Don’t know about you, but I have always associated the words "I shall return" with the flamboyant WWII general Douglas MacArthur, who said them as he (under orders) fled the Philippines just ahead of Japanese invaders in 1942. But they have been used in other contexts. And in one particular case, the man who spoke them kept his promise, same as MacArthur. But George Beckwith kept his after death.

George Beckwith and his wife Frances were an exceptionally close couple. They were among the early settlers of the Lords Baltimore’s colony in Maryland, building a manor house and managing a plantation along the Patuxent River in what is now St. Mary’s County. But in 1676, so the story goes, George was forced to return to England on business. Frances could not go with him, for they had several children and a plantation to run.

It cannot have been easy for Frances to let her beloved husband go. In those days of poor communication, when ships at sea were essentially little colonies on the water with no contact with the rest of the world (unless they should pass another ship), there was no way of knowing whether he would reach England safely, if at all. On the day of his departure, she stood weeping under a great elm tree, close by the dock where the little boat he would row out to the ship was moored. And George, loving husband that he was, took her in his arms and told her, "I promise you, sweetheart, I will return to you."

Frances nodded, and managed to smile through her tears. But she stood and watched as he rowed out to the ship and was taken aboard. She watched as the ship’s sails bellied in the wind and it began to move out to sea. She watched until it was out of sight. Only then did she return to the house.

She put up a brave front for her children. And she waited.

She waited as long as she could, for, several months after George’s departure, Frances Beckwith fell gravely ill, and was dead within days. Without knowing where to contact George in London—even if he had survived the voyage—family and friends laid her to rest in a family cemetery. They knew they would have to tell George, should he come home, that his sweetheart was dead. They did not look forward to that.

Some months later, family members and servants alike were disturbed by something odd: the translucent form of the late Frances Beckwith standing beneath the old elm tree, where she had watched her husband sail away to England. She was looking out to sea, as she had done the day of his departure.

Time passed, and Frances’s shade kept its silent vigil. One day in springtime, nearly two years after George left, and more than a year after Frances’s death, a large ship sailed into the harbor and dropped anchor. A boat was put over the side, and a lone man climbed down into it and began to row to shore. A crowd gathered and watched as he rowed closer. Could this be George Beckwith at last?

Frances emerged from the shadow of the elm and walked toward the dock, standing at the end waiting as the rowboat came closer.



Then they saw it was indeed George Beckwith, who rowed right up and leaped onto the dock without bothering to secure the boat. Frances walked into his open arms as he said loudly, as if for the benefit of the watchers, "As promised, sweetheart, I have returned."

The watchers hung back, for something simply did not feel right about this homecoming.

In the next instant, George, Frances, rowboat, and ship out in the harbor vanished as if they had never been there at all.

Within weeks, word arrived from London that George Beckwith had indeed made it there and transacted his business, but died before he could book passage home. His promise to his wife, though, proved stronger than death.

The old elm tree is still there, I’ve heard. There are frequent reports of a man and woman who stand beneath it, dressed in the fashion of the late seventeeth century, holding hands as they look out to the sea that once parted them.

And on that romantic note, fair thee well.

*************************************************************
I first read the story of the Lovers of Beckwith Manor in Deborah Downer’s 1991 book CLASSIC AMERICAN GHOST STORIES.

Not far from the English border with Scotland, there once stood a huge old house known as Allanbank. It had some three hundred years of history behind it when it was torn down in the early nineteenth century, and it was, at one time, one of Scotland’s most notoriously haunted manors. Even today, they tell the story of Pearlin Jean of Allanbank, the little French novice who haunted a false lover and his family home right up until the house was demolished.

Her story begins around 1670, with a young man called Robert Stuart—the family name of the owners of Allanbank—making the Grand Tour of Europe to finish his education. He was staying for a season in Paris in a tall old house, the upstairs windows of which overlooked the gardens of a convent. One of the girls making her novitiate there was Jeanne de la Salle, a blue-eyed, blonde, wellborn young mademoiselle who had on a whim decided to become a nun, and, equally whimsically, decided she had made a mistake when she first saw Mr. Stuart watching her from his window.

Jeanne was hardly more than a child—although, to be fair, neither was her lover—but she deserted her convent to become his mistress. And they loved each other passionately—and Jeanne possessively and jealously--for a short time. Unfortunately, Jeanne wanted to marry her Scotsman. He, in turn, grew weary of her jealousy, her possessiveness, her nagging, her weeping, and her demands for marriage. He also knew his strict family would never approve of a girl who had left the convent to be his light o' love.

On the day he was to leave Paris to return to Allanbank, he tried to take the coward's way out: to slip off without alerting Jeanne. She heard the carriage, though, and raced downstairs to try to stop him. She was wearing her—and, once, his—favorite dress, made of thread-lace, and she climbed up onto the front wheel of the carriage, screaming, "I tell you this, Robert Stuart—if you marry any woman but me, I WILL COME BETWEEN YOU TO THE END OF YOUR DAYS!"

