“What’s the matter, Judson?” queried Mrs. Terwilliger, drowsily, as she opened her eyes and saw her husband preparing for the fray.
She no longer called him Hankinson, not because she did not think it a good name, nor was it less euphonious to her ear than Judson, but Judson was Mr. Terwilliger’s middle name, and middle names were quite the thing, she had observed, in the best circles. It was doubtless due to this discovery that her visiting cards had been engraved to read “Mrs. H. Judson-Terwilliger.”
the hyphen presumably being a typographical error, for which the engraver was responsible.
“Matter enough,” growled Hankinson. “I have reason to believe that that jackass of a ghost is on duty tonight.”
At the word ghost a pseudo-aristocratic shriek pervaded the atmosphere, and Mrs. Terwilliger, forgetting her social position for a moment, groaned “Oh, Hank!” and swooned away. And then the president of the Terwilliger Three-dollar Shoe Company of Soleton, Massachusetts (Limited), descended to the kitchen.
Across the sill of the kitchen door lay the culinary treasure whose lobster croquettes the Prince of Wales had likened unto a dream of Lucullus. Within the kitchen were signs of disorder. Chairs were upset the table was lying flat on its back, with its four legs held rigidly up in the air; the kitchen library, consisting of a copy of Marie Antoinette’s Dream-Book; a yellow-covered novel bearing the title Little Lucy: or, The Kitchen-maid who Became a Marchioness; and Sixty Soups, by One who Knows, lay strewn about the room, the Dream-Book sadly torn, and Little Lucy disfigured forever with batter. Even to the unpractised eve it was evident that something had happened, and Mr. Terwilliger felt a cold chill mounting his spine three sections at a time.
Whether it was the chill or his concern for the prostrate cook that was responsible or not I cannot say, but for some cause or other Mr. Terwilliger immediately got down on his knees, in which position he gazed fearfully about him for a few minutes, and then timidly remarked, “Cook!”
There was no answer.
“Mary, I say. Cook,” he whispered, “what the deuce is the meaning of all this?”
A low moan was all that came from the cook, nor would Hankinson have listened to more had there been more to hear, for simultaneously with the moan he became uncomfortably conscious of a presence. In trying to describe it afterwards, Hankinson said that at first he thought a cold draught from a dank cavern filled with a million eels, and a rattlesnake or two thrown in for luck, was blowing over him, and he avowed that it was anything but pleasant; and then it seemed to change into a mist drawn largely from a stagnant pool in a malarial country, floating through which were great quantities of finely chopped sea-weed, wet hair, and an indescribable atmosphere of something the chief quality of which was a sort of stale clamminess that was awful in its intensity.
“I’m glad,” Mr. Terwilliger murmured to himself, “that I ain’t one of those delicately reared nobles. If I had anything less than a right-down regular republican constitution I’d die of fright.”
And then his natural grit came to his rescue, and it was well it did, for the presence had assumed shape, and now sat on the window-ledge in the form of a hag, glaring at him from out of the depths of her unfathomable eyes, in which, despite their deadly greenness, there lurked a tinge of red caused by small specks of that hue semi-occasionally seen floating across her dilated pupils.
“You are the Bangletop ghost, I presume?” said Terwilliger, rising and standing near the fire to thaw out his system.
The spectre made no reply, but pointed to the door.
“Yes,” Terwilliger said, as if answering a question. That’s the way out, madame. It’s a beautiful exit, too. Just try it.”
“H’I knows the wi out,” returned the spectre, rising and approaching the tenant of Bangletop, whose solitary lock also rose, being too polite to remain seated while the ghost walked. “H’I also knows the wi in, ’Ankinson Judson Terwilliger.”
“That’s very evident, madame, and between you and me I wish you didn’t,” returned Hankinson, somewhat relieved to hear the ghost talk, even if her voice did sound like the roar of a conch-shell with a bad case of grip. “I may say to von that, aside from a certain uncanny satisfaction which I feel at being permitted for the first time in my life to gaze upon the linaments of a real live misty musty spook, I regard your coming here as an invasion of the sacred rights of privacy which is, as you might say, ‘hinexcusable.’”
