Ghosts

by Hans Holzer

  The massive manor house, or Palace House, also incorporates much of the abbot’s palace within its structure. Monks have been seen there time and again. When I appeared on the Art Linkletter program in January of 1964, I was contacted by a Mrs. Nancy Sullivan, of the Bronx, New York, who was once employed as a cook at Palace House.

  “Palace House used to have a moat all around,” she explained, “and a spiral staircase running down from the top to the bottom. It was claimed Mary Queen of Scots escaped down that staircase, and a man was waiting in the moat in a boat, making good her escape. Some say her ghost still runs down those stairs!

  “The help had their rooms on the top floor; there were five girls then, and every night we heard someone walking down those stairs, although we knew that the doors were safely locked, top and bottom. We were scared stiff, so much so, we all moved into one room.”

  Whether it was Mary Stuart getting away from Beaulieu, or perhaps an older ghost, is hard to tell. What is interesting is that the steps were heard where no one was seen to walk.

  Television cameras have overrun Beaulieu in quest of the supernatural. When all has quieted down, I intend to go back and bring a good trance medium with me. Perhaps then we can find out directly what it is the monks want.

  * 60

  The Somerset Scent (Pennsylvania)

  SOMERSET IS ONE OF THOSE nondescript small towns that abound in rural Pennsylvania and that boast nothing more exciting than a few thousand homes, a few churches, a club or two and a lot of hardworking people whose lives pass under pretty ordinary and often drab circumstances. Those who leave may go on to better things in the big cities of the East, and those who stay have the comparative security of being among their own and living out their lives peacefully. But then there are those who leave not because they want to but because they are driven, driven by forces greater than themselves that they cannot resist.

  The Manners are middle-aged people with two children, a fourteen-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter. The husband ran a television and radio shop which gave them an average income, neither below middle-class standards for a small town, nor much above it. Although Catholic, they did not consider themselves particularly religious. Mrs. Manner’s people originally came from Austria, so there was enough European background in the family to give their lives a slight continental tinge, but other than that, they were and are typical Pennsylvania people without the slightest interest in, or knowledge of, such sophisticated matters as psychic research.

  Of course, the occult was never unknown to Mrs. Manner. She was born with a veil over her eyes, which to many means the second sight. Her ability to see things before they happened was not “precognition” to her, but merely a special talent she took in her stride. One night she had a vivid dream about her son, then miles away in the army. She vividly saw him walking down a hall in a bathrobe, with blood running down his leg. Shortly after she awakened the next day, she was notified that her son had been attacked by a rattlesnake and, when found, was near death. One night she awoke to see an image of her sister standing beside her bed. There was nothing fearful about the apparition, but she was dressed all in black.

  The next day that sister died.

  But these instances did not frighten Mrs. Manner; they were glimpses into eternity and nothing more.

  As the years went by, the Manners accumulated enough funds to look for a more comfortable home than the one they were occupying, and as luck—or fate—would have it, one day in 1966 they were offered a fine, old house in one of the better parts of town. The house seemed in excellent condition; it had the appearance of a Victorian home with all the lovely touches of that bygone era about it. It had stood empty for two years, and since it belonged to an estate, the executors seemed anxious to finally sell the house. The Manners made no special inquiries about their projected new home simply because everything seemed so right and pleasant. The former owners had been wealthy people, they were informed, and had lavished much money and love on the house.

  When the price was quoted to them, the Manners looked at each other in disbelief. It was far below what they had expected for such a splendid house. “We’ll take it,” they said, almost in unison, and soon the house was theirs.

  “Why do you suppose we got it for such a ridiculously low price?” Mr. Manner mused, but his wife could only shrug. To her, that was not at all important. She never believed one should look a gift horse in the mouth.

  It was late summer when they finally moved into their newly acquired home. Hardly had they been installed when Mrs. Manner knew there was something not right with the place.

  From the very first, she had felt uncomfortable in it, but being a sensible person, she had put it down to being in a new and unaccustomed place. But as this feeling persisted she realized that she was being watched by some unseen force all the time, day and night, and her nerves began to tense under the strain.

  The very first night she spent in the house, she was aroused at exactly 2 o’clock in the morning, seemingly for no reason. Her hair stood up on her arms and chills shook her body. Again, she put this down to having worked so hard getting the new home into shape.

  But the “witching hour” of 2 A.M. kept awakening her with the same uncanny feeling that something was wrong, and instinctively she knew it was not her, or someone in her family, who was in trouble, but the new house.

  With doubled vigor, she put all her energies into polishing furniture and getting the rooms into proper condition. That way, she was very tired and hoped to sleep through the night. But no matter how physically exhausted she was, at 2 o’clock the uncanny feeling woke her.

  The first week somehow passed despite this eerie feeling, and Monday rolled around again. In the bright light of the late summer day, the house somehow seemed friendlier and her fears of the night had vanished.

