The Canterville Ghost (adapted)

Oscar Wilde

Category: Short Stories

Genres: Humor,Satire

Level 3.111:14 h30.4 mb

The Otis family moves from America to an old house in England. They are warned that a ghost lives there, but the family is not afraid of him at all! The ghost tries to scare them, but his plans often go wrong; the Otis children even play tricks on him. However, young Virginia discovers that the ghost is not only scary, he is also lonely and needs help. Can Virginia help the Canterville Ghost find peace? This is an adapted version of the story, simplified to A2 level.

The Canterville Ghost

Name: The Canterville Ghost (adapted)
Author: Oscar Wilde

[adapted]

by
Oscar Wilde

Chapter 1

When Mr. Hiram B. Otis, the American Minister, bought Canterville Chase, everyone said he was very foolish, because there was no doubt that the place was haunted. In fact, Lord Canterville himself, a very careful and honest man, felt it was his duty to tell Mr. Otis this when they talked about the sale.

“We have not wanted to live in the house ourselves,” said Lord Canterville, “since my great-aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Bolton, had a terrible fright. While she was dressing for dinner, two skeleton hands touched her shoulders, and she never really got well after that. I must tell you, Mr. Otis, that several people in my family have seen the ghost. The village priest, the Rev. Augustus Dampier, saw it too; he is a teacher at King’s College in Cambridge. After the Duchess’s accident, none of our young servants would stay with us, and Lady Canterville often slept very little at night because of strange noises from the hallway and the library.”

“My Lord,” said the Minister, “I will take the furniture and the ghost for a fair price. I come from a modern country, where money can buy almost everything; and with our lively young men in Europe, having fun and bringing home your best actors and opera singers, I think that if there were any real ghost in Europe, we would soon have it at home in one of our public museums, or as a traveling show.”

“I am afraid the ghost is real,” said Lord Canterville, smiling, “though it has refused the offers of your eager managers. It has been known for three hundred years, since 1584, and it always appears before someone in our family dies.”

“Well, the family doctor says the same, Lord Canterville. But there are no ghosts, sir, and I think the laws of nature will not change for British lords.”

“You Americans are very direct,” said Lord Canterville, who did not fully understand what Mr. Otis had just said. “If you do not mind a ghost in the house, that is fine, but please remember, I warned you.”

MISS VIRGINIA E. OTIS

A few weeks later they finished the purchase, and at the end of the season the Minister and his family went to Canterville Chase. Mrs. Otis had once been Miss Lucretia R. Tappan of West 53rd Street, a famous New York beauty. Now she was a very handsome, middle-aged woman, with bright eyes and a fine face. Many American women, when they leave their own country, try to look always a little ill, because they think it shows European style, but Mrs. Otis never made this mistake.

She was very healthy and full of energy. In many ways she was quite English, and she showed that England and America are now very alike, except for the language. Her oldest son was named Washington by his parents in a moment of pride in their country, and he never stopped wishing they had chosen another name. He had fair hair and was rather good-looking. He trained to be a diplomat by leading a dance called the German at the Newport Casino for three years in a row, and even in London he was well known as an excellent dancer. His only weaknesses were gardenia flowers and people with titles.

Otherwise, he was very sensible. Miss Virginia E. Otis was a fifteen-year-old girl, slim and pretty like a young deer, with big blue eyes that looked open and free. She was a great rider and very brave, and once raced old Lord Bilton on her pony twice around the park, winning by a length and a half, right in front of the Achilles statue. This made the young Duke of Cheshire very happy, and he asked her to marry him right there, but his guardians sent him back to Eton that same night, and he cried a lot. After Virginia came the twins, usually called “The Star and Stripes,” because they were always getting into trouble and being spanked. They were very nice boys and, except for the good Minister, the only true republicans in the family.