“Hinvaision?” retorted the ghost, snapping her fingers in his face with such effect that his chin dropped until Terwilliger began to fear it might never resume its normal position. “Hinvaision? H’I’d like to know ’oo’s the hinvaider. H’I’ve occupied hese ’ere ’alls for hover two ’undred years.”
“Then its time you moved, unless per chance you are the ghost of a medieval porker,” Hankinson said, his calmness returning now that he had succeeded in plastering his iron-gray lock across the top of his otherwise bald head. “Of course, if you are a spook of that kind you want the earth, and maybe you’ll get it.”
“H’I’m no porker,” returned the spectre. “H’I’m simply the shide of a poor abused cook which is hafter revenge.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Terwilliger, raising his eyebrows, “this is getting interesting. You’re a spook with a grievance, eh? Against me? I’ve never wronged a ghost that I know of.”
“No, h’I’ve no ’ard feelinks against you, sir,” answered the ghost. “Hin fact h’I don’t know nothink about you. My trouble’s with them Baingletops, and h’I’m a-pursuin’ of ’em. H’I’ve cut ’em out of two ’undred years of rent ’ere. They might better ’ave pide me me waiges hin full.”
“Oho!” cried Terwilliger; “it’s a question of wages, is it? The Bangletops were hard up?”
“’Ard up? The Baingletops?” laughed the ghost. “When they gets ’ard up the Baink o’ Hengland will be in all the sixty soups mentioned in that there book.”
“You seem to be up in the vernacular,” returned Terwilliger, with a smile. “I’ll bet you are an old fraud of a modern ghost.”
Here he discharged all six chambers of his pistol into the body of the spectre.
“No taikers,” retorted the ghost, as the bullets whistled through her chest, and struck deep into the wall on the other side of the kitchen. “That’s a noisy gun you’ve got, but you carn’t ly a ghost with cold lead hany more than you can ly a corner-stone with a chicken. H’I’m ’ere to sty until I gets me waiges.”
“What was the amount of your wages due at the time of your discharge?” asked Hankinson.
“Hi was gettin’ ten pounds a month,” returned the spectre.
“Geewhittaker!” cried Terwilliger, “you must have been an all-fired fine cook.”
“H’I was,” assented the ghost, with a proud smile. “H’I cooked a boar’s ’ead for ’is Royal ’Ighness King Charles when ’e visited Baingletop ’All as which was the finest ’e hever taisted, so ’e said, hand ’e’d ’ave knighted me hon the spot honly me sex wasn’t suited to the title. ‘You carn’t make a knight out of a woman,’ says the king, ‘but give ’er my compliments, and tell ’er ’er monarch says as ’ow she’s a cook as is too good for ’er staition.’”
“That was very nice,” said Terwilliger. “No one could have desired a higher recommendation than that.”
“My words hexackly when the baron’s privit secretary told me two dys laiter as ’ow the baron’s heggs wasn’t done proper,” said the ghost. “H’I says to ’im, says I: ‘The baron’s heggs be blowed. My monarch’s hopinion is worth two of any ten barons’s livin’, and Mister Baingletop,’ (h’I allus called ’im mister when ’e was ugly,) ‘can get ’is heggs cooked helsewhere if ’e don’t like the wy h’I boils ’em.’ Hand what do you suppose the secretary said then?”
“I give it up,” replied Terwilliger.
“What?”
“’E said as ’ow h’I ’ad the big ’eadl.”
“How disgusting of him!” murmured Terwilliger. “That was simply low.”
“Hand then ’e accuged me of bein’ himpudent.”
“No!”
“’E did, hindeed; hand then ’e discharged me without me waiges. Hof course h’I wouldn’t sty after that; but h’I says to ’im, ‘Hif I don’t get me py, h’I’ll ’aunt this place from the dy of me death;’ hand ’e says, ‘’Aunt awy.’
“And you have kept your word.”
“H’I ’ave that! HI’ve made it ’ot for ’em, too.
