Night Stalks The Mansion: A True Story Of One Family's Ghostly Adventure (9 page)

I thought a moment. "I'll buy that," I said at last. "Mainly
because I can't come up with any other alternative at the
moment. What bothers me is the light being turned off."

"That isn't as surprising as the noise," she said. "I've read
that electric switches are more or less easy for entities to
handle. Anyway, it seems to me like a mother who spanked
a child and sent her up to bed - and then turned off the
light."

The situation was anything but funny. Still, I chuckled a
little. Somehow that picture was less terrifying than other
things which had crossed my mind. "Let's get some sleep,"
I suggested.

I had thought that Ernestine would spend the day in bed,
letting Dorothy wait on her. Evidently she wanted to be
around people because she joined us at breakfast, looking
pale and worried. We were forced to explain the situation
in the house and advised her to stay out of the library from
then on.

Ernestine listened to my recital without once interrupting. Then she said stonily. "I wouldn't have believed any
of this before. Now I do. I not only believe it, but I think
you are all in danger every minute you're in this house. As
for me, I'm going straight home. At least I'm safe there!"

And go home she did, leaving us apologetic, frustrated
and helpless.

"I guess it was all our fault in a way," Dorothy sighed
that night at dinner. "We really didn't mean to-but the
pact was broken."

"Well, it proves one thing at least," Hal replied, staring
down at his plate with a thoughtful expression.

"What?" Dorothy asked.

"Someone must have listened that night in the library,
after all."

"Do you think they will hold it against us?" asked Bob
rather apprehensively.

I shook my head. "I don't think so. If our lady is as smart
as she seems to be, she will have detected the fact that it
was a stranger who invaded her domain-not one of us."

Ernestine's experience taught us another lesson. When
my mother and dad were on their way from New Mexico for
a visit, I phoned Elda Clare and asked if she had confided
in them regarding her experiences in the house. She had not.

"I didn't tell them a word, Harold. You know them as
well as I do. They simply wouldn't have believed me-so I
thought it best to let well enough alone."

However, the first night they were with us, we explained
the situation.

My dad had been a pastor in Dodge City in Kansas, in
Hutchinson and in Kansas City. He was loved and respected.
Mother was a person in her own right and had led an interesting life-as well as a practical and espectable one. In
addition to being a pastor's wife with all the attendant extracurricular activities, she had served as matron and assistant
superintendent of the Missouri Penitentiary for Women.
In that capacity she "sat" with Bonnie Brown Headly, a
convicted murderer, during her last thirty days on earth.
Mother was efficient, mentally alert, and at the age of
eighty-one, was to publish a book entitled Looking Through
the Windows. She was compassionate and practical and her
emotions were always under control. After the now-familiar
recital, my parents stared at me with mixed emotions.

Dad shook his head solemnly. "This has to be a case of
mass-hallucination," he said at last. "I'm a little surprised at you, Harold. But I suppose it is more or less natural to
be overly imaginative in an old place like this."

I was slightly nettled. "What do you mean? I've been in
a lot of old places before. This is something entirely different."

"But you haven't lived in those old places," he pointed
out. "This house has an entirely different atmosphere."

"I grant you that," I retorted. "But what created this
atmosphere in the first place?"

He was thinking up an answer to that when I looked over
at my mother. She had the same expression on her face that
she wore when, in my boyhood, she'd felt it necessary to
wash my mouth out with soap.

"Tsch, tsch, Harold," she said reprovingly.

I shrugged in resignation. Elda Clare had been right.
"Well, I just thought I'd tell you how things are around
here," I said weakly.

Dorothy had remained silent through my recital and she
now ushered my parents up to their room. When she came
back I lifted an eyebrow in silent interrogation. She only
shook her head.

"They wouldn't even discuss it," she replied. "Maybe
things will go all right. We can only hope for the best."

There were no footsteps to their room during their visit,
nor did the odor bother them. There was one incident,
which seemed out of character, but still unbelievable.

