“You have a good church and a loyal people here, Mr. Burns,” Mr. Sheldon was saying. “I hope your ministry among them will be happy and blessed.”
Curtis Burns smiled. When he smiled his cheeks dimpled, which gave him a boyish, irresponsible look. Mr. Sheldon felt a momentary doubt. He could not recall any minister of his acquaintance with dimples, not even a Presbyterian one. Was it fitting? But Curtis Burns was saying, with just the right shade of diffidence and modesty, “I am sure it will be my own fault, Mr. Sheldon, if it is not. I feel my lack of experience. May I draw on you occasionally for advice and help?”
“I shall be very glad to give you any assistance in my power,” said Mr. Sheldon, his doubts promptly disappearing. “As for advice bushels of it are at your disposal. I shall hand you out a piece at once. If you need a doctor always send for the Methodist one. I got in very wrong through my friendship with Dr. Blythe. And go into the parsonage ... don’t board.”
Curtis shook his brown head ruefully.
“I can’t ... Mr. Sheldon ... not right away. I haven’t a cent ... and I have some borrowed money to repay. I’ll have to wait until I have paid my debts and saved enough money to pay for a housekeeper.”
So he was not contemplating matrimony.
“Oh, well, of course if you can’t, you can’t. But do it as soon as you can. There is no place for a minister like his own home. The Mowbray Narrows parsonage is a nice house although it is old. It was a very happy home for me ... at first ... until the death of my dear wife two years ago. Since then I have been very lonely. If it had not been for my friendship with the Blythes ... but a good many people disapproved of that because they were Presbyterians. However, you will have a good boarding place with Mrs. Richards. She will make you very comfortable.”
“Unfortunately Mrs. Richards cannot take me after all. She has to go to the hospital for a rather serious operation. I am going to board at Mr. Field’s ... Long Alec, I believe he is called. You seem to have odd nicknames in Mowbray Narrows ... I’ve heard a few already.”
And then Mr. Sheldon had exclaimed, with something more than surprise in his tone,
“Long Alec’s!”
“Yes, I prevailed on him and his sister to take me in for a few weeks, at least, on promise of good behaviour. I’m in luck. It’s the only other place near the church. I had hard work to get them to consent.”
“But ... Long Alec’s!” said Mr. Sheldon again.
It struck Curtis that Mr. Sheldon’s surprise was rather surprising. And there had been the same note in Dr. Blythe’s voice when he had told him.
Why shouldn’t he board at Long Alec’s?
Long Alec seemed a most respectable and a rather attractive youngish man, with his fine-cut aquiline features and soft, dreamy grey eyes. And the sister ... a sweet, little brown thing, rather tired-looking, with a flute-like voice. Her face was as brown as a nut, her hair and eyes were brown, her lips scarlet. Of all the girls that had clustered, flowerlike, about the basement that day, casting shy glances of admiration at the handsome young minister, he remembered nothing. But somehow he remembered Lucia Field.
“Why not Long Alec’s?” he said.
Recalling, too, that a few other people besides Dr. Blythe had seemed taken aback when he had mentioned his change of boarding house. Why ... why? Long Alec was on the board of managers. He must be respectable.
Mr. Sheldon looked embarrassed.
“Oh, it is all right, I suppose. Only ... I shouldn’t have thought them likely to take a boarder. Lucia has her hands full as it is. You may have heard there is an invalid cousin there?”
“Yes, Dr. Blythe mentioned her. And I called to see her. What a tragedy ... that sweet, beautiful woman!”
“A beautiful woman indeed,” said Mr. Sheldon emphatically. “She is a wonderful woman, one of the greatest powers for good in Mowbray Narrows. They call her the angel of the community. I tell you, Mr. Burns, the influence that Alice Harper wields from that bed of helplessness is amazing. I cannot tell you what she has been to me during my pastorate here. And every other minister will tell you the same. Her wonderful life is an inspiration. The young girls of the congregation worship her. Do you know that for eight years she has taught a teenage class of girls? They go over to her room after the opening exercises of the Sunday school here. She enters into their lives ... they take all their problems and perplexities to her. They say she has made more matches than Mrs. Blythe ... and that is saying something. And it was entirely due to her that the church here was not hopelessly disrupted when Deacon North went on a rampage because Lucia Field played a sacred violin solo for a collection piece one day. Alice sent for the deacon and talked him into sanity. She told me the whole interview in confidence later, with her own inimitable little humorous touches. It was rich. If the deacon could have heard her! She is full of fun. She suffers indescribably at times but no one has ever heard her utter a word of complaint.”
