The Thorndyke's House    

A True and Innocent Ghost Story    

By: Richard Bradford   

I know many of you won't believe this, what with it happening in Maine and all. And we all know the famous Mainard who is notorious for scaring the wits out of us, but this story is different. It's not a dice 'em-slice 'em, scary sort of story.

Here's what happened.

One summer, as every summer, the family took a vacation in Owl's Head, Maine. It was the most wonderful fishing town I'd ever seen. And Mother adored it because it had one fine-dining restaurant, and everyone there treated her like a Queen. And Sissy and I could hold our breath and run from one end of downtown to the other. And everyone knew they would get some work from helping Papa with one of his projects.

And one summer in particular, when Momma was pregnant with my youngest sister, my parent's actually thought of buying a new, well new to us, summer home Owl's Head.

We'd been living every summer as long as I could ever remember in the same picturesque, Norman Conquest, fairytale castle a half-mile from the beach...for, forever. I didn't quite know why we were going to trade it in, but I did wonder if my parent's could trade in the new baby if I didn't like it. Of course, now I know better. You cannot trade in a child, just disinherit them. But at the time, I didn't know you could stop living in one place and live in another.

So, Papa packed us into the 'big car' and off we went to this 'new' house. The Thorndyke's house.

It was straight off of the main road. And as we pulled up the round drive, the native, Maine marble poured out into an old Greek Revival made out of stone-carved cement. Well, actually, when we got out, the man showing us the house explained that it was wood. But I didn't believe him. It was very White House, very European, very modern to me. And as I pulled out my six-shooters from my playbelt, I told my Papa I was going to investigate around the home, by the barn and carriage house.

Sissy insisted on coming with me. Papa did too. Mother was too busy peering into the salon window admiring the up-dated, turn of the Century oriental pearl fireplace.

The man selling the house called out for me to beware of the owls in the old barn. Used to be a dancehall when Lincoln was in office and a fundraising barn for Coolidge. Generations of Thorndykes have entertained civically in there for almost two centuries. Although I didn't know what a century was then, I could tell by Papa's grin, that it was a good, long, impressive time. I couldn't seem to hear anything after the owl warning comment and was glad that Sissy was coming with me.

I grabbed Sissy's hand and heard Papa tell the man that we'd driven by the home last night and saw the light on and wondered if a relative was in town. The man said, couldn't have been a light on. Electric Company doesn't have any power on here. Sissy and I kept walking, alone, towards the barn.

The barn was spectacular. Posters of 'Lincoln for President' to 'Buy Bonds' filled this two-story barn. It was tall and spacious. You could almost hear the strings and the laughter, but I'm sure it was the wind. They must have had a great time in that barn. I remember wondering if Momma and Papa were going to restore it. Probably. Mother loved a reason to buy a new dress and Papa loved a reason to mix a cocktail. They were always the perfect host and hostess.

Sissy heard the barndoor rattle, looked panicked and screamed. Momma came running, as well she could, due in a month or two. I wondered why she was running. Wasn't she used to Sissy screaming by now?

Momma gathered us up and told us that Papa was already inside the house and that she didn't want to miss this part. She rushed us along as if we were missing a paying tour or something. She was really very excited about the prospects of what might be inside.

We entered through a little portico off the kitchen. It served as the winter cloak room and basement access way.

The stainless steel bucket leaning against the wooden, basement entryway door seemed out of place, as if only a wooden bucket would suit the house. As I stared at the door I noticed a buckling in the floor. The floor had a ripple in it, rising and lowering, rising and lowering. I remember thinking, "Papa's going to have to fix this". I leaned down to further investigate it. Momma grabbed Sissy and my hand and toddled off to find Papa.

The kitchen was huge and tall with a fireplace and two dining tables, which led into a room. It must have been the dining room because it had a long slender gas chandelier and double stained glass doors leading to somewhere. The doors were bolted shut. Momma opened a door on another wall, which led into another room. She took a few pictures of the drawing room with her camera and peered around. She listened for Papa's voice, but couldn't hear it. She called out and Papa came. He brought us to where he and the man were standing.

It must have been the music room because the grand piano was still holding up the cello. I don't think Mother heard a word the man said, except for, "the house has been vacant for 5 years and the family needs to sell it". She took a few more pictures with her camera. She and Papa were so progressive with their documentation of our vacations. She always said she never wanted to forget a moment and that life with Papa was so filled with adventure she might have missed something while enjoying it!

We heard footsteps upstairs. Papa quickly asked the man who else was in the house. The man said no one. But he raised his eyebrows and admitted that he may have heard something. Something! Geez! That kind of something in the middle of the night would have sent Papa down the hall with his bayonet, "en guarde!"

Momma and Papa both knew they heard footsteps. So Papa suggested that we all view the upstairs. We did.

The pink room smelled of rose oil. Momma told the man this was the room where she saw the curtains pulled back last night when they were driving passed.

"Couldn't have seen the curtains pulled back if they're not pulled back now", said the man. "No one's been here."

