Our Ghost Le suite. (episode two)

The ghost of Mme Tooth slept soundly that night. As did I, in her old bedroom, the kids on mattresses on the floor between two lumpy twin beds, rattan headboards, chenille spreads. The as-is sensibility pervaded our habits at the time. If this was the bedroom, this is where we would sleep, the four other empty rooms left unclaimed. Some were still too cluttered, others too high, and one too grand, its giant fireplace and age polished floor beams too exhaulted for us. There was a lay of the land, that we respected faithfully in our early days here.

Upon waking, our first morning in our house, I was all excited to share the story of our ghost with the friends who’d helped us get to this ancient edifice, on a hill in Dordogne, in the first place. We had begun to dream about a barn to renovate ourselves the first time we had visited Marcia in Dordogne a couple of years earlier when Philippe had her grandson in class in San Francisco. This region attracts. And then it holds tight.

This rather grand example of southern French architecture, more castle than barn, dropped from heaven seemingly, right in our laps. I oft compare myself with the wicked witch, though I fared better in the event of falling houses. We had not begun to consult real estate agents, or visit the ruins within our means, when a long-lost, distant cousin-in-law of mine inherited this place from his sister, and sought our assistance getting rid of it. Philippe is French, and we know the region. We could help. And we did. We took it right off his hands for a very fair sum, reducing his tax burden, our expenses and our search time in one fell swoop. Marcia, now our neighbor, had helped us make the decision to buy it . Or else.

Her whole family, daughter, son in law and three grandkids, were visiting when we took possession and they had all participated in the first walk through. Each had accepted some bauble: a polished rock, an old coin, a perfume bottle stopper as a souvenir. They had felt the presence of the house’s passed inhabitants by virtue of the haphazard display of the tools and trappings of their abandoned hobbies through out its rooms. Investigations revealed forays into clock repair, cabinetry, glass etching, glove making, apholstery, gardening, cooking all in a well documented pursuit of autarcy. The Tooth’s, the house’s previous owners, (for those who have not read part 1) sought perfect autonomy and total isolation. The house’s semi- isolation suited that spirit. Their traces were left in English and Russion. Neither of them, it seemed, were fluent in French, and weren’t required to be on their hilltop perch.

As there was no fridge or stove in the place yet, at lunch time, we joined Marcia’s clan, and regaled them with the telling of our ghost encounter late that last night, Phil and I outdoing one another in our mimicry of her heavy breathing. I wheeze deeply from my chest, Phil screeches gently through clenched teeth. In either case, the heavy breather’s cancer ridden lungs are in evidence. Mme Tooth had died in the house in November. Apparently she left something behind.

Son-in-Law, Drew immediately hatched a plan to gather up our small crowd and smudge her out of the place. Sage and incense and incantations. He told of ghosts trapped among us due to some earthly contract, a posthumous grudge, and that we only had to convince ours that she could now move on. She clearly had no unfinished business with us.

We didn’t get around to smudging Mme Tooth that day though. Phil’s sister and boyfriend were coming through to check out our new “castle” on their way to a wedding in the area. The edifice’s sheer size, as well as the archives of the house’s past lives properly impressed them. More discoveries were made. We came across a 15th C parchment, scribbled on in dark brown ink by a neat hand in some ancient indecipherable dialect of French. Only the date, 1493 was clear enough. A pair of very old pair of iron cuffs, ankle size, a metal spearhead, oddities of the sort, showed up in strange places. That night I hoped we would get to show off the ghost as well as all her trappings. After a picnic dinner, kids in bed, drinks and smokes were shared under the Tilleul tree out front. An old cement millstone serves as a low table out there. The ambiance was just right for a ghost citing. Of course, none of us believe in ghosts.