We had a heavy snowfall the second day they were with
us and that night we all stood at the window admiring the
beauty of the unblemished white landscape. The next
morning Mother came down to breakfast absolutely beaming.

"You dear children," she smiled. "What a sweet thing
to dol"

"What do you mean?" Dorothy asked.

"That lovely vase of flowersl How did you find such
beautiful ones at this time of year? They are a perfect spring
bouquet." She stopped then and looked puzzled. "Where did you get them? Did you have them flown in just for me?
Were they delivered during the night?"

Dorothy and I exchanged bewildered glances.

"We had nothing to do with it," I disclaimed. Mother
looked over at Hal and Bob who shook their heads, equally
mystified. We trooped up the stairs after her to see the
flower arrangement that had so pleased her. There was a
flower-filled vase on her dresser and it was as lovely as she
had described.

Dorothy fingered the fluted vase and I suddenly remembered where I had last seen it. It had been on the dressing
table in the master bathroom which was just across the hall
from our bedroom, but quite a distance down the hall from
the suite we had assigned to my parents.

"Isn't that your vase?" I asked Dorothy.

"It certainly isl I keep it in the bathroom to hold my imported soaps. It's been empty fora week now."

Mother was perplexed. "Then it was taken - really taken
-from your bathroom, filled with flowers and brought to
my room?" she demanded incredulously.

"It was," I replied emphatically. "And none of us did id"

Dorothy smiled. "Congratulations, Mother dear," she
said. "You have passed inspection. You must have met with
the unqualified approval of the-unseen lady who is the real
mistress of this house."

Mother's eyes were bulging. As she continued to be speechless, I drew her to the window. "Look down there," I urged.
"There isn't a tire track or a footprint in that drive. How
could we have had flowers delivered without a vehicle leaving a trace in the snow? Just to satisfy you, Dad and I will
go down and look for tracks. We always try to find a logical
explanation when things out of the ordinary happen, but
so far we've found none. Nothing like this ever happened
beforel"

"But Harold," she protested in a small voice. "It can't
have happened the way you think."

"What else?" I asked gently. "I'll bet you anything that
we won't find a mark on that snow."

Mother recovered somewhat. "I am not a betting woman,"
she reminded me with a faint smile.

"Besides," I went on. "Where would we have gotten spring
flowers? You asked that yourself."

Mother was finally shaken. She put both hands to her
face. "Oh, Daddy," she wailed. "We weren't alone in our
room last nightl"

After we had thoroughly checked the grounds, leaving
clear tracks in the snow wherever we went, even my orthodox father was convinced that we had been telling the truth.
Something had happened for which he had no explanation.
He was thoughtful and sober. No longer did he look askance
at us if we happened to mention our lady. I didn't hear any
more about mass hallucinations, either.

Whether or not my parents ever heard footsteps during
the rest of their visit I do not know. If they did, they certainly kept quiet. Our ghost was something they preferred
not to discuss. But when I told them we were having a little
trouble getting qualified, permanent help and offered what
I thought was a good proposition, we didn't see eye to eye.

"Look, Dad," I said persuasively. "We can't keep servants. I'll pay you a good salary, plus board, if you and
Mother will stay and help out for the balance of our lease.
The grounds are a full-time job and you understand flowers
and shrubs. Mother could help Dorothy with the children
and the light housework and ..." I broke off at the expression on my mother's face.

"Harold," she said firmly. "We would really like to help
you out, but I wouldn't live in this house for any amount
of money."

Perhaps my mother had heard footsteps in the night,
after all.

At the end of their visit, I saw them off on the plane.
Then I came back home and went into the library. I made
a quiet bid for attention.

"I want to thank you," I said to our unseen lady, "for the
lovely thing you did for my mother. I feel that it could have
been a sort of apology for scaring poor Ernestine half out
of her wits. But this was a gracious gesture - those lovely
flowers were the sort of gift that a real lady would make. If
it was also an apology, I accept it-with thanks."

