Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly (19 page)

“How long did this last?”

She looked at him awkwardly.

“That's just it, sir. I couldn't say.”

“Of course not,” he said courteously. “And what else?”

“Looking at Miss Temple, I'd take my oath she saw something. Or perhaps she only thought she saw it, but she was not making up a story. Like when she saw Quint at the dining-room window, just before evening church. I never saw anyone then but I was afraid without knowing why. Even Miss Temple said I was white as if I'd seen a ghost myself.”

“Was she afraid of these apparitions?”

“Angry, more like.”

“And you were there with the children present?”

“Only when Miss Flora was with us by the lake. Just once.”

“Of course,” said Holmes kindly. “Flora was there, before you and Miss Temple. We shall never know what may have passed between her and the vision of Miss Jessel before you both arrived.”

“Something happened to that child, Mr Holmes, while the world was so quiet and still. Something she was glad of. I stood to one side but Flora was with Miss Temple. And Miss Temple was pointing her to look across to where there was a gap between the bushes on the far bank. I couldn't see because of a rhododendron bush immediately beside me.”

She paused, glancing towards the window with the garden view beyond, recalling her thoughts. Then she spoke firmly.

“Miss Flora vowed she never saw anything. But I know children. That child was too upset for nothing to have happened. She clung to my skirts, crying to be taken from her hateful governess! When we were alone together the poor little mite told me horrors. What she heard Miss Temple had said and done at other times. How Miss Temple was in league with the dead, if you please! You may be sure she got that from Master Miles and his loose talk. And she talked scandal of Miss Temple misbehaving with the master! How could she when he was in France? But that child's words shocked me, sir. I can't think where she picked them up, not even from her brother.”

Holmes nodded, as if all this was to be expected. To me, such talk of a league with the dead reeked of Miles Mordaunt.

“After the incident at the lake, you took the same route back?” I asked.

“We did.”

“And you passed the boat which the little girl had moored there?”

Mrs Grose stiffened, as if caught in an untruth.

“No, sir. We went through the gate in the fence but the boat had gone. Most likely, Master Miles took it while we were further on. It's a little thing, convenient to handle.”

Holmes returned to his ghosts.

“At other times, did Miss Temple herself think the children behaved as if they had seen Maria Jessel or Peter Quint, even though she had not?”

She looked from one to the other of us.

“I know children! These two were up to some mischief or other. I'd catch them whispering and laughing together. They'd smile at us, as if they knew what we were thinking. As if saying they'd have their way with us and nothing we could do would prevent it.”

It was almost exactly what Victoria Temple had said to us. Perhaps she had got it from Mrs Grose.

“But, so far as you know,” Holmes asked, “they did not misbehave behind your backs?”

She looked a little awkward.

“I never told Miss Temple, Dr Watson. They used to creep after her, making a noise, sniggering and mewling. But she'd look round and they'd just be sitting there with their books or games, good as gold. As soon as she looked away they'd start again It was as if they wanted to make her think there might be an animal hidden close by. As if it might be calling for her.”

I thought of Quint's policy of drowning kittens so that they should not grow into cats, and my spine tingled. Perhaps sensing something of this, Mrs Grose added, “It was nothing to Miss Temple, sir. She never condescended to notice it.”

Without thinking sufficiently, I asked a question that sounded ill-judged as soon as it was spoken.

“If it was ever necessary to drown unwanted kittens on the estate, would Miles have been allowed to do it?”

Mrs Grose gave a soft, surprised laugh.

“Bless you, sir, no! A child? Never!”

“Who then?”

“If ever it came …” She paused. “Quint the handyman. Who else?”

That was the last thing I wanted to hear.

“And the boy might be there with him?”

“There was no reason for it.”

“But he might let the boy be there as a special favour?” I persisted.

I caught her sudden realisation, quickly masked by a grimace of distaste.

“Oh,” she said awkwardly, “it might happen. Anything like that might happen.”

Holmes interrupted.

“What did the children talk of between themselves? Did you ever overhear them?”