Embarassed and thinking of nothing except making his escape, Stuart ordered the coachman to drive on.

Jeanne should have fallen backward off the wheel. Instead, she fell forward into its path, in a tangle of white lace and long golden hair. As the wheel rolled over her forehead, she gave one last scream. She died there in an explosion of blood as her craven lover fled.

Two weeks later, Robert Stuart's carriage pulled up to the great gates of Allanbank, to be greeted by a figure standing atop them: a figure in a lace dress—white where it wasn’t red with blood—reaching out to him. He was driven up to the house in a dead faint.

The celebrations that had been planned for his return were cancelled, and within days, Jeanne’s ghost had infested the house. She first appeared to one of the maids, who went into violent hysterics. For some hours the girl could only say three words, over and over: "The pearlin dress! The pearlin dress!" Finally the family managed to calm her enough that she explained she had seen a bloody figure in a dress made of pearlin—Scots for thread lace. And since the closest Scots equivalent to Jeanne is Jean, the little French novice became known as Pearlin Jean.

Robert Stuart eventually married. His wife, fortunately, was a frankly unimaginative woman. She took all Jeanne’s poltergeist tricks—of which the little ghost had an arsenal—in stride, and was not impressed even when Jeanne appeared to her, one evening in a dark hallway. Stuart was so pleased with his wife—and with the birth of several children—that he had their portraits painted and hung side by side in Allanbank’s Long Gallery. This was a bad mistake, for Jeanne went wild with the jealousy that had been one of her worst traits in life. She slammed doors, she moved furniture, she smashed china, she screamed her blood-curdling dying scream, and made more appearances in all her macabre glory than ever before.



In desperation, Stuart decided on an unlikely but effective ruse: he had a portrait of a golden-haired girl in a thread-lace dress painted and hung between his and his wife’s. He reasoned that, since Jeanne’s last vow had been to come between him and whatever wife he took to the end of his days, perhaps this would be an acceptable substitute. To his surprise, it worked—for so long that he decided that the ghost must have gone on to the world beyond and took it down. The portrait was banished to the attics and left there, and neither Allanbank nor Robert Stuart knew another moment’s peace. He died comparatively early, leaving a house still haunted by his late love.

Sometime in the eighteenth century, the Stuarts lost Allanbank, but Jeanne didn’t depart with them. She continued to make her noises and occasional perambulations through the house and grounds, but she never managed to terrify subsequent owners—who after all lacked Stuart’s guilty firsthand knowledge of her—as she had him. The last written reference to her comes from the year 1790, when two visitors to Allanbank complained of the sounds of someone unseen walking across the floor of their bedroom.

Today the old Allanbank site is occupied by an inn and surrounded by gardens and orchards. Pearlin Jean, alas, no longer walks there. Perhaps, at last, she rests in peace.

I first read the story of Pearlin Jean of Allanbank in a piece by Michael and Mollie Hardwick in John Canning’s 1971 anthology FIFTY GREAT GHOST STORIES.

And until next time, fair thee well.

As mentioned before, Halloween is my favorite holiday. I read my first ghost story at the age of eight and have never looked back (well--only when I hear strange noises behind me while I'm reading them-- )

So let's start out this year's month-long collection of spooky stories with one Auntie told Willard and me--about the curious behavior of an old-time cast iron cookstove.



One day awhile back Willard and I were out rambling and decided we’d go see our dear Auntie, back from her traipsin’ over Paris with the Captain but still withholding details. We found her busily canning the latest stuff she’d brought in from her garden. Now Auntie, mind you, has her modern conveniences; an electric range, the fanciest of newfangled pressure cookers, the works. But she sat down with us, as we admired the jars of tomatoes and relish and what-all she’d already done, with a thoughtful look on her face. And she said the magic words: "You know, girls, all this hyer reminds me of a story I was told when I was hardly kneehigh to a grasshopper."

I couldn’t help myself. "OOOOO, goody!!" I squealed. I’m still like a little kid about stories. Willard sat up a bit straighter and her eyes sparkled. She too loves nothing better than a good story.

I took notes. And this is the story Auntie told us.

"Now mind you," she began, "th’ cousin I’m a-talkin’ about was done’n an oldtimer when I was a small child, pert near as old as I am now. An’ I don’t know fer shore and sartin hit’s the truth, but this is what he told.

"Now he wasn’t raised up hyer. His mama and daddy had moved the fam’ly way off somers a-lookin’ for work, I reckon, an’ did’n find none—them was hard times—So anyhow, they decided to move back near to the family home. Now they was this ol’ empty house been settin’ thar deserted fer the longest, and they moved inter it after they cleaned hit out and bought a few pieces of furniter what they did’n have. The main piece they bought was an oldtimey cast-arn wood cookstove. It had been owned by this older couple both of who died, and their kids did’n none of ‘em have no use fer it.



