[English Story] A Haunted House

Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting.
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
tool" "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 content and the hum of the
threshing machine sounding from the farm. "What did I
come in here for? What did I want to find?" My hands
were empty. "Perhaps its 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 windowpanes reflected apples,
reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If
they moved in the drawing room, the apple only turned
its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was
opened, 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 silence the wood pigeon drew its 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 sunk beneath the surface
the beam I sought always burned behind the glass.
Death was the glass; death was between us, coming 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, went East, saw
the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house,
found it dropped beneath the Downs. "Safe, safe, safe,"
the pulse of the house beat gladly. 'The Treasure yours."
The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend
this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in
the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the
window. The candle 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 morning--" "Silver between the
trees--" "Upstairs--" 'In the garden--" "When summer
came--" 'In winter snowtime--" "The doors go shutting far
in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.
Nearer they come, 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 pondering; the faces that
search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy.
"Safe, safe, safe," the heart of the house beats proudly.
"Long years--" he sighs. "Again you found me." "Here,"
she murmurs, "sleeping; in the garden reading; laughing,
rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure--"
Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. "Safe!
safe! safe!" the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking,
I cry "Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the
heart."