The Ghost Club

by William Meikle

  With a cry, Hoskins fell away to the floor, his eyes rolling up in his head, and I let the lantern run down as I bent to help him. He had just enough strength in him to kick over the trolley, which fell to the floor, smashing lantern, arc light, glass discs and all into tiny glistening pieces.

  ***

  Later, in his library, we polished off the Scotch, smoked more cheroots, and slept — upright in the chairs—taking turns to stay awake, watching the parlor door. But there was no more shimmering light, no more whirring. Dawn found us still sitting in the chairs. Whatever had been manifesting itself in the house seemed to be gone—vanquished.

  But that was not, unfortunately, the full end of the matter. That came two weeks later—last night as I write this.

  My friend, Hoskins, is dying. The doctors all say there is no doubt of it, and although it has yet to be confirmed, he is convinced it is the same thing that took poor Dennings. He called me to his house to tell me—and made me witness to his last will and testament. It is pretty standard fare as wills go, save for one clause that he has asked me to ensure is enforced.

  When he is buried, the remains of his magic lantern—all of them—shall be buried with him. We are both agreed it is for the best.

  Margaret Oliphant is a most delightful dinner guest and, being a Scot like myself, we had much to talk about—so much so that I am afraid I monopolized her, somewhat to James’ and Stoker’s chagrin. I was, of course, curious as to the source of her productivity, for she has had published forty novels in as many years, alongside a veritable host of short stories. As for her part, she wished to know how her old haunts of Edinburgh and Wallyford had fared since she had left her homeland for England some decades ago.

  We talked for several hours, all through dinner, that I had almost neglected to leave enough time for her tale. But she proved herself efficient and well prepared. She had a manuscript in front of her, but barely glanced at it as she wove a perfect country house mystery.

  Here is her tale.

  TO THE MANOR BORN

  Margaret Oliphant

  Agnes Leckie knew that she should be, if not happy, at least contented with her lot. She had arrived in the manor a month ago, and it was certainly preferable to the other option that had been presented for her future, the mill floor by day and a drafty dormitory by night. At least here she was warm, for the most part, and only had to share a room with young Hannah, another of the maids. But it made her heart ache to be so far from home—her accent made her feel like a bumpkin when she spoke, and her only family was hundreds of miles to the north.

  Her duties, although not as onerous as mill work, still meant she spent most of the day washing and laundering clothes, so much so that her hands were already chapped and sore—and with winter coming all too soon it was only going to get worse. So when Hannah suggested that the two of them swap roles, she agreed immediately, if only for a short time, for it was a chance to spend more time upstairs, stoking fires and sweeping floors—a few days of respite for her poor hands.

  It did, however, make for an earlier start in the morning, for the Master liked the grates cleaned and fresh fires lit in the main rooms before he broke his fast. At this time of the year, when the hunting was at its best, that meant that Agnes had to be up and about well before dawn. It took her a few days to adjust to the new routine, but by the end of the first week she found that she enjoyed the quiet and solitude to be found while everyone else was still abed. Having the run of the big house to herself also meant that she could indulge in some idle fantasies—dreams of a different life, where she might be mistress of a fine house with a large, soft, warm bed, and a master to come to it with her. It got so that she was able to clean the hearths and start the fires with half her mind on the job, and the other half soaring in dream.

  Some of her imaginations were so strong that at first, when she heard the singing in the library, she thought it was merely a phantasm of her mind, for it was an old song—one her own grandmother back in Musselburgh had sung often.

  She sat down below a thorn. Fine flowers in the valley

  And there she has her sweet babe borne. And the green leaves they grow rarely.

  The voice came as clear as day, and it was most certainly not her grandmother, for this singer was young and the accent was not in the least bit Scottish. It sounded so close that Agnes stopped working at the hearth and turned, to look all around the room, thinking that the singer must be right behind her.

  She was quite alone, and although she stood still, barely breathing, there was no recurrence. She soon had to return to her duties, for she heard the Master start to stir upstairs and it would not do for him to find her still in the main house when he came down. She hurried to clear the last ashes from the grate and get fresh logs lit, and was just able to tiptoe out of sight as he came down the long staircase in the hallway.

  She heard the singing again as she left; the high pure voice echoing in the library behind her.

  Smile not so sweet, my bonnie babe. Fine flowers in the valley

  If you smile so sweet, you’ll smile me dead. And the green leaves they grow rarely.

  ***

  “You heard her, didn’t you?” Hannah asked.

  It was later in the day, and they had found ten minutes to themselves at the door of the small scullery at the rear of the house, a brief respite for a quick pipe of tobacco and a chat.

  “Heard who?” Agnes asked. It was windy, and most of her attention was on getting the long clay pipe lit.

  “The mistress—at least that’s as who everybody says it is—the Master’s first wife. The one who went doolally.”

  Agnes realized, not for the first time, that there was a great deal of the social fabric of this house of which she was as yet unaware.

  “Doolally?”

