Dear Mrs Shandon,
I received your letter, and went at once to Cursitjee, the agent. Every hole and corner up here seems full, and he had not a single house to let. Today I had a note from him, saying that Briarwood is vacant; the people who took it are not coming up, they have gone to Naini Tal. You are in luck. I have just been out to see the house, and have secured it for you. It is a mile and a half from the club, but I know that you and your sister are capital walkers. I envy you. Such a charming place—two sitting-rooms, four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a hall, servants’ go-downs, stabling, and a splendid view from a very pretty garden, and only Rs. 800 for the season!
Why, I am paving Rs. 1,000 for a very inferior house, with scarcely a stick of furniture and no view. I feel so proud of myself, and I am longing to show you my treasure trove. Telegraph when you start, and I shall have a milk man in waiting and fires in all the rooms.
Yours sincerely,
Edith Chalmers.
We now looked upon Mrs Chalmers as our best and dearest friend, and began to get under way at once. A long journey in India is a serious business when the party comprises two ladies, two children, two ayahs and five other servants, three fox terriers, a mongoose and a Persian cat—all these animals going to the hills for the benefit of their health—not to speak of a ton of luggage, including crockery and lamps, a cottage piano, a goat and a pony. Aggie and I, the children, one ayah, two terriers, the cat and mongoose, our bedding and pillows, the tiffin basket and ice basket, were all stowed into one compartment, and I must confess that the journey was truly miserable. The heat was stifling, despite the water tatties. One of the terriers had a violent dispute with the cat, and the cat had a difference with the mongoose, and Bob and Tor had a pitched battle more than once. I actually wished myself back in Lucknow. I was most truly thankful to wake one morning to find myself under the shadow of the Himalayas—not a mighty, snow-clad range of everlasting hills, but merely the spurs—the moderate slopes, covered with scrub and loose shale and jungle, and deceitful little trickling watercourses. We sent the servants on ahead, whilst we rested at the Dâk bungalow near the railway station, and then followed them at our leisure.
We accomplished the ascent in dandies—open kind of boxes, half box, half chair—carried on the shoulders of four men. This was an entirely novel sensation to me, and at first an agreeable one, so long as the slopes were moderate and the paths wide; but the higher we went, the narrower became the path, the steeper the naked precipice; and as my coolies would walk at the extreme edge, with the utmost indifference to my frantic appeals to “Beetor! Beetor!”—and would change poles at the most agonizing corners—my feelings were very mixed, especially when droves of loose pack ponies came thundering downhill, with no respect for the rights of the road.
Late at night we passed through Kantia and arrived at Briarwood far too weary to be critical. Fires were blazing, supper was prepared, and we dispatched it in haste, and most thankfully went to bed and slept soundly, as anyone would do who had spent thirty-six hours in a crowded compartment and ten in a cramped wooden case.
* * * *
The next morning, rested and invigorated, we set out on a tour of inspection; and it is almost worthwhile to undergo a certain amount of baking on the sweltering heat of the plains in order to enjoy those deep first draughts of cool hill air, instead of a stifling, dust-laden atmosphere, and to appreciate the green valleys and blue hills by force of contrast to the far-stretching, eye-smarting, white glaring roads that intersect the burnt-up plains—roads and plains that even the pariah abandons, salamander though he be!
To our delight and surprise, Mrs Chalmers had by no means overdrawn the advantages of our new abode. The bungalow is as solidly built of stone, two storied, and ample in size. It stood on a kind of shelf, cut out of the hillside, and was surrounded by a pretty flower garden, full of roses, fuchsias, carnations. The high road passed the gate, from which the avenue descended direct to the entrance door, which was at the end of the house, and from whence ran a long passage. Off this passage three rooms opened to the right, all looking south, and all looking into a deep, delightful, flagged verandah.
