Ghosts

by Hans Holzer

  “And you took it over then and restored it?”

  “Yes, and everybody told us we were absolutely crazy. We spent the first month, five of us, in one room. I had disinfected that room, working in it for a month.”

  “You have three children?”

  “Yes. And Chris was only two. And—well, we are still working on it.”

  I decided to come to the point.

  “When was the first time you noticed anything unusual anywhere?”

  “It was when I became less busy with doing things in the house. You know, when you are terribly busy you don’t have time to realize what’s going on. Three years ago I became aware of a man on the landing. I know it is a man, though I have never seen him. I’m absolutely convinced that he’s a man in either his late forties or early fifties, and in addition, he’s from the eighteenth century because in my mind’s eye I can see him.”

  “Was there anything for the first seven years of your occupancy here?”

  “I cannot recall. Except possibly some vague sensation about steps going from the second to the third floor.”

  “Noises?”

  “Oh yes, you always have the feeling somebody’s going up the steps. Always. We’ve always taken it for granted it was because it was an old house, but since we have rugs I still hear steps.”

  “Now, what were the circumstances when you felt the man on the stairs? On the landing, I mean.”

  “Well, I was going to my room, on the second floor, and you have to go through the landing. This is the only way to go to that room. And then suddenly I had to stop, because he was there.”

  “Did you feel cold?”

  “No, I just felt he had to move and he wasn’t going to move, and eventually he did, but he wasn’t aware of me as fast as I was of him.”

  “What time of day was that?”

  “Evening. It’s always dusk, for some reason. You see, the landing has a southern exposure, which may have something to do with it, and it’s always very sunny during the day.”

  “After this first experience, did you have more?”

  “Oh yes, often. For quite a while he was constantly there.”

  “Always on that spot?”

  “Always on the landing. You see, the landing has a very good vantage point, because nobody can go upstairs or downstairs without going through it.”

  “Then would you say somebody might watch from that spot?”

  “You can see everything—originally the lane was not what you came through, but at the front of the house. From the landing you have a perfect command of the entire lane.”

  “After this first experience three years ago did you ever see him, other than the way you describe?”

  “No. Although I have to be very careful when I say that because after a while, as you well know, it is difficult to separate something you see in your mind from something you see physically. Because I feel that I could touch him if I tried, but I never have. Even though I’m not afraid of him, I still don’t feel like it.”

  “Did you ever walk up the stairs and run into something?”

  “A wall. Sometimes I feel that there is a partition or something there.”

  “Something that you have to displace?”

  “Yes. But then I wait until it displaces itself, or I move around it. But somehow I know where it is because I can move around it.”

  “Have you ever seen anything?”

  “Often. On the landing.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “Fog. And I always think it’s my eyes.”

  “How tall is it?”

  “Frankly I have never thought about it, because I will blink a few times. I’ve always thought it was me. You see, it’s very foggy here, outside. But then I saw it in several rooms.”

  “Did you ever smell anything peculiar....”

  “Yes, I often do. There are some smells in this house and they often take me back to something, but don’t know what.”

  “Do you ever hear sounds that sound like a high-pitched voice, or a bird?”

  “Bird, yes. Very often.”

  “Where do you hear that? What part of the house?”

  “Never on this floor. Upstairs.”

  “Have there been any structural changes in the house?”

  “I think the landing.”

  “Only the landing? How was it affected?”

  “We changed one partition, for it was much too illogically altered to have been something that existed when the house was built. The way we found it, it couldn’t have been that way because it was ridiculous. Anybody with a hoop skirt, for instance, or a wide dress, could never have managed the top of the steps onto the landing with the partition the way it was there. We changed it, and I will show you because the seam is in the floor. We were told that the landing had been changed, and for some reason everything is around that landing.”

  “You mean changed back to what it was originally, or changed?”

  “We don’t know, because we don’t know how it was.”

  “Did you widen it or narrow it?”

  “We widened it.”

  “Now, since living in this house have you ever had odd dreams? Have you felt as if a person were trying to communicate with you?”

  “Yes. Often.”

  “Will you talk about that?”

  “Only that I’m rather ashamed, that I usually try to block it out.”

  “Well, do you ever get any feeling of the communicators?”

  “Because I’m negative I don’t think there is any actual communication, but I’ve often been aware of someone even coming in the room where I am.”

  “How does this manifest itself?”

  “I’m aware of a shadow. With my eyes open.”

  “This is on the second floor?”

  “Yes.”

  “At night?”

  “Yes. And then, that night while I slept on the third floor—I’m sure it’s my man on the landing. He came up, and why I got scared I don’t know because this man is awfully nice, and there is nothing....”

  “What do you mean, he came up?”

  “I heard him come up the stairs, and he came and watched me.”

  “Why did you sleep on the third floor that night?”

