by R. A. Dick
“You can’t explain that laugh by creaking furniture nor rustling rats,” said Mr. Coombe.
“Well, it may have been the wind,” said Lucy, “roaring down the chimney. Anyway, I’m not going to give up Gull Cottage so feebly, and if you won’t let me go and spend a night there, perhaps Gregson and Pollock will.”
“If you will forgive my saying so,” said Mr. Coombe, “you are the most obstinate woman I have ever met.”
“Then you will let me do as I wish?” said Lucy.
“If you can get some reliable woman to spend the night with you,” said Mr. Coombe stiffly, “I will try and arrange it.”
“Thank you,” said Lucy. “I will bring my old cook, who married the gardener, with me. She comes from Pimlico and is frightened of nothing. Let me see, to-day is Tuesday—we will come, unless you hear to the contrary, by the early morning train the day after to-morrow.”
II
At half-past ten on Thursday morning, Lucy Muir stood once more on the door-step of Gull Cottage, but this time Martha Godwin stood beside her in place of Mr. Coombe. Martha was the only cook that she had ever chosen for herself, at a London registry office on her honeymoon before her in-laws had had time to take control. They had not approved of Martha with her Cockney tongue and independent spirit; but they could find no fault with her cooking, and Martha had stayed for six years until she had suddenly married the gardener, a silent, elderly man who lived in one of the municipal cottages, and was now in charge of the local bowling green. They had no children and it had been easy for Martha to get away.
It had not been so easy for Lucy to leave her home. Where was she going, and why? What? She was thinking of leaving Whitchester … absurd … ridiculous nonsense … all her friends were in Whitchester. What would she do in a small place like Whitecliff? If she felt sea air would be good for the children why not live in Whitmouth, where at least there was something going on and where her friends would come and visit her?
It was partly a question of expense, said Lucy. If there were no one to entertain, there could be no money involved in entertaining. Oh, money, they said, sheering away from the subject as if it were not quite nice in Lucy to force so sordid a subject on their attention. Of course they would all like to help, but after all dear Edwin had had the major share of poor father’s estate, and darling mother’s annuity had died with her; but anyway that was beside the point, it was sweet little Lucy in a dull hole like Whitecliff that they were worried about, and wasn’t she rather rushing at things, if only she would wait till next week, when Eva would be less busy she would accompany her to Whitmouth.
But Lucy, breathlessly determined, weathered the storm, and having caught the early train to Whitecliff with Martha, she collected the key of Gull Cottage from a silently disapproving Mr. Coombe at his office, and was now fitting it into the rusty lock of the blue front door.
“Could do with a lick of paint, mum,” sniffed Martha, looking at the blistered, faded blueness. “Mind you don’t go a-takin’ of it on a repairing lease. My brother Bert, ’e took a public on a repairing lease, and first thing ’e knew, ’e was flooded aht, and ’ad ter put on a new roof.”
She stood beside Lucy, square and upright in her black cloth coat, her black toque trimmed with nodding violets pushed back on her tightly smoothed hair. In a wicker basket, besides her needs for the night, were an apron, a bar of yellow soap, a scrubbing brush, three dusters, and a broom-head; in her other hand she held the broomstick, and looked not unlike an Amazon, prepared to do battle with any foe, seen or unseen, and indeed the light of battle was in her keen grey eyes as Lucy, having unlocked the door, led the way into the dusty, cobweb-hung kitchen.
“Strewth!” she said succinctly, and she whipped off her hat and coat, tied on her apron, rolled up her sleeves, and proceeded to fill a bucket with water.
“ ’Ot water’s what we need,” she said, “ ’ot water and plenty of it.”
But something seemed to have gone wrong with the gas stove. Try as she and Lucy would, they could not light it.
Yes, said Mr. Coombe when appealed to on the telephone, he had rung up the gas company and the water company and the electric light company, and everything should be in order. If they rang up the gas company themselves, perhaps they would send a man out.
