The Haunted House

by Hilaire Belloc

  THE

  HAUNTED HOUSE

  BY

  HILAIRE BELLOC

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter I

  In the English County of Sussex, upon the clay thereof, and upon a slight eminence of that clay, stood and stands a squire’s house called Rackham.

  Rackham is a common enough name in that part of the world, attached to perhaps half a dozen widely-different places and things; downs, woods, fields. But no one had ever bothered to call Rackham anything extra to make it a special Rackham. Rackham it had been and remained during its three hundred years as a cell of Lewes Priory and its four hundred of various lay owners.

  Its master at the end of the nineteenth century was a certain Mr. Henry Maple, of a good ordinary position, born to no great fortune, but a sufficient master of his countryside.

  By birth he was what one might expect, a great-grandson. A Maple who had begun as a smith and cattle dealer and had gone on as a general broker, sometimes advancing cash to his fellows and sometimes making a lucky purchase and sale in stock, had bought out the former immemorial squires of Rackham when George III. was king. Those whom he had bought out were an impoverished line, whose founder (a Lewes tallow chandler) had got it, rather more than a century before, after the Civil Wars, from a ruined cavalier family, which, in its turn, had been started by a scullion in Thomas Cromwell’s kitchen, who, yet a century earlier, had nobbled this parcel of his master’s loot during the great break-up.

  So you see that Rackham was just like scores and hundreds of its kind up and down England, and possessed, after the fashion of any one of the others, by a very amiable man, a gentleman (which is saying a great deal), a man formed by Public School and University, and having behind him two generations of Public School and University, and three of sufficient wealth.

  Rackham was a rather absurd looking house, but dignified. Half of it was the original Elizabethan living house, with a few stones left of the earlier monastic building and great oak beams for its framework, but transmogrified by eighteenth-century additions and internal changes. From the lawn in front you saw at one end two low stories of wood and plaster, a tiled roof above that; at the other a brick wall pierced at regular intervals by a particularly ugly set of windows. At the back, looking north, was a dreary stucco addition of kitchens and offices, greenish with damp weather. The later half of the house, all brick, had been added, as had certain changes in the older part, before 1790, by the fortunate smith and cattle dealer. The stucco offices to the north had been built by his son during the high corn prices of the Napoleonic wars.

  Inside, the house was what you would expect from such a history. Nothing whatever told you, even in its oldest part, that there was work many hundred years old, save the few stones of the monastic building at the base of a wall, certain beams still exposed in the servants’ quarters, a box room, and one of the smaller bedrooms. The other beams had been covered long ago with plaster ceilings. Some of them had been cut clean away to raise the height of the living-rooms after the later fashion. There was a bathroom with hot and cold water, which was thought a fine new thing in the middle of the nineteenth century, when it had been fitted up. There was a small, rather dingy hall; a passage running from this to the various living-rooms; one simple staircase for the family, with rather nicely carved oaken banisters, and a very much worn and very ugly carpet. There were plenty of books and plenty of pictures—pictures of all sorts and kinds; many a bad water-colour by ladies of the place, living and dead; a few portraits in the drawing-room, one of which, almost black, was reputed to be a Gainsborough. The house was comfortable, it was homely, and it exactly suited its master, who was, in the first years of the twentieth century, a man of about forty, very much liked in the neighbourhood, and with something of a reputation for scholarship; a widower with one young child—a boy called John.

  Thus lived Henry Maple, on what he felt, as all such men feel, to be ancestral land descended to him from beyond all human record; and in sober truth possessed by his own blood for a good deal more than a hundred years; which is quite a long succession for such English land.

  He was part of it: of the outlook from that slight eminence towards the Downs ten miles off along the southern sky; of the rather dishevelled little park (if you liked to call it that) with its ill-kept gravel way and its little lodge at the gates; of half a dozen farms which had provided an income sufficient for his father and grandfather before him, and the rents of which heavily reduced during the depression of the 80’s had since remained unchanged; sleeping, like most things in that good world. Part of him also were the two or three horses in his stables, the two or three vehicles, and particularly the little brougham in which he drove to the domestic country station three miles off, where the very asphalte and palings seemed to talk with the Sussex burr and to think of London, forty miles away, as a place utterly remote.

  London was not properly part of Henry Maple’s life. He had his club, of course, for which his father had put him down when he was born, just as he had put him down for his Public School and for his College. He used it perhaps twenty times in a year.

  The staff of Rackham was consonant with all the rest. A butler of much the same age as his master, and of twenty years’ standing, knowing the names of wines, but far more familiar with beer. A lad who cleaned boots, ran messages, and took the blame for mishaps; a few maids; a fixed, elderly cook called Mrs. Marwell, and a kitchen-maid; and she that had been the child’s nurse, and still was after a fashion (even after he had begun to go to a Preparatory School). She was kept on, and would be kept on till she died.

  There was Rackham; and (one would have said) the benediction of God upon it. I knew it well enough.

