by Van Reid
“Come in, come in, “said Daniel. “You’re not afraid of a ghost then, are you?”
“Not by day,” said the young fellow, dropping the wood as carefully as he was able into the box by the hearth. “Some fellows I know were up last Halloween…well-” He stopped, wondering if he had admitted to forbidden knowledge.
“It’s all right,” said Daniel. He’d been young once himself. “What happened?”
“Well, they saw a light in the house.”
“Did they?” Daniel thought of the intruder in the servants’ quarters. “Gave them a bit of a turn, did it?”
“You should have seen them running, Mr. Plainway,” said the boy. “Me and the other fellows were down by the pines, waiting for them, and I don’t believe any of us stopped till we reached the town square.” Daniel chuckled, sad as it made him feel. “I think I remember Miss Linnett,” said the young boy respectfully. He paused again in his stacking of the kindling on the bricks. “I remember thinking she was awfully pretty.”
“I do too,” said Daniel.
52. Lullaby
If the baggage car hadn’t been accidentally left on a side rail in Standish, Sundry Moss would not have arrived at the Linnett house alone, but he had waited at the station for their bags, while Mister Walton and the Moosepath League went to Daniel Plainway’s house, and an hour or so later Sundry pulled up to the empty house with a sleigh filled with their bags and the portrait of Eleanor Linnett wrapped in oil paper and a blanket.
The horse seemed almost to know the way as they found the outskirts of Hiram and drew up before the stone columns that marked the carriage drive. The moon had ridden halfway to its zenith; but the drive had been well traveled the last week or so, and there was no way for Sundry to know that he was the first to arrive.
He turned the horse’s head between the columns and entered the woods that guarded the estate. The great pines stood back from the drive at first, deferring to the middle-aged maples and oaks Ian Linnett had planted long ago; but soon the softwood closed in, and by the time the sleigh crossed a small brook, the evergreens darkened the path like cloaked figures, limned in pale light and hardly more than shadows themselves to the eye. There were bells on the harness, and these sounded unnaturally loud among the snowy trees. The pines ranked the path till it came to a low-lying wall of hedge on either side, and Sundry peered into the dark for a glimpse of the house.
He was surprised when he realized that it stood before him and that not a single light burned in its windows; the eminence of its three stories stood against a moon-illumined cloud and seemed almost to lean over him. He hopped down from the sleigh, his boots crunching in the snow. The vapor of his breath passed like a ghost, and something above a breath itself stirred in the pine boughs.
Sundry looked back into the black wall of trees beyond the hedges and considered returning to town to find Mr. Plainway’s house; obviously Mister Walton had meant for him to do that very thing, and the young man had simply misunderstood their plans.
I should leave our bags now, he thought, and then we can all come in the sleigh.
He stood beside the horse and stroked the animal’s neck. Sundry was not of a very superstitious nature, but a dark house—an empty house!—filled with the memory of tragedy and possible murder was not a welcoming abode on such a still night, no matter how indifferent he had seemed when speaking of it in Mister Walton’s parlor. Even the portrait was a strange, unsettling presence in the sleigh.
The door will be locked surely, he thought, and he mounted the steps, his movements sounding loud in his own ears. With a vague shudder he took the handle of the front door and turned it.
It was not locked, and his heart made a small leap. The darkness in the hall beyond grew as the door swung open, the curtained windows barely letting a sliver of pale light onto the carpeted floors. a movement of air from within met him like a presence-cold, wakeful, and curious. He looked back to consider the horse and rig. Perhaps, he thought, he might just toss the bags into the hall.
He hadn’t been using a lantern to drive by-the moon shone upon the snow like a beacon-but now he retrieved the lamp that hung from the front of the sleigh and after a moment’s search through his pockets produced a lucifer to light it. With one of the bags, he mounted the steps again and stepped just inside the front door.
