The Haunted House

by Hilaire Belloc

  “Yes, yes,” she sighed, in reply to it, “it may be a long time yet—or it may not. But I have got to think of the boy.”

  Poor woman! She had got to think of the Esthonian as well! Of him who was to her Mr. Rupert de Vere.

  “I don’t know—I don’t know,” she went on, in a carefully distracted voice, and once more she put her hand on Lord Hellup’s arm, this time less briefly. “We women need advice. No … I have made up my mind. It’s my duty to sell … I even, sometimes, think I ought to take the price that was offered me last month by that odious tea broker.”

  Lord Hellup had not heard of the tea broker, friend of his hostess though he was. And why should he—since the tea broker did not exist? Lord Hellup had passed his life in business. His judgment of prices, he would often tell himself, might be compared to the glance of an eagle. He could not help wondering what the odious tea broker man had suggested for Rackham Catchings. But Hilda was not “talking”—yet.

  They were now off the lawn and upon that gravel path going back to the door, after another such silence as Amathea also had known in that same place not very long before. Just as they reached the threshold, Hilda looked up frankly into her friend’s eyes. There was a suspicion of tears in her own, which moved that friend profoundly.

  “When once I’m certain it’s my duty to sell, I shall do it,” she said. She shook her head again sadly. “But I can’t bear to think of myself without Rackham.”

  “And we,” said Lord Hellup, in a low, deep voice, suitable to the occasion, and most sincerely moved, “we” (he used the impersonal term) “could not bear to think of Rackham without you.” He took her hand again—I am sorry to say that it was his intention to have kissed the tips of her fingers, but found she had withdrawn them. The peer was annoyed with the fear that he had perhaps broken some social canon or other. But Hilda Maple was not cruel, for as she went away, their last words exchanged, she smiled.

  So much for sixty years and fifty years. Now let us come to calculations.

  * * * * *

  At the table in her room Lady Mere de Beaurivage did, as she put it to herself, some figuring. She was an adept at the art, from the days when she had marked prices in chalk with lightning strokes upon the sides of the barrow in the Old Kent Road. She had improved in the later days, when she had cheapened furniture for the new villa of which she had been so proud in the suburbs, before the Great Change.

  But since the Great Change I must admit that Amathea, Baroness Mere de Beaurivage had begun to let things slide. The money was there in such heaps that really it didn’t seem to matter what one did. Her passion for Rackham had got hold of her. She knew enough of buying and selling to make certain that the place was within her reach if enough were offered. It was only a question of what enough was. She could usually manage her lord, but she knew that in one thing the management was not always easy; and that one thing was money. For like all those whose genius has led them to accumulate a considerable fortune rapidly, Lord Mere de Beaurivage was in some terror of losing it. She remembered what other friends had paid for houses and what other friends had sold at. Her desire for the place led her further to remember how often she had heard of the special value of these modest country houses of ancient memory; what a drug in the market were the great hulking stone places of the eighteenth century, and what a demand there was for these Tudor and timbered gems.

  Before she had done dreaming of it, the good woman had got as her top price, at the back of her head—counting all—something like £60,000. After all, it was not her money. And what is £60,000 in two millions? Besides which, it was only £3,000 a year anyhow; and what’s three thousand a year when you were born to an uncertain pound a week? The great thing is to get what you want. Three thousand a year—but that’s not the way to look at it—£60,000. Why, there are toffs as ull give that for a trumpery picture!

  And then, there was no one to inherit from them. And she asked herself sentimentally whether Huggins and she had not the right to enjoy what was left of their lives. And there could not be anything else like Rackham. There were not two places like Rackham—not in all England there weren’t.

  In Amathea’s room, therefore, the figure of Sixty Thousand Pounds had taken root and had sprung.

  Through a wall not too thick (for it was in the new or Catchings wing, and the walls were damnably antique) at another desk, Hilda Maple was making her calculations also. She drew the figures wearily enough. £20,000 would clear her. What was desperate, what was immediate was de Vere of Jermyn Street.