“Has she always been so?”
“Oh, no. She fell from the barn loft ten years ago. Hunting for eggs or something. She was unconscious for hours ... and has been paralyzed from the hips down ever since.”
“Have they had good medical advice?”
“The best. Winthrop Field ... Long Alec’s father ... had specialists from everywhere. They could do nothing for her. She was the daughter of Winthrop’s sister. Her father and mother died when she was a baby ... her father was a clever scamp who died a dipsomaniac, like his father before him ... and the Fields brought her up. Before her accident she was a slim, pretty, shy girl who liked to keep in the background and seldom went about with the other young people. I don’t know that her existence on her uncle’s charity was altogether easy. She feels her helplessness keenly. She can’t even turn herself in bed, Mr. Burns. And she feels that she is a burden on Alec and Lucia. They are very good to her ... I feel sure of that ... but young and healthy people cannot understand fully. Winthrop Field died seven years ago and his wife the next year. Then Lucia gave up her work in Charlottetown ... she was a teacher in the High School ... and came home to keep house for Alec and wait on Alice ... who can’t bear to have strangers handling her, poor soul.”
“Rather hard on Lucia,” commented Curtis.
“Well, yes, of course. She is a good girl, I think ... the Blythes think there is no one like her ... and Alec is a fine fellow in many ways. A little stubborn, perhaps. I’ve heard some talk of his being engaged to Edna Pollock ... I know Mrs. Dr. Blythe favours that match ... but it never comes to anything. Well, it’s a fine old place ... the Field farm is the best in Mowbray Narrows ... and Lucia is a good housekeeper.
I hope you’ll be comfortable ... but ...”
Mr. Sheldon stopped abruptly and stood up.
“Mr. Sheldon, what do you mean by that ‘but’?” said Curtis resolutely. “Some of the rest looked ‘but,’ too ... especially Dr. Blythe ... though they didn’t say it. I want to understand. I don’t like mysteries.”
“Then you shouldn’t go to board at Long Alec’s,” said Mr. Sheldon dryly.
“Why not? Surely there’s no great mystery connected with the family on a farm in Mowbray Narrows?”
“I suppose I’d better tell you. I’d rather you asked Dr. Blythe, though. It always makes me feel like a fool. As you say a plain farm in Mowbray Narrows is no place for any insoluble mystery. Yet there it is. Mr. Burns, there is something very strange about the old Field place. Mowbray Narrows people will tell you that it is ... haunted.”
“Haunted!” Curtis could not help laughing. “Mr. Sheldon, you don’t tell me that!”
“I once said ‘haunted’ in just the same tone,” said Mr. Sheldon a little sharply. Even if he were a saint he did not care to be laughed at by boys just out of college. “I never said it so after I spent a certain night there.”
“Of course, you don’t seriously believe in ghosts, Mr. Sheldon.” Privately, Curtis thought the old man was getting a little childish.
“Of course I d
on’t. That is, I don’t believe the strange things that have happened there during the last five or six years are supernatural or caused by supernatural agency. But the things have happened ... there is no doubt whatever of that ... and remember John Wesley ...”
“What things?”
Mr. Sheldon coughed.
“I ... I ... some of them sound a little ridiculous when put into words. But the cumulative effect is not ridiculous ... at least to those who have to live in the house and cannot find any explanation of them ... cannot, Mr. Burns. Rooms are turned upside down ... a cradle is rocked in the garret where no cradle is ... violins are played ... there are no violins in the house ... except Lucia’s, which is always kept locked up in her own room ... cold water is poured over people in bed ... clothes pulled off them ... shrieks ring through the garret ... dead people’s voices are heard talking in empty rooms ... bloody footprints are found on floors ... white figures have been seen walking on the barn roof. Oh, smile, Mr. Burns ... I smiled once, too. And I laughed when I heard that all the eggs under the setting hens last spring were discovered to be hard-boiled.”
