Not For Sale by Guylaine Spencer

An autumn evening, 1950

Along the Grand River, Ontario, Canada

Yes, sir, she’s a mighty fine mansion. And an unusual style for this neck of the woods. Looks a bit like a bank to me with that porch and pillars. The first owner built her back in 1845. She doesn’t get the attention she deserves these days. You can see that by the peeling paint and the boarded-up window. The brothers don’t live here full time now, but they do come down on occasion. Separately, always. That’s why they have the wife and me looking after the place as caretakers. We live in the house and keep an eye on things. The two brothers don’t speak to each other anymore. They send messages through me. They haven’t talked since the blowup they had over the repairs to the roof.

It was young Elgin who ordered the repairs, see, without his brother’s knowledge. The work had to be done, no doubt about it, or the roof would’ve caved in, but Peter, well, he just couldn’t see it. He’s an accountant and he’s so tight-fisted that it blinds him sometimes. You can tell by his bedroom. It’s so sparse and cold it looks like a monk’s cell. Not even a rug on the bare wood floors. He said that even if the repairs had to be done, they could have gotten a better price for the work from a local man, instead of someone recommended by a friend of Elgin. Peter sneered when he said that. I don’t think he has much respect for any of his brother’s friends. He thinks they’re all crooks or con artists, just because most of them are in the acting business. Professional liars, he calls them. Won’t even use the word actor. Me, I always get along well with Elgin and his acquaintances. They treat me kindly and I like them, despite their –well—quirks, shall we say? You have to expect some unusual traits from them artistic types.

Anyway, as I was saying, the argument over the repairs and their cost was what caused the final rift between the brothers. Money! The Bible says money is the root of evil. Don’t I believe it! The difference between those two goes back a long time. They were always quarrelling, even as children. I think it’s because they were both so spoiled. And greedy! As kids they fought over toys. I remember seeing them smash a toy bow and arrow to bits in their fight over it. As adults they fought over their parents’ wills. But the repair problem finally sealed it.

What kind of repairs? Well, the roof, as I mentioned. And some plumbing. Ever since then, they pretty much stay in their own homes in the big city, and they only come down a few times a year. They’ll vacation at the old homestead for a couple of weeks. Sometimes Elgin scoots down for just the weekend, usually because he wants to show the place off to a buddy. They’re proud of the old place, both of them, even if it is crumbling around the edges. It’s still handsome, despite its age. And you can’t beat the view from the shore. The wife and I sit out there and watch the Grand River flow by almost every evening in the spring, summer and fall, listening to the breeze rippling through the trees and the geese calling to one another.

No sir, I don’t think they’d ever sell it. It means too much to them. Been in the family for over a century. Besides, even if the boys did want to sell, who could afford to live in a house like this? It costs a fortune just to heat the place. And the taxes! Why, the taxes alone are more than most people make in a year! They lease out the farm and make some cash, but the house itself is a money pit. Most of it is closed up year-round. When the boys aren’t here, we just keep the first floor open. We dust the rooms on the second floor once in a while. But we haven’t ventured up to the third floor for several years now … the one that’s supposed to be haunted.

That’s right – haunted! Personally, I’ve never seen hide nor hair of a spirit. My wife says she used to hear strange noises coming from a bedroom when she worked up there in the nursery as the children’s maid, but that could have been anything, couldn’t it? And some people claim they’ve seen wispy shadows of a man in the hallway at night, or heard moans echoing down the hall.

Some say the ghost is the spirit of the boys’ uncle, Sean. He died decades ago. I’ll never forget him. He went to war in 1915 and came back with his mind gone. After that, he lived out his life in the back bedroom up on the third floor. He was quiet most of the time, never bothering a soul, but once in a while he’d just break out, strip off his clothes, run down the stairs and start screaming his head off about fire and artillery and dead bodies and rats and stinking pools of piss and mud and the infernal noise and so on. Sometimes surviving is worse than dying, sir. Yes, I heard him a few times, near the end. Even had to talk him back inside once when he’d run out of the house naked. This was when he was alive, mind you! You don’t mind if I tease you a bit, do you? No! You look like a feller with a sense of humour. Anyways, Sean seemed to be doing all right for so many years, aside from these little spells, plus the occasional trip to the local asylum. So everyone was shocked when the maid went into his room one morning to bring him breakfast and found him lying there, not wanting breakfast at all, with blood on the sheets and his wrists slit.

