The Rupa Book of Haunted Houses

  Haunted houses are injurious to health. With few exceptions, the occupants of the houses in these stories have come to an unpleasant, sometimes messy end. Ghosts resent being disturbed. They are fussy about who they must have as a neighbour.

  From his haunted rocking chair, Ruskin Bond takes you on a tour of some famous haunted houses in fiction that will make your skin crawl. There's Thurnley Abbey, with its terrifying midnight apparition; M. R. James's haunted doll's house; Hugh Walpole's sinister staircase; and the old manor houses whose hauntings are investigated by Flaxman Low, the Sherlock Holmes of the supernatural. And there's Bram Stoker, who gives Dracula the night off and replaces him with an equally terrifying hanging judge.

  Ruskin Bond, well-known as one of India's best-loved and most prolific writers, has been writing novels, poetry, essays and short stories for almost half a century now. Apart from this, over the years he has expertly compiled and edited a number of anthologies, For his outstanding literary contribution, he was awarded the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957, the Sahitya Akademi award in 1992 (for English writing in India) and the Padma Shri in 1999.

  The Rupa Book of

  HAUNTED HOUSES

  By the same author:

  Angry River

  A Little Night Music

  A Long Walk for Bina

  Hanuman to the Rescue

  Ghost Stories from the Raj

  Strange Men, Strange Places

  The India I Love

  Tales and Legends from India

  The Blue Umbrella

  Ruskin Bond's Children's Omnibus

  The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-l

  The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-II

  The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-III

  Rupa Book of Great Animal Stories

  The Rupa Book of True Tales of Mystery and Adventure

  The Rupa Book of Ruskin Bond's Himalayan Tales

  The Rupa Book of Great Suspense Stories

  The Rupa Laughter Omnibus

  The Rupa Book of Scary Stories

  The Rupa Book of Haunted Houses

  The Rupa Book of Travellers' Tales

  The Rupa Book of Great Crime Stories

  The Rupa Book of Nightmare Tales

  The Rupa Book of Shikar Stories

  The Rupa Book of Love Stories

  The Rupa Book of Wicked Stories

  The Rupa Book of Heartwarming Stories

  The Rupa Book of Thrills and Spills

  Selection and Introduction Copyright © Ruskin Bond 2003

  First Published 2003

  This edition 2010

  Published by

  7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj

  New Delhi 110 002

  Sales Centres:

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  eISBN: 9788129128287

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

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  without the prior permission of the copyright publishers.

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  Contents

  Introduction

  The Ghost

  By Walter de la Mare

  A Pair of Hands

  By Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

  A School Story

  By M.R. James

  The Room

  By Eleanor Scott

  Nobody's House

  By A.M. Burrage

  The Judge's House

  from Dracula's Guest

  By Br am Stoker

  In the Crowd at the Station

  By Ruskin Bond

  The Decoy

  By Algernon Blackwood

  The Story of Yand Manor House

  By E. and H. Heron

  The Story of the Spaniards, Hammersmith

  By E. and H. Heron

  The Haunted Doll's House

  By M.R. James

  The Gardener

  By E.F. Benson

  The Staircase

  By Hugh Walpole

  Thurnley Abbey

  By Perceval Landon

  The Unbolted Door

  By Mrs Bella Lowndes

  Gone Fishing

  By Ruskin Bond

  Nothing

  By Walter de la Mare

  Introduction

  No matter how modern or advanced a man may claim to be, some taint of superstition lingers in his blood, inherited from ancestors who had a strong affinity with the supernatural. Ask anyone to spend a night alone in an empty old house, and he will hesitate to do so. And if he does, he will have a hard time falling asleep. Every little sound—a branch tapping on a window-pane, a rat scuttling about in the attic, the wind coming down the chimney—will serve to accentuate his isolation. And even if he does not see a "real" ghost, the ghosts of the past (his own past included) will come crowding round him and there will be no one to turn to for security or companionship.

  Every old house has a character of its own. The older the house, the stronger the emanations from the past. People have lived and loved and died within its walls. The furniture has stories to tell. The mirrors have reflected the faces of people long gone. Hundreds of feet have crossed the threshold.

  "Let me in, let me in!" cried a voice outside my window, late one night. When I opened the window, I saw no one. There was an insistent knocking at the door. But when I opened the door, there was no one to be seen. And when I returned to my bed, I heard again a distant cry, "Let me in, please let me in..." I have no explanation for this eerie little happening.

  Haunted houses are the most favoured locations for writers of ghost stories. In India, old houses in hill-stations often have spooky reputations. In the plains it could be an old dak-bungalow, forest rest-house, ancient fort or palace. And many old schools have their ghostly lore.

  My old school, Bishop Cotton's in Simla, was proud of its 'Lefroy ghost', Lefroy being the House to which the ghost had once belonged. He was a boy killed in a train accident on his way back to school from some distant part of the country. But on the day school opened he was seen in the corridors, in chapel, and in the Lefroy dormitory. Every year, on opening day, he showed up to give his attendance. I don't know if he still does so. He'd be a very Old Boy by now!