“Well, now, look here,” said Terwilliger, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll pay you your wages if you’ll go back to Spookland and mind your own business. Ten pounds isn’t much when three-dollar shoes cost fifteen cents a pair and sell like hot waffles. Is it a bargain?”
“H’I was sent off with three months’ money owin’ me,” said the ghost.
“Well, call it thirty pounds, then,” replied Terwilliger.
“With hinterest—compound hinterest at six per cent—for two ’undred and thirty years,” said the ghost.
“Phew!” whistled Terwilliger. “Have you any idea how much money that is?”
“Certingly,” replied the ghost. “Hit’s just 63,609,609 pounds 6 shillings 4 ½ pence. When h’I gets that, h’I flies; huntil I gets it h’I stys ’ere an’ I ’aunts.”
“Say,” said Terwilliger, “haven’t you been chumming with an Italian ghost named Shylock over on the other shore?”
“Shylock!” said the ghost. “No, h’I’ve never ’eard the naime. Perhaps ’e’s stoppin’ at the hother place.”
“Very likely,” said Terwilliger. “He is an eminent saint alongside of you. But I say now, Mrs. Spook, or whatever your name is, this is rubbing it in, to try to collect as much money as that, particularly from me, who wasn’t to blame in any way, and on whom you haven’t the spook of a claim.”
“H’I’m very sorry for you, Mr. Terwilliger,” said the ghost. “But my vow must be kept sacrid.”
“But why don’t you come down on the Bangletops up in London, and squeeze it out of them?”
“H’I carn’t. H’I’m bound to ’aunt this ’all, an’ that’s hall there is about it. H’I carn’t find a better wy to ly them Baingletops low than by attachin’ of their hincome, hand the rent of this ’all is the honly bit of hincome within my reach.”
“But I’ve leased the place for five years,” said Terwilliger, in despair; “and I’ve paid the rent in advance.”
“Carn’t ’elp it,” returned the ghost. “Hif you did that, hit’s your own fault.”
“I wouldn’t have done it, except to advertise my shoe business,” said Terwilliger, ruefully. “The items in the papers at home that arise from my occupancy of this house, together with the social cinch it gives me, are worth the money; but I’m hanged if it’s worth my while to pay back salaries to every grasping apparition that chooses to rise up out of the moat and dip his or her clammy hand into my surplus. The shoe trade is a blooming big thing, but the profits aren’t big enough to divide with tramp ghosts.”
“Your tone is very ’aughty, ’Ankinson J. Terwilliger, but it don’t haffeck me. H’I don’t care ’oo pys the money, an’ h’I ’aven’t got you into this scripe. You’ve done that yourself. Hon the other ’and, sir, h’I’ve showed you ’ow to get out of it.”
“Well, perhaps you’re right,” returned Hankinson. “I can’t say I blame you for not perjuring yourself, particularly since you’ve been dead long enough to have discovered what the probable consequences would be. But I do wish there was some other way out of it. I couldn’t pay you all that money without losing a controlling interest in the shoe company, and that’s hardly worth my while, now is it?”
“No, Mr. Terwilliger; hit is not.”
“I have a scheme,” said Hankinson, after a moment or two of deep thought. “Why don’t you go back to the spirit world and expose the Bangletops there? They have spooks, havent they?”
“Yes,” replied the ghost, sadlly. “But the spirit world his as bad as this ’ere. The spook of a cook carn’t reach the spook of a baron there hany more than a scullery-maid can reach a markis ’ere. H’I tried that when the baron died and came over to the hother world, but ’e ’ad ’is spook flunkies on ’and to tell me ’e was hout drivin’ with the ghost of William the Conqueror and the shide of Solomon. H’I knew ’e wasn’t, but what could h’1 do?”
“It was a mean game of bluff,” said Terwilliger. “I suppose, though, if you were the shade of a duchess, you could simply knock Bangletop silly?”
“Yes, and the Baron of Peddlington too. ’E was the private secretary as said h’I ’ad the big ’ead.”
