The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (3 page)

“That,” said Mr. Coombe in a curiously strangled voice, “is the late owner of the property, Captain Daniel Gregg. You get a marvellous view from this room,” he went on hastily, almost dragging her with him to the window, which was a surprising thing for the young man to say, thought Lucy, since all that could be seen was a tangled wilderness of garden round a quite hideous monkey-puzzle tree, with the grey stone wall beyond.

She turned back, as soon as she could do so politely, and looked round the room. It was well proportioned, but contained the oddest mixture of the beautiful and the bourgeois that Lucy had ever seen.

On the heavy black marble mantelpiece stood a clock to match, flanked by two exquisite Ming vases; a Persian carpet, perfect in design and colouring, rubbed fringes with a cheap red hearth-rug; a red plush sofa had a delicately embroidered Indian shawl draped over one end, and a red lacquer Chinese cabinet of a past century housed an equally ill-assorted mixture of crested china from Blackpool, Cardiff,
and Southampton, and a Satsuma tea set and a fine collection of Waterford glass; on a bamboo stand in one corner stood an old ivory chess set; and on the rose-patterned walls photographs and lithographs hung side by side with kakemonos, Florentine embroidery, and fine old prints. The whole collection was covered with such dust and festooned with such cobwebs that the very air seemed veiled.

What an odd room, thought Lucy, but it could be charming, and she began at once to refurnish it in her own mind, painting the walls pale gold, ruthlessly cutting down her own brocade curtains, disposing of all the furniture and bringing in, instead, the few favourite antiques and the comfortable sofa and chairs left her by her father.

And you will be the first to go, she said to herself, looking defiantly up at the painting of the sea captain; but it must have been some trick of light that had made him appear to move his eyes, for now they stared back at her, dull and lifeless and strangely less blue.

“The dining-room needs doing up,” said Mr. Coombe gloomily as he led the way into the next room.

The dining-room did not so much need doing up as being done away with altogether and starting afresh. The wallpaper had gone past fading into death, turning in the process from a lilac-blue, still to be seen in dark corners, to a livid mauve, against which the peeling white paint looked like something stricken with leprosy. The varnished suite of table, sideboard, and chairs had lost its gloss, and the grey film of dust, spreading over them, looked like some other foul disease.

“This house can’t have been lived in for years,” said Mrs. Muir.

“No,” said Mr. Coombe, “the kitchen is next door.”

Here, too, the dust and dirt lay like a shroud, turning the
green baize bags holding the dish-covers on the walls in four graded sizes, into the appearance of some large mildewed fruits, while the copper preserving pan and the saucepans seemed to have turned their faces to the wall in very shame at their unpolished state.

“I see now why you didn’t want me to come inside,” said Lucy triumphantly. “You wanted to have the house cleaned first, you didn’t want anyone to see it in such a state.”

A gas oven stood against the farther wall with a kettle on it and a frying pan. In the frying pan were two rashers of uncooked bacon. On the table under the window a teapot, milk jug, cup and saucer, a plate, half a loaf of bread, and a dish of butter stood on a sheet of newspaper. Lucy, glancing down at the newspaper, saw that it was dated but a week earlier.

“I thought you said the house hadn’t been occupied for years,” she said, pointing at the date.

“Nor has it been,” said Mr. Coombe. “The charwoman came in to do a bit of cleaning.”

“To do what?” asked Lucy, raising her eyebrows.

“She did clean the hall and the staircase,” said Mr. Coombe defensively.

“Was she called away in a hurry?” asked Lucy. “It seems strange that she left this good food behind and never came back to fetch it.”

“She may have been taken ill,” said Mr. Coombe.

“But don’t you know?” said Lucy.

“Or she may have found it too big a job,” said Mr. Coombe. “We found the key in the letter-box at the office, but she never came for any wages.”

“I’m beginning to think that there’s something very odd about this house,” said Lucy slowly.

“Then in that case there’s no point in going upstairs,”
said Mr. Coombe in a relieved voice. “I knew it wouldn’t suit you.”

“But it does suit me!” said Lucy. “It’s exactly the house I want. But there’s something funny about it, and I mean to find out what it is even if you won’t tell me.”

Without a word Mr. Coombe turned and led the way upstairs. A bathroom and three bedrooms opened onto the square landing above. The back bedrooms were simply furnished under the usual coat of dust, and the front room with the big bow-window was arranged with equal simplicity. There were blue rugs on the stained wood floor, an iron bedstead, a chest of drawers, a cupboard, a large wicker armchair in front of the gas stove, and three pictures of sailing ships on the white-washed wall. What took the eye in this room, and held it, was a brass telescope standing on a tripod in the window, glittering in the afternoon sun.

Lucy stared at this object and stared at it again. She had seen telescopes before. What was there then so strange about this one? True, they were not usually considered necessary as furnishings to a bedroom, but after all the late occupant had been a sea captain, and to a sea captain a telescope, even in retirement, might be as comforting as a favourite violin to an old violinist. No, there was something about this particular telescope that had hit her sight with almost physical violence as soon as she had entered the room.

“Of course,” she said aloud, “you’re clean!”

“I beg your pardon,” said the startled Mr. Coombe.