She shook her head.

“Miss Temple swore they talked of horrors, hearing the voices of the damned. She only saw visions of Quint and Miss Jessel, but the children might hear their voices as well. Just as a dog or a cat can hear sounds a man can't.”

I had blundered a moment ago and now I must intervene on behalf of common sense.

“Suppose that there were no ghosts, Mrs Grose. Suppose the two figures were common intruders, as Miss Temple first thought. Could they not stand where she could see them but you could not? Could not trespassers reach the places where she saw them, without being challenged?”

The cautious soul reckoned this up. Then she replied.

“Anyone can come up the drive or over the meadow. They might be seen and asked their business—or not. Keeping to the path through Bly woods, they need not be seen.”

“And indoors?”

“Miss Temple told me she thought she saw Quint and Miss Jessel on the stairs in the dark. But without a candle she'd never see who was below her. And they'd be gone before she could get down there.”

“And the garden tower?”

“The first time she saw Quint he was on the tower. An intruder might get there through the house. The wooden stairs badly want mending, have done for ages. But no one goes up there, so no one bothers. And no one locks the doors by day. Except for Miss Temple and the children, there'd hardly be anyone about when the servants were below stairs. We'd only be upstairs to lay fires, make beds, polish furniture and the like. And serve dinner, of course.”

Holmes intervened courteously.

“On a Sunday morning in November, Miss Temple came home early from church. She thought she was alone in the house and went into the schoolroom. Miss Jessel was standing at the far end by her desk. Miss Temple recalls shouting, ‘You terrible, miserable woman!' In an instant the figure dissolved to dust in a beam of sunlight. Our friend lost all sense of where she was until she came to herself a moment later. The same loss of consciousness occurred when Miles died in her arms.”

“I think she had what they call ‘drops,' Mr Holmes. It was spoken about by doctors at her trial. But you know that already, sir. More than that I can't tell you.”

Time was pressing and I was determined to hunt out the evil genius.

“What of our other ghost, Peter Quint? Why did no one like him?”

She wrinkled her brow.

“He was low, doctor. Low and mean. Too free with the maidservants. Much too free with Miss Jessel—and she with him. Too free with the boy, worst of all. Major Mordaunt was squire while his brother was in India. But the major was seldom here. He gave his valet the run of Bly. I've seen Quint, with my own eyes, wearing smart clothes or fancy links and chains that I knew to be his master's. He went like a gentleman in stolen clothes to be handy with the parlourmaids or village girls. Even a little piece where his hair was gone at the front. Call that a gentleman!”

“And his dealings with the children?”

“He never came near Miss Flora. I saw to that. Master Miles was God's angel, until Quint came here. That fellow taught him to talk to women.”

She paused as if I had not caught her true meaning.

“To talk to women like a man, not a child” she insisted. “A boy of eight or nine, if you please! Quint taught him things a boy shouldn't know until he's a man.”

“And what of Miles's dismissal from school?” my friend interposed.

“Whatever wickedness the child took to school, sir, he got it from Quint. He was in that man's company from breakfast to dinner!”

“And Major Mordaunt? Did he not know the boy was dismissed from school?”

“That was a bad business, Mr Holmes. Major Mordaunt should never have acted as he did. The headmaster wrote to him that Miles was dismissed. When the major saw Dr Clarke's writing on the envelope, he never opened it. He sent it on to Miss Temple with a note saying the headmaster was a bore. She was to deal with it, whatever it was. Probably school fees owing. She could arrange that with the lawyers. He was just off to France, if you please!”

“So he did not know that the boy had been dismissed?”

“Not then, sir. Of course, Miss Temple wrote to tell him. Then to cap it all, as we found out too late, Miles used to open her letters to the master while they were lying on the hall-stand here to be posted. He read this one and destroyed it. I once heard him say outright that he wouldn't have a servant-girl—that's what he called her!—sneaking to his uncle. Before the major got wind of all that had happened, the poor child was in his coffin.”