  The first thing that began to threaten such unchangeable things with change was an unaccountable creeping oddity in the relation of income to expenditure. Henry Maple, in the intervals of his reading and his quiet entertainment, heard of it vaguely as “these times.” It might also be called certain new habits of a changing age; rather more travel, a few more visitors, farmers coming shamefacedly and very privately to ask for some small reduction in rent, or rather heavy piece of repair, which was granted as a matter of course; coming again a year or two later to ask for another, which was also granted as a matter of course, but at last with a little misgiving.

  The century was thus nine years old, and his lonely, affectionate little son, of whom his father made a close companion, was nine years old also, when Henry Maple realised that there were a good many things he ought to have done to the house and did not from lack of funds—wear and tear come so gradually. He was used to the fences beginning to look tumbled down, and to a good deal of grass on the few paths; for the gardener was getting old, and not over lively.

  Henry Maple had grown used also to an overdraft at his bank; though he was rather disturbed when, a few years earlier, the manager had told him in a pleasant conversation that it would be well to fix a limit—and did so. But he got used to that too.

  He very reluctantly and in rather haphazard, expensive fashion mortgaged two of the outlying farms; then a third. There came a moment when he had a little difficulty in meeting the full interest, though it was in the hands of a family lawyer who was as much a part of his life as anything else, and had jogged along comfortably enough with him. But he did at one mome
nt in the year 1905, rather suddenly, need £1,000.

  It had not occurred to him how easily his younger brother, William Maple, a London solicitor in good practice whom he saw fairly often, could meet the case, or how willing he would be to do it. It was William Maple himself who suggested the thing (how he could have heard of the embarrassment Henry was at a loss to guess, and, indeed, did not waste much time in guessing). It was after a quiet dinner which the two brothers had had together, when William was spending a week-end at Rackham, that the proposal was made, and the elder brother accepted it with real gratitude.

  A second thousand followed, and a third. William came oftener—a frequent guest. He had married a handsome, rather pushing wife of a birth like his own, the daughter of the Dean of Lamborough, the grand-daughter of a large coal-owner of the Midlands; a woman who liked to know the world and whose increasing acquaintance with sundry rich people and other sundry talked-of people in London increased, very much to her husband’s content, and not a little to his advantage.

  Henry Maple had no great liking for his sister-in-law. Her worldliness jarred on him and she knew nothing of the things he loved. But he never thought of her unjustly. He invited her frequently enough, and they were fairly good friends.

  William Maple was what Henry would no doubt have been if Fate had compelled him (as it never did) to earn his living. But in the twenty odd years since their common boyhood the difference in habit of mind and activity had become pronounced. William was precise and methodical; not unjust, but long grown incapable of anything unbusinesslike or slack. A bargain was a bargain, and a contract a contract; and the results of it, if they were turned out to the other man’s loss, were the other man’s look-out. He could no more separate his family from the rest of the world in this general view than he could have separated one set of figures from another in the jottings of his note-books. These he kept carefully from year to year; no one saw them but himself, and they did all the work that the most elaborate keeping of accounts can do in a large business.

  It was natural enough in Henry’s eyes that his brother should be easy in the matter of interest and allow it to be added to the main debt. It was natural in William’s that this attitude on his own part, which was not ungenerous, should yet be precisely regulated and never allowed to breed confusion.

  The losses on all English agricultural work continued; the new habits continued with them; the slightly increased expenditure; the vague idea permeating Henry Maple’s mind that the old state of affairs was the natural and permanent one and would in due course return.

  He knew roughly—after a few more years had passed—that his total indebtedness to his brother had now come to £7,000; he knew that the interest had fallen into arrears—to how much the total of the new interest on those arrears might amount he had but a very rough conception, and he did not dwell upon it.

  When it had been suggested by William that the mortgages on the farms might be taken over, so as to make one simple body of all the obligations, he was more than willing—it kept things in the family. The fixed figure in his mind of £7,000 thus became £10,000; and the arrears of interest crept on. There were one or two further loans, and one fine day in 1913 William thought it only right to have a clear statement, and go into everything in detail with his brother. It was thus upon a Sunday in August, a year before the quite unimaginable war, that the critical moment came.

  William had turned over in his own mind during the previous week what he would say and do. He had everything fixed, tabulated and arranged.

  William Maple had prospered; he had bought one of the dignified old freehold houses on the river in Cheyne Walk, spending on it rather more than he would have done, perhaps, had not his wife urged him. The house was becoming something of a centre in London for people who wrote and painted and were talked of, for the more important people who had gone into politics, and even for a few of the very much more important people whose point was their new wealth. Mrs. William Maple had decided that the time had come for a proper house in the country as well; but her husband, for all his success, hesitated at the expense. It was Mrs. William Maple who suggested that the opportunity lay ready to hand in Rackham.

  “Henry will never marry again,” she had said. “The longer he keeps that place the more it will go to pieces. I don’t believe that boy, John, will come to any good with it. He’s a nice bright child and I am as fond of him as you are; but I see what the end of it will be.”

  And William, after a rather long pause, had agreed that she was right—at any rate as far as his brother’s incapacity for management was concerned, and the probability of a break - down if things continued as they were.

