HAUNTED HOUSES--"CASTEL A MARE"
I have never yet met any one who was not interested in haunted houses.
Even the most blatant skeptic always wants to "hear all about it,"
though he has predetermined to treat the story with his habitual
scoffing incredulity. Of all the departments of psychical research none
commands more general interest than a "spooky" house, and there are few
people who cannot name a dwelling which has acquired the reputation for
being haunted by denizens of the other world.
Of course, any house that falls into serious disrepair, and remains
unoccupied for some long period, any dwelling whose owner permits decay
to proceed unchecked, and dilapidation to run its course, at once
suggests the thought to the beholder, "what a haunted looking old
place," and rumor, in such cases, quickly supplies all the old
phenomena, even though tradition be totally absent. Tramps are always on
the lookout for such shelters, and their damped-down fires catch the eye
of some scared rustic who happens to be passing in the dark. Rats and
the winds of heaven play hide-and-seek through the deserted rooms and
corridors, and owls find sanctuary in the surrounding gardens. Their
cries, varying from the exultant shriek to the mournful wail, add a
weird suggestiveness to the abiding melancholy of such abandoned
habitations.
There is so much talk nowadays of hauntings and ghosts, that it seems
strange we should know so very little about them. I have never heard a
really convincing explanation of why ghosts should haunt certain houses,
and I have no explanation of my own to offer. If ghosts could be
commanded, if one could be sure of witnessing certain phenomena that
have been elaborately described to one, then there might be the ghost of
a chance of advantageous investigation. No such opportunities seem to be
afforded the investigator. He may watch for months and see nothing, yet
the elusive wraith may turn up before several witnesses on the very
night after he has abandoned his quest out of sheer boredom and
discouragement.
Some seven years ago, whilst wintering in Torquay, I heard a great deal
of gossip about a villa on the Warberries, which was reputed to be badly
haunted. For the last forty to fifty years nobody, it was said, had been
able to live in it for any length of time. Several people asserted that
they had heard screams coming from it as they passed along the high
road, and no occupant had ever been able to keep a door shut or even
locked.
The house is at present being pulled down, therefore I commit no
indiscretion in describing the phenomena connected with it.
"Castel a Mare" is situated in what house agents would describe as "a
highly residential quarter." It is surrounded by numerous villas,
inhabited by people who are all very "well to do," and who make Torquay
their permanent home. The majority of these villas lie right back from
the road, and are hidden in their own luxuriant gardens, but the
haunted house is one of several whose back premises open straight on to
the road.
No dwelling could have looked more commonplace or uninteresting. It was
built in the form of a high box, three storied. It was hideous and
inartistic in the extreme, but along its frontage looking towards the
sea and hidden from the road, there ran a wide balcony on to which the
second floor rooms opened, and from there the view over the garden was
charming. When I first went to look at it, dilapidation had set in.
Jackdaws and starlings were busy in the chimneys, the paint was peeling
off the walls, and most of the windows were broken. Year after year
those windows were mended, but they never remained intact for more than
a week, and during the war there has been no attempt at renewal. Even
the agents' boards, "To be let or sold" dropped one by one from their
stems, as if in sheer weariness of so fruitless an announcement.
It was not long before I obtained the loan of the keys, and proceeded to
"take the atmosphere." It was decidedly unhealthful, I concluded, though
I neither heard nor saw anything unusual during the hour I spent alone
in quietly wandering through the deserted rooms. I found no trace of
tramps, and all the closed windows were thickly cobwebbed _inside_, an
important fact to notice in psychic research. I fixed upon the bathroom
and one other small room, as the _foci_ of the trouble, and left the
house with no other strong impression than that my movements had been
closely watched, by some one unseen by me. It was no uncommon sight in
pre-war days to see several smart motor cars drawn up at the gate.
Frivolous parties of explorers in search of a thrill drove in from the
surrounding neighborhood, and romped gayly through the house and out
again, and I discovered that several of those visitors had distinctly
felt that they were being followed about and watched.
