The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1889-07-24
THE PRESS.
ATALE OF AN OLD HOUSE
by ELIZABETH N. GILMER.
GThe South Illustrated. I

[The South Illustrated
On one OF the dark and narrow streets OF
New Orleans, down in the French quarter. /,
an old, old house where the pink stucco Is
falling from its wall, and where the beauti.
full iron balconies are fast being eaten away
by the hungry red rust gnawing ceaselessIy
at its exquisite hand-wrought scrolls and
arabesques. The doors and windows are
guarded by heavy batten shutters, so long
closed that the hinges have become so set one
could not, il one chose, open them to the
blessed light Of day.
Beyond the house and facing the street Is
deep, narrow garden, shut in by high
brick wall. over whose top a spray of jessa-
mine or riotous rose occasionally filings out
banner and flaunts it in the wind in the
bravado of beauty, but beyond that one can
only see that the tall orange trees within are
white with bloom or yellow fruit as the
season may be.
1t is house that has evidently come
down in the world" and that bears unmis-
taxable evidence of having seen better days.
Society and fashion that once trod up its
broad steps and smiled and smirked at itself
in the ornate gilded mirrors in the long
saloon, has found its way to the broad boule-
ward Eslanade beyond, and left it stranded in
side street where no one wants to live.
Somehow the leaky cutters and pent roof
seem miserably conscious of all this, and
weep and frown down upon the placards
nailed on either door post, in which the pub
lie is Informed that this house is to rent, and
that one is to apply to Messrs. Blank L.
Blank, who have in charge the succession of
dAvril estate. No one wants to rent it, how
ever, and when the advertisements, grown
faded by the sun or sodden by the rain, fall
dejectedly off on the steps, Blank & Blank
rend round their office boy, who nails on a
fresh poster which in turn, shares the fate
of its predecessors.
Nine. Carpenter, who lives just across
the street and who leans comfortably out of
the window to have chat with the baker
about her own house, says to him for the
hundredth time:
''Ah, M'sieu Gragnon, 1t will be to some
one else you bring the bread soon. 1t Is not
who will live in house not fit for pig.
1t is yesterday Msieu Paul comes for the
rent. Mon Dieu M'sieu,' I say, and is it
rent you ask for this coop, this sty? Look
at the roof! Like sieve! When it rains
a fish would be drownedv"
"Mais, oui." interrupts the baker, as
madams pauses for breath, 'but where will
you go? Over there, perhaps" and he
fourished twisted loaf of bread toward the
dAyril house across the way, where the red
and blue posters were distinctly visible.
Nine Charpentier gave grasp and threw
out her hands in gesture of amazement and
depreciation.
mon Dieui no." she cried; 81 am not
superstitious, no; Il 60 to mass and make my
confession, as good Christian should, but
one has ones little prejudices, and one knows
quite well that If that house is not haunted
1t was always strange, that house; no one
coming and going, no fetes, no anything but
silence, and now"-and Mme Charpentier
threw out her hands in gesture that in
cluded every possibility.
1t was her favorite topic, this d'Avril
house, and she would dearly have liked to
tell the baker the latest story about it. That
Titine and Luisette and Francois had heard
some one within moving, moving, moving
with muffied footsteps across the rooms.
But the baker had taken advantage of the
very first pause in the story to deposit her
two loaves of twisted bread ON the window
sill, and now he was far down the street,
whistling as he went. Nine. Charpentier
was naturally ircensed She tossed the
loaves contemptuously on the table.
bah p she said, "heavy as lead! 1t is
what one might expect from a man with no
sympathy and no Imagination"
Nine. Charpentier voiced the belief of the
neiyhborhood when she said that the d'Avril
house was uncanny. 1t might not be haunted
but what were the strange noises one heard?
Had not Toinette, If not Toinette
then Luisette, or perhaps Jean-well, mon
Dieu, it was all one and not worth breath's
difference-had not some one heard, as they
coming home late at night, deep sobs from
behind the closed shutters? Ii one stood on
tiptoe one was just on level with the win
dow"
TWAS the talk of the neighborhood. When
Nine. Charpentier and Nine. Blanc met at
the little cafe, where they went to fetch
pint, Of vim ordinair, they stopped and
Ing on their ample hips. When a woman
went to the priests to buya scapular to hang
around the baby's neck to help it through
teething. and stopped for moment at a
friends for bit Of gossip, she was sure to
hear some fresh story about the haunted
house that would send her home making the
sign of the cross, and tightly clasping the bit
of prayer or holy relic sewed up in tie scrap
Of silk.
it bad been many years since the report
that the house was haunted gained currency
but IL was only with the last few months
that Blank and Blank had displayed on its
door-post their alluring assortment of post
ers--only, indeed, since Nine. d'Avril died.
During the many years in which the house
was shut SO securely against prying curiosity,
and In which the rumor gained strength, no
one had ever been permitted to penetrate
behind those closed doors save only the priest
and physician.
The neighborhood, which never suffered
anything to happen unseen or unheard,
wonld have told you it you would have
stopped for moment and leaned over the
little counter In Nine. Carpenters shop,
and If you had evinced the faintest curiosity
in the subject, that no one was ever seen
about the house across the street but quad
TO0n, gr
almost white, tall and thin-like ghost.
1t lie she who always answers the ring at
the garden gate. not that that Is often! Ma
fol The butcher with a bit of meat, the
baker, the milkman. for, just heaven, one
must live even in house like that! For the
rest. every Saturday, as regular as clock
work, as m'sieur may see for himself If he
chooses, inst as the clock strikes 10, one may
see the priest and physician meet at the
garden gate. 1t is opened for them-a little
Wayne more--they disappear. In an hour,
perhaps more, perhaps less. they come out.
That Is all. could tell m'sienr no more If l
was at confession and he was the father con-
lessor himself" and Nine. Charpentier
shrugged her shoulders up to where the great
gold Hoops dangled in her big ears, and made
a gesture that said plainly as words, that she
washed her hands of all that went on behind
the closed doors of the d'Avril house.
AS for Adele, the stately quadroon who
opened the gate for the priest and physician,
s6e could have told the secrets of that guard
ed house, for about her they oil centered.
She knew that when once the heavy door
swung to and the three stood facing each
other In the narrow path where the priests
eassock brushed against the physicians
bFoadcloth, that they would motion her for
ward and she would lead the way to an upper
room where wan-faced, woman sat In ST.
ience, or else walked up and down the floor
muttering, mnttering to herself. On the
way, just at the head of the steps, was
room with iron barred windows and padded
walls, whose only furniture was thick, soft
mattress fastened to the floor. AS they
passed that room the physician bowed his
head and the priest made the sign OF the
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