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 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 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

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 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.”