Haunted Houses, стр. 8

“One morning in October 1962, I was giving a talk to twenty-five school children who were touring the house. This time the sound of footsteps began to come from on top of the flat roof. The school children began to look up at the ceiling curiously and ask, ‘Who is making that noise?’ so I went outside expecting to see a repairman sent by the county. No one was up there. When I mentioned some of these events to people in the neighborhood, they said, “That sort of phenomenon has gone on for years.’”

The last member of the family to live in the house was Lillian Whaley. She was well aware that unusual things went on there, and, during the many years she lived in the house, she had often complained about them. On one occasion she even told of a heavy china cabinet that suddenly toppled over without cause. That was in 1912, one year before Frank Whaley’s death. Lillian Whaley lived in Whaley House all her life and was the only child who did not marry. She was eighty-nine when she died in 1953.

On one occasion while Mrs. Reading was guiding a tour, a woman visitor complained that she had felt unseen hands pushing her out of an upstairs bedroom. And many have mentioned smelling cologne, rose water, or the aroma of cigar smoke when they have been alone in one of the rooms.

One such tourist, Mrs. Kirby, wife of the director of the Medical Association of New Westminster, British Columbia, was convinced that she had seen the apparition of a woman in the house’s courtroom. Mrs. Kirby described a small, olive-skinned lady in a bright calico dress with a full skirt down to the floor who simply “stared right through me.”

One of the ghosts who, I am told, has been seen in the house with regularity is Squire Augustus S. Ensworth. Ensworth was an attorney who managed Thomas Whaley’s business enterprises in San Diego while Whaley was in the Quartermaster Department in San Francisco during the Civil War. He was very fond of the Whaley House and took great pride in keeping it in good repair during Mr. Whaley’s absence. Augustus Ensworth’s spirit is said to still hover protectively around Whaley House.

Mrs. Anna Whaley is presumably responsible for the occasional snatches of piano music. And then there are evidences of the playful spirit of little Tom Whaley, who died in one of the upstairs rooms when he was only seventeen months old.

“An event occurred just before Christmas,” Mrs. Reading recalled, “when several of us were in the old courtroom getting popcorn and cranberry ropes and other old-fashioned ornaments ready for the tree. One of the hostesses very quietly went around to get a good view and shot a picture of all of us. After the film had been sent off and developed, she brought in the prints. To her own and everyone else’s amazement, over at the edge of the group stood a woman in a period dress. The resemblance to Mrs. Whaley was striking.”

The eerie things that have happened to guides in the house and to tourists as well do not occur every day. Sometimes weeks go by and nothing out of the ordinary occurs—nothing, that is, that would send chills down one’s spine or cause one to shiver on a warm day. But then something will take place that no one can explain. June Reading told the story of such an event.

“In the early 1980s a lovely college girl named Denise Pournelle worked at the house during the summer, and, from the moment she arrived, she went around telling everyone how she would love to see a ghost. Things like this can be dangerous to say, particularly in certain houses where even the walls may be listening. I always thought it was like tempting Providence, but Denise kept right on. I talked with her and advised her to be patient.

“‘Denise, sooner or later you are going to hear wailing, you are going to hear music, and you’ll even get the feeling that someone is touching you. You will have all kinds of things happen to you.’ Of course, I was right.

“It was during Christmas vacation and she was like a child loving to dress up in costume. We always do that here at the house on special occasions. That afternoon we were all in our old-fashioned long dresses and there was a cold rain most of the day, so we had very few visitors except for one little boy. This boy walked all over the house trying to hear the sound of a ghost. He also sat on the stairs, thinking that, if he concentrated, he might hear footsteps. The kids that come here are so cute. I remember him because he had on a pair of tennis shoes that were unusually clean.

“The hostesses were sitting around because there was so little activity. I hadn’t eaten anything, and it was getting into the afternoon, so I told them I was going out to have a late lunch. When I came back, they were all waiting for me at the front door. Before I could even get my coat off, they said, ‘While you were gone, we heard the footsteps upstairs, not once but twice. There was a long pause, and then they started again.’

“Denise’s dark eyes were sparkling, and her pretty face was filled with excitement, so I said, ‘Denise, why don’t you come upstairs with me? I’m a little suspicious.’ I had that little boy with the tennis shoes on my mind instead of any ghost, because that child could have slipped away from the ladies without their noticing it and gone upstairs into one of the rooms.

“Denise picked up her long skirt, and up we went. The first place we walked into was the master bedroom, and two windows were standing wide open. It was pouring rain, the rain had come in and was all over the floor, and the curtains