No, said the gas company, appealed to in turn, they were extremely busy and they were very sorry but they could not send anyone up before next day at the earliest.
“Better get a Beatrice sent up,” said Martha tersely. “We gotter ’ave ’ot water.”
“A Beatrice!” repeated Lucy in bewilderment.
“One of them there small stoves, and order a bottle of paraffin ter fill it,” said Martha, as she tied her head up in a red cotton handkerchief and attacked the cobwebs on the ceiling with the broom.
Yes, they would send the stove and paraffin immediately, said the man at the shop whom Lucy rang up for these articles, and presently a boy with a bicycle pushed open the back gate and deposited the package on the door-step. As he accepted the money for the bill in a grimy hand, he winked at Martha and said impudently, “Bet you don’t stay, gives everyone the willies, this ’ouse does.”
“You be orf,” snapped Martha, “or I’ll give you the willies where you’ll feel it most.”
The boy winked again and rode away, whistling “John Brown’s Body” with piercing distinctness.
“Ghosts!” snorted Martha, who had been told by Lucy of the alleged haunting of Gull Cottage before undertaking the journey. “Ghosts! There’s no such thing!” She brought in the package, undid it, filled the stove and lighted it, and put a kettle of water on to boil.
At half-past one they paused in their labours to drink tea and eat some of the provisions Lucy had brought with them.
The kitchen was now habitable. Mattresses, pillows, and blankets from the bedrooms were airing on the clothes-line in the sunny back garden and on the bushes surrounding it. All the windows in the house were flung open wide, and the crisp air from the sea was pouring its clean saltness all through the rooms.
“Nice little ’ouse,” said Martha, blowing on her dark, syrupy sweet tea to cool it, “I wish I was comin’ ter look after yer in it, mum.”
“I wish you were, too,” said Lucy, “but I shan’t be able to afford a maid, you know.”
“However you’ll manage I don’t know,” said Martha pessimistically, “and you never boiled a egg in your life. Still cookin’s easy if you use your ’ead and don’t get flustered—and now,” she went on, draining her cup and banging it down on the table, “you sit a while, mum, and I’ll get on with the hupstairs.” She filled her bucket from the kettle of water boiling on the stove and then stumped away upstairs.
We haven’t heard a thing, thought Lucy, not a thing. I don’t believe the house is haunted at all, and, leaning back in her chair, she began to rearrange the rooms in her mind, discarding and replacing, till she had it perfect in her imagination.
By nightfall all the rooms except the sitting-room and the dining-room were cleansed of cobwebs and swept of dust. “We can do those to-morrow,” said Lucy as she and Martha made up the bed together in the front room upstairs.
“You don’t want to overdo it, mum,” said Martha, smoothing down the fine linen sheet that Lucy had brought with her in her suitcase over the rough blue blanket. “Suppose you was just to lay down and get ten minutes’ shut-eye, while I pop the eggs and bacon in the pan and cook the supper.”
“Now, Martha,” said Lucy, shaking a pillow into one of her own embroidered pillow cases, “now, Martha, don’t you begin giving me advice, for I won’t take it from a young thing like you.”
“Young thing!” said Martha, “and me thirty-two in February! Get along with you, mum.”
“And I shall be thirty-four in July,” said Lucy. “How we do grow up, don’t we, Martha? Half-way through life already and what have we done?”
“Well, I know what I done.” Martha grinned. “Cooked enough beef steaks
to reach from ’ere to St. Paul’s I shouldn’t wonder, to say nothink of marryin’, and darnin’ enough socks to stuff a elephant!”
“Yes, you’ve led a very useful life,” said Lucy.
“Well, mum, you’ve not done so bad yourself, with a couple of children,” said Martha, “and if you’re goin’ to run this ’ouse single ’anded that’s as much as any woman could do.”
“It’s an easy house to run, don’t you think?” asked Lucy.
“I never saw a easier,” said Martha, “everythink’s so shipshape and ’andy.”