Lucy scarcely heard him. Another sound seemed to be filling the room and her ears, a deep rich chuckle. She glanced at Mr. Coombe, but that young man was certainly in no laughing mood. He had flushed to the roots of his thin fair hair and was staring at her; his pale eyes seemed to swim
out at her, more than ever like a fish in a glass bowl, from behind his thick lenses.

“Come,” he said hoarsely and, seizing her arm, hustled her out of the room, down the stairs, and from the house, before she had time to protest.

“I thought so!” said Lucy as he helped her into the car and climbed in himself. “The house is haunted.”

“I didn’t want to show it to you—you would see it,” said Mr. Coombe, and stepping on the accelerator, he sent the car forward feverishly.

“Oh!” said Lucy, gasping, as the car rocked down the hill, “do you always drive so fast?”

“No—I’m sorry,” he replied, slowing down as they came to the esplanade, with its peaceful scene of perambulatored babies, bath-chaired old invalids, and playing children. “The fact is, I don’t feel very well.”

“You do look pale,” said Lucy. “Should we stop at a chemist’s and get some sal-volatile for you to take?”

“That wouldn’t help, thank you,” said Mr. Coombe gloomily. “It’s in my mind that I feel ill. Does one owe a greater duty to one’s client or one’s conscience?”

“I’m afraid that I wouldn’t know the answer to that question,” replied Lucy, “never having had a client, and having lived mostly by other people’s consciences until now.”

“That house!” groaned Mr. Coombe. “I’ve let it four times in the ten years that I’ve been in the firm. The longest time any tenant stayed in it was twenty-four hours. I’ve written, I’ve cabled to the owner, but he’ll do nothing to help me. ‘Rely on you,’ he cables back—and I don’t want to be relied on.”

“But how about the other agents?” asked Lucy. “Why not leave it to them?”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” said Mr. Coombe, “that would be complete failure. And they’ve never been able to let it at all. I suppose honesty does pay—I mean if I’d tried to force the house on you you wouldn’t have wanted it—that’s human nature. Gregson and Pollock always try and pretend there’s nothing wrong with the property, and they’ve never been able to get a prospective tenant past the sitting-room; but though I do let the place no one ever stays, so they really have the laugh on me every time. If it weren’t that I were a married man with a family, I really think I’d set fire to the house one dark night. It’s getting on my nerves—I dream about it. Damn Captain Daniel Gregg and all his works!—I beg your pardon.”

“Why does he haunt?” asked Lucy. “Was he murdered?”

“No. He committed suicide,” said Mr. Coombe.

“Oh, poor man, was he so unhappy?” said Lucy.

“Did that laugh sound unhappy?” asked Mr. Coombe.

“No, it didn’t,” admitted Lucy. “But if he wasn’t miserable, why did he put an end to his life?”

“To give as much trouble as possible to other people,” said Mr. Coombe.

“Well, it’s very selfish of him,” said Lucy, “and so inconsistent. If he wanted to be dead, why not stay dead?”

“Exactly,” agreed Mr. Coombe.

“Some one should lay him,” said Lucy. “How does one lay a ghost?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Mr. Coombe. “I should forget all about it if I were you—it’s not your trouble.”

“But it is,” said Lucy. “I loved Gull Cottage and I want to live in it.”

“Well, you see for yourself you can’t live in it,” said Mr. Coombe, “and I will now take you to Beau Sejour.”

Victoria Drive, in which Beau Sejour was situated, was a long straight road leading up from the station to the Fever
Hospital, with a view over the allotments to the gas works. Beau Sejour was a neat little semi-detached villa with a smug expression on its stucco face in a long line of similar little semi-detached villas.

“Oh, no!” said Lucy as the car came to a standstill, “I’m sorry but I couldn’t live there.”

“You could live there very comfortably,” said Mr. Coombe severely. “It is full of labour-saving devices.”

“The only way to live in a house like that,” retorted Lucy, “would be for it to be so full of un-labour saving that there would be no time left to look out of the windows and realize one was in such a place—so shut in.”

“Better to be shut in than haunted out,” said Mr. Coombe. “I have the key, we will go in.”

“No,” said Lucy, “no!” And huddling down in the corner of the seat, she covered her ears with her hands, for fear that old custom of obeying other people’s plans for her should prevail yet again. Common sense and suitability and the right thing and what every one does, my dear, all clawing at her budding independence, to tear it to pieces and fling it to the four winds.

“I know,” she said suddenly, sitting upright, “couldn’t you let me Gull Cottage on approval for one night?”

“On approval!” repeated Mr. Coombe. “I never heard of such a thing!”

“Oh, I know it’s very irregular,” said Lucy, “but it’s not a very usual house, is it? Don’t you see,” she went on, warming enthusiastically to her idea, “I could sleep there one night and find out if there really is anything there that might frighten the children. I might even lay Captain Gregg, if he really does haunt the place. I mean,” she continued, as Mr. Coombe remained silent, “if everyone rushes off at the slightest sound, of course the house gets a bad name. It’s
too ridiculous, really, in the twentieth century to believe in apparitions and that middle-ages nonsense. All sorts of hidden things make noises in houses. Look at the way furniture creaks and groans all by itself in the night sometimes, and the way rats rustle and gnaw in the wainscotting.”

“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.”

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.