the sky in Uncle Miles’s gnarled old hand. And it was the same brooch I had seen by moonlight in the loft. The tears came to my eyes, possibly because of trying to look into the sun. I remembered Inez’s words about the brooch, This is all he left me. And this is how you will know me.

  One of the reporters yelled out, “Bingo!” And the rest of them scratched notes in their pads. Father Ludlow worked his way to the front circle and cried out, “The lost is found; let us pray!” But then G. K. Rafferty, the motorman, muscled forward and called out, “Keep a-diggin’!” There was a pounding of feet approaching across the gravel, which I took to be the class deserting Miss Winkler.

  The soil was flying up in smaller clods now, and the gravediggers’ heads were down level with the yard. There were sweat stains spreading on their shirts. The brooch was closed in Uncle Miles’s fist, and he stared down into the pit as stern and unflinching as if he was looking into his own grave.

  Then both the diggers stood up and thrust their spades aside. One of them called for a broom, and presently it was passed to them over the heads of the crowd. People climbed higher on the piles of dirt, holding their hats and bending double, trying to see past the laborers.

  One of them dropped to his knees to scoop back the dirt while the other manned the broom. Then somebody above them gasped and pointed. I didn’t mean to look but did. There was a flash of white beneath the broom, and bone by bone a skeletal hand lay bare, flush with the yellow clay.

  “There she is,” a voice came, and echoed back through the pushing crowd. When more of the dirt was cleaned away, the bones of the hand were seen to be resting on a small skull. It looked no bigger than a squirrel’s, but I knew it was Trixie.

  A reporter held a camera out over the pit and squeezed the bulb. Sunlight flooded the grave like a halo as the gravediggers stood back. Then I cut and ran.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When I got as far as the back step, wondering if I was sick or only sorry, a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. I was turned around to face an oversized man staring down at me from a great height. How he had blended into the crowd I did not know. He wore a white linen suit, a string tie, and a large Panama hat. His face under it was the size and color of a sugar-cured ham.

  “As you are makin’ for the house,” he said, “I take it you are the Armsworth boy.” I nodded at that. “I can see you are in haste, and I can divine why,” he said. His straw hat bobbed in agreement. “To look upon the bare bones of a sweet soul with whom you have evidently communicated not many days past is a natural shock, hardly an experience suitable to be shared with curious strangers.”

  That was a good way of putting it, coming though it did from one of the curious strangers. “I am from a part of the world where such experiences as yours are treated with more understandin’. Permit me to introduce myself-Mortimer Brulatour of New Orleans. I confess I too am a newspaper man, but trust I possess finer sensitivities than my Northern brethren.

  “I am as keen after a story as any of them, but am up here on an errand of compassion besides.” He leaned nearer and looked confidential. “It is my plan to personally accompany the bones—remains of Mademoiselle Dumaine back to the New Orleans cemetery of her ancestors and forebears.

  “As this expedition is financed by my newspaper, I am compelled to find in the somber journey a story to be featured by the New Orleans Delta Daily.

  “Though there is a lively interest in the spirit world down home, stories like this one do not crop up two for a penny. And so I will be in your debt if you will grant me an exclusive interview. I am prepared to make it worth your while as I have already laid out a sum of money to one of your little neighbor girls to be given an exclusive tour through the barn. Are the pair of you in cahoots?”

  I was marveling at the honeyed tongue of this Brulatour fellow when suddenly a rumbling from the direction of Jake’s hearse caused him to jerk around and narrow his eyes.

  Brulatour made off around the corner of the house, and I followed. The back doors of the hearse were standing open, and Jake was pulling out a polished-wood box. It was not as large as a coffin or the shape of one. It appeared to be a somewhat superior-type packing crate, fitted up with bronze handles. Jake had all he could do to manage it by himself as he staggered past us.

  “One moment, my good man!” Mortimer Brulatour said, and Jake replied that he had no time because he had to collect the deceased. “When you have done so,” Brulatour said, “kindly deliver her without delay to the depot, since I will be catching the 4:30 train.”

  Jake thumped his
burden down on the grass and turned to confront the stranger. Though Jake has a farmer’s face, his hands are as white and smooth as milk. He planted these hands on his hips and said grimly, “I don’t know as we have met.”

  “Mortimer Brulatour of the New Orleans Delta Daily. I have undertaken to accompany the body south.”

  “I do the undertaking here,” said Jake, “and you do not figure anywhere in my plans.”

  “Now see here,” Brulatour replied on a rising note, “the city of Miss Dumaine’s birth has some claims upon her, and as a representative of that city, I—”

  “You are off your turf now, mister. The body will lie in my funeral parlor for as many days as I see fit so that the public can come and pay their respects. A good many people have not turned out today, thinking there would be nothing to it. But they’ll have their chance to mourn the departed in my first-class establishment. The lid will be shut, of course, but I plan some floral offerings and organ music. You go about your business, and I’ll go about mine.”

  Their voices carried across the yard. Several people who had stared their fill at the grave drifted over in search of fresh diversion. They made another circle around Jake and Brulatour, who looked to be squaring off for a fight.

  Brulatour’s face was shading to purple. “I have no doubt that such a public display would benefit your business no end. However, I have a deadline to comply with and can’t accommodate you.”

  Jake took a step closer. “You can accommodate me and yourself by being on the 4:30 train. And I will ship the deceased at a later date in my own good time.”

  “I will have justice,” Brulatour bawled, “even in this god-forsaken crossroads village and—”