“Shipshape,” repeated Lucy, “I never heard you use that word before, Martha.”
“It’s the ozone, I dare say,” said Martha, “makes you think nautical!”
“I wonder what Captain Gregg was like,” said Lucy. “From his portrait he doesn’t look at all the sort of man who would take his own life.”
“Now, now!” said Martha. “You don’t want to think morbid, mum. If you do, next thing we know you’ll be imaginin’ you’re seein’ things.”
“Or hearing things,” said Lucy. “But of course there aren’t any ghosts, really. They always turn out to be the wind in the chimney, or shadows on the wall, or branches tapping on the window——”
“Or bats in the belfry,” said Martha. “Well, I’ll be off downstairs, mum, and get our supper.”
“Can you manage,” asked Lucy, “or shall I come and help you?”
“Manage!” Martha snorted. “Wot’s a couple of eggs and bacon to one that’s dished up a seven-course dinner for a dozen on ’er ’ead! Manage!” She went out, closing the door behind her.
Lucy sat down in the armchair. She was more tired than she had realized, and as she sat there, her head leaning back against the cushion, looking up at the picture of the full-rigged schooner over the mantelpiece, her eyelids drooped and she was asleep and dreaming.
She dreamed that Captain Daniel Gregg had come to life again and was in the room with her. A taller man than she had imagined from the painting, with broad shoulders and long legs, rolling a little in his gait as he walked up and down, as if he were pacing a quarter-deck in a heavy sea. He was not in uniform but wore a navy blue suit with a white shirt and a black tie, and he was smoking a pipe; she particularly noticed the hand that held the pipe, a brown well-shaped hand with a gold signet ring on the little finger, quite unlike the wooden claw clasping the telescope in the portrait downstairs, a firm hand full of life and power. The whole bearing of the man gave an impression of intense virility; there was nothing depressed about him nor neurotic, nothing that could in any way be associated with an unhappy nature, admitting the ultimate defeat of the spirit in self-imposed death. He came very close, in her dream, and stared down at her with a surprisingly kindly expression in his blue eyes.
For a few seconds he stood there. Then he turned and, going to the window, opened it and resumed his steady pacing up and down, as if he were trying to walk out the solution to some problem in his mind. So real did he seem in her dream that when she awoke and opened her eyes to the empty room, she could scarcely believe he was not there, and gazed round in search of him. But of course it had been a dream, and she leaned back, shivering a little in her chair, the cold breeze from the open window blowing in her face.
Funny, she thought, I was positive I shut that window before Martha and I started to make up the bed. I know I shut that window, she said to herself, starting out of the chair. The catch was stiff and I squeezed my finger. There was a red mark still on her forefinger to prove it. Who opened it? she thought, and a dark cloud seemed to fold itself down on her spirit. This is my house and my place, she said to herself, but how can I bring the children here to be frightened? She crossed to the window and banged it shut as if she thus could keep out her own forebodings, and she turned back into the room to unpack her suitcase and laid out her ivory toilet set on the chest of drawers, gaining what comfort she could from handling the smooth solidity of her own familiar things. A small, square mirror was propped on the top against the wall, and in it, as she combed back a lock of hair, she saw the reflection of the door; it was opening stealthily, slowly, without noise. She stood there, the comb poised in her hand, as still as if she had been turned into an ivory image herself. Her relief from suspense was so great when Martha’s red face appeared in the opening, that she swayed forward, supporting herself with her arms on the furniture before her.
“I crep’ up,” said Martha, “thinkin’ you might ’ave dropped off to sleep, and not wishin’ to disturb you, for wot’s an egg ’ere and there, and sleep’s sleep and I could fry you up another in a brace of shakes.”
“I have been asleep for a few minutes,” said Lucy. But had she? Had that been a dream? And yet how could that substantial-looking figure in blue serge, smoking a pipe, be a ghost? Yet the window was open!
