The Butler's Ghost

By Robert Condry

A man works hard, marries well, has three kids, runs a successful business, and finally is able to move into his dream home. The problem is that it is still occupied, and has been - for 150 years - by the same man. But he can't tell his wife or his family this, or his mistress.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Condry
• Release date: Nov 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311005113

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This book was throughly enjoyable. It was hard for me to put down. The plot was deep and the main character had many conflicts. I'd say this book is a must buy for any lover of suspense books.

The Butler's Ghost

Published by Robert A. Condry at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 by Robert A. Condry

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THE BUTLER’S GHOST

CHAPTER ONE

No, I won’t.

Yes, you will, if you get your attitude straightened out. You wouldn’t like an ice cream parlor if you went in with your mind made up to hate the place.

Tell me what there is about it that I should talk myself into liking. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, its old and rickety - you told me so, is how I know - and there won’t be a thing to do.

But you will have a huge bedroom of your own, you and I will have more room to play basketball and baseball, and there are the woods to explore. After a brief pause he added, And its not out in the middle of nowhere - its only about two miles from where we live now - you will still be going to the same school.

I’m glad the bedroom will be big - I’ll need someplace huge to pass all the time I’ll have on my hands. You’re never home to play sports with - I hardly ever see you. And it might as well be out in the middle of nowhere since I won’t be around my friends any more.

Look, we are only moving a few blocks from where we live now. You will even be going to the same school. I don’t see what the trial is.

We‘re moving away from all our friends.

You can make new friends. There will be other kids your age around. And it’s not like you are leaving your old friends in another state.

Yes, it is: how am I going to see them when I’m not at school?

You could walk to their houses.

Sure, dad, good idea.

Believe it or not, said George with some asperity, there are other people in the world who matter besides you, and your mother and I are two of them. We have always wanted to own the old Morris mansion, and now we do. It’s just on the outskirts of town, not in the middle of nowhere; you will still be going to the same school that all of your friends go to, and all the hard work your mother and I have put in over the years will have paid off for us all. So stop whining and look at the bright side: you could be a Rwandan.

With a roll of the eyes and a brief shake of the head, fourteen-year old Tom Martin decided that there was no purpose in arguing with his father any more. He had not been happy since he had heard about the move and he had lost no occasion to let his parents know his feelings, but here they were moving anyway. He could not see why they had to move at all, or what was so great about living in the old Morris place. It needed a lot of work (it was not called the old Morris place for nothing), much of which he would probably have to help with, and he would not even have the consolation of walking next door to Jack’s house when it was all done.

His twelve year old sister Marsha felt much the same way, and for the same reasons: they were moving out of a neighborhood they had lived in all their lives to live in an old, ramshackle place that everyone referred to as the old... something or other. Some used Morris place, but others were less flattering. They had had friends in the old neighborhood, and there had been football and basketball games, sleepovers, and no end of camaraderie. Now they would be on the outskirts of town, and would see their friends only at school. To make matters worse, school was almost out for the year, and they were facing three months of solitude.

Ten year old brother Seth did not care where they lived, and he looked forward to the adventure of living in the old place. He and his young friends told each other stories about the place being haunted, and he half expected that when they opened the front door they would be greeted by a member of Blackbeard’s crew. Most of the kids in the old neighborhood had been older than he, so he had no regrets about moving on.

Father George could not have been more thrilled. He had admired the old Morris place since he had been a boy, and it had been the old Morris place then. He had finally made enough money to be able to buy it, and it was the biggest house in town, and live in it himself. Mother Mary was happy to be moving as well. She had grown up in the poorer section of the small town, and had always heard of the old Morris place as some foreign place where she would never belong. Now she would be the mistress. She also hoped that moving in would relieve some of the tension that had been building.

George guided his meticulously restored Chrysler convertible down the tree lined, winding streets of the middle class section of town, and so on to River Road which would lead to the house. The day was sunny and warm, perfect for the late spring, and George had the top down in an effort to lift the spirits of the kids. It appeared to work only on he and Mary. Finally, George noted, exactly 4.6 miles from their old home, they came to the driveway of the rambling old Morris place.

