The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

by R. A. Dick

  Now, thought Lucy, I should tell her about Captain Gregg and Blood and Swash, and everything; but the words seemed to stick in her throat—awful if Anna didn’t believe her, and it was an unbelievable story. I’ll ask him about it, she said to herself, I’ll ask him this evening.

  “As a matter of fact,” went on Anna, “Aunt Eva rang me up last night—very late it was, too. Have you got a weak heart, mummy? She told me your father had died of angina and that you had fainted, and frightened me to death about you—but I must say you look all right, if a little pale.”

  “I feel a little pale,” said Lucy, “having the skeleton dragged out of my cupboard after all these years!”

  “I’m serious, darling,” said Anna reproachfully, “it’s not like you to faint, even if there was an earthquake.”

  “But I didn’t,” said Lucy guiltily, “you know how interminable those dinners can be and I thought this one would never end, so——”

  “So you pretended to pass out!” said Anna, smiling. “Was that quite right, darling, at a bishop’s table? I shall have to get you a book on etiquette before you come to any of my dinners, I can see! And what about this earthquake? Did all the lights go out and the china crash and the pictures fall? I got a sort of impression of the walls of Jericho falling from Aunt Eva, caused, I suggested, by the Bishop’s voice, which might have much the same effect as a trumpet. But seriously, mummy, it would relieve me a lot if you would go and see a doctor.”

  “I’ll go and see a dozen doctors if you like,” said Lucy, “but it will be a great waste of money.”

  “It will be my treat,” said Anna, “and when I am married you won’t have to give me an allowance.”

  “Oh, yes, I will,” said Lucy, “you don’t know how humiliating it is to have to ask even for a penny to buy a stamp. I had no money when I first married and I know what that is like. Besides, I’ve made a lucky investment lately and am much better off than I was.”

  “Dabbling in the stock market!” said Anna. “Well, it’s no business of mine, but you know where that led daddy.”

  “I know,” said Lucy, “but this is really a gold mine.”

  “Whatever got you mixed up with gold mines?” asked Anna. “Really you are an astonishing old lady. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if you sailed off to Alaska one day to do a bit of your own digging, and I put it all down to the influence of Captain Gregg and the spirit of adventure he’s left in this house. In fact, I think you need Martha to look after you much more than I do—of course, that’s the solution!” she cried. “Martha wants to come and be my cook when I marry, but Bill has a cook married to his butler. It would be far better if she came and cooked for you, and then I wouldn’t worry about you a bit, and you could come and stay with us whenever you liked and for as long as you liked. And now will you please get dressed, darling, or we’ll keep Bill waiting.”

  “You never told me,” said Lucy that evening when Captain Gregg whistled a greeting, “you never told me how Anna felt about you. Did you know?”

  “I knew,” said the captain, “but I don’t tell you everything, Lucia, it wouldn’t be fair.”

  “And she knew about Miles,” said Lucy.

  “Yes, and she cried herself to sleep many a night over him,” replied the captain.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” asked Lucy.

  “It wouldn’t have been fair,” repeated the captain, “and I’d done enough interfering. You had to work your own way out through your own convictions, not sympathy for Anna, or you might have come to hate the child, and God knows where she would have ended then. It was touch and go with Anna, she’s got the dark streak in her that seems the heritage of most artists; but as it is, she’ll be all right. Her Bill is a damn nice fellow and she’s very lucky.”

  “He’s lucky, too,” said Lucy.

  “Yes, that will be one of the real marriages,” agreed the captain.

  “They laugh in the same language,” said Lucy, “and that is very important—Edwin only laughed out loud when other people were hurt, I mean if they slipped on a banana skin or sat down on a chair that wasn’t there. I like Bill very much,” she went on, “he didn’t make me feel a bit like a mother-in-law or a tiresome old woman. And I like his blue eyes—he isn’t really good-looking but you feel he’s the sort of man that other men would always trust; and he’s got that easy sense of assurance that always having plenty of money seems to give. Isn’t it amazing,” she went on, “the power that money has? I’m only just beginning to realize it. If you know you are secure and well dressed, and there will always be taxis to take you out of the rain, and maids to scrub the floors, and cooks to prepare your meals, you somehow feel the world is your oyster with a fine pearl in it—poverty is no disgrace, but it can make one feel as if one were born in a dustbin; at least semi-poverty, I mean, and keeping up appearances on a shoestring. I imagine real beggars are even more carefree than the rich.”