“The Field ghost seems to have a sense of humour,” commented Curtis.
“It was no laughing matter when Long Alec’s binder house was burned last fall with his new binder in it. Every building might have gone if the wind had been west instead of east. It was off by itself. Nobody had been near it for weeks.”
“But ... Mr. Sheldon ... if anybody but you had told me these things ...”
“You wouldn’t have believed them. I don’t blame you. But ask Dr. Blythe. I didn’t believe the yarns until I spent a night there.”
“And did anything ... what happened?”
“Well, I heard the cradle ... it rocked all night in the garret overhead. The dinner bell rang at midnight. I heard a devilish sort of laugh ... I can’t say whether it was in my room or out of it. There was a quality in it that filled me with a sickening sort of horror ... I admit it, Mr. Burns, that laughter was not human. And just before dawn every dish on one of the cupboard shelves was thrown to the floor and smashed. Moreover ...” Mr. Sheldon’s gentle old mouth twitched in spite of himself. “... the porridge at breakfast, which had been cooked the night before, was literally half salt.”
“Somebody was playing tricks.”
“Of course I believe that as firmly as you do. But what somebody? And how is it the somebody can’t be caught? You don’t suppose Long Alec and Lucia haven’t tried?”
“Do these performances go on every night?”
“Oh, no. Weeks will sometimes pass without an incident. And when people come in to watch generally nothing happens. They even had Dr. Blythe and Dr. Parker one night ... much against their will. The house was as quiet as the dead. But after a quiet interval there is generally an orgy. Moonlight nights are generally ... not always ... quiet.”
“Miss Field must have help. Who lives in the house besides her brother and her and Miss Harper?”
“Two people as a rule. Jock MacCree, a half-witted fellow who has made his home with the Fields for thirty years ... he must be close on fifty and has always been quiet and well behaved. And Julia Marsh, the servant girl. She is a lumpish, sulky sort of creature, one of the Upper Glen Marshes.”
“A half-wit ... and a girl with a grudge likely. I don’t think your ghost should be very hard to locate, Mr. Sheldon.”
“It’s not so simple as that, Mr. Burns. Of course, they were suspected at once. But the things go on when Jock is in the room with you. Julia would never have her door locked, I admit, or stay with the watchers. But the same things happen when she is away.”
“Have you ever heard either of them laugh?”
“Yes. Jock giggles foolishly. Julia snorts. I cannot believe that either of them produced the sound I heard. Neither does Dr. Blythe. Mowbray Narrows people at first thought it was Jock. Now they believe it is ghosts ... they really do, even those who won’t admit they believe it.”
“What reason do they have for supposing the house is haunted?”
“Well, there’s a pitiful tale. Julia Marsh’s sister Anna used to work there before Julia. Help is hard to get in Mowbray Narrows, Mr. Curtis. And of course Lucia must have help ... she cannot do the work of that place and wait on Alice alone. Anna Marsh had had an illegitimate baby. It was about three years old and she used to have it there with her. It was a pretty little thing ... they all liked the child. One day it was drowned in the barn cistern ... Jock had left the top off. Anna seemed to take it coolly ... didn’t make a fuss ... didn’t even cry, I’m told. People said, ‘Oh, she’s glad to be rid of it. A bad lot, those Marshes. Too bad Lucia Field couldn’t get better help. Perhaps if they paid better wages ...’ and so on. But two weeks after the child was buried Anna hanged herself in the garret.”
Curtis gave a horrified exclamation.