  “Because Roy had turned on the air conditioner. I cannot sleep with an air conditioner.”

  “So you took one of the guest rooms. Does this room have any particular connection with the landing?”

  “You have to go through the landing because of the steps going up and going down. Both end up on the second-floor landing.”

  “And he came up the stairs, and you felt him standing by your bed?”

  “Yes. Watching—probably wondering what I was doing there. But originally this was not a floor used for bedrooms. We did that.”

  “What was it used for?”

  “It was a two-story attic, and we divided it in two by putting in a ceiling, and I don’t believe it could have been used except possibly, for servants.”

  “When was the last time you had a sense of this being?”

  “In the fall.”

  “Is there any particular time when it’s stronger?”

  “Yes, in the summer.”

  “Any particular time of day?”

  “Dusk.”

  “Is it always the same person?”

  “Well, I always thought it was, but I never gave it too much thought.”

  “Is there more than one?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you notice the second ‘presence’?”

  “It was about two years ago, when Chris, my boy, was moved up to the third floor, that I heard breathing. It was in the master bedroom. I can show you exactly where because the breathing came from the right side of the bed, below, as if a child would have slept in a trundle bed or in a low cradle or something, and that breathing came from below me. The bed is fairly high.”

  “On the second floor?”

  “Yes. And it was very
definitely a child, and I can explain that very readily—there is not a mother in the world who will not recognize the breathing of a child, when it’s sick and has a fever.”

  “Did your husband hear this?”

  “No. He never hears anything of this.”

  “But was he present?”

  “No. He was in his library, downstairs.”

  “Was this late at night?”

  “No—I go to bed much earlier than Roy. It must have been around eleven, or maybe midnight.”

  “The first time you heard this, did you wonder what it was?”

  “Well, I knew what it was, or what it had to be, since I couldn’t possibly hear my children breathe from where I was. I was aware that it must be something which had occurred in that very room before.”

  “Did you ever hear any other noise?”

  “Yes. That child cries, and there is pain.”

  “How often have you heard it?”

  “The breathing more often than the crying. The crying only a couple of times.”

  “In the same spot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there a woman around? Do you have a feeling of a woman when that happens?”

  “Yes, and she would be on my side of the bed. And this is the part that bothers me!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Because I have the feeling her bed was where mine is. I’m sure she slept on the right, because the child is on the right.”

  “The furniture in the bedroom is yours—you brought this in yourself?”

  “Oh yes, there wasn’t anything that belonged to this house.”

  I thought all this over for a moment, then decided to continue questioning my psychic hostess.

  “Was there anything else, other than what we have just discussed?”

  “Yes, the portrait of my ancestor that I brought back from France. I was born in 1923, and she was born in 1787.”

  “And what was her name?”

  “I don’t remember her maiden name, but she was an Alcazar. She married a Spaniard.”

  “What is special about the portrait?”

  “Of course, the eyes—you will find those eyes in any well-painted portrait—they are eyes that follow you everywhere. But I wouldn’t refer to that because this is very common in any museum or in any home where they have family portraits. This is not so much that, but the moods she goes through. She definitely changes her expression. When she disapproves of someone she shows it. And every once in a while, if you glance at her rapidly, she is not the woman you now see in the portrait, but somebody else.”

  “Does anyone other than you see this?”

  “Yes, two other people—my English friend of whom I talked of before, and another English friend who is married to an American friend. They both saw it.”

  “Have you ever felt anything outside the house, in the grounds?”

  “You think there is a branch that’s going to hit your face, and yet there is no branch. I thought that people always felt like that when they walked outside, but they don’t. Also I can’t walk straight in the dark.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know! I could walk on a straight line, painted line, on the roof without the slightest difficulty, but in the dark I never walk straight.”

  “You have two dogs. Have they ever behaved strangely?”

  “All the time. They bark when there is absolutely nothing there.” Mrs. Emery interrupted my thoughtful pause.

  * * *

  “There is also something about a room on this floor, Mr. Holzer.”

  “The one we’re sitting in?”

  “No—the next one, where the piano is. Every night before I go to bed I have to have a glass of orange juice. And sometimes I’ll race downstairs—I’ll feel there is somebody in that rocking chair and I’m afraid to go and check.”

  “Do you have a feeling of a presence in that room?”

  “Yes—oh yes, yes, very strong. Almost every day, I’d say.”

  “It’s that room, and the landing, then?”

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  At this point I had to change tapes. I thought again about all I had heard and tried to make the various elements fall into place. It didn’t seem to add up as yet—at least not in the same time layer.

  “To your knowledge,” I asked Mrs. Emery, “has anything tragic ever happened here in the house?”

  “We don’t know. This is the thing that is so disappointing in this country, that so few records are kept. In France you have records for six hundred years. But here, past fifty years people wonder why you want to know.”

