1. A Haunted House
Whatever hour you woke there was a door shunting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure—a ghostly couple.
「Here we left it,」 she said. And he added, 「Oh, but here too!」 「It』s upstairs,」 she murmured. 「And in the garden,」 he whispered 「Quietly,」 they said, 「or we shall wake them.」
But it wasn』t that you woke us. Oh, no. 「They』re looking for it; they』re drawing the curtain,」 one might say, and so read on a page or two. 「Now they』ve found it,」 one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with tent and the hum of the threshing mae sounding from the farm. 「What did I e in here for? What did I want to find?」 My hands were empty. 「Perhaps it』s upstairs then?」 The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass.
But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room, the apple only turs yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door ened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling—what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the deepest wells of silehe wood pigeos bubble of sound. 「Safe, safe, safe,」 the pulse of the house beat softly. 「The treasure buried; the room. . .」 the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure?
A moment later the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare, coolly suh the surface the beam I sought always burnt behind the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us; ing to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows; the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, we, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house, found it dropped beh the Downs. 「Safe, safe, safe,」 the pulse of the house beat gladly. 「The Treasure yours.」
The wind roars up the averees stoop ahis way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The dle burns stiff and still. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.
「Here we slept,」 she says. And he adds, 「Kisses without number.」 「Waking in the m—」 「Silver betweerees—」 「Upstairs—」 「In the garden—」 「When summer came—」 「In winter snowtime—」 The do shutting far in the distance, gently knog like the pulse of a heart.
hey e; cease at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides silver down the glass. Our eyes darken; we hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak. His hands shield the lantern. 「Look,」 he breathes. 「Sound asleep. Love upon their lips.」
Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain the faces bent; the faces p; the faces that search the sleepers aheir hidden joy.
「Safe, safe, safe,」 the heart of the house beats proudly. 「Long years—」 he sighs. 「Again you found me.」 「Here,」 she murmurs,