by John Tan
‘Which one?’
‘I don’t know the answer to that question. Her father used to come to see how she was doing and, he, himself, had a room on the ground floor. Things, however, were never patched up between them both, and she died in February about the turn of the century and was buried in the Hamplock family cemetery, overlooking Staten Island. That is the history of the short life of Clarice S. Hamplock, Miss; I hope I have satisfied your queries and curiosity somewhat.’
‘You said she was quite creative—did she leave any sort of memorabilia, her watercolor washes or copies of her poetry--to posterity?’
‘Not that I know of, Miss. Now, you must excuse me, Miss, I have to take a meeting with government inspectors at ten past.’
‘I will see myself out; don’t bother to get up, sir.’
Suddenly, there was a plop, and I turned to see my tattered copy of Playing Endgames the Bobby Fischer Way had fallen--slid off the writing table. I could see the fog wending its swirling way into the room through the key-hole, and she, upon turning the brass handle, whispered as one in a dream, ‘Goodbye, and thank you.’
And she did leave me, and—as I was later told—straight up to her room.
I looked out my window and saw the banks of mist and thickset fog blanketing the prospect of which there was nothing else to see, and, feeling hypnotized, I blinked. I sang a melodious snatch of an old Elvis gospel song, ‘Why me, Lord?’ then, ‘...oh, where are the New York winters a-leading me, ah-ah!’ and at this moment the appointment with some new members on the Board was on hand in the visitor’s room, I thought, and heard my own voice saying, ‘Strong, winter bred men must up and about this day, even so: and carry out all official businesses that cannot brook the least delay. So—up Doctor Robinson Cranston and rise up to the occasion, as has been your wont! Don’t worry Robinson, in less than a month-- you will again hear the bluebird sing its sweet, dulcet songs!’
My contribution as a character with a point of view, as being hugely vital to the story-- here ends.
PART THREE: STORY CONTINUED IN EARNEST BY SHE WHO HAILS FROM QUEENS, NEW YORK, WHO HAD BEGAN THIS TALE AT FIRST INSTANCE
1
The beginning of April it was: I was returning straight back to my room. I had been to look at the Augustine Hamplock portrait again, and was aware there might be potential as peril in my line of questioning that was in my thoughts.
I found Mrs. Cavendish saving some of her coffee inside her Taiwan-made flask for me, which she measured out a full cup and half, wishing me to drink it off right away.
‘My brain is like a coffee-grinder, you know,’ she winked at me as she said this, with a gasping, wheezy chortle. ‘Do you know why?’
‘Tell me why that is?’ I said, between mouthfuls, ‘because I don’t know!’
‘Only, without coffee, it doesn’t grind. My mind doesn’t grind.’
‘Is your asthma still troubling you much?’
‘This cold spell shall be the death of me yet. It’s like sticking a feather down my throat. Do you like it?’
‘Yes, it’s very strong. I am going back down to the canteen and get me something to eat. I will get some apples and oranges for you, for you have been most kind.’
‘I’ll pay for them, I don’t want anybody to buy things for me,’ answered Mrs. Cavendish, and she muttered sotto voce, ‘now, where is my purse?’
She found her purse under her pillow and proceeded to dig out some coins and placed them on her bed. She counted them slowly, and must have double counted them a few times, so that I said jokingly, ‘You silly thing, are you long sighted? You must be seeing double!’
I had turned my head away to take my own money out of my wallet and suddenly there was a noise behind me—a whistling sound as if something flew past—and hit the wall on the right side of my bed. In towering temper—which came upon her suddenly—Mrs. Cavendish had flung her pewter vase which held paper lavenders and goldenrods, and dashed it against this sagging wall. The first thought I had was surprise, and that had the vase been made of clay, it would have been broken. But as it was, the pewter bounced off the wall with a dull clang.
‘Mrs. Cavendish!’
‘So sorry!’ she answered; the picture of mortification and consternation because of her sudden, wayward mood.