The entrance to the driveway was staunchly guarded by brick pillars on either side, one inlaid with the family M, which, George never tired of pointing out, worked out well for the Martins, and the other with the date the building was completed - 1843. The iron gates which had once spanned the space between the pillars were long missing, and the new owners knew that they had been iron only by virtue of the remnants still hanging doggedly on the rusted hinges. On either side the pillars were flanked by long rows of evergreen trees - the kind with the prickly branches that George hated.

A winding driveway nearly 100 yards long, once lined with trees but now running along by itself in the afternoon sun, gave way to the three story brick mansion, facing south with its back to the Rappahannock River. The expansive front yard, as George continued to call it, though the average week end lawn mower would hardly have settled for so mundane a term, contrasted mightily with the short back yard, which gave way to the river after only about 75 yards. The only outbuilding remaining on the property was a garage on the west side of the house which would house three cars, and offered room for expansion. The house was utterly by itself in the great expanse of land surrounding it, save for a few trees here and there and the bushes that surrounded the house itself.

All this George noticed on the slow, stately drive up to the house, a drive that he had imagined all his life. His attention was finally riveted on the house itself by the fact that they pulled up in front and stopped.

It was made of red brick, save the window and door treatments of white (now a dirty yellow) and the slate gray roof, which was gabled and pierced by five windows front and back. It was just after the federal style, and had touches of the Georgian that had preceded it. The front door itself was flanked by two windows on each side, and the second and aforementioned third story had five windows each. There was a large collonaded porch on both the first and second floors, and George Martin imagined himself sitting on one or the other in the evenings enjoying the good life. The front of the house under the porch coverings was white wood, and served to lighten the effect of the whole house. Two massive chimneys jutted up through the roof on either side of the house, and reached twelve feet higher than the roof itself. George, afraid of heights, looked up at them and knew that there at least was one place in the house that he would never try to fix himself.

George parked the car in front of the house and leaped out without bothering to open the door.

Isn’t it the most beautiful place you have ever seen? Isn’t it? he demanded excitedly of Mary, while running up the six steps to greet their real estate agent on the wooden porch. Mary and the kids followed as best they could, and were glad that the agent waited for them on the porch rather than going on into the house with George.

He appears to be excited, deadpanned the agent.

That much is certainly true, said Mary. But, so am I. We have both wanted to live here all our lives.

I haven’t, added Tom, helpfully.

Well, you’ll get used to it, I’m sure, said the agent. It is one of the finest houses in the area. Not many people get a chance to live in a place like this.

Lucky them. Not many of those same people get the chance to spend all of their youth fixing it up, either. The agent just smiled, in the way that people do when they are inclined to put up a fight, but dare not for fear of offending. Car salesmen will sometimes adopt the same look when they are being told that the car they are trying to sell isn’t fit to be driven to the junkyard.

Tom, just cool it about the house, will you? We are here now, and you will have to make the best of it. When you move out on your own you can live where you can afford.

She paused and looked around at the dirty windows, the bare wood on the porch floor, and the encroaching bushes ambushing the two inner windows on either side of the door.

It does need some work, and you can help with it, at least some of the time, but I think your father will hire most of it done, she added. She, Marsha, Seth, Tom and the agent then went through the creaking front door and into the hallway.

The house was empty, and had not been inhabited for more than a year, and had not been inhabited by anyone who really cared about it for more than a decade. There had been a series of renters, someone who thought it might make a decent museum, and a non-profit group which used it for an office, all to the great vexation of George Martin. He had kept a weather eye on the house ever since his business had become successful, but the previous owner, who had owned the house for nearly thirty years, had shown no interest in selling. When it finally came on the market, it was because the family members of the deceased owners decided to sell it to avoid paying the estate taxes.

All of this meant that the house was absolutely devoid of any furniture, and nearly devoid of paint, wallpaper, lighting fixtures and the other items that make a house a home. The entrance hallway was paneled in wood up to a height of about two and a half feet, and while all of the paneling appeared to be in place, it was scratched and dirty in the areas where it was not utterly bare of any sort of protective covering. Parts of the chair rail that would have topped it were missing entirely. The hardwood floor was in worse condition though, the Martins were pleased to note, it did appear to be solid and not in need of replacement. The walls appeared to have been painted some form of yellow, but had faded to a light brown, and the overall effect was to make the hallway dingy even though sun streamed through the window above the door.