How easily are logic and disbelief put aside when our senses have too little information to feed them! The dark forms of stalwart furniture seem to move; the shadows stir with breath; the single lamp magnifies strange silhouettes and the contrast between the light and the darkness.
The broad staircase was a black ramp; a mirror in the room beyond the hall caught the smallest glint of his lantern and disturbed him. He lit another lamp on a low table in the hall, and this set off a softer, wider glow as he considered his surroundings, trying rather too successfully to imagine Eleanor Linnett descending the stairs.
In three or four more trips he had the bags in the hall; then he went out for the portrait. The horse had moved, backing the sleigh away from the house several feet, and Sundry had a brief, almost panicky notion that the animal was going to bolt and leave him. He talked to the horse, stroking its muzzle, then found a hitching post by the front steps and tied off the reins.
Sundry stood by the staircase with the portrait wrapped in its oil paper and considered where to put it. With the lamp glowing in the hall, the front parlor was not quite a black pit, but the amorphous shapes of its furnishings mingled with their own shadows and rose into the dusky gray light like noiseless creatures thrust out of the ground. This is foolish, he thought. If I catch my reflection in a mirror, I’ll probably die of fright.
In the parlor he lit another lamp; kindling and wood were built up in the hearth, ready for a fire, and he decided that he might as well begin warming the place before he left. It was strange how the snap of the flames bothered him at first, as if he were giving away his presence in the house. He thought of what his mother would say-i-there were any ghosts about, they’d know you were here by now-r some such comforting opinion.
The room took on more natural proportions as the light increased. The walls drew away from him; the furnishings became less shapeless, losing the life his imagination had ascribed them. He put the portrait on the soft a and, before thinking what he did, stripped the paper from it.
What did I do that for? he wondered, considering the lovely face of the young woman: her soft smile and gentle eyes. It occurred to him that Eleanor Linnett’s face was now seen in that house for the first time in almost four years, and he was startled by the thought. He remembered the moment when Mister Walton discovered the portrait in the tunnels beneath Fort Edgecomb and the moment following when they realized the striking resemblance between the young woman and Bird.
He thought, If I knew what rooms we were taking, I could light the fires upstairs, and went to the hall to peer up the broad flight of steps. The dark-stained oak of the stair banister and the balustrade that lined the stairwell glowed in the warm light of the hall lantern. The darkness in the front room, where the portrait had once hung, seemed like a physical thing, and he shut the door.
The stove in the kitchen was ready to be lit, and soon he had the castiron contraption ticking as the firebox rumbled. The sound of the fire in the parlor and the low roar of the stove in the kitchen made it seem as if the house were waking.
Carrying his lantern, he climbed the stairs, the shadows of balusters sweeping against the opposite wall. Two portraits looked down at him from the stairway, and a mirror atop an ornate dresser at the head of the flight spun refracted light. The stair runner muffled the creak of his progress, but he was within a step or two of the landing before he heard the sound from one of the second-story rooms.
Even as he stood upon the stairs, he recognized the loveliness of the voice that drifted like a faint breeze from the forward end of the upper hall. He should not have so nearly dropped the lantern or felt the touch of ice at the base of his spine, or
that was what he would tell himself on another day, far from this place. The sound was wordless, almost tuneless, but carried with it the peaceful intent of a lullaby. He hardly dared step down, and when he did, the creak of the tread raised the level of his fear and the hair lifted from the back of his head.
He did not know which was worse, the faint melody or the cessation of that sound, for as he haltingly continued down the stairs, he had the uncomfortable sensation that someone had stepped into the dark hall to see who had interrupted her song. Sundry felt out of breath, but he must have had some gust left since he was able to shout when he threw open the front door and a face appeared there before him. The face itself opened its eyes wide and let out a terrific yipe, then called out, “Cloud cover clearing by morning! Wind veering to the north, temperatures declining.”
“High tide at fifty-seven minutes past eleven,” came a second.
And “It is thirty-five minutes past the hour of eight,” voiced a third.