I had never seen her behave like this before, and so I said, ‘What got you upset, my dear? Was it something I said?’
‘Well, I am going to forget all about it. You shouldn’t have made your snide remark about my seeing double, that’s all!’
‘Sorry! I am sorry, Mrs. Cavendish,’ I said, ‘you can but try once again to control your nerves while I put back the flowers inside the vase.’
‘If it was glass I shouldn’t have thrown it, you know?’ she said, after a moment of silence.
‘I know.’
‘Oh, well, let’s forget it, then.’
‘Miss, as no harm is done, Miss, you needn’t tell the nurse about it, and speaking of telling Nurse about it, I remember bathing my children Alexis and Sofia in the bathtub, and later that afternoon Alexis painting a sea-scape on an egg she stole from the nurse’s carton—but that is neither here nor there, you know! Now, forgive my earlier outburst and shake my hands on it.’
‘It has chipped off some of the old plaster,’ I said, eyeing the damage casually. ‘Otherwise, there is no harm done to my wall.’
Later that night, after I had been watching Tee-vee in the lounge room, and having written down the morning’s incident in my diary, I went up to my room. I found Mrs. Cavendish lying on her bed, with her coverlid partially covering her white hair, and she hissed, ‘There are many ghosts and not all of them are on the same side. More plaster had fallen off during the day when I tried to patch it up, and there is a hole in your wall.’
I took out my pocket flashlight and wearily—almost, when to examine it. I ran my finger along the edge of the hole, and in so doing, more sand and plaster fell out, and it seemed somebody had plastered it in long ago, which was originally quite a large hole in that brick wall. At first in so doing, it was as if a desolate shade had been laid across my shoulder, rather than feeling excited. I thought, I must prod deeper and investigate more, however: in case something interesting turns up, but I would like to do this when morning comes, as now it was about nine-thirty at night.
I said to Mrs. Cavendish, ‘The nurse might see a gaping hole in the wall, and might be in an inquisitive mood to ask in the morning. What should I tell her?’
‘Oh,’ answered Mrs. Cavendish, ‘she would not see it if you cover it with one of my pin-ups! Take a picture of Burt Reynolds or James Bond that is rolled up in my box over there and paste it on your sagging wall. There! You have done it up very fine, my girl, and now you will never break your promise not to tell, won’t you?’
‘I won’t, Mrs. Cavendish, now turn down the lights and let’s get some shut-eye! Please, promise me, on your part, to forget about it in the morning!’
2
Here, I am writing of that day in April after the one Mrs. Cavendish had made a dent on my wall, which she will no doubt attest to, if a desire is conveyed to her for her to do so. I have often wondered how she who was often sore of joints could have thrown so hard. But that very morning proved inconvenient as there were many people about and the doctors were doing their weekly rounds. That afternoon, having finished my lunch, I fell asleep on my bed, and did not stir until well into the evening and found that Mrs. Cavendish had skipped out for her shower. It was that very afternoon of the fourth that I dreamt I was Davy and had a man, whom I presumed to be none other than Mr. Augustine Hamplock, voiding his rheum all over me. Thus, I woke up with a terrible headache. Despite this fact, however, I removed the picture of James Bond and decided right away to investigate the hole. My heebie-jeebies did not prevent me from widening the hole and take out some of the rubble or gravel until my wrist can be thrust inside it. I put my entire hand in, my fingers foraging—for whatever might be inside it, but a
t first there was nothing but loose stones and sand. Then, I felt something hard—like a parchment or oil cloth! My excited fingers fished it out and I pulled it entirely out. It was an old cloth, tied with a piece of soiled cloth, in a bundle. I quickly unwrapped the bundle and found a lady’s gold chain inside with a moldy crucifix, and there was some rolled-up paper as well, with writing done in a lady’s fine hand, some of which was still legible. The words I could make out were, ‘Stay close by me, Doctor Franz, because I feel out of sorts and have palpitations because Papa will be here tomorrow at 4 PM, chauffeured by his new man. With him visiting, my days are never more uncertain and gloomy. I am being haunted to death; please stay till the end of the fall, won’t you?’