Then I turned on my heel and went out, closing the door
firmly behind me. After all, I told myself, our lady deserved
her privacy.

News of our haunted house leaked out at the office. It was
all my fault. I had asked many people if they had ever heard
of poltergeists or ghosts in some of the old places in Philadelphia and was instantly hit with a barrage of ghost stories.
At one time I would have scoffed, but now I was much more
tolerant. Sometimes I even told of some of our own happenings in the old mansion, hoping to get a fresh viewpoint or
a new opinion.

There were seventeen women in the credit department
and they were all thrilled at my stories. Most of them asked
me for an invitation to visit our home.

"It isn't that I really believe in ghosts," Mary, a bookkeeper, confided. "But it all sounds so interesting that I'd
love to come down. Do you think your wife would mind?
I'd even do the dishes!" This seemed like such a concession on her part that I wondered if she ever did them in her own
home. I avoided extending invitations until the staff ganged
up on me.

"What's the matter, Mr. Cameron?" Ida asked. "Haven't
you been leveling with us? Don't you want other witnesses?"

I had reached the point where I didn't mind other witnesses but I remembered Ernestine's reaction and I didn't
want any more hysterical females on my hands. I finally
agreed that a few could come out on weekends if they would
come two at a time and share the same bedroom. What followed was the usual pattern. Sometimes sober-faced girls
admitted that footsteps in a dark room weren't as entertaining as they had anticipated. At other times our unseen
habitants simply ignored the whole situation. However, we
always refused to let our guests into the library.

One day when we were once again without household
help, I told Dorothy that a couple of the women would be
arriving early Saturday afternoon.

She sighed. "They are very nice and even help a little
with the work," she admitted. "But if you charged admission, it might also help with the food bills."

"I don't think I can do that," I replied. "When you
charge admission to a show, you have to guarantee a
performance."

She laughed a little. "I know that. I really should be
grateful when the stage is dark-grateful for small favors."
Suddenly she became very serious. "Harold, I really don't
like referring to these phenomena as a show. I'm not too easy
in my mind when you do it. Whatever takes place around
here isn't funny - not to our unseen entities, anyway. I have
the feeling there is a tragic cloud hanging over the premises.
I don't think we should laugh or make light of it. Something must have happened long ago that left a very vivid
psychic impression here-maybe something pretty terrible.
Maybe, too, someone is really earthbound and in misery. We wouldn't have this same attitude if some of our visible
friends happened to be in trouble."

I looked at her in surprise. "I didn't know you felt that
way, too," I said. "It also occurs to me that we have changed
a great deal since we moved into the mansion. Such a thing
would never have entered our minds before we started reading up on psychic phenomena. From now on I'll discourage
any visits from thrill seekers."

"Our lady has become very real to me," Dorothy once
confessed. "I'm getting used to having her around. Besides,
she's less trouble than some people I know."

I agreed wholeheartedly. I had been experiencing unforeseen difficulties for a month or so. Not only was I having
trouble with unseen spirits at home, I had my hands full
with very real entities at the office. Along with the day-today difficulties of conducting any kind of business, I had to
deal with "the way things are done in Philadelphia." One
incident involved a monthly payment to be made to a "highway superintendent" to insure space for a loading zone for
our trucks.

The other incident was an even more serious - and frightening-attempt at extortion. A disgruntled customer wanted
to return some merchandise and get a refund. The merchandise was not damaged - he was simply tired of it - "and
needed the money." We refused to return his money. He
left the office, muttering and glaring. Shortly after, a letter
arrived at my office.

Mr. Cameron:

We've investigated you and know that you can pay. We
want $15,780 in unmarked bills-and we want it soon
so get it together and we'll contact you again. If you go
to the police we are going to blow up your whole office
with everybody in it - and take care of your family too.