One floor up. We heard the footsteps again. Papa ran up. It led him to the widow's peak, up from the foyer of the flag room. The view from those windows made my breath short, but I kept my eyes opened anyway and squinted. I peaked and saw the cemetery to the right and the grave stone headquarters to the left and the St. George straight ahead. I told my parents I liked the Norman Castle much, much better. Sissy burst out crying and Momma needed air.

Well, Papa rushed us all downstairs.

I held the handrail for all three floors and it fit nicely, height-wise. I thought how short the men of long ago must have been for the railing to fit me so well in my youth.

Papa set us in the kitchen. Me upon the table and Sissy upon the bench-seat overlooking the overgrown vines. I saw another door bolted shut. Papa and the man announced their need to look under the house. The man asked if I'd wanted to go. I did not. I saw no reason to. I watched the two men go to the buckled, rippled floor area. I wondered if they saw it, being so tall. I was going to warn them about the floor, but Mother exclaimed in amazement. I turned to find her. So, I watched my Mother poke her head back into the bathroom and come and exclaim that I should see this, tin tub! I jumped off the table, grabbed Sissy's hand and headed towards the tin bath. There was also a tin sink and a tin toilet. Useful, but not hospitable.

Time seemed to pass by slowly and we walked back into the kitchen, and meandered by the elevator, then wandered into the breakfast-room to see the fresco they'd painted on the ceiling; then

admired the wood cabinets in the summer kitchen. We then returned to the main kitchen and sat and relaxed at one of the tables.

Momma commented aloud, "nice house. Needs to be lived in and filled-up again. I think we could have a wonderful time here bringing the house back to its glory. We'll come here every summer and play and have wonderful parties and raise the new little one. What do you think?"

Just then the basement door slammed shut! I wondered how it cleared the hump in the floor and how the bucket got pushed out of the way. The air was still. There was no Papa or man... Momma was frozen, thinking, absorbing. Papa was trapped in the basement. Momma was taken off guard, but spoke calmly and looked around. "Well, you pretty much answered that. Slamming a door is a 'no' in anybody's book." She turned to Sissy and me and rubbed her belly. "Come on, let's get your Father, it's time to go back to our castle." We tried to open the basement door! It was wedged shut with a broom under it for extra-tight wedging.

How interesting I thought this all was. Momma pried! Momma kicked and kicked! And then she stopped and looked at the hinges. Then matter-of-factly stated, "open this door now, or I will buy this house, and live in it everyday, not just summer, just to spite you... And I will have better parties and out-do you as a hostess in this town. Now open this damn door!" That was the first time I'd ever heard Momma curse.

Papa and the man came up the basement steps and the door opened without anyone's effort. Momma said thank you and Papa thought she was talking to him. I guess it was easier at the moment that she not explain herself. I had wondered if, when and how she was going to tell Papa what had happened. She was so calm about it; so relieved to see my Papa. She stayed by his side every step and had no interest in revisiting any room in the house. Needless to say, we left after a brief walk around the property. And then returned to our castle.

Papa made Momma a cup of tea and she began to tell him what happened.

Well, when Momma got the pictures developed from her camera, she screamed. Papa and I thought she was going to have the baby, but it turned out to be something else. The pictures had a blurred section in each photo in the drawing room.

We sent the film to the Kodak factory and they denied anything wrong with the film. They had said that if it were the emulsion the entire roll would have been bad and the spool of film before it and after it. Well, my parents happened to have purchased the consecutive lots of film too, and they were all just fine. So, for my parents, that's all the information they needed to confirm their suspicions.

The house was haunted! And we weren't welcome there. And that was just fine with me.

We later found out from the man, that the woman "inhabiting" the house was a pianist and her room was the rose room and that she hasn't and can't leave the house.

The neighbors say she haunts the place and leaves the lights on and spies on the passersby from her window too.

The man had given my parents some papers with the background of the house. We learned some things that made a lot of sense and seemed to help give reason to the rhyme.

Once, when Mrs. Thorndyke was alive she had a dream about her son cleaning a shotgun, and the next morning she was sent word that her son died of a shotgun wound while cleaning his shotgun that very night. She and her husband were never the same since and rumor had it that he was taking up with another woman; so she sent her husband away. She never hostessed another social event again. The house and the town were never quite the same. And the papers told of the burials. All of her children and her children's children were buried in the cemetery over on the back-right end of the property. The one you can see from the Widow's Walk! And boy, when my Mother heard that she really didn't want the house. She said that she didn't want a bunch of strangers in her house visiting at all unknown hours, making themselves at home, just because they were there first.

I'll never forget that Thorndyke house. And I'll never forget Mrs. Thorndyke. And I'll never forget the day I believed in ghosts and other things made of matter.

But what I'll never forget the most was the persistence my Momma had when it came to prying my Papa out of the basement. Now, that was love. For to her, at that moment he was the only thing in the world that mattered.

And today, I feel the same way about my wife. I would've knocked down the door with a toothpick if I had to. You know, I remember that moment as if it just happened. I can't believe that my parents aren't here to share the story with me, again. I'll just have to call Sissy and yes, we kept her, my littlest sister, Mary-Elizabeth. May we all matter together, always.

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