I dug inside the hole to see if it would unearth any more objects; but all I found was a few sable brushes in the most dilapidated state.
I had squatted on my bed, and hunching my back a little, lost to myself in my preoccupation--that I didn’t notice it at first. There was neither impatience nor calmness about it, as my mind gradually registered what had been caught in my eye-tail, a few short moments earlier, but had not made any impression upon me. It seemed suspended in some kind of emotional medium, and it was waiting patiently—for me to notice it. It was not as if I was minding my own business and it has come into the room at a jump! Because, to me, it was intimately connected to the room and seemed a piece of it! The ghost made no vigorous movement, this shimmering see-through figure of a very small boy, which the evening light and the shadows were alternately pale and dark against, as though its delicacy of form was gossamer but intangible.
As it stood there and seemed to hover half an inch off the floorboards, there was nothing to show it was bent on a malevolent purpose. It looked as if it had just wandered in, after it had taken the air outside, and didn’t quite know what to do with itself. Certainly, it was not out of place in this old demesne, in recalling her many memories of the past.
Essentially, it lingered for a minute, rendering the temperature of the room to drop—enough to chill my young bones—for, its demeanor was despondent and sad—a despondency born of melancholy and helplessness—that things cannot be undone; and the few minutes seemed an eternity, because its presence seem to underscore the notches already cut in my still unstable mind: although I felt no fear of it, but of pity: like a feeling one would extend to some creature which had died but had not known it was already dead.
It seemed at the same time to have traveled vast distances, and conquered great gulfs and chasms in time, to be present here at this moment, in the middle of the room which was in between the two beds. I thought—or at least it gave me the impression—not to have come from grassy plots with patches of brown earth—but from some dark enclosed space with a suffocating atmosphere. The emotion now it excited in me was curiosity—and dread—dread that it might presage bad days to come—and, I noticed it had a sharp chin and mop-like hair, but its features were strangely familiar. Suddenly, I thought of my dead sister, Clara Amelia, and without knowing it was a ghost, the ghost was obeying its office not to flit at once—although it could not be said it had come to sky-lark that particular day, a day, mellow with the sun and quaint with sudden showers—for no creature of clod it was! Its very sorrow and lost-ness seemed to permeate every part of its ectoplasmic body, yet, its face was emaciated as if from hunger, but I could not see its eyes; it seemed as if it had rubbed out its eyes; and, later on, I knew it was this very tragedy that should convey to me a mark of its most inestimable horror.
There was something of mute entreaty in its aspect, but this, I realized at once was not to alarm me. But, from that moment on, of all the images of Hamplock House that I carried with me to this day, this one takes the cake. It did more than any singular thing in fostering the experience of the place’s freighted past, and its unknown, secret history. Yes, pain and sorrow had cleft its features; but there was also fortitude and courage, this silhouette that was there and yet wasn’t!
I seemed to smell a musty smell, very strong, and at first I thought it came from Mrs. Cavendish’s hole. I was hesitant to say, it was rooted in the spot where the boy was standing, and the boy could be said to be a despondent shade and it was dispersing a musty tang. Yet, it did not seem to be laboring to remain here. Was there some reason or principle that was raised what had been laid in the dust, that was buried long ago in the past, with the rubble being loosened and the articles I had already described found inside my room? I paid the ghost no further mind, and turned my eyes to the white wall and suddenly a chip of plaster fell off, and revealed on the brick was somebody’s writing or brushwork, and it said, ‘1893.’ Every part of the wall was intact and there were no more secret hiding places. I was heated by the coolness of the ghost’s very presence, the brooding presence as when a bumble bee passes through the green screen of budding leaves and catkins outside the window, a presence that drew into itself the very air, sucking up the very sap of the late afternoon, in order, perhaps, to refrigerate its ectoplasmic atoms even more!