The stairs were very steep. At the head of them, the passage and rooms were repeated. There were small nooks, and dressing-rooms, and convenient out-houses, and plenty of good water; but the glory of Briarwood was undoubtedly its verandah: it was fully twelve feet wide, roofed with zinc, and overhung a precipice of a thousand feet—not a startlingly sheer khud, but a tolerably straight descent of grey-blue shale rocks and low jungle. From it there was a glorious view, across a valley, far away, to the snowy range. It opened at one end into the avenue, and was not inclosed; but at the side next the precipice there was a stout wooden railing, with netting at the bottom, for the safety of too enterprising dogs or children. A charming spot, despite its rather bold situation; and as Aggie and I sat in it, surveying the scenery and inhaling the pure hill air, and watching Bob and Tor tearing up and down playing horses, we said to one another that “the verandah alone was worth half the rent.”
“It’s absurdly cheap,” exclaimed my sister-in-law complacently. “I wish you saw the hovel I had, at Simla, for the same rent. I wonder if it is feverish, or badly drained, or what?”
“Perhaps it has a ghost,” I suggested facetiously; and at such an absurd idea we both went into peals of laughter.
At this moment Mrs Chalmers appeared, brisk, rosy, and breathlessly benevolent, having walked over from Kantia.
“So you have found it,” she said as we shook hands. “I said nothing about this delicious verandah! I thought I would keep it as a surprise. I did not say a word too much for Briarwood, did I?”
“Not half enough,” we returned rapturously; and presently we went in a body, armed with a list from the agent, and proceeded to go over the house and take stock of its contents.
“It’s not a bit like a hill furnished house,” boasted Mrs Chalmers, with a glow of pride, as she looked round the drawing-room; “carpets, curtains, solid—very solid—chairs, and Berlin wool-worked screens, a card-table, and any quantity of pictures.”
“Yes, don’t they look like family portraits?” I suggested, as we gazed at them. There was one of an officer in faded water colours, another of his wife, two of a previous generation in oils and amply gilded frames, two sketches of an English country house, and some framed photographs, groups of grinning cricketers or wedding guests. All the rooms were well, almost handsomely, furnished in an old-fashioned style. There was no scarcity of wardrobes, looking-glasses, or even armchairs in the bedrooms, and the pantry was fitted out—a most singular circumstance—with a large supply of handsome glass and china, lamps, old moderators, coffee-pots and tea-pots, plated side-dishes and candlesticks, cooking utensils and spoons and forks, wine coasters, and a cake-basket.
These articles were all let with the house, much to our amazement, provided we were responsible for the same. The china was Spode, the plate old family heirlooms, with a crest—a winged horse—on everything, down to the very mustard spoons.
“The people who own this house must be lunatics,” remarked Aggie as she peered round the pantry; “fancy hiring out one’s best family plate and good old china! And I saw some ancient music books in the drawing-room, and there is a side-saddle in the bottle khana.”
“My dear, the people who owned this house are dead,” explained Mrs Chalmers. “I heard all about them last evening from Mrs Starkey.”
“Oh, is she up there?” exclaimed Aggie somewhat fretfully.
“Yes, her husband is cantonment magistrate. This house belonged to an old retired colonel and his wife. They and his niece lived here. These were all their belongings. They died within a short time of one another, and the old man left a queer will, to say that the house was to remain precisely as they left it for twenty years, and at the end of that time it was to be sold and all t
he property dispersed. Mrs Starkey says she is sure that he never intended it to be let, but the heir-at-law insists on that, and is furious at the terms of the will.”
“Well, it is a very good thing for us,” remarked Aggie; “we are as comfortable here as if we were in our own house: there is a stove in the kitchen; there are nice boxes for firewood in every room; clocks, real hair mattresses—in short, it is as you said, a treasure trove.”