“HAD ONCE RACED OLD LORD BILTON ON HER PONY”

As Canterville Chase is seven miles from Ascot, the nearest railway station, Mr. Otis sent a telegram for a carriage to meet them, and they started their drive very happy. It was a beautiful July evening, and the air smelled softly of pine trees. Now and then they heard a wood pigeon cooing, or saw, deep in the rustling ferns, the shiny chest of a pheasant. Small squirrels looked at them from the beech trees as they passed, and rabbits ran away through the bushes and over the soft, mossy hills, their white tails in the air. When they entered the tree-lined road to Canterville Chase, the sky suddenly filled with clouds. A strange quiet was in the air, many rooks flew silently over their heads, and before they reached the house, big drops of rain began to fall.

An old woman stood on the steps to greet them, neatly dressed in a black silk dress, with a white cap and apron. This was Mrs. Umney, the housekeeper. At Lady Canterville’s request, Mrs. Otis had agreed to keep her in the job. She made each of them a low curtsy as they got out and said, in an old-fashioned way, “Welcome to Canterville Chase.” They followed her through the Tudor hall into the library, a long, low room with black oak walls and a large window of colored glass at the end. There they found tea ready, and after taking off their coats, they sat down and looked around while Mrs. Umney served them.

Suddenly Mrs. Otis saw a dark red spot on the floor near the fireplace, and, not knowing what it really meant, she said to Mrs. Umney, “I think something was spilled there.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the old housekeeper quietly, “blood was spilled on that spot.”

“BLOOD HAS BEEN SPILLED ON THAT SPOT”

“How awful!” said Mrs. Otis; “I do not like blood stains in a living room. They must be cleaned at once.”

The old woman smiled and answered in the same low, mysterious voice, “It is the blood of Lady Eleanore de Canterville. Her own husband, Sir Simon de Canterville, killed her on that very spot in 1575. Sir Simon lived nine more years, then he suddenly disappeared in a very strange way. His body was never found, but his guilty ghost still haunts the Chase. The blood stain is liked by tourists and other people, and it cannot be washed away.”

“That is not true,” said Washington Otis. “Pinkerton’s Champion Stain Remover and Paragon Detergent will clean it at once.” Before the scared housekeeper could stop him, he knelt down and quickly scrubbed the floor with a small stick that looked like black makeup. In a few moments, the blood stain was gone.

“I knew Pinkerton would do it,” he said proudly, as he looked around at his family, proud of him, but as soon as he said this, a bright flash of lightning lit the dark room, a loud crash of thunder made them all jump to their feet, and Mrs. Umney fainted.

“What terrible weather!” said the American ambassador calmly, as he lit a long cigar. “I think the old country is so crowded that there is not enough good weather for everyone. I have always thought that moving to other countries is the only answer for England.”

“Dear Hiram,” said Mrs. Otis, “what can we do with a woman who faints?”

“Charge her for it, like for broken things,” said the Minister. “She won’t faint after that.” In a few moments, Mrs. Umney woke up. She was very upset, and she firmly warned Mr. Otis to be careful, because trouble was coming to the house.

“I have seen things myself, sir,” she said, “that would scare anyone, and many nights I could not sleep because of the terrible things here.” But Mr. Otis and his wife kindly said they were not afraid of ghosts, and, after she wished her new employers good luck and they agreed on higher pay, the old housekeeper went slowly to her own room.

Chapter 2

All that night the storm was strong, but nothing special happened. The next morning, when they came down to breakfast, they saw the blood stain on the floor again. “I don’t think the Paragon detergent is to blame,” said Washington. “I have tried every cleaner. It must be the ghost.” So he cleaned the stain a second time, but the next morning it came back. On the third morning it was there too, even though Mr. Otis locked the library that night and took the key upstairs.

The whole family was now very interested: Mr. Otis started to think he had been too sure when he said that ghosts were not real, Mrs. Otis said she wanted to join the Psychical Society, and Washington wrote a long letter to Mr. Myers and Mr. Podmore about how long blood stains last after a crime. That night, they knew for sure that ghosts were real.

The day was warm and sunny, and in the cool evening the whole family went out for a drive. They did not come home until nine o’clock, and then they ate a light supper. They did not speak of ghosts at all, so there was none of that usual feeling of expecting something that often comes before people think they see strange, ghostly things.

