by R. A. Dick
“Of course you couldn’t,” said Captain Gregg, “you’re a nice-minded woman—too nice-minded—only half alive in fact.”
“I’m not,” protested Lucy, “I’m far more alive than you are, and I wish you’d go away and leave me alone. I want to fill my hot-water bottle and go to sleep.”
“Well, go to sleep,” snapped Captain Gregg. “I’m not stopping you though you have put all that feminine frippery on my good bed.”
“It is not frippery,” retorted Lucy, “it’s the best hand-embroidered linen. I couldn’t sleep in anything but linen sheets, so I brought my own.”
“If you had taken the forethought to look in my linen press you would find it filled with the finest Irish linen,” said Captain Gregg. “I bought it myself in Dublin, and as for only being able to sleep in linen sheets, I never heard of such highfalutin balderdash. What you need, young woman, is a trip round the Horn with a south-easter tearing the guts out of you and all hands on deck, with the sea coming over green for three nights and three days—then you’d sleep in sacking and be thankful.”
“I shouldn’t,” said Lucy perversely.
“Well, you slept very well in my old armchair before supper,” said Captain Gregg.
“Oh, so it was you that opened the window and nearly froze me to death,” said Lucy.
“You exaggerate like all women,” said Captain Gregg. “The fresh air was good for you, and it merely made your nose a little red.”
“It didn’t,” said Lucy, and suddenly began to laugh.
“What’s the joke?” asked Captain Gregg. “I like a good laugh myself, and God knows this house has heard little enough of laughter in these last twelve years.”
“It seems so ridiculous that I should be arguing with a ghost over a red nose,” said Lucy. “Such a music hall thing to do, I mean—and before supper I was terrified of you, scared nearly to death.”
“We are always afraid of the unknown,” said Captain Gregg. “I was never more afraid than when I once took my ship into an unknown harbour without a pilot.”
“I thought ships going into harbours always had pilots,” said Lucy.
“They do,” replied the captain, “but on that occasion my pilot had a stroke, crumpled right up over the wheel. I was more frightened that time than when the cook went mad and tried to carve me up for the Christmas dinner—in the doldrums that was, with the temperature a hundred and twelve, and a cargo of raw hides that stank to high heaven.”
“You must have had an exciting life,” said Lucy, “so many lands you must have seen.”
“The lands never interested me as much as the seas,” said the captain. “To the landlubber all seas are more or less the same, salt and wet, rough or smooth. But every sea has its own characteristics, and I learned to know most of them.”
“Why did you retire,” asked Lucy, “if you loved the sea so much?”
“I was getting old by human standards,” said the captain, “short in the sight and wind, slower in thought and movement. You have to be master of yourself before you can be master of the sea, and with a ship there are too many lives at stake to risk being anything but complete master. So I went into dry dock of my own accord and took my seafaring second-hand through my telescope. Most of the ships of the world come up the Channel out there, sailing to and from the Seven Seas—if you were going to stay I’d show you them.”
“But I am going to stay,” said Lucy.
“No one stays in this house,” said the captain. “I don’t intend that they should, and you’d be surprised how easy it is to drive people away—lily-livered landlubbers that they are.”
“Did you open that window upstairs to frighten me away?” asked Lucy.
“No,” said the captain, “I opened it because I didn’t want another accident with that damned gas. I don’t want a second verdict of suicide while of unsound mind brought in, in my house.”
“What you don’t seem to understand,” said Lucy, “is that this is no longer your house. It belongs to someone in South America.”
“And that’s another thing,” said Captain Gregg, roaring again like a tempest, “letting that——little runt have my good house and money just because he’s my next-of-kin. Damn it, I was going to make a will leaving Gull Cottage as a rest home for old sea captains and my income to house them.”
“Well, it’s too late now,” said Lucy, “and surely it’s better for the house to be lived in and looked after, than that it should degenerate into the pig-sty it has become.”
“I don’t want anyone living in my house but men—and sailors at that,” said Captain Gregg.