A door opened on one side of the hallway and led to the living room, and another on the other side led to the dining room. A wide stairway wound to the upstairs from the left side of the hallway, and behind it there opened two more doors, one of which lead to the kitchen, which had been moved into the house some time in the distant past, and the other led to what George Martin planned to use as an office. The four Martins walked into all the rooms, and found George in the latter, hands on hips, deciding how to lay it out to his best advantage.

Seeing them enter the room, he could not contain himself: What a great house! I can’t believe that it is actually ours! All my life I wanted this place, and now its ours!

Mary surveyed the dirty walls, the once beautiful but now decrepit molding at the ceiling, the filthy fireplace on the outside wall, the creaky and scratched floors, and agreed.

I’ll tell you what, though, said George, walking across the hallway to the kitchen. Its sad that the kitchen has been moved into the house. This room would be a great sitting room for you. Maybe we can fix that sometime.

No, we can’t, answered Mary.

Why not? It might be a tad expensive, but we have money.

Possibly you didn’t hear me: we cannot move the kitchen back outside of the house, said she, evenhandedly, in a way that she adopted to cover her irritation. I love this house too, and there are some things we can do to it, but we cannot move the kitchen back outside. You might as well get used to the idea of installing smoke detectors and a fire system because the kitchen is staying where it is.

Well, well, we’ll see. He walked over to the windows that opened out of the room and looked over the thin grass and scattered trees toward the river. Just look at that view! It’s perfect! I don’t want anything else in life! After congratulating himself one more time on his good fortune in owning the house, he took another turn around the kitchen. It had not been built as a kitchen, and so, other than the old appliances, the sink, and some improvised pantries, it looked like a family room in someone else’s house.

We definitely need to fix the place up. We’ll replace all of the appliances, put a work island here in the middle, add more electrical outlets, some new counters, a new floor...

I’m not too particular about what we do to it, as long as the kitchen stays in the house, said the Mrs., in a resigned voice.

They walked about the lower floor with the agent inspecting the house prior to moving in, and then moved up the wide staircase to the second level.

The stairs opened on to a hallway, off of which there opened four doors, one to each of the bedrooms. Each of the bedrooms was massive - even the smallest was larger than the room the Martin parents had occupied in the old house. In keeping with the fact that it was an old house, there was little in the way of storage space, and each room had only a small closet obviously added on long after the house had been built. Each of the rooms also had their own fireplace, in keeping with the fact that the house had been built before there had been any other kind of heat. It was obvious that, with gas now in the house, it had been many years since the fireplaces in the bedrooms had been used. The solid wood floors creaked under foot, and the old eight pane windows, while still in place, had many panes that had obviously been formed long ago. The saving grace was that, without any sort of curtain, the rooms were all bright and airy, and even on this warm day were cool and comfortable.

They toured that floor with the agent as well, and George and Mary were both happy to see the children all perk up at the sight of what would become their rooms, and hear of their plans to fix them up according to their own specifications. George and Mary could not resist a hug of triumph.

Next the agent opened a small door hidden in the woodwork at the back end of the hallway, and revealed a tight, dark, cramped staircase leading to the next and last floor. He led the way and the family followed, and George thought to himself that he had never really looked at the upper level - other than to see that there did not appear to be any leaks leaving water damage and that all was intact.

These stairs opened onto another hallway, this one much smaller and darker than the one below. Off of this hallway there opened six doors, each leading to a small room originally used by servants, and, George guessed, by slaves in the early days. This part of the house had been used even less than the lower stories over the years, in part because it was much hotter than the rest of the house, being at the top and the house without air conditioning, and in part because few families needed this much room. All of the rooms were square, each had at least one dormer window (those in the corners had two), and while they also had wooden floors, the wood here was more plain than that below, and obviously less well cared for.

Well, said George, I doubt that we need this space very much, but we will have to do something to take better care of it. There is no reason to let it fall apart. We might even find a use for it.

Maybe we could rent it out, suggested Marsha, whom George had noticed appeared to have a head for business.

Not on your life. This is our house, and we can afford to live in it our way, without any help from renters. Absolutely no way. It might be a good idea for a lot of people, honey, but not for us. We can use it for guests when we have them, though we would have to make sure that we only have guests in the spring and fall since it is so hot up here. I imagine that it is probably cold in the winter, too.