The things they talked about, as I later learned from Mr. Otis, were simply the usual talk of rich, educated Americans: that Miss Fanny Devonport was much better than Sarah Bernhardt as an actress; that it was hard to get green corn, buckwheat pancakes, and hominy, even in the best English homes; that Boston was very important for the growth of the world’s soul; the good points of checking bags on trains; and that the New York accent sounded sweeter than the slow London one.

They did not speak at all about ghosts, and they did not mention Sir Simon de Canterville. At eleven o’clock the family went to bed, and by half past eleven all the lights were off. Some time later, a strange noise in the hall outside his room woke Mr. Otis. It sounded like metal clanking, and it came nearer every moment. He got up at once, lit a match, and looked at the time. It was exactly one o’clock. He stayed calm and checked his pulse. He did not have a fever.

The strange noise went on, and with it he could hear footsteps clearly. He put on his slippers, took a small bottle from his bag, and opened the door. Right in front of him, in the pale moonlight, he saw an old man with a terrible look. His eyes were red like burning coals, and long gray hair hung over his shoulders. His old-fashioned clothes were dirty and torn, and heavy chains and rusty metal cuffs hung from his wrists and ankles.

“My dear sir,” said Mr. Otis, “I must ask you to oil those chains. I have brought you a small bottle of Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator for that. People say one use is enough, and you can read several notes on the wrapper from our very famous American preachers that say so. I will leave it here by the bedroom candles, and I will gladly give you more if you need it.” With these words, Mr. Otis put the bottle on a marble table, closed his door, and went to bed.

“I REALLY MUST INSIST ON YOUR OILING THOSE CHAINS”

For a moment the Canterville Ghost stood still in real anger. Then he threw the bottle hard onto the shiny floor and ran down the hall, making low groans and giving off a scary green light. But as he reached the top of the big oak stairs, a door flew open, two small people in white robes appeared, and a big pillow flew past his head. Clearly there was no time to lose, so he quickly used the fourth dimension to escape. He vanished through the wooden wall, and the house fell quiet.

When he reached a small secret room in the left side of the house, he leaned on a moonbeam to catch his breath, and began to think about his situation. Never in his bright, three-hundred-year career had anyone insulted him so badly.

He thought of the old Duchess, who he scared into a fit when she stood before the mirror in her lace and diamonds; of the four housemaids, who screamed when he just grinned at them through the curtains of a guest room; of the village priest, whose candle he blew out as the man came late one night from the library, and Sir William Gull looked after him from then on, for he had very bad nerves; and of old Madame de Tremouillac, who woke early one morning and saw a skeleton sitting in an armchair by the fire and reading her diary, so she stayed in bed for six weeks with brain fever, and when she got better, she went back to the Church and stopped seeing that famous doubter, Monsieur de Voltaire.

He remembered the terrible night when the bad Lord Canterville choked in his dressing room, the jack of diamonds stuck halfway down his throat. Just before he died, he said he had cheated Charles James Fox of £50,000 at Crockford’s with that same card, and said the ghost had made him swallow it.

He remembered all his great deeds, from the butler who shot himself in the storeroom after he saw a green hand tap on the window, to the beautiful Lady Stutfield, who always had to wear a black ribbon around her neck to hide the mark of five burnt fingers on her white skin, and who at last drowned herself in the fish pond at the end of the King’s Walk.

With the proud joy of a true artist, he went over his most famous tricks, and he smiled sadly as he remembered his last show as “Red Reuben, or the Strangled Babe,” his first show as “Guant Gibeon, the Blood-sucker of Bexley Moor,” and the big fuss he caused on a lovely June evening just by playing ninepins with his own bones on the tennis lawn. And after all this, some rude modern Americans came to offer him the Rising Sun Lubricator and to throw pillows at his head! He could not bear it. No one in history had ever treated a ghost like this. So he decided to take revenge, and he stayed in deep thought until daylight.