We set to work to modernize the drawing-room with phoolkaries, Madras muslin curtains, photograph screens and frames, and such-like portable articles. We placed the piano across a corner, arranged flowers in some handsome Dresden china vases, and entirely altered and improved the character of the room. When Aggie had dispatched a most glowing description of our new quarters to Tom, and we had had tiffin, we set off to walk into Kantia to put our names down at the library and to enquire for letters at the post office.
Aggie met a good many acquaintances—who does not who has lived five years in India in the same district?—among them Mrs Starkey, an elderly lady with a prominent nose and goggle eyes, who greeted her loudly across the reading-room table in this agreeable fashion.
“And so you have come up after all, Mrs Shandon. Someone told me that you meant to remain below, but I knew you never could be so wicked as to keep your poor little children in that heat.”
Then coming round and dropping into a chair beside her she said, “And I suppose this young lady is your sister-in-law?”
Mrs Starkey eyed me critically, evidently appraising my chances in the great marriage market. She herself had settled her own two daughters most satisfactorily, and had now nothing to do but interest herself in these people’s affairs.
“Yes,” acquiesced Aggie. “Miss Shandon—Mrs Starkey.”
“And so you have taken Briarwood?”
“Yes, we have been most lucky to get it.”
“I hope you will think so at the end of three months,” observed Mrs Starkey with a significant pursing of her lips. “Mrs Chalmers is a stranger up here, or she would not have been in such a hurry to jump at it.”
“Why, what is the matter with it?” enquired Aggie. “It is well built, well furnished, well situated, and very cheap.”
“That’s just it—suspiciously cheap. Why, my dear Mrs Shandon, if there was not something against it, it would let for two hundred rupees a month.”
“And what is against it?”
“It’s haunted! There you have the reason in two words.”
“Is that all? I was afraid it was the drains. I don’t believe in ghosts and haunted houses. What are we supposed to see?”
“Nothing,” retorted Mrs Starkey, who seemed a good deal nettled at our smiling incredulity.
“Nothing!” with an exasperating laugh.
“No, but you will make up for it in hearing. Not now—you are all right for the next six weeks—but after the monsoon breaks, I give you a week at Briarwood. No one would stand it longer, and indeed you might as well bespeak your rooms at Cooper’s Hotel now. There is always a rush up here in July by the two month’s leave people, and you will be poked into some wretched go-down.”
Aggie laughed rather a careless ironical little laugh and said, “Thank you, Mrs Starkey; but I think we will stay on where we are; at any rate for the present.”
“Of course it will be as you please. What do you think of the verandah?” she enquired with a curious smile.
“I think, as I was saying to Susan, that it is worth half the rent of the house.”
“And in my opinion the house is worth double rent without it,” and with this enigmatic remark she rose and sailed away.
“Horrid old frump,” exclaimed Aggie as we walked home in the starlight. “She is jealous and angry that she did not get Briarwood herself—I know her so well. She is always hinting and repeating stories about the nicest people—always decrying your prettiest dress or your best servant.”
We soon forgot all about Mrs Starkey and her dismal prophecy, being too gay and too busy to give her, or it, a thought. We had so many engagements—tennis parties and tournaments, picnics, concerts, dances and little dinners. We ourselves gave occasional afternoon teas in the verandah, using the best Spode cups and saucers and the old silver cake-basket, and were warmly complimented on our good fortune in securing such a charming house and garden. One day the children discovered to their great joy that the old chowkidar belonging to the bungalow possessed an African grey parrot—a rare bird indeed in India; he had a battered Europe cage, doubtless a remnant of better days, and swung on his ring, looking up at us enquiringly out of his impudent little black eyes.
The parrot had been the property of the former inmates of Briarwood, and as it was a long-lived creature, had survived its master and mistress, and was boarded out with the chowkidar, at one rupee per month.
The chowkidar willingly carried the cage into the verandah, where the bird seemed perfectly at home.
We got a little table for its cage, and the children were delighted with him, as he swung to and fro, with a bit of cake in his wrinkled claw.