  “Is there any legend, rumor, or tradition attached to the house?”

  “There are several legends. They also say that Governor Howard, who gave his name to Howard County, which until 1860 was part of Anne Arundel County, lived in this house. But it’s extraordinary, at least to me it is, coming from France, that people cannot be sure of facts which are so recent, really.”

  “What about the people who lived here before? Have you ever met anybody who lived here before?”

  “Yes. I met a man named Talbot Shipley, who is seventy-eight and was born here.”

  “Did he own the house at one time?”

  “His parents did, and—he was the kind, you know, who went, ‘Oh! where you have that couch, this is where Aunt Martha was laid out’; and, ‘Oh, over there, this is where my mother was when she became an invalid, and this was made into a bedroom and then she died in there’; and, ‘Oh, Lynn, you sleep in that room? Well, this is where I was born!’ And that’s the kind of story we got, but he’s a farmer, and he would perhaps not have quite the same conception of a house as we do. To him, a house is where people are born and die. And perhaps to me a house is where people live.”

  “What about servants? Did you ever have a gardener or anyone working for you?”

  “Oh, I have people work for me once in a while. I have discarded all of them because everything is below their dignity and nothing is below mine, so it’s much easier to do things myself!”

  “Did they ever complain about anything?”

  “I had a woman once who said she wouldn’t go to the third floor. There is something else,” Mrs. Emery said. “There are two niches on either side of where there must have been a triangular porch, which would go with the style of the house. They seem to be sealed. The man who is remodeling the smokehouse into my future antique shop, is dying to open them up and see what’s inside them, because really they don’t make any sense.”

  “Do you have any particular feelings about the two niches?”

  “They are on each side of my desk on the landing, but on the outside. As a matter of fact, I never thought of that! It’s towards the ceiling of the landing but on the outside.”

  “What could possibly be in them?”

  “I don’t know. We thought perhaps the records of the house.”

  “Not a treasure?”

  “They say that during the Civil War people buried things, and also during the Revolution, so there could be treasures. Somebody found a coin—1743—on the lane.”

  “An English coin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who found it?”

  “A young girl who came to see us. So we let her keep it. And a window sill was replaced in the dining room, and quite a few artifacts were found in that window sill. Buttons and coins.”

  * * *

  After dinner I went with Mrs. Emery through the house from top to bottom, photographing as I went along. None of the pictures show anything unusual, even in the area of the landing upstairs—but that, of course, does not prove that there is not a presence there lurking for the right moment to be recognized. Only on rare occasions do manifestations of this kind show up on photographic film or paper. It would have taken a great deal more time and patience to come up with positive results.

  I talked to the two girls, Ariane and Lynn, now in their early twenties, and to Chris, the little
boy, but none of the children had had any unusual experiences as far as the specter on the landing was concerned, nor were they frightened by the prospect of having a ghost or two in the house. It was all part of living in the country. I took a good look at the portrait of the maternal ancestor, and could find only that it was a very good portrait indeed. Perhaps she didn’t disapprove of me, or at any rate didn’t show it if she did.

  But when I stood on the landing, on the spot where most of the manifestations had taken place, I felt rather strange. Granted that I knew where I was and what had occurred in the spot I was standing. Granted also that suggestion works even with professional psychic investigators. There was still a residue of the unexplained. I can’t quite put into words what I felt, but it reminded me, in retrospect, of the uneasy feeling I sometimes had when an airplane took a quick and unexpected dive. It is as if your stomach isn’t quite where it ought to be. The feeling was passing, but somehow I knew that the spot I had stepped into was not like the rest of the house. I looked around very carefully. Nothing indicated anything special about this landing. The ceiling at this point was not very high, since the available room had been cut in two when the floor was created. But there was a sense of coziness in the area, almost creating an impression of a safe retreat for someone. Could it be then, I reasoned afterwards, that the spectral gentleman had found himself his own niche, his own retreat, and that he very much liked it? Could it not be that he was pleased with the arrangement; that perhaps when the Emerys created an extra floor out of part of the old attic, they had unconsciously carried out the designs of those who had lived in the house before them? Usually hauntings are due to some structural change which does not meet with the approval of those who had lived before in the house. Here we might have the reverse: a later owner doing the bidding of someone who did not have the time or inclination to carry out similar plans. For it must be recalled that a good house is never finished, but lives almost like a human being and thrives on the ministrations of those who truly love it.

  It was quite dark outside by now. Nevertheless, I stepped to the nearest window and peered out onto the land below. A sense of calmness came over me, and yet a certain restlessness as if I were expecting something or someone to arrive. Was I picking up the dim vibrations left over from a past event? I don’t fancy myself a medium or even remotely psychic, but when I stood on the second floor landing at Howard Lodge, there was a moment when I, too, felt something uncanny within me.