Chapter 1

THE POLTERGEIST

I could not sleep. I am an old man now and of settled habit; a
“confirmed bachelor,” the young folks call me. Even the smallest change
of routine irks me; and so, on this night, I found it very hard to be
comfortable in a strange bed.

Peter McGregor had gone north. He was in Baltimore to order flowers,
consult the caterer, and make the final arrangements for the wedding
breakfast. Only women were left in the old stone mansion; the McGregors
called it “Fort House,” because it had something of the grim, forbidding
look of an old fort. Dorothy, Peter’s sister, her invalid aunt, and the
nurse, Miss Christie, were all here.

Miss Christie was too indifferent to care, I think; she was a very
dormouse for contentment, and she slept so determinedly that I used to
wonder when she found time to care for her patient. But Dorothy was
timid, as most young girls are; and her Aunt Mary, who was paralyzed,
was highly nervous at the best and declared that she’d never close an
eye without a man in the house. And, indeed, I could not blame them
much, for Fort House was a gloomy, eerie place, with its big, silent
rooms and long, dark halls, wainscoted in time-stained oak and full of
unexpected nooks and corners. Also, though well within the village, it
stood far back from the street in a little grove of high, solemn pines;
leafy shrubs grew thick about its gray walls, and honeysuckle vines
climbed over its narrow windows and shaded them still further.

A man must be had to protect these lone women, and there was I--not a
very efficient protector, I fear, since I am turned sixty-five and sadly
crippled with rheumatism, but the best available. For my nephew, Lewis,
Doctor C. Lewis Parker, Johns Hopkins Medical College, class of ’17,
though willing enough, was scarcely the man to come, since he was to
marry Dorothy in two days; whereas I was of discreet age and with none
to miss me at home. In spite of his assurances I knew well enough that I
was a nuisance and no help in my nephew’s house; he kept me with him
simply because I was his only surviving kinsman, as he was mine, and
because his kind heart would not leave me to end my days in some home
for the aged. Yes, I knew that I was but a burden upon his
goodness--knew it sadly, but without bitterness; a long old age tempers
one’s pride.

But here I was, the guardian of my nephew’s bride to be; and I tossed
upon my bed and could not sleep for long, sad thoughts. I rejoiced in
the boy’s happiness; truly I rejoiced, for Dorothy McGregor was the
sweetest of girls and as tender to a useless old man as if I had been
her own kin. Yes, it was best, oh, surely it was best, that these two
kindly, handsome young folk should marry and make their own home. I
looked back through a vista of long, lonely years at my own friendless
life, a life that might have been so different if my Dorothy had lived.

They would marry and be happy in each other. But--I am a very selfish
old man, I fear--but what of me? I had no other home; and, were she
never so tender of heart, what bride desires that her honeymoon should
have such a worthless, worn-out satellite as I? No, these two must build
their own nest; and it would have no place for me. Then I thought
briefly of Aunt Mary McGregor, paralyzed from the waist down, these
fourteen years, and bearing her troubles with such saintly patience;
where would she go, and how would she live after the wedding? We two
might marry also, I thought, and laughed mirthlessly at the idea. Old
maid and old bachelor, we might join our troubles and spend the evening
of our days together, enlivening each other with comparisons of our
various aches and pains. For I must admit that Aunt Mary, for all her
sweet patience, was overfond of discussing her symptoms.

The old house was very quiet, except for those strange creakings and
rustlings which one hears at night in these old places. Faint, eerie
noises, these, which made the silence more profound; I fancied that Fort
House whispered to itself of days gone by.

Without was the clear, cool hush of a North Carolina summer’s night. It
had been a hot June day, but the night was cool, as are all our nights,
and a round, bright moon hung high, flooding the lawn with pale light,
making the black shadows of the pines blacker yet, silvering the leaves
of the honeysuckle vine at my windows. The sweet, heavy scent of a few
late blossoms drifted in to me, bearing with it that faint, sinister
suggestion of mystery and crime that belongs peculiarly to the cloying
odor of honeysuckles in a hushed, dark night.

That odor fretted me, awaking in my mind unpleasant fancies. This was a
dismal place, the old Fort House; no proper setting for such a vivid
young flower as Dorothy McGregor. I strove to fancy the house filled
with flowers, crowded with gay-dressed, laughing wedding guests, and I
could not, even now, with a wedding two days off. I was queerly thankful
that Dorothy and Lewis would not live here, but in a little white
bungalow, red-roofed, banked about with flowers, open to the kindly,
honest sun. For how could young lovers be happy here, in this grim stone
pile among the solemn pines, this mournful old house, which creaked and
whispered to itself so mysteriously of nights, whose dark, airless rooms
were heavy with the scent of honeysuckle? Somewhere I seemed to have
read or heard that the honeysuckle grows best and gives its strongest
odor about places of secret crime. The fancy obsessed me; I wondered
what might be the history of this old mansion--for I was but newly come
to Pinelands, a year ago--what dark deeds these walls had known in days
long gone; what dreadful histories were bared in the self-communings of
those ancient, creaking timbers.

