THE next day the ghost was very weak and tired. The terrible excitement
of the last four weeks was beginning to have its effect. His nerves were
completely shattered, and he started at the slightest noise. For five
days he kept his room, and at last made up his mind to give up the point
of the blood-stain on the library floor. If the Otis family did not want
it, they clearly did not deserve it. They were evidently people on a
low, material plane of existence, and quite incapable of appreciating the
symbolic value of sensuous phenomena. The question of phantasmic
apparitions, and the development of astral bodies, was of course quite a
different matter, and really not under his control. It was his solemn
duty to appear in the corridor once a week, and to gibber from the large
oriel window on the first and third Wednesday in every month, and he did
not see how he could honourably escape from his obligations. It is quite
true that his life had been very evil, but, upon the other hand, he was
most conscientious in all things connected with the supernatural. For
the next three Saturdays, accordingly, he traversed the corridor as usual
between midnight and three o’clock, taking every possible precaution
against being either heard or seen. He removed his boots, trod as
lightly as possible on the old worm-eaten boards, wore a large black
velvet cloak, and was careful to use the Rising Sun Lubricator for oiling
his chains. I am bound to acknowledge that it was with a good deal of
difficulty that he brought himself to adopt this last mode of protection.
However, one night, while the family were at dinner, he slipped into Mr.
Otis’s bedroom and carried off the bottle. He felt a little humiliated
at first, but afterwards was sensible enough to see that there was a
great deal to be said for the invention, and, to a certain degree, it
served his purpose. Still, in spite of everything, he was not left
unmolested. Strings were continually being stretched across the
corridor, over which he tripped in the dark, and on one occasion, while
dressed for the part of ‘Black Isaac, or the Huntsman of Hogley Woods,’
he met with a severe fall, through treading on a butter-slide, which the
twins had constructed from the entrance of the Tapestry Chamber to the
top of the oak staircase. This last insult so enraged him, that he
resolved to make one final effort to assert his dignity and social
position, and determined to visit the insolent young Etonians the next
night in his celebrated character of ‘Reckless Rupert, or the Headless
Earl.’
He had not appeared in this disguise for more than seventy years; in
fact, not since he had so frightened pretty Lady Barbara Modish by means
of it, that she suddenly broke off her engagement with the present Lord
Canterville’s grandfather, and ran away to Gretna Green with handsome
Jack Castleton, declaring that nothing in the world would induce her to
marry into a family that allowed such a horrible phantom to walk up and
down the terrace at twilight. Poor Jack was afterwards shot in a duel by
Lord Canterville on Wandsworth Common, and Lady Barbara died of a broken
heart at Tunbridge Wells before the year was out, so, in every way, it
had been a great success. It was, however, an extremely difficult
‘make-up,’ if I may use such a theatrical expression in connection with
one of the greatest mysteries of the supernatural, or, to employ a more
scientific term, the higher-natural world, and it took him fully three
hours to make his preparations. At last everything was ready, and he was
very pleased with his appearance. The big leather riding-boots that went
with the dress were just a little too large for him, and he could only
find one of the two horse-pistols, but, on the whole, he was quite
satisfied, and at a quarter past one he glided out of the wainscoting and
crept down the corridor. On reaching the room occupied by the twins,
which I should mention was called the Blue Bed Chamber, on account of the
colour of its hangings, he found the door just ajar. Wishing to make an
effective entrance, he flung it wide open, when a heavy jug of water fell
right down on him, wetting him to the skin, and just missing his left
shoulder by a couple of inches. At the same moment he heard stifled
shrieks of laughter proceeding from the four-post bed. The shock to his
nervous system was so great that he fled back to his room as hard as he
could go, and the next day he was laid up with a severe cold. The only
thing that at all consoled him in the whole affair was the fact that he
had not brought his head with him, for, had he done so, the consequences
might have been very serious.