My husband and I were naturally much interested in this haunted
dwelling, so accessible, and so near to our own house. We determined
that if we could make friends with the owner we would do a little
investigation on our own. Numerous people, on the plea that the house
might suit them as a residence, got the loan of the keys, and spent an
hour or two inside the place, wandering about the house and garden, but
the owner was getting tired of this rush of spurious house-hunters. He
was beginning to ask for _bona fides_, so we determined honestly to
state our purpose.
The proprietor was an old builder who owned several other houses. He
received me very civilly, even gratefully. He would willingly give us
the keys for as long a period as we required them. "Castel a Mare"
brought him extreme bad luck; he longed to be rid of it, and he added
that after our investigations, if my husband could give the house a
clean bill of health it would be of enormous benefit to him, in enabling
him to let or sell it. He did not seem very hopeful, but stated it to be
his opinion that the hauntings were all nonsense, and that the screams
people heard were the cries of some peacocks that lived in a property
not far off. This sounded very reasonable, and I promised him that if we
could honestly state that the house was perfectly unhealthful, we would
permit our conclusions to be made public.
My husband and I decided that the hour one p. m. till two p. m. would be
the quietest and least conspicuous time in which to investigate.
Doubtless the night would have been better still, but it would have
created too much excitement in the neighborhood, and callers to see "how
we were bearing up" would have defeated our object. Between one and two
all Torquay would be lunching, and we could easily slip in unobserved,
and we would require neither lights nor warm comforts.
We started at once, my husband keeping the keys, and making himself
responsible for the doors. Though the window-panes were badly broken
there were no openings large enough to admit a small child, and, as I
have said, the network of cobwebs within was evidence that no human
being entered the house by the windows. The front door lock was in good
order, and so were most of the other locks in the house. We shut
ourselves in, and after a thorough examination of the premises we
mounted to the first floor. Three rooms opened on to it, belonging to
the principal bedroom--a smaller room and a bathroom opening out of the
big bedroom. My husband closed all the doors, and we sat down on the
lower steps of the bare staircase leading to the floor above. That day
we drew an absolute blank, and at two o'clock we closed every door in
the house, and just inside the front door we made a careless looking
arrangement of twigs, dead leaves, pieces of straw and dust, which could
not fail to betray the passing of human feet, should anybody possess a
duplicate key to the front door and enter by that means.
The second day we found our twig and straw arrangements intact, but not
a single door was shut, all were thrown defiantly wide. This seemed
rather promising and we went upstairs to our seat on the steps, and
carefully reclosing the doors immediately in front of us, sat down to
await events.
Quite half an hour must have passed when suddenly a click made us both
look up. The handle of the door, but a couple of yards distant from me,
leading into the small room, was turning, and the door quietly opened
wide enough to admit the passing of a human being. It was a bright sunny
day, and one could see the brass knob turning round quite distinctly. We
saw no form of any sort, and the door remained half open. For perhaps a
couple of moments we awaited developments, then our attention was
suddenly switched off the door by the sound of hurrying footsteps
running along the bare boards on the corridor above us. My husband
rushed up and searched each empty room, but neither saw anything nor
heard anything more. Before leaving the house we shut all doors, and
locked all that would lock. Such was the meager extent of our second
day's investigations.
On the third day the doors were all found wide flung. No door opened
before our eyes as on our former visit, but a brushing sound was heard
ascending the stairs, as if from some one pressing close against the
wall.
For about a fortnight nothing happened beyond what I have recounted, but
I was strongly conscious that we were being watched. The most
unhealthful spots were the bathroom, a servants' room entered by a
staircase leading from the kitchen, and the stable, a small building
immediately to the right of the house. The bathroom was in great
disrepair, long strips of paper hung from the walls, and an air of
profound depression pervaded it. Obviously it had once been merely a
large cupboard, and it had a window admitting light from a passage
behind it.