It was very late, and I was tired out. Moreover I was sad because I must
so soon give up my nephew to his new wife. My aged bones ached, and my
knee joints creaked and groaned, as I paced the floor. I was feverish,
perhaps, and so fanciful; or it may be that I was fey. Whatever the
explanation, a sudden conviction swept over me, as of actual knowledge.

Fort House was haunted. I knew it. Without knowing how or why, that
knowledge swept over me in a chill wave of fear that raced up my spine
and plucked at the short hairs of my neck. It left me shaken and
dismayed, with a lump of ice where my heart had been.

The place was deadly still. Even the indistinct complaints of aged
timbers were hushed, and there seemed no possibility of sound in all the
world. Then, from the hall below, came a whirring click, whereat I
gasped; the grandfather clock on the stair landing struck
twelve--deliberately, solemnly. The mellow chime of its old gong dropped
dead on the still air, without an echo. The silence of the tomb, a hush
intolerably profound. Then, with dreadful suddenness, a clanking as of
chains, the crash of broken crockery, a shrill, horrid screech!

My veins seemed to freeze, and I could not breathe. As in nightmares, an
inescapable weight dragged at every limb, held me helpless.

What was abroad I knew not, save that it could be no honest thing. Why,
I would have prayed for a palpable burglar; I could have fallen on his
neck with joyful tears, though he were the worst villain unhung!

Then I heard a faint stir in the room beyond mine, where Dorothy
McGregor slept; the tiniest of frightened sobs. That sound heartened me.
I am no hero; but in a long life I have observed more than once that
terrors which will turn a solitary man craven may be faced almost with
boldness if he has but a weaker one beside him to protect. Alone, I
dared not stay in my room, much less venture forth; but there was
Dorothy next me, and downstairs her helpless aunt and the nurse. They
would look to me for aid, for courage; and knowing that, I made shift to
conquer my fears a very little.

I threw a bath robe over my shoulders and padded out into the black
hall, barefoot.

“Dorothy!” I whispered; somehow, I dared not call aloud. “My dear, are
you all right?”

Her answer came muffled through the door. “Yes, Uncle George. It’s
nothing.” But her shaking voice belied the words. “It’s nothing to be
af-f-fraid of. We’ve heard it before. Wait, I’m coming out. Aunty’ll be
scared.”

In a moment her door opened, and Dorothy appeared, faintly visible by
the pale moon that shone in her window. She was wrapped in some sort of
filmy, lacy robe, and her fine black hair, which lay across one
shoulder, in a braid thicker than my wrist, fell down the front of her
negligee, right to her knees.

She groped for my arm and clutched it tight. Neither of us thought of
making a light. Perhaps we both feared what that light might reveal.

“Let’s go down to Aunt Mary’s room,” she whispered. “She’ll be scared to
death, poor thing! I’m scared, my own self, and just think of her, not
able even to move!”

A plump, delicious little thing, she huddled close against me. I felt
her tender body tremble and put an arm across one shoulder.

“Come along, child,” said I. “But give me a hand on the stairs here,
because my rheumatism is pretty bad to-night. What was it?”

Dorothy cuddled my arm. “Poor dear!” she whispered. “Careful of that
step; we’re just at the turn. Why, it was the Poltergeist.”

“Huh?” I stopped short, repeating the outlandish word. “Poltergeist?
What’s that?”

“Why, that scream and everything. It comes every few nights lately, only
I never said anything about it outside, because it upsets Aunt Mary so.
She won’t have me even mention it to Lewis, let alone any other body;
just says such things oughtn’t to be talked about. After I showed her
the broken dishes she----Oh-h-h!”

She broke off, gripping my arm tighter still, pressing close against me,
to the detriment of my sorer shoulder; then she made a quaint little
sound, a sort of whispered scream.

I stared violently, too; for there was a ghostly rustling in the lower
hall, just by our knees, and something dim and white and shapeless
seemed to whip past us and disappear. I say seemed; for it was too dark
to be sure, and I stretched out my hand toward it and felt nothing. It
might have been pure fancy, a breath of air through the hall, a mouse
scurrying along the wall.

“There, Dotty!” I whispered. “It wasn’t anything--and, besides, it’s
gone. See?”

“I know,” she agreed doubtfully. “I know it wasn’t anything, and Peter
always says so, too. He watched two nights to make sure; only he went to
sleep both times. But it scares me just the same.”

By now we had groped our way to Aunt Mary’s room. She slept on the
ground floor, being, as I may have said, paralyzed from the waist down.
Her nurse, Miss Christie, slept in a little chamber which opened off of
her patient’s room.

We listened, our heads close together, pressed against the closed door;
presently we heard the sound of heavy breathing--a ladylike snore.

“That’s Miss Christie,” whispered Dorothy. “It didn’t wake her up. Uncle
George, she is the sleepingest thing! She makes me mad sometimes, she’s
so placid.”