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump had only just managed not to tumble one another from the top step like a trio of human dominoes.
A second sleigh stood alongside Sundry’s own, and Mister Walton was beside it, helping Daniel Plainway with several packages. The whole lot of them gaped at Sundry’s startling appearance on the porch; Mister Walton smiled; Daniel Plainway frowned a little. Sundry was ashamed to be seen in such a panic, but he let out a whoosh of relief nonetheless and said, “Gentlemen, I am very glad to see you.”
“Good heavens, Sundry!” said Mister Walton. “What has happened?”
The portly fellow clumped up the steps. “I thought you were going to meet us at Mr. Plainway’s.”
“I misunderstood your instructions,” said Sundry.
“We thought you must have, so we came along. Goodness’sakes, my friend, you look as if you’ve seen-” Mister Walton did not finish the thought, but lowered his spectacles and considered Sundry in the light of the lantern that Daniel carried up to the porch.
“What is it, Mr. Moss?” said the lawyer.
“Nerves, I should say,” said the young man.
“You don’t strike me as the nervous sort,” said Daniel, the frown still occupying the better part of his expression.
“I’m sorry,” said Sundry. “I thought I heard someone upstairs.”
Daniel looked as if he suspected a bad joke but realized, when he thought about it, that Sundry was above such gross behavior. “Houses make noises,” he said, and looking up, he saw a tendril of smoke against the moonlit sky.
“You started a fire?”
“I hope that was the thing to do,” said the young man.
“Of course,” said Daniel, his expression softening. “Probably air exchanging in the flues.”
“Yes,” said Sundry. “It could be.” He understood how upsetting the idea of a ghost in this house would be to Daniel Plainway. If nothing else, the man had probably prayed many nights that the spirits of Eleanor Linnett, of her grandfather, and of Jeram Willum were at peace.
Daniel Plainway nodded and stepped past them into the hall. It had given him a turn, when they approached the house, to see the slivers of firelight playing around the perimeters of the curtained windows.
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump wandered in behind the lawyer, remarking on the beauty of the house, though still a bit shaken by their startling welcome.
Mister Walton came last, saying in a low tone, “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” said Sundry with a rueful laugh. “I think so. But I am very glad you arrived.”
53. Someone Coming Back
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump had learned enough of the Linnett history to for their own sense of the house’s hauntedness, however metaphorical; they entered the hall with a respectful stillness, but also with a curiosity that they had not the artifice to conceal. With their hats in their hands, they gaped as if expecting phantom women to appear upon the stairs and the hall portraits to wrest themselves from their restricting frames and shout Boo! Thump’s eyes in particular appeared wide, staring from his hirsute features.
“I shall show you to your rooms,” said Daniel Plainway. He stepped past the small congregation and led the way upstairs.
Mister Walton, Sundry, and Daniel took quarters above the kitchen, while the members of the club were given three of the four rooms in the body of the house. The fourth room, Nell’s room, Daniel left without resident; that door was shut, and the members of the club considered it with nearly as much mystery as Daniel had considered the locked door in the house of the five sisters.
The fires were lit and there was good cheer and bonhomie as their rooms took on a rosy glow and the vapor of their breath disappeared. Sundry stood in the doorway to Thump’s room, which lay opposite the empty bedchamber, and did his best to confront the recent memory of that strange voice, trying to convince himself that it had been the wind in the eaves or the exchange of air in a warming chimney flue.
“Quarters are first-rate,” proclaimed Thump, who was inclined at times to a nautical hue in his language.
“I should say,” said Ephram.
“Marvelous,” said Eagleton.
They stood at the doors to their respective rooms and beamed at one another; the mysterious prospect of the house seemed to have evaporated, like their visible breath, before the comfort of the crackling hearths.
In the parlor Daniel regarded the portrait of Eleanor Linnett with a jumble of emotion. The orange-yellow firelight warmed the face of the lovely young woman and appeared to cast shadows from it, as from the real person. The first sight of that face had given him a turn, from which he was recovering when Mister Walton hesitated in the doorway.