Oh, why did it put in an appearance in the tail end of a topsy-turvy day in April, and how will it affect my future? However, my fears were somewhat allayed, and it disappeared at last, melding into the lengthening shadows, because it did not seem to be threatening—but was there, now that I come to dwell on it—something somewhat nefarious or benign in the concentration of that suspicious, eye-less look? How about the hunger in its face, or was that with no material connection with my story? This you shall know.
3
A day later, as I listened to the wonderful birdsong, sans intermission, in the shrubbery, outside the terrace, I thought to myself why had the figure risen like a ghost, a specter, like out of an old paperback novel, and why did it have a famished air—such as was affixed to its gaunt features? I reflected, thus, I had had many overlapping impressions that became part and parcel of my many-faceted experience of this place, and one of the aims I had formed was to penetrate to this mystery’s core, or mellowing such purposes as I had intended by so doing.
Today, the white columns of clouds were of the most scintillating kind, and my thoughts turned to my school-days, and how I had got indifferent grades in English, but, after a few months at Hamplock House I had begun to make full use of its small library and devour all the books contained therein. Today was the day I had finished reading everything twice in it.
Somehow, the atmosphere or the cultured climate of Hamplock House had been conducive to English scholarship, and here, I first felt my pulse racing as I read a pot-boiler and had my first raptures in regard to the written word as they bloomed for me! I had taken the crucifix which I had wiped and cleaned with disinfectant and saw it had an extravagant Latin inscription at the front and the single word: Assisi, at the back. I had examined it, and the soiled parchment and the old gold chain at my leisure, not telling Mrs. Cavendish about my find, afraid that she would blab it abroad although she wasn’t a communicative person by nature. But, still, I didn’t want to take any chance. And, it was my precaution. So-- for a time, they were my private treasure. I examined everything to the minutest detail, especially, the woman’s handwriting and made a thousand speculations what wonderful pictures those watercolor brushes must have painted in their heyday. I did not doubt for one moment that the objects that had been found inside the crevice—a sort of hiding-place, it must be—once belonged to Clarice Hamplock: and this was the very room she stayed in; and her bed was where mine was situated!
I took Doctor Franz, most likely, to be probably Austrian, a forerunner of sorts of the science of Psychoanalysis, which was invented by Sigmund Freud, his countryman. I had found kindled in me, a desire to find out the reason for the boy-ghost’s appalling deprivation–or at least, the reason for his ghastly look,--which, I would never, myself, willingly default from trying to discover—to the utmost of my ability, and in this I made myself a private vow.
Just now I had suffered to employ the brushes, apparently, in trying to gain a feel of th
em when they were so employed, but in so doing, all the hairs had invariably fallen out—and thus, I was unsuccessful in my attempt, because the crevice in which they were removed from was anything, but dry. Before that, I had wiped the oil-cloth off the smut and the intervening years of filthy grime, and although I was not an expert hand in this kind of thing, at last, I got it sufficiently cleaned. Enough to see some writings which looked like red and white oil paint, and I shall henceforth set them down in the order as they occur in the soiled and yellowish cloth.
--
‘My grandfather says the poor should, at least, make a contribution towards the rich man’s coffers every month—a sentiment I sincerely reject and heartily disagree to.’
-- August, 1890
--
‘Beware my Father: he often subjects his servants basely totally to unmerited humiliation.’
-- May, 1892
--
(About my Father)
‘We were much the same in many ways,--but whereas he had failed—I had succeeded in my endeavor and for this he could not forgive me; because I made him feel very bad in regard to his very own self.’
-- August, 1892
Later that same day, before dinnertime, I discovered another fragment of oil-cloth in the same hole, whereby, earlier, I had thought would not yield another thing. This made me pleasantly surprised and very pleased. I quickly cleaned it as before, and the cloth yielded more writings of a more flippant nature:
‘The birds were in their parti-colored jackets and russet colored coattails, and I am once again convinced in the whole of Nature they have the very best clothier and linen draper in all the world! How I wish to paint them again on my baby-mugs once again.’