But then, the noise, a repeat performance, around the same time as the night before, 10:30 or so, we heard the screech, a rhythmic cry, rising and falling in the night. A hushed silence fell upon us. Our ears perked up. There it is. Our guests look to us, what do we do? What do we know? We wait. And then, out from around the side of the house, a white winged creature swooped, screeching in its habitual manner, scaring everyone half out of their wits. The winged apparation, our ghost, was in fact an owl. a screech owl/ chouette effrai, or “scare owl”, as they are called here. The neighbors clued us in. This “dame blanche”, another nickname for the species, lives here. She has been nesting under the eaves of the house, by the upstairs bedroom, next to the bay tree, for years. She is well known to have been Mme Tooth’s chouette, a wild pet of sorts, housed, in her own nest, under the same roof. Two renowned grandes dames.

Indeed, we had seen the scattered dejections under the hortense bush by the back door to the kitchen, dry pellets of regurgitated bones and fur. I later read how screech owls were often associated with dead relatives, visitors from beyond the grave. Their presence under farmhouse eaves has been the source of many a ghost story around here. Perigord, the locals’ name for Dordogne, is awash with superstition. Tales of hauntings and ghouls pass from generation to generation, around the giant hearths of these ancient homes. Screech owls are partly responsible. Their cries, when muffled through layers of roofing and farmhouse insulation sound so like the heavy pained breathing of the dearly departed, and the less dearly departed as well. It all makes sense.

So we have an owl now. But we also have a ghost.

To be continued still…

Our Ghost

We have a ghost. Or we had a ghost, or at least a presence and maybe we still do. At least that’s what I hear. Our ghost is well known. We hear about her from the experts in the field (?), from dinner guests, and children’s friends, from past tenants, neighbors, and now-a-days, from potential renters. If this ghost starts scaring people off, than I may have a problem with her. We thought we had gotten rid of her, had someone come in to ask her nicely to move on. But I am not sure if she did. Not that I believe in ghosts.

The kids do. As they will. They are the ones chipping away at my cynicsm. They seem to know something. We have a whole floor that is pretty much off limits for anyone under 10 to venture to on their own. In groups the kids flock up there, for the sheer joy of the fright. Kids love ghost stories. But this ghost and this story pass approval with listeners of all ages. This may be why I have always coveted a ghost. Now I have one. People love that.

The place looks like a perfect haunted house. Before the previous owners renovated it, it had been left to ruin, slowly, over its probable 500year history. Mme Chaumont, claims to know the house to always have been uninhabited, her grandfather, and his grandfather as witness. That should cover a couple hundred years. The previous owners of the curious little place across the way used to farm this land, this giant stone edifice was an extension of their barn. Paulette, Mme Chaumont’s good friend, says they used to store their beets up there, and make their cider over here. Others report how the walls were beginning to separate off the whole. An abandoned ruin, it was, attracting wayward spirits.

Legend has it, that this house was constructed as a hunting lodge for the lords of the nearby castle, Chateau de L’Herm. A garconierre my husband suggests, a Boys’ Club. Makes sense, hunters also like to gather. Though a garconierre, in the very French fashion, suggests that these boys clubs do NOT have a “ no girls” policy. Au contraire.

The house is linked to the Chateau de L’Herm, by more than legend. It has the same unusual cross bow window construction, a similarly grand fireplace, and the right age. Its rock walls are 2 feet thick. Its ceiling beams impressively wide, were hued, we were told, in the 15th century fashion. The nails in the floor boards in the great room upstairs, indicate 16th century construction. The giant planks that make up the staircase, seem to be recycled ceiling beams from an even older time, polished smooth with age. Also, the patriarch of the L’Herm lineage was married to someone named Anne de Prouillac, like our lieu dit, or hamlet. Our house is named Grand Prouillac, and it was the first and only one up here back then, according to the Napoleonic records, still kept for consultation at la mairie. If there ever was the underground passage that we’ve heard about, connecting our house to the chateau, it doesn’t show up on the cadastre. Nor do we learn about the first owners or whether or not they are the ones haunting the place. Chateau de L’Herm dies have a triple murder/matricide attached to it though, so could be.