What guests do we dislike so much that we would put them here? asked Mary.

What do you mean? There is nothing wrong with this space, other than the fact that it is hot. When we fix it up, it will be a nice place to sleep, and it will give guests some privacy without us having to kick the kids out of their rooms. This brought a rousing cheer from all three kids.

Tom, I thought I told you not to wear your cap backwards around me. You can do that with your friends, but not with me. I hate that. The cap was reluctantly adjusted, with just the slightest sigh of resignation.

They headed back down the stairs single file and stooping, since that was all that was possible, and the continued on to the ground floor and thence to the yard, where they walked to the one remaining outbuilding, about 20 yards behind one corner of the house.

It was a brick shed of uncertain origin, once walled with brick on only three sides. Someone had turned it into a three car garage and enclosed the fourth side with wood. It had a slate roof that vaguely matched that of the house, though it appeared that the shingles were newer. There were three garage doors across the front of it and room for a fourth, but that space was simply walled in with wood. The floor was old and cracked cement, and there were two dingy windows in the back wall. The Martins owned three vehicles so they would be able to make good use of it, but there was some debate about what would be done with the fourth space. George had decreed that nothing would be done with it for the moment.

This brought an end to the inspection tour, and the agent shook hands with each of them, congratulated them on their purchase, and left them in possession. Mary led the kids up to the house to begin to decide where they would place their larger belongings and furniture, and George followed along slowly. He was bursting with pride at the fact that he had been able to purchase the largest house in town for his family, and elated to see that, notwithstanding the carping by the kids, they all appeared happy to be moving into it. It was a beautiful day, and he reveled in the sun and blue sky, and how it all seemed to smile down on him, his family, and their new home. He looked the property over once again, this time with the pride of ownership, and then joined his family in the house.

They were scattered out looking after their own interests. Mary had a tape measure and was checking the size of the downstairs rooms, trying to decide, George guessed, which furniture would fit where. He could hear the kids in the back room across from the kitchen, arguing over the best way to turn it into a family room. George stayed in the hallway, taking perverse pride in its decrepit condition, and thinking ahead to what his friends would say when he had finished fixing the place up.

Suddenly, he heard a thumping noise from somewhere upstairs. It sounded as though a book had fallen from a table, though this could not be since there were none of either in the house. In fact, there was nothing in the house that could account for that sound. This realization alarmed him.

He listened for a moment, but heard nothing else, and wandered into the front room where Mary was measuring, and asked if she had heard it. She had, but thought nothing of it - probably just the house settling.

House settling? After over 150 years? I don’t think so. He checked with the kids also, but they had been arguing too intently to have noticed. He decided to go up and check it out, and told Mary as much.

He found nothing on the second floor, nothing apparently changed, and no probably cause for the sound. He was standing at the top of the staircase getting ready to go back downstairs when he heard it again, this time softer than before, and obviously coming from the third story.

He looked at the closed door leading up to the third story, and cursed the fact that the sole light therein was burned out. It was broad daylight, there was probably some perfectly logical explanation for the noise, he had his entire family downstairs, and yet he hated the thought of walking up those stairs. The third story was darker and less lived in than the rest of the house, and was just the sort of uninhabited area that kids would imagine to be haunted. George was forty, however, and knew that could not be the case. He waited at the door with his hand on the knob, hoping something would come to him that would explain what he had heard and obviate the necessity of going upstairs.

Nothing came to him, however, and he decided to go up. When he opened the door the hinges creaked loudly, a sound so unsettling that he started. The only other sound in the house was that of his family’s voices rising up from below, which was of some small comfort. He pulled the door open and was disappointed to see that the door at the top of the stairs had been closed, meaning that the stairwell, other than the light coming in through the lower door, was utterly dark.

He mounted the stairs slowly, and noticed that each one of them creaked to a greater or lesser degree. He wanted to step lighter so that the stairs would not notice his passing, but it didn’t work: they protested at each touch, and he was sure that whatever had made the noise upstairs must know by now that he was coming.

There had been a certain amount of comfort in the fact that there was some light at the bottom of the stairs, but halfway up that comfort was gone, and George, forgetting about the low ceiling in the gathering gloom, bumped his head hard against a low beam, and cursed authoritatively. At the top of the stairs he had to fumble for the door knob, which was low on the door, and listen to the creaking as he pulled back the latch to open the door.