  She was preparing breakfast in the kitchen for her children that Monday morning. As she was buttering a piece of toast for her little girl, she happened to glance up toward the doorway. There, immaculately dressed, stood a man. The stranger, she noticed, wore shiny black shoes, navy blue pants, and a white shirt. She even made out his tie, saw it was striped, and then went on to observe the man’s face. The picture was so clear she could make out the way the man’s snowy white hair was parted.

  Her immediate reaction was that he had somehow entered the house and she was about to say hello, when it occurred to her that she had not heard the opening of a door or any other sound—no footfalls, no steps.

  “Look,” she said to her son, whose back was turned to the apparition, but by the time her children turned around, the man was gone like a puff of smoke.

  Mrs. Manner was not too frightened by what she had witnessed, although she realized her visitor had not been of the flesh and blood variety. When she told her husband about it that evening, he laughed.

  Ghost, indeed!

  The matter would have rested there had it not been for the fact that the very next day something else happened. Mrs. Manner was on her way into the kitchen from the backyard of the house, when she suddenly saw a woman go past her refrigerator. This time the materialization was not as perfect. Only half of the body was visible, but she noticed her shoes, dress up to the knees, and that the figure seemed in a hurry.

  This still did not frighten her, but she began to wonder. All those eerie feelings seemed to add up now. What had they gotten themselves into by buying this house? No wonder it was so cheap. It was haunted!

  Mrs. Manner was a practical person, the uncanny experiences notwithstanding, or perhaps because of them. They had paid good money for the house and no specters were going to dislodge them!

  But the fight had just begun. A strange kind of web began to envelop her frequently, as if some unseen force were trying to wrap her into a wet, cold blanket. When she touched the “web,” there was nothing to be seen or felt, and yet, the clammy, cold force was still with her. A strange scent of flowers manifested itself out of nowhere and followed her fr
om room to room. Soon her husband smelled it too, and his laughing stopped. He, too, became concerned: their children must not be frightened by whatever it was that was present in the house.

  It soon was impossible to keep doors locked. No matter how often they would lock a door in the house, it was found wide open soon afterwards, the locks turned by unseen hands. One center of particular activities was the old china closet, and the scent of flowers was especially strong in its vicinity.

  “What are we going to do about this?” Mrs. Manner asked her husband one night. They decided to find out more about the house, as a starter. They had hesitated to mention anything about their plight out of fear of being ridiculed or thought unbalanced. In a small town, people don’t like to talk about ghosts.

  The first person Mrs. Manner turned to was a neighbor who had lived down the street for many years. When she noticed that the neighbor did not pull back at the mention of weird goings-on in the house, but, to the contrary, seemed genuinely interested, Mrs. Manner poured out her heart and described what she had seen.

  In particular, she took great pains to describe the two apparitions. The neighbor nodded gravely.

  “It’s them, all right,” she said, and started to fill Mrs. Manner in on the history of their house. This was the first time Mrs. Manner had heard of it and the description of the man she had seen tallied completely with the appearance of the man who had owned the house before.

  “He died here,” the neighbor explained. “They really loved their home, he and his wife. The old lady never wanted to leave or sell it.”

  “But what do you make of the strange scent of flowers?” Mrs. Manner asked.

  “The old lady loved flowers, had fresh ones in the house every day.”

  Relieved to know what it was all about, but hardly happy at the prospect of sharing her house with ghosts, Mrs. Manner then went to see the chief of police in the hope of finding some way of getting rid of her unwanted “guests.”

  The chief scratched his head. “Ghosts?” he said, not at all jokingly. “You’ve got me there. That’s not my territory.”

  But he promised to send an extra patrol around in case it was just old-fashioned burglars.

  Mrs. Manner thanked him and left. She knew otherwise and realized the police would not be able to help her.

  She decided they had to learn to live with their ghosts, especially as the latter had been in the house before them. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad after all, she mused, now that they knew who it was that would not leave.

  Perhaps one could even become friendly, sort of one big, happy family, half people, half ghosts? But she immediately rejected the notion. What about the children? So far, they had not seen them, but they knew of the doors that wouldn’t stay shut and the other uncanny phenomena.

  Fortunately, Mrs. Manner did not understand the nature of poltergeists. Had she realized that the very presence of her teen-age son was in part responsible for the physical nature of the happenings, she would no doubt have sent him away. But the phenomena continued unabated, day and night.

  One night at dinner, with everyone accounted for, an enormous crash shook the house. It felt as if a ton of glass had fallen onto the kitchen floor. When they rushed into the kitchen, they found everything in order, nothing misplaced.

  At this point, Mrs. Manner fell back on her early religious world.

  “Maybe we should call the minister?” she suggested, and no sooner said than done. The following day, the minister came to their house. When he had heard their story, he nodded quietly and said a silent prayer for the souls of the disturbed ones.

  He had a special reason to do so, it developed. They had been among his parishioners when alive. In fact, he had been to their home for dinner many times, and the house was familiar to him despite the changes the present owners had made.