“I have heard that Dr. Blythe warned them to watch her. But you see there is a magnificent foundation for a ghost story. They say that’s the true reason Edna Pollock won’t marry Long Alec. The Pollocks are well off and Edna is a smart, capable girl ... but a bit below the Fields socially and mentally. She wants Alec to sell and move. She insists that the place is under a curse. Well, as for that, a note was found one morning written in blood ... badly written and badly spelled ... Anna Marsh was very illiterate ... ‘If ever children are born in this house they will be born accursed.’ Dr. Blythe insisted it wasn’t Anna’s writing but ... well, there you are. Alec won’t sell ... even if he could find a purchaser, which is doubtful. The place has been in his family since 1770 and he says he is not going to be driven out of it by spooks. A few weeks after Anna’s death these performances began. The cradle was heard rocking in the garret ... there was a cradle there then. They took it away but the rocking went on just the same. Oh, everything has been done to solve the mystery. Neighbours have watched night after night. Sometimes nothing happened. Sometimes things happened but they couldn’t tell why. Three years ago Julia took a sulky fit and left ... said people were saying things about her and she wasn’t going to stand for it. Lucia got Min Deacon from the Upper Glen. Min stayed three weeks ... she was a smart, capable girl ... and left because she was awakened by an icy hand on her face ... though she had locked her door before going to sleep. Then they got Maggie Eldon ... a young girl with no nerves. She had splendid black hair and was very proud of it. Never would have it bobbed. Icy hands and weird laughter and ghostly cradles didn’t bother her. She was there for five weeks. But when she woke up one morning she found her beautiful braid of black hair had been cut off in the night. Well, that was too much for Maggie. Her young man didn’t approve of bobbed hair. People will tell you that Anna Marsh had very poor hair and was very jealous of those who had nice hair.
“Lucia prevailed on Julia to come back and she’s been there ever since. Personally I feel sure Julia hasn’t anything to do with it and Dr. Blythe agrees with me. Have a talk with him sometime ... he’s a very intelligent man, even if he is a Presbyterian.”
“But if Julia has nothing to do with it, who has?”
“Oh, Mr. Burns, we can’t answer that. And ... who knows what the powers of evil can or cannot do? Again I say remember Epworth Rectory. I don’t think that mystery has ever been solved. And yet ... I hardly think the devil ... or even a malicious ghost ... would empty out a dozen bottles of raspberry vinegar and fill them up with red ink, salt and water.”
Mr. Sheldon laughed in spite of himself. Curtis did not laugh ... he frowned.
“It is intolerable that such things should go on for five years and the perpetrator escape. It must be a dreadful life for Miss Field.”
“Lucia takes it coolly. Some people think a little too coolly. Of course we have malicious people in Mowbray Narrows as well as everywhere else and some have hinted that she does the things herself. Only you’d better not say so to Mrs. Dr. Blythe. She is a special friend of Lucia’s. Of course I never suspected her for a moment.”
“I should th
ink not. Apart from her personality, what earthly reason could she have?”
“To prevent Long Alec’s marriage with Edna Pollock. Lucia was never particularly fond of Edna. And the Field pride might find it too hard to swallow a Pollock alliance. Besides ... Lucia can play on the violin.”
“I could never believe such a thing of Miss Field.”
“No, I don’t think I could, either. And what Mrs. Blythe would do to me, old as I am, if I hinted such a thing to her, I don’t really know. And I don’t really know much about Miss Field. She hasn’t taken any part in the church work ... well, I suppose she couldn’t. But it is hard to kill an insinuation. I have fought and ousted many a lie, Mr. Burns, but some insinuations have beaten me. Lucia is a reserved little thing ... I really think Mrs. Blythe is the only intimate friend she has ... perhaps I am too old to get acquainted with her. Well, I’ve told you all I know about our mystery. No doubt there are others who could tell you much more. If you can put up with Long Alec’s spooks until Mrs. Richards’ recovery there is no reason why you shouldn’t be very comfortable. I know Alice will be glad to have you there. She worries over the mystery ... she thinks it keeps people away ... well, of course it does, more or less ... and she’s fond of company, poor girl. Besides, she’s very nervous about the goings-on. I hope I haven’t made you nervous.”
“No ... you have interested me. I believe there is some quite simple solution.”
“And you also believe that everything has been greatly exaggerated? Oh, not by me ... I acquit you of that ... but by my gossiping parishioners. Well, I daresay there has been a good deal of exaggeration. Stories can grow to huge proportions in five years and we country folks are very fond of a spice of the dramatic. Twice two making four is dull but twice two making five is exciting ... as Mrs. Blythe says. But my hard-headed deacon, old Malcolm Dinwoodie, heard Winthrop Field talking in the parlour there one night ... years after he had been buried. Nobody who had once heard Winthrop Field’s peculiar voice could mistake it ... or the little nervous laugh he always ended up with.”