I heard the creak of springs, as some one moved in bed, and a weak, sad,
patient voice called:

“Is any one there?”

“It’s me, aunty,” replied Dorothy. “We came to see if you were all
right. Did you hear it?”

In the room beyond us the bed creaked again, as if some one struggled to
sit up in it. Then Aunt Mary’s voice:

“Miss Christie!”

No answer.

A sigh. Then louder, but still patiently, sweetly: “Miss Christie!
Nurse!”

“Aw-ugh!” A yawn, a sleepy murmur, and then, when Aunt Mary had called
once more: “Yes, Miss McGregor, I’m comin’! Ho-hum!”

Bare feet plumped to the floor and padded out toward us; I could fancy
the nurse digging her fists into sleep-blurred eyes.

“Wha’s a matter?”

“Snap on the lights, please; now help me to sit up. Hand me that shawl.
Open the door, please; Dorothy’s out there.”

A line of light showed at our feet, along the threshold. We heard a
bustle within, and presently the door opened. I hesitated a moment, half
blinded by the sudden light. Yet I saw the retreating figure of the
nurse, dumpy and shapeless in a bath robe, her head an aureole of
tousled blond hair. She vanished into her own alcove room, and I heard
her drop upon the bed, with one more yawn, followed, without appreciable
pause, by gentle snores.

Dorothy turned to me. The blue of her negligee matched her sea-blue
eyes, and her soft black hair was a cloud about her dimpled face, still
delicately flushed with sleep. Light and company had quite restored her
courage; she laughed at me merrily.

“Come along in, Uncle George! You look lovely. No? Well, just a minute,
then.”

She turned to her aunt. The old lady was propped high with pillows, a
beautiful old Paisley shawl wrapped about her thin shoulders. Her
snow-white hair was dressed exactly as for a ball. She was a wonderful
old lady, always precise and well groomed, in spite of her invalidism.
Her black eyes were bright, but her thin, patrician face bore a look of
patient sadness. She stretched out a slender hand.

“There, child! What is it?”

“Why--why, aunty, you know! Didn’t you hear it?”

Aunt Mary sighed. “Yes, Dorothy, dear, but these are things best not
spoken about.”

“Did it wake you up?”

“No, child. I haven’t been asleep. Shift that pillow, please; the pain
is worse to-night.” She sighed again, with sad, upturned eyes. “It seems
as if I had enough to bear, without that. But it’s all for the best, no
doubt. I must be patient!” She had the sweet, resigned expression of
some aged saint. “I was just getting quieted down, too. There, child,
run back to bed. So sorry you were disturbed, Mr. Uhlman,” she told me
over her niece’s shoulder. “This child is fanciful--nervous.”

“Did I disturb you, too, Aunt Mary?” Dorothy’s voice was remorseful.
“But I thought you’d be frightened, dear.”

Aunt Mary made a little deprecatory gesture. “Why? I’m not afraid of
spirits, my child; I’ll be with them soon enough. Go now, but call Miss
Christie first. I want her to change my pillows.”

She closed her eyes, sighed wearily, then spoke again to me, where I
stood in the dark hall.

“You mustn’t mind what you heard, Mr. Uhlman. It’s nothing--merely a
materialization. Trivial spirits can’t harm us.”

We were dismissed. As Dorothy closed the door very gently, I heard Aunt
Mary say: “Raise me a little more, Miss Christie. And another pillow,
please. My head’s very bad again. This has upset me.” She sighed
plaintively. Both tone and words were of an angelic resignation; I could
not understand Dorothy’s manner.

For, now that we were alone in the dark hall, she gritted her little,
even teeth together. “Darn!” I heard her mutter.

“What is it, child?”

“Oh, nothing! Aunt Mary’s on another rampage. Wish I’d left her alone,
but you never know how to take her.”

“My dear!” I reproved. “You oughtn’t to speak of your aunt so. She has a
hard time, poor lady!”

Dorothy laughed shortly. “So do I! Oh, I know you think I’m horrid, but
you just stick around and see for yourself.”

I sighed. The young are intolerant of invalidism. “But about the other
thing, Dorothy--the scream we heard, and all that? What did you mean by
‘Poltergeist?’”

The girl shook her head. “Come away, Uncle George. She’ll hear us. Never
mind that now. Oh”--as I persisted--“that’s what Aunt Mary calls
‘manifestations,’ screams at night, broken dishes, things missing from
the pantry, and all that. She wrote to some learned society about it,
and they said it was a Poltergeist, a little, malicious ghost that plays
tricks like that. They wanted to send somebody here to investigate.
Come, we’ve got to get out of here; Aunt Mary has ears like a lynx. In
the morning she’ll tell how our talking kept her awake all night long.
Come on, Uncle George, do! Never mind the ghost. I hear enough about
that; Aunt Mary talks of it to me for hours on end, when she’s in the
right humor. She’s a great spiritualist, you know.”

In silence she bustled me back to my room. One would have thought that
she was actually afraid of that sweet, patient old saint, her Aunt Mary.