We had never once failed to find every door which we had closed thrown
wide on our return, and one day we locked the bathroom, and removing the
key we looked about for some spot in which to secrete it. On that floor
was nothing large enough to hide even so small an object as a key, so we
took it downstairs to the dining-room. In a corner lay a rag of linoleum
about six inches square, under this we placed the bathroom key and left
the house.
That afternoon a house agent called and asked for the loan of the keys.
He told us that a brave widow, who knew the history of the house,
thought it might suit her to live in, and he proposed to take her over
it and point out its charms. He would return the keys to us directly
afterwards. I took advantage of this occasion to say to the agent that
probably the screams some people had heard proceeded from the peacocks
in the neighborhood.
He shook his head and answered, "We hoped that might prove to be the
case, but we have ascertained that it is not so." He seemed despondent
about the place, even though what we had to tell him was as yet nothing
very formidable or exciting. What we did not tell him was that we had
locked up the bathroom, and hidden the key. We left him to discover that
fact for himself.
He returned with the keys in about an hour, and I asked him what the
widow thought of "Castel a Mare."
"She thinks something might be made of it. The cheapness attracts her,"
he answered.
"But it will need so much doing to it," I demurred. "What did she think
of the bathroom?"
"She said it only needed cleaning and repapering. The bath itself she
found in good enough condition."
So the bathroom door was open, in spite of our having locked it and
hidden the key!
After the agent had gone we went to the house. Every door stood wide.
The bathroom key was still in its hiding-place, and the door open. We
replaced the key. The ghosts laughed to scorn such securities as locks
and keys.
For a month or two we pursued our investigations, then we returned the
keys to the owner. Though we had seen and heard so little it was
impossible to give the house a clean bill of health, and the old builder
was much cast down. A few days afterwards we received a letter from him
offering us the house as a free gift. It would pay him to be rid of the
ground rent, and the place was as useless to him as to any one else. We
thanked him and refused the gift.
About this period I was lucky enough to get into touch with a former
tenant of "Castel a Mare," and this lady most kindly gave me many
details of her residence there. About thirty years ago she occupied it
with her father and mother, and they were the last family to live in it
for any length of time, and for many years it has remained empty.
Soon after their arrival this family discovered that there was something
very much amiss with their new residence. The house, the garden, and the
stable were decidedly uncanny, but it was some time before they would
admit, even to themselves, that the strange happenings were of a
supernatural order.
The phenomena fell under three headings: a piercing scream heard
continually, at any hour and during all seasons; continuous steps
running along corridors, and up and down stairs; constant lockings of
doors by unseen hands.
The scream was decidedly the most unnerving of the various phenomena.
The family lived in constant dread of it. Sometimes it came from the
garden, sometimes from inside the house. One morning whilst they sat at
breakfast, they were violently startled by this horrible sound coming
from the inner hall, just outside the room in which they sat. It took
but a moment to throw open the door, but, as usual, there was nothing to
be seen.
On another occasion the family doctor had just arrived at the front
door, and was about to ring, when he was startled by the scream coming
from inside the house. This doctor still lives in the neighborhood, and
is one of many people who can bear witness to the fact.
The footsteps of unseen people kept the family pretty busy. They were
always running to the doors to see who was hurrying past, and up and
down stairs. Very soon the drawing-room became extremely uncomfortable,
and practically uninhabitable. It was always full of unseen people
moving about. The lady of the house never felt herself alone, and when
she found herself locked into her own room, the behavior of her astral
guests seemed to her to have become intolerable. The master of the house
no more escaped these attentions than did the rest of the inhabitants,
and finally all keys had to be removed from all doors.
One night some guests, after getting into bed, heard some one open the
door of their room and enter. Astonishment kept them silent, and in a
minute or two their visitor quietly withdrew and closed the door again.
They concluded that it must have been their hostess, and that thinking
they were asleep she had not spoken, yet still they thought the incident
very strange. The next morning they discovered that no member of the
household had entered their room.