  If anyone could, surely their own minister should be able to send those ghosts away.

  Not by a long shot.

  Either the couple did not put much stock into their minister’s powers, or the pull of the house was stronger, but the phenomena continued. In fact, after the minister had tried to exorcise the ghosts, things got worse.

  Many a night, the Manners ran out into the street when lights kept going on and off by themselves. Fortunately, the children slept through all this, but how long would they remain unaffected?

  At times, the atmosphere was so thick Mrs. Manner could not get near the breakfast nook in the kitchen to clear the table. Enveloped by the strong vibrations, she felt herself tremble and on two occasions fainted and was thus found by her family.

  They were seriously considering moving now, and let the original “owners” have the house again. They realized now that the house had never been truly “empty” for those two years the real estate man had said it was not in use.

  It was 2 A.M. when they finally went up to bed. Things felt worse than ever before. Mrs. Manner clearly sensed three presences with her now and started to cry.

  “I’m leaving this house,” she exclaimed. “You can have it back!” Her husband had gone ahead of her up the stairs to get the bedding from the linen closet. She began to follow him and slowly went up the stairs. After she had climbed about halfway up, something forced her to turn around and look back.

  What she saw has remained with her ever since, deeply impressed into her mind with the acid of stark fear. Down below her on the stairway, was a big, burly man, trying to pull himself up the stairs.

  His eyes were red with torture as he tried to talk to her.

  Evidently he had been hurt, for his trousers and shirt were covered with mud. Or was it dried blood?

  He was trying to hang on to the banister and held his hands out towards her.

  “Oh, God, it can’t be true,” she thought and went up a few more steps. Then she dared look down again.

  The man was still holding out his hand in a desperate move to get her attention. When she failed to respond, he threw it down in a gesture of impatience and frustration.

  With a piercing scream she ran up the stairs to her husband, weeping out of control.

  The house had been firmly locked and no one could have gained entrance. Not that they thought the apparitions were flesh and blood people. The next morning, no trace of the nocturnal phenomenon could be found on the stairs. It was as if it had never happened.

  But that morning, the Manners decided to pack and get out fast. “I want no more houses,” Mrs. Manner said firmly, and so they bought a trailer. Meanwhile, they lived in an apartment.

  But their furniture and all their belongings were still in the house, and it was necessary to go back a few more times to get them. They thought that since they had signed over the deed, it would be all right for them to go back. After all, it was no longer their house.

  As Mrs. Manner cautiously ascended the stairs, she was still trembling with fear. Any moment now, the specter might confront her again. But all seemed calm. Suddenly, the scent of flowers was with her again and she knew the ghosts were still in residence.

  As if to answer her doubts, the doors to the china closet flew open at that moment.

  Although she wanted nothing further to do with the old house, Mrs. Manner made some more inquiries. The terrible picture of the tortured man on the stairs did not leave her mind. Who was he, and what could she have done for him?

  Then she heard that the estate wasn’t really settled, the children were still fighting over it. Was that the reason the parents could not leave the house in peace? Was the man on the stairs someone who needed help, someone who had been hurt in the house?

  “Forget it,” the husband said, and they stored most of their furniture. The new house trailer would have no bad vibrations and they could travel wherever they wanted, if necessary.

  After they had moved into the trailer, they heard rumors that the new owners of their house had encountered problems also. But they did not care to hear about them and studiously stayed away from the house. That way, they felt, the g
hosts would avoid them also, now that they were back in what used to be their beloved home!

  But a few days later, Mrs. Manner noticed a strange scent of flowers wafting through her brand-new trailer. Since she had not bought any flowers, nor opened a perfume bottle, it puzzled her. Then, with a sudden impact that was almost crushing, she knew where and when she had smelled this scent before. It was the personal scent of the ghostly woman in the old house! Had she followed her here into the trailer?

  When she discussed this new development with her husband that night, they decided to fumigate the trailer, air it and get rid of the scent, if they could. Somehow they thought they might be mistaken and it was just coincidence. But the scent remained, clear and strong, and the feeling of a presence that came with it soon convinced them that they had not yet seen the last of the Somerset ghosts.

  They sold the new trailer and bought another house, a fifty-seven-year-old, nice, rambling home in a nearby Pennsylvania town called Stoystown, far enough from Somerset to give them the hope that the unseen ones would not be able to follow them there.

  Everything was fine after they had moved their furniture in and for the first time in many a month, the Manners could relax. About two months after they had moved to Stoystown, the scent of flowers returned. Now it was accompanied by another smell, that resembling burned matches.

  The Manners were terrified. Was there no escape from the uncanny? A few days later, Mrs. Manner observed a smoky form rise up in the house. Nobody had been smoking. The form roughly resembled the vague outlines of a human being.

  Her husband, fortunately, experienced the smells also, so she was not alone in her plight. But the children, who had barely shaken off their terror, were now faced with renewed fears. They could not keep running, running away from what?