CHAPTER XX
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.