  “Far more carefree,” said the captain, “for they have no responsibilities.”

  “Am I really going to be rich?” asked Lucy.

  “Moderately so, me dear, moderately,” replied the captain. “Our book is going into yet another edition—can’t get them off the stocks fast enough—and there’s talk of it being translated into Swedish, Dutch, and French.”

  “I would love to tell Anna,” began Lucy tentatively.

  “Well, please yourself,” said the captain, “but if you do, you’ll soon be headline news.”

  “But Anna can keep a secret,” said Lucy, “she has proved to me that she can.”

  “One secret doesn’t make a Trappist,” said the captain, “and she would need to take those vows to prevent herself giving this one away. No, me dear, if you’re wise, you’ll keep me to yourself.”

  “Very well,” said Lucy, “I’ll be wise, and in this case I know you are right for I doubt if she would believe me.”

  IV

  The years sped by, like beads told by nimble fingers on a rosary, smooth and round, full of interest for Lucy with her visits to Anna and Bill, and Celia and Cyril; and now Bill was a Member of Parliament and Anna had grown into his very gracious lady with grandchildren of her own; and Cyril was, if not a bishop, at least very comfortably settled as Canon of the Cathedral and Vicar of St. Swithins, mellowed by time so that even the ironical fact that his youngest son was a successful actor held pride for him rather than bitterness. The Bishop had died from pneumonia, the aftermath of influenza caught by him on a visit of duty to his poor; his wife lived on, still a little behind the times, suitably lodged in a small residence on the edge of the Cathedral Close; Eva had died most unromantically of German measles, protesting it was scarlet fever and that she knew better to the end; one by one all Lucy’s contemporaries were passing away, dropping from the tree of life like autumn leaves; but Lucy had never been dependent on society for happiness, and now she seemed to need it less than ever. With Martha to care for her, she lived a simple life in great contentment. In warm weather she pottered about the garden amongst her flowers, or strolled along the level of the cliff path, watching the gulls, a sedately stout fox terrier by her side. In cold weather she sat in front of the open fire, warming her feet on the fender, listening to the radio and knitting blue jerseys for the fishermen in the North Sea. She never quite came to terms with the radio and listened to music, drama, and talks from the most prominent men and women as if they were mere puppets performing for her out of a rather special musical box that miraculously did not need winding. Often in the evenings she dozed a little, nodding over the jerseys that grew ever more and more slowly as her fingers became stiff with rheumatism.

  One of her recurrent arguments with Captain Gregg was on the subject of this complaint.

  “Why don’t you go to Harrogate or Droitwich? Why don’t you see your doctor?” he asked. “You’ve plenty of money.”

  But poverty in her old age was Lucy’s one dread. She could not be persuaded that money that had vanished so swiftly in her husb
and’s lifetime might not do the same in hers, even though the proceeds from Blood and Swash had been invested in gilt-edged securities by the London bank into which the amazing royalties had been paid with the strictest secrecy, and indeed were still being paid, for the enterprising grandson of Mr. Sproule had but six months before brought out an edition-de-luxe, with illustrations, which made Captain Gregg chuckle every time he looked at them, portraying him, as they did, with the face of an ancient Viking, golden-haired and golden-bearded.

  “You’ve plenty of money,” he repeated on this occasion.

  “Taxes are going up—everything’s going up in price,” said Lucy. “I don’t want to end in the poorhouse.”

  “Poorhouse be damned!” The captain snorted. “Don’t you know you could build a poorhouse and support a dozen paupers on your present income? Go to Harrogate, woman, go to Harrogate.”

  “I prefer to remain here,” said Lucy. “I am much more comfortable in my own home and I couldn’t leave Tags.”

  “The dog’s name is Spot,” said the captain, “and Martha is quite capable of looking after him.”