“But I want to live in it,” said Lucy. “It’s the right position for the children to go to school and the right rent for me to afford, and I’m going to live in it if I have to heat the bath water on the Beatrice stove.”
“You are not going to live in it, madam,” said Captain Gregg stiffly. “I’ll not have my good bedroom turned into a scented boudoir filled with frippery and falderals.”
“You’re mean,” said Lucy stormily, “mean and dog-in-the-mangerish and altogether horrible,” and because she was very tired after the hard work of the day, she slipped down on to a chair and, bowing her head on her arms on the table, wept.
“Don’t cry,” said the captain testily, “damn it, madam, don’t cry, I say—if there is one thing I can’t stand it is a woman crying. Well, light your damn fire and fill your blasted bottle, I don’t care, only for God’s sake, stop snivelling.”
“I’m not snivelling,” said Lucy, sobbing away, “I’m just crying a little because I’m tired and very unhappy and I have no house to live in.”
“Nonsense,” snapped Captain Gregg, “there are thousands of empty houses in England merely waiting to be lived in. That sort of sentimental twaddle won’t work with me.”
“But I want to live in this house,” said Lucy, “it’s more my house than any I’ve ever seen, and if I love it so much now when it looks so dirty, think how I shall love it and care for it when it’s clean and tidy all over.”
“Why do you like it so much?” asked the captain. “Is it because of its ridiculously low rent, is it just that spirit of something-for-no thing?”
“No, no, no!” said Lucy. “I felt it was my place as soon as I saw it. I fell in love with it at once—I can’t explain it—it was as if the house itself were welcoming me and crying out to be rescued from its degradation.”
“A bit on the fanciful side,” growled Captain Gregg, “but there may be some truth in it. The first ship I owned was in a fearful state of disrepair, that’s why I got her cheap, and I always swore she sailed twice as sweetly for me in gratitude for her new rig than she’d ever done for her late master.”
“If I promised not to turn your bedroom into a scented boudoir, couldn’t we come on trial for six months?” said Lucy.
“Once settled in this house for six days and I’d never get you out,” said the captain. “However, bring your brats if you like and we’ll try it for the summer.”
“And you’ll go right away and leave us alone?” asked Lucy.
“No, I will not go right away,” said the captain. “Why should I?”
“Because I couldn’t possibly bring the children here if you stay,” replied Lucy. “Quite apart from the fear they might feel at being haunted, think of the bad language they’d learn, and the bad morals.”
“Damn it, my language is most controlled, madam,” said Captain Gregg stiffly, “and as for my morals, I can assure you that no woman has ever been the worse in body or pocket for knowing me, and I’d like to know how many mealy-mouthed psalm-singers can say the same. I’ve lived a man’s life and I’m not ashamed of it, but I’ve always tried to tell the truth and shame the devil.”
“All the same,” said Lucy, “I should find you too difficult to explain to Cyril and Anna, who at twelve and eleven are at the enquiring age and must have everything explained. Still, it was good of you to give in and say we might come. I shal
l never find another house to suit me so well—did you build it yourself?”
“Yes, I did,” said Captain Gregg crossly.
“That was very clever of you,” said Lucy. “My husband studied architecture for years, but he never made such a satisfactory little house as this—though I believe he was very clever at prisons and post-offices,” she added loyally, since loyalty to a late husband was only becoming in a widow still wearing such complete mourning.
“What do you wear all that black crape and stuff for,” asked Captain Gregg, breaking right into her thoughts, “when you really didn’t care a black-edged handkerchief for your husband?”
“Oh!” said Lucy, “I did—I did!”
“You needn’t waste time lying to me,” said Captain Gregg. “In the state I’m in now, thoughts and words come out together like the bass and treble in a piano piece. And with some of us it makes some fairly crashing discords I can tell you. No, my dear, you were fond of your husband, but you didn’t love him.”