“Did I close the window before we made the bed, Martha?” she asked.
“Yes, and squeezed your finger, mum,” said Martha. “It’s shut now, ain’t it?”
“Yes, Martha, it’s shut now,” said Lucy, and wondered why she did not tell Martha of her experience. A strange reluctance kept her silent, but whether from fear of Martha’s scorn or the consequences if she should convince her, she did not stop to think.
“My, you don’t ’arf look pale, mum,” said Martha as Lucy turned to go downstairs. “I shouldn’t ’ave let you do so much. I’m strong as a ox meself and I forgets other people ain’t so beefy.”
“I’m strong, too.” Lucy defended herself. “It’s just because I’m small that I’m considered weak. I am strong—I am,” she cried, as if she would reassure herself as to her hardihood of spirit, rather than Martha as to her strength of body.
“Of course you’re strong, mum, as strong as that there ’Ercules,” said Martha soothingly, “and you’ll feel all the stronger for a nice cup of tea and a bite to eat.”
Martha was right. Lucy did feel much better after she had had her supper; and after they had eaten, and washed up the dishes, they sat talking over old times—when Cyril and Anna were babies and Martha’s life had been one constant feud with the stiffly-starched nurse who had seen them through their early days—until Martha yawned herself upstairs and away to bed in the back room, leaving Lucy to glance at the newspaper she had bought for the train journey and which she had been too excited to read. Soon she, too, began to yawn, and though it was scarcely half-past nine, she decided that she would fill her hot-water bottle and go early to bed, ready for the hard work of the morrow.
A hot-water bottle was a weakness, she thought, but a pleasant one, comforting cold feet and making a little warm sanctuary in the coldest bed. They had used all the hot water in the kettle for the washing of the supper things, and she refilled it at the tap before lifting back the top of the Beatrice stove to light the wick; but the only answer to the lighted match was a feeble blue flame that died on the instant to blackness, leaving a puff of paraffin smoke to hang in the air. On shaking the stove it proved to be empty of fuel, as was also the bottle that had contained it.
“Bother,” said Lucy, “of course it was burning all day and I should have remembered to order more paraffin before the shop shut.”
The blue hot-water bottle lay limply on the table, cold as a frog to the touch, and the thought of it plump and warm filled Lucy’s tired mind till it became an absolute necessity to her that she should have hot water to pour into it.
She removed the kettle from the Beatrice stove and put it down with a smack on the gas stove. Lighting another match, she turned on the gas, or attempted to, for though she turned the knob, it still refused to work.
“Why won’t you light, why won’t you, why won’t you?” Lucy said aloud in exasperation.
“Because I don’t choose that it should,” said a deep voice.
Dropping the match-box that she was holding, Lucy stared around the room. There was no one there.
“I don’t approve of gas,” continued the voice. “I hate the damn stuf
f, blast it.”
The voice was not really there either, she did not hear it with her ears. It seemed to come straight into her mind like thought, but how could it be her thought when she never swore even to herself? It must be Captain Gregg speaking to her, and suddenly she was angry, and anger driving out fear, she lashed out at him with fury.
“You’re selfish and hateful and unreasonable,” she cried. “If you wanted to live in this house, why didn’t you live in it, instead of killing yourself like a stupid, great coward and ruining things for everyone?”
“I did not kill myself, damn it!” The voice seemed to roar through her head in its wrath, like the thudding bass notes of an organ. “I went to sleep in front of that blasted gas fire in my bedroom, in my armchair, and I must have kicked on the gas with my foot in my sleep. It was a stormy night with a wind blowing half a gale from south-southwest right into my windows, and the rain ruining the curtains, so I shut the windows as any sensible man would, and the damn fools came in the morning and found me dead and brought it in as suicide, because my confounded charwoman gave as evidence that I always lived and slept with my window open, no matter the weather. And how the devil should she know! I never slept with her.”
That proves it, thought Lucy blushing hotly, I could never have thought of that last speech.