“H’m!” said Terwilliger, meditatively. “Would you—er—would you consent to retire from this haunting business of yours, and give me a receipt for that bill for wages, interest and all, if I had you made over into the spook of a duchess? Revenge is sweet, you know, and there are some revenges that are simply a thousand times more balmy than riches.”
“Would h’I?” ejaculated the ghost, rising and looking at the clock. “Would h’I?” she repeated.
“Well, rather. If h’I could enter spook society as a duchess, you can wager a year’s hincome them Bangletops wouldn’t be hin it.”
“Good I am glad to see that you are a spook of spirit. If you had veins, I believe there’d be sporting blood in them.”
“Thainks,” said the ghost, dryly. “But ’ow can it hever be did?”
“Leave that to me,” Terwilliger answered. “We’ll call a truce for two weeks, at the end of which time you must come back here, and we’ll settle on the final arrangements. Keep your own counsel in the matter, and don’t breathe a word about your intentions to anybody. Above all, keep sober.”
“H’I’m no cannibal,” retorted the ghost.
“Who said you were?” asked Terwilliger.
“You intimated as much,” said the ghost, with a smile. “You said as ’ow I must keep sober, and ’ow could I do hotherwise hunless I swallered some spirits?”
Terwilliger laughed. He thought it was a pretty good joke For a ghost—especially a cook’s ghost—and then, having agreed on the hour of midnight one fortnight thence for the next meeting, they shook hands and parted.
“What was it, Hankinson?” asked Mrs. Terwilliger, as her husband crawled back into bed.
“Burglars?”
“Not a burglar,” returned Hankinson. “Nothing but a ghost—a poor, old, female ghost.”
“Ghost!” cried Mrs. Terwilliger, trembling with fright. “In this house?”
“Yes, my dear. Haunted us by mistake, that’s all. Belongs to another place entirely; got a little befogged, and came here without intending to, that’s all. When she found out her mistake, she apologized, and left.”
“What did she have on?” asked Mrs. Terwilliger, with a sigh of relief.
But the president of the Three-dollar Shoe Company, of Soleton, Massachusetts (Limited), said nothing. He had dropped off into a profound slumber.
III
For the next two weeks Terwilliger lived in a state of preoccupation that worried his wife and daughters to a very considerable extent. They were afraid that something had happened, or was about to happen, in connection with the shoe corporation; and this deprived them of sleep, particularly the elder Miss Terwilliger, who had danced four times at a recent ball with an impecunious young earl, whom she suspected of having intentions. Ariadne was in a state of grave apprehension, because she knew that much as the earl might love her, it would be difficult for them to marry on his income, which was literally too small to keep the roof over his head in decent repair.
But it was not bus
iness troubles that occupied every sleeping and waking thought of Hankinson Judson Terwilliger. His mind was now set upon the hardest problem it had ever had to cope with, that problem being how to so ennoble the spectre cook of Bangletop that she might outrank the ancestors of his landlord in the other world—the shady world, he called it. The living cook had been induced to remain partly by threats and partly by promises of increased pay; the threats consisting largely of expressions of determination to leave her in England, thousands of miles from her home in Massachusetts, deserted and forlorn, the poor woman being insufficiently provided with funds to get back to America, and holding in her veins a strain of Celtic blood quite large enough to make the idea of remaining an outcast in England absolutely intolerable to her. At the end of seven days Terwilliger was seemingly as far from the solution of his problem as ever, and at the grand fête given by himself and wife on the afternoon of the seventh day of his trial, to the Earl of Mugley, the one in whom Ariadne was interested, he seemed almost rude to his guests, which the latter overlooked, taking it for the American way of entertaining. It is very hard for a shoemaker to entertain earls, dukes, and the plainest kind of every-day lords under ordinary circumstances; but when, in addition to the duties of host, the maker of soles has to think out a recipe for the making of an aristocrat out of a deceased plebe, a polite drawing-room manner is hardly to be expected. Mr. Terwilliger’s manner remained of the kind to be expected under the circumstances, neither better nor worse, until the flunky at the door announced, in stentorian tones, “The Hearl of Mugley.”
The Third Ghost Story Megapack: 26 Classic Ghost Stories Page 24