  There was no need to do anything harsh or unpleasant, Mrs. William had said. After all, what with the capital sums advanced and the really absurd arrears of interest, and the interest on those arrears—let her husband remember that he very often had to find that himself, when he was making new investments, and depending upon the bank—the total must be getting close on £18,000.

  “Not quite that,” William Maple had answered.

  “Well!” Mrs. William had taken him up with a rather sharp sigh, “close on it, anyhow! And we can’t afford it—you know we can’t. Besides which, as I say, it would be a blessing all round; and there’s no need to do anything harsh or unpleasant. You can suggest some arrangement. Henry might travel for a bit, on whatever more you could let him have, and we might pay him rent for a while and then see what could be done when we had room to turn round.”

  “Yes,” her husband had answered, “Yes … Something of that sort could be done … Certainly.”

  Something of that sort had occurred to him also, Had it not? Vaguely? All but £18,000 was due: allow Henry another £2,000 odd. After all, as land now was, £20,000 was a very fair amount to allow for Rackham: if anything too much. There was an enormous amount wanted doing to the place—he was already beginning to think of it almost as his own. As for his wife, she was there in spirit already; ordering the place about, renewing it from cellar to roof, and a squire’s wife, as she should be. Moreover, she was the good angel of poor Henry, and of his unfortunate little son. She was saving them from a terrible future.

  William had sat up late that night in his study, getting all the papers in order, setting down the main figures in an exceedingly clear and plain fashion. The next day, he had invited himself to Rackham, and the day after he had driven from the station in the old brougham behind the old horse with the old coachman, up the dilapidated drive, to the door which had not been painted since the triumphant conquest of the Boer Republics, and the nasty slump in Chartereds.

  So there William Maple was, on that Sunday evening of August, 1913, sitting over brother Henry’s wine and making himself ready for an explanation.

  “Is that the same port?” he said.

  “Yes,” Henry answered, taking up his glass and looking through it at a candle.

  “I thought it had gone off. Father laid it down the day you got into the Eight,” said William.

  Henry nodded.

  “There is no reason why it should have gone off, though it wasn’t a particularly good year. Anyhow, it’s all right still.”

  The curtains were not drawn, the big ugly windows of the dining-room were open to the warm August night. The mahogany reflected the glass ware and the silver. Henry’s eye rested, unseeing, upon the crest the fortunate smith and cattle dealer had arranged for, more than a century ago. It was a scene unchanged; just what it had been for the last thirty years and more, as far back as the two men could remember, save for the slightly dingier tint of the walls and the irregular, patchy fading of the red damask of the curtains. Other little details William now oddly noticed, though Henry could not have told him they were there: one of the bell handles had gone from the side of the fire-place leaving an iron stump, and poor old helmeted Minerva upon a bracket (Italian she had been, and brought over after the French wars) had lost the tip of her nose.

  The sil
ence could not go on for ever, and William braced himself to speak. It was no great effort for him, after all. He had had to do such things twenty times before, though never in such surroundings nor with the difficulty—slight to him, but still present—of imperilling the associations of childhood.

  “Henry,” he said rather too suddenly, “I want to talk to you about your own affairs.”

  “Yes,” said Henry gently. “Yes.…what?”

  He had no particular dread of what was coming; he thought it might be another loan, and that would not be unwelcome. There had been another little trouble. The water-mill absolutely must be seen to, and he was afraid it would cost a good deal. George Barrett, the miller, had spoken of it twice.

  “Henry,” continued William, “I think the time really has come when we must take stock.”

  It was not quite what Henry had expected. He looked up rather startled and a little bewildered. But he felt the justice of it. After all, they had not “taken stock” at all at any tme. William took from his mouth the end of the cigar he had been smoking and ground it slowly on his plate. He felt in his pocket for papers, but thought better of it. Looking down at the cloth, so as to avoid his brother’s eye, he said:

  “The total amount, Henry, counting the arrears of interest, you know, is £17,324 odd.” He paused a minute—“£17,324 … odd.” Then he pulled out a half sheet of paper which he had hesitated at just before, pushed his plate aside, spread the figures out before him, and repeated, “Yes, £17,324 14s. and 3d.”

  What had floated in Henry’s mind for so long was a fixed figure in large print—£10,000. And after it—in a sort of blur—something or other that might be a few thousand more. £17,324 pulled him up. It was a good deal more than he had bargained for. Then he remembered sundry odd sums which, after all, he ought to have added to that £10,000. There had been the cleaning out of what they called “the Lake” but the villagers “the Pond”; and yes—now he remembered it—there had been the big subscription which he had thought only right for the building of the new bit on to the church. That was years ago, and somehow or other he had not connected it with the main debt. And then, of course, arrears did mount up. After all, 5 percent, on £10,000 was £500 a year, was it not? And there is interest on that interest when it is not paid. Yes, it was right enough, no doubt. Such was the course of Henry’s rambling mind, before which now stood a new figure, large, dominant, £17,324.