Presently be startled us all by suddenly calling “Lucy,” in a voice that was as distinct as if it had come from a human throat, “Pretty Lucy—Lu—cy.”
“That must have been the niece,” said Aggie. “I expect she was the original of that picture over the chimney-piece in your room; she looks like a Lucy.”
It was a large framed half-length photograph of a very pretty girl, in a white dress, with gigantic open sleeves. The ancient parrot talked incessantly now that he had been restored to society; he whistled for the dogs and brought them flying to his summons, to his great satisfaction and their equally great indignation. He called “Qui hye” so naturally, in a lady’s shrill soprano, or a gruff male bellow, that I have no doubt our servants would have liked to have wrung his neck. He coughed and expectorated like an old gentleman, and whined like a puppy, and mewed like a cat, and I am sorry to add, sometimes swore like a trooper; but his most constant cry was, “Lucy, where are you, pretty Lucy—Lucy—Lu—cy?”
* * * *
Aggie and I went to various picnics, but to that given by the Chalmers (in honour of Mr Chalmers’s brother Charlie, a captain in a Gurkha regiment, just come up to Kantia on leave) Aggie was unavoidably absent. Tor had a little touch of fever, and she did not like to leave him; but I went under my hostess’s care, and expected to enjoy myself immensely. Alas! on that self-same afternoon the long expected monsoon broke, and we were nearly drowned! We rode to the selected spot, five miles from Kantia, laughing and chattering, indifferent to the big blue-black clouds that came slowly, but surely, sailing up from below; it was a way they had had for days and nothing had come of it. We spread the tablecloth, boiled the kettle, unpacked the hampers, in spite of sharp gusts of wind and warning rumbling thunder.
Just as we had commenced to reap the reward of our exertions, there fell a few huge drops, followed by a vivid flash, and then a tremendous crash of thunder, like a whole park of artillery, that seemed to shake the mountains, and after this the deluge. In less than a minute we were soaked through; we hastily gathered up the tablecloth by its four ends, gave it to the coolies, and fled. It was all I could do to stand against the wind; only for Captain Chalmers I believe I would have been blown away; as it was, I lost my hat; it was whirled into space. Mrs Chalmers lost her boa, and Mrs Starkey, not merely her bonnet, but some portion of her hair.
We were truly in a wretched plight, the water streaming down our faces and squelching in our boots; the little trickling mountain rivulets were now like racing seas of turbid water; the lightning was almost blinding; the trees rocked dangerously and lashed one another with their quivering branches. I had never been out in such a storm before, and I hope I never may again.
We reached Kantia more dead than alive, and Mrs Chalmers
sent an express to Aggie, and kept me till the next day. After raining as it only can rain in the Himalayas, the weather cleared, the sun shone, and I rode home in borrowed plumes, full of my adventures and in the highest spirits. I found Aggie sitting over the fire in the drawing-room, looking ghastly white—that was nothing uncommon—but terribly depressed, which was most unusual.
“I am afraid you have neuralgia?” I said as I kissed her; she nodded and made no reply.
“How is Tor?” I enquired as I drew a chair up to the fire.
“Better—quite well.”
“Any news—any letter?”
“Not a word—not a line.”
“Has anything happened to Pip”—Pip was a fox terrier, renowned for having the shortest tail and being the most impertinent dog in Lucknow—“or the mongoose?”
“No, you silly girl! Why do you ask such questions?”
“I was afraid something was amiss; you seem rather down on your luck.”
Aggie shrugged her shoulders and then said:
“What put such an absurd idea into your head? Tell me all about the picnic,” and she began to talk rapidly and to ask me various questions; but I observed that once she had set me going—no difficult task—her attention flagged, her eyes wandered from my face to the fire. She was not listening to half I said, and my most thrilling descriptions were utterly lost on this indifferent, abstracted little creature! I noticed from this time that she had become strangely nervous for her.
The Fourth Ghost Story MEGAPACK: 25 Classic Haunts! Page 37