“I shall not listen to you any longer,” said Lucy with dignity, rising from the chair. She struck another match and this time lighted the gas with no interference. She moved the kettle over the flame and seated herself again to await the heating of the water.
A brooding silence fell over the kitchen, broken only by the busy hissing of the gas under the kettle. Lucy sat quietly on the hard wooden chair. She looked very young and pretty sitting there, her cheeks becomingly flushed with her efforts, and her white hands, already a little roughened by the day’s work, folded patiently on her knee … too tired to think … too tired to feel … content now to let destiny alone with her future.
“Which is the right way to live,” said Captain Gregg after a long pause. “If you give fate a chance it will always work itself out, but men are such fools, rushing round in circles with their eyes shut, interfering with each other, smashing everything up through their own blind stupidity, and then when they’re hopelessly lost, sitting down and cursing God for not answering them when they never stopped to listen.
“I like a woman who can sit still,” he went on after another pause. “If I’d ever met a woman who could hold her tongue and not fidget, I might have married—that water’s hot enough,” he broke off, “can’t you see the steam coming out of the spout? If you wait till it’s actually boiling you’ll rot the rubber of the bottle, besides wasting the gas. Damn it, madam, you must be practical.”
“Yes,” said Lucy, rising meekly and filling her bottle, “I suppose I must.”
“And you ought to have a funnel,” said the captain, grumbling, “you’ll scald your hands sooner or later pouring hot water in like that. Get a funnel to-morrow.”
“Very well, I will.” Lucy yawned as she finished screwing up the top of the bottle. “I don’t know if it’s the right thing to wish a ghost a good night,” she said, moving towards the door, “but if it is, I wish you a very good one.”
“Stop a minute,” said Captain Gregg swiftly, “there’s something I want to say. I’ve thought of a solution to all our problems. I like you, and you’re quite right, the house would be better for being lived in, so you shall come and live in it, and if you’ll promise to leave my bedroom as it is, I’ll promise never to go into any other room in the house, so your children need never know anything about me. That’s your problem solved. Now for mine, you will buy the house——”
“But I haven’t the money,” said Lucy.
“Wait,” said Captain Gregg peremptorily, “you will buy the house with my money. I’ve some gold hidden on the premises that no one knows about. You will take that and buy the house from my blasted next-of-kin, and you will make a will leaving it as a home for sea captains.”
“Impossible,” said Lucy. “In the first place it would be stealing if I took the money, and in the second, if you are keeping the best bedroom in the house, where should I sleep?”
“In the best bedroom,” said Captain Gregg.
“But——”
“In heaven’s name, why not?” demanded Captain Gregg. “God bless my soul, madam, I haven’t got a body, and after twelve years of having no body, I have no fleshly desires. Damn it, madam, surely you’ve read the Scriptures—‘in heaven there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage.’ ”
“The trouble is that you are not in heaven,” said Lucy.
“It’s too difficult to explain now when you’re only half awake in any case,” said Captain Gregg, “and indeed I may never be able to explain it in earthly words. But for the present you must just take my word for it when I say that I wouldn’t dream of hurting a hair of your head, nor of blotting a word of your reputation. So that’s all settled and we’ll see about the money in the morning. Good night.”
“But it isn’t settled,” said Lucy. “Wait—wait——”
But though she cried to him again and yet again, there was no answer but the sighing of the wind from the sea, and the wash of the waves dragging at the pebbles on the beach below.
PART TWO
I
It caused a minor sensation in Whitecliff when it was known that Gull Cottage had not merely been sold but was being lived in, apparently permanently by a widow and two children. After a few weeks the novelty of seeing the house occupied wore away, and people, having called, pronounced Mrs. Muir a nice little thing, and forgot that the house had ever been empty and the reputed haunting ground of Captain Gregg’s ghost.