  Other old schools have their ghostly legends, and I have heard of hauntings at Barnes, Deolali; St. Peter's, Agra; and Mayo, Ajmer. My father told me that Lovedale, in the Nilgiris (where he did his teacher's training, circa 1916) was often visited by the ghost of a former Headmaster. La Martiniere, Lucknow, where my mother studied, was sometimes inspected by the wraith of its Founder, who was buried in the basement. I don't know if he visits the Martiniere in Calcutta. Ghosts don't travel too well.

  There is a school ghost in this collection, but it's the houses that provide the hauntings and the inspiration for some of the world's greatest writers of supernatural fiction: M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, Bram Stoker, Hugh Walpole, Mrs Belloc Lowndes.

  I discovered the work of M.R. James when I was a boy. His Ghost Stories of an Antiguary turned up in a forest rest-house near Dehra Dun, and I found the book more exciting than the exploits of the party of shikaris who had brought me along for a week in the jungle.

  Hugh Walpole was a favourite author of mine when I was at sch
ool. His novel Fortitude set me on the road to becoming a writer. His tales of the macabre and supernatural still find their way into anthologies. In his story The Staircase it's the house, not the ghost, that does the haunting.

  Mrs Belloc Lowndes was a skilful and sensitive writer, unjustly neglected. The Unbolted Door is a very moving story, about a parental yearning for someone loved and lost. Another hauntingly beautiful tale is Quiller Couch's classic, A Pair of Hands. My favourite poet, Walter de al Mare, is represented by two of his lovely poems.

  In a different, more terrifying mould are stories such as Bram Stoker's The Judges House. The creator of Dracula was also a theatrical producer who knew how to build up to a dramatic climax. Others who could take suspense and horror to almost unbearable lengths were Blackwood, Benson, and Burrage, all represented here. As are E and H Heron, an original pair who combined the supernatural with "psychological detection". In the psychologist Flaxman Low they created the Sherlock Holmes of the ghost story.

  I like to do my late-night reading in an old rocking-chair that I picked up at an antique shop a few months ago. It had once belonged to a former Maharani, I was told. It creaks rather loudly when in motion, but I've got used to that.

  The other night, after I'd gone to bed and switched off the lights, I heard the old chair creaking. Turning on the light, I saw that the chair was quite empty although it was rocking backwards and forwards as though it had an occupant. Presently it was still.

  This is something that has happened several times during the past few weeks. Perhaps the rocking-chair's former owner wishes to use it from time to time. I don't mind her rocking and rolling in the chair, just so long as she doesn't appear in person, reading The Rupa Book of Haunted Houses. I leave that to you, dear reader.

  Ruskin Bond

  July 2003

  The Ghost

  By Walter de la Mare

  'Who knocks?' I, who was beautiful,

  Beyond all dreams to restore,

  I, from the roots of "the dark thorn am hither.

  And knock on the door.'

  'Who speaks?' 'I—once was my speech

  Sweet as the bird's on the air,

  When echo lurks by the waters to heed;

  'Tis I speak thee fair.'

  'Dark is the hour!' 'Ay,, and cold.'

  'Lone is my house.' 'Ah, but mine?'

  'Sight, touch, lips, eyes yearned in vain.'

  'Long dead these to thine...'

  Silence. Still faint on the porch

  Brake the flames of the stars.

  In gloom groped a hope-wearied hand

  Over keys, bolts, and bars.

  A face peered. All the grey night

  In chaos of vacancy shone;

  Naught but vast sorrow was there—

  The sweet cheat gone.

  A Pair of Hands

  By Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

  'Yes' said Miss Le Petyt, gazing into the deep fireplace and letting her hands and her knitting lie for the moment idle in her lap. 'Oh, yes, I have seen a ghost. In fact, I have lived in a house with one for quite a long time.'

  'How you could—!' began one of my host's daughters; and 'You, Aunt Emily?' cried the other at the same moment.

  Miss Le Petyt, gentle soul, withdrew her eyes from the fireplace and protested with a gay little smile. 'Well, my dears, I am not quite the coward you take me for. And, as it happens, mine was the most harmless ghost in the world. In fact'—and here she looked at the fire again—'I was quite sorry to lose her.'

  'It was a woman, then? Now I think,' said Miss Blanche, 'that female ghosts are the horridest of all. They wear little shoes with high red heels, and go about tap, tap, wringing their hands.'

  'This one wrung her hands, certainly. But I don't know about the high red heels, for I never saw her feet. Perhaps she was like the Queen of Spain, and hadn't any. And as for the hands, it all depends how you wring them. There's an elderly shopwalker at Knightsbridge, for instance—'

  'Don't be prosy, dear, when you know that we're just dying to hear the story.'

  Miss Le Petyt turned to me with a small deprecating laugh. It's such a little one.'

  The story, or the ghost?'

  'Both.'