  It was to pay the first five hundred, and so get the Esthonian to renew, all those months ago, just after the Ancestor, that she had written, on the advice of an acquaintance familiar with antiques, to Blunt of Bristol; and really Blunt had been very nice about it. She had a full three months in which to meet it. But when Blunt had to be met for the renewal—he pressed her courteously by post, she had never seen him—he pleaded the smallness of his capital; he recommended that very honourable firm, or rather, private advancer, a Mr. de Vere of Jermyn Street. And Mr. de Vere had been quite charming. He had advanced enough to permit Blunt of Bristol to renew for another three months. And he himself had fixed a very easy date for his own repayment But that easy date had fallen due a whole week ago—and how he had pestered her. He had made her dread the telephone.

  She must have something to show him. Anything in writing. Even a private note. It was a little desperate; but she did think she could get it before the break-up on Monday.

  It was not too late, Sunday though it was. She knew from sad experience that de Vere could use the telephone from his end on a Sunday afternoon, and she doubted not that she could call him up from hers.

  She took up the receiver; and sure enough that smooth voice answered in velvet from the other end. Her own voice as she continued was all as smooth.

  “Is that Mr. de Vere? Mr. Rupert de Vere? Oh, Mr. Rupert,” settling down, and still more sweetly, “I am so glad of the opportunity of telling you—yes, I know. I didn’t want to make you talk business on a Sunday” (sudden change to an expression of anguish). “Oh, no, surely, dear Mr. Rupert. Not Monday! Why, that’s to-morrow! Yes, yes” (pettishly), “I know that’s the date on the paper—a week ago—yes—but there’s common sense in these matters—no—yes—exactly. Do wait a minute. I’ve practically sold the place. No, no, Mr. Rupert, you haven’t heard that so often before. I tell you it’s virtually sold. There’s Lord Hellup who has virtually accepted—practically. And then, you know, there’s the other one here too—Lord Mere de Beaurivage—not heard of him? Oh, nonsense, you must have heard of him! Dear Mr. Rupert, he’s positively dripping with it. No, no” (shouting) “BRUVVISH—I’ll spell it” (slowly) “BEAURI (angrily). “It’s damnable—you’ve cut me off … yes, yes, another three minutes. Yes. Oh, are you there, Mr. Rupert? Yes, I know they did, the brutes. I’ll spell it again. B for buffalo, E for Edward, A for affluent, U for ugly, R for rancid, I for innocent, V for vulgar—yes, that’s it” (emphatically) “precisely. Sir George Huggins that was. Yes, only he pronounces it Bruvvish—I thought you’d know. He’s the man whom the Prime Minister—yes, exactly, dear Mr, Rupert. Oh, thank you so much. Tuesday, then? I may see you Tuesday? Oh, that makes all the difference” (peevishly). “Well, you don’t suppose I can come with the agreement in my pocket! What? Something in writing? Oh, yes, certainly. Well, then, Tuesday. Thank you so much, dear Mr. Rupert! Tuesday morning—that’ll be perfect … G-o-o-d b-y-e.”

  Aunt Hilda hung up the receiver, exhausted; faced the situation, and muttered bravely, “Hell!”

  Meanwhile her nephew was making history with her butler, Isabeau Hellup concurring.

  Chapter XI

  John Maple sought Corton. He found that excellent man seated in his private room beside the fire, reading The Spectator in cultured ease. For it was the hour when butlers take their ease. The dignified figure rose with majestic courtesy at the young man’s knock and entry.

  “You catc
h me improviste, Mr. John,” he said.

  “I interrupt you, Corton,” answered John. “I’m sorry, but it’s urgent, and it won’t take me long. I’m glad you read The Spectator.”

  “That journal is my favourite reading, Mr. John,” answered Corton, with fine simplicity. “Mrs. Maple is good enough to provide the News of the World for us. I glance at it, for a summary of what may be called domestic occurrences. But for judgment and a survey of public life I prefer The Spectator. It is my pabulum.”