Chapter 3

The next morning, the Otis family met at breakfast and talked about the ghost for a while. Mr. Otis, the American Minister, was a little annoyed that the ghost did not take his gift. “I do not want to hurt the ghost,” he said, “and as he has been in the house for a long time, it is not polite to throw pillows at him.” This was a good remark, but the twins started to laugh loudly. “On the other hand,” he went on, “if he really refuses to use the Rising Sun Lubricator oil, we will have to take his chains away. We cannot sleep with so much noise outside the bedrooms.”

For the rest of the week, no one bothered them, and only one thing got any attention: the blood stain on the library floor kept coming back. This was very strange, because Mr. Otis always locked the door at night, and the windows stayed shut tight. The stain also changed colour like a chameleon, and people talked about it a lot.

Some mornings it was a dull red, then it turned bright red, then a deep purple, and once, when they came down for family prayers, they found it bright green. These changing colors made the family laugh, and they made bets about it every evening. Only little Virginia did not join the joke; for some reason they did not know, she felt very upset when she saw the blood-stain, and she almost cried that morning when it was bright green.

The ghost came again on Sunday night. Soon after they went to bed, they heard a loud crash in the hall and felt afraid. They ran downstairs and saw a big old suit of armor that had fallen off its stand onto the stone floor. The Canterville ghost sat in a chair with a high back, rubbing his knees, his face full of pain.

The twins brought their pea-shooters and immediately shot two peas at him, with very good aim from long, careful practice on their writing teacher. The United States Minister pointed his gun at the ghost and, as people do in California, told him to put up his hands. The ghost jumped up with a loud scream of anger and passed through them like mist, blowing out Washington Otis’s candle as he went, and left them all in complete darkness.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he felt calm again and decided to give his famous evil laugh. He had found it very useful many times. People said it turned Lord Raker’s wig grey in one night, and it really made three of Lady Canterville’s French teachers leave before the month ended. So he laughed his worst laugh until the old arched roof rang again and again. But as the scary echo faded, a door opened, and Mrs. Otis came out in a light blue dressing gown. “I am afraid you are not well,” she said, “and I have brought you a bottle of Doctor Dobell’s medicine. If it is indigestion, this will help you.”

The ghost looked at her with great anger and at once started to turn into a big black dog, a trick he was famous for, and that, the family doctor said, had made Lord Canterville’s uncle, Mr. Thomas Horton, mad for life. But when he heard footsteps coming, he stopped his evil plan, so he only made himself glow a little and disappeared with a low graveyard groan, just as the twins came up to him.

“THE TWINS … AT ONCE DISCHARGED TWO PELLETS ON HIM”

When he reached his room, he broke down and felt terribly upset. The twins were very rude, and Mrs. Otis cared only for money and things; this was, of course, very annoying, but what hurt him most was that he could not wear the armour. He had hoped that even modern Americans would feel excited at the sight of a ghost in armour, if not for any better reason, then at least out of respect for their poet, Longfellow, whose gentle and lovely poems had helped him pass many dull hours when the Cantervilles were in London.

Besides, it was his own suit of armor. He wore it with great success at the Kenilworth tournament, and Queen Elizabeth herself praised him for it. Yet when he put it on now, the heavy breastplate and steel helmet were too much for him, and he fell hard on the stone floor, badly skinning both his knees and bruising the knuckles of his right hand.

For some days after this he was very ill, and he hardly left his room, except to keep the blood-stain looking right. He took great care of himself, so he got well, and he decided to make a third try to scare the United States Minister and his family. He chose Friday, August 17, to appear, and he spent most of that day looking over his clothes. In the end, he chose a large floppy hat with a red feather, a white sheet with frills at the wrists and neck, and a rusty dagger.

Toward evening a wild rainstorm began, and the wind blew so hard that all the windows and doors in the old house shook and rattled. This was the kind of weather he loved. His plan was this: he would go quietly to Washington Otis’s room, make strange sounds at the foot of the bed, and stab himself three times in the throat to the sound of soft music. He was especially angry with Washington, because he knew Washington kept cleaning the famous Canterville blood-stain with Pinkerton’s Paragon Detergent.