Only Lucy remembered. And how could she forget when he visited her every evening, after the children were in bed, to talk over the events of the day? But the fact that she had taken gold from its secret hiding-place under a stone in the cellar, and had bought a house for herself to live in, and had made a will leaving it as a home for retired sea captains, haunted her far more than the ghost, upon whom she began to look as a friend, even if an interfering one. He argued with her for weeks on the subject of the money, but it remained a grievous matter to her conscience, though Captain Gregg assured her that his next-of-kin was a wealthy merchant, who did not need the money and to which he was not entitled in any case since he was the last man on earth to whom the money would have been willed if Captain Gregg had been given time to die in comfort.
“I don’t care,” said Lucy obstinately one evening, and for the fiftieth time, “I feel like a thief. Sometimes I begin to wonder if you are a real ghost. I mean—I’ve never seen you except in a dream, and why are you still here? Why haunt, when there is no longer any reason for your haunting?”
“I said I’d stay here till my house was a home for seamen, and I’m a man of my word and you’re not so much as a ship’s boy,” retorted Captain Gregg. “God bless my soul, I’ve a perfect right to stay in my own house, which I built with my own hands and have now bought with my own money, which incidentally has gone to my blasted next-of-kin in any case, so what you’re worrying about, me dear, I can’t imagine.”
In spite of his reassurances Lucy did worry. No one that she had ever met had been on intimate terms with a ghost. Indeed the subject had always been scoffed at by her friends and relations—spectres and phantoms, voices and visions, belonging exclusively in their minds to mediaeval saints or modern lunatics.
And supposing, thought Lucy in alarm, supposing Captain Gregg were but a figment of her imagination. Women approaching middle age and living alone did sometimes go odd, she had read, and imagined the wildest situations; but after all she was scarcely stepping onto the threshold of middle age, and positively dancing into loneliness, and surely Captain Gregg was wilder than her mind, at the most odd, could invent.
But this new aspect of the case weighed on her so much that at last it drove her up to London for the day, to visit a psychoanalyst of whom she had once heard her sisters-in-law speak in connection with an unfortunate lady who had suffered from delusions about a very junior curate’s intentions to elope with her.
After a surprising conversation with this earnest specialist in human peculiarities, which did not so much lay bare as stri
p to the skeleton her most intimate life, he assured her that she was as normal as any woman could expect to be, though there did seem to be this curious obsession in her subconscious, a craving perhaps for the ideal lover, which made her imagine this Voice, and if she were to continue her visits to him, at three guineas a time, a dozen times or more, they could no doubt sublimate this Voice and rationalize it.
“I don’t think any one could make my Voice more rational,” said Lucy, “and there’s nothing lover-like about it, I do assure you.”
“That, of course, is your conscious still attempting to repress your natural instincts,” said the specialist.
“Then you don’t believe in ghosts at all?” said Lucy.
“Well, dear lady,” the specialist said guardedly, “there are queerer things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. Come back next week and we will see what we can do.”
Which, thought Lucy, is not really worth paying five guineas for.
“As I could have told you,” said Captain Gregg that evening, “but I knew you wouldn’t be satisfied till you’d been.”
“Do you believe in psychoanalysts?” asked Lucy.
“It’s a new science, and they are only experimenting,” said Captain Gregg, “and unfortunately they can only experiment with people in this case, neurotic guinea pigs and rabbits being unable to unburden their subconscious in language intelligible to man. It’s rather out of my province in any case.”
“I thought you would know everything about everything in your state,” said Lucy. “Tell me about it, what is the next world really like?”
There was a long silence. “No,” said Captain Gregg at last, “it’s too difficult. It’s as if I were asked to explain navigation to a child sailing a celluloid duck in its bath. The words I should have to use would have no meaning for you—there aren’t earthly words to fit this other dimension, just as there weren’t earthly words to fit telegraphy and electricity till the scientists worked their way up to these things. Besides, even if you could understand, I doubt if it would be fair to tell you—I mean it would be like handing you a crib in a difficult grading exam in languages. You might pass out of the first grade all right, but unless you’d sweated the words out for yourself and made them your own, you’d soon fail in the higher grade. No, me dear, fair’s fair, and you’ll have to work out life for yourself, and death.”