As Berry and I Were Saying by Dornford Yates Read Free Book Online Page B

good-looking plum-coloured coat. He had a wig on his head and an ebony cane in his hand. His face was whimsical.
    “‘Well, my first impulse was to run downstairs, to see if his legs were sticking out of the ceiling below.’ (Is that or is that not the statement of a practical man?) ‘Then I decided to wait and see where he went. He crossed the floor, still wading, and disappeared into a cupboard.
    “‘If I’d had any sense, I should have run into the next room, but I never thought of that until too late. Instead, I called the carpenter, who was a room or two behind, and told him to take up a floor-board. Sure enough, there was another floor, about twelve inches below. So I think there can be no doubt that the apparition was treading the original floor. Then we examined the cupboard. This was very shallow, and once had been a doorway which led to the adjoining room.
    “‘A few days after this my wife and I went out to tea. We went to a country house about the same size as ours, in which, as a matter of fact, my people had resided a good many years ago. But the strange thing was this – that our house was really the home of the people that lived in it now. In a word, about a hundred years ago, the two families had exchanged houses. The present owner was a contemporary of my father and he lived there with his daughter who was about my age. And though they lived very quietly, we had been asked to tea, because he wanted to meet his old friend’s son.
    “‘When we got there, the daughter received us and said that, to his distress, her father was not well enough to leave his bed: but he hoped very much that I would go up and see him, after I’d had some tea. So, of course, I did. Directly I saw him, I was sure that he’d never get up. He was very plainly failing… I stayed with him for a little, and we said the usual things. He was very insistent that I should see the pictures before we went: and he made me promise to ask his daughter to take us round the gallery.
    “‘And so she did. And she told us about the portraits, as she went. We’d got down to George the Third, when damn it, there was the very old fellow I’d seen a week before. Coat, breeches, wig and cane, and the same whimsical face – I’d have known him anywhere. Fortunately, I held my tongue. “This,” says the daughter, “is William (or Samuel or some such name). And he’s always supposed to appear before one of us dies.”
    “‘Well, of course, he had appeared – in the house which was his own home, when he was alive. Naturally, I said nothing. Ten days later, I think, her father died.
    “‘Wasn’t that a queer business?’
    “That’s the only ghost story I ever tell, and for me its virtue lies in the fact that it was related to me by the most unimaginative man I have ever met and a man who would see no sense in telling a lie. For all that, it’s hearsay. I cannot say that I’ve seen a spectre myself.”
    “At any rate,” said my wife, “it’s very well worth putting in.”
    “It’s hardly a side-light on history.”
    “That doesn’t matter,” said I. “The discerning should find it of interest. In any event your own personality has been entirely subjected, if not suppressed. Which is more than I seem to do.”
    “No one,” said Jill, “can talk about something they’ve seen without saying ‘I’. And if they try to do it, it’s awfully dull.”
    “There’s a lot in that,” said Berry. “When I was of tender years, I saw a fat Royalty get stuck in a carriage’s door. I mean, people had to shove from behind – I saw it done. No, I shan’t say who it was, for she was a very good sort; and she took it awfully well and laughed like anything. The point is I saw it happen: and if I say as much, the incident seems more vivid than it would seem in oratio oblique ? Is that right, partner?
    “Perfectly right. Oratio recta is the more vivid of the two.”
    “Translation, please,” said my sister.
    “Straight speech,