  John told him he was quite right. But he added abruptly:

  “Corton, have you ever heard about a ghost at Rackham?”

  “A ghost, Mr. John? Lord, no!” said the old gentleman. “If there was a ghost,” he added emphatically, “I should have heard of it, I hope! There was a ghost at Pilford, a little the other side of Lewes, but,” he added proudly, “they laid him.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember the ghost at Pilford. It was a white cow. Came into their upper garden at night, didn’t it, in the dark of the moon?”

  “That’s right,” answered Corton sagely. “It came twice. But some said it wasn’t an earthly cow. On the third night that young clerical gentleman what wore a three-corner cap said he could exercise it and exercised it. It never came again. I heard the very details, Mr. John,” he said, lowering his voice. “I heard that from Mr. Worthing, who you may remember was valet to Sir Charles.”

  John nodded.

  “The young gentleman said some strange, solemn words: there they all was, after eleven, looking from the terrace, and the cow melted.” He would have given more of the spectral beast. His voice was already in tune for the supernatural, when John interrupted him and said:

  “Well, Corton, so there has never been a ghost at Rackham, anyhow. Now listen. There’s got to be a ghost now, this very day.”

  And he unfolded his plan.

  Corton listened gravely. But he was not yet an ally. He heard what John had to say, but he didn’t know what Mrs. Maple would think of it. It was not for him to play practical jokes either. He would do anything to help Master John, but … What with one thing and another.

  It was then that John put down his cards.

  “Corton,” he said, “who’s the rightful owner of Rackham?”

  “Why, Master John,” answered the old man, hesitating, “it’s not my place to say. If I might be so bold as to be free to speak …”

  “Yes, Corton,” interrupted the young man, “if you were free to speak you would say that I was the rightful owner of Rackham. And you would say that I was swindled out of it, or at any rate crow-barred out of it; and that’s an abomination. And you would say that if only I could pay Aunt Hilda the fair price (and the fair price would be a good deal less than the £20,000 my father was supposed to owe her husband—he never borrowed anything like it really) I’d have as good right to Rackham as my father himself had.”

  Corton made a gesture—too respectful for a nod, too affirmative for a bow.

  “Well, Corton,” said John sharply, “now don’t you see?”

  But the old man wanted to have the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.

  “Look here, Corton, do you want to see that fellow Bruvvish sitting here in Rackham, and you turned out, and Lord knows what horrors of his own brought in? Jazz bands and Wireless?”

  “I had hoped,” said the old man slowly, “to live and die here, Master John, I had hoped to live on here when I was past my service, if ever. Your father always said I should, and Mrs. Maple never denied it one way or the other. This room’s not my very own, sir, it’s yours; but I don’t think I could live long away from it. It would kill me, sir, if I may say so with respect. I never thought of strangers in this house. It wouldn’t be in nature.”

  “Well, there you are, Corton. And the way to prevent that is to prevent this old brute Huggins from getting the place Besides which, Corton, you know as well as I do that Rackham would be itself again if I was here, as I ought to be, and you as you were when my father was alive, running the whole place and bullying us to death. Well, there’s only one way of doing it, and that’s frightening off Lord Rubbish. I have laid the foundation, and we have only got to go ahead. Now listen to me, Corton. In about five minutes I shall be in the billiard-room with Miss Hellup. I have told her. I am going to marry that young lady, Corton.”

  “Indeed, sir,” said Corton, bowing again, but this time far more ceremoniously. “I congratulate you, sir. I’ve always heard that these American young ladies …”

  “You’re quite right, Corton; you’re perfectly right,” said John hurriedly. “And very beautifully put. Thank you a thousand times. Now listen again. I tell you in about five minutes I’ve got to meet her in the billiard-room. When I ring twice will you come? We shall have to put our three heads together. Do you understand? When I ring twice? And no one else is to come.”

  Corton understood.

  As the young man made to go out of Corton’s room that master of ceremonies heaved to his feet and was before him at the door. He bowed yet again as he showed John Maple out. Then, when all was clear, he sent for the boy.