"Well, they moved the cookstove in an’ put hits pipe up in the kitchen flue, and then they begin workin’ on plantin' and harvestin’ a big garden fer cannin’, and fat’nin’ a pig fer meat an’all. Now all along they was usin’ this hyer cookstove jest fer reg’lur ever’day cookin’, three meals an’ heatin’ worsh water an’all. And all this time it jest acted like a normal cookstove."

Willard and I looked at each other. That "acted like a normal cookstove" sounded almightily suspicious.

"Well," Auntie went on, "finally cannin’ season come. Now this was a big fam’ly, and they’d growed an awful big garden. So they’d picked off an awful lot of stuff, and had sausage even to can. They had their cannin’ jars, dozens of ‘em, a-settin’ thar on th’ table, and baskets an’ baskets o’ veg’tables a-settin’ just inside the door, on the floor, ready fer Ma an’ the girls to start, early early in the mornin afore it got too hot.

"So they all went t’bed early. Long about midnight the whole household gits woke up. They kin hyer noises from downstairs, like somebody a-shakin’ down th’ grates in th’ cookstove and buildin’ a far in it. Their mama nagged at their daddy to go down and see what was goin’ on. She thought maybe some sort o’ critter had broke in somehow, or come down the flue, and was messin’ around. Well, Daddy grumbled round a bit, but he went downstairs. He goes into the kitchen. None o’ th’ baskets been bothered—none o th’ sausage been et—none o’ th’ jars on the table moved—and the cookstove set thar quiet and cold like it never been lit afore atall. He checked the whole downstairs, but thar weren’t a durn thang down thar what coulda caused ‘at noise. He went back upstairs n’ tol’ Mama an’ the kids they weren’t nothin’ there, an’ went back to sleep.

"Dreckly, hyer come them noises agin. An’ this time Daddy just grunted an’ put a piller over his ear and went back t’sleep.

"So, says Cousin, Mama gits up round about four-thirty in the mornin’ an’ goes downstairs to far up the stove an’ have breakfast ready afore th’ cannin’ starts, an’ she’s no sooner set foot in th’ kitchen afore she goes to screamin’ like th’ whistle on a freight train. ‘William! WILLIAM!!! YOU GIT DOWN HYER RIGHT THIS MINNIT!!!!’

"Well, now, course that roused up th’ whole dadblamed house. Daddy an’ all the kids popped up and yanked on th’ first clothes they grabbed at an’ go staggerin’ downstairs to find Mama standin’ in the middle o’ th’ kitchen floor, owl-eyed and whimperin’ like a whupped puppy.

"An’ it was a sight to bee-HOLD, girls. Cousin said that ever dang one o’ them baskets of veg’tables was empty, an’ ever dang one o’ them cannin’ jars what was empty th’ night b’fore was full of veg’tables, and\’ even the sausage was canned. An’ what’s more, the jars was done cold an’ sealed.

"An’ ‘at ‘air cookstove was asettin’ thar cold like it hat’n been lit in a coon’s age."

"What happened after that?" Willard and I chorused breathlessly.

Auntie grinned. "Cousin said that his mama was s’ shook up she made his daddy git rid o’ that cookstove that very day an’ buy her a new ‘un."

"No wonder," Willard said.

Auntie fixed her with a cold stare over the tops of her steel-rimmed glasses. "Now about that, I say she was jes’ bein’ silly an’ flighty. Now if’n I’DA had ‘at cookstove, I’da brung whoever was a-doin’ it all they could can and tell ‘em t’ have at it and I’d brang ‘em more."

But you see, Auntie’s not like other people. Whoever it was who worked with that curious cookstove would have found Auntie a hard ‘un t’ skeer.

And on that thoughtful note, fair thee well.

. . .to my baby sis, whose age I will not tell (but if candles were involved, it wouldn't hurt to have a fire extinguisher within reach )

Alas, since last Thursday she's had the flu, bad enough that yesterday she had to seek medical attention. Sis very seldom does that.

But she told Mom on the phone this AM she's actually beginning to feel better.

Glad to hear that, Little Sissy. (Dad used the name Sissy for both of us; if he meant one of us specifically, I was Big Sissy and she was Little Sissy.) Keep feeling better.

This work, by the Danish ceramicist and painter Hans Andersen Brendekilde,intrigues me not merely for its subject matter--a beautiful seemingly peaceful autumn day, but for the story implied but not told.  Who is this woman, dressed in quiet but elegant style, sitting alone on this seat beneath the great tree?  Why has she chosen this place to sit?  Who are the two male figures in the distance?  Are they walking toward her, or away from her?  Is she watching in apprehension as they approach, or in relief as they walk away?

 

There's a mystery here.  All may not be as serene as it looks.

 

I would be glad to hear any and all thoughts.