“I thought I would never see her again,” said Daniel, not otherwise acknowledging Mister Walton’s presence.
Mister Walton considered the portrait and the remarkable likeness it shared with Bird. “I promise you,” he said, “as long as her son is alive, she will never be truly dead.”
They agreed it would be wise to take the picture from the room where they would be sitting; beautiful as Eleanor Linnett was, her portrait had a melancholy effect, which Mister Walton had felt even before he had known her sad tale. They took a lamp to the front room, across the hall from the parlor, and Daniel set the picture upon the hard sofa there. “I shall hang it in the morning,” said the lawyer, indicating the place above the cold mantel.
Though Daniel was looking away, Mister Walton simply nodded, and when the lawyer turned to see why there had been no audible response, he found the bespectacled fellow pondering the image that hung on the wall opposite the hearth.
It was not an unusual picture to be hanging in the front room of a Victorian house, when tastes ran (and minds brooded somewhat) on matters considered morbid in later days. It was the tinted photograph of a tomb. Flowers stood before it, as well as a wooden cross. The picture was a characteristic product of the age: muted, a little ugly in its blunt purpose. The sky had been tinted a foreboding gray; the trees behind, skeletal and dark. Across the lintel of the tomb was the name Linnett.
What was once meant to remind the onlooker of mortality now seemed almost cruel, and Daniel would have taken the picture down, then and there, if such an acknowledgment of its power had not seemed like a form of surrender.
Mister Walton too was chilled a little by this scene, which the portrait of Nell Linnett must have watched in other days. Sundry and the Moosepathians were waiting for them in the parlor. Thump was trying not to look hungry, and all of them were glad when Mrs. Cutler arrived with dinner.
The woman arrived with her youngest child, Harry, who considered the men at the dining room table with undisguised wonder and amusement; the boy looked on Thump (or rather his beard) with something like shock.
Mrs. Cutler had set the table before leaving that morning, and as the meal was already cooked, she had but to warm the viands before presenting them. “There are those who wonder what you’re to do with the place, Mr. Plainway,” she said in th
e kitchen. This wasn’t gossip but the sort of information that might be helpful in a close-knit community.
“Do they think I’m moving in, Mrs. Cutler?” Daniel knew that some less charitable individuals had hinted at the clever manipulations he had employed to secure the house for himself and that he was only waiting for the seven years to be up since the disappearance of the boy to make it his own home.
“Anyone you care about knows better, Mr. Plainway,” she said. Mrs.
Cutler, unafraid of anything but the appearance of idle talk, expressed her sentiments without whispering. “There are those, of course, who say your guests are spiritual folk, come to lay the old man to rest.”
“If anyone lingers, Mrs. Cutler, it isn’t Mr. Linnett,” said Daniel.
“I do know it,” she said matter-of-factly, and if she had seen Daniel’s face, just then, she might have been a little taken aback by the grimness of his expression, but she was going at the goose as if it might get up and run away before she had properly carved it.
For the men, the presence of a woman, not to say a child, did much to balance the atmosphere of the house. Mrs. Cutler was a good soul, if a little unsmiling, and she was gratified to see her work fall to such appreciative appetites. The goose and its trimmings, the potatoes and cabbage and turnip and preserved beans boiled in pork scraps, the sourdough rolls and butter could not have met with better-prepared stomachs or finer sensibilities. There were tea and coffee and cider to wash it down, and apple pie and cheese designed to send them all into a glorious postprandial narcosis.
Mrs. Cutler clattered about in the kitchen, adding to the sense of domesticity, and even Sundry relaxed beneath her practical agency. The conversation ran to interesting courses, touching upon the amusing rather than the sad, and was led expertly by Mister Walton, who was happy to remember some of his and the Moosepath League’s best adventures since he returned to Maine the previous July. It was enough to draw even Daniel Plainway from his darkened mood.