“Thank you,” said Holmes encouragingly. “Now, if I may impose on you for the last time, how did Peter Quint die?”

Her face reflected an aversion to this repetition of the man's name.

“Miles was still away at school. Miss Jessel was here as governess to Miss Flora. I shan't forget that night. Quint used to come out of the village inn, always the worse for drink. It was a winter midnight with the roads like glass. He must have come a real cropper on the ice. In the darkness he came down with a proper smash. Went flying into the wall of the little bridge that crosses the stream and cut his head open on the stone-work. That lane leads nowhere but up to Bly House. So he was only found next morning. The blood from his wound had frozen and he was dead.”

“There was an inquest?”

“Of course. What could it say? Accidental death.”

Holmes's eyes suggested it might have said a good deal more.

“And by then Quint had corrupted the boy?”

Mrs Grose stared at him, straight and hard, as if prepared to reveal something she had kept locked in her heart.

“That man was a fountainhead of corruption, Mr Holmes!” The good woman paused, self-conscious at such a chapel-preacher's phrase. Then she continued. “I may not have seen the ghosts, Mr Holmes, but as soon as Miss Temple described the figure on the tower, I knew who it was. Dead or alive! His eyes were the worst. He caught yours and never let them go. His were hard as jet and black as hell. You couldn't wait to look away and give him the satisfaction of staring you out!”

Holmes nodded again.

“And what of Quint's conduct with Miles Mordaunt?”

“He acted like the boy's tutor more than a valet. If Master Miles was bad at King Alfred's, Quint made him bad before the child ever went there. Miss Temple thought the boy an angel, even though he came back in disgrace. Quint was dead by then, of course. She told me both children had an unnatural beauty, an unnatural goodness. Something from another world. But I heard Master Miles tell her once that he was bad. Then he laughed at her, as if he was telling her there was nothing she could do about it. He was the master—her master.”

“Very well,” said Holmes patiently. “How was Miles bad when Quint was still here?”

“I warned the boy that he was a gentleman's son and not to put himself under a menial. And what do you think? Miles turned round on me and swore Quint was a gentleman. Quint had been a soldier. Quint knew something of the world. I was the ‘menial,' if you please, the scullery-maid. That was the very word he used to me—this boy of eight or nine, as he was then! After that he lied and was impudent—and Quint protected him. I could do nothing with him. That's how he came to be sent to King Alfred's. To make him knuckle under.”

“And when he came back in disgrace?”

“He was worse! He got his way with Miss Temple by smiles and bossing. As Quint would have done. As if Quint was whispering to him, dead or alive. He courted his governess, this child, like a grown man. He had Quint's way with women. What was it he called her one day, talking to me? Words I don't just recall, Mr Holmes, but they gave me a shudder.”

“Indeed,” said my friend indulgently.

The sunlight moved from the lawn and cedar tree at the side of the house. Mrs Grose seemed about to tell us something we should not care for.

“I would not harm Miss Temple, sir, but I must speak the truth.”

“The truth will not harm her, Mrs Grose.”

“The foolishness was on both sides, sir. If Master Miles courted her like a grown man, she behaved like his obedient sweetheart. He could do what he liked with her and she would forgive him. She never seemed sure of herself with him. Out of her depth, you might say.”

“You need not fear that it will damage her case, Mrs Grose,” said Holmes quietly. But he showed no inclination to inquire further.

I recalled Dr Annesley mentioning Miles Mordaunt's boast of “spooning” with his young governess. I had felt uneasy, though reassured on meeting her. The fragile emotional balance of this young woman had been the sport of predatory children—as well as of her own “ghosts” in her imagination. Why did the little ones taunt her with their mewling of cats behind her back? Why had the boy boasted falsely to his cronies at school of having drowned his governess? Why were kittens to be drowned before they could grow into cats? Thanks to Holmes, I had read a little of the new psychopathology. Professor Krafft-Ebing would surely diagnose psychopathy in the mind of this child. A boy dreamed of murder giving him a power over women, which his lack of manhood still denied him in any other form.