On another occasion a lady who had come to help nurse a sick sister saw,
one night, a strange woman dressed in black velvet walk downstairs.
Animals fared badly at "Castel a Mare." A large dog belonging to the
family was often found cowering and growling in abject fear of something
visible to it, but not to the human inhabitants, and the harness horse
showed such an invincible objection to its stable, that it could only be
got in by backing.
Later on I was told that a member of the Psychical Society had visited
"Castel a Mare," and had pronounced the garden to be more haunted than
the house.
It is interesting to note how absolutely untenable badly haunted houses
become. No matter how skeptical, how resolutely material the tenants may
be, the phenomena wear them down to a humble surrender at last. After
all, what can people do but quit a residence which is constantly showing
incontrovertible evidence that it is possessed by numerous unseen
entities that defy analysis?
Every one is interested in getting rid of this weird disturbance, but
how to do it? The skeptic is resolute in unmasking the fraud, but finds
himself balked by intangibility. He hears the scream at his door, and
rushes to arrest the miscreant, but sees no one to grapple with.
Domestic difficulties become acute. No warning is given, no wages asked.
The servants decamp, too scared to care for anything but putting
distance between themselves and the nameless dread. Visitors begin to
fight shy of the house. They have heard the screams.
Month after month the master of the house, thinking of his rent, and his
reputation for sanity, and what the loss of both would mean to him,
clings to skepticism as his only hope and refuge. He is not going to be
driven forth by any such stuff and nonsense as ghosts! Why! there are no
such things! "Seen things? heard things?" Well, yes, he has, but, of
course, there must be some rational explanation. A man who has fought
for king and country is not going to be defeated and put to flight by a
pack of silly women's stories. He will soon get to the bottom of the
whole affair, then woe betide the practical joker!
When alone he racks his brains in vain. He is furious with himself for
having heard the scream, and tells himself he must be "going dotty." He
is puzzled, baffled, irritated, but more determined than ever to "stick
it out." Who can the "joker" be who is demoralizing his household, who
has even dared to lock him into his own room? He thinks of his wife and
family, and of their shattered nerves; he thinks of his terrified
servants, and of his dog, which can no longer be persuaded to enter the
house. He feels he must look elsewhere for the disturber of his peace.
But where? He keeps careful watch unknown (as he thinks) to his family.
The steps approach him, pass close to him, then die away in the
distance, leaving him fuming, impotent. He finds it necessary to wipe
his brow, which enrages him still more. At dead of night he watches on
the staircase, with all lights full on.
Silence, utter silence! Absolutely nothing to be seen or heard. He
thinks of going to bed. He always said the whole thing was "tommy rot."
The deathly silence is suddenly rent by a piercing scream at his very
elbow, and he leaps to his feet, growling out an oath below his breath.
He looks wildly round on every side of him. Nothing! Something strange
is happening to his head. He passes his hand over his hair. It seems to
be creeping along his scalp, and he thinks of the quills of a porcupine.
"What the devil is he to do?" "Go to bed," answers inclination, "you're
doing no good here. Yes! Go to bed; that's the sensible thing to do."
The next morning every one asks him if he heard "it." He acknowledges to
himself that his temper is becoming vile.
The day comes when he is left alone with his family. The staff has fled
and he feels rather broken.
At last he gives in, and agrees to seek another home, but it is not to
the ghosts he gives in, but to the nervous fancies of a pack of silly
women. He feels wonderfully light-hearted, however, now that his mind is
made up, and a glow of magnanimity pervades him. "If you do a thing at
all do it well and _at once_," he tells himself, and promptly hires
another house in another neighborhood.
When questioned by his men friends he laughs. The man in the street
might understand certain things that he could tell, but the man in the
club, never! "All tommy rot, my dear chap, but my wife got nervous, and
the servants! You know what they are. Scared by the scratch of a mouse.
For the women's sake I thought it best to quit. You know what women are,
when they once get an idea into their heads!"