He now gave up all hope of ever frightening this rude American family,
and contented himself, as a rule, with creeping about the passages in
list slippers, with a thick red muffler round his throat for fear of
draughts, and a small arquebuse, in case he should be attacked by the
twins. The final blow he received occurred on the 19th of September. He
had gone downstairs to the great entrance-hall, feeling sure that there,
at any rate, he would be quite unmolested, and was amusing himself by
making satirical remarks on the large Saroni photographs of the United
States Minister and his wife, which had now taken the place of the
Canterville family pictures. He was simply but neatly clad in a long
shroud, spotted with churchyard mould, had tied up his jaw with a strip
of yellow linen, and carried a small lantern and a sexton’s spade. In
fact, he was dressed for the character of ‘Jonas the Graveless, or the
Corpse-Snatcher of Chertsey Barn,’ one of his most remarkable
impersonations, and one which the Cantervilles had every reason to
remember, as it was the real origin of their quarrel with their
neighbour, Lord Rufford. It was about a quarter past two o’clock in the
morning, and, as far as he could ascertain, no one was stirring. As he
was strolling towards the library, however, to see if there were any
traces left of the blood-stain, suddenly there leaped out on him from a
dark corner two figures, who waved their arms wildly above their heads,
and shrieked out ‘BOO!’ in his ear.
Seized with a panic, which, under the circumstances, was only natural, he
rushed for the staircase, but found Washington Otis waiting for him there
with the big garden-syringe; and being thus hemmed in by his enemies on
every side, and driven almost to bay, he vanished into the great iron
stove, which, fortunately for him, was not lit, and had to make his way
home through the flues and chimneys, arriving at his own room in a
terrible state of dirt, disorder, and despair.
After this he was not seen again on any nocturnal expedition. The twins
lay in wait for him on several occasions, and strewed the passages with
nutshells every night to the great annoyance of their parents and the
servants, but it was of no avail. It was quite evident that his feelings
were so wounded that he would not appear. Mr. Otis consequently resumed
his great work on the history of the Democratic Party, on which he had
been engaged for some years; Mrs. Otis organised a wonderful clam-bake,
which amazed the whole county; the boys took to lacrosse, euchre, poker,
and other American national games; and Virginia rode about the lanes on
her pony, accompanied by the young Duke of Cheshire, who had come to
spend the last week of his holidays at Canterville Chase. It was
generally assumed that the ghost had gone away, and, in fact, Mr. Otis
wrote a letter to that effect to Lord Canterville, who, in reply,
expressed his great pleasure at the news, and sent his best
congratulations to the Minister’s worthy wife.
The Otises, however, were deceived, for the ghost was still in the house,
and though now almost an invalid, was by no means ready to let matters
rest, particularly as he heard that among the guests was the young Duke
of Cheshire, whose grand-uncle, Lord Francis Stilton, had once bet a
hundred guineas with Colonel Carbury that he would play dice with the
Canterville ghost, and was found the next morning lying on the floor of
the card-room in such a helpless paralytic state, that though he lived on
to a great age, he was never able to say anything again but ‘Double
Sixes.’ The story was well known at the time, though, of course, out of
respect to the feelings of the two noble families, every attempt was made
to hush it up; and a full account of all the circumstances connected with
it will be found in the third volume of Lord Tattle’s _Recollections of
the Prince Regent and his Friends_. The ghost, then, was naturally very
anxious to show that he had not lost his influence over the Stiltons,
with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected, his own first cousin
having been married _en secondes noces_ to the Sieur de Bulkeley, from
whom, as every one knows, the Dukes of Cheshire are lineally descended.
Accordingly, he made arrangements for appearing to Virginia’s little
lover in his celebrated impersonation of ‘The Vampire Monk, or, the
Bloodless Benedictine,’ a performance so horrible that when old Lady
Startup saw it, which she did on one fatal New Year’s Eve, in the year
1764, she went off into the most piercing shrieks, which culminated in
violent apoplexy, and died in three days, after disinheriting the
Cantervilles, who were her nearest relations, and leaving all her money
to her London apothecary. At the last moment, however, his terror of the
twins prevented his leaving his room, and the little Duke slept in peace
under the great feathered canopy in the Royal Bedchamber, and dreamed of
Virginia.