  “Boy,” he said, “when you hear the bell twice, twice, mind you, you come and tell me. Twice, mind you! Don’t disturb me for once.”

  “Very good, sir,” answered the boy in a voice cracked but most servile.

  His superior rewarded him with an august but very slight nod.

  Some few minutes passed. Corton no longer read The Spectator, passionately absorbing though its pages be. He held it listlessly drooping in an aged hand; he looked into the fire and remembered his old master, Henry Maple, and the better days. Then there rose before his mind the picture of Lord Mere de Beaurivage, and his mouth hardened.

  The bell rang twice.

  * * * * *

  In the billiard - room Bo was pocketing the red all by herself with admirable precision. When Bo could not do things well she did not do them at all; which is one way of being efficient. She continued her series as John catechised her on her short interlude, picking the red out for her every time and putting it back on spot with the tenderest care, and admiring her gymnastics at long and short range.

  “Did you speak to him, Bo?”

  “I did that. I asked him whether he had felt something odd about the corridor upstairs where his room is. He said no I think he gulped.”

  “What state did you think him in, Bo?”

  “Shaken, Jacko; not badly, but shaken. He didn’t like my talking about it.”

  “Oh! So I worked it?”

  “Yep! Damn! You can’t do two things at once,” said she, putting down her cue as the red foolishly lolloped round hanging its head and came to a disgraceful rest, unsatisfied. John took up the cue and played a stroke.

  “The others’ve got to hear the balls clicking, so as to know we’re at work and not to be interfered with,” he said.

  “You’re right,” said Bo.

  “He’s coming. He’s to come when I ring twice. So I’ll ring twice.”

  He rang twice. And in due time with due dignity Corton entered. Bo put her finger to her lip and John obediently did the same. The elderly gentleman with some doubt that it might not be very dignified, but also that it might be his duty, put to his lips in turn a grave and rather podgy finger. Then John swung the balls together viciously, to make a prolonged clattering, and they laid their swift plan.

  “If I may say so without forgetting my place, Master John,” said Corton, when they had begun the preliminaries, “we shall do well to begin with the household.”

  “The household?” said Bo.

  “Yes, miss. I mean, the lower servants. And then, of course, my own colleagues, I trust I shall be able to indoctrinate them.”

  John nodded.

  “That’s wise,” he said. “But remember the man we’re shooting at.”

  “Oh, yes, Master John,” said Corton respectfully. “That’s what I mean. You will be working him, if I may use the word,” and he coughed gently. “I’ll be b
ringing a deputation some time later this evening, sir. They are a little shaken already, Master John, like what you said his lordship was. Only more so. Especially the cook. She was always psychic. And then there’s the tweenie—she’ll be useful, because she’s worse, she has had religion this winter—badly. Only, Master John, I don’t think I can do anything with that Frenchman. He’s shown no signs. I fear he is impervious to the influences of the Other World.”

  “I know,” said Bo simply. “Frenchmen are brass.”

  “They give no credit, miss, to the doctrine of eternal punishment.”

  “That’s what I meant,” said Bo.

  “Now, Corton,” John went on, “listen to what Miss Hellup and I have arranged. I’m going to put on a long black coat she has got for me; and we’ve taken down one of the swords from the sham armour that Aunt Hilda bought the other day, and shall stick it through the slit in the coat. Then she’s made a big ruff. I shall put the whole thing over my head, and there I shall be. A short man with his head in his chest, or a tall man without a head—whichever you like. A ruff where his neck ought to be, but nothing above it.”

  “It was Miss Hellup who thought of that!” said Corton with admiration.

  “No, Corton,” said Bo. “We both thought of it. But it is I who made up the properties—and they’re dandy.”

  “You’ll keep them carefully concealed, miss—and you, sir—until the right moment?” said Corton anxiously.

  The two younger people nodded. John went on.

  “That old gentleman’s going to hear voices, Corton, till they drive him to bed. And you know that Aunt Hilda has put him into the Armada room?”