He was momentarily blinded by the light when the door opened, and he stepped blinking into the hallway, carefully leaving the door open. The hall was quiet now, quite unlike it had been when his whole family had been up there. In fact, he suddenly thought, he had never been up here by himself before. He tried to tell himself that he had nothing to worry about, and that something had simply fallen down somewhere in the house, and he could set it to rights. This was comforting to think, since there was nothing in the house that robbers would want to break in and steal.

All of the doors were still open, three on each side of the hall, and everything looked as it had before. Other than the eerie, never before noticed silence (he could no longer hear even his family’s voices from the first floor) all appeared the same. This was comforting, but he decided to have a quick look in all the rooms anyway, to see if he could determine what had caused the noise in the first place.

He sampled each of them, and the rooms were empty and quiet, and George was about to allow a sigh of relief to pass when he noticed, against the far wall in the last room as he entered, next to the fireplace, what looked like a smudge on the wall. Normally he would have thought nothing of it in a house this old, but he was fairly sure that that stain had not been there before. He thought of the Sherlock Holmes story and the fingerprint added to the wall to prove the guilt of an innocent man, and wished for a moment that Mr. Holmes had been there.

It appeared to be white or gray, and while it was next to the wall, it did not appear to be attached to the wall. George neared, ever so slowly and leaning slightly forward, to look at it better, when he heard a voice.

Mr. Martin, I believe?

He jumped nearly out of his shoes, so surprised was he, but when he recovered his breath he immediately looked about the room, and saw no one. He was so surprised that he could not even find his voice. He stared about himself for a moment, eyes wide, and found that, no matter how he turned his head to look about, his feet were firmly planted on the floor. When he had recovered his senses somewhat, he walked tentatively into the hallway, cursing every footfall, and saw no one there either. He then called out, in a somewhat quaky voice, Who’s there?

I’m sorry to have startled you, but there is really no way around it.

George, less surprised now but no less scared, looked wildly about himself again, but again there was no one there. He decided that the voice had come from inside the room he had just come from, and, with great effort managed to force his feet to carry him back there. Rather than enter the room he stood in the hallway and looked in this time, and saw no one. Every nerve in his body was perfectly still, save his eyes, which were darting about the room trying to find someone to blame his fears on. There was no one visible and nowhere to hide: he must be a victim of an overactive imagination. He was on the verge of deciding that his family was playing a trick on him when he noticed the smudge on the wall once again. Still too scared to move quickly, he shuffled up to it slowly, as though he hoped that by doing so he would not have to get so near.

When he finally approached it, he determined that it was not a smudge at all, but a small cloud hanging in the air. He was afraid of what this could mean, and completely froze up.

The voice boomed again, Welcome Mr. Martin. There’s no need to be afraid - no harm will come to you. George’s mouth and eyes were wide open, and his mouth was as dry as a cotton, but it did not appear that there was anything he could do about either. He was so transfixed by the mystery voice that he just stood there, staring at the talking cloud.

It’s always like this. I really should find some other way of breaking them in. There was no question in George’s mind that the voice was coming from the cloud, but he could do nothing about it. All he could do was stare, wide eyed and open mouthed.

Like all the others, I suppose you must have a form with which you are accustomed. Very well, here you are.

With that the cloud began to transform, and in a few moments it became the figure of a man dressed to the nines. He was shorter than George – no more than five feet and nine inches tall - and he appeared to be about sixty years of age. He had a long, well chiseled face, closely cropped gray hair, and piercing gray eyes, and a prominent but not oversized nose, underscored by a distinguished, well trimmed mustache. He appeared to be wearing something between a three piece suit and a tuxedo, and possessed ramrod straight posture and military bearing. He regarded George with curiosity and benevolence, if not friendliness.

George was about to try to speak when he noticed something odd about the man: he could see him clearly, and yet there was something wrong. What was it? He cudgeled his brain trying to figure out why the man didn’t look right. He was dressed somewhat oddly, though very nattily and very correctly, and every slicked down hair on his head was in perfect....Wait! That was it! He wanted to tell himself that the man had gray hair, but he couldn’t be sure: he appeared to be in black and white only. His clothers were certainly black, but his face and skin were pale and ashen, as though he had just fainted.