I remember all the fuss at the time. I’d never worked for a family going through a scandal like that before. It taught me a lot of things, that experience – how to act under pressure, how to look calm, how to protect the family’s interests. The press descended like vultures. Pestering everyone. We had to close ranks and fight them off. Master George told us we’d all performed admirably during that crisis.

George was Sean’s father. He gave us some mighty generous bonuses about a month after the crisis passed. It was that bonus that launched me and the missus on the road to matrimony, I might add. We’d been courting ever since I’d started working here, and I wasn’t getting any younger. When I held that money in my fist, I knew it was a message. Now was the time to ask for her hand. The family even threw a little “do” for us after the wedding. Sandwiches and tea in the drawing room, with cake.

When you spend so much time working for a family, you learn a lot about them. The first owner came to the area in the mid-1800s. Made his money in building canals and mills. They were rich but you know what happens. After a couple of generations, the family goes to rot. By George’s time in the early part of the century they were sinking in debt.

But guess what finally saved it? That’s right, you guessed it, sir. The war! The family had investments in plants, and when the factories began pumping out weapons and steel for ships during the war, the money started flowing back into the parched soil of this property. Folks around here call this house the Bucket of Blood. Some say the house is like a vampire that renewed itself with the blood of lives lost during the war.

I don’t think that George ever really got to enjoy all that money that flowed to him through the factories. After his son returned from overseas, he hoped at first that Sean would recover. I sometimes saw the gleam in his eyes when he sat with his son under that big weeping willow facing the river, talking gently to him and reading from his books of poetry. But the dream seemed to grow dimmer bit by bit. Finally, the old man looked like a ghost himself, so pale and sick he was before he finally died, six months after his son’s death.  

George and Sean are buried in the family plot, right past that big stand of elm trees. I know city folks find it odd that we bury people right here in our back yards—like cats or dogs I’ve heard some young ones say—but it’s an old country custom. We like to have our loved ones near us, even in death. My own daughter is buried back there. She was only a baby when she died. There are some servants’ graves there as well. You can find the tiny headstones if you know where to look.

The last generation stopped the tradition of home burial, though. You see, George’s other son, Thomas, inherited the estate. He and his wife were the parents of the boys still living. When the couple died together in that nasty car crash, just down the road from here, the boys had them buried in the public graveyard. They said their parents wanted it that way. But there was no record of their wishes, as far as I know.

People talk …. some of the old-timers in the area say the boys didn’t want the old folks cursing them from their graves so nearby. Some whisper that the oldest son might have had a hand in his parents’ accident. People said he was angry that his parents had decided to stop the tradition of passing on the property to the eldest son, and wanted to split it between the two children. Which they did! But that talk is just nonsense. I’ve known those boys all their lives and there’s no way they would murder anyone. And as far as not wanting another family member buried on the land, maybe they just felt that there’s bad blood in the soil around here.

Because if you ask me, sir, it is an unlucky house. A house can be cursed, don’t you think? It can carry evil in its foundation. The person who cursed it is gone, but the effects of the curse live on. See, the land around here was occupied long before this family or any white men came. In the 1920s, some archeologists came here after a farmer started plowing up odd-shaped pipes and arrowheads. They said that there was a village here many moons ago and they found the outlines of longhouses and a wooden fence. So, who knows, maybe there was a burial ground nearby too? And maybe some old feller didn’t take kindly to strangers building on top of his grave, eh? No, I agree sir, you never can tell. A lot goes on in this world that we don’t see or understand.

Oh, do you have to be going now? Well, it was nice chatting with you. I’ll take your name and phone number and I’ll pass it on to the boys. But as I said, I don’t think they’ll ever sell.

Guylaine Spencer

Banner Image: Last Will and Testament, house keys and pocket watch against a red background from Pixabay.com

Post image: Ruthven Historic site. A picture of a grand mansion with pillars, a portico and a steep flight of steps set in manicured gardens. Taken by the author and the inspiration for the story.