  “You know . . . ” Hannah made a motion with her forefinger, pointing at her forehead and making small circles. “She was only fifteen they say, and too slight for bearing babes, but the Master, see, he wanted a boy, so he got her up the duff and, nine months later, out he popped. Near killed her they say, and then the fun started—the baby wouldn’t stop crying, the mistress took it right sorely and one morning the Master found them both, dead, in the library.”

  Agnes almost choked on a breath of smoke, spluttered before answering.

  “That library—the one upstairs?”

  Hannah laughed.

  “Yes, that library. Why do you think I wanted to switch with you? She sings, every morning she sings. Don’t ask me to switch back. I’ve listened long enough. It’s your turn now.”

  “I do not believe in ghosts,” Agnes said, and Hannah laughed again.

  “I do not think she cares. She will sing anyway, whether you believe or not, just you wait and see.”

  ***

  And sing the lady did. It was not every day—not even every week—Hannah had at least been wrong on that. But on one, maybe two days a month as autumn drew into winter, Agnes would be knelt at the hearth and the high voice, somehow made sadder now that the circumstances were known, would cut through the silence.

  Agnes was not the least bit afraid—she had not been wholly truthful when she told Hannah she did not believe. It was hard to grow up in a small town in Scotland and not hear at least one, if not a handful, of tales of kin who came back, of lost loves pining in the afterlife, of fishermen coming home for one last kiss. Her childhood had been full of such tales, most of them more capable of frightening her than this sad, disembodied, song. She even found herself looking forward to the days when the singing would come, for the big house now felt too hollow, too empty, without it.

  So it was that one cold morning, the week before Christmas, she knelt by the hearth arranging the logs and putting tinder to straw when the voice started up. This time it seemed to come from near the big bay window, so Agnes turned in that direction, and on impulse joined her voice in the song.

  She sat down below a thorn. Fine flowers in the valley

  A
nd there she has her sweet babe borne. And the green leaves they grow rarely.

  The air between the fireplace and the window seemed to shimmer, like a summer heat haze, although, paradoxically, the room suddenly felt a lot colder, and Agnes’ breath showed in the air as the song continued.

  Smile not so sweet, my bonnie babe. Fine flowers in the valley

  If you smile so sweet, you’ll smile me dead. And the green leaves they grow rarely.

  Something was definitely there, a shadowy figure before the window, the source of the song. Agnes rose from her knees—unsteadily, for the strength seemed to have drained from her. Once she was upright she saw that she was almost eye to eye with a shadowy figure. Was it her imagination only? Or was there a woman—a girl—there? And could it be that she held a babe in swaddling in her arms?

  The singing rose up, almost a shout, the noise ringing and echoing. Agnes heard footsteps on the main stairs out in the hall—the Master was surely coming, and she should be about her business. But she could not take her eyes from the singing figure nor could she seem to stop herself from continuing with the song.

  She’s ta’en out her little penknife. Fine flowers in the valley

  And twinned the sweet babe o’ its life. And the green leaves they grow rarely.

  Red—bloody red—blossomed in the gray vapors as the wraith’s right hand plunged into the swaddling, and steel glinted in the thin morning sunlight.

  “No!” Agnes shouted, and stepped forward. She had no plan other than to stop what she perceived to be an attack on a babe. She put out a hand, reaching into the ghostly vapor. It felt like she had plunged her fingers into ice, a cold that gripped her in the wrist, arm, into her chest where it seemed to stop her heart—stop time itself. A great darkness welled up inside her, and she fell into it.

  The last thing she heard was the song and a high, girlish voice singing in little more than a whisper.

  If you smile so sweet, you’ll smile me dead. And the green leaves they grow rarely.

  ***

  She woke to full sun in her face and a soft cushion at her cheek. It took her several seconds to note that she was not, in fact, in her bed, but rather sitting upright in one of the fine chairs in the front parlor. Worse still, the fact that it was full daylight meant that she was seriously behind in her duties, and would be in line for the severest scolding on her return downstairs. She sat up with a start, only to be pushed back by a firm hand.

  The Master himself stood over her.

  “You are not going anywhere, lass. Stay where you are. You have had a bit of a turn.”

  Agnes’ whole left arm felt like a slab of cold stone, and the memory flooded back, of reaching into the wraith, and of the song following her down into the black.

  “You heard her. Didn’t you?” the Master said, and when Agnes looked into his eyes she was shocked to see fresh tears swelling there. “She sang for you.”

  Agnes nodded, almost afraid to speak, for it was not her place—this was not her place. An increasing panic was growing in her the longer she was made to stay in the chair, and finally she found her voice.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” she said, in what her mother would have called her Sunday voice. “I did not intend to disturb you in any manner. If you will excuse me, I shall be on my way.”

  She expected to be allowed to depart forthwith, for the Master’s reputation was of a man who so valued his privacy that few apart from his manservant and the butler caught sight of him from day to day. So she was surprised when the gruff man leaning over her spoke softly, with a sad smile on his face that made him look less stern. For the first time she noted that the Master was considerably younger than she had thought—certainly far younger than her own father, and perhaps not that much older than her own older brother. And his smile did much to quell her panic. When he pressed her back in the chair again, she did not resist—and indeed, it was infinitely more preferred to brushing out grates and stoking fires.

