‘Really?’
‘Really. Always something a bit inverted about these P.T. wallahs. I don’t know why it is, but they always get it up the nose, with a few exceptions I could quote you. There’s something horribly unnatural about physical training. Too much muscle warps the intelligence, I expect.’
As though this were her last word, she consumed the last piece of toast at a gulp, kicked off her slippers, put her feet up, lay back and closed her eyes. Deborah prodded her suddenly and painfully with the toasting fork.
‘Wake up, slacker, and continue your idiotic but, possibly, invaluable remarks,’ she said.
‘No, no. You tell me why you’ve turned down your young man,’ said Miss Topas firmly.
The ghost of Athelstan commenced operations on the following Friday night — a well-chosen time, Mrs Bradley was compelled to admit, taking into consideration both day and hour.
It had been an exasperating Friday. Deborah had had a very full time-table, and to add to it and to her troubles, she had been compelled to deputize at six-thirty for the Senior English lecturer, who had contracted another of what Deborah called, unjustly, to Miss Topas, one of her ‘useful colds.’
This lecture, which was the third and last of a series on
At half past nine she went to bed; not because she wanted to, but because there was no alternative except to sit up and correct English essays, which she was determined not to do.
She went to sleep remarkably quickly, and was awakened by the ghost at precisely two-fifteen in the morning.
She did not realize, at first, what sound it was that she had heard. All she knew was that she had been dreaming about pigs, and that one must have been killed. She started up, sweating with the horrible heaviness of nightmare, and, to her extreme horror, heard the sound again. To her credit, terrified though she was, she leapt out of bed, switched on the light, and, opening the door, called out: ‘What’s the matter? What’s going on?’
Mrs Bradley’s voice replied in comforting accents, and the head of the house appeared, electric torch in hand, just as more than half the students came crowding on to the landings, asking, as they huddled together, what was the matter, what had happened, who was it, and making other and similar useless and irritating inquiries. Even as they were asking the questions, the horrible sounds came again.
‘Disconcerting,’ remarked Mrs Bradley. At this inadequate comment Deborah began to protest, but her observations were terminated by a banshee wail which put all the previous disturbances in the shade. Deborah unashamedly clutched Mrs Bradley’s dragon-strewn dressing-gown, and there were excited and frightened exclamations from the students.
Mrs Bradley, alone among those present, seemed entirely unimpressed by the manifestations.
‘Put on coats or dressing-gowns, and come down to the Common Room,’ she said. ‘If there are any students still asleep, please wake them and bring them with you.’
There was some laughter at this, and the students came trooping down. Mrs Bradley called the House Roll when the assembly was complete, found that there were no absentees from the muster, and then gave instructions that no one was to go out of the room on any pretext until she herself had returned and granted permission.
Deborah followed her to the door, but Mrs Bradley whispered to her that one of them had better remain in the Common Room. Leaving Deborah, she descended alone to the basement. Outside the servants’ rooms she stood and called the maids by name.
‘We’re all here, madam,’ said the cook, opening one of the doors and appearing in curlers in the doorway. ‘The girls didn’t like the sounds, so we all collected ourselves in here. Did you wish to speak to anyone, madam?’
Her tone was not definitely impudent, but it was not, on the other hand, that of the trusty domestic, whether alarmed or otherwise. Mrs Bradley was interested.
‘I should like to speak to you alone, Cook,’ she said loudly, knowing that Cook was rather deaf. ‘Come out here, please. Shut the door. Now, are the maids alarmed?’
‘We was all frightened out of our seven senses.’
‘Where did the noise seem to come from?’
‘Right outside these very doors. You’ll get my notice in the morning. I’m not stopping on in an ’aunted ’ouse. There was none of these goings-on when poor Miss Murchan was here.’
Nothing more was heard of the ghost that night. By the following midday, however, the story was all over College, and ‘the ghost of Athelstan’ was freely discussed. Various explanations were offered by students from the other Halls, but each, as it was presented to the Athelstan students, was rejected by them as being out of conformation with the facts.
‘You ought to have heard it! I thought I should have fainted!’ was the burden of the Athelstan chorus. The talk during the day-light hours was amused, speculative and ribald, but when dinner was over in Hall and the sun was beginning to set, there was a marked disinclination among the students to go about the house, or to remain alone in study-bedrooms. The group which assembled in Miss Mathers’ room was typical of others on both floors. It consisted of the senior student herself, two or three of her year, three First-Years, and even the ostracized Miss Giggs, the mild Miss Morris and the ticket-of-leave Miss Cartwright.
‘What do you think the Warden will do if it happens again?’ asked Miss Morris.
‘I can tell you one thing she’s done already. Sacked Cook,’ volunteered Miss Cartwright. Like a great many of the more adventurous spirits, she was extremely popular in the servants’ hall, and so was in receipt of this bit of, so far, exclusive information.
‘Sacked Cook? But who cooked dinner?’ demanded Miss Morris.
‘The ghost,’ Miss Cartwright answered frivolously. ‘No, as a matter of fact, Mrs Croc. has promoted Bella. She “knows the apparatus,” as Mrs Croc. puts it.’