  And this was Miss le Petyt's story:

  'It happened when I lived down in Cornwall, at Tresillack on the south coast. Tresillack was the name of the house, which stood quite alone at the head of a coombe, within sound of the sea but without sight of it; for though the coombe led down to a wide open beach, it wound and twisted half a dozen times on its way, and its overlapping sides closed the view from ,the house, which was advertised as "secluded". I was very poor in those days. Your father and all of us were poor then, as I trust, my dears, you will never be; but I was young enough to be romantic and wise enough to like independence, and this word "secluded" took my fancy.

  'The misfortune was that it had taken the fancy, or just suited the requirements, of several previous tenants. You know, I dare say, the kind of person who rents a secluded house in the country? Well, yes, there are several kinds; but they seem to agree in being odious. No one knows where they come from, though they soon remove all doubt about where they're "going to", as the children say. "Shady" is the word, is it not? Well, the previous tenants of Tresillack (from first to last a bewildering series) had been shady with a vengeance.

  'I knew nothing of this when I first made application to the landlord, a solid yeoman inhabiting a farm at the foot of the coombe, on a cliff overlooking the beach. To him I presented myself fearlessly as a spinster of decent family and small but assured income, intending a rural life of combined seemliness and economy. He met my advances politely enough, but with an air of suspicion which offended me. I began by disliking him for it: afterwards I set it down as an unpleasant feature in the local character. I was doubly mistaken. Farmer Hosking was slow-witted, but as honest a man as ever stood up against hard times; and a more open and hospitable race than the people on that coast I never wish to meet. It was the caution of a child who had burnt his fingers, not once but many times. Had I known what I afterwards learned of Farmer Hosking's tribulations as landlord of a "secluded country residence", I should have approached him with the bashfulness proper to my suit and faltered as I undertook to prove the bright exception in a long line of painful experiences. He had bought the Tresillack estate twenty years before—on mortgage, I fancy—because the land adjoined his own and would pay him for tillage. But the house was a nuisance, an incubus, and had been so from the beginning,

  '"Well, miss," he said, "you're welcome to look over it; a pretty enough place, inside and out. There's no trouble about keys, because I've put in a housekeeper, a widow-woman, and she'll show you round. With your leave I'll step up the coombe so far with you, and put you in your way." As I thanked him he paused and rubbed his chin. "There's one thing I must tell you, though. Whoever takes the house must take Mrs Carkeek along with it."

  '"Mrs Carkeek?" I echoed dolefully. "Is that the housekeeper?

  "'Yes: she was wife to my late hind. I'm sorry, miss," he added, my face telling him no doubt what sort of woman I expected Mrs Carkeek to be; "but I had to make it a rule after—after some things that happened. And I dare say you won't find her so bad. Mary Carkeek's a sensible comfortable woman, and knows the place. She was in service there to Squire Kendall when he sold up and went: her first place it was."

  '"I may as well see the house, anyhow," said I dejectedly. So we started to walk up the coombe. The path, which ran beside a little chattering stream, was narrow for the most part, and Farmer Hosking, with an apology, strode on ahead to beat aside the brambles. But whenever its width allowed us to walk side by side I caught him from time to time stealing a shy inquisitive glance under his rough eyebrows. Courteously though he bore himself, it was clear that he could not sum me up to his satisfaction or bring me square with his notion of a tenant for his "secluded country residence".

  'I don't know what foolish fancy prompted it, but abou
t halfway up the coombe I stopped short and asked:

  '"There are no ghosts, I suppose?"

  'It struck me, a moment after I had uttered it, as a supremely silly question; but he took it quite seriously. "No; I never heard tell of any ghosts." He laid a queer sort of stress on the word. "There's always been trouble with servants, and maids' tongues will be runin'. But Mary Carkeek lives up there alone, and she seems comfortable enough."

  'We walked on. By and by he pointed with his stick. "It don't look like a place for ghosts, now, do it?"

  'Certainly it did not. Above an untrimmed orchard rose a terrace of turf scattered with thorn-bushes, and above this a terrace of stone, upon which stood the prettiest cottage I had ever seen. It was long and low and thatched; a deep verandah ran from end to end. Clematis, Banksia roses and honeysuckle climbed the posts of this verandah, and big blooms of the Maréchal Niel were clustered along its roof, beneath the lattices of the bedroom windows. The house was small enough to be called a cottage, and rare enough in features and in situation to confer distinction on any tenant. It suggested what in those days we should have called "elegant" living. And I could have clapped my hands for joy.

  'My spirits mounted still higher when Mrs Carkeek opened the door to us. I had looked for a Mrs Gummidge, and I found a healthy middle-aged woman with a thoughtful but contented face, and a smile which, without a trace of obsequiousness, quite bore out the farmer's description of her. She was a comfortable woman; and while we walked through the rooms together (for Mr Hosking waited outside) I "took to" Mrs Carkeek. Her speech was direct and practical; the rooms, in spite of their faded furniture, were bright and exquisitely clean; and somehow the very atmosphere of the house gave me a sense of well-being, of feeling at home and cared for; yes, of being loved. Don't laugh, my dears; for when I've done you may not think this fancy altogether foolish.