George tried once again to talk, but he suddenly realized the implications of what he was seeing: this man had materialized out of some sort of small cloud - he must be a spirit. With this in mind George stared at the man for another moment, and then fell into a dead faint.

He wasn’t out long - hitting his head on the floor brought him back to the living. Slowly he sat up, looking up at the apparition as he did so. The man gazed down at him and said, I would offer to help you up, but, as you have apparently determined, I am unable to do so. George could not help himself up, and only sat staring at the man.

Aren’t you going to ask who I am, and what I am doing here? asked the apparition. I should think that you would be curious about such things.

George tried to speak, but could muster no more than a hoarse croak. This was against everything he had ever believed. He had always told his kids that there was no such thing as ghosts, and now, in his fortieth year, he was proven wrong.

So you are curious, but cannot muster the wherewithal to ask. Very well, I shall tell you. The man appeared to pace about the room as he began to talk, another thing George would not have expected to see a ghost do. My name is Colin Mills, and I was the first butler to the Morris household which built this very fine house. I served them loyally, and, I hope, well, for nearly four decades, until my untimely death in the year 1878, at the age of 63. (I was quite old for my day, you know.) He paused for a moment, and George thought that he might find the courage to make a run for it, but he could not.

The man walked over to the window and looked outside briefly, but languidly turned back to George, still sitting on the floor where he had fainted. Come, come, Mr. Martin, a walk about the room will do wonders for your condition.

George doubted this, but needed to try it anyway. He rose shakily, all the while observed benevolently by his very undesirable companion. He wanted to walk about the room to get the old blood flowing again, but hadn’t the strength. He leaned on the wall furthest from where the man was standing near the window, and watched him. For the first time he noticed that while he could see the man, he could also see through him, vaguely, into the yard beyond.

You’re a...a...a....

Ghost? Right you are Mr. Martin, though we in the business prefer the term spirit - it has a decidedly more cosmopolitan ring to it.

But what are you doing here? What do you want with me? It’s not my turn yet is it?

No, no, nothing like that, said the apparition, laughing. We have no control over when it is your time anyway - that is another department. I am here for no more complicated reason than that this is my place to haunt for a while longer. You must have read that we tend to hang about in places we frequented in life - well, this happened to be my room in life. I slept here for nearly thirty years. That is to say my wife and I slept here for nearly thirty years - she passed on before me and so has finished her time here.

George was somewhat less afraid of the apparition now, but he still could not find his voice. He croaked and stammered, but he could not organize the words to make them come out. The man smiled in a superior yet kindly sort of way, and George felt somewhat more relaxed.

After a pause of another few seconds, George finally managed, barely above a whisper, to ask What am I supposed to do?

Oh, nothing. This is not the movies where you get your own guardian angel to look after you. It is nothing more complicated than the fact that I will be living here in the house with you for some time. I don’t believe we will be in each other’s ways, but you may rest assured that I, if necessary, will not hesitate to point out any small matter which you could improve to make conditions more bearable.

I have to get my family and show them this.

Do I look like some freak from the circus that I should be on display for everyone? I assure you that this will not happen. And just to make sure that it does not, your family will not know that I am here.

What do you mean? They won’t see you?

Not if I don’t want them to, and I do not.

But they have already heard you.

I was careless, but I can assure you that it will not happen again. I wanted you to come up here alone, which worked out very well. But I will not let them hear or see me again. You can tell them all you like about me, but they will never believe you because they will not be able to see me.

But...why? George asked, perplexed.

I appear to whom I please - it is one of the benefits we get for our contributions. There have been some families living here who never knew that I existed - because I did not choose to let them learn of me.

What did you do when the place was a boarding house?

That was quite painful - you’ve no idea how it hurts to see someone using one’s old haunts (Haunts! Ha! That’s a good one!) ignorantly or carelessly. Many was the time when I was tempted to scare them all out of here, but I calmed myself. What good would it have done? The place would have acquired a reputation, been abandoned, and then torn down. I could not stand to see that happen.

I have paid attention to this place all my life - I always wanted to live here, said George. How come I never heard anyone say that there was a ghost here?

"Yes, I do get full credit for that. I was very selective about to whom I made my presence known. I chose people with discretion, people who would see the value in cooperating with me