  “Tell me,” he said softy. “Of what did she sing? I have heard tell of the singing, but not of the song.”

  Agnes bit her tongue—to speak of the song itself might lead her to be indiscreet—and the memories of the red flower and the flash of the steel were still vivid.

  “Please,” the Master said, and once again tears welled in his eyes. “Tell me. I can scarcely bear it, knowing that she is so close yet so far.”

  It was the pain—the loss—that loosened Agnes’ tongue. She had seen the same in her mother when Father had not come back from the mine, and would not wish such suffering on another, no matter how high and mighty they might be.

  “She sings of the babe,” Agnes said, and at the last second tempered her reply with a small lie. “She sings a lullaby, to ease his sleep.”

  The man smiled through his tears, and took Agnes’ left hand in his right, then let it go again quickly.

  “You are still stone cold, lass. I thought when I found you on the floor that you had taken a heart stroke. But the doctor says you will be fine. I have sent for some soup, and you will not be leaving until I have seen you take it all.”

  Poor Agnes was mortified, for by now the whole staff must know of her weakness—her indiscretion as she was coming to think of it. She resolved to speak no more, and to do her utmost to get away from her current situation with as little embarrassment as possible. She quickly found that the Master was not going to make it easy for her.

  “The singing—do you hear it often? I have heard there is talk downstairs—that she is in the library—always in the library?” Agnes tried to maintain a respectful silence, but the man continued. “‘Tis a shame she never shows herself. I so wish to see her again, as she was.”

  Agnes’ response betrayed her—the Master must have seen it in her eyes.

  “You have seen her? Say it is not so. Why would she appear to you and not to me, who she has so sorely wronged?”

  Agnes had no trouble keeping quiet in reply to that for it was a question she herself could not answer. She got a respite from the questioning when the Master’s butler arrived with a steaming bowl of broth, and she was able to conceal her silence in the act of supping.

  She expected to be allowed to leave when the bowl was empty, but the Master was still insistent, still looking for answers she feared might never be found. He kept talking, but he wasn’t really addressing her—she had seen this before too, from Mother in her grief—the questions, endless questions as to what might have been done differently.

  “She could have come to me, could have explained, she could have come at any time. And he was so small, so weak. I believe he felt the cold too acutely, and that is why he bawled. I even ordered more fires to be lit, you will remember that.”

  Agnes realized she was being addressed directly—the Master, in his grief, had completely forgotten, or never even noticed that she had but recently arrived in the house. But she knew her place well enough to hold her tongue, although the Master’s pain tugged at her heart. She looked at him, but saw her Mother, lost, alone and bereft.

  She had not been able to help her Mother . . .

  But perhaps I can help this man. Perhaps I can be more than just the girl who does the fireplaces.

  She waited until the Master talked himself out. She’d learned that at her Mother’s side too.

  “If you’ll forgive me, sir. To answer your questions, yes, I have heard her singing. And yes, I have seen her—at least the wraith of what she used to be. But there is no sense in pressing me on the matter now in daylight, for she comes and goes with the dawn, in the gloaming, in the quiet hours.”

  That was more than she’d said to anyone since arriving in the house, and at first she thought she might have said too much, might have angered him. But the man fell quiet, thinking, and did not stop her when she rose, and hurried away downstairs, where the rest of the staff began a further round of eager questioning that she had to endure before, finally, returning to her duties.

  ***

  S
he was prepared, almost eager, for someone—anyone—to suggest that she might switch duties back to her original tasks. But no one was forthcoming, and many pairs of eyes sidled from her gaze at the merest mention of it. It seemed that everyone downstairs knew the library’s reputation, and no one wanted anything to do with it; as the newcomer to the staff, it was seen as her task, until someone even newer came along.

  She had a most fitful sleep that night. Hannah was full of questions, mainly about the Master and the touch of his hand, for the butler had not been slow in reporting what he had seen in the parlor. On top of her companion’s incessant chatter, Agnes’ left arm refused to get warm; no matter how much it was covered up or rubbed, it retained the memory of another touch entirely—a far colder touch than that of the Master.

  The arm still pained her when she rose, but she had used up all her goodwill the day before, and would not be allowed to shirk her duties. It was a cold, damp, night, making the clearing of the grates even more onerous and what with that, and with leaving the library till last, it was once again almost dawn before she ventured among the bookshelves.

  The singing started almost as soon as she entered.

  She’s dug a deep grave by the light o’ the moon. Fine flowers in the valley

  And there she’s buried her sweet babe in. And the green leaves they grow rarely.

  Agnes tried her best to ignore it, intent on getting the hearth clean and the fire lit so that she could be on her way, but as the song rose to a swell that threatened to deafen her, the cold struck again, deep in her bones, and she felt her knees buckle and weaken.

  Despite her misgivings, she found herself singing along.

  As she was going to the Church. Fine flowers in the valley