Before we took possession of Grand Prouillac, eight Junes ago, the house and been left empty for months again. The previous owner, Mme Tooth past away in November. It took for time for the testament to be finalized, for the house’s ownership to be transferred to her two brothers, one in the U.S. the other in Australia, and then a number of months again for them to consider what to do with a 500 year old renovated hunting lodge on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere in the South of France, in a language they don’t speak. The siblings are Russian, having relocated to three distinct continents from London via Paris a generation earlier. Their parents’ pre-revolution emigration was timed so as to escape an untimely demise in a dank cellar, 29 steps, below uncle Alexi’s summer palace. Mme Tooth’s gravestone, simply states, Mme Tooth, née princess Her maiden name, Romanoff, was added later.
The house of two princesses, so auspiciously connected to violent deaths, ought to be haunted.

And so it is.

Philippe had visited it at Easter time; and had the council of our friend in the region, “Buy it or I will buy it first.” We signed a promisary note in at brother Romanoff’s place in Nor Cal in April, made a deposit of intention and got the keys in May and flew over from San Francisco to take possession in June. Here I was for the first time, at its front door, enthralled by the simple gesture of turning the key, my key, to our house, our first house, our castle.

In those seven elapsed months, spiders and mice had had the run of the place, perhaps some of those hunters as well, and they left it a crazy mess. A beautiful, rich, historic, castle like mess. Pots of jam were left open on the table. Walnuts, cracked and half eaten in all the corners and cupboards, furniture was uprighted, scanes of fabric spread across floors. The walls were grey with spider webs and soot. Bulbs burnt out. Old dusty sheets over old dusty furniture it the Scoobydoo shorthand for Haunted House style.

We camped out at our friends’ place for a couple of nights as we chipped away at layers of crud days, and discovered things. We came across Mme Tooths’ gardening journals, notes on her dinner parties, Msr. Tooth’s dissertation, his hat locker, and hats, made by “Royal Order of HM The King”. The small room at the top of the stairs was filled with her sewing and her glove making paraphernalia, scraps of fur and a leaopard’s tail, knitting needles and rat poop. The atelier in the tour, had clearly been his shop where his clock repair tools and wood working materials lay about. Off it was the old mildewed darkroom and laundry. We found treasures among the trash: an amesthyst, othodox crosses, bottles and jars of food and wine, paintings of the house by his sister, a haloed Virgin Mary signed and dated someone Romanoff, 1924, an old passport, an invitation to the funeral of great aunt, The Queen Victoria, books and records, photographs and negatives. Remnants of a good life and interesting people. It took a few days to restore a semblance of habitable to the place and then we moved in, with our ghost.

That first night, we all bedded down together in what seemed to be “the bedroom.” Faux wood paneling, chintz drapes and a master bath. Philippe and Cleo went to bed first. I stayed up to nurse Lucien and soak this all in, on the canapé by the fireplace, in the great room. There were some mice who still felt quite comfortable cohabitating with us, discreet and little mice luckily. The kind that don’t scare me. I was still so entirely enthralled by this place: the vast room, this history, and my place in it. As I went to switch off the remaining reading light to join the others, baby Lucien asleep on my shoulder, I heard a noise. It sounded like breathing. I left the light on. There was a little boy asleep on my shoulder, and I figured, the breathing may have been his. I went to put him down, and came back to get the light. The breathing was only louder. It seemed to be coming from that corner; from right where I had been sitting. A deep, throaty pained drawing in and a Slow, and long, screeching breathing out. Each one seemingly harder to draw than the last. I went to wake Philippe up, for the first time ever. “honey, I hear something.” Such a comic strip cliché.

He was quick to search for the noise’s source. He was going to go look in the bushes outside for a wounded animal or some such thing. I wouldn’t have it. I didn’t want him going out there, in the dark night, on this isolated hilltop, into the unknown, and with that noise. “Why” he says,”what do you think it is?” “Mme Tooth.” Evidently. Mme Tooth. To me it was obvious. Mme Tooth, nee princess, had died of lung cancer in this house only months earlier. He hastily switched off the light, and went back to a long night of cold sweats. I slept like a baby. I had no reason to fear Mme Tooth’s rath. Her house was in good hands. And I presumed we would be as well.

To be contintued.