  “The last time I went to stay with Anna, Martha forgot to put sulphur in his water and he started eczema between his toes,” said Lucy.

  “Better the dog should have eczema between his toes than that your legs should become stiff as pokers,” said Captain Gregg.

  “I’m too old to go gadding about in strange hotels,” said Lucy. “I’ll not go.”

  “You’re a pig-headed, obstinate old woman,” said the captain, “and if I didn’t think you quite capable of leaving my house as an annex to the Battersea Dog’s Home, I’m damned if I’d come and visit you any more.”

  “Now I never thought of that,” said Lucy with her old twinkle in her eye. “What a good idea!”

  “Oh, you—women!” growled Captain Gregg and left her.

  The years sped by, and now spring was here once more, thrusting her green spears up through the rich, dark earth, till the flower-beds were full of new life and golden with daffodils; and Lucy, too, was drawn out into the golden sunshine to tend to the blooms she loved so well; but the sun’s rays held no warmth for her old bones, and she shivered as she stooped over the flowers, and made no real protest when Martha coaxed her to go in.

  “I’ll come, I’ll come,” she said, for she suddenly felt very tired as well as cold, and there was a curious pain in her left wrist running up the whole arm; yet she must pause on the way to tuck in a trailing strand of the Montana clematis that had fallen from its place on the arbour. She felt so tired that she could scarcely raise her hands above her head to push in the straggler, and would have left it for the gardener to attend to if Martha had not come again to the door and advised her to let it be.

  Lunch revived her a little, the hot chicken soup, the filleted sole and creamed lettuce and potatoes, the chocolate soufflé, cooked as only Martha knew how.

  “You don’t think we’re being too extravagant, Martha?” Lucy asked anxiously as she sank into her armchair after the meal and watched Martha pile logs on the coal fire to make the warm blaze she loved.

  “Lor’ bless you, no, mum,” replied Martha easily. “What you eat wouldn’t plump up a sparrer, so why not ’ave the best, and you got ter be warm, ain’t you?”

  “I don’t want to end in the poorhouse,” said Lucy. “We were once nearly made …” What was the word? “We were once nearly made …” What could it be? And why couldn’t Martha help her, standing there with her red face, and her mouth a little open … and how old she looked … there was no need for her to look so old, her face was a mass of wrinkles. Why Martha was two years younger than she was and she was sure she didn’t look like that, and if she wasn’t going to give her the word she wanted why was her mouth open?

  “Oh, do close your mouth, Martha,” she said crossly, “gaping at me like a codfish.”

  “Which I was on’y standin’ ’ere, mum,” said Martha with mournful dignity, “because I thought you were wishful ter speak ter me. I’ve me work ter do as well I know.” She went out, her skirts rustling indignation around her.

  “Bankrupt,” that was the word.… She would think of it as soon as Martha had gone … Martha had gone and she hadn’t turned on the what-you-call-it, and she knew she liked a little music after her lunch. She leaned over and turned on the switch of the radio; but she had eaten later than usual and there was no music, “a talk for schools” … Cyril had done well at school, much better than dear Anna, but Anna was now a lady and wore a fine gown … if only Anna lived a little nearer; but her husband was ruling the country, so of course she must be with him in London, even if it did mean leaving her mother alone … alone, that was a sad word. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she wiped it away like a child with the back of her hand; at least Tags was there at her feet … no Spot … Tags had been that other dog … the dog that Miles had dug out of the rabbit burrow … she hadn’t thought of Miles for years. How happy he had made her that spring, and how miserable! But that was life … light and shade … a coming in of the tide and a going out. Miles was dead … Captain Gregg had told her of his death some years ago … poor Miles, to die so young … if only they had met sooner she might have kept him from drinking or gambling or whatever his trouble had been. Edwin had gambled though … secretly on the stock market … she had never understood about that hidden thing in him … bankrupt … that was a terrible thing to be … she must really insist on Martha being more economical … it was dreadful to be … there now, she had forgotten the word again … it seemed so easy to forget words now … she was so tired … so tired. Her head nodded sideways and she fell asleep.

  But the rest did not refresh her as it usually did, and she felt so irritable and out of sorts when she awoke, that she snapped at Martha again when she brought her in her afternoon cup of China tea and the sponge fingers she liked to eat with it.

  The radio was playing music now, “You’d look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle made for two” … one of the old songs. That had been one of the grievances she had had against Edwin … he would not allow her to have a bicycle. Not that she had wanted to ride one with him … she had wanted to ride away from him, into the country on summer afternoons … away from her overpowering in-laws … but old Mrs. Muir had considered bicycling unladylike … poor Edwin, perhaps he would have liked to ride away, too … perhaps that was why he had tried to make a fortune, perhaps he had been as frightened of the tempers of his mother and sisters as she had been and saw an escape from servitude in riches. I’ll ask him as soon as we meet, she thought … but Edwin is dead, how can I meet him?… and do I really want to?

  She dozed again to the lilting music of a Strauss waltz, her rheumaticky fingers clasping the white bone knitting needles on which the fisherman’s jersey grew so slowly. She felt too tired on awakening to make her usual change of dress for her solitary dinner, which she scarcely touched, and very soon afterwards she laboriously climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

  Her hair seemed unnecessarily tiresome … she could scarcely hold up her arms to tend its vagaries … the hairpins seemed to think they were nesting birds clinging to their resting places … and the pain in her left arm was worse … it made her feel breathless and very cross.

  “Well, Lucia,” said the captain’s voice, close to her.

  “I wish you wouldn’t come bursting in on me like that,” said Lucy irritably.

  “You’re tired, me dear,” said the captain, “but never mind, you’ll feel better soon.”

  “Of course I’ll feel better soon,” snapped Lucy. “I’d feel better now if you’d go away and let me get to bed.”

  The door opened and Martha came in with a glass of hot milk on a silver salver.

  “Are you all right, mum?” she asked solicitously. “You didn’t eat more’n a bite of yer good dinner, and I thought you’d better ’ave a drop of somethin’ ’ot ter go ter bed on.”

  “Oh, do go away,” said Lucy impatiently, “every one i
nterrupting me! How can I get to bed?”

  “W’y there’s on’y me, mum,” said Martha, “there’s no one ’ere on’y me. Now drink your ’ot milk ter please old Martha—there’s a dear.”

  “I don’t want any hot milk—I hate hot milk,” said Lucy petulantly.

  “Now, now, just take a drop,” urged Martha, putting the glass in her hand.

  “There’s scum on the top,” said Lucy—that wasn’t the right word.

  “Scum! There’s never,” said Martha.

  “Scum—scum—scum,” said Lucy, like a spoiled child, “take it away—go away, you bad thing.”

  “Now, now, don’t get in a state, mum,” said Martha.

  “I’m not in a state,” said Lucy. “I just want to be left alone. Go away when I tell you—bossing me—everyone bossing me—go away.”

  “Very well, mum,” said Martha in a hurt voice, “though bossing I never intended, and on’y brought the milk for yer good,” and she went out.

  “Call her back,” ordered Captain Gregg, “call her back at once, Lucia.”

  “No,” said Lucy, “she’s an interfering old thing.”

  “Call her back,” thundered Captain Gregg, “you can’t leave her like that—weren’t you taught as a child never to let the sun go down on your wrath in case there should be no dawning? Call her, I say,” commanded the captain in a voice that demanded obedience.

  “Everyone bossing me,” whimpered Lucy. “Oh, very well, you great bully. Martha—Martha,” she called feebly.

  Martha must have been close at hand for she came on the moment.

  “Yes, love,” she said eagerly. “I thought I ’eard thunder though it don’t seem the time of year.”

  “I’m sorry I was cross,” said Lucy, and suddenly she was sorry, so sorry that she wept, turning to Martha’s greater strength for comfort.

  “There, there, love,” said Martha, stroking her bent head. “I understand—you just take a drink of the good ’ot milk ter please old Martha and you’ll be right as rain—see, there ain’t no skim now,” she said, and with her little